Senate Leaders Propose Extending NSA Phone-Records Storage

With weeks to go before a key surveillance law expires, leading Senate Republicans have introduced a bill that would allow the National Security Agency to continue collecting the calling records of nearly every American.

The bill by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and intelligence committee chairman Richard Burr would bypass Senate committees and reauthorize sections of the Patriot Act, including the provision under which the NSA is requiring phone companies to turn over the “to and from” records of most landline calls.

In the wake of disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, President Obama and many lawmakers have called for ending that collection.

House members were set to introduce legislation Wednesday that would accomplish that goal, but its chances of passage were unclear.

This article appeared in print in the April 23rd, 2015 edition of Hamodia.