Group items tagged

The National Security Agency has a secret backdoor into its vast databases under a legal authority enabling it to search for US citizens' email and phone calls without a warrant, according to a top-secret document passed to the Guardian by Edward Snowden.The previously undisclosed rule change allows NSA operatives to hunt for individual Americans' communications using their name or other identifying information. Senator Ron Wyden told the Guardian that the law provides the NSA with a loophole potentially allowing "warrantless searches for the phone calls or emails of law-abiding Americans".The authority, approved in 2011, appears to contrast with repeated assurances from Barack Obama and senior intelligence officials to both Congress and the American public that the privacy of US citizens is protected from the NSA's dragnet surveillance programs.

The intelligence data is being gathered under Section 702 of the of the Fisa Amendments Act (FAA), which gives the NSA authority to target without warrant the communications of foreign targets, who must be non-US citizens and outside the US at the point of collection.The communications of Americans in direct contact with foreign targets can also be collected without a warrant, and the intelligence agencies acknowledge that purely domestic communications can also be inadvertently swept into its databases. That process is known as "incidental collection" in surveillance parlance.But this is the first evidence that the NSA has permission to search those databases for specific US individuals' communications.

Wyden, an Oregon Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, has obliquely warned for months that the NSA's retention of Americans' communications incidentally collected and its ability to search through it has been far more extensive than intelligence officials have stated publicly. Speaking this week, Wyden told the Guardian it amounts to a "backdoor search" through Americans' communications data."Section 702 was intended to give the government new authorities to collect the communications of individuals believed to be foreigners outside the US, but the intelligence community has been unable to tell Congress how many Americans have had their communications swept up in that collection," he said."Once Americans' communications are collected, a gap in the law that I call the 'back-door searches loophole' allows the government to potentially go through these communications and conduct warrantless searches for the phone calls or emails of law-abiding Americans."

The document below is the full text of a brief article from the Oct. 12, 2011 edition of the Top Secret “SSO News,” an NSA electronic newsletter. It includes the first confirmation – and the only known details – of an Oct. 3, 2011 ruling in which the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held that the NSA was using illegal methods to collect and handle the emails and other internet communications of American citizens and green card holders. Much remains unknown about the case and its resolution, which is the subject of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The intended audience would be familiar with the NSA's internal jargon and acronyms. Here is a brief glossary of terms. The article's author has been redacted by The Washington Post. NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds

New evidence of the intelligence community’s intentionally deceptive use of the English language was released today in the form of a Defense Intelligence Agency document that instructs analysts to use words that do not mean what they appear to mean. The section of the DIA’s “intelligence law handbook” on the “Collection of Information about United States Persons” opens like this: To begin the journey, it is necessary to stop first and adjust your vocabulary. The terms and words used in DoD 5240.1-R have very specific meanings, and it is often the case that one can be led astray by relying on the generic or commonly understood definitions of a particular word. DoD 5240.1-R — entitled “Procedures Governing the Activities of DOD Intelligence Components that Affect United States Persons” – is the Department of Defense document that implements Executive Order 12333, the unilateral presidential directive first signed by President Reagan that authorizes government agencies to covertly sweep up vast amounts of private data from overseas communications. The plainspoken employee handbook was one several documents about Executive Order 12333 the ACLU obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit and released today. See also today’s Intercept story: “The Ghost of Ronald Reagan Authorizes Most NSA Spying”

Here is the handbook explaining how not to be led astray: For example, “collection of information” is defined in the Dictionary of the United States Army Terms (AR 310- 25) as: “The process of gathering information for all available sources and agencies. ” But, for the purposes of DoD 5240 .1-R, information is “collected” – only when it has been received for use by an employee of a DoD intelligence component in the course of his official duties… (and) an employee takes some affirmative action that demonstrates an intent to use or retain the information. So, we see that “collection of information” for DoD 5240.1-R purposes is more than “gathering” – it could be described as “gathering, plus … “. For the purposes of DoD 5240.1-R, “collection” is officially gathering or receiving information, plus an affirmative act in the direction of use or retention of that information.

For good measure, there’s this footnote: In addition, data acquired by electronic means is “collected” only when it is processed into intelligible form…;What constitutes an intelligible form may be somewhat problematic. Analysts can even gather information and keep it for up to six months without it counting as having been “collected”, as long as it’s being “held or forwarded to a supervisory authority, solely for the purpose of making a determination about its collectability.” Although the intelligence community’s astonishing abuse of words has been frequently noted, particularly in the context of surveillance, this may be the first time we’ve actually seen an instruction manual.