America
Republican senators fight over NSA surveillance reform law
Washington, June 2
The approval of the reform
of the surveillance law of the US under which the National Security
Agency (NSA) gathers bulk metadata has become the new battlefield for
Republican senators, Efe news agency reported.
The US Senate
continued its debate on the reform of the Patriot Act on Monday after
some of its provisions expired on Sunday midnight.
A bipartisan
majority in the Senate is aiming to amend the act that authorises
massive collection of telephone data on US citizens.
The bill, known as USA Freedom Act, was approved by the House of Representatives two weeks ago.
After
three attempts to push for the renewal of an unaltered Patriot Act,
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell settled for proposing some
amendments to the bill.
Among the amendments, there is one that
demands that private companies gathering data notify the Congress in
case of a change in their registration methods.
Meanwhile,
Republican Senator and possible 2016 US presidential candidate Rand Paul
blocked an attempt by McConnell to hold another round of voting on the
bill and its amendments on Monday.
This means the Senate will now vote on the legislation on Tuesday along with the series of amendments proposed by McConnell.
If
approved, the new bill will be sent to the lower house to get its
approval before being signed into law by US President Barack Obama.