House to vote on bill curbing NSA phone data collection

This June 6, 2013, file photo shows the sign outside the National Security Agency campus in Fort Meade, Md. A presidential advisory panel has recommended dozens of changes to the government's surveillance programs, including stripping the NSA of its ability to store Americans' telephone records and requiring a court to sign off on the individual searches of phone and Internet data.AP/File

WASHINGTON The House has passed a bill to end the National Security Agency's bulk collection of American phone records. It's the first legislative response to the disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and the Senate is expected to take it up. But civil liberties activists and technology companies say the bill doesn't go nearly far enough.

The USA Freedom Act tracks a proposal made in January by President Barack Obama, who said he wanted to end the NSA's practice of collecting the "to and from" records of nearly every American landline telephone call.

The bill requires the phone companies to keep the records for 18 months -- something they already were doing-- and allows the NSA to search for connections to terrorist plots abroad in response to a court order.

"The bill's significant reforms would provide the public greater confidence in our programs and the checks and balances in the system," the White House said in a statement Wednesday endorsing the legislation.

Privacy and civil liberties activists denounced the measure, saying it had been "gutted" to win agreement from lawmakers, particularly on the Intelligence Committee, who supported the NSA phone records program.

"This legislation was designed to prohibit bulk collection, but has been made so weak that it fails to adequately protect against mass, untargeted collection of Americans' private information," Nuala O'Connor, president and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said in a statement.

"The bill now offers only mild reform and goes against the overwhelming support for definitively ending bulk collection," she added.

House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat who represents a liberal district outside of Los Angeles, said the bill is perhaps the most significant action Congress will take in response to the Snowden leaks. The former NSA contractor handed journalists documents that revealed a host of once-secret NSA surveillance programs, including some that sweep in the personal information of Americans even as they target foreigners.

Outrage over the programs that Snowden publicized brought together conservatives and liberals who favor civil liberties, while the administration and congressional leadership resisted changing what they considered a useful counterterror tool.

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House to vote on bill curbing NSA phone data collection