NSA can intercept any communications ‘concerning’ all but four countries

[unhappycamper]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/01/nsa-can-intercept-any-communications-concerning-all-but-four-countries/



NSA can intercept any communications ‘concerning’ all but four countries
By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, July 1, 2014 10:56 EDT

The US National Security Agency has been authorized to intercept information “concerning” all but four countries worldwide, top-secret documents say, according to The Washington Post.

“The United States has long had broad no-spying arrangements with those four countries — Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand,” the Post reported Monday.

Yet “a classified 2010 legal certification and other documents indicate the NSA has been given a far more elastic authority than previously known, one that allows it to intercept through US companies not just the communications of its overseas targets but any communications about its targets as well.”

The certification — approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and included among a set of documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden — says 193 countries are “of valid interest for US intelligence.”