Revelations over the weekend about the NSA’s foreign...

Revelations over the weekend about the NSA’s foreign Internet surveillance program’s collection of non-targeted American citizens’ electronic communications could have ramifications on the Hill, Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) President Ed Black told us Monday. The Washington Post reported Sunday that nine of 10 account holders whose information was collected by the NSA’s surveillance program authorized under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) were not the intended surveillance target (http://wapo.st/1xyyGZF). And nearly half of the surveillance files contained personal information of U.S. citizens or residents, The Post said. Although the NSA “masked” the information of 65,000 of the personal details about Americans, the Post uncovered 900 email addresses that could be “strongly linked” to U.S. citizens or residents. “We target only valid foreign intelligence targets under that authority, and the most that you could conclude from these news reports is that each valid foreign intelligence target talks to an average of nine people,” said Office of the Director of National Intelligence Robert Litt in a statement. Black said Litt was downplaying the report’s importance. “It’s noteworthy that it shows such a broad impact on what are clearly just average American citizens,” Black told us. Government surveillance can be esoteric and confusing, Black said, and these revelations make the issue “clearer” and lets “the broad public get a feel of the breadth of impact of innocent civilians.” This may lead to more pressure on lawmakers to enact strict surveillance legislation, he said. Privacy and industry representatives were critical of the House-passed surveillance reform bill, the USA Freedom Act (HR-3361) (CD May 23 p9), saying it was too watered down to meaningfully change government surveillance programs. CCIA -- whose members include Google, Facebook, Yahoo and other tech companies -- withdrew its support of the bill after its passage in the House. “Legislators will be reminded by [these revelations] that we need to be very careful when enacting legislation to minimize the existence of language which could be seen as loopholes,” said Black. The House later passed an amendment to its appropriations bill prohibiting the NSA from using funds to do warrantless searches of information collected under Section 702 searches (CD June 23 p14). The Senate is considering its own version of the USA Freedom Act (S-1599). “As we have always said, we also incidentally intercept the communications of persons in contact with valid foreign intelligence targets,” said an NSA spokeswoman. “That’s why Congress required that there be rules minimizing the collection, retention, and dissemination of information about U.S. persons.” The NSA pointed to a recent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board report, which said the 702 report was legal, and had robust protection of Americans’ civil liberties (CD July 3 p5). CCIA’s Black countered: “The extent to which some people are covered is something the NSA, the intelligence community, has not been anxious to highlight."