Thread: NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants

NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57...hout-warrants/

National Security Agency discloses in secret Capitol Hill briefing that thousands of analysts can listen to domestic phone calls. That authorization appears to extend to e-mail and text messages too.

by Declan McCullagh
June 15, 2013 4:39 PM PDT

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NSA Director Keith Alexander says his agency's analysts, which until recently included Edward Snowden among their ranks, take protecting "civil liberties and privacy and the security of this nation to their heart every day."
(Credit: Getty Images)
The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed "simply based on an analyst deciding that."
If the NSA wants "to listen to the phone," an analyst's decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. "I was rather startled," said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee.
Not only does this disclosure shed more light on how the NSA's formidable eavesdropping apparatus works domestically, it also suggests the Justice Department has secretly interpreted federal surveillance law to permit thousands of low-ranking analysts to eavesdrop on phone calls.
Because the same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages, Nadler's disclosure indicates the NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications without going before a court and seeking approval.
The disclosure appears to confirm some of the allegations made by Edward Snowden, a former NSA infrastructure analyst who leaked classified documents to the Guardian. Snowden said in a video interview that, while not all NSA analysts had this ability, he could from Hawaii "wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president."
There are serious "constitutional problems" with this approach, said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who has litigated warrantless wiretapping cases. "It epitomizes the problem of secret laws."
The NSA yesterday declined to comment to CNET. A representative said Nadler was not immediately available. (This is unrelated to last week's disclosure that the NSA is currently collecting records of the metadata of all domestic Verizon calls, but not the actual contents of the conversations.)
A portion of the NSA's mammoth data center in Bluffdale, Utah, scheduled to open this fall.
(Credit: Getty Images)
Earlier reports have indicated that the NSA has the ability to record nearly all domestic and international phone calls -- in case an analyst needed to access the recordings in the future. A Wired magazine article last year disclosed that the NSA has established "listening posts" that allow the agency to collect and sift through billions of phone calls through a massive new data center in Utah, "whether they originate within the country or overseas." That includes not just metadata, but also the contents of the communications.
William Binney, a former NSA technical director who helped to modernize the agency's worldwide eavesdropping network, told the Daily Caller this week that the NSA records the phone calls of 500,000 to 1 million people who are on its so-called target list, and perhaps even more. "They look through these phone numbers and they target those and that's what they record," Binney said.
Brewster Kahle, a computer engineer who founded the Internet Archive, has vast experience storing large amounts of data. He created a spreadsheet this week estimating that the cost to store all domestic phone calls a year in cloud storage for data-mining purposes would be about $27 million per year, not counting the cost of extra security for a top-secret program and security clearances for the people involved.
NSA's annual budget is classified but is estimated to be around $10 billion.
Documents that came to light in an EFF lawsuit provide some insight into how the spy agency vacuums up data from telecommunications companies. Mark Klein, who worked as an AT&T technician for over 22 years, disclosed in 2006 (PDF) that he witnessed domestic voice and Internet traffic being surreptitiously "diverted" through a "splitter cabinet" to secure room 641A in one of the company's San Francisco facilities. The room was accessible only to NSA-cleared technicians.
AT&T and other telecommunications companies that allow the NSA to tap into their fiber links receive absolute immunity from civil liability or criminal prosecution, thanks to a law that Congress enacted in 2008 and renewed in 2012. It's a series of amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, also known as the FISA Amendments Act.
That law says surveillance may be authorized by the attorney general and director of national intelligence without prior approval by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, as long as minimization requirements and general procedures blessed by the court are followed.
A requirement of the 2008 law is that the NSA "may not intentionally target any person known at the time of acquisition to be located in the United States." A possible interpretation of that language, some legal experts said, is that the agency may vacuum up everything it can domestically -- on the theory that indiscriminate data acquisition was not intended to "target" a specific American citizen.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, an attorney and member of the House Judiciary committee, who said he was "startled" to learn that NSA analysts could eavesdrop on domestic calls without court authorization.
(Credit: Getty Images)
Rep. Nadler's disclosure that NSA analysts can listen to calls without court orders came during a House Judiciary hearing on Thursday that included FBI director Robert Mueller as a witness.
Mueller initially sought to downplay concerns about NSA surveillance by claiming that, to listen to a phone call, the government would need to seek "a special, a particularized order from the FISA court directed at that particular phone of that particular individual."
Is information about that procedure "classified in any way?" Nadler asked.
"I don't think so," Mueller replied.
"Then I can say the following," Nadler said. "We heard precisely the opposite at the briefing the other day. We heard precisely that you could get the specific information from that telephone simply based on an analyst deciding that...In other words, what you just said is incorrect. So there's a conflict."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the head of the Senate Intelligence committee, separately acknowledged this week that the agency's analysts have the ability to access the "content of a call."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence committee, acknowledged this week that NSA analysts have the ability to access the "content of a call."
(Credit: Getty Images)
Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell indicated during a House Intelligence hearing in 2007 that the NSA's surveillance process involves "billions" of bulk communications being intercepted, analyzed, and incorporated into a database.
They can be accessed by an analyst who's part of the NSA's "workforce of thousands of people" who are "trained" annually in minimization procedures, he said. (McConnell, who had previously worked as the director of the NSA, is now vice chairman at Booz Allen Hamilton, Snowden's former employer.)
If it were "a U.S. person inside the United States, now that would stimulate the system to get a warrant," McConnell told the committee. "And that is how the process would work. Now, if you have foreign intelligence data, you publish it [inside the federal government]. Because it has foreign intelligence value."
McConnell said during a separate congressional appearance around the same time that he believed the president had the constitutional authority, no matter what the law actually says, to order domestic spying without warrants.
Former FBI counterterrorism agent Tim Clemente told CNN last month that, in national security investigations, the bureau can access records of a previously made telephone call. "All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not," he said. Clemente added in an appearance the next day that, thanks to the "intelligence community" -- an apparent reference to the NSA -- "there's a way to look at digital communications in the past."
NSA Director Keith Alexander said this week that his agency's analysts abide by the law: "They do this lawfully. They take compliance oversight, protecting civil liberties and privacy and the security of this nation to their heart every day."
But that's not always the case. A New York Times article in 2009 revealed the NSA engaged in significant and systemic "overcollection" of Americans' domestic communications that alarmed intelligence officials. The Justice Department said in a statement at the time that it "took comprehensive steps to correct the situation and bring the program into compliance" with the law.
Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's Center for Democracy, says he was surprised to see the 2008 FISA Amendments Act be used to vacuum up information on American citizens. "Everyone who voted for the statute thought it was about international communications," he said.

