The US Senate Intelligence Committee recently agreed a bill to allow the National Security Agency (NSA) to continue to collect US phone records. But it would also make the NSA’s activities more transparent. 
The committee Chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein, introduced the bill. It allows the NSA to continue to collect the telephone metadata of millions of Americans. It also allows the government to keep the data. Eleven people voted for the bill and four people voted against it. The full Senate will now vote on the bill. 
The bill allows analysts to search through the data if they believe that someone may be involved in international terrorism. The bill also allows the NSA to continue to watch foreigners who come to the US if they enter the country for less than 72 hours. 
Senator Patrick Leahy introduced another bill (the USA Freedom Act). This bill would stop the collection of phone records in the US. Feinstein defended the NSA phone data collection programme, but said that people didn’t trust the NSA anymore. “The NSA programme is legal and I believe it makes us safer,” she said. “But we can, and should, do more to increase transparency and build public support for privacy protections.” 
Feinstein said the bill would also make a number of improvements to transparency and checks on the NSA – for example, if the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) gets some data and then somebody looks at that data without permission, they could spend up to ten years in prison. 
Feinstein says she strongly supports the NSA’s main US programme. “I think many people don’t understand this NSA database programme. It is very important and helps to protect this country,” she said. Independent legal experts said they were worried about the Intelligence Committee’s bill. 
Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice said: “The Intelligence Committee bill and the USA Freedom Act are two opposing visions of the relationship between Americans who do not break the law and the national security state. The most important question is: should the government have some reason to suspect wrongdoing before collecting Americans’ most personal information? Leahy says yes; Feinstein says no.” 
Democratic committee member Ron Wyden said that recent worries about NSA spying on foreign leaders took attention away from the more important problem of the NSA checking the data of people in the US. “My top priority is ending the collection of data on millions and millions of innocent Americans.” 
Feinstein said that she completely disagreed with the foreign leader spying that the NSA does, for example on German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But Feinstein agrees with the NSA’s collection of Americans’ phone records. 
“Americans are making it clear, that they never – repeat, never – agreed to give up their freedom so that the country could appear to be safer,” Wyden said. “We’re just going to continue to fight this battle. It’s going to be a long battle.”