Revealed: NSA collecting phone records of millions of Americans daily | World news
The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April. The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries. The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing. The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19. The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual.
Justice Department Fights Release of Secret Court Opinion Finding Unconstitutional Surveillance
In the midst of revelations that the government has conducted extensive top-secret surveillance operations to collect domestic phone records and internet communications , the Justice Department was due to file a court motion Friday in its effort to keep secret an 86-page court opinion that determined that the government had violated the spirit of federal surveillance laws and engaged in unconstitutional spying. This important case—all the more relevant in the wake of this week's disclosures—was triggered after Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate intelligence committee, started crying foul in 2011 about US government snooping. As a member of the intelligence committee, he had learned about domestic surveillance activity affecting American citizens that he believed was improper. He and Sen. For those who follow the secret and often complex world of high-tech government spying, this was an aha moment. It took the Justice Department four months to reply.
Snowden downloaded NSA secrets while working for Dell, sources say
A guide to FISA §1881a: The law behind it all
Simply put, the National Security Agency is an intelligence agency. Its purpose is to monitor the world's communications, which it traditionally collected by using spy satellites, taps on cables, and placing listening stations around the world. In 2008, by making changes to U.S. law, the U.S. Congress enabled the NSA to make U.S. industry complicit in its mission. No longer would the NSA have to rely only on international gathering points. Below we carefully analyse the legal framework around these requests. Of particular concern is U.S. law's distinction between foreigners and U.S. citizens or residents -- legally referred to as "U.S. persons." About the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act § 1881a (a.k.a. FISA was established in 1978 in response to abuses in domestic intelligence surveillance powers. Who may be targeted? The law authorizes surveillance to be used against any individual or group of non-U.S. persons outside of the U.S. For what purposes can these powers be used? No. Yes.
U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post. The program, code-named PRISM, has not been made public until now. Equally unusual is the way the NSA extracts what it wants, according to the document: “Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. London’s Guardian newspaper reported Friday that GCHQ, Britain’s equivalent of the NSA, also has been secretly gathering intelligence from the same internet companies through an operation set up by the NSA. According to documents obtained by The Guardian, PRISM would appear to allow GCHQ to circumvent the formal legal process required in Britain to seek personal material such as emails, photos and videos from an internet company based outside of the country.
Here Is the Pro-NSA Surveillance Argument
Despite the outrage expressed by some over the NSA’s domestic surveillance programs, roughly 56 percent of Americans believe it is “acceptable” for the spy agency to secretly collect the telephone call records of millions of Americans, according to a new Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll. Additionally, 45 percent of Americans say the government should be able to go even further and monitor all online activity if it would prevent future terrorist attacks. The majority of respondents, 52 percent, say that type of indiscriminate monitoring should not occur. BLUFFDALE, UT – JUNE 10: A new National Security Agency (NSA) data center is seen June 10, 2013 in Bluffdale, Utah. The center, a large data farm that is set to open in the fall of 2013, will be the largest of several interconnected NSA data centers spread throughout the country. A military no trespassing sign is seen in front of Utah’s NSA Data Center in Bluffdale, Utah, Friday, June 7, 2013. Read Thiessen’s entire column here.
Secret Court Ruling Put Tech Companies in Data Bind
FISA requests can be as broad as seeking court approval to ask a company to turn over information about the online activities of people in a certain country. Between 2008 and 2012, only two of 8,591 applications were rejected, according to data gathered by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit research center in Washington. Without obtaining court approval, intelligence agents can then add more specific requests — like names of individuals and additional Internet services to track — every day for a year. National Security Letters are limited to the name, address, length of service and toll billing records of a service’s subscribers. Because national security requests ban recipients from even acknowledging their existence, it is difficult to know exactly how, and how often, the companies cooperate or resist. The Yahoo ruling, from 2008, shows the company argued that the order violated its users’ Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Officials: NSA mistakenly intercepted emails, phone calls of innocent Americans
As President Obama defends government information mining programs, many questions rise to the surface about the nature of the program and the way the information is used. Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA counter terror chief, discusses his experience with counter-terrorism efforts and how FISA was born and grew. By Michael Isikoff National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News The National Security Agency has at times mistakenly intercepted the private email messages and phone calls of Americans who had no link to terrorism, requiring Justice Department officials to report the errors to a secret national security court and destroy the data, according to two former U.S. intelligence officials. At least some of the phone calls and emails were pulled from among the hundreds of millions stored by telecommunications companies as part of an NSA surveillance program. Ret. The judges “were really upset about this,” said the former official. Related story More from Open Channel:
NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program
