Editorial boards across the United States have come out in support of the USA Freedom Act (H.R. 2048), a strong, bipartisan bill that reforms our nation’s intelligence-gathering programs operated under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This bill – introduced by Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Ranking Member John Conyers (D-Mich.), and Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet Subcommittee Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) – ends bulk collection of data, strengthens protections for civil liberties, increases transparency, and prevents government overreach, while also protecting national security. The House of Representatives will vote on the USA Freedom Act this week. Here’s some of what the editorial boards are saying:

USA Today: “[A] compromise has emerged in Congress that would go a long way toward rebalancing security and liberty … Choosing between privacy and security in these dangerous times is difficult. But, despite what supporters of bulk collection insist, lawmakers don’t have to choose. A carefully built compromise allows access to phone records, but with genuine privacy safeguards. The nation would be no less secure. And the civil liberties on which the nation was built would be better protected.”

Washington Post: “There is, fortunately, a promising reform proposal readily available: the USA Freedom bill, which enjoys bipartisan support in both chambers as well as broad endorsement from President Obama — and the affected private industries as well. In a nutshell, it would abandon the bulk collection of the NSA’s metadata, and warrantless searches of it, in favor of a system under which telecommunications firms retained the information, subject to specific requests from the government.”

The News & Advance (Lynchburg, VA): “The intelligence reforms [Bob Goodlatte] and his Democratic and Republican colleagues have crafted strike a good balance between the need to protect the nation and the need to protect the individual from the nation’s government. We expect the full House to concur and hope the U.S. Senate sides with him in the fight over the Patriot Act, a needed weapon in the war on terrorism but one in need of reform.”

Tampa Bay Times: “The National Security Agency should not be collecting mountains of data on Americans who have done nothing wrong, and there are more productive ways to fight terrorism. The House should approve a bipartisan compromise supported by the Obama administration that is a small step toward better balancing national defense and constitutional protections, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should drop his objection to any changes.”

The Des Moines Register: “There is bipartisan support … in the form of the USA Freedom Act. It should pass.”

Los Angeles Times: “Under [the USA Freedom Act], the government can continue to search telephone records when there is a reasonable suspicion of a connection to terrorism. But it will no longer be able to warehouse those records, and it will have to satisfy a court that it isn’t on a fishing expedition. Those are eminently reasonable restrictions — unless you believe that the war against Islamic State and similar groups means that Americans must sacrifice their right to privacy in perpetuity.”