George Zornick | The Nation

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie answers a question during a campaign event in Manville, New Jersey, Monday, May 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

A small group of gun-control activists and state legislators gathered in Linden, New Jersey, last month for a media availability with a classic Jersey backdrop—an airport attracted a steady stream of small airplanes and helicopters flying low overhead, and processing plants and chemical tanks dotted the nearby landscape.

The star of the press conference was a sixty-inch sniper rifle, which local reports said was longer than the folding table on which it sat. The gun is accurate at distances as long as a mile away and fires heavy .50-caliber bullets, including explosive and armor-piercing rounds. It’s also completely legal to purchase the gun in New Jersey—even if someone is on the federal terror watch list. The state’s background check system for weapons does not cross-reference that list.

“Fifty-caliber weapons are not made to shoot people, they’re made to destroy targets,” warned Bryan Miller of New Jerseyans for Safety from Gun Violence. “New Jersey is full of such material targets.”

While potentially catastrophic, a “terrorist” with a .50-caliber gun isn’t the most immediate gun problem in New Jersey. In 2011, 269 people were killed by guns in the state, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Report (2012 isn’t completed yet). Gun violence is a sadly routine occurrence in New Jersey’s cities, like Newark, Trenton, Patterson, and Jersey City, which is experiencing a particularly violent summer because of a power struggle among the city’s gangs.

New Jersey already has among the toughest gun laws in the country, but some glaring holes remain. And remarkably, the state legislature has taken action to fix nearly all of them—it has passed fifteen bills that strengthen background checks in the state, ban .50-caliber weapons, and increase penalties on gun trafficking, among other reforms.

But the bills are sitting in limbo on the desk of Governor Chris Christie, politician and former US attorney who likes to project a law-and-order image, but who is ever-mindful of national Republican politics as he contemplates a 2016 presidential run.

In contrast to his bombastic and supposedly straight-talking approach, Christie has maintained total silence on these gun bills, and has not giving any indication about what he’s going to do. He vetoed only one of them, without any comment—a bill that would have required state pension funds to divest from businesses involved in the manufacture or sale of guns.

But he can’t punt forever. The bills automatically become law if he doesn’t veto them within forty-five days of passage. Christie’s office told The Nation that he will take action on all pending legislation, including the gun bills, within ten days from now—but did not give any indication what the governor will do. The dilemma Christie faces has serious implications for not only his political future, but also for the evolution of national gun control politics post–Sandy Hook.

* * *

Four bills are at the forefront of the debate in New Jersey. One is the .50-caliber gun ban. Another crucial measure—and the one with the highest potential impact on the national gun control debate—is a measure passed on June 27 that state legislators hailed as a “national model” for universal background checks. It was steered through the legislature by Senate President Stephen Sweeney.

The bill, S.2737, would institute background checks for private gun sales in the state, even between two people who are not gun dealers, and would require that all prospective gun owners attend a gun safety training class. It would also replace the current paper cards and permits that New Jersey issues to gun owners with digitized cards embedded in the state driver’s license, or issued separately by state police.

Two other highly visible measures would ban people on the federal terror watch list from buying guns, and also require New Jersey law enforcement to feed information on lost or stolen guns into the federal background check database. Other lower-profile measures give people with illegal weapons 180 days to dispose of them; establish a school security task force; upgrade penalties for transferring guns to minors and for gun trafficking; and declare violence a public health crisis and establish a commission to study it.

Earlier this year, there was some reason to believe Christie would embrace gun control, and that he was responsive to the changing politics around the issue.

After National Rifle Association vice president Wayne LaPierre held an infamous, defiant press conference in the wake of the Newtown shooting, and released a television advertisement blasting President Obama for sending his daughters to a school with security guards while rejecting the NRA’s plan for national school security, Christie made waves by calling LaPierre out.

“To talk about the president’s children or any public officer’s children who have, not by their own choice, but by requirement, to have protection to use that somehow, to try and make a political point I think is reprehensible,” Christie said.

