May 25 2020 7 mins 9
"We've reached kind of an inflection point in the privacy debate," says Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). With Americans spending more time online than ever before during the COVID-19 pandemic, he worries that government surveillance of the internet matters more than over before. Before the Senate's May 14th vote to reauthorize the USA Freedom Act, formerly known as the Patriot Act, Wyden fought a losing battle to rein in the broad authority that it gives U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on the web activities of American citizens. "Americans shouldn't have their most intimate information…snooped over by the federal government without a warrant," says Wyden. "That [information] is private and personal. It might be your dating history. It might be religious beliefs. It might be your fears…It's like data mining of somebody's thoughts." The Democrat Wyden, along with his Republican colleague Steve Daines (Mont.), tried attaching an amendment to the bill that would've explicitly banned government agents from collecting Americans' web search histories without a warrant from a non-FISA court. It was defeated by a single vote. Now an anti-surveillance activist group called Fight for the Future is trying to convince Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and congressional Democrats to add the same amendment to the House version of the bill. But in a political world where Democrats regularly call the president a power-abusing authoritarian in the making, and Republicans bemoan a Deep State plot to take down Trump, there's still only weak support for concrete measures to rein in the post-9/11 surveillance state. "Nancy Pelosi has spent the last several years saying that this administration is dangerous. She impeached the president for abuse of power," says Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future. "If she doesn't take this opportunity to get this amendment in place that at least puts some limit on this administration's surveillance authority, it's hard not to feel like the entire 'resistance' rhetoric has been a bit of a scam." Greer says Wyden's introduction of the amendment could be a way of alerting the public that intelligence agencies have already been collecting U.S. citizens' web search data. Wyden can't say that explicitly because that information would be classified. "Senator Wyden has often been sort of a bit of a canary in the coal mine on things like this," says Greer. "He'll ask very specific questions of intelligence officials when they come to the Hill that sort of get at some of these things." One example was Wyden's questioning of former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in 2013 about the bulk collection of Americans' phone records. When Wyden directly asked Clapper "does the [National Security Agency] collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans," Clapper answered, "No, sir…not wittingly." Less than three months later, former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden provided journalists documents showing that the FBI and NSA collected millions of cell phone records. When Reason asked Wyden if he could provide evidence that the government has engaged in warrantless surveillance of Americans' web searches, he said that he could not discuss classified intelligence information but that he has put in requests for public disclosure of any practices of this sort. "I believe there's a [records] reporting requirement," says Wyden. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) opposed Wyden in the Senate, claiming that additional limitations to the nation's surveillance laws would "jeopardize important tools that keep America safe." Wyden says McConnell's claim is "flatly inaccurate" and that his amendment addresses McConnell's national security concerns because, during a crisis, law enforcement agencies would still be allowed to gather intelligence before obtaining a warrant. A more modest Senate amendment requiring FISA courts to hear analysis from opposing parties, su [...]
