WASHINGTON (AP) – The Senate now will decide the fate of a House bill backed by the president that would end the National Security Agency’s collection of American calling records while preserving other surveillance authorities.
But whatever the outcome of a scheduled Tuesday vote, the last two days in Congress have made this much clear: The NSA will ultimately be out of the business of collecting and storing American calling records.
While Congress debated, the law authorizing the collection expired midnight Sunday. The NSA stopped gathering the records from phone companies hours before the deadline.