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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe NSA searches its mass database of phone records without real judicial oversight.
The NSA searches its mass database of phone records without real judicial oversight. That’s unacceptable.
4. Does the NSA have to get prior court approval for each query?
No. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., asked, “Every time you make the query, does that have to be approved by the court?” Cole answered, “We do not have to get separate court approval for each query. … We don't go back to the court each time.” Cole noted that the judges, up front, “set out the standards for us to use,” including the “reasonable suspicion” standard. But “we don't give the reasonable suspicion to the court ahead of time.”
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, didn’t like the oversight gap Schiff had exposed. Rogers has repeatedly assured Americans that the data are kept in a “lockbox.” To shore up this story, Rogers stepped in with a friendly question for Cole: “My understanding, though, is that every access is already pre-approved; that the way you get into the system is court-approved. Is that correct?” Cole replied: “That's correct. The court sets out the standards which have to be applied to allow us to make the query in the first place.”
In other words, the court categorically pre-approves all queries that meet the “reasonable, articulable suspicion” standard. The NSA then applies that standard as it sees fit. No presentation of evidence to the court is required.
6. Does the NSA submit each query for court review afterward?
No. Schiff asked: “Does the court scrutinize, after you present back to the court, ‘These are the occasions where we found reasonable and articulable facts’? Do they scrutinize your basis for conducting those queries?” Cole replied, “Yes, they do.” But a few minutes later, Cole corrected himself: “The FISC does not review each and every ‘reasonable, articulable suspicion’ determination. What does happen is they are given reports every 30 days in the aggregate. And if there are any compliance issues, if we found that it wasn't applied properly, that's reported separately to the court.”
Schiff pressed for clarification: “I just want to make sure I understood what you just said. A prior court approval is not necessary for a specific query, but when you report back to the court about how the order has been implemented, you do set out those cases where you found reasonable, articulable facts and made a query. Do you set out those with specificity, or you just say, ‘On 15 occasions we made a query'?’” Cole answered: “It's more the latter, the aggregate number where we've made a query. And if there's any problems that have been discovered, then we, with specificity, report to the court those problems.”
Cole and other officials said the queries are tightly documented and reviewed by the Department of Justice. But the bottom line is that the executive branch reports to the court only those cases which the administration itself has flagged as possible abuses.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/06/warrantless_searches_the_court_oversight_of_nsa_phone_surveillance_is_a.single.html
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Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)Anyone without a warrant, this is absolutely absurd thinking. Teachers would not be able to ask questions, doctors could not ask questions. This whole matter is getting nitpicked by unreasonable minds who just want to cause problems and turmoil. What about having to have a warrant in order to query Google. Stop this and get sensible.
dkf
(37,305 posts)Is it too strict even?
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)started then where does this stop? It is outrageous to expect for every query made in NSA to have a warrant.
dkf
(37,305 posts)Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)internet will go away and no more news reports, you have to get permission to do everything. Do you think the courts will be tied up on this, no, too much guberment interference into our lives. Won't be anymore Guardian for Snowden to sell his stolen property.
dkf
(37,305 posts)Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)you still don't understand don't know what to tell you.
dkf
(37,305 posts)Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)
dawg
(10,777 posts)NSA has a large database of telephone metadata. Today, they could decide to run a query of that database based on *your* phone number - just to see who you have been in communication with.
dkf and I think that they should be required to get a warrant specific to you in order to be allowed to do that. A blanket warrant covering all Verizon customers should not suffice.
This makes the internet go away ........ how?
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)That would not be proper. You don't know who I am.
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Or do you?
dawg
(10,777 posts)Of course they can do that without a warrant. All that is public domain information.
I'm talking about telephone company metadata handed over by the telephone carrier to the NSA. They probably have lots of other data on us as well - purchase information, SMS messages, emails. It's scary.
randome
(34,845 posts)So what makes you think they have purchase information, SMS messages and emails?