NSA Reveals They Can Listen to Domestic Calls Without a Warrant

june 16, 2013 by steven1




Gen. Keith Alexander said US intelligence is the latest min a long line of Obama administration officials to commit perjury in testimony to congress. Alexander testified that Snowden lied when he claimed he could tap into anyone’s email, including Obama’s, once he had the email address.

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“It’s dozens of terrorist events that these have helped. Both here and abroad, in disrupting, or contributing to the disruption of terrorist attacks.”
He also said leaker Edward Snowden lied when he claimed that by using his NSA access he could “tap into virtually any American’s phone or e-mail.”
“False,” Alexander said. “I know of no way to do that.”
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/interna...1kMd1RrIT1IU8J
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First of all, Alexander claims that the program stopped dozens of terrorist attacks. Both Sen. Ron Wyden and Sen. Mark Udall, both democrats on the intelligence committee both claim that evidence produced to them does not back up that claim and in fact any useful information was available through easily accessible other means. Secondly, a weekend dump reveals that what Snowden said was completely accurate.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week that in secret briefings with the NSA, it was revealed that phone calls and emails could be accessed without a warrant, simply because an analyst like Snowden decided to do it.

“If the NSA wants “to listen to the phone,” an analyst’s decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. “I was rather startled,” said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee.”

That means a low level analyst can of their own volition, tap into your phone calls or read your email. It would be a piece of cake for liberals to plant their people into the NSA program to monitor conservatives, lawmakers, and those who donate money in support of them. After what we have learned from the IRS scandal, I’d say it was more likely than merely possible.

Reports say that the government is able to store not just the list of phone calls but the actual conversation itself in their Utah facility, where it can be accessed whenever there is a perceived need. This too, flies in the face of what we have been told. Consider this. You decide to run for state senate. Your democratic opponent may have access to all of your personal calls, emails and texts. And that goes for any other office, up to and including the presidency.

In November of 2012, I warned my readers that the petitions to the White House were about creating a database of information for Obama rather than a serious effort to hear what Americans think. Some were so angry they blocked me, others were so angry, I blocked them. My only regret is that I can’t stick out my tongue and say, “I told you so.” That information can be used for future elections and people handed it to them on a silver platter. They have your email addresses. They can now read your mail more often than you do.

Verizon and AT&T are protected from civil or criminal prosecution on the information the government accesses through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, also known as the FISA Amendments Act. This surveillance may be accessed with permission from the head of the DOJ or by the head of the NSA without a warrant or permission from a secret court. Eric Holder can give permission to access phone calls and emails of any conservative writer, politician, or donor like Adelson.

Sen. Diane Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, acknowledged just this week that the NSA could indeed listen to the content of the calls they intercepted.

Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, told congress that he believed the president had the constitutional authority, no matter what the law actually says, to order domestic spying without warrants. Obama:, Hey, Eric, get me everything we have on Sandy Adelson.” That’s all it would take.

Former FBI counterterrorism agent Tim Clemente told CNN that old phone calls could be accessed and it’s contents reviewed, also conflicting with what Obama regime officials have testified to congress. That means not only is the record of the call kept but the content as well.

NSA Director Keith Alexander said this week that his agency follows the law. That statement is untrue. They follow the law as they interpret it. The New York Times did a piece back in 2009, that said intelligence had violated the law and Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU’s Center for Democracy said that NSA had exceeded the intent of the law.

This is getting curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say.

http://redstatements.co/nsa-reveals-...out-a-warrant/