He also established a commission to study gun-violence, and acting on its recommendations, issued his own gun control plan two days after the US Senate failed to pass the much-debated Manchin-Toomey gun plan.

In fact, Christie’s plan featured some of the very measures now sitting on his desk, including the government-issued gun permits and the .50-caliber weapons ban.

But at the same time, Christie was also hedging his bets. He didn’t call out the fundamentals of the NRA’s political stance, just LaPierre’s decorum. In that same news conference, Christie also employed some of the carefully coded language commonly used by politicians who essentially oppose real gun control. “If we focus just on calling this gun control in my view we are missing out on the bigger story,” he said. “We have to look at violence control.”

And Christie’s current—and total—silence on the legislature’s bills, including some very non-controversial measures and ones he himself proposed, shows that he may not be the gung-ho reformer that some thought back in the spring.

* * *

As Christie weighs his decision, he’s feeling pressure from several directions, both in his state and outside of it, and from reformers and pro-gun activists.

Most immediately, he has a gubernatorial re-election that’s twelve weeks away. Christie holds a whopping thirty-two-point lead in that race, and it’s extremely unlikely that even a straight veto of all gun measures would cost him the election. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not a treacherous issue for Christie in the long-term, who still must govern a blue state for at least a couple more years, and who relies heavily on his broad bipartisan support at home as a key selling point to national voters.

Sixty-five percent of New Jerseyans are “very concerned” about gun violence, with the same amount placing a higher priority on gun control instead of an individual’s right to own a weapon, according to a statewide poll taken last year—before Newtown happened. A majority in that poll also said the state needed tougher gun laws.

Christie’s Democratic opponent for governor, State Senator Barbara Buono, who was a principal sponsor of two of the four marquee gun control measures, and voted for all of them, has launched some withering attacks on Christie’s gun reform stance.

In January, after his “State of the State” address, in which he didn’t mention gun control at all, Buono told reporters that Christie “seems to duck what I see as an escalating fight to take guns off the street. It borders on reprehensible.”

When Christie released his gun reform plan earlier this year, Buono dismissed it as a “shallow plan that does nothing” and said Christie wasn’t catering to his constituents but rather wanted to “make sure it plays well with all the voters in the cornfields of Iowa.” Her key beef is that, while his commission recommended expanded background checks, Christie didn’t make it part of his plan.

Her campaign platform calls for action beyond even what the legislature has passed, including lowering New Jersey’s existing ammunition ban to include all clips with more than ten rounds, instead of fifteen, and mandating that all ammunition sales, like all gun sales in the state, be conducted face to face.

But of course, the politics among Republican voters nationally is much different than New Jersey. If Christie runs for president and faces those voters, particularly very conservative voters in the early states of Iowa and South Carolina, he could be in for tough sledding if he signs some of the gun measures. A May poll by the Pew Research Center found that 47 percent of self-identified conservative Republicans would not vote for a candidate whom they disagreed with about gun policy, even if they agreed with him or her on most other issues. Forty-two percent would.

Already, pro-gun activists in primary states are warning Christie. Last week, Pro-Gun New Hampshire, which identifies as the “most respected Second Amendment group” in the first-in-the-nation primary state, urged its members to write Christie and tell him to veto those four gun control bills. “If you want to know what kind of president he’d be, watch what he does as governor,” the group’s website says.

“This is an acid test,” Sam Cohen, executive vice president of Pro-Gun New Hampshire, later told Reuters. “If he decides to support these horrible bills, then we in New Hampshire are going to do everything we can to tell our voters not to vote for him in the New Hampshire primary.”

It’s a tough spot for Christie to be in. Brigid Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State University who follows Christie closely, told The Nation that she thinks an across-the-board veto of the gun measures isn’t a good option for Christie because he badly wants to “run up the score” on Buono to enhance his 2016 chances, and that New Jersey is too dominated by urban politics and concerns for Christie to be that rigid.

