Senate bill to end spying on phones

A bipartisan group of US senators have put forth a bill that would end US National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ phone records and data on Internet usage.

Democrats Ron Wyden, Mark Udall, and Richard Blumenthal and Republican Rand Paul unveiled their legislation on the eve of a Senate hearing with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander.
The bill calls for an end to the NSA’s spying practices and more transparency on the part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court which reviews the US government’s surveillance requests.
Moreover, the legislation urges the establishment of an independent, constitutional advocate to challenge the US government in the secret federal court and requires the attorney general to declassify the FISA court’s opinions which address significant interpretations of the US Constitution or current law.
The US lawmakers said their legislation was an appropriate response to revelations made by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden who shed light on the scope and scale of US spying activities.
Documents disclosed by Snowden blew the lid on a number of US spying programs including one for collecting Americans’ phone records and another, codenamed PRISM, for tracking the use of US-based Internet servers by all people around the world.