Bipartisan backlash grows against domestic surveillance

During a sometimes contentious hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, Republicans and Democrats told administration officials that they believed the government had exceeded the surveillance authorities granted by Congress, and warned that they were unlikely to be reauthorized in the future.

Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, said that no one in Congress believed that the counterterrorism laws enacted since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were meant to allow for the collection of phone records of virtually everyone in America…

A coalition of Silicon Valley companies and civil liberties groups plans to press President Obama on Thursday to disclose more information about the agency’s surveillance operations so that Americans can have a more informed public debate. Much of the controversy involves the agency’s bulk collection of telephone data, which includes which numbers have called other numbers and time and length of calls, but not the content.

In a letter to top administration officials, the group will ask that the government start opening up the surveillance process by allowing companies to publicly disclose the number of secret requests for data they receive from the N.S.A., the number of individuals the requests cover, and whether the requests involve the content of communications or other data, according to a draft of the letter and interviews with officials from the companies and organizations involved.