Dennis Ross Takes Aim at the NSA

With news emerging that the NSA has mined more than 56,000 emails and other communications from Americans who are not under investigation for terrorism links, U.S. Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla., pointed to a bill he filed two months ago as a needed reform.

This is outrageous and frightening, Ross said on Wednesday. The NSA has overstepped its lawful bounds and violated the trust of all Americans. We cannot let this happen. We must reign in this out-of-control agency through permanent reforms such as those in the bill I introduced, the Relevancy Act. The Relevancy Act would require that any investigation explain the need and relevancy for all business records data collected under the authority of the PATRIOT Act. What the NSA did is unlawful and we cant allow for this type of overreach and gross negligence.

The Relevancy Act would limit NSA investigations to specific individuals or groups and, as Rosss team put it, it requires the tangible things to be related to a person that is subject to an investigation.