 Credit Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) for leading a task force of the House Oversight Committee to declassify federal secrets, including files concerning the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The scope of Rep. Luna’s inquiry, approved by committee Chair James Comer (R-KY), will also examine the reach of Jeffrey Epstein’s vile activities, as well as government records on unidentified aerial phenomenon. We urge Chairman Comer, Rep. Luna, and the other members of her task force to consider including in their declassification task force another matter of deep interest to the American people – key facts that reveal the extent of the American surveillance state and, especially, the extent to which it surveils Americans. Digital Data Purchases One area ripe for investigation is the common government practice of purchasing the personal digital data of Americans, scraped from apps and sold by data brokers. The FBI, IRS, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security routinely buy our most sensitive and personal information and examine it without a warrant. We urge Rep. Luna to work to unearth:
What Is the Proposed “Fix” in the “Make Everyone a Spy” Law About? Another area that cries out for transparency was the subject of a measure passed by Congress last April, which is widely called the “Make Everyone a Spy.” This law broadens the definition of an “electronic communications service provider” to practically any business or house of worship that offers free Wi-Fi. Falling under this definition obligates a business to secretly spy on its customers for the National Security Agency. At the time of passage, Congress promised to narrow the scope of this law to types of companies defined in rulings by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court that were previously excluded from this law. This fix was nixed in the House, leaving the most expansive version of the law imaginable, hence the popular moniker – Make Everyone a Spy. These companies are widely believed – and even hinted at in open debate on the Senate floor – to be providers of cloud storage. We urge Rep. Luna and her colleagues to work to make public the nature of the proposed legislative fix. Such a disclosure would inform future debate in Congress over the scope of this ECSP provision, which has enormous implications for Americans’ privacy. Topline Numbers on FISA Section 702 Yet another area that needs greater transparency is the impact of government surveillance under FISA Section 702. This law was enacted by Congress to enable surveillance of foreigners on foreign soil. But in recent years it has been used to search for the communications of millions of Americans “incidentally” caught up in this foreign surveillance program.
This information is essential for an informed debate when Congress next considers the reauthorization of Section 702 in early 2026. Spying on Members of Congress There are also clear signs the intelligence agencies have spied on Members of Congress by “unmasking” their identities in foreign communications, and possibly examining their communications by tapping into the “upstream” backbone of the internet. We urge Rep. Luna to:
Years of Freedom of Information Act requests and subsequent lawsuits by our organization and our civil liberties peers have rarely been met with substantive answers. There is no reason why the Congress and the American people do not already know the answers to these questions, none of which would compromise national secrets or intelligence “sources and methods.” Chairman Comer, Rep. Luna, and the other members of the task force have a priceless opportunity to use their deep dive into the government’s sea of secrets to inform Congress and the American people of the nature and extent of federal surveillance of Americans. Comments are closed.
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