The United States Senate has agreed to begin debate on a bill to reform how the nation fights terrorism. The bill would give private communications companies the duty to collect phone records. Up until now, the National Security Agency had that responsibility. Some senators and others said they no longer trusted the agency to gather the information. Last month, a federal appeals court said the NSA collection program was illegal.
The bill to give collection powers to private companies won approval in the House of Representatives. But it was not as popular in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had asked the Senate to temporarily give the NSA permission to continue collecting phone records. But on Sunday he admitted that not enough senators would let the agency do that. He then said letting private companies collect the records is better than nothing at all.
The senator said the nation is dealing with what he called “growing, aggressive and sophisticated threats.”
