Wyden, NSA, and the Business-as-Usual Brigade

If the government budget crisis ever ends, Senator Ron Wyden, Senator Patrick Leahy and Representative Jim Sensenbrenner all have a common goal, end the NSA bulk phone collection.  Wyden says,

They will “try mightily to fog up the surveillance debate and convince Congress and the public that the real problem here is not overly intrusive, constitutionally flawed domestic surveillance, but sensationalistic media reporting”, Wyden said. “Their endgame is ensuring that any surveillance reforms are only skin deep.”

"Privacy protections that don’t actually protect privacy are not worth the paper they're printed on,” he said. “And just because intelligence officials say that a particular program helps catch terrorists doesn’t make it true.”
He was also sceptical about the Obama administration’s professed commitment to greater transparency. “When it comes to greater transparency and openness, the executive branch has shown little interest in lasting reforms that would actually make the intelligence community more open and transparent, and executive branch officials will probably resist any attempts to mandate greater transparency,” he said.
Wyden was scathing about the government’s “trust us” argument on surveillance, which he said was undermined by the NSA’s own track record. “The rules have been broken, and the rules have been broken a lot,” he said.

Sensenbrenner has also introduced legislation.

Sensenbrenner has called his bill the Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-Collection, and Online Monitoring Act – or USA Freedom Act, and a draft seen by the Guardian has four broad aims.
It seeks to limit the collection of phone records to known terrorist suspects; to end "secret laws" by making courts disclose surveillance policies; to create a special court advocate to represent privacy interests; and to allow companies to disclose how many requests for users' information they receive from the USA. The bill also tightens up language governing overseas surveillance to remove a loophole which it has been abused to target internet and email activities of Americans.