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“Given that political context, it is highly unlikely that the governor will purely kow-tow to Pro-Gun New Hampshire, or any other group, given the fact that he’s up for re-election,” Harrison said. She predicts that Christie will sign most of the bills, but single out one or two for veto, and announce that veto “with great fanfare.”

“He kind of gets the [public relations] hit of vetoing this measure because it has some flaws, and then allowing the others to become law,” she said.

But Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University, wasn’t so sure Christie would feel compelled to moderate. “He won’t let them become law,” Baker told The Nation. “That may cause some difficulties for him in the state, but it will definitely boost his standing with conservative groups nationally.”

Baker thinks Christie will attempt to smooth his veto by citing the states already tough gun laws. “I think that he characterizes [the pending bills] as frills, as feel-good measures, that are simply as trying to pile on what is already a pretty stringent set of gun laws.”

* * *

What Christie does could have long-term effects on the gun control debate. If he signs even some tough gun measures, he will have little choice but to defend those bills during the 2016 Republican primaries. Perhaps that will allow a forceful—and with Christie, one would expect no less—defense of sensible gun control on the national stage, and one directed at his own party. It would make the primary more difficult for Christie, but in the general election broad support for sensible gun control awaits, as well as some bipartisan credibility.

Before any of that happens, Christie could have a huge impact on the gun control debate in Washington. As we reported earlier this month, Senate majority leader Harry Reid said the Senate will take up background checks one more time before the 2014 midterms. If proponents of the bill can say that even Chris Christie signed background check measures into law, it strengthens the reform momentum in Congress. No doubt the governor knows this. But does he welcome, or fear, that leadership position?

UPDATE: Early Thursday afternoon, Christie’s office announced that he had signed ten of the measures into law, including tough new penalties for gun trafficking and transferring weapons to minors, as well as the measure that disqualifies people on the federal terror watchlist from buying guns. He attached a signing statement to the terror-watchlist bill, warning the federal government not to apply “improper scrutiny” and be “circumspect in its application of the law.”

The two high-profile bills that would ban .50-caliber weapons and institute the “national model” for gun background checks remain unsigned, but Christie’s office told The Nation that the bills are still under review and “you cannot make any assumptions at this time on how they will be treated.”

“These commonsense measures will both strengthen New Jersey’s already tough gun laws and upgrade penalties for those who commit gun crimes and violate gun trafficking laws,” read a statement from Christie. “As elected leaders, our first duty is to maintain public safety, and these new laws will help reduce gun violence and keep our streets and communities safer.”

A full list of the measures Christie signed:

S-1279/A-4179 (Turner, Norcross/Mainor, Singleton, Johnson)—Upgrades penalty for unlawfully transferring a firearm to an underage person; permits transfer for instruction and training

SCS for S-2430/ACS for A-3690 (Lesniak, Turner/Cryan. Coutinho, Gusciora, Tucker, Mainor, Quijano, Sumter) - Declares violence a public health crisis and establish “Study Commission on Violence”

S-2468/A-4180 (Norcross, Bateman/Wilson) – Authorizes impoundment of motor vehicles for certain crimes and offenses

S-2719/ACS for A-3953, 3854 (Norcross, Gill, Allen/Singleton, Oliver, Eustace, Spencer, Sumter, Caride)—Enhances penalties for certain firearms offenses; designated as Anti-Gun Trafficking Act of 2013.

S-2720/A-4181 (Weinberg/Johnson)—Clarifies that information concerning the total number of firearms purchaser identification cards and permits to purchase a handgun issued in a municipality are public records

S-2804/A-4152 (Turner, Sweeney/Wilson, Johnson) – Upgrades certain unlawful possession of firearms to first degree crime; revises certain penalties under the “Grave Act”

A-3687/S-2485 (Stender, Fuentes, Quijano/Scutari, Gill) – W/STATEMENT – Disqualifies person named on federal Terrorist Watchlist from obtaining firearms identification card or permit to purchase handgun

A-3717/SCS for S-2492 (Lampitt, Singleton, Eustace, Gusciora, Johnson/Buono, Gill)—Requires submission of certain mental health records to National Instant Criminal Background Check System

A-3788/S-2552 (Rible, Dancer, A.M. Bucco, McHose, Webber/Van Drew, Oroho)—Codifies regulation exempting firearms records from State’s open public records law

A-3796/S-2722 (Mainor/Norcross)—Provides 180-day window for persons to dispose of certain unlawfully possessed firearms

What do the Black Panthers have to do with modern gun control movement?

