US House passes bill to renew NSA Internet spying tool

WASHINGTON: The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill to renew the National Security Agency’s warrantless Internet surveillance programme, overcoming objections from privacy advocates and confusion prompted by morning tweets from President Donald Trump that initially questioned the spying tool.

The legislation, which passed 256-164 and split party lines, is the culmination of a yearslong debate in Congress on the proper scope of US intelligence collection — one fuelled by the 2013 disclosures of classified surveillance secrets by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Senior Democrats in the US House of Representatives had urged cancellation of the vote after Trump appeared to cast doubt on the merits of the programme, but Republicans forged ahead.

Trump initially said on Twitter that the surveillance programme, first created in secret after the September 11, 2001, attacks and later legally authorised by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, had been used against him but later said it was needed.

Some conservative, libertarian-leaning Republicans and liberal Democrats attempted to persuade colleagues to include more privacy protections. They failed on Thursday to pass an amendment to include a warrant requirement before the NSA or other intelligence agencies could scrutinise communications be- longing to Americans whose data is incidentally collected.

The bill as passed by the House would extend the NSA’s spying programme for six years with minimal changes. Some privacy groups said it would actually expand the NSA’s surveillance powers.

Most lawmakers expect it to become law, although it still would require Senate approval and Trump’s signature.

Before the vote a tweet from Trump had contradicted the official White House position and renewed unsubstantiated allegations that the previous administration of Barack Obama improperly surveilled his campaign during the 2016 election.

“This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others?” the president said in a tweet.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request to clarify Trump’s tweet but he posted a clarification less than two hours later.

“With that being said, I have personally directed the fix to the unmasking process since taking office and today’s vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land. We need it! Get smart!” Trump tweeted. Unmasking refers to the largely separate issue of how Americans’ names kept secret in intelligence reports can be revealed.