Congress’s NSA dilemma: Oversee or overlook intel

A decades-old presidential order that allows the US government to siphon buckets of data overseas remains a blind spot for most members of Congress. The National Security Agency may have relied on that executive order, known by its numerical designation 12333, to monitor world leaders’ communications and lap up hundreds of thousands of email address books and more, according to recent reports fueled by Edward Snowden’s leaks.

But even the NSA’s chief defenders, including Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), acknowledge they have little perspective into how the executive order is used to spy on foreign targets. Knowledge is even harder to come by outside key congressional intelligence committees. And the executive branch’s broad international surveillance powers under the order might remain fully intact as Congress weighs new NSA reforms, though some lawmakers are at least pondering additional reporting requirements so that they can be better informed.

“I do think we need more oversight over 12333 and the efforts our intelligence agencies make under that order,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a member of the Intelligence Committee, said. The trouble, he said, isn’t always that the NSA and others are trying “to hide the ball” -- but that Congress also needs to do its part and ask “the right questions.”