Democrats and Republicans teamed up to blast the FBI on Wednesday, using a government audit on facial recognition capabilities to suggest that surveillance reform could be in the offing.
The Bureau has been the target of anger from both parties over the past few months, with criminal investigations impacting presidential politics like they haven’t since the Nixon Era. House Oversight Committee chair Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) brought up some of the recent displeasure from conservatives, in a hearing before the panel.
“Somebody decided to take off that veil and release that out to the public,” Chaffetz said, referring to leaked wiretaps revealing inconsistencies in White House claims about now-former National Security Advisor, Gen. Michael Flynn. The published intercepts revealed Flynn had been talking to Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak between President Trump’s election and his inauguration. Flynn and the administration had claimed otherwise.
“Now we’re supposed to trust you with hundreds of millions of faces,” Chaffetz told FBI Deputy Assistant Director Kimberly Del Greco.
Chaffetz had mentioned “Section 702,” which refers to a law that allows intelligence agents to conduct penetrating digital surveillance on foreign targets and their contacts within the United States. It expires in December.
Though the authorities do not permit the “targeting” of US communications, privacy can be “incidentally” violated. Congress has been asking the intelligence community for years to reveal how often these incidental violations take place, but lawmakers have yet to receive an answer, as. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said just last week.
Chaffetz is the second high-profile Republican to question Section 702 this week, in the wake of right-wing outrage over the Flynn leaks. Former House Benghazi Committee chair Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said Monday that renewal of the authorities is “in jeopardy.”
Later in Wednesday’s hearing, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) also said that facial recognition technology (FRT) access and database collection should be subject to warrant requirements. Lynch brought up mass surveillance of protests making the matter urgent.
“If we’re gonna build these databases and have this ability to surveil innocent individuals, then that is really a game-changer for this country,” he said.
Though Chaffetz often finds himself at odds with his counterpart, ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) thanked the chair for “raising these kinds of issues.” Cummings also queried the power bestowed to federal agents through the proliferation of FRT, and raised concerns about drones enhancing the technological capability.
“I was in the crowd,” he said, bring up reconnaissance flights over anti-police brutality protests in Baltimore, Md., in the spring of 2015. “I was in the crowd, night-after-night, six nights in-a-row, so I guess they got my photo, and a lot of other photos.”
Cummings and Chaffetz did not always seem on the same page Wednesday. Cummings repeatedly raised the matter of FRT software containing racial biases, while Chaffetz did not. The chair also suggested that FRT could be used in crackdowns on undocumented immigrants, as Gizmodo pointed out.
The hearing was initially sparked by a Government Accountability Office report, published last year. The audit found the Bureau had not “fully adhered to privacy laws and policies” when using FRT, and that it had “not taken sufficient action to help ensure accuracy.”
GAO also found that FBI databases contained over 411 million “searchable” face photos.
An update published Wednesday by GAO said that the Bureau still refuses to implement its suggestions on improving accuracy and privacy law compliance.
“GAO continues to believe that the recommendations are valid,” the watchdog said.