US President Barack Obama talks to employees after he tours the Amazon Fulfillment Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, July 30, 2013. (REUTERS/Larry Downing)

President Obama introduced yet another plan to create jobs and pump the sagging economy yesterday, pitched as a “grand bargain” between Republicans and Democrats (or more accurately, Democrats and the business community). It’s perhaps not a terrible plan considering the current political atmosphere. But taking one step back, Obama’s offer is a deeply revealing snapshot of a dynamic that’s become deeply skewed and perhaps hopelessly corrupted.

Obama’s bargain is this: on the one hand, Congress should enact revenue-neutral corporate tax reform, in which the corporate tax rate is lowered from 35 percent to “no higher than” 28 percent, while broadening the corporate tax base by closing loopholes and exemptions. There would also be a repatriation holiday for overseas profits—meaning that corporations would pay an as-yet unspecified “levy”, and could then bring home the $1.3 trillion they have parked overseas without subjecting it to the normal corporate tax rate.

In exchange, the revenues from that repatriation levy, along with some initial, one-time revenue from changing the corporate tax code, would fund a variety of worthwhile initiatives aimed at job creation—from an infrastructure bank to funding for community colleges and creating ten “manufacturing institute hubs” nationwide.

One might look at look at this and see a lot of good: Obama is redefining “grand bargain” in a way that doesn’t include austerity measures and reduced social insurance programs. Meanwhile he’s trying to entice his opponents in Congress to do something, anything, to help the country’s severe unemployment crisis. (Brian Beutler sees this as an offer to an emerging bipartisan governing coalition in the Senate, and I’d add it is also designed as an enticement for the corporate community that predominantly funds GOP politicians: “look at all the goodies you can get if the ideologues get out of the way.”)

But is this what the country has come to? Consider the context, and it’s stunning.

Unemployment is still at crisis levels, and is recovering more slowly than during any previous recession. In fact, throughout the recovery more unemployed workers have been leaving the labor force than have found work. Eighty percent of US adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least part of their lives and half of the US population is currently considered poor or low-income.

Meanwhile, corporate profits are sky-rocketing to all-time highs, and the Wall Street stock indices are booming at pre-crash levels. The corporate tax burden, meanwhile, is already at historic lows, and the United States collects less corporate taxes as a share of GDP than all but one other OECD country. Corporate America has so much cash it can just stash over a trillion dollars overseas and just park it there until given a chance to bring it back.

Inequality—the gap between the have and have-nots—is widening to historic and alarming levels (the top 1 percent own 40 percent of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 80 percent hold 7 percent of it). It’s actually accelerated faster during the economic recovery and Obama’s presidency, as corporate profits bounded back and most of the regained jobs have been at the lowest wage rung.

In this context, Obama’s proposal is, in a word, insane. Through the repatriation levy, he’s essentially resorted to bribing an already-engorged corporate sector and its shareholders with even more money (savings from not taxing massive overseas income), in exchange for taking a fraction of that gift and steering it towards some job creation efforts.

The last time there was a repatriation holiday, businesses used 92 percent of the money they had stored overseas simply to fatten shareholders and executives—despite industry claims it would create jobs—while continuing to lay off thousands more workers. The Obama proposal is essentially an acknowledgment that that will happen again, and so instead resorts to the as-yet unnamed levy to fund job creation efforts. It’s like to begging for a loaf of bread on Park Avenue after you clean someone’s penthouse.

