The House voted Thursday to block passage of an amendment aimed to rein in U.S. domestic mass surveillance by the NSA and protect strong encryption standards citing Sunday’s Orlando tragedy as reason to fight surveillance reforms. The so-called Massie-Lofgren amendment was considered a key privacy provision by civil liberties groups who had worked for years to...

Civil liberties groups are anxiously waiting to see if an anti-surveillance amendment will be added to a Department of Defense spending bill Tuesday. The so-called Massie-Lofgren amendment would reign in U.S. domestic mass surveillance by the NSA and protect U.S. encryption standards. The amendment, considered a significant post-Snowden reform, risks not being added to a...