The Obama administration scrambled on Tuesday to slow Congressional opposition to the National Security Agency’s domestic spying operations as the House of Representatives prepared to vote on legislation that would block the agency’s collection of records about every phone call dialed or received inside the United States.
Senator Ron Wyden, a critic of some National Security
Agency’s programs, spoke out about expansive surveillance Tuesday.
Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the N.S.A. director, met with Democrats and
Republicans to lobby against a proposed amendment to a military
appropriations bill that would stop the financing for its phone data
collection program. The Republican-sponsored legislation is one of the
first Congressional efforts to curb the agency’s domestic spying efforts
since they were leaked by Edward J. Snowden, a former N.S.A.
contractor.
Later on Tuesday, the White House issued a statement praising the idea
of a debate about surveillance but denouncing “the current effort in the
House to hastily dismantle” the call tracking program, urging lawmakers
to vote down the legislation and instead conduct a “reasoned review of
what tools can best secure the nation.”
“This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process,” the White House statement said.
General Alexander’s hurried visit to Capitol Hill came as a leading
Senate critic of the N.S.A.’s large-scale collection of data about
Americans’ phone calls spoke out about expansive government
surveillance. He declared that recent leaks about domestic spying by Mr.
Snowden have created a “unique moment in our constitutional history” to
reform what he said has become “an always expanding, omnipresent
surveillance state.”
Ron Wyden,
Democrat of Oregon, the leading Senate critic and a member of the
Intelligence Committee, also hinted that the revelation that the
government has been keeping records of every domestic phone call is not
the only such extensive program. And he blasted national security
officials in the Obama administration, saying they have “actively”
misled the American public about domestic surveillance.
“As we have seen in recent days, the intelligence leadership is
determined to hold on to this authority,” Mr. Wyden said. “Merging the
ability to conduct surveillance that reveals every aspect of a person’s
life with the ability to conjure up the legal authority to execute that
surveillance, and finally, removing any accountable judicial oversight,
creates the opportunity for unprecedented influence over our system of
government.”
Mr. Wyden spoke at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research
group. He had been among a handful of senators warning — years before
Mr. Snowden’s leaks — that the government was secretly interpreting its
powers under the Patriot Act in an alarming way.
Among other things, he suggested that the bulk collection of all
domestic phone records is not the only such effort, saying Mr. Snowden’s
disclosures meant the public was finally able to see “some” of what Mr.
Wyden has been raising alarms about, and that the same legal theory has
been deemed to authorize “secret surveillance programs” — plural —
“that I and colleagues think go far beyond the intent of the statute.”
He did not explain what else was based on that legal interpretation, but
complained that his hands were tied by classification rules. The Obama
administration conducted an e-mail data collection program on the same
scale as the phone program, but officials said it was ended in 2011.
Mr. Wyden said that the government’s theory of its power under the
Patriot Act to collect records about people from third parties is
“essentially limitless,” saying it could use that authority to gather in
bulk medical, financial, credit card and gun-ownership records or lists
of “readers of books and magazines deemed subversive.” He also dwelled
on the potential for cellphones to serve as secret monitoring devices,
saying everyone is carrying a “combination phone bug, listening device,
location tracker and hidden camera.”
His speech helped frame the debate over the vote scheduled for Wednesday
on an amendment to the House defense appropriations bill, sponsored by
Representative Justin Amash, Republican of Michigan, that would block
the N.S.A. phone records program.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, the chairwoman of the
Senate Intelligence Committee, and Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican
of Georgia, the ranking minority member of the panel, issued a joint
statement opposing the House legislation.
Mr. Amash said in an interview that he did not believe that General
Alexander’s meeting changed any minds among House members and added that
he believed his legislation had a good chance of winning approval.
“I think the American people are overwhelmingly in support of reining in
the blanket surveillance of the N.S.A.,” Mr. Amash said.
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