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 The bill, which has White House backing, goes further than a
version passed in May by the U.S. House of Representatives in
reducing bulk collection and immediately drew warmer response from
privacy advocates and technology companies.
Revelations last year by former National Security Agency contractor
Edward Snowden prompted President Barack Obama to ask Congress in
January to rein in the bulk collection and storage of records of
millions of U.S. domestic telephone calls.
Many American technology companies also have been clamoring for
changes after seeing their international business suffer as foreign
governments worried they would collect data and hand it over to U.S.
spy agencies.
"If enacted, this bill would represent the most significant reform
of government surveillance authorities since Congress passed the USA
Patriot Act 13 years ago," said Leahy, the Democratic chairman of
the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on the Senate floor.
Congress leaves for a five-week break on Friday, and it was unclear
if lawmakers would take on the legislation before November
elections.
Leahy proposed greater limits on the terms that analysts use to
search databases held by phone companies such as Verizon
Communications Inc or AT&T Inc.
The bill, called the USA Freedom Act, would prohibit the government
from collecting all information from a particular service provider
or a broad geographic area, such as a city or area code, Leahy's
office said.
It would expand government and company reporting to the public and
direct the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which reviews
intelligence collection inside U.S. borders, to appoint advocates on
privacy and civil liberties issues.
Leahy's measure "is an improvement on the House-passed version at
every step," said Harley Geiger, senior counsel for the Center for
Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit advocacy group.
Many other civil liberties and technology groups endorsed the
legislation.
The Information Technology Industry Council, with such members as
Google Inc, Facebook Inc, Microsoft Corp and IBM Inc, said passing
the bill would mean saving U.S. jobs dependent on an open Internet
by "effectively putting an end to bulk collection."
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Several groups called for additional steps, noting that the bill
left intact the presidential order guiding collection overseas and
also section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which allows
broad collection in the United States of email to, from or about
foreign targets.
"This is a marathon, not a sprint, and we have miles left to go,"
said Laura W. Murphy, Washington legislative director for the
American Civil Liberties Union. Leahy acknowledged there was more
work to be done, saying "I'd like to get most of what we need, then
work on the rest."
The Senate bill would end the bulk business-records collection of
phone records authorized by Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act,
enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
It instead would authorize searches for call records "two hops" from
a search term and limits the types of search terms. The records
indicate connections and duration of calls but do not include
content.
Leahy's bill would require the government to report the number of
individuals whose information has been collected. It gives companies
four options to report on the number of government requests they
get.
National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said Leahy had done
"remarkable work" balancing security and privacy concerns in the
bill.
(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton and Alina Selyukh; editing
by Lisa Von Ahn, Jonathan Oatis and Bernard Orr)
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