House Judiciary Committee asks for disclosure of number of Americans under surveillance

The House Judiciary Committee asked the Trump Administration to disclose an estimate of the number of Americans whose digital communications are incidentally collected under foreign surveillance programs. Such an estimate is "crucial as we contemplate reauthorization," of parts of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that are due to expire at the end of 2017, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI) wrote in a letter addressed to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. The request comes as some Republican lawmakers, many of whom have stridently defended US surveillance programs in the past, express sudden interest in considering additional privacy safeguards to how US spy agencies collect and share intelligence that contains information about Americans.