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Tomorrow, the House of Representatives is expected to vote on a bipartisan amendment that Representatives Justin Amash (R-MI) and John Conyers (D-MI) introduced to end funding for the National Security Agency's (NSA) bulk collection of metadata of American's phone records in the name of counter-terrorism. CDT strongly supports the amendment, which will be offered to the Defense Appropriations bill for the next fiscal year.

"The Amash/Conyers amendment would ensure that Section 215 of the Patriot Act is used as Congress originally intended – to protect American citizens from terrorist threats, but not to erode our fundamental freedoms," said CDT President Leslie Harris. "This Amendment does not repeal Section 215. Rather, it ensures that data the NSA collects under this authority pertains to people actually under investigation, rather than to all Americans."

"The Amash/Conyers Amendment allows the NSA to collect essential information for investigations to protect our country, but rejects the over-reaching and unconstitutional ‘collect everything' approach," said Greg Nojeim, Director of the CDT Project on Freedom, Security & Technology. "This is a test vote and the stakes are high: if the amendment passes, NSA will know that if it doesn't end the program, Congress probably will," he added.

Since an order of the super secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court came to light on June 5, 2013 revealing that the NSA has been collecting for seven years metadata about virtually all telephone and cell phone calls made to, from and within the United States, CDT has been actively engaged in ending the abuse of Section 215 of the Patriot Act under which the Court authorized the sweeping program.

Call today to tell your Members of Congress to support this amendment. For the latest information on the NSA surveillance programs, visit the CDT resource page.