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A sweeping memo detailing thousands of NSA privacy violations seems like it should be instrumental to oversight of the NSA's surveillance — yet the heads of the House and Senate intelligence committees disagree on whether or not they'd seen it.
One of the more telling aspects of the Washington Post's report on that memo outlining violations of rules on collecting data on Americans was that Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Post reporter Barton Gellman that she hadn't seen it. Released in May of 2012, the memo aggregates the volume and causes of incidents in which the NSA had inappropriately collected data on American citizens during the preceding 12 months, which it did 2,776 times. Later that year, Congress voted to reauthorize the measures that were being violated.
The Atlantic Wire reached out to the five ranking minority and majority members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Our question was simple: had the member of Congress seen the document prior to it being reported by the Post? Some — like Senators Barbara Mikulski and Ron Wyden — wouldn't answer either way. Others haven't yet responded. The office of Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas, reached by phone, seemed a bit overwhelmed, saying that it didn't have an answer. Rep. Mike Thompson of California sent us an unrelated statement. Rep. Jim Langevin of Rhode Island wouldn't "confirm either way."