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Fnord666 writes:

In 2013, a National Security Agency contractor named Edward Snowden revealed US surveillance programs that involved the massive and warrantless gathering of Americans' electronic communications. Two of the programs, called Upstream and Prism, are allowed under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That section expires at year's end, and President Donald Trump's administration, like his predecessor's administration, wants the law renewed so those snooping programs can continue.

That said, even as the administration seeks renewal of the programs, Congress and the public have been left in the dark regarding questions surrounding how many Americans' electronic communications have been ensnared under the programs. Congress won't be told in a classified setting either, despite repeated requests.

Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan and member of the House Judiciary Committee, told a panel hearing last week that Congress needed the numbers to help it decide whether to reauthorize the programs.

"The members of this committee and the public at large require that estimate to engage in a meaningful debate," he said.

This isn't the first time lawmakers have been stonewalled on the issue. Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had asked for the information in 2011, 2012, and 2014, and he's renewing the request again. Despite the lack of information, Congress has repeatedly renewed the programs even before Snowden revealed them.

"I and other members of Congress have been seeking an answer to this question since 2011. We posed the question again in the context of the reauthorization of Section 702. It is now central to the debate this year over the reauthorization of the program, which you have described as your 'top legislative priority,'" Wyden wrote in a letter to Daniel Coats, Trump's nominee for director of national intelligence.

Source: ArsTechnica

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