Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Mr.
Chairman, Senator Rockefeller, Members of the Committee. I greatly appreciate this opportunity to
testify on the pending proposals to extend and amend provisions of the Patriot
Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The Patriot Act and
FISA are important tools in the fight against terrorism, but both raise
significant civil liberties issues. We therefore need to subject
them to careful and continuing scrutiny.
Administrative Subpoenas
The
draft legislation proposes to amend FISA by providing for administrative
subpoenas in national security investigations. Administrative subpoenas are now
used in many types of investigations, and the government asks why they
shouldn't also be used by the FBI in the fight against terrorism. But the
government ignores some very crucial facts.
First,
administrative subpoenas are typically used for discrete purposes and to obtain
limited types of records. But here the subpoenas would be seeking records
relating to foreign intelligence and terrorism. The range of activities that relate foreign
intelligence and terrorism is enormous and, therefore, there is virtually no
limit to the type of records the FBI will be able to subpoena. The FBI will
seek financial records, employment records, transportation records, medical
records and yes, sometimes, library records. The collection of this massive
array of records creates special problems. Inevitably, FBI investigations
will sweep up sensitive information about innocent, law-abiding people. How do
we assure this information is not abused? The FBI will also sweep
up information about people who have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism
but who may have committed other infractions, both minor and major. What
will the FBI do with this information? Should it use the information in
criminal prosecutions or other proceedings unrelated to terrorism? Does
it make any difference that a highly disproportionate amount of this
information will be collected about people who (quite naturally and innocently)
happen to write, visit and send money to places such as
I
am not suggesting that the Committee now address these complex privacy and
profiling issues. But I do believe the Committee should keep these
issues in mind as it considers whether to give the FBI essentially unlimited
subpoena authority.
There
is a second crucial difference between the ordinary use of administrative
subpoenas and proposal before the Committee. As set forth in the
draft, the FBI's subpoenas must be kept completely secret whenever the FBI says
that national security requires non-disclosure. This means that a record
holder who receives a subpoena that is overbroad or impinges on first amendment
rights will not be able to complain to the press, the Congress or the public.
This
is not an insignificant disadvantage. Just last year, a federal prosecutor
in
If
subpoenas covering a vast array of records are going to be served in secret,
there must be additional safeguards. The most obvious safeguard is prior
judicial approval, such as is provided, however inadequately, in Section 215 of
the Patriot Act. We should not permit, for the first time in our history,
the massive use of secret subpoenas that have not been approved by a judge.
I
recognize that the proposed draft provides record holders with the opportunity
to challenge any subpoena in federal court. But this opportunity is no
substitute for prior judicial approval. Third party record holders will
generally have no incentive to undertake the burdens of a federal court
challenge, and the secrecy provisions further reduce the likelihood of a
challenge. If, for example, a hospital receives a subpoena for a
massive number of medical records and the subpoena is made public, the medical
staff and patient groups might pressure the hospital to file a challenge.
There will be no such pressure with a secret subpoena. Thus, there will
be little judicial supervision of the FBI's use of secret subpoenas.
The
FBI should be required to obtain a court order when it seeks access to business
records. I believe the current standards for issuing such orders, as set forth
in Section 215 of the Patriot Act, should be tightened along the lines
suggested by the SAFE Act. Subpoena power should be limited to records
involving or pertaining to an “agent of a foreign power” as defined in FISA.
But in any event there must be a requirement for judicial approval. Such a requirement
imposes a salutary discipline on the government. It forces the government to think through
and describe, in the words of Deputy Attorney General Comey, the “meaningful,
logical connection between the record sought and the subject of the
investigation.” If the government
believes that obtaining a court order is too slow in certain circumstances, it
should propose procedures for the prompter handling of urgent requests.
In
sum, I believe the Committee should not go forward with the proposal for new
subpoena authority for the FBI. But if the Committee does go forward, it
should clarify and improve certain provisions.
Section
808(a)(3)(b), providing for judicial review, states that upon the government's request the
court "shall" receive government submissions ex parte and in camera.
