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James Inhofe Announces Intent to Investigate NSA Violations

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s ranking member will launch an investigation into the Obama administration’s potentially illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens following revelations that the National Security Administration (NSA) violated legal boundaries imposed by Congress.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the NSA “overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008.”

Many of these legal violations involved the “unauthorized” surveillance of American citizens in the United States, according to the Post’s report.

Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.) said on Saturday that he will now “work to investigate as to what laws were broken by the Administration,” according to a statement provided to the Free Beacon.

“The NSA violations recently reported by the Washington Post are very concerning as it appears the Obama Administration has abused the authority granted to them by Congress,” Inhofe said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Idiot Big Brother

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Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

On Thursday, the Washington Post’s revelation of thousands upon thousands of National Security Agency violations of both the law and supposed privacy protections included this fascinating detail:

A “large number” of Americans had their telephone calls accidentally intercepted by the NSA when a top-secret order to eavesdrop on multiple phone lines for reasons of national security confused the international code for Egypt (20) with the area code for Washington (202).

Seriously.

I enjoy as much as the next chap all those Hollywood conspiracy thrillers about the all-powerful security state — you know the kind of thing, where the guy’s on the lam and he stops at a diner at a windswept one-stoplight hick burg in the middle of nowhere and decides to take the risk of making one 15-second call from the payphone, and as he dials the last digit there’s a click in a basement in Langley, and even as he’s saying hello the black helicopters are already descending on him. It’s heartening to know that, if I ever get taken out at a payphone, it will be because some slapdash timeserving pen-pusher mistyped the code for Malaysia (60) as that of New Hampshire (603).

The Egypt/Washington industrial-scale wrong number is almost too perfectly poignant a vignette at the end of a week in which hundreds are dead on the streets of Cairo. On the global scene, America has imploded: Its leaders have no grasp of its national interests, never mind any sense of how to achieve them. The assumption that we are in the early stages of “the post-American world” is now shared by everyone from General Sisi to Vladimir Putin. General Sisi, I should add, is Egypt’s new strongman, not Putin’s characterization of Obama. Meanwhile, in contrast to its accelerating irrelevance overseas, at home Washington’s big bloated blundering bureaucratic security state expands daily. It’s easier to crack down on 47 Elm Street than Benghazi.

Read more from this story HERE.

NSA Broke Privacy Rules Thousands of Times Per Year, Audit Finds

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NSAThe National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.

The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

In one instance, the NSA decided that it need not report the unintended surveillance of Americans. A notable example in 2008 was the interception of a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused the U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt, according to a “quality assurance” review that was not distributed to the NSA’s oversight staff.

In another case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has authority over some NSA operations, did not learn about a new collection method until it had been in operation for many months. The court ruled it unconstitutional.

Read more from this story HERE.

Democrat Senators Warn That NSA Violations ‘Tip of the Iceberg’

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udall_wydenTwo Democratic senators warned Friday that a new report detailing thousands of instances in which the National Security Agency broke laws while spying was only “the tip of a larger iceberg” of surveillance violations.

“We have previously said that the violations of these laws and rules were more serious than had been acknowledged, and we believe Americans should know that this confirmation is just the tip of a larger iceberg,” said Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Mark Udall, D-Colo., in a prepared statement.

The senators’ comments follow a Washington Post report Friday that detailed the NSA breaking privacy rules or overstepping its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008.

Wyden and Udall said that while Senate rules prohibit them confirming or denying some of the details in media reports, “the American people have a right to know more details about of these violations.”

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NSA Broke Privacy Rules Thousands of Times Per Year, Audit Finds

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Photo Credit: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

Photo Credit: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.

The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

In one instance, the NSA decided that it need not report the unintended surveillance of Americans. A notable example in 2008 was the interception of a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused the U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt, according to a “quality assurance” review that was not distributed to the NSA’s oversight staff.

In another case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has authority over some NSA operations, did not learn about a new collection method until it had been in operation for many months. The court ruled it unconstitutional.

Read more from this story HERE.

