The US House of Representatives on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to end the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records, a controversial programme made public in 2013 by former security contractor Edward Snowden.
The US House of Representatives <g data-gr-id="16">have</g> passed the Freedom Act, replacing the controversial Patriot Act. The Freedom Act, which now goes to the Senate, extends many parts of the Patriot Act that ends on June 1. The Freedom bill was passed 338 to 88 votes on Wednesday.
Congressman Jerrold Nadler, <g data-gr-id="17">senior</g> member of the House Judiciary Committee and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, said the bill prohibits the intelligence community from engaging in bulk data collection within the US.
“This <g data-gr-id="21">practice ?</g> the dragnet collection, without a warrant, of telephone records and internet metadata ? is the contemporary equivalent to the writs of assistance that early American revolutionaries <g data-gr-id="20">opposed,</g> and that the Fourth Amendment was drafted to address. It has never complied with the Constitution, and must be brought to an end without delay,” he said. Snowden in 2013 leaked thousands of documents to journalists that reported that NSA for many years <g data-gr-id="18">have</g> been secretly collecting all records of US landline phone calls.