SurveillanceAngry lawmakers warn NSA to curb surveillance operations
John Inglis, the deputy director of the National Security Agency (NSA), told angry lawmakers yesterday that his agency’s ability to analyze phone records and online behavior is greater than what the agency had previously revealed. Inglis told members of the House Judiciary Committee that NSA analysts can perform “a second or third hop query” through its collections of telephone data and Internet records in order to find connections to terrorist organizations. Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin), the author of the 2001 Patriot Act, warned the intelligence officials testifying before the committee that unless they rein in the scope of their surveillance on Americans’ phone records, “There are not the votes in the House of Representatives” to renew the provision after its 2015 expiration. “You’re going to lose it entirely,” he said.
John Inglis, the deputy director of the National Security Agency (NSA) told angry lawmakers yesterday that his agency’s ability to analyze phone records and online behavior is greater than what the agency had previously revealed.
Inglis told members of the House Judiciary Committee that NSA analysts can perform “a second or third hop query” through its collections of telephone data and Internet records in order to find connections to terrorist organizations.
The Guardian reports that “hops” is a technical term indicating connections between people. A three-hop query means that the NSA can look at data not only from a suspected terrorist, but from everyone that suspect communicated with, and then from everyone those people communicated with, and then from everyone all of those people communicated with.
Inglis did not offer more details, and panel members, even those who expressed concern with the NSA’s surveillance reach, did not explore the implications of the “three-hop” analysis.
Inglis and other intelligence officials testifying before the panel stressed, though, that the NSA, in querying the data, follows rules set by the FISA court.
Yesterday’s followed the 18 June hearing was the second major public congressional hearing about the NSA’s surveillance.
Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin), the author of the 2001 Patriot Act, said that no one in Congress believed that the counterterrorism laws enacted since the 9/11 attacks were meant to allow for the collection of phone records of virtually everyone in America.
Sensenbrenner warned the intelligence officials that unless they rein in the scope of their surveillance on Americans’ phone records, “There are not the votes in the House of Representatives” to renew the provision after its 2015 expiration.
“You’re going to lose it entirely,” Sensenbrenner said
“The government is stockpiling sensitive personal data on a grand scale,” said Representative Ted Deutch (D-Florida). “Intelligence officers, contractors and personnel only need a rubber-stamp warrant from the FISA court to then learn virtually everything there is to know about an American citizen,” he said.
Inglis and deputy attorney general James Cole argued that the NSA’s surveillance was limited because the agency only searches through its databases of phone records when it has a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” of a connection to terrorism.
Committee members were skeptical.
“The statute says ‘collection’,” Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) told Cole. “You’re trying to confuse us by talking use.”
Representative Ted Poe (R-Texas), a judge, said: “I hope as we move forward as a Congress we rein in the idea that it’s OK to