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dawg
(10,777 posts)But I do think it is likely. The storage capacity of the data facility being built is so inordinately large in comparison to the data we know about, that it is obvious they are preparing to store something else. If not, they should be strung up for wasting money. 
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)and it makes zero sense.
randome
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ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)a NSA warrant have to do with teachers and doctors? You do know there is a difference between law enforcement and teachers and doctors, right?
Speaking of absurd.....why would you have to have a warrant to query Google? Google isn't the same thing as NSA records.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)review or challenge. Furthermore, the basis for an "articulable suspicion" is itself an automated profiling system based upon relationship maps that go at least "two hops" out from any record of contact with a foreign suspect. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/06/prism_two_hops_nsa_agents_are_trained_to_target_friends_of_friends_how_many.html Two hops means two degrees of separation. In Facebook terms, those are "Friends of Friends." For the average Facebook page user, that means that for each hit within the system the median number of people who will be run through the secondary profiling database, which is a "database of databases" containing everything from the 702 program records to your record of grocery shopping items, will be more than 30,000.
randome
(34,845 posts)Who says the NSA is 'querying' Facebook? Your link just throws Facebook out there as an example. Facebook has already stated -as has every other IT company involved- that it does not allow 'direct access' as Snowden claimed.
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dkf
(37,305 posts)They don't need the companies to get that.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)Americans who disapprove of the government reading their emails have more to worry about from a different and larger NSA effort that snatches data as it passes through the fiber optic cables that make up the Internet's backbone. That program, which has been known for years, copies Internet traffic as it enters and leaves the United States, then routes it to the NSA for analysis.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/secret-prism-success-even-bigger-data-seizure
Monkie
(1,301 posts)and the lies of those in charge, how it is done is completely meaningless and a distraction
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)dkf
(37,305 posts)I guess if you don't understand that then they are just a jumble of words.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)But he never had the kind of access he claims so it's not surprising he didn't understand how the NSA works.
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ProSense
(116,464 posts)mentions that Bush was doing this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3030110
dkf
(37,305 posts)He's long gone. He couldn't fix it if he wanted to.
dkf
(37,305 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)But the idea that NSA downloads the Internet every day is ludicrous.
First link talks about what Bush was doing in 2004. Then it starts talking about two other programs. Did they get the information from their anonymous source? They mention an anonymous source earlier but they don't say if this person outlined these two programs, they just start talking about them as if they are real and actually do what they claim.
So I'm not convinced yet. There would be no upside to 'spying' on the world's communications. Too much to handle and the world would be humming along with no problems if they were doing that.
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dawg
(10,777 posts)He had access to some of the things they were doing. But not everything they were doing.
randome
(34,845 posts)His resume has been shown to be a fabrication so everything he says now is to be taken with a big grain of salt.
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dawg
(10,777 posts)without even considering what Snowden has to say. He just got the conversation started this time around.
randome
(34,845 posts)When someone is caught lying, most people tend to tune that person out.
I don't think we should.
And even if he is to be 'congratulated' for lying in order to get a point across, why do so in such a clumsy, ham-fisted manner? He has probably ruined his life.
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leveymg
(36,418 posts)to support their factual claims, while you just keep making allegations about Snowden's character, even when the issue isn't about Snowden.
Do you have some sort of problem staying on topic, or are you just trying to derail an argument you've already lost on the merits?
randome
(34,845 posts)Of course there is no proof of anything at this point, just as there is no proof of what Snowden claims. But if he wanted to convince us, he would have furnished evidence. He didn't so it starts to make sense that very little about the guy is what it seems.
Just going by the preponderance of evidence so far.
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leveymg
(36,418 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)He was at a school that had a 'working relationship' with the NSA but he did not work for the NSA.
It's like I said, he is not to be trusted but that doesn't take away from pressing for more transparency and less secrecy for the NSA.
