US Senate panel eyes new green light for key spying powers

WASHINGTON: A US senate panel moved Tuesday to extend a sensitive foreign intelligence collection law that critics say lets spy agencies scoop up and share Americans' private communications.
The Senate Intelligence Committee passed a mostly unchanged version of so called Section 702, the expiring law that permits the National Security Agency to collect the communications of foreigners.
It also permits the "incidental" collection of Americans' communications in the process, activity that critics say has been much more common than the intelligence agencies admit, and allows that information to be used by non intelligence agencies such as the FBI.
The critics, led by Senator Ron Wyden, a member of the Intelligence Committee, say the NSA collects a huge amount of phone and email data of Americans, much of it unnecessarily and some of it not simply incidental to its surveillance of foreigners.
That ability was exposed Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked details of its collection of Americans' data in 2013.
But the Trump administration and the intelligence community say the law, which passed the committee on a vote of 12-3, is crucial to protect the nation.
"This bill reauthorizes our nation's most valuable intelligence collection authorities and ensures that the men and women of the Intelligence Community and our law enforcement agencies have the tools and authorities they need to keep us safe," said committee chairman Richard Burr.
Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the committee, argued that the bill did make important changes to address critics' concerns.
"It is a good compromise bill that addresses privacy and civil liberties concerns while maintaining a critical tool essential for our intelligence and law enforcement professionals to protect the nation," Warner said.
Section 702 an amendment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act written in 2008 to regulate surveillance after the government was shown to be vacuuming up hordes of phone and email communications on and by Americans and foreigners without warrant in the wake of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.
The law needs to be renewed by the end of the year, and the committee voted for an eight year extension in a closed session Tuesday.
That however did not end the debate. Wyden and Senator Rand Paul have proposed their own update of 702 that narrows the ability of spy agencies to collect and retain information on Americans without a warrant.
Wyden pressed for 702 to be revised with tighter restrictions on what information the NSA can scoop up, and strict limits on how it can be used.
"The government wants Congress to extend 702 spying but won't say what powers it provides," he said early Tuesday.
"We deserve answers, not secret law." — AFP