Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, held a hearing today to talk about "continued oversight of US Government Surveillance." Leahy is also a sponsor of the Senate version of a bill (PDF) dubbed the USA Freedom Act (PDF), one of a few that would ban bulk data collection.

The bill's sponsors have made it unequivocal that they want to shut down the bulk data collection programs. In Rep. James Sensenbrenner's (R-WI) breakdown of the bill, the first point is in boldface: "End bulk data collection of Americans' communication records."

But a top DOJ lawyer who testified at today's hearing said he sees some ambiguity in the language of the bill, and the government probably won't shut down any programs—at least not without a court fight.

The bill says that data gathering has to be "relevant and material" to a foreign intelligence investigation. But today Deputy Attorney General James Cole seemed to imply that rather than shut down any programs, the Department of Justice would want to hear how courts interpreted the language.

"Right now the interpretation of the word 'relevant' is a broad interpretation," said Cole, according to a writeup of the hearing in The Hill.

"Adding 'pertinent to a foreign agent' or 'somebody in contact with a foreign agent' could be another way of talking about relevance as it is right now," he added. "We'd have to see how broadly the court interprets that or how narrowly."

Meanwhile, NSA chief General Keith Alexander, who will be leaving the agency in the next few months, still asked lawmakers not to pass such a ban. "There's no other way we know of to connect the dots," he said.

Still, Leahy, who has questioned whether bulk data collection has been truly critical in terrorism investigations, said he's going to press forward.

"We give up a lot of our privacy in this country, and frankly I worry about giving up too much," Leahy said.