A top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee reminded the White House on Friday that it has an obligation to declassify “novel” interpretations of the Constitution that enable the feds to engage in mass surveillance.
“Recent reports of a mass email scanning program have alleged that federal law is being interpreted in ways that many Americans would find surprising and troubling,” Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden said in a statement. “The USA Freedom Act requires the executive branch to declassify Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinions that involve novel interpretations of laws or the Constitution and I certainly expect the executive branch to follow this law.”
Reuters reported on Tuesday that the FISC had issued a 2015 order asking Yahoo to write software enabling law enforcement officials to scan customer emails. Reuters indicated the court acted according to Section 702 authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but later withdrew that claim, clarifying that the FISA provision that had been used was unclear.
The court, authorized under the 1978 FISA statutes, is responsible for issuing classified authorities where the feds believe disclosure would risk national security. The executive branch is responsible for eventually declassifying those opinions when they constitute an unusual interpretation of the Constitution, but critics contend performance of that obligation has largely suffered in the wake of the war on terrorism.
Yahoo issued a statement Wednesday that took issue with the claim it built software to facilitate government surveillance, but was vague on further details. “We narrowly interpret every government request for user data to minimize disclosure,” the company said. “The mail scanning described in the article does not exist on our systems.”
