Patrick Leahy introduces bipartisan bill to limit government snooping

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy introduced a bill Monday that would cut short by two years the operational authority of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts that allowed the federal government to collect phone and email records of millions of Americans without a warrant.

The Vermont Democrat introduced similar legislation in the past, but it never had enough support on Capitol Hill. The latest bill, however, has broader, bipartisan support following revelations from a former government contractor that the National Security Agency has been secretly collecting millions of records.