NSA
Does Not Deny Spying On Congress: Members Have 'Same Privacy Protections' As
All Americans
Hours
after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) questioned whether members of
Congress are subject to the NSA's spying, the agency response revealed anything but a denial.
In a statement obtained by the Huffington
Post on Saturday, an NSA spokesperson said that members of Congress "have
the same privacy protections as all U.S. persons," adding that
"transparency" is present between the two entities.
NSA’s authorities to collect signals intelligence data
include procedures that protect the privacy of U.S. persons. Such protections
are built into and cut across the entire process. Members of Congress have the
same privacy protections as all U.S. persons. NSA is fully committed to
transparency with Congress. Our interaction with Congress has been extensive
both before and since the media disclosures began last June. We are reviewing
Sen. Sanders’s letter now, and we will continue to work to ensure that all
Members of Congress, including Sen. Sanders, have information about NSA’s
mission, authorities, and programs to fully inform the discharge of their
duties.
Under Sanders' definition, "spying" includes gathering metadata
from personal or official phones, along with“any other data from a third party
not made available to the general public in the regular course of
business." The metadata classification has been considered by the NSA as
not counting as "spying."
Sanders' letter
arrived on the same day that the NSA's phone records program was reauthorized by the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court. It is
the 36th time that a
renewal has occurred.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/04/nsa-spying-congress_n_4542294.html?utm_hp_ref=nsa
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