Key lawmakers are pushing to end a long-troubled NSA surveillance program that gathers records of Americans’ telephone calls and text messages
Key House and Senate lawmakers are pushing to end a long-troubled National Security Agency surveillance program that gathers records of Americans’ telephone calls and text messages in search of potential terrorist connections.
Longtime privacy advocates on the Hill are seizing on this momentum to kill the program they’ve argued is ineffective and violates Americans’ rights before the statute authorizing it expires on March 15. The panels are writing a “proposal that will both renew authorities necessary to the protection of national security, while also bolstering additional privacy and transparency safeguards where appropriate,” a senior Democratic House Intelligence Committee official told POLITICO.
The NSA gained the ability to access and analyze Americans’ domestic calling records shortly after 9/11. Established in secret, the program was designed to vacuum up metadata — the numbers and time stamps for calls or text messages but not the actual content — so the agency could sift for links among possible associates of terror suspects.
The administration had been quiet about its intentions for the future of the program. That’s a contrast to 2017 when the White House and the intelligence community successfully pressed lawmakers to renew a separate set of warrantless programs that intercept digital traffic of foreign targets while collecting personal information on Americans.
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