Patriot Act author says US 'phone snooping program' won't be renewed upon expiry next year

The lawmaker who wrote the Patriot Act said that the US led 'phone snooping program' for collecting metadata will not be renewed for the next year and hence will halt the program for sometime.

According to the Washington Times, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican said that Congress had specifically tried to limit the law's uses by adding the word 'relevant', when it renewed the provisions under Section 215 of the act that allow the government to collect data from businesses without obtaining a warrant.

However, Sensenbrenner said that the intelligence community has expanded and not limited its collection of data even after the changes.

He further said that the Section 215 expires at the end of 2015 and is not going to be renewed and if the Obama administration wants to renew it, it must change the way how it is operate, else it will be stalled completely.

The report added that both Democrats and Republicans rejected Obama's claim that the law allows the intelligence community to collect the phone numbers, time, date and duration of calls made by Americans and said that Obama needs to change the way he is running the program if he wants to keep it intact.