A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers has reintroduced legislation aimed at ending the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of telephone records across the country.
Four senior members of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee planned to reintroduce the USA Freedom Act late Tuesday. The House passed a watered-down version of similar legislation in last May, but the Senate failed to act on it before November’s elections.
The new bill would end all bulk collection of telephone and other business records under the Patriot Act, the antiterrorism legislation passed in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing to amend and vote on the new bill this Thursday.
The bill would, however, create a new surveillance program focused on telephone call details if there is a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” that the search is associated with a “foreign power engaged in international terrorism.”
The Patriot Act’s business record collection provision is due to expire in June, unless Congress renews it. “As several intelligence-gathering programs are set to expire in a month, it is imperative that we reform these programs to protect Americans’ privacy while at the same time protecting our national security,” said a statement by the sponsors of the bill, Representatives Jim Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican; Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican; John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat; and Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat.
Read the Full Article: Source – PC World
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2916152/bill-to-rein-in-nsa-phone-data-collection-reintroduced.html
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