Key House Panel Moves to Restrain the NSA

Key House Panel Moves to Restrain the NSA

The Cable: 07 May 2014

The long-delayed legislative effort to rein in the National Security Agency overcame a significant hurdle on Wednesday with the passage of a bill that ends the NSA's bulk collection of phone metadata, one of the most controversial of the classified programs revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

In a 32-0 vote, the House Judiciary Committee passed the USA Freedom Act, a bill that requires the government to seek judicial approval before searching the phone data of Americans under most circumstances and builds more transparency and accountability checks into the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees the NSA. The author of the bill, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) said he expected the bill to arrive on the House floor by Memorial Day (May 26). Surveillance reform legislation under consideration in the Senate has not yet been voted out of committee. http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/05/07/key_house_panel_moves_to_restrain_the_nsa?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foreignpolicy%2Fthecable+%28The+Cable%29