Is the government still in the “incidental collection” game over your foreign conversations? Well if they are, they ain’t keeping track of how many they have so far – PB/TK
Efforts to estimate scope of FISA intrusion on Americans halts under Trump administration – By Alex Swoyer / July 16 2017
The Obama administration was on track to come up with an estimate of how many Americans’ information is snared by the government’s foreign surveillance — then the Trump administration took over and things got bogged down.
Now that has turned into a significant hiccup as the intelligence community asks Congress to renew those surveillance powers before they expire at the end of the year.
Some powerful members of Congress have demanded that the Trump administration restart efforts to come up with an estimate, saying Americans deserve to know who, exactly, is being caught up in the U.S. dragnet on electronic communications.
Without it, some of them say, it could be tough to continue the surveillance programs — or at least will require some serious restrictions.
“Congress must reauthorize the program, but knowing the scope of incidental collection will help us determine what, if any, additional privacy protections are needed to ensure we honor the Fourth Amendment,” said Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican who has been at the forefront of these issues since writing the original Patriot Act in 2001. “If the administration does not disclose the scope of the intrusion, Congress should assume the worst and pursue more restrictive protections for Americans’ data.”
Continue to washingtontimes.com article: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/16/estimate-of-fisa-intrusion-halts-under-trump-admin/
