While the Senate Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat and Republican favor legislation that would leave U.S. spy programs intact, some congressional critics want to ban some Internet and phone records collections - and are asking whether other data were swept up, too.
During a committee hearing Thursday, U.S. intelligence officials were questioned by one of the leading skeptics of National Security Agency surveillance programs about whether the agency captured mobile-phone location data on Americans.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who supports barring some of agency surveillance practices, asked agency director Gen. Keith Alexander if the agency has ever collected locational data or ever developed a plan to do so.
Alexander said Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had submitted classified information to the secret court overseeing the spy programs about the matter.
Alexander added that his agency can only collect such data with an individual court order. But he did not say whether the agency had ever collected information about locations from which cellphone calls are made.
Wyden was one of a few lawmakers who had hinted that the National Security Agency was collecting phone records on millions of Americans before former government contractor Edward Snowden’s disclosures in June about phone and Internet record collection programs.
During the hearing, lawmakers were asked by Clapper and Alexander not to damage the surveillance programs with overly restrictive legislation, whilethey conceded that tweaks could be made.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and chairman of the intelligence panel, told the hearing she was writing a bill with Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the top Republican on the intelligence panel, that would tweak the agency’s practices, codifying current requirements that analysts have a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” in order to search the phone records and barring surveillance of call content.
The measure - one of a flurry of bills proposed recently by lawmakers to rein in the spy programs - would require the agency to publicly report statistics about its activities, as well as requiring the head of the agency to be confirmed by the Senate, Feinstein said.
“It’s clear to me that the public has a misperception and that must be changed,” Feinstein said.
Both Clapper and Alexander told lawmakers that they would be open to considering some changes to the surveillance, as long as they don’t disrupt the government’s ability to detect and stop terrorist plots.
One possible change would be limiting how far the agency can go in mining the bulk records, Clapper said. “We would consider statutory restrictions on querying the data that are compatible with operational needs,” he said.
Clapper said he also would be receptive to having a privacy advocate argue before the secret court overseeing the spy programs.
“There are some changes that we believe can be made that would enhance privacy and civil liberties as well as public confidence in the program, consistent with our national security needs,” Clapper said.
On Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a favorite of Tea Party activists, stood with Democrats Wyden, Mark Udall of Colorado and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut to introduce a bill to prevent the National Security Agency from collecting bulk phone records.
It would also close a loophole that lets the government search Americans’ electronic communications without warrants and create an independent advocate to argue before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that oversees the programs.
The bill would permit Apple Inc., Google Inc., Facebook Inc. and other Internet companies to disclose information about government requests they receive for customer data, including the number and whether the companies complied.
“We need to significantly reform the NSA’s domestic surveillance programs and the court that oversees them,” Udall said in a statement. He said he also wants to “end the government’s dragnet collection of millions of innocent Americans’ phone records.”
Paul said Wednesday that Clapper should resign for giving an untruthful answer during testimony in March.Clapper gave what he later said was an “untruthful” answer when Wyden asked if the government collects data on millions of Americans. “No,” he said. “Not wittingly.”
Collection of the phone records is essential to preventing terrorist attacks, Alexander said Wednesday.
Bulk phone records wereused to determine if there was a threat to New York City after the April 15 bombing at the Boston Marathon and to determine if there were terrorist plots against U.S. embassies abroad several months ago, Alexander said in an interview after his speech.
The agency’s mandate forbids it from spying on anyone inside the U.S., except in rare court-approved instances.
In most cases, it falls to the FBI to track such suspects - and when the agency calls to report a socalled roamer, it already has stopped surveillance.
The FBI then has to decide quickly whether the person is dangerous enough to start following electronically, and if so, the agency has to scramble to build a case against the suspect. The FBI can ask the attorney general for emergency authority to track the target for seven days but then must win retroactive approval for the spying from the foreign intelligence court.
“I call it the terrorist lottery loophole,” where surveillance can be dropped for a matter of hours or days during the handoff between agencies, said Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who also supports changing the law.
“Bottom line is, there is a gap,” said Maryland Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, the senior Democrat on the committee.
“If in that gap period … there’s an attack that kills Americans … shame on us all.”
Alexander and Clapper also are scheduled to testify Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Information for this article was contributed by Kimberly Dozier and Donna Cassata of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 5 on 09/27/2013