The Fight to Rein in NSA Surveillance: 2016 in Review
The Fight to Rein in NSA Surveillance: 2016 in Review
Kate Tummarello
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Congress started off 2016 particularly attuned to concerns about NSA surveillance after The Wall Street Journal reported at the very tail end of 2015 that the NSA was eavesdropping on phone calls between members of Congress, Israeli officials, and interest groups. This is just one example of the troubling surveillance the NSA conducts under overly broad and often mysterious authorities like Section 702 and Executive Order 12333. Both of those can be used to “target” sweeping groups of people and types of communications.
The committee briefly debated—but failed to pass—Section 702 reforms when it considered the USA FREEDOM Act in 2015, and we looked forward to the debate around many much-needed changes to the law. But the closed-door meeting shut out participation from everyone except members of the intelligence community, so we joined two-dozen other organizations in calling on the committee to hold open hearings.
As Congress continues to debate reauthorizing Section 702 ahead of the 2017 deadline, we hope lawmakers will push for more information about how many innocent Americans are impacted by these sweeping programs and what measures, if any, effectively protect their privacy.
We suffered a blow on Section 702 surveillance in June when, in the wake of the tragic nightclub shooting in Orlando, surveillance defenders in the House urged members to vote against a previously popular measure to curtail spying on Americans.
In past years, the House passed similar measures from Reps. Thomas Massie and Zoe Lofgren to prevent warrantless searches of Americans’ information and keep the intelligence community from undermining encryption, including by an overwhelming 293-123 vote in 2014. But the vote fell short of the needed majority in 2016 after some lawmakers, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, launched a campaign against the amendment, dishonestly tying it to the tragedy in Orlando.
We stand ready to fight similar misinformation campaigns and scare tactics as the debate continues next year.