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Fight Erupts Over Obama’s Spy Orders To NSA
FOIA seeks details of agency’s ‘authority to invade civilian Internet networks’
by Bob Unruh
An organization that monitors and reports on privacy issues wants to see of copy of a “secret law” announced by Barack Obama regarding the National Security Agency and its reach into private Internet communications.
“This (Freedom of Information Act) request involves information on the National Security Agency’s authority to invade civilian networks,” a letter from the Electronic Privacy Information Center to the NSA headquarters in Fort George G. Meade, Md., says.
The letter submitted this week is a request for the public release of Presidential Policy Directive 20.
“On Nov. 14, 2012, the Washington Post reported President Obama had signed Presidential Policy Directive 20 … in October. According to the Washington Post, the directive ‘enables the military to act more aggressively to thwart cyberattacks on the nation’s web of government and private computer networks.’ The text of the directive has not been made public,” the letter explains.
But the letter said the Post reported previous attempts by the president to expand the military’s cybersecurity authority had been rejected as posing “unacceptable risks” and potentially “harmful consequences.”
Further, EPIC wrote, the directive “may violate federal law that prohibits military deployment within the United States without congressional approval.”
