Panel examines the legality of wiretapping without a warrant

By Ryan Huff, RSA® Conference Reporter

Congress needs to pass a law that provides clear rules for the National Security Agency to monitor suspicious foreign communications with those in the United States, said Bill Crowell, a former NSA deputy director. “The sooner that we pass a law that makes permanent provisions in the Protect America Act, the better off we’ll be,” said Crowell, a director at ArcSight, Inc. “I know of no one within the agency that wants to violate privacy concerns.” Warrantless wiretapping has become a hot topic in the past few years and was the theme of a Wednesday afternoon panel discussion between four communications experts. The panel was moderated by Eric Lichtblau, a New York Times reporter who won the Pulitzer Prize for his work to uncover the domestic eavesdropping that stirred a national debate about balancing national security with protecting civil liberty.

The House and Senate are still wrestling with the best way to allow the NSA to monitor foreign communications without compromising American citizens’ privacy. “It was a mistake for the (Bush) Administration to test its theory of constitutional power in the middle of the war,” said Jim Dempsey, policy director with the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Congress should determine what those parameters are so that the NSA can protect American citizens and monitor terrorist chatter, Crowell said. “You can’t connect the dots unless you have the dots,” he said. “We need to have rules we understand so that we can collect the dots that are lawful to collect.”