NSA: House bill would lower standards for collecting individuals' data | World news | theguardian.com:
The House intelligence committee is circulating a draft bill that would permit the government to acquire the phone or email records of an "individual or facility" inside the US for up to a year.
The move by the House intelligence committee's leadership – the Republican chairman Michael Rogers of Michigan and Democrat Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland – would significantly prohibit mass surveillance of all Americans' phone data, a shift in position by two of the most stalwart congressional defenders of the practice. It comes as the New York Times reports that Barack Obama will propose ending bulk collection.
Obama's self-imposed deadline on revamping the National Security Agency's collection of bulk domestic phone data is set to expire on Friday.
The bill would makes
it easier for authorities to collect metadata on individuals inside the
US suspected of involvement with a foreign power.
Photograph: Felix Clay
