Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sen. Ron Johnson, R–Wis., announced Thursday they will introduce legislation that aims to prevent the NSA from collecting the personal data of Americans without a warrant.
The bipartisan proposal would prohibit the collection of data without a court order and bar the NSA’s massive collection of millions of Americans’ phone records and other metadata from being allowed to proceed, including without a search warrant.
“This is the most important surveillance bill ever put forward in the Senate,” Rubio said in a statement.
“The public deserves to know how the government collects their data, and we must hold the NSA accountable.”
The Senate bill, called the USA Freedom Act, has the support of some of the biggest Republican senators on Capitol Hill, including Sen. Rand Paul, R – Kentucky, who said he would vote to support it.
Paul also introduced legislation last month that would limit the NSA to collecting only foreign intelligence.
The USA Freedom bill, which passed the Senate Intelligence Committee last month, would require a warrant before the NSA can use Americans’ data for foreign intelligence purposes.
The NSA could use the data for its foreign intelligence operations, but the Senate bill would require that the information be shared only with a court that is authorized to authorize such surveillance.
Under the Senate plan, the NSA would only need a warrant for the collection and retention of information that is necessary for national security purposes, but it could collect data for other purposes such as counter-terrorism and counterterrorism-related investigations.
The proposal comes as the NSA continues to battle criticism of its controversial bulk collection of Americans phone records.
The agency has acknowledged the program’s scope, and has promised that it won’t target any American without a trial warrant, which requires proving that a target is a foreign national and that they have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” over the data.
But the program has drawn criticism from civil liberties groups and the White House, who have said it violates the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
The administration has said it wants to end bulk collection and reform its metadata program.
