House Lawmakers Press DNI Clapper for Number of Americans Spied Upon
Fourteen members of the House Judiciary Committee are pressing Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for the number of Americans whose phone calls and electronic communications are being monitored every year, to ensure that privacy protections are working as designed.…
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The lawmakers, including ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., said in a four-page letter sent Friday to Clapper that the information is necessary to perform oversight of the Prism and upstream surveillance programs conducted under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act, which is scheduled to sunset at the end of 2017. "We note that we are not the first to ask you for this basic information," they wrote in the letter obtained and published by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. The law and policy group is part of a coalition that has been pushing Clapper since October for information about how Section 702 affects Americans (see 1601130044). The House lawmakers said people are concerned the programs may not be adequately protecting people's privacy or civil liberties even though intelligence community leaders said the government minimizes collection of information on Americans. "Even a rough estimate of the number of U.S. persons impacted by these programs will help us to evaluate these claims," wrote the lawmakers, saying Clapper previously said an estimate is feasible. The lawmakers said they're willing to work with Clapper's office to determine a rough estimate and to implement safeguards to minimize privacy concerns that might come up in reviewing actual acquired communications when producing an estimate. Lawmakers are asking Clapper for a plan to provide the information by May 6. Eight Democrats and six Republicans on the committee made the request.