American Congress Could Rein In NSA’s Domestic Surveillance

James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, believes that the American Congress could soon amend or even halt the domestic surveillance programs of the NSA according to the Washington Times.

“It’s very clear that — to the extent we get to keep these tools at all — they’re going to be legislatively amended”

Members of both the House and the Senate are working to reform section 215 of the Patriot Act that the NSA has used to secretly force telecommunications company to hand over bulk data to the agency. Despite all the revelations James Clapper still states that:

“I can guarantee you that the privacy of Americans is not being compromised”

If James Clapper’s above statement was truthful then it would be unlikely that congress would even have a need to reform and “rein in” the NSA’s activity – since there would be no need for the outrage we’ve seen if it respected privacy laws. There is no doubt that change will happening to the way the NSA operates in the USA, whether that change is enough to appease the majority is another matter entirely.

Image courtesy of REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque