(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) The House of Representatives late Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to pass the USA Freedom Act, which would put an end to the National Security Agency's (NSA) bulk data collection of telephone records.
The reform bill passed with a 338-88 vote, but is expected to face a much stronger challenge in the Senate.
President Barack Obama made it clear in 2013 that he wanted to curb the NSA's mass surveillance activities, following the leaks of thousands of classified government documents by the agency's former employee, Edward Snowden. He is now living in exile in Moscow.
Sanctioned by the Patriot Act's Section 215, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush only days after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the NSA collects phone call metadata from everyone in the country - that includes dialed numbers, the time calls are placed, and the length of the conversations, but not an audio recording of the actual calls.
The surveillance program is set to expire on June 1, unless it is renewed in its current state - which is unlikely - or new measures are introduced.
In a post on its website, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said that while "some provisions of the bill may offer incremental improvements over the dismal status quo, it is clear that the proposal now on the table does not go nearly far enough."
The group suggested several amendments, among them: to stop the targeting of individuals who have nothing to do with terrorism; to redefine the charge of providing "material support" to terrorists, when an individual may only have intended to provide humanitarian assistance abroad; and to have an advocate for privacy and civil liberties present at all cases being heard by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which carries out proceedings in secret.
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