U.S. to disclose estimate of number of Americans under surveillance
U.S. to disclose estimate of number of Americans under
surveillance
By Dustin Volz | WASHINGTON Fri Dec 16, 2016 | 9:49pm EST
The U.S. intelligence community will soon disclose an
estimate of the number of Americans whose electronic communications have been
caught in the crosshairs of online surveillance programs intended for
foreigners, U.S. lawmakers said in a letter seen by Reuters on Friday.
The estimate, requested by members of the U.S. House of
Representatives Judiciary Committee, is expected to be made public as early as
next month, the letter said.
Its disclosure would come as Congress is expected to
begin debate in the coming months over whether to reauthorize or reform the
so-called surveillance authority, known as Section 702, a provision that was
added to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2008.
"The timely production of this information is
incredibly important to informed debate on Section 702 in the next Congress—
and, without it, even those of us inclined to support reauthorization would
have reason for concern," said the letter signed by 11 lawmakers, all
members of the House Judiciary Committee.
The letter was sent on Friday to National Intelligence
Director James Clapper. It said his office and National Security Agency (NSA)
officials had already briefed congressional staff about how the intelligence
community intends to comply with the disclosure request.
Clapper's office confirmed the letter had been received
but declined further comment.
The lawmakers termed their letter an effort to
"memorialize our understanding" of the intelligence community's plan
to provide an estimate in real numbers, not percentages, as soon as January
that can be shared with the public.
The government has long held that calculating the number
of Americans subject to Section 702 surveillance might be technically impossible
and would require privacy intrusions exceeding those raised by the actual
surveillance programs, which were originally intended to counter foreign
espionage.
Intelligence officials have said that online data about
Americans is "incidentally" collected under Section 702, due to a
range of technical and practical reasons. Critics have assailed such collection
as back-door surveillance of Americans without a warrant.
Section 702 will expire on Dec. 31, 2017, absent
congressional action. It enables two internet surveillance programs called
Prism and Upstream that were revealed in a series of leaks by former NSA
contractor Edward Snowden more than three years ago.
Prism gathers messaging data from Alphabet Inc's Google,
Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and other major tech companies that is sent to and
from a foreign target under surveillance. Upstream allows the NSA to copy web
traffic flowing along the internet backbone located inside the United States
and search that data for certain terms associated with a target.
Clapper, who is stepping down next month, suggested in
April that providing an estimate of Americans surveilled under Section 702, a
figure some have said could tally in the millions, might be possible, while
defending the law as "a prolific producer of critical intelligence."
Republicans James Sensenbrenner, Darrell Issa, Ted Poe
and Jason Chaffetz signed the letter, in addition to Democrats John Conyers,
Jerrold Nadler, Zoe Lofgren, Hank Johnson, Ted Deutch, Suzan DelBene and David
Cicilline.
(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and
Tom Brown)
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