Sen. Patrick Leahy
Moments before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, the White House released the previously
classified ruling [pdf] from the FISA court issued last April which allowed for the bulk collection of American's phone records data from Verizon.
The order essentially confirms what's been known and admitted by the Obama administration since Edward Snowden leaked the first bombshell: The NSA is collecting records of all domestic phone calls in the U.S. It does stipulate, however, that access to that mass of data is limited to "authorized personnel who have received appropriate and adequate training" and only when there are "facts giving rise to a reasonable, articulable suspicion" of terrorist ties to the number searched. That's opposed to the letter of the law authorizing the very collection, the sweeping up of data restricted to the relevance of that individual to an active investigation.
The release of the information did not mollify committee members.
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) criticized the executive branch for releasing the order just ahead of the Wednesday morning hearing.
"An hour ago, ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] declassified a FISA court order under Section 215—that's a good thing—but ODNI has known for weeks that this hearing was coming and yet ODNI releases this material just a few minutes before the hearing began," Franken said during the hearing. "You know, again, it's a step forward, but you get the feeling when it's ad hoc transparency, that doesn't engender trust, I don't think." [...]
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that he was "concerned" Congress was not being given "straightforward answers" about the spying programs and that it wasn't clear the phone records program under Section 215 of the Patriot Act had been effective.
"This bulk collection program has massive privacy implications," Leahy said. "The phone records of all of us in this room reside in an NSA database. I have said repeatedly that just because we have the ability to collect huge amounts of data does not mean that we should be doing so. In fact, it has been reported that the bulk collection of Internet metadata was shut down because it failed to produce meaningful intelligence. We need to take an equally close look at the phone records program. If this program is not effective, it must end. And so far, I am not convinced by what I have seen."
Leahy has
introduced legislation to strengthen judicial oversight of the NSA's programs, as well as create more transparency and accountability to Congress. There's a serious
glitch in Leahy's bill restricting the ability of U.S. companies to challenge the government's warrantless demands for confidential customer data in local courts. If that provision is fixed, his bill would be an effective check on the NSA's dragnet surveillance. Likewise, Sen. Franken
plans to introduce a bill this week that would require the NSA release information on how many Americans have had their data accessed by the NSA, how many of us have be spied on. It would also lift a gag order on companies, who could disclose information about how many surveillance orders they have received and how many of their customers were affected by the orders.
The Snowden affair has finally, apparently gone past the specious argument over whether the leaker was a hero or a traitor and moved into the phase that matters: The NSA is out of control and the FISA court that enables it inadequate. That seems to the be consensus with the powerful Democrats in the Senate—with the notable exception of Dianne Feinstein who might be forced into considering reform by the rest of leadership—and nearly half of the House of Representatives. The debate that President Obama has said he welcomes is now in full swing.