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NSA reform may be the last true bipartisan issue.

Republicans won victories nationwide in Tuesdays midterm election, handily taking control of Congress and ousting two key criticsSenator Mark Udall (D. Colorado) and Senator Mark Begich (D. Alaska)of the NSA. The GOP takeover of the legislative branch means Republicans will chair all senate committees, including the powerful Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Privacy advocates like the ACLU are often aligned with the Democratic and liberal sides of politics, so it stands to reason that some might worry this would be a crushing blow to privacy. The biggest NSA defenders are Republicans; the Patriot Act that justifies much of the spying behavior disclosed by Edward Snowden was created and passed under a Republican administration and Congress; and a majority of Republican lawmakers have voted to enhance those spying powers over the years, even after the Snowden information was revealed.

Further, 2015 is shaping up to be a key year in the fight for privacy in the post-Snowden era. A number of provisions of the Patriot Act will be up for reauthorization next June. The USA Freedom Act, which aims to curtail NSA powers, will also finally be up for consideration in the Senate. With more than half of the American people disapproving of the NSAs activities, reform is a clearly pressing issue.

Yet, a Republican majority in the House and Senate is not the devastating blow to privacy you might have expected it to be. Here are four reasons why.

Though NSA reform once was a partisan issue, Edward Snowdens revelations of the depth of government surveillance united Democrats and Republicans in calling for an overhaul. Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, says its too early to tell what direction the new leadership will go, but she says the issue of NSA reform is not a one-senator or a one-party issue.

Take Colorado, for instance. Outgoing Democratic Senator Mark Udall was one of the Senate intelligence committees few members who persistently criticized the agencies it oversaw. He fought all expansions of NSA reach and opposed using drones to spy on US citizens, introduing a bill in 2013 to ensure private drone operators could not spy on people in this country.

If he were to be replaced by a pro-NSA senator, the weight of the reform movement would have become severely unbalanced.

In fact, Republican Cory Gardner, who beat Udall handily by 4 percentage points, has such a good record on privacy that Udall was essentially unable to run on his own sterling record. Gardner recently reversed his position on matters of privacy. Though he initially voted for the updated and expanded Patriot Act in 2011 (which Udall was staunchly against), Gardners record changed dramatically after Snowdens NSA revelations, consistently voting against expanding NSA reach. As a congressman, he co-sponsored the EFF-backed version of the new USA Freedom Act.

This kind of bipartisan support for privacy issues is not unique to Colorado, as one look at the congressional scorecard compiled by the coalition for StandAgainstSpying reveals.

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Republicans Taking Over Congress Isnt the Privacy Nightmare Youd Think

NSA, Google, and the FBI Director
NSA Sergey Brin and Keith Alexander Emails: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1154294-nsa-google.html#document/p1 People Trust NSA More Than Google Survey: ...

By: CPerceptionsTV

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NSA, Google, and the FBI Director - Video

Senator Udall visiting a wind power plant in Boulder in 2013.

Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) was one of just a few US Senators decryingwidespreadsurveillance even before the Snowden leaks. Udall hasbeen a sharp critic of intelligence agencies since then as well, asking for CIA Director John Brennan to resign after allegations emerged that the intelligence agency gained access to Senate files.

He won't be in office much longer.Udall lost his election last night against Republican challenger Rep. Cory Gardner. By 1:00am Eastern time, Gardner was ahead by six percentage points, with 87 percent of precinctsreporting. At that point, several news agencies called the election for Gardner.The Senateseat was one of several that flipped from Democratic to Republican control last night, causing Republicans to take control of theupper house.

Udall's positioning as a toughcritic of the NSA wasn't a big issue on the campaign trail, although in the final days ofthe election he did release an ad saying he wont tolerate overbroad government surveillance. But much of Udall's campaigning came across as out of touch, running an old playbook. Udall hammered his opponent on womens' issues in socially liberal Colorado, noting that Gardner supported a "personhood amendment" tolimit abortion and suggesting he wanted to ban some types of birth control.

That led to criticism that Udall was running a "one-issue campaign," with Colorado voters wanting to hear more about the economy and jobs.It was tough to paint the affableGardner as a radical, and when a Denver reporter jokingly dubbed Udall "Mark Uterus,"it stuck.

Gardner alsogota surprise endorsement from The Denver Post, which supported Udall six years earlier.

Supporters of Gardner point out that hevoted for a billin the House to block the bulk surveillance program, suggesting that there may not be much daylight between the candidates onthe surveillance. Still, given Udall'sposition as a longtime criticone on the Senate Intelligence Committee, no lesshis departure willbe a loss for those looking to rein in intelligence agencies.

"What Udall has is the institutional memory and the relationships in the civil liberties community, in the Democratic Party, and in the tech industry so that we dont have to start over again with someone new," the head of ACLU's Washington DC office told The Hill.

The otherlongtime NSA critic on the Senate Intelligence Committee is Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who was not up for reelection last night.

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NSA critic Udall is sent packing as Republicans grab Senate

Published every weekday, the Switchboard is your morning helping of hand-picked stories from the Switch team.

With Udalls defeat, NSA reformers lose an ally on the inside. "With Colorado Sen. Mark Udall's defeat Tuesday night, the Senate will lose one of its most vocal, most active and most powerfully positioned advocates for dialing back the intelligence community's surveillance powers," the Switch's Nancy Scola writes.

14 years after Bush v. Gore, we still cant get voting tech right."A handful of jurisdictions nationwide reported various computer-related problems that hampered some voters as Americans went to the polls on Tuesday," writes Cyrus Farivar at Ars Technica. Electronic voting issues occurred in Virginia, Indiana, North Carolina, Michigan, Connecticut and elsewhere.

Net neutrality was the biggest tech issue of the year. But nobody campaigned on it."Across the country, tech hasn't really emerged as a central campaign issue," reports the Switch's Brian Fung. "One of the few candidates to make it a part of his platform was Tim Wu, the Columbia law professor who coined the term "net neutrality" and he lost his bid for New York lieutenant governor in a nationally publicized primary."

Government requests for Facebook user data are up 24% in six months.Facebook says it has seen a sharp uptick in government requests for user data. "Between January and June, governments across the globe made 34,946 requests for data, according to the Menlo Park, Calif., companys latest transparency report," reports Sarah Parvini at the Los Angeles Times. "The United States was responsible for 15,433 of those requests, spanning 23,667 accounts."

Uber and its partners are pushing drivers into subprime loans."Two 'partners' in Uber's vehicle financing program are under federal investigation, but Uber hasn't slowed its aggressive marketing campaign to get drivers with bad credit to sign up for loans," reports Nitasha Tiku at Valleywag.

Andrea Peterson covers technology policy for The Washington Post, with an emphasis on cybersecurity, consumer privacy, transparency, surveillance and open government.

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The Switchboard: NSA reformers lose one of their biggest allies in Senate

Data Days 2014 - Keynote by Anne Roth, NSA Inquiry Committee
Keynote at Data Days 2014 by Anne Roth, NSA Inquiry Committee Why Privacy Matters, recorded in Berlin, October 2nd 2014. Presentation Slides: http://slides...

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Data Days 2014 - Keynote by Anne Roth, NSA Inquiry Committee - Video