Controversial
"US President Barak Obama had earlier lobbied the Senate to support the Freedom Act because it offered reforms for "the most controversial provision ... the gathering of phone exchanges in a single government database".
The proposed legislation would still allow law enforcement to access mobile phone metadata of American citizens but it won't be able to stockpile it. Instead, phone companies would be required to store the records and then respond to lawful access requests on a case-by-case basis."
That's not the controversial bit, IMHO. It doesn't address secret courts rubber stamping warrants and gag orders, without effective oversight. All the Freedom Act does, is move who holds the raw data.
As a Rightpondian it doesn't actually matter to me, as our overlords are in the process of passing even more draconian rules. *sigh*