A select group on Capitol Hill is notified on a near monthly basis that US lawmakers and their staff often have their conversations collected by intelligence agencies.
The so-called Gang of Eight are the only ones on Capitol Hill privy to the intercept notifications, and they’re briefed “as often as once a month,” according to a report by Circa. The gang includes Democratic and Republican leadership posts in the House and Senate, and intelligence committee chairs and ranking members from both chambers.
News of the monthly notifications sheds light on the broad reach of the US intel community, which has authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to conduct warrantless surveillance on overseas targets. This collection inevitably results in nabbing US citizens’ communications, too, when they converse with foreigners—as lawmakers often do as part of their job.
US spies are supposed to abide by minimization requirements that ensure Americans’ personal information is protected—or masked—when their communications are incidentally collected. Spies are allowed, however, to unmask US citizens if it’s necessary to understand foreign intelligence or if there’s a security threat.
Circa reported that lawmakers’ and staffers’ names are often unmasked and shared with intelligence and law enforcement officials.
The publication also said the Gang of Eight is typically the only group aware of who on Capitol Hill has had their conversations swept up and their identities unmasked. Other legislators and staffers swept up in the dragnet are rarely notified.
The Gang of Eight’s briefings on these matters came into existence in 2015, following news that lawmakers had communications with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scooped up by the intelligence community.
“While unmasking can be important to understand intelligence in very limited situations, something is wrong if Congress and other Americans are routinely being unmasked in surveillance reports that are supposed to be focused on foreign intelligence,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told Circa.
The report offers more context to claims made by the White House that associates of President Trump had their foreign communications spied on in the final months of the Obama administration.
Former National security Adviser Susan Rice has been accused of ordering the unmasking of Trump officials. In an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday, President Trump accused her of breaking the law.
Speaking to MSNBC this week, Rice admitted to unmasking individuals, but denied she did it was done for political purposes.
“There were occasions when I would receive a report in which a US person was referred to, name not provided,” Rice explained, “and sometimes in that context in order to understand the importance of that report, and assess its significance, it was necessary to find out or request the information as to who that US official was.”
Before leaving office, the Obama administration relaxed rules on unmasking US persons and sharing that information with other government agencies.
Although intelligence agencies don’t publicly disclose how often Americans are swept up in foreign-targeted collection, an intelligence official informed Circa that “unmasking requests occur dozens if not hundreds of times a year.”
Concerns over unmasking of US lawmakers could hinder efforts to reauthorize portions of FISA that are due to expire at the end of the year.
