Intelligence Director Dan Coats Monday urged Congress to tread carefully as it considers imposing limitations on surveillance authorities enjoyed by the nation’s spy agencies for nearly a decade.
“This is clearly a major issue for the intelligence community,” Coats told a group of journalists at his office complex in suburban Virginia. “It’s one of our top priorities.”
The administration of President Donald Trump has called on Congress to renew and make permanent some powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expire at the end of this year. Those powers permit collection of electronic communications of foreigners who are deemed potential threats to U.S. national security, a list of targets that this year topped 106,000.
A scattering of legislators from both parties have called for limitations on surveillance power, voicing concerns from libertarian and civil liberties perspectives that U.S. citizens are getting swept up in the data collection.
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