Court files: NSA engaged in “systematic overcollection”

[Eugene]

Source: Salon

TUESDAY, NOV 19, 2013 09:05 AM EST

Court files: NSA engaged in “systematic overcollection”

Newly declassified documents show Fisa judges shocked by extent of metadata trawling
sought by the spy agency

NATASHA LENNARD

Newly declassified (although heavily redacted) government documents revealed for the first time last Monday how the secretive Fisa court enabled the NSA to begins its vast dragnet program surveilling Americans’ online metadata.

The Fisa files illustrate how the spy agency’s mass surveillance practices were inscribed into law, but also highlight how even the Fisa judges were concerned and surprised by the extent of the dragnet spycraft. Court orders also released Monday show that the NSA “systematically” skirted the rules by engaging in consistent “overcollection.”

One court document published shows how a Fisa judged ruled, along with a single 1979 Supreme Court decision on which the NSA still relies, that metadata should enjoy no Fourth Amendment protection. This, despite the fact that technologists have agreed that metadata provides an immense amount of information on persons and their networks.

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Read more: http://www.salon.com/2013/11/19/court_files_nsa_engaged_in_systematic_overcollection/

[Eugene]

1. Docs say NSA repeatedly promised to stop surveillance rules violations

Source: Associated Press

Docs say NSA repeatedly promised to stop surveillance rules violations

Published November 19, 2013Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The National Security Agency reported its own violations of surveillance rules to a U.S. intelligence court and promised additional safety measures to prevent similar missteps over and over again, according to more than 1,000 pages of newly declassified files about the federal government's controversial program of collecting every American's phone records during the past seven years.

According to court records from 2009, after repeated assurances the NSA would obey the court's rules, it acknowledged that it had collected material improperly. In one instance, the government said its violations were caused by "poor management, lack of involvement by compliance officials and lack of internal verification procedures, not by bad faith." In another case, the NSA said it improperly collected information due to a typographical error.

The intelligence court judge, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, said in the 2009 case that since the government had repeatedly offered so many assurances despite the problems continuing, "those responsible for conducting oversight at the NSA had failed to do so effectively." Bates called his conclusion "the most charitable interpretation possible."

The Obama administration published the heavily censored files Monday night as part of an ongoing civil liberties lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the government's collection of phone records, which the White House has said is important to countering terrorism. The files published Monday night were so heavily censored that one of the two justifications for the government to search through Americans' phone records was blacked out.

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Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/19/docs-say-nsa-repeatedly-assured-court-it-would-stop-surveillance-rules/

[Demeter]

2. Call it what it REALLY is: TREASON

Defiling the Constitution and harming the nation's People.

[WillyT]

3. K & R !!!