Last week, federal officials from several spy agencies engaged in a full court press in Washington, spinning facts before media outlets, flooding Capitol Hill with lobbyists and bringing lawmakers to the National Security Agency’s (NSA) Ft. Meade headquarters to feed them selective information about their unconstitutional mass surveillance activities. Predictably omitted from these conversations are the many Americans from across the political spectrum who have raised concerns, ranging from constitutional and commercial to security-related, that have rightfully dogged federal mass surveillance efforts since their revelations — not in official proceedings, but rather by whistleblowers — in 2005 and 2013.
Rather than embrace bipartisan calls for long overdue and constitutionally necessary limits, executive officials have instead chosen to shoot the proverbial messengers, vilifying whistleblowers and building new programs to prevent others from ever coming forward. Last week’s meetings included claims that particular examples of mass surveillance proved useful, ignoring its repeated failures. While the appearance of security may be comforting to some, NSA veterans have identified discarded programs that, relative to their replacements, reportedly did a better job of protecting national security while also protecting the privacy of Americans by encrypting data collected within the US and requiring a warrant for investigators to access it.
Meanwhile, too many members of Congress from all parties remain excessively deferential to the intelligence community, despite Congress mustering a bipartisan majority to enact preliminary reforms in 2013, and the House approving even more sweeping changes in their wake. Even though the scheduled expiration of a key statute — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — looms mere months away, congressional committees have yet to hold hearings to get beyond executive talking points…