Whether or not the administration gets its way is another matter. House intelligence committee members have written a bill sparing telcos from legal liability, but it's currently stalled; the White House doesn't like that it would let the government demand phone data without a judge's approval. There's also a rival bill that, if it escapes committee, would defund large-scale data collection within the US. However, it's safe to say that carriers will push hard for a law offering immunity. While they don't necessarily believe that scooping up phone records en masse is constitutional, they certainly want to avoid lawsuits.

[Image credit: The White House, Flickr]