Bill would abolish bulk collection of phone, online records

Domestic spying and the secret U.S. court OK'ing it must be revamped, four senators said in offering a fix before a Senate hearing with intelligence officials. "The disclosures over the last 100 days have caused a sea change in the way the public views the surveillance system," said Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, unveiling a bill at a news conference with fellow Democrats Mark Udall of Colorado and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Tea Party conservative libertarian Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky. "We are introducing legislation that is the most comprehensive bipartisan intelligence reform proposal since the disclosures of last June," Wyden said of the proposed Intelligence Oversight and Surveillance Reform Act, which combines measures the lawmakers introduced before the summer recess with some 12 other draft bills. The June disclosures were made from top-secret documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. The lawmakers' bill would prohibit the NSA's bulk collection of Americans' domestic phone records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. It would also ban the similar data collection of Americans' domestic Internet communication records, which the government said stopped in 2011. The bill would still let Washington collect records of people suspected of terrorism or espionage or believed to be in contact with suspected terrorists or spies. The measure would also require an independent "constitutional advocate" in the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The advocate could challenge the government on privacy grounds in significant or precedent-setting cases, the lawmakers said. In addition, the U.S. attorney general would be required to declassify FISA Court opinions that address significant constitutional or legal interpretations. The White House and Justice Department had no immediate comment on the draft measure, nor did Senate leaders who have said they strongly support NSA programs. President Obama said Aug. 9 he would "work with Congress to pursue appropriate reforms to Section 215 of the Patriot Act." The NSA currently interprets Section 215 to mean it can broadly monitor Web and phone communications. Obama also said he was open to setting up public advocates who could oppose government lawyers at FISA Court proceedings. The White House maintains the NSA programs are vital counter-terrorism tools. Analysts cited by British newspaper The Guardian predicted the White House would pursue superficial reforms that simply increase NSA and FISA Court transparency but don't limit surveillance. The four senators announced their bill on the eve of a Thursday Senate Intelligence Committee hearing with the nation's top intelligence officials to consider domestic surveillance reforms. Scheduled to testify at the 2 p.m. hearing are National Intelligence Director James Clapper, NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander and U.S. Deputy Attorney General James Cole. Scheduled to testify afterward are Brookings Institution governance studies Senior Fellow Benjamin Wittes, who co-directs the Harvard Law School-Brookings Project on Law and Security, and Timothy Edgar, a Brown University specialist in reconciling security interests with fundamental values, including privacy and Internet freedom. Edgar was Obama's first national security director of privacy and civil liberties, focusing on cybersecurity, open government and data privacy.