Almost two years after publication of the first documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the House Judiciary Committee (HJC) has taken up a bill that purports to end one of the most widely reported abuses he exposed: the government’s secret collection of all the records of phone calls Americans make on a daily basis. Today, HJC will consider the USA Freedom Act, which would finally get the government out of holding the phone records of some significant subset of Americans.

Edward who?