Spy Limits Gain Momentum as NSA Violations Spur Congress
By Derek Wallbank - Aug 19, 2013
Disclosure that the U.S. National Security Agency broke privacy rules thousands of times in a year is adding momentum to efforts in Congress to curb the top-secret surveillance programs made public by Edward Snowden.
“People are feeling the heat, and I think there will be meaningful change,” Bruce Schneier, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, said in an interview after the latest disclosure. Schneier, a critic of the NSA, said it’s become a “rogue agency” that’s ripe for legislative restrictions.
An internal audit by the NSA found 2,776 cases of violations in the preceding year in collecting voice and data communications of both Americans and foreigners. The violations were reported last week by the Washington Post, which cited the May 2012 audit and other documents provided to it earlier this year by Snowden, the former NSA contractor who faces U.S. espionage charges and was granted temporary asylum in Russia.
Even before the latest leak, Congress was preparing for its most extensive review of surveillance programs since the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Lawmakers have filed at least 10 bills on the issue, including measures to increase the openness of the NSA’s data-collection programs, change the makeup of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that oversees them and expand congressional oversight of the intelligence operations.
Last month, the Republican-controlled House rejected by seven votes a measure by Republican Representative Justin Amash of Michigan that would have denied the NSA funding to collect telephone records on millions of Americans.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-19/spy-limits-gain-momentum-as-nsa-violations-spur-congress.html