4 senators raise alarm about NSA collection of Americans’ e-mails, phone calls

Four Democratic senators have sent a letter to the director of national intelligence expressing concerns about the scope of the collection of Americans’ e-mails and phone calls under a National Security Agency program that targets foreigners overseas.

The lawmakers, led by Jon Tester (D-Mont.), told Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. that they were concerned by recent reports by The Washington Post and an independent executive branch panel about the surveillance.

The Post examined 160,000 communications intercepted under the program, which was authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as amended in 2008. The law does not require individualized warrants…

Tester and his colleagues wrote that while incidental collection of Americans’ data “may be unavoidable at the time of collection, we remain concerned that this personal data is being obtained and queried without a warrant, and stored for an unknown and possibly indefinite period of time.”

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/4-senators-worry-about-nsa-collection-of-americans-e-mails-phone-calls/2014/07/25/2ead676e-1422-11e4-8936-26932bcfd6ed_story.html