Both Republicans and Democrats express reservations about NSA programs during hearing.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole testifies before the House Judiciary Committee. (Photo: Jim M. Watson, Getty Images)
WASHINGTON-Republican and Democrat lawmakers expressed renewed skepticism Wednesday about the scope of the government's surveillance operations and threatened to revoke authority for one of the programs recently disclosed by a former National Security Agency contractor that collects telephone records on tens of millions of Americans.
"I feel very uncomfortable about using aggregated...data on everybody,'' Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., told Justice Department and NSA officials appearing before a House Judiciary Committee hearing.
"This is unsustainable, outrageous and must be stopped immediately.''
Noting mounting concerns since details about the telephone records program and a separate operation that collects the communications of non-U.S. citizens abroad were disclosed last month, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said there "are not enough votes to renew'' the authority, at least for the vast phone records collection effort.
"This program has gone off the tracks,'' Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said, "and it needs to be reined in.''
But Justice Department and NSA officials asserted that the programs were the subject of strict oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Congress and agency officials.
"This is not done in some rogue manner,'' Deputy Attorney General James Cole told the panel. "We know of no one who has abused this in a way that would have caused discipline.''
Though former NSA contractor Edward Snowden disclosed the existence of the operations without authorization prompting criminal charges related to espionage, Deputy NSA Director Chris Inglis said the government has no evidence that he "abused the data.''
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