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• The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee said senators were informed of the administration’s sweeping surveillance practices, which they said have been going on since 2007. “Everyone’s been aware of it for years, every member of the Senate,” said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Sen Chambliss told reporters that the program has been going on for seven years under the auspices of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He said he was not aware of a single citizen filing a complaint about it. He and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA.), the panel’s chairman, also gave a defense of the program. “There have been approximately 100 plots and also arrests made since 2009 by the FBI,” Chairman Feinstein said. “I do not know to what extent metadata was used or if it was used, but I do know this, gentlemen, that terrorists will come after us if they can, and the only thing we have to deter this is good intelligence.” Sens Feinstein and Chambliss circulated a Feb. 8, 2011, letter, which both signed, inviting colleagues to read a classified report detailing the electronic surveillance authority granted by the Patriot Act and the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004.
• The collection of telephone records is an "outrageous breach of Americans' privacy," said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR). He said the NSA's actions are part of a larger clandestine effort of data collection by the government that needs to be made public. Sen Merkley has long been critical of provisions in the Patriot Act that give intelligence agencies broad powers to collect phone records under orders from the secretive Foreign Service Intelligence Court (FISA).
• “It concerns me,” said Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “The administration, I think, owes it to the American public to comment on what authorities it thinks it has.”
• "To simply say in a blanket way that millions and millions of Americans should have their phone records checked by the United States government is indefensible and, to my mind, unacceptable," said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
• “It’s not a surprise. How do you distinguish between that and what the IRS is doing? There are no surprises left,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), a member of the Intelligence Committee.
• Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the fiercest critics of the Administration’s handling of the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, however defended the national intelligence community. Sen Graham said he is wholly supportive of the data mining and that the public has nothing to fear. "I'm a Verizon customer, and I could care less that they're looking through my phone records," he said.
• Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) called the collection of Verizon customers’ phone records an "astounding assault on the Constitution." "After revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted political dissidents and the Department of Justice seized reporters’ phone records, it would appear that this Administration has now sunk to a new low. If the President and Congress would obey the Fourth Amendment we all swore to uphold, this new shocking revelation that the government is now spying on citizens’ phone data en masse would never have happened.”
• Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI), who authored and introduced the Patriot Act, said that he was troubled by reports. “As the author of the Patriot Act, I am extremely troubled by the FBI’s interpretation of this legislation. While I believe the Patriot Act appropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights, I have always worried about potential abuses."
• House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) said the NSA program had prevented at least one terrorist attack. “We know that. It’s important. It fills in a little seam that we have, and it’s used to make sure that there is not an international nexus to any terrorism event that they may believe is ongoing in the United States.”

[Commentary] Perhaps the news that the National Security Administration has been collecting phone metadata on millions of Verizon’s customers inside the U.S. might help people get hip to the powers of cell phone data and the power of government surveillance in a connected age. There are so many questions and angles to this story, but from my perspective the most pressing issue is that as citizens we need to understand that times have changed. Many don’t recognize that our digital data –from cell phones, connected devices and our social media profiles — combined with powerful computing and analytics can create detailed histories of our lives, our habits and our actions. We can paint this as some kind of paranoia. But as anyone who has ever made a purchase at a physical store and then seen an ad for a similar product show up on a completely unrelated web site knows, it’s not crazy.

Federal Communications Commission Acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn announced that the following items will be on the tentative agenda for the next open meeting scheduled for Thursday, June 27, 2013:

1. Improving Broadband Data Collection: The Commission will consider a Report and Order to improve and streamline the collection of broadband subscription and deployment data.
2. Increasing the Nation’s Supply of Spectrum: The Commission will consider a Report and Order with licensing, service, and technical rules in the H Block at 1915-1920 and 1995-2000 MHz, that would help increase the Nation’s supply of spectrum for flexible-use services, including mobile broadband.
3. Protecting Customer Propriety Network Information on Mobile Devices: The Commission will consider a Declaratory Ruling clarifying that wireless carriers that collect, or direct the collection of, customer proprietary network information (CPNI) on mobile devices must adhere to statutory and regulatory CPNI requirements in protecting that information.
4. Status of Universal Service Reform Implementation: The Wireline Competition Bureau and Wireless Telecommunications Bureau will present an update on universal service reform implementation.
5. Status of the Broadcast Incentive Auction: The Incentive Auction Task Force will present an update on progress towards the television broadcast incentive auction.

Legislation backed by the wireless industry that would allow consumers to “unlock” their cellphones doesn’t go far enough to remove the threat of criminal penalties, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) said.

“It’s not our job to say how the market works. Once someone buys something, they should own it. Once someone signs a contract, you can sue them, you can charge them a fee. I don’t think using criminal law to enforce the contract is appropriate,” Rep Lofgren (D-CA) said at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) has introduced legislation that would give consumers the right to keep using their cellphones after a contract ends. The bill would overturn a Library of Congress decision that made it illegal to unlock phones purchased after Jan. 26. Rep Lofgren has introduced a rival bill to Goodlatte’s that would allow consumers to unlock their phones, tablets and mobile devices without facing criminal penalties or fines. H.R. 1892, “The Unlocking Technology Act of 2013,” would modify parts of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that ban “circumvention” of copyrighted works — which includes unlocking a cellphone. Lofgren’s bill would permanently allow consumers to unlock their phones, as well as legalize third-party applications or tools that enable unlocking.

Advocacy groups such as Consumer Union and Public Knowledge have called Goodlatte’s bill a “temporary fix” and are pushing for Lofgren’s alternative.