September 10, 2013

Dear Mr. [removed]:

Thank you for your recent email/letter expressing concern about reports published in the Guardian and the Washington Post, and acknowledged by the Obama Administration, which reveal secret spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on phone records and Internet activity of people in the United States.

As you know, the first of the recent leaks in the Guardian involved the unauthorized disclosure of a classified FISA Court order that directed a telecommunications service provider to produce call metadata records to the NSA under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the government to collect "business records" pursuant to a FISA Court order. We now know that NSA used Sec. 215 to collect metadata on every phone call that every American has made, reportedly over the last seven years. That data includes numbers dialed, numbers of incoming calls, times of the calls, and routing information.

A second unauthorized disclosure of classified documents regarding the PRISM computer collection system was featured in the Washington Post. The PRISM computer collection activity is done pursuant to Section 702 of FISA that allows the government to target the communications of non-US persons who are located outside the U.S.

It's clear that oversight of the NSA and the broader intelligence community has failed. I fear the NSA has abused its power and lost the trust of many Americans. Congress needs to re-examine its relationship to the intelligence community if we are going to restore confidence that privacy rights are protected in this country.

I have long opposed and voted against reauthorizing the FISA bill that gives the federal government such sweeping powers to gather information from foreign and domestic sources while providing little or no justification for the national security value of that information. Asa a newly elected Member in 2008, I feared expansion of the Patriot Act and FISA Court would lead to abuses, and it has. I believe that when law-abiding Americans call their friends, who they call, when they call, and where they call from is private information. Collecting this data about every single phone call that every American makes every day is a massive invasion of Americans' privacy. FISA also permits the collection of Americans' emails if they are communicating with someone outside of the U.S., which is even more insidious because the World Wide Web has no area codes, so it is impossible to tell where email communications originate from. It has now been revealed that thousands of emails of Americans have been "inadvertently" collected despite having no connection to any foreign target.

This and the previous administration have used these new powers enacted in the wake of 9/11 to snoop and spy in areas where they have no business looking. We should not be trading in our privacy for "security" practices of questionable value.

It is for these reasons that I voted for an amendment offered by Representatives Amash and Conyers to the Fiscal Year 2014 Defense Appropriations bill. The Amash-Conyers amendment would have limited NSA's ability to collect bulk telecommunications records pursuant to Section 215 of the Patriot Act to those records that pertain to a person who is subject to an investigation under that section. Although the amendment was defeated 205-217, it is clear that many members of Congress remain concerned about the continued implementation of the program in its current form. Many Members who voted for the Patriot Act, including the past chairman of the law's authorizing committee, have stated that NSA's blanket surveillance program is far beyond what was intended in the law.

I have also co-sponsored two bills to require greater transparency in the FISA Court opinions and actions. HR 2399, the Limiting Internet and Blanket Electronic Review of Telecommunications and Email Act, or LIBERT-E Act, introduced by Representatives Conyers and Amash, would require the government to present at least "specific and articulable" facts to the FISA court that show that the desired information is "relevant and material" to an authorized investigation, and that the data pertain only to individuals under investigation. Federal courts created the "specific and articulable" standard decades ago to review certain police searches. It's the same standard federal investigators must meet to access other electronic communications. By creating a tighter link between the data and the person under investigation, we can help prevent the indiscriminate surveillance of innocent Americans.

The Ending Secret Law Act (Schiff), which I have also cosponsored, would require greater disclosure of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinions. "Secret law" is anathema to our democratic traditions. The public debate about these NSA programs is based on a limited and incomplete understanding of the intelligence collection and surveillance programs in effect. The bill requires the federal government to release significant opinions of the FISA court, which to date has operated in complete secrecy from the American public. Congress and the American people must know how the law is being interpreted to have an informed debate about surveillance and personal liberty. In addition, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court must be privy to the NSA's actions and no longer reliant on the NSA's self-reporting.

I agree with you that the type of blanket data collection by the government revealed under Sections 215 and 702 strikes at bedrock American values of freedom and privacy. The NSA's sweeping access to phone and internet data is a disturbing trend in privacy erosion under the guise of national security. The American people should not have to trade privacy for security—and I will continue to fight for greater transparency and accountability in these programs.

Thank you again for taking the time to write to me. I greatly value the letters I receive from my constituents and use them to better inform my decision making process. I hope you will continue to call or write me in the future on matters important to you.

All the best,

Jackie Speier

Member of Congress