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ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)who leaked the Verizon warrant:
One question many had been asking since Edward Snowden came forward as the source of recently leaked National Security Agency documents was just how someone in Snowden’s position got access to an order issued by the highly secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The order, requiring a Verizon subsidiary, Verizon Business Network Services, to turn over the metadata about calls made by all its subscribers over a three-month period, was top secret, and had no relevance to Snowden’s job as an IT system’s administrator working for an NSA contractor.
Well, we now have an answer. He had access to the order when he was being trained.
After a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday, National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander told reporters that Snowden had access to the document during an orientation he attended at NSA headquarters in Maryland.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/06/snowden_verizon_nsa.php
That seems like a good bit of evidence to me and to the other three former NSA employees.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)That, for me, is the most important thing we can know about Snowden. Most of the rest of the great Snowden hunt here just seems like a mob tarring his character to obscure the more important facts about how the NSA program is being run.
randome
(34,845 posts)But Snowden's resume is fake. His ridiculous claims about how the NSA works are apparently not based on having access to the inner workings of the NSA.
All he could get his hands on were internal NSA documents, not 'spy' stuff.
There is nothing wrong with looking at how the NSA does its job but Snowden is not the poster boy for honesty and transparency.
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leveymg
(36,418 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)All he apparently had access to were internal NSA office documents.
And if his job was not an Analyst who actually went through data after getting a warrant, then how would he know anything about this vast network of 'spying on the world' as he implied?
He made up a resume and has shown no evidence that the NSA is capturing all the world's communications or has analysts who can watch our thoughts form at the keyboard, as he claimed.
The NSA can certainly use more transparency and less secrecy but Snowden snowed everyone, not just at the NSA.
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ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)I'll take the word of Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe, all of whom credit Snowden for blowing the lid off the secrecy and for the Verizon document that is actual proof of what the three of them have been saying (through official channels and they were ignored.)
Nice try, though.
randome
(34,845 posts)Myself, I don't give a damn who has my phone metadata. It doesn't do anyone any good.
But it's Snowden's more outrageous claims that bear scrutiny.
He said he "saw things". What things? He never specified.
He said Analysts can watch our thoughts form as we type. Any evidence? No.
He said the NSA is capturing ALL communications. In other words, downloading the Internet on a daily basis. Any evidence? No.
He said anyone with the clearance can spy on anyone, including the President. Any evidence? No.
His resume appears to have been faked.
I don't think we need a poster boy to press for changes at the NSA, do we? Snowden is not to be trusted.
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ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)believe the documents. It's not about Snowden - it's about the info and documents he provided.
randome
(34,845 posts)There is nothing at all wrong with reviewing how the process works and making it work better, more transparently, less secretively.
But all these threads being started about how the NSA is downloading everything and spying on everyone are pretty much all based on Snowden's curiously non-specific allegations.
If we discount Snowden, then we're left with: what does the NSA do, is it legal and how can we make it more transparent and less secretive.
There's no need -and this isn't directed at you- for people to wring their hands and gnash their teeth and portray the NSA as some kind of organized 'Death Star' for America.
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ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)they are also based on what the 3 former NSA employees are saying. They tried for years to bring some of this to light, only to be shut down and having their lives ruined.
I personally think we need to scream loud and long - enough of this crap.
randome
(34,845 posts)A lot of changes to the Patriot Act and FISA have occurred since then and Bush was clearly doing illegal wiretapping.
The FISA court even ruled against the NSA not long ago.
It isn't a perfect process and at least one of those 3 -Drake, I believe- actually stole documents and that's part of what he was dinged on.
Every time I see more allegations of spying on all 300 million Americans and parsing every single regulation in place for them, I think it's gone too far. And it's usually because Snowden is held up as a 'hero'. I don't see him as that at all, for the reasons I've outlined.
Yes, he started a conversation but he's also hurt his own cause.
Even the OP is predicated on the idea that NSA analysts are clearly doing things against the Constitution. And that's because of Snowden's 'influence' on the conversation.
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allin99
(894 posts)