Spies might be made out of regular employees at US companies if the recently proposed and approved legislation by the House Intelligence Committee greatly expands the federal government's surveillance powers, experts warn.
The legislation, called H.R. 6611 or the "HPSCI bill," is said to be aimed at updating Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. Section 702 was enacted to empower the National Security Agency (NSA) to intercept data related to suspected terrorists abroad. Such surveillance, however, has resulted in the widespread acquisition of domestic data as well. Without a warrant, agencies such as the FBI used data gathered under 702 to target Americans.
Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) introduced the bill, which was approved by committee on December 7.
Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the non-profit Brennan Centre for Justice's Liberty and National Security Programme, was among many who raised concerns about the so-called reform after a section representing "the biggest expansion of surveillance inside the United States since the Patriot Act" was discovered.
“Through a seemingly innocuous change to the definition of ‘electronic service communications provider,’ the bill vastly expands the universe of U.S. businesses that can be conscripted to aid the government in conducting surveillance,” Goitein stated.
Currently, Section 702 allows the government to compel businesses with direct access to communications—like emails, phone calls, or texts—to share data.
However, Goitein notes that under Section 504 of the HPSCI bill, any organisation having access to devices that store or transfer communications would likewise have to abide by requests for surveillance.
“Hotels, libraries, coffee shops, and other places that offer wifi to their customers could be forced to serve as surrogate spies,” Goitein continued. “They could be required to configure their systems to ensure that they can provide the government access to entire streams of communications.”
Goitein went on to say that even a repairman trying to fix your home internet router might be forced into spying on you.
The bill's advocates have vehemently denied that Section 504 would be enforced so loosely. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), however, even criticised the bill on his meme account.
“If this bill were to pass, and you went to McDonald’s and used the McDonald’s wifi service, the NSA could go to McDonald’s and obtain that wifi data—without a warrant,” Lee wrote.
Goitein claims that despite the sponsors of the bill's assurances, the government's past performance shows that it cannot be trusted with such authority.