Despite the distress sparked by last year's breaches in the nation's most sensitive military and intelligence agencies, proposals for security improvements are moving unevenly, and have been slowed by interagency disagreements over how to deal with the problem, the officials said.
The House intelligence committee proposal contains provisions embraced by critics of widespread NSA surveillance.
The House intelligence committee proposal represents competition to a different bill introduced last fall by privacy advocates in the Senate and House judiciary committees known as the USA Freedom Act.
A telecom or internet service provider could challenge the collection order before the secret Fisa court under the House intelligence committee proposal.
But in a sign of the continuing contentiousness on Capitol Hill over changes to NSA surveillance, James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican and co-author of the USA Freedom Act, preemptively rejected the House intelligence committee proposal, calling it "a convoluted bill that accepts the administration's deliberate misinterpretations of the law.
Neither the White House nor the House intelligence committee proposal would require telecommunications firms to keep such records any longer than the current 18-month maximum, a significant shift away from the five years during which they are currently held by NSA.
While on the surface the bill has similarities with the USA Freedom Act, the intelligence leaders' proposal would not require a judge's approval before the government compels telecoms or internet providers to turn over customer data, which an aide called a "fatal flaw" of the bill for the judiciary panel.
In fact, GIS and RS are considered as new reliable ways providing the necessary information and intelligence for planning proposals and can be used as monitoring tools during the implementation of plans.
Other portions of the House-passed bill make it easier for first- and second-generation Americans with key language skills to obtain clearances to work in the intelligence agencies, a proposal long sought by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell.
While the paper does not explain in detail how widely it would disseminate bulk data within the intelligence community, the proposal raises questions about what safeguards the N.S.A. plans to place on its domestic phone and email data collection programs to protect Americans' privacy.
