Senator Coons urges review of surveillance activities

Senator Coons was one of nine members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to write to the inspector general of the intelligence community on Monday to request a full-scale review of the use of surveillance activities. What's more: they requested the results of this review be made public.

“We urge you to conduct comprehensive reviews of these authorities and provide a full accounting of how these authorities are being implemented across the Intelligence Community,” the senators wrote. “The IC Inspector General was created in 2010 for this very purpose.  Providing a publicly available summary of the findings and conclusions of these reviews will help promote greater oversight, transparency, and public accountability.”

This isn't the first time Senator Coons has tried to increase the transparency of our nation's surveillance activities. 

Ahead of his vote against the reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act in December, Senator Coons spoke on the Senate floor in support of the legislative predecessors to both of these bills. His speech can be viewed and read here.

In July, Senator Coons cosponsored two bills to limit access to Americans' private information under FISA and to add transparency and accountability measures to the courts that govern surveillance activities conducted under FISA.

“Delawareans deserve a full and informed debate about our nation’s intelligence-gathering procedures and their intrusion on our privacy rights,” Senator Coons said. “These procedures certainly have a role to play in keeping our nation safe, but Congress has failed to be an effective check of whether they respect our most cherished privacy protections. These two bills represent a second chance to put in place a better system for oversight and the prevention of abuse of the government’s surveillance authorities.” 

Monday's letter is below:

Senator Coons disappointed indefinite detention provisions survived 2013 NDAA

When the Senate debated the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act last month, included among its provisions was an amendment to repeal powers granted to the U.S. military in last year's NDAA to indefinitely detain American citizens.

Senator Coons, who pledged last December to work to remove those powers, cosponsored the amendment and praised the Senate's progress on Twitter:

The Senate just passed our amendment to ban indefinite detention of US citizens without a trial. It's about time we got this right.

— Senator Chris Coons (@ChrisCoons) November 30, 2012

That progress was short-lived, however, and the amendment was stripped out of the bill when Senate and House negotiators met to reconcile the chambers' versions of the legislation. As a result, the military's power to detain American citizens indefinitely has survived.

Here's how Senator Coons reacted to the news:

"As a nation, we must strike the essential balance between national security and civil liberties. I am deeply disappointed that the final version of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act fails this test by removing an amendment I cosponsored, along with Senator Feinstein, to prohibit the indefinite detention of American citizens by the military."

"The detention authorities provided by this legislation were not requested by the Pentagon and will not make us safer. At the same time, they erode the fundamental promise of our Constitution – that an American citizen has a right to due process of law. Our civilian criminal justice system has proven itself capable — time and again — of obtaining convictions and tough sentences for terrorists that act on our soil.  Civilian trials not only provide tough sentences for terrorists, but they also protect all of us from the prospect of facing a military tribunal for a crime we did not commit."

"We live in a dangerous world, and we must ensure our military has the tools and resources they need to keep us safe. But threats to our safety are no excuse for curtailing the liberties guaranteed to every American citizen by the Founders of our country."