House and Senate lawmakers plan Tuesday on introducing legislation to limit the NSA’s surveillance powers, The Hill reports. The USA FREEDOM Act, written by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and James Sensenbrenner, Jr., (R-WI), would end the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records, increase curbs to monitoring Americans, require quicker data deletion in cases of accidental collection and create a special FISA court advocate. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), who has consistently been a staunch defender of the NSA’s programs, has called for a “total review” of all intelligence collection programs after news that the U.S. allegedly spied on national leaders of allied nations—most notably German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The White House has also said there needs to be additional “constraints” on U.S. intelligence gathering to “better balance our security needs and the security needs of our allies against the real privacy concerns that we all share.” The House Intelligence Committee will hold a rare open hearing today, which will include the NSA director and other top intelligence officials.
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