A week ago, Wyden carefully lauded Obama’s promised reforms unveiled in a press conference just before he took off to Martha’s Vineyard for vacation. The senator stressed, though, that “notably absent from President Obama’s speech was any mention of closing the backdoor searches loophole that potentially allows for the warrantless searches of Americans’ phone calls and emails under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.”“I am also concerned that the executive branch has not fully acknowledged the extent to which violations of FISC orders and the spirit of the law have already had a significant impact on Americans’ privacy,” Wyden said Aug. 9.
PJ Media » Two Dems Warn NSA Violations Just ‘Tip of a Larger Iceberg’
By Bridget Johnson On August 16, 2013
WASHINGTON — A pair of civil-liberties Democrats whom the White House tried to appease in a closed-door meeting warned today that fresh reports of thousands of privacy violations by the National Security Agency are just the “tip of a larger iceberg.”
On Thursday, the Washington Post published its report [1] of a May 2012 audit leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden that found 2,776 violations over the previous year of executive orders and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provisions governing spying on Americans or foreign targets in the U.S. These included both computer and operator errors.
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) have been some of President Obama’s harshest critics — within his party and outside — on domestic spying. They were among allies and foes of the NSA programs summoned by Obama to the Oval Office [2] at the beginning of the month as he hoped to calm his detractors before promising new, vague reforms [3].
“The executive branch has now confirmed that the ‘rules, regulations and court-imposed standards for protecting the privacy of Americans’ have been violated thousands of times each year. We have previously said that the violations of these laws and rules were more serious than had been acknowledged, and we believe Americans should know that this confirmation is just the tip of a larger iceberg,” Wyden and Udall said in a joint statement this afternoon.
“While Senate rules prohibit us from confirming or denying some of the details in today’s press reports, the American people have a right to know more details about of these violations. We hope that the executive branch will take steps to publicly provide more information as part of the honest, public debate of surveillance authorities that the Administration has said it is interested in having.”
A week ago, Wyden carefully lauded Obama’s promised reforms unveiled in a press conference just before he took off to Martha’s Vineyard for vacation.
-go to links-
On Thursday, the Washington Post published its report [1] of a May 2012 audit leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden that found 2,776 violations over the previous year of executive orders and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provisions governing spying on Americans or foreign targets in the U.S. These included both computer and operator errors.
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) have been some of President Obama’s harshest critics — within his party and outside — on domestic spying. They were among allies and foes of the NSA programs summoned by Obama to the Oval Office [2] at the beginning of the month as he hoped to calm his detractors before promising new, vague reforms [3].
“The executive branch has now confirmed that the ‘rules, regulations and court-imposed standards for protecting the privacy of Americans’ have been violated thousands of times each year. We have previously said that the violations of these laws and rules were more serious than had been acknowledged, and we believe Americans should know that this confirmation is just the tip of a larger iceberg,” Wyden and Udall said in a joint statement this afternoon.
“While Senate rules prohibit us from confirming or denying some of the details in today’s press reports, the American people have a right to know more details about of these violations. We hope that the executive branch will take steps to publicly provide more information as part of the honest, public debate of surveillance authorities that the Administration has said it is interested in having.”
A week ago, Wyden carefully lauded Obama’s promised reforms unveiled in a press conference just before he took off to Martha’s Vineyard for vacation.
-go to links-
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