patrickt
09-08-2013, 06:40 AM
"The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases, according to interviews with government officials and recently declassified material. (http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/DNI%20Clapper%20Section%20702%20Declassification%2 0Cover%20Letter.pdf)"
"What had not been previously acknowledged is that the court in 2008 imposed an explicit ban — at the government’s request — on those kinds of searches, that officials in 2011 got the court to lift the bar and that the search authority has been used."
"The administration’s assurances rely on legalistic definitions of the term “target” that can be at odds with ordinary English usage. The enlarged authority is part of a fundamental shift in the government’s approach to surveillance: collecting first, and protecting Americans’ privacy later.
“The government says, ‘We’re not targeting U.S. persons,’ ” said Gregory T. Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “But then they never say, ‘We turn around and deliberately search for Americans’ records in what we took from the wire.’ That, to me, is not so different from targeting Americans at the outset.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-administration-had-restrictions-on-nsa-reversed-in-2011/2013/09/07/c26ef658-0fe5-11e3-85b6-d27422650fd5_story.html?hpid=z3
Inadvertently? Any interception of the communications of U.S. citizens is inadvertent and just in case they inadvertently intercepted some they changed the law to make it legal.
And, they certainly don't keep data collected inadvertently. They go to great lengths to protect the privacy of American citizens.
"In addition, the court extended the length of time that the NSA is allowed to retain intercepted U.S. communications from five years to six years — and more under special circumstances, according to the documents, which include a recently released 2011 opinion (http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/fisa-court-documents-on-illegal-nsa-e-mail-collection-program/409/)by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, then chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."
Ah, the stench of hypocrisy. I wonder what euphemisms will be used for these lies. Wait, they've already got it. Inadvertent.
"What had not been previously acknowledged is that the court in 2008 imposed an explicit ban — at the government’s request — on those kinds of searches, that officials in 2011 got the court to lift the bar and that the search authority has been used."
"The administration’s assurances rely on legalistic definitions of the term “target” that can be at odds with ordinary English usage. The enlarged authority is part of a fundamental shift in the government’s approach to surveillance: collecting first, and protecting Americans’ privacy later.
“The government says, ‘We’re not targeting U.S. persons,’ ” said Gregory T. Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “But then they never say, ‘We turn around and deliberately search for Americans’ records in what we took from the wire.’ That, to me, is not so different from targeting Americans at the outset.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-administration-had-restrictions-on-nsa-reversed-in-2011/2013/09/07/c26ef658-0fe5-11e3-85b6-d27422650fd5_story.html?hpid=z3
Inadvertently? Any interception of the communications of U.S. citizens is inadvertent and just in case they inadvertently intercepted some they changed the law to make it legal.
And, they certainly don't keep data collected inadvertently. They go to great lengths to protect the privacy of American citizens.
"In addition, the court extended the length of time that the NSA is allowed to retain intercepted U.S. communications from five years to six years — and more under special circumstances, according to the documents, which include a recently released 2011 opinion (http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/fisa-court-documents-on-illegal-nsa-e-mail-collection-program/409/)by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, then chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."
Ah, the stench of hypocrisy. I wonder what euphemisms will be used for these lies. Wait, they've already got it. Inadvertent.