Feinstein defends domestic surveillance program

Despite concerns by fellow Democrats and civil libertarians, the senator says there's ample oversight on spying

Topics: Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Dianne Feinstein, Senate Intelligence Committee, Surveillance, FISA, Spying, ,

Feinstein defends domestic surveillance program (Credit: AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wanted the answer to a basic question on Thursday: How many Americans does the United States government currently spy on?

The question arose ahead of a vote over reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a 1978 law permitting the government to spy on correspondence between Americans and foreign individuals. Wyden, leading the charge to challenge the reauthorization, argues that the “Senate cannot say that we passed the smell test with respect to vigorous oversight if we don’t have some sense of how many Americans … are being swept up under the legislation.”

A number of FISA provisions passed in recent years are set to expire at the end of this year, and as Politico reported, “[Wyden] has placed a hold on the bill as he seeks information from the federal authorities, who have told Wyden in the past that they can’t deliver that data [on how many Americans are caught up in the surveillance dragnet]. And Wyden said this week that he’ll maintain that hold unless the Senate allows a vote on his amendments to introduce new legal checks and transparency rules to the law.”

Wyden’s amendments would add privacy protections to the act, under which U.S. officials currently have the authority to conduct surveillance on suspected terrorists abroad without a court order. Officials can simply obtain court orders from the secretive FISA court, which do not require probable cause, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. As the Guardian noted, “Wyden’s amendment would require the NSA to put a number on how many Americans have been affected. His Oregon colleague, Jeff Merkley, proposed an amendment that would require the secret court that reviews surveillance requests, known as the FISA court, to inform the public when it makes ‘important rulings of law’.”

However, outgoing chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Sen. Dianne Feinsten, D.-Calif., defended the surveillance practices permitted under FISA’s current provisions. “I don’t think there’s any program that has more vigorous oversight,” she said in response to Wyden Thursday. Feinstein said that in regards to stopping domestic terrorist attacks in recent years, the surveillance program “has worked,” noting that some of the 100 arrests made over the past four years to prevent attacks on U.S. soil have been made based on intelligence gleaned under FISA.

According to the Guardian, “National Security Agency whistleblower Bill Binney has estimated that the agency has ‘assembled’ 20 trillion transactions between U.S. citizens.”

As Wyden put it Thursday, “I think, when you talk about oversight, and you can’t even get a rough estimate of how many law-abiding Americans had their communications swept up by this law … the idea of robust oversight, really ought to be called toothless oversight if you don’t have that kind of information.”

 

 

Natasha Lennard is an assistant news editor at Salon, covering non-electoral politics, general news and rabble-rousing. Follow her on Twitter @natashalennard, email nlennard@salon.com.

Next Article

Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • This photo. President Barack Obama has a laugh during the unveiling of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Tx., Thursday. Former first lady Barbara Bush, who candidly admitted this week we've had enough Bushes in the White House, is unamused.
    Reuters/Jason Reed

  • Rescue workers converge Wednesday in Savar, Bangladesh, where the collapse of a garment building killed more than 300. Factory owners had ignored police orders to vacate the work site the day before.
    AP/A.M. Ahad

  • Police gather Wednesday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to honor campus officer Sean Collier, who was allegedly killed in a shootout with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects last week.
    AP/Elise Amendola

  • Police tape closes the site of a car bomb that targeted the French embassy in Libya Tuesday. The explosion wounded two French guards and caused extensive damage to Tripoli's upscale al-Andalus neighborhood.
    AP/Abdul Majeed Forjani

  • Protestors rage outside the residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday following the rape of a 5-year-old girl in New Delhi. The girl was allegedly kidnapped and tortured before being abandoned in a locked room for two days.
    AP/Manish Swarup

  • Clarksville, Mo., residents sit in a life boat Monday after a Mississippi River flooding, the 13th worst on record.
    AP/Jeff Roberson

  • Workers pause Wednesday for a memorial service at the site of the West, Tx., fertilizer plant explosion, which killed 14 people and left a crater more than 90 feet wide.
    AP/The San Antonio Express-News, Tom Reel

  • Aerial footage of the devastation following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in China's Sichuan province last Saturday. At least 180 people were killed and as many as 11,000 injured in the quake.
    AP/Liu Yinghua

  • On Wednesday, Hazmat-suited federal authorities search a martial arts studio in Tupelo, Miss., once operated by Everett Dutschke, the newest lead in the increasingly twisty ricin case. Last week, President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker, R.-Miss., and a Mississippi judge were each sent letters laced with the deadly poison.
    AP/Rogelio V. Solis

  • The lighting of Freedom Hall at the George W. Bush Presidential Center Thursday is celebrated with (what else but) red, white and blue fireworks.
    AP/David J. Phillip

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Comments

5 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>