Intelligence officials are already pressing their case in the aftermath of the France bloodshed — and getting support from prominent politicians who only recently avoided bringing up the controversial topic in conversations about national security.
The shift is alarming privacy activists and threatens to deny some presidential candidates an issue that has served as a major rallying cry for their campaigns: imposing limits on government spying programs in the wake of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s leaks.
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“The political atmosphere has changed, but the facts about the surveillance proposals that might be made haven’t,” said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology, who said the relaxing of the encryption standard by tech companies that the government seeks will be harnessed by good and bad elements alike.
“Eventually, this proposal will be rejected once again,” he predicted. “Fact is, that the bulk domestic collection of telephone records didn’t thwart a single terrorist attack. That fact hasn’t changed. The program will and should be ended.”