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Meanwhile, the Obama plan is an assurance to corporate America that it will have to play no part in the ongoing deficit reduction talks. While deficit hysteria is overblown, it is still true that ultimately the government is not bringing in enough revenue. (See some charts from Citizens for Tax Justice here). By enacting “revenue-neutral” corporate tax reform, corporations are assured they won’t have to kick in anything towards fixing that problem. Whatever money is realized from closing loopholes is plowed right into lowering the corporate tax rate.  

Seniors and the disabled, on the other hand—well, they may still see benefits cut in the name of deficit reduction as the other grand bargain talks proceed. (In fact, if corporate tax reform ends up as many expect—where the rate is lowered but not enough loopholes are closed, or are restored over time—it means everyone else will have to pony up even more.)

Again, there is certainly an argument to be made that this plan is a political necessity. I don’t particularly agree, but that’s another post.

No matter one's feelings on that, however, one thing is clear from looking at Obama's plan: who holds the real political power in America, and who doesn’t. It’s as big as—and reinforces—the wealth gap.

According to Greg Kaufmann, it’s time for Congress to hear from people who are “in the trenches fighting poverty.”

Members of the US Senate sit down to a bipartisan caucus in the Old Senate Chamber at the US Capitol in Washington, January 4, 2007. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

If Congress during the Obama era is marked by one thing, it’s partisan gridlock: a constant parade of crisis showdowns, filibusters, and partisan votes—like when every Republican in the House and all but three in the Senate voted against the stimulus package one month into Obama’s term.

So what happened Wednesday night in the House—and why it happened—is worth thinking about for a while before the news machine zooms past.

Representatives Justin Amash and John Conyers created an amendment to a big defense appropriations bill, which used targeted language to defund the bulk collection of data by the National Security Agency. This was the practice disclosed by Edward Snowden and The Guardian in early June. Amash managed to get the amendment to the House floor.

Politico suggests House leadership allowed a vote because they were sure it couldn’t pass—though that seems like a contestable assumption. The administration seemed quite worried that it would: NSA director Keith Alexander was immediately dispatched to the Hill to lobby members against the amendment.

The White House also released a veto threat on the same day, a somewhat unusual move for a single amendment that supposedly had no chance of passing. The White House declared, “This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process.”

The debate on the House floor late Wednesday, however, was remarkable for how open and deliberative it was: except a couple September 11 references and warnings of “Islamic jihad,” the debate was respectful, well-informed and broadcast on C-SPAN as much of official Washington watched, transfixed.

It was also remarkable for the unusual bipartisanship—hardcore Tea Partiers stood up with old-school urban liberals and railed against the NSA program, while high-ranking Democrats and people like Representative Michele Bachmann took the other side.

The final vote was just as amazing:

This was one of the most bipartisan votes on a matter of significance in the Obama era—on a day when only hours earlier, the president was in Illinois, railing against congressional gridlock. (It may be the most bipartisan vote since 2009 that didn’t have to do with a post office or other routine matter—I’m open to hearing counter-examples in the comments.)

Somewhat incredibly, this happened despite the urgent pleas of party leaders. A majority of Democrats—and not a narrow majority—voted against not only warnings from the Democratic White House but also House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team, which was whipping against the vote.

And all this happened in response to what is truly an unprecedented expansion of the surveillance state. Snowden’s disclosures about mass NSA spying did what virtually nothing else could since 2009: unite Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

This has serious implications for whether the rapidly expanding domestic surveillance apparatus can be checked. Recall that earlier this week Senator Ron Wyden warned that if action didn’t happen now, the country risked entrenching a surveillance state that “cannot be reversed.”

Wednesday’s vote augurs well for such a check. In a House Judiciary hearing last week, Representative James Sensenbrenner said plainly, “There are not the votes in the House of Representatives to renew Section 215,” which is the provision in the Patriot Act that allows a good deal of the bulk collection conducted by the NSA. That now seems like a reasonable prediction.