Of course, there may be a need for the government to submit classified
information to the court ex parte and in camera. But under the section as
written the government could make a submission to the court without even
notifying the opposing party of that fact and without disclosing those portions
of its submission, such as discussions of legal precedents, that do not require special protection. This section should
be modified to grant the court discretion to assure that, as in the Classified
Information Procedures Act, both the government's interest in protecting
national security and the private party's interest in a fair hearing are
appropriately accommodated.
Section 808(d), Standard of Review, is ambiguously
worded. The standard for court modification of a subpoena is whether
compliance would be "unreasonable or oppressive", while the standard
for setting aside a subpoena is "abuse of discretion." What is the
relationship between the two standards? Can there be an unreasonable or
oppressive subpoena that does not constitute an abuse of discretion? Can
there be an abuse of discretion based on other factors?
Mail Covers
In addition to granting the FBI new
subpoena power, the draft legislation proposes to amend FISA to authorize the
FBI to request mail covers from the Postal Service. As with the subpoena power, it is not clear
why this new authority is necessary. The
FBI already has the ability to request mail covers under Postal Service
regulations.
Perhaps, however, this is an opportunity
to make the laws regulating FBI investigations more coherent. Mail covers are conceptually similar to the
pen registers and trap and trace devices that are presently regulated by Title
IV of FISA. Why shouldn’t they be treated in a similar
fashion under FISA? This would require
the FBI to obtain a court order for mail covers. As you know from previous Committee hearings,
there is some dispute about the standards for the issuance of pen register and
trap and trace orders. I will not go
into that here. The crucial point is
that there should be some judicial supervision and some coherence in the law.
Lone Wolf
The Committee draft repeals the sunset of
the "lone wolf" provision that was enacted just a few months ago.
I believe the "lone wolf” provision may well be
unconstitutional and that, in light of criminal surveillance authorities, it is
unnecessary. The Committee has not yet received the government’s first
report on the provision and cannot have an adequate record as to how the
provision has been used and whether alternative surveillance authorities were available. I suggest, therefore, that the current sunset
requirement be extended until
Other FISA Issues
Section
203 of the Committee's draft amends FISA by stating that "foreign
intelligence information" includes information relating to national
security criminal prosecutions. Once again, I am not sure why this
amendment is necessary, since there is widespread agreement that the “wall” no
longer exists. But the amendment does
underscore the very significant fact that today an increasing number of
criminal cases involve the use of FISA evidence. This requires a reexamination
of whether current procedures for the use of FISA evidence in criminal cases
are fair.
As
Jim Dempsey testified before this Committee in April, criminal defendants in most
cases can obtain access to the affidavit that served as the basis for the
wiretap order or search warrant and thus can challenge the basis for the
wiretap or search in an adversarial proceeding. By contrast,
defendants in FISA cases have never been granted such access and have never had
a meaningful opportunity to challenge the basis for the search.
Congress should assure that normal criminal adversary procedures
apply when FISA evidence is used against individuals, with appropriate use of
the Classified Information Procedures Act to protect government interests.
There is another problem with FISA that has
not been adequately addressed. Under FISA, the government can obtain an
order to conduct secret searches of any home or office. Unlike the
"sneak and peek" searches authorized in Section 213 of the Patriot
Act, these searches remain secret forever unless the government chooses to
disclose them or there is a criminal trial involving evidence seized during the
search. This means that innocent Americans have had, and will have, their most
intimate records and belongings searched by the government without ever being informed
of the search. Similarly, although Title III wiretaps are ultimately disclosed,
FISA wiretaps are not.
I believe that FISA should be amended to assure
that individuals are informed they have been subject to a secret FISA search or
wiretap unless there are valid national security grounds to continue the
secrecy. In cases where there has been a secret search or wiretap
but no disclosure of that fact in a criminal trial the government should be
required to periodically file a motion with the FISA court requesting and
justifying continued non-disclosure.
Conclusion
In concluding, I would like to commend
the Committee for its attention to congressional oversight, including the
reporting requirements contained in the draft legislation. Congressional oversight is crucial and must
be pursued vigorously. But executive
branch accountability requires more than congressional oversight; it requires
judicial oversight and as much openness as is consistent with national
security. When, as in terrorism
investigations, a high degree of secrecy is warranted, a meaningful role for
the judiciary becomes all the more important. The Committee should not
eviscerate that role by granting broad subpoena power to the FBI.