WASHINGTON – The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill torenew the National Security Agency’s warrantless internet surveillanceprogram, overcoming objections from privacy advocates and confusionprompted by morning tweets from President Donald Trump that initiallyquestioned the spying tool.
The legislation, which passed 256-164 and split party lines, is theculmination of a yearslong debate in Congress on the proper scope of USintelligence collection – one fueled by the 2013 disclosures of classifiedsurveillance secrets by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Senior Democrats in the US House of Representatives had urged cancellationof the vote after Trump appeared to cast doubt on the merits of theprogram, but Republicans forged ahead.
Trump initially said on Twitter that the surveillance program, firstcreated in secret after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and later legallyauthorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, hadbeen used against him but later said it was needed.
Some conservative, libertarian-leaning Republicans and liberal Democratsattempted to persuade colleagues to include more privacy protections. Theyfailed on Thursday to pass an amendment to include a warrant requirementbefore the NSA or other intelligence agencies could scrutinizecommunications belonging to Americans whose data is incidentally collected.
The bill as passed by the House would extend the NSA’s spying program forsix years with minimal changes. Some privacy groups said it would actuallyexpand the NSA’s surveillance powers.
Most lawmakers expect it to become law, although it still would requireSenate approval and Trump’s signature.
Before the vote a tweet from Trump had contradicted the official WhiteHouse position and renewed unsubstantiated allegations that the previousadministration of Barack Obama improperly surveilled his campaign duringthe 2016 election.
“This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discreditedand phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by theprevious administration and others?” the president said in a tweet.“WE NEED IT!”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request to clarify Trump’stweet but he posted a clarification less than two hours later.
“With that being said, I have personally directed the fix to the unmaskingprocess since taking office and today’s vote is about foreign surveillanceof foreign bad guys on foreign land. We need it! Get smart!” Trump tweeted.
Unmasking refers to the largely separate issue of how Americans’ names keptsecret in intelligence reports can be revealed.
Asked by Reuters at a conference in New York about Trump’s tweets, RobJoyce, the top White House cyber official, said there was no confusionwithin Oval Office about the value of the surveillance program and thatthere have been no cases of it being used improperly for political purposes.
The White House, US intelligence agencies and Republican leaders inCongress have said they consider the tool indispensable and in need oflittle or no revision.
Without congressional action, legal support for Section 702 of the ForeignIntelligence Surveillance Act, which authorizes the program, will expirenext week, although intelligence officials say it could continue throughApril.
Section 702 allows the NSA to eavesdrop on vast amounts of digitalcommunications from foreigners living outside the United States through UScompanies such as Facebook Inc (FB.O), Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N)and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google.
The spying program also incidentally scoops up communications of Americansif they communicate with a foreign target living overseas, and can searchthose messages without a warrant.