Snowden Downloaded NSA Secrets While Working for Dell, Sources Say

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Photo Credit: Affiliate

Photo Credit: Affiliate

Former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden began downloading documents describing the U.S. government’s electronic spying programs while he was working for Dell Inc in April 2012, almost a year earlier than previously reported, according to U.S. officials and other sources familiar with the matter.

Snowden, who was granted a year’s asylum by Russia on Aug. 1, worked for Dell from 2009 until earlier this year, assigned as a contractor to U.S. National Security Agency facilities in the United States and Japan.

Snowden downloaded information while employed by Dell about eavesdropping programs run by the NSA and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, and left an electronic footprint indicating when he accessed the documents, said the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity.

David Frink, a spokesman for Round Rock, Texas-based Dell, declined to comment on any aspect of Snowden’s employment with the company, saying Dell’s “customer” – presumably the NSA – had asked Dell not to talk publicly about him.

Since Snowden disclosed documents on previously secret U.S. internet and phone surveillance programs in June, his three-month tenure with U.S. contractor Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp starting in late March of this year has been the focus of considerable attention. His time at Dell has received little attention.

Read more from this story HERE.

Snowden: NSA Targeted Journalists Critical of Government after 9/11

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Photo Credit: Daily Mail By Jonathan Easley

Leaker Edward Snowden accused the National Security Agency of targeting reporters who wrote critically about the government after the 9/11 attacks and warned it was “unforgivably reckless” for journalists to use unencrypted email messages when discussing sensitive matters.

Snowden said in an interview with the New York Times Magazine published Tuesday that he came to trust Laura Poitras, the documentary filmmaker who, along with Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, helped report his disclosure of secret surveillance programs, because she herself had been targeted by the NSA.

“Laura and [Guardian reporter] Glenn [Greenwald] are among the few who reported fearlessly on controversial topics throughout this period, even in the face of withering personal criticism, and resulted in Laura specifically becoming targeted by the very programs involved in the recent disclosures,” Snowden said for the article, a profile of Poitras.

Snowden didn’t detail how Poitras was targeted by the NSA surveillance programs he disclosed, but suggested the agency tracked her emails and cautioned other journalists that they could be under surveillance.

Read more from this story HERE.

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‘It cost the public dearly’: Snowden says media have failed as government watchdogs in his first interview since NSA leaks

By Joshua Gardner

In his first interview since he outed himself as the source of leaked NSA documents, Edward Snowden said the media has given the government a free pass to grow unchecked power ever since the attacks of September 11.

‘[It] ended up costing the public dearly,’ the 30-year-old newly minted Russia resident told the New York Times in a QandA published Tuesday.
Snowden’s interview focused on journalists and the media, which he said need to wake up to the realities of surveillance. ‘Any unencrypted message sent over the Internet is being delivered to every intelligence service in the world,’ he said.

Snowden’s QandA was, of course, done through encrypted emails. Laura Poitras, the documentary filmmaker who helped Snowden spill his secrets, served as intermediary, having won the former NSA contractor’s trust months ago.

‘Laura was more suspicious of me than I was of her, and I’m famously paranoid,’ Snowden told Times reporter Peter Maass.

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White House Insists James Clapper Will Not Lead NSA Surveillance Review

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Photo Credit: EPABy Ewen MacAskill

The White House has moved to dampen controversy over the role of the director of national intelligence James Clapper in a panel reviewing NSA surveillance, insisting that he would neither lead it nor choose the members.

Statements by Barack Obama and Clapper on Monday night were widely interpreted as the director of national intelligence being placed in charge of the inquiry, which the president had announced on Friday would be “independent”.

The apparent involvement of Clapper, who has admitted lying to Congress over NSA surveillance of US citizens, provoked a backlash, with critics accusing the president of putting a fox in charge of the hen house.

But the White House national security council insisted on Tuesday that Clapper’s role would be more limited.

