Brown, Wyden Urge Federal Watchdog to Investigate an Unmonitored Surveillance Technique that Threatens National Security

Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Shontel Brown (OH-11) and U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (OR) led a letter to GAO Acting Comptroller General Orice Wiliams Brown calling for an investigation into whether the federal government and consumer electronics manufacturers have adequate defenses against “side-channel” attacks, a surveillance technique that exploits the signals that leak from computers and other electronics. This technique renders the American public vulnerable to cyber-attacks, and the federal government has failed to inform the public about this vulnerability.

Brown serves as Ranking Member on the House Committee on Oversight’s Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation Subcommittee.

The text of the letter is here.

“The federal government has known about this threat for years and has failed to act to protect the American people. This surveillance technique not only opens violates Americans’ privacy rights, but it also poses a national security risk. The government must do more to protect our nation from cyber-attacks that threaten our institutions and American citizens.” said Congresswoman Shontel Brown.

According to a declassified National Security Agency history of this technique, published online by the agency in 2007, this technique was first discovered over 80 years ago. However, as a Congressional Research Service report, published along with the letter, notes, much about the topic remains classified. In recent years, academic researchers have published research on this technique and demonstrated how, for example, it is possible to remotely reconstruct the images displayed on a computer monitor.

Prior review from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on this issue dates back nearly 40 years, but that investigation did not examine how effective the government’s efforts were to stop this threat. More specifically, the U.S. government has neglected to ensure that manufacturers of consumer electronics, such as smartphones and computers, build defenses into their products.

In their letter to GAO Acting Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown, Sen. Wyden and Rep. Brown underscored that the surveillance techniques “do not just pose a counterintelligence threat to the U.S. government, but these methods can also be exploited by adversaries against the American public, including to steal strategically-important technologies from U.S. companies.” 

Wyden and Brown’s letter notes that these surveillance methods can be exploited by not only foreign intelligence agencies but also a broad range of American adversaries that include criminals, surveillance mercenaries, and private investigators.

Wyden and Brown called on GAO to investigate:

1. The scale of the threat to the U.S. government, to the private sector, and to the public.
2. The effectiveness of the U.S. government’s efforts to mitigate this threat, to classified and unclassified information held by the government.
3. Whether there is additional information that can be released by the U.S. government, consistent with the protection of sources and methods, that could assist the public and the private sector in addressing this threat.
4. The feasibility and cost of device manufacturers adding surveillance countermeasures to consumer electronics, such as smartphones, computers, and computer accessories.
5. Potential policy options to mitigate this threat against the public, including mandating device manufacturers add countermeasures to their products.

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