A normally low-profile watchdog agency charged with investigating US national security programs has fractured into a bitter public dispute over proposed reforms to a controversial law that allows warrantless surveillance of foreigners but also sweeps up the communications of American citizens.
The law, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is set to expire at the end of the year and Congress is set to vote on whether to reauthorize it. The five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Board on Thursday issued a roughly 300-page report proposing a series of new limits on how federal authorities can use the program. But the board split along partisan lines, with three Democrats voting to release the document and two Republicans issuing their own proposed reforms in annex to the report.
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