Senate panel OKs limited surveillance rollbacks

Leaders of a Senate panel that oversees US intelligence issues said it has approved a plan to scale back how many American telephone records the National Security Agency can sweep up.
But critics of US surveillance programs and privacy rights experts said the bill does little, if anything, to end the daily collection of millions of records that has spurred widespread demands for reform.
Legislation by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was approved by an 11-4 vote, would increase congressional and judicial oversight of intelligence activities.
It also would create 10-year prison sentences for people who access the classified material without authorisation, according to a statement released yesterday by committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, , and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the panel's top Republican.

Just how far it would scale back the bulk collection of Americans' telephone records was unclear. The statement said the plan would ban bulk collection of records "under specific procedures and restrictions."
Spokespeople for Feinstein and Chambliss did not immediate return email or phone calls seeking clarity.

"The threats we face from terrorism, proliferation and cyberattack, among others are real, and they will continue," Feinstein said in the statement.
"Intelligence is necessary to protect our national and economic security, as well as to stop attacks against our friends and allies around the world."
She said "more can and should be done" to increase transparency of the surveillance and build public support for privacy protections.

But Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, said the legislation allows the bulk collection to continue under certain safeguards. He called the safeguards a positive first step but said the NSA should stop sweeping up Americans' phone records and only obtain those that are connected to a specific terror plot.
Privacy advocates who have long called for the end of broad government snooping bristled at the bill, which they said would merely legalise the surveillance that the NSA has quietly undertaken since 2006.
Referring to Feinstein ,David Segal, executive director of advocacy group Demand Progress, said, "using squishy public relations language, she is striving to leave the impression that er bill reins in the NSA's mass surveillance programs but it does nothing of the sort. ... Lawmakers must immediately recognise this legislation for the sham that it is and reject it outright."

The Senate intelligence bill rivals one put forward earlier this week, by House and Senate judiciary committees, that would eliminate the phone data collection program that was revealed earlier this year in classified documents that were released to the media by NSA leaker Edward Snowden.