Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill) said Tuesday that while he “encourages” a bipartisan bill that would declassify key federal court opinions justifying domestic surveillance of American citizens, such an effort is going to be “ill-fated,” according to The Hill.
The bill, spearheaded by Oregon Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, would require the attorney general to declassify certain decisions made by courts that were operating under the secretative Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Essentially, if the bill were already law the government would have been obligated to disclose its collected phone records and the PRISM Internet data-mining. Durbin, according to The Hill, said that despite bipartisan support, he thinks the White House would never sign the bill into law.
