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The head of the National Security Agency said last week that Congress might
want to aim the most powerful surveillance system in the world at American
citizens.
Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, in a rare public appearance before the Senate
Intelligence committee, said the ongoing terrorist threat means America
needs to debate where to draw the line between foreign and domestic
surveillance. Currently the NSA is prohibited from spying domestically.
Here's an excerpt:
"Where do we draw the line between the government's need for
(counter-terrorism) information about people in the United States and the
privacy interests of people located in the United States? This line-drawing
affects the focus of NSA's activities, foreign versus domestic... the type
of data NSA is permitted to collect and how, and the rules under which NSA
retains and disseminates information about U.S. persons."
Until the 1970s, when the Senate's Church Committee revealed what had been
going on in secret, the CIA and the NSA conducted illegal surveillance on
American citizens. In response, Congress enacted a series of reforms,
notably the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
"These are serious issues that the country addressed, and resolved to
its satisfaction, once before in the mid-1970's," Hayden said. "In light of
the events of September 11th, it is appropriate that we, as a country,
readdress them. We need to get it right."
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