United States

Framing the midterm congressional elections in November 2014 as a referendum on the presidency of Obama (whose approval ratings had plummeted to about 40 percent), the Republicans soundly defeated the Democrats to expand their majority in the House and retake control of the Senate. In gaining as many as 12 seats in the House, Republicans were in a position to match their largest majority in that body since 1947, and, by winning back seats in several states that had gone Republican in recent elections but tilted Democratic on the coattails of Obama’s 2008 presidential victory, Republicans gained nine seats in the Senate to reach a total of 54.

McConnell, Mitch: 2014 reelectionMitch McConnell celebrating with his wife, Elaine Chao, after he was reelected to a sixth term in the Senate, 2014.J. Scott Applewhite/AP Images

Normalizing relations with Cuba, the USA FREEDOM Act, and the Office of Personnel Management data breach

On December 17, 2014, after some 18 months of secret negotiations, Obama and Cuban leader Raúl Castro simultaneously addressed national television audiences to announce the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba that had been suspended for more than 50 years. Because the embargo on trade with Cuba was codified in U.S. law, rescinding it would require congressional action; however, by May 2015 ferry service between the United States and Cuba had been authorized, and the U.S. government had removed Cuba from its list of states that sponsor terrorism.

Castro, Raúl; Obama, BarackU.S. Pres. Barack Obama (right) and Cuban Pres. Raúl Castro making televised addresses to announce the reestablishment of diplomatic relations and the easing of travel restrictions, December 17, 2014. AP Images

In June the Senate passed the USA FREEDOM Act, which curtailed the government’s authority to collect data and made the process by which it requested data through the national security court more transparent. The legislation replaced the USA PATRIOT Act, which had been enacted in the interest of national security in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Edward Snowden’s exposure in 2013 of the government’s bulk collection of phone and Internet records, however, had raised widespread concerns regarding the invasion of privacy. That led the House to pass legislation that would move the data out of the hands of the government to be stored instead by telecommunications companies and accessed by the government only after public requests to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court. After stalling in the Senate long enough for financial authorization of elements of the National Security Agency to lapse temporarily as the PATRIOT Act expired—partly due to the delaying tactics of Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who thought the bill still gave the government too much access, and partly as the result of the opposition of McConnell, the new majority leader, who thought the new limitations under the legislation undermined the government’s security apparatus—the FREEDOM Act was finally passed in the Senate by a 67–32 vote on June 2 and signed into law by Obama.

Just a few days later the issue of data security was once again in the headlines, when U.S. officials announced on June 5 the discovery of a cyberattack on the records of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Initially it was believed that data relating to some four million current and former federal employees had been put at risk. Later it was learned that personal information regarding more than 21 million people had been compromised. The data breach—first detected in April 2015 and confirmed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in May—was believed to have been the work of hackers in China, though it was not clear whether the intent of the attack was espionage or financial gain.

data breachRed unlock symbol, indicating a data breach or hack.© weerapat1003/Fotolia

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