U.S. House to Vote to Limit NSA Surveillance Program

The U.S. House of Representatives will vote on an amendment of the Defense Authorization Act to limit the National Security Agency's power to collect U.S. phone records.

The House Rules Committee on its website Tuesday posted a revised summary of the amendment, which clearly states that it "bars authority for the blanket collection of records under the Patriot Act."

The amendment would prevent U.S. intelligence agencies including NSA from relying on Section 215 of the Patriot Act to "collect records, including telephone call records that pertain to persons who are not subject to an investigation under Section 215."

It would cut off funds to the National Security Agency to collect people's phone records, which are not under investigation for international terrorism or foreign intelligence, according to the sources.

The amendment to the Department of Defense Funding Bill was first proposed by Michigan Republican Congressman Justin Amash and supported by Michigan Democrat John Conyers

The House's vote to restrict NSA follows revelations by Edward Snowden, a former CIA analyst, about the agency's surveillance programs.

NSA last week had imposed new anti-leak measures designed to restrict downloading and sharing of classified materials from its computer networks.

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado last week, Ashton Carter, the deputy secretary of defense, said two computer systems administers will work simultaneously when they are inside systems that contain sensitive data.

"In an effort for those in the intelligence community to be able to share with each other, there was an enormous amount of information concentrated in one place. That's a mistake," said Carter.

Snowden is currently holed up in the transit zone of Moscow's airport since flying from Hong Kong following an arrest warrant issued by the Washington government on charges of espionage and theft of government property.

Recently, the former CIA analyst sought temporary asylum in Russia. He is likely to fly to Venezuela eventually if he gets proper travelling documents and that would happen only if he gets the temporary asylum in Russia.