At the very least, one can assume there’s broad support for some of the more moderate measures to combat the secrecy surrounding domestic surveillance—bills have been introduced that would mandate disclosure of FISC opinions, add a civil liberties advocate to the secret court, change how those judges are appointed, and other steps.

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That is something everyone should pay attention to—you can bet the administration and national security officials sure are.

For more, Chris Hayes and David Sirota discussed this re-shuffling of the partisan deck on All In last night:

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NSA Director US Army General Keith Alexander at the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on recently disclosed NSA surveillance programs. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

Senator Ron Wyden’s speech at the Center for American Progress on Tuesday morning was a pivotal moment in the emerging debate over domestic surveillance—the senator, who was one of the first to warn the public that the government was interpreting the Patriot Act in a “shocking” fashion, issued yet another important warning.

Without immediate action to address an ever-expanding surveillance state, the country risks entrenching an apparatus that “cannot be reversed,” he said.

The Patriot Act and the subsequent expansion of its authority by both Congress and the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has led to “the creation of an always-expanding, omnipresent surveillance state that, hour by hour, chips needlessly away at the liberties and freedoms our founders established for us, without the benefit of actually making us any safer,” he said.

“So, today I’m going to deliver another warning: If we do not seize this unique moment in our constitutional history to reform our surveillance laws and practices, we will all live to regret it,” Wyden continued. “The combination of increasingly advanced technology with a breakdown in the checks and balances that limit government action could lead us to a surveillance state that cannot be reversed.”

Wyden wants the administration to disclose the FISC opinions that have created a secret body of law governing domestic surveillance by the NSA. He has co-sponsored a Senate bill to that effect, and repeatedly hammered at the problem of secret laws in his speech.

“When the American people are in the dark, they can’t make fully informed decisions about who should represent them, or protest policies that they disagree with. These are fundamentals. It’s Civics 101,” Wyden said. “And secret law violates those basic principles. It has no place in America.”

The speech offered an elevated platform for that demand, but also came at a pivotal time in Washington, as real signs of action towards curbing domestic surveillance are beginning to materialize.

Before Wyden took the stage, John Podesta—a former chief of staff to Bill Clinton and a well-respected figure in the Democratic apparatus in DC—called for a presidential-level commission to evaluate laws around domestic surveillance and data-gathering, both by the government and private companies.

And across town on Tuesday, Congress was also preparing for the first real legislative challenge to the NSA’s surveillance power as we understand it now, post–Edward Snowden.

Representative Justin Amash created an amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would strip funding for the NSA (which is part of the Pentagon) to conduct broad, dragnet surveillance of American citizens. It would leave in place funding for surveillance of specific communications and records of a non-US person that is under investigation, which is how most people originally understood the government’s authority under the Patriot Act.

The House Rules Committee said Amash’s amendment is in order, which means it will get a full debate on the floor of the House of Representatives this week, likely starting Wednesday evening.

The amendment is already gaining bipartisan support, notably from Representative John Conyers, the ranking member and former chair of the House Judiciary Committee. The NSA is apparently concerned enough about passage that it immediately dispatched NSA Director Keith Alexander to Capitol Hill to hold a closed-door, top-secret briefing with lawmakers.

Also, pro-surveillance members of the House employed a classic legislative subterfuge to try to slow down Amash’s amendment: Representative Richard Nugent introduced what appears to be a similar, alternative amendment defunding NSA’s bulk collection. But as Mike Masnick of TechDirt explains, the amendment’s language is constructed in a way that only reinforces existing authority, and provides only the superficial appearance of an “alternative” to Amash’s bill.

Wyden lauded the debate in the House in a question-and-answer session after his speech. “The fact that this has made it to the floor of the House of Representatives is unquestionably good. It is another step…in the march to a real debate,” Wyden said, and added that Snowden’s disclosures made it possible. “We wouldn’t have had that seven, eight weeks ago.”

This fact was acknowledged—albeit begrudgingly—by other House members last week during an unusually contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing with officials from the Department of Justice and the NSA. “Snowden, I don’t like him at all, but we would’ve never known what happened if he hadn’t told us,” said Representative Ted Poe.

