UNDATED (WSAU-Wheeler News) Who you call on the phone would no longer be the federal government’s business, under a bill endorsed yesterday by the House Judiciary Committee. The vote was 25-to-2 in favor of a measure co-authored by Menomonee Falls Republican Jim Sensenbrenner, one of the most vocal critics of the National Security Agency’s collection of domestic phone data.
According to “The Hill,” which covers Congress, the bill would effective end the N-S-A’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records. It also extends parts of the Patriot Act, of which three major portions expire on June 1.
Sensenbrenner was an original author of the Patriot Act, which ramped up U-S intelligence in the days after the 9-11 terrorist attacks in 2001. The dean of the state’s congressional delegation said his bill ends what he calls “secret law,” while increasing transparency of the intelligence community with no compromise to national security. The N-S-A bulk record collection was among the expiring parts of the Patriot Act. It records the times and numbers of people called — but not the actual conversations.
The bill allows other segments of the Patriot Act to run through 2019.
