A late-night release of government reports on two Central Intelligence Agency programs has revealed that the organization is most likely collecting more data on American …
A late-night release of government reports on two Central Intelligence Agency programs has revealed that the organization is most likely collecting more data on American citizens than previously known. The revelations have prompted calls from civil rights organizations and privacy hawks in Congress for legislative action to strengthen protections for Americans. Both reports conducted by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), a watchdog created after 9/11 to ensure counter-terror investigations did not jeopardize privacy or civil liberties, looked into two programs conducted under Executive Order 12333 authority. The Reagan-era presidential directive established a framework for data collection by the intelligence community during foreign missions. When Edward Snowden almost a decade ago revealed the extent of warrantless bulk data collection by the government, Congress responded by banning collection under a separate statute focused on domestic activities, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). While Congress left EO 12333 alone, civil liberties experts were concerned that intelligence agencies could still be collecting American data despite the new restrictions on FISA, especially since in the digital era data is far less restricted by borders. “With the revolution in communications technology, our communications, our data, floats all over the world, on its way to where it’s going and gets stored all over the world,” said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. “Under Executive Order 12333 in general the government is not allowed to target particular Americans or U.S. persons,” she continued. “But it hardly matters anymore because if the government can conduct bulk surveillance and bulk collection overseas it’s going to pick up American’s data in the process.” The redacted reports, called “Deep Dives” by the PCLOB, are the first time those fears have been officially confirmed. “Most Americans probably think and assume that government surveillance affecting their own information and data is subject to oversight by Congress and the courts,” Goitein explained. “And they have reason to assume that because there are laws that would seem to indicate as much — but there are loopholes in those laws that the government could be exploiting and these reports confirm that that’s exactly what the government is doing.
