NSA bulk phone records collection to end despite USA Freedom Act failure

- Administration has not applied to secret court for 90-day extension
- USA Freedom Act fails in early hours after long Senate session
- Senators reject bill to scrap NSA bulk collection

Spencer Ackerman

Even as the Senate remains at an impasse over the future of US domestic surveillance powers, the National Security Agency will be legally unable to collect US phone records in bulk by the time Congress returns from its Memorial Day vacation.

The administration, as suggested in a memo it sent Congress on Wednesday, declined to ask a secret surveillance court for another 90-day extension of the order necessary to collect US phone metadata in bulk. The filing deadline was Friday, hours before the Senate failed to come to terms on a bill that would have formally repealed the NSA domestic surveillance program.