Letter from Earl

September 12, 2012

U.S. intelligence gathering operations are endangering America’s civil liberties and our fiscal responsibilities. Today, the House voted to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act (FAA) for another 5 years. This legislation, which I opposed, is a misguided attempt to strengthen and protect the privacy of American citizens that actually imperils our essential freedoms.

The FAA authorizes the federal government to conduct electronic surveillance of persons “reasonably” believed to be outside the United States through June 1, 2017. That means that anyone inside the U.S. making a call or sending an email to someone outside of the U.S. could also be subject to surveillance. The degree to which this happens, how the information is used, or how long it’s stored is unknown, even to the National Security Agency.

I remain confident that the dedicated members of the intelligence community do not need to violate the rights of Americans in order to protect them. Some say that the enemies of America take on many forms. To them I say: Let us be sure one of those forms is not our own government.

Any gains in security that were achieved through a blanket extension of the FAA are temporary and are more than outweighed by the longer-term loss of civil liberties. The right approach would be refining this bill, and more broadly, taking a hard look at what, over the last decade, has become an intelligence community that’s too big and too powerful for its own good.

In the wake of 9/11, we correctly made reforms to our intelligence community, but we also opened funding floodgates and that need to be closed. We currently spend close to $80 billion a year on intelligence gathering in the U.S. That’s more than Russia spends in an entire year on its military. Congress needs to work harder to reverse this dangerous trend. Our civil liberties and our financial stability depend on it. Our country deserves better.

Thank you very much,





Earl Blumenauer
Member of Congress

Earl is my personal emissary to Congress.