Republican Sen. Charles Grassley is leading the fight to prevent sections of the Patriot Act that help catch terrorists in the U.S. from being axed due to fears about the government's mass surveillance program.
Under Section 215 of the 2011 legislation, the FBI is allowed to use "tangible things" to keep track of possible spying and terror activities, including such items as hotel bills and credit card slips,
according to The Wall Street Journal.
But the section, which is due to expire in June, also gives the embattled National Security Agency the power to collect phone and Internet data from millions of Americans.
The authority for the NSA's widespread surveillance system has come under fire from lawmakers and civil libertarians ever since fugitive NSA contractor Edward Snowden exposed the controversial practice while leaking thousands of the agency's classified documents.
But Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has issued a statement urging his colleagues in Congress to approve an extension of Section 215, which allows for the secret collection of evidence on potential spies and terrorists in the U.S., as opposed to a grand jury subpoena.
"There's no question that Section 215 is a valuable tool that helps law-enforcement officials obtain necessary individual business records, such as hotel records, in connection with national-security investigations,'' Grassley said.
But other lawmakers say that the NSA has been given too much power, and they have called for major reforms to the current surveillance program. In particular, they want to see an end to the mass phone data collection program.
"There is a huge difference between targeting suspected spies and terrorists, and sweeping up phone records from millions of law-abiding Americans,'' said Democratic Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden.
"This is exactly why surveillance reform is so urgently needed — to preserve the authorities that law-enforcement agencies actually need, while ending dragnet surveillance that violates Americans' privacy without making our country any safer."
With sections of the Patriot Act hanging in the balance, the FBI is pushing lawmakers to extend "Section 215," which helps the agency to keep close tabs on the movements of suspected spies and terrorists, according to the Post.
Two other sections of the Patriot Act are also due to expire this year. One provision allows "roving wiretaps" on several devices at once, even if the identity of the user is unknown, and the other allows surveillance on "lone wolf'' terror suspects with no known links to terrorist organizations.
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