WASHINGTON — President Obama
suggested ominously on Friday that allowing domestic surveillance
programs to expire at a Sunday deadline could lead to a terrorist attack
on the United States.
Pushing
the Senate to break a logjam on legislation, Mr. Obama warned in the
Oval Office that, “I don’t want us to be in a situation in which, for a
certain period of time, those authorities go away and suddenly we’re
dark.”
“Heaven
forbid we’ve got a problem where we could have prevented a terrorist
attack or apprehended someone who was engaged in dangerous activity, but
we didn’t do so simply because of inaction in the Senate,” Mr. Obama
added.
Continue reading the main story
Related Coverage
-
News Analysis: Reality Checks in Debate Over Surveillance Laws
-
White House Presses for Deal on Phone Data Bill
-
N.S.A. and Other Matters Leave McConnell’s Senate in Disarray
-
Senate Is Sharply Split Over Extension of N.S.A. Phone Data Collection
-
News Analysis: Why the N.S.A. Isn’t Howling Over Restrictions
The
comments were the most explicit warning to date from the Obama
administration about the consequences of allowing the surveillance
powers to lapse. Administration officials have been pressing lawmakers
for weeks to pass the legislation, called the USA Freedom Act, and in
recent days have stepped up their efforts to portray it as a national
security imperative.
VIDEO: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/us/politics/obama-warns-the-senate-to-pass-surveillance-law.html?_r=0
VIDEO: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/us/politics/obama-warns-the-senate-to-pass-surveillance-law.html?_r=0
The
measure, passed overwhelmingly by the House this month, would extend
the government’s authority to obtain business and other records
pertaining to a specific investigative subject, to secure so-called
roving wiretaps to track potential terrorists or spies who switch
telephones to avoid detection, and to wiretap a terrorism suspect who is
not part of a particular group.
But the controversy has centered on the National Security Agency
program that collects bulk telephone records, which the bill would
eliminate. Instead, under a bipartisan compromise backed by the Obama
administration, telephone companies would retain the data, and the
N.S.A. could gain access to it by obtaining an order from the secret
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
No comments:
Post a Comment