“The panel members are being selected by the White House, in consultation with the intelligence community,” national security council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APIntelligence committee withheld key file before critical NSA vote, Amash claims

By Spencer Ackerman

A leader of the US congressional insurrection against the National Security Agency’s bulk surveillance programs has accused his colleagues of withholding a key document from the House of Representatives before a critical surveillance vote.

Justin Amash, the Michigan Republican whose effort to defund the NSA’s mass phone-records collection exposed deep congressional discomfort with domestic spying, said the House intelligence committee never allowed legislators outside the panel to see a 2011 document that described the surveillance in vague terms.

The document, a classified summary of the bulk phone records collection effort justified under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, was declassified by the Obama administration in late July.

The Justice Department and intelligence agencies prepared it for Congress before a 2011 vote to reauthorize the Patriot Act, and left it for the intelligence committees in Congress to make the document available to their colleagues.

“It is not acceptable for the intelligence committee, or any other committee, to withhold critically important information pertaining to a program prior to the vote,” Amash told the Guardian.

Read more from this story HERE.

Poll: Only 11 Percent Believe Obama’s NSA Promises

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Despite President Obama’s pledge to increase transparency and curb certain aspects of the National Security Agency’s surveillance program, a new Rasmussen poll shows the vast majority of Americans still need some convincing.

Only 11 percent of 1,000 likely voters polled believe the “president’s new policy” will make it less likely that the NSA will monitor the private phone calls of ordinary Americans.

Thirty percent actually believe the government is now more likely to spy on domestic phone calls, while a whopping 49 percent feel Friday’s announcement will do little to change the surveillance program.

On Friday Obama outlined a number of new steps designed to ease American fears after the June disclosure of NSA domestic spying programs by disillusioned contractor Edward Snowden.

Among those was a push to revise and clarify Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the controversial provision that the NSA uses to justify the boundless collection of cellphone metadata.

Read more from this story HERE.

The NSA is Turning the Internet into a Total Surveillance System

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Photo Credit: Roger ToothBy Alexander Abdo and Patrick Toomey

Another burst of sunlight permeated the National Security Agency’s black box of domestic surveillance last week.

According to the New York Times, the NSA is searching the content of virtually every email that comes into or goes out of the United States without a warrant. To accomplish this astonishing invasion of Americans’ privacy, the NSA reportedly is making a copy of nearly every international email. It then searches that cloned data, keeping all of the emails containing certain keywords and deleting the rest – all in a matter of seconds.

If you emailed a friend, family member or colleague overseas today (or if, from abroad, you emailed someone in the US), chances are that the NSA made a copy of that email and searched it for suspicious information.

The NSA appears to believe this general monitoring of our electronic communications is justified because the entire process takes, in one official’s words, “a small number of seconds”. Translation: the NSA thinks it can intercept and then read Americans’ emails so long as the intrusion is swift, efficient and silent.

That is not how the fourth amendment works.

Read more from this story HERE.

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N.S.A. Said to Search Content of Messages to and From U.S.

By Charlie Savage

The National Security Agency is searching the contents of vast amounts of Americans’ e-mail and text communications into and out of the country, hunting for people who mention information about foreigners under surveillance, according to intelligence officials.

The N.S.A. is not just intercepting the communications of Americans who are in direct contact with foreigners targeted overseas, a practice that government officials have openly acknowledged. It is also casting a far wider net for people who cite information linked to those foreigners, like a little used e-mail address, according to a senior intelligence official.

While it has long been known that the agency conducts extensive computer searches of data it vacuums up overseas, that it is systematically searching — without warrants — through the contents of Americans’ communications that cross the border reveals more about the scale of its secret operations.

It also adds another element to the unfolding debate, provoked by the disclosures of Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor, about whether the agency has infringed on Americans’ privacy as it scoops up e-mails and phone data in its quest to ferret out foreign intelligence.

Government officials say the cross-border surveillance was authorized by a 2008 law, the FISA Amendments Act, in which Congress approved eavesdropping on domestic soil without warrants as long as the “target” was a noncitizen abroad. Voice communications are not included in that surveillance, the senior official said.

Read more from this story HERE.