A new bill introduced in the United States Congress by a group of bipartisan legislators would restrict the ability of law enforcement agencies to access data collected by the National Security Agency, ZDNet reported.

The proposal—drafted by House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and vice-chairman John Conyers, D-Mich.,—marks the first legislative effort to weaken the abilities of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a controversial provision that permits the NSA to conduct foreign surveillance.

Section 702 grants the NSA the ability to gather intelligence on foreigners located overseas without a warrant by collecting data that transfers across networks owned by telecommunications companies that are located in the U.S.

The provision has also been used to collect information from American citizens who are caught up in the wide net cast by the program despite constitutional protections against warrantless surveillance.

Through Section 702, the NSA collects massive amounts of communications, which include emails, messages and phone metadata. The information is made available in a database which law enforcement agencies including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and local police forces are able to access.

That unrestricted and warrantless access would be stifled under the proposed legislation. If passed, the law would require authorities to obtain a probable-cause warrant before viewing any information from the Section 702 database that includes an American citizen. Law enforcement would have to pursue a warrant for every such instance.

The restrictions would not apply to law enforcement agencies that conduct foreign intelligence including the NSA and the CIA. Those organizations would be able to continue investigations that relate to counter-terrorism efforts without restraint.

If the provision were to pass, it would also extend Section 702 of FISA for six years. That temporary extension may be the cause of a dispute with the White House, which has pushed for the law to be given a permanent renewal. The provision is set to sunset at the end of the year.

The bill would also extend whistleblower protections to contractors who work for private sector companies that have government contracts. That would extend to companies like Booz Allen Hamilton, the contractor whiste blower Edward Snowden worked for.

Despite the restrictions the bill would place on the surveillance program, some organizations believe the bill doesn’t go far enough in reigning in government surveillance.

“While the bill contains positive provisions that are an improvement over current practice, it falls short of what is needed to protect individuals from warrantless government surveillance under Section 702,” Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said. “Its most glaring deficiency is that it only partially closes the so-called ‘backdoor search loophole.’”

The loophole that Guliani referred to encompasses the incidentally collected data gathered from American citizens.

“The bill would still allow the CIA, NSA, FBI, and other agencies to search through emails, text messages, and phone calls for information about people in the U.S. without a probable cause warrant from a judge,” Guliani said. “Those worried that current or future presidents will use Section 702 to spy on political opponents, surveil individuals based on false claims that their religion makes them a national security threat, or chill freedom of speech should be concerned that these reforms do not go far enough.

The ACLU urged members of the House Judiciary Committee to strengthen the bill as it moves forward through the legislative process.

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