Eight Senators left angry by the breadth of secret US surveillance programs introduced a bipartisan bill Tuesday aimed at helping Americans know more about the government’s spy efforts.
The main sponsors, Democrat Jeff Merkley and Republican Mike Lee, joined up in fury at the “secret law” that gives intelligence agencies authority to scoop up massive amounts of data including phone records and emails.
The bill seeks greater transparency of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Patriot Act, which paved the way to broad-brush surveillance programs exposed last week by a National Security Agency contractor.
“Americans deserve to know how much information about their private communications the government believes it’s allowed to take under the law,” Merkley said in a statement, adding that there was room for debate without compromising sources or “tipping our hand to our enemies.”
“We can’t have a serious debate about how much surveillance of Americans’ communications should be permitted without ending secret law,” he said.
Merkley and Lee’s plan also seeks to compel US Attorney General Eric Holder to declassify key opinions by the FISA court, which in recent years has granted thousands of warrants allowing intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA) to trawl data from foreign nationals and US citizens.
Veteran Senate Democrat Patrick Leahy has backed the bill, as has Democrat Ron Wyden, who for years has complained about domestic surveillance abuses.
Several measures were introduced in recent years to curb the authority of spy agencies to snoop on people, but they were defeated in the Senate.
Meanwhile debate has swirled over what to do with the leaker, Edward Snowden, who has gone to ground in Hong Kong.
Two Democrats, Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein and Senator Bill Nelson, denounced Snowden’s actions as “treason” and demanded he be extradited.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner branded Snowden a “traitor” and said his action “puts Americans at risk.”
But Republican Senator Rand Paul said fault lies with government overreach. He wants to overturn FISA court decisions and pledged to go to the Supreme Court if necessary.
“Our lives are now so digitized that the government going from computer to computer or phone to phone is the modern equivalent of the same type of tyranny that our founders rebelled against,” Paul wrote in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal.
Senators seek declassification of US snooping rulings
