“Four senators at the vanguard of bipartisan efforts to rein in US government spying programs announced the most comprehensive package of surveillance reforms so far presented on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. The draft bill represented the first sign that key Republican and Democratic figures in the Senate are beginning to coalesce around a raft of proposals to roll back the powers of the National Security Agency in the wake of top-secret disclosures made by whistleblower Edward Snowden.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/25/rand-paul-teams-with-democrats-on-bill-to-curb-nsa-spying/
The appetite in Washington for reform of surveillance programs was made apparent in July, when a House of Representatives proposal to effectively end the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records of millions of Americans was defeated by just 12 votes.
The amendment, brought by Republican Justin Amash and Democrat John Conyers, was strongly opposed by leaders of the two parties, the White House, and the intelligence establishment.
The fact it was only narrowly defeated revealed the depth of anger in some quarters of Capitol Hill over the perceived excesses of the NSA – and provided a glimpse of the potential strength of a House alliance between libertarian Republicans and left-leaning Democrats.
