The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has granted the National Security Agency (NSA) permission to continue its collection of records on all U.S. phone calls.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced the court's approval in a statement late Friday. The court authorizes the program for only limited time periods and requires that the government submit new requests every several months for re-authorization. ...TheHill
Time for a new Snowden to take the burden of all that stuff off the backs of the intelligence agencies. Time to rein in the hubris of any member of Congress whose vote allows our spies to spy on us. Apparently Congress is, um, thinking about it.
Numerous lawmakers have expressed outrage at the NSA's collection of records of millions of Americans who are not suspected of any wrongdoing.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the original author of the Patriot Act, are working on legislation that would prohibit the NSA from conducting bulk data collection.
“While I appreciate the recent efforts by the Court and the administration to be more transparent, it is clear that transparency alone is not enough," Leahy said in a statement. "There is growing bipartisan consensus that the law itself needs to be changed in order to restrict the ability of the government to collect the phone records of millions of law-abiding Americans.” ...The Hill
