A new Senate proposal to curb the government's bulk collection of Americans' telephone records and increase transparency about the program has White House backing and may get more traction with critics who have dismissed other bills as too weak.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will introduce the legislation on Tuesday.
Because it does more to clamp down on the data collection exposed last year by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, Leahy's bill was expected to be more attractive to privacy advocates than a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in May.