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Earlier in the hearing, Representative James Sensenbrenner told the officials point-blank they might lose much of their authority to conduct surveillance under the Patriot Act—a statement that didn’t draw a ton of attention, but foreshadows a serious congressional check on the administration’s authority if Sensenbrenner is right.

“Let me tell you, as one who has fought Patriot Act fights, usually it gets the people over on the other side of the aisle. Section 215 expires at the end of 2015. And unless you realize you’ve got a problem, that is not going to be renewed,” he said. “There are not the votes in the House of Representatives to renew Section 215.”

On top of all this, there are many other bills in Congress that have been introduced since last month’s revelations in The Guardian. Here’s a brief look at them all:

• Senators Jeff Merkley and Mike Lee co-sponsored a bill on June 11 to declassify FISA court documents, which Wyden co-sponsored.

• Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced S.1121 “Fourth Amendment Restoration Act,” “A bill to stop the National Security Agency from spying on citizens of the United States and for other purposes,” introduced on June 7. It would require authorities possess a warrant based on probable cause in order to conduct surveillance.

• Representative Adam Schiff proposed legislation that would require FISC judges to be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, while maintaining the seven-year term limit for FISC appointments.

• Representatives Rick Larsen and Justin Amash introduced HR 2736, the “Government Surveillance Transparency Act of 2013,” on July 18, which create ninety-day reporting requirements for surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

• Representative Stephen Lynch introduced HR 2684, the “Telephone Surveillance Accountability Act,” on July 11, “to require the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to report and obtain court approval for broad telephony metadata collection searches, and for other purposes.”

• Representative Steve Cohen introduced HR 2586, the “FISA Court Accountability Act,” on June 28 “to strengthen privacy protections, accountability, and oversight related to domestic surveillance conducted pursuant to the USA PATRIOT Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.” A chief provision of this bill would give Congress the authority to appoint FISC judges. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts currently has that sole responsibility.

• Representative Dennis Ross introduced HR 2603, the “Relevancy Act,” on June 28, “To amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to allow access to certain business records only if an investigation relates to a specific individual or specific group of individuals.”

• Senator Patrick Leahy introduced S 1215, the “FISA Accountability and Privacy Protection Act of 2013,” on June 24 “to strengthen privacy protections, accountability, and oversight related to domestic surveillance conducted pursuant to the USA PATRIOT Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.” It would chiefly heighten the evidence requirements needed for surveillance under FISA. It is co-sponsored by Senators Mike Lee, Mark Udall, Ron Wyden, Richard Blumenthal and Jon Tester.

• Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) introduced HR 2440, “FISA Court in the Sunshine Act,” on June 19. “To require the Attorney General to disclose each decision, order, or opinion of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that includes significant legal interpretation of section 501 or 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 unless such disclosure is not in the national security interest of the United States and for other purposes.” This is essentially the same as the Merkley-Lee bill in the Senate.

• Representatives Adam Schiff and Todd Rokita (R-IN) introduced legislation June 20 much like Jackson-Lee’s amendment, and the Merkley-Udall effort in the Senate, and would require disclosure of relevant FISC opinions.

• Senator Mark Udall sponsored S 1182, “A bill to modify the FISA Act of 1978 to require specific evidence for access to business records and other tangible things, and provide appropriate transition procedures, and for other purposes,” on June 18 limiting the federal government’s ability to collect data from Americans.

• Representative John Conyers introduced HR 2399, the “LIBERT-E Act,” on June 17, “To prevent the mass collection of records of innocent Americans under section 501 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as amended by section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, and to provide for greater accountability and transparency in the implementation of the USA PATRIOT Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.”

• Senator Bernie Sanders introduced S 1168, the “Restore Our Privacy Act” on June 13. “A bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to limit overbroad surveillance requests and expand reporting requirements and for other purposes.”

Nation DC intern Samantha Lachman provided research assistance for this article.

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