If the Obama administration elects not to act before Friday evening, the National Security Agency could for the first time in ages be unable to collect the phone records of millions of Americans.
It’s been but six weeks since NSA leaker Edward Snowden first
started exposing the surveillance policies used by the United
States government, and that month-and-a-half has provided
President Barack Obama with a number of opportunities to engage
the Congress and citizenry alike with regards to striking a proper balance between privacy and
security. But while the recently disclosed surveillance programs
could be stopped at any time, Friday allows the administration
the opportunity to not renew one of those policies for the first
time since the public began to pipe up.
Should the White House not seek to renew a top-secret directive
from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court before 5 p.m.
EST on Friday, the government’s ability to compel telecoms for
private records will expire.
The routine collection of phone records – so-called “metadata”
containing logs and other call-specific statistics – was the
first NSA surveillance program exposed by Snowden. The
30-year-old former systems administrator provided the Guardian
newspaper with documents suggesting the NSA is “is currently
collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of
Verizon,” and an early June exposé they published quickly
made that conduct a regular topic of conversation.
That blanketing court order, dated April 25, gave the government
the unlimited authority to collect telephony metadata from
Verizon up until Friday, July 19. House Intelligence Committee
lawmakers Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD)
issued a statement in the interim admitting “these authorities
[are] reviewed and approved by federal judges every 90 days,”
and a Washington Post article published less than a week after
the first Guardian piece acknowledged that 14 judges have
reviewed the operations of the program since 2006.
In the wake of an unprecedented public backlash and condemnation
across the globe, though, the Obama administration may move to
not reauthorize the FISA order before it expires.
Spencer Ackerman, a
national security writer for the Guardian who’s worked with
Snowden’s leaks since they first surfaced, wrote Thursday that
the White House is refusing to say whether it will seek to renew
that FISA order, adding that officials reached for comment
declined to discuss how they’d handle the looming deadline.
“On Thursday, the administration would not answer a question
first posed by the Guardian six days ago about its intentions to
continue, modify or discontinue the Verizon bulk-collection
order,” wrote Ackerman. The White House, he wrote, referred
queries to the Justice Department. The NSA, a FISA Court
spokesperson and the office of the Director of National
Intelligence all either refused to comment or differed to
acknowledge their request altogether.
The largest indicator suggesting the White House will renew the
order is purely precedent, as an interruption in the program
would be a pause reportedly unheard of since the administration
of George W. Bush. But that decision comes at a trying time for
Obama and company this time around as America’s intelligence
practices continue to be prodded by critics.
“By renewing the FISA court order, the Obama administration
would reconfirm its support for the dragnet collection of
telephone metadata, despite public outcry,” Rep. James
Sensenbrenner (Wisconsin) told Ackerman.
“It’s outrageous, and must be stopped immediately,” added
Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan).
But Rogers, Ruppersberger and others are adamant the NSA is doing
the right thing in the war on terror, and James Litt, the general
counsel for the Director of National Intelligence, defended the
surveillance practices as recently as Friday morning.
“We are trying to find out what happens before it
happens,” Litt said with regards to what some have called a
dragnet approach to surveillance.
Others, however, have faith that the backlash brought on by
Snowden’s leaks might be severe enough to trigger a change.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), a long-time critic
of the FISA Court, told the New York Times last week, “I have
a feeling that the administration is getting concerned about the
bulk phone records collection, and that they are thinking about
whether to move administratively to stop it.”
“I think we are making a comeback,” he said.
Republished with permission from: RT