NSA breaches will prompt more legislation, congressmen say
The latest revelations about abuses within the National Security Agency's surveillance programs shows the agency can't be trusted to police itself and that Congress should enact tougher forms of oversight, several lawmakers said Sunday.
"I want to rephrase Ronald Reagan and say we should trust but codify," Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "Put it in a code what they can do... Now they said they get all these phone records, but they only query the information judiciously. Well, I can't find anything in the code that limits what they can do with that information, particularly in criminal investigations."
NSA officials have said its attempts to monitor for terrorist activities do not threaten Americans' civil liberties. At a Las Vegas conference for hackers last month, NSA Director Keith Alexander said, "I think it is important to understand the strict oversight that goes in, in these programs because the assumption is that people are out there wheeling and dealing and nothing could be further from the truth. We have tremendous oversight and compliance in these programs."
- NSA abuses contradict Obama and congressional claims of oversight
- NSA surveillance: The debate Obama never wanted
However, the latest leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show that the NSA broke privacy rules more than 2,700 times within just one year.
Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said on "Face the Nation" that he met with President Obama recently and told him that there needs to be a careful examination of NSA programs and that "the trust of the American people in their government is what's at stake here."
Goodlatte said he has "absolutely no doubt" that his committee will take up legislation on the issue: "Some of the things that are suggested are to make it clear that the law, Section 215 [of the Patriot Act], does not allow the government to gather large sums of data like they do."
Last month, the House narrowly rejected a bill that would have done just that. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., the sponsor of the bill, said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that he's hopeful there will be another vote on the measure.
"I certainly heard from a number of my colleagues directly and through the media that they feel differently about the amendment now that if they had a second chance, yes, they might have voted yes on it," he said.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., voted against the Amash amendment but said on "State of the Union" that there should be reforms to prevent the kinds of abuses that came to light last week.
"In fact, I'm working on an initiative to do exactly that," he said. "What's the standard for the NSA being able to search or query that data [it collects from phone companies]? Right now, you have to have a reasonable suspicion that that phone number was involved in terrorist activity. My concern is, NSA can reach that judgment unilaterally. You do not have to get advance notice from the FISA court. So, I propose that before they do any kind of query, any kind of search, they have to go to the FISA court."
Van Hollen also said the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court (known as the FISA Court, or FISC) should include a "citizen's advocate to take the adversarial position" -- a proposal already introduced in the Senate.
Goodlatte said on "Face the Nation" that the Judiciary Committee would also try to create "more transparency in the FISA Court system."
"I had members of Congress complain to me about their inability to see some of those [FISA] court decisions," he said. "And I think that the public's confidence can only be restored by making the system as transparent as possible, given that it is an intelligence-gathering operation."
While both Congress and the FISA court are expected to oversee NSA programs, the latest leaks show the agency chose not to report some privacy breaches. On "Fox News Sunday," Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said that the agency needs stronger outside oversight and shouldn't rely as heavily on internal audits.
"There is sort of a similarity between this scandal and all the other scandals," he said. "The president thinks that the IRS can police themselves as well and that they'll do an internal audit. He thought the State Department could do an internal audit also. But the thing is, is nobody ever was fired in the State Department. No one has been fired in the IRS. The director of national intelligence lied to the Senate... and nothing has happened."
Paul said that there should be congressional hearings on the matter that that "legislation could help."
Also appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., a member of the House Intelligence Committee rebutted Paul's assertion that stronger oversight is necessary.
"I am satisfied that we are told what the NSA is doing," he said. The information leaked last week was "all available" in one format or another, he said, adding that "quite frankly, that shows that the system works. And it works. We should be proud of it."
On CBS' "Face the Nation," Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., said there is failed oversight.
"They spoon-feed to the Intelligence Committees of both houses what they want to tell them," she said.
"For any of us to say that we know what's going on in the N.S.A., I would find very suspect. I think we've gotta provide whistleblower protection to those who serve in the intelligence community, so there is somewhere they can go to report misdeeds without being subject to criminal prosecutions."
Speier added that "the jury is still out" on whether Snowden is a traitor or a whistleblower, but she added, "I do think he has highlighted some extraordinary misdeeds."
On CNN's "State of the Union, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said that Snowden is "giving credibility, particularly amongst young people, that he is sort of a Jason Bourne character."
"We need better Congressional oversight," he said. "We need more information. And can't we find these things out from somebody besides Mr. Snowden, who I believe was violation of his oath to the United States of America?"
