US Rolls Out New Bill to Reform NSA Surveillance

US Rolls Out New Bill to Reform NSA Surveillance

US senators have proposed a bill that would drastically reform the surveillance practices of the National Security Agency (NSA) and increase oversight of government surveillance.





Titled The Safeguarding Americans’ Private Records Act, the bill was introduced on Thursday by Senators Ron Wyden, Zoe Lofgren, Pramila Jayapal, Warren Davidson, and Steve Daines. 





According to a statement on Wyden's website, the changes proposed in the bill will "protect Americans’ rights against unnecessary government surveillance." 





The bill comes ahead of the March 15 expiration of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which the National Security Agency "used to create a secret mass surveillance program that swept up millions of Americans’ phone calls." The phone record program was terminated last year.





The bill prohibits the "warrantless collection of cell site location and GPS information as well as browsing history and internet search history and ensures that the government cannot conduct collection for intelligence purposes that would violate the Fourth Amendment in the criminal context."





Furthermore, the bill aims to establish the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process as the only process by which the government is allowed to carry out surveillance. By doing this, the bill intends to close what it describes as "secret law" loopholes that have allowed the US government to clandestinely conduct surveillance outside the FISA process  rolls reform surveillance