Hang up on NSA phone tracking: Our view
The Editorial Board11:08 p.m. EST December 15, 2015
Panic over San Bernardino is no reason to resurrect government snooping.
Within days of the murder of 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., by Islamic State sympathizers, a number of Republican senators are moving to resurrect a truly bad idea. Once again, they want to allow the National Security Agency to sweep up the phone records of virtually all Americans.
The once-secret "metadata" program, which
a federal appeals court found amounted to “sweeping surveillance” of Americans’ data in “staggering” volumes, ended in November,
four days before the San Bernardino massacre. Now, some of the program’s supporters are playing on the fears created by the California attack to try to bring the intrusive program back to life.
In fact, the program had been operating for nine years before Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, murdered 14 people at a holiday party. It was operating when they were married, when she came to the U.S. and when, according to news reports, Farook had contacts with
six people whom federal authorities had scrutinized for possible terrorism ties.
The metadata program —
first revealed in 2006 by USA TODAY and
confirmed in 2013 by fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden — apparently picked up none of it. That's neither a black mark on the program nor a reason to think its absence for a few days contributed to the attack.
Even so, a measure to put the old program back in operation
at least until early 2017 is being pushed by Republican senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida, who’s seeking the Republican presidential nomination.
At Tuesday night’s GOP debate, Rubio argued that the metadata program was “a valuable tool we no longer have at our disposal” and warned that a failure to prevent a future attack “better not be” because the NSA couldn’t quickly access this kind of data. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie agreed it ought to be restored. Both ignore reality.
Reviving the program would take the country back to the panicked weeks after 9/11, when Congress gave the intelligence community all sorts of secret surveillance tools involving phone data, cellphones and emails. When the program was publicly confirmed in 2013, it created a furor. A federal judge said it was likely unconstitutional. President Obama vowed to end it. In June, Congress approved a compromise alternative
by a healthy bipartisan majority.
The alternative still allows the NSA to check metadata — the number you called, when you called and how long you talked — with two key changes. It must get a court order first and get the data from telephone companies. The big difference: The NSA cannot vacuum up masses of data and keep them in-house.
History demonstrates that once such government collections start, they are hard to contain and are prone to abuse. The mere existence of such a database can reveal a lot, including whether you call a psychiatrist, an abortion clinic, a lover, a criminal defense lawyer, a political organization or a house of worship. While there have been no reports of abuse, it's not hard to imagine a future president, with the paranoid tendencies of a Richard Nixon, misusing such tools against political enemies and journalists.
Foes of the new arrangement insist that the government will have access to less data. But the
director of national intelligence said the volume of records is "greater," and
FBI Director James Comey told Congress he also expects more to be available. Previously, the government did not have access to records from all companies, and some mobile phone records had been out or reach. Now, all companies must comply with orders seeking records.
Did the previous, much debated program keep America safe? The NSA's reply was to exaggerate its benefits. Officials first claimed it helped disrupt more than 50 "
potential terrorist events" since 9/11. Then the claim was it had "
made a contribution" in 12 cases.
Exaggeration raises questions not only about this program but also about the intelligence community's credibility. Too many times in recent years, intelligence officials have either failed to assess a crucial situation accurately — foremost whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 — or been caught misleading the public.
Before charging off to recreate an intrusive program that two years of questioning, study and compromise put to rest, politicians might want to beef up the visa background checks that missed Malik's postings on social media supporting violent jihad. They might also give the new metadata system a chance. Winning the war against terrorism requires not only preventing attacks but also protecting America's values.
USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/12/15/phone-metadata-nsa-san-bernardino-terrorists-attacks-isil-editorials-debates/76337140/
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