Reform legislation circulating in Congress might not stop the NSA's bulk data collection program.
Even if surveillance reform legislation passes in Congress, the courts might still allow the U.S. government to collect communications data in bulk, a top Justice Department official told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
“If the USA Freedom Act becomes law, it’s going to depend on how the court interprets any number of the provisions that are in it, and any number of the additional requirements that are contained in it over what is here now,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole said in response to a question from Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley. “On the bulk data, I think it’s going to be a question of the court’s interpretation.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and Wisconsin Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner recently co-authored surveillance reform legislation intended to bar the U.S. government from using Section 215 of the Patriot Act to collect communications data in bulk. The proposal is a response to revelations from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who in June leaked a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order renewing a request for the communications data of millions of Verizon customers.
Cole’s testimony suggested that even if the Sensenbrenner-Leahy legislation passes, the courts could still interpret the law to allow for bulk data collection.
National security officials have warned against ending the surveillance program, and California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein has proposed legislation that would explicitly authorize it. NSA Director Keith Alexander told senators at the sparsely attended hearing Wednesday that the threat of terrorism was getting worse, citing the civil war in Syria and ongoing unrest in Iraq.
“I’m almost thinking what it would have been like if he had the power that you and the NSA have.”
Robert Litt, the counsel to the office of the director of national intelligence, reassured Leahy that everyone in the intelligence community is “