A US Senator and privacy advocates say the recent Senate bill would only protect the NSA spying capabilities.
A US Senator and privacy advocates have opposed a bill which advanced out of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, saying legislation would protect the National Security Agency’s spying capabilities.
The advocates say that the bill would not only endorse the NSA’s collection of all Americans’ phone records but also give the agency permission to collect massive amounts of their e email records, according to the Washington Post reported.
“The bill that the intelligence committee voted on this week would expressly authorize this bulk collection for the first time, and that would be a huge step backward for the rights of law-abiding Americans,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said.
Wyden and privacy advocates also said that the bill would place in statute authority for NSA to search without a warrant for Americans’ email and phone call content collected under a separate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance program intended to target foreigners overseas. That is what Wyden has called a “back-door search loophole.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who co-sponsored the bill, has said the NSA’s phone records program is legal and that she will do “everything I can” to prevent it from being halted.
The bill, which now awaits a full Senate vote, would codify limits that a special court has placed on the US spy agency’s use of the records.
It also lets the NSA continue to gather phone records of millions of Americans for renewable 90-day periods and authorizes the US government to retain the data.
The bill allows the agency to eavesdrop on the cellphones of foreign nationals who enter the US “for a transitory period not to exceed 72 hours.”
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Source: Press TV