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The United States government has already declared that in regards to what it alleges to be a Russian cyberattack against the U.S. Democratic Party, the U.S. reserves the right to go to war against Russia. NATO has accordingly changed its policy so as to assert that a cyberattack (in this case actually cyber-espionage, such as the U.S. government itself perpetrates against even its own allies such as Angela Merkel by tapping her phone) constitutes an act of war by the alleged cyberattacker, and so requires all NATO member nations to join any cyberattacked NATO nation in war against its alleged (cyber)attacker, if the cyberattacked member declares war against its alleged cyberattacker. Excuses are being sought for a war against Russia; and expanding the definition of “invasion,” to include mere espionage, is one such excuse. But it’s not the only one that the Obama Administration has cooked up. U.S. Senator Mike Lee has asserted that President Barack Obama must obtain a declaration of war against Syria — which is allied with and defended by Russia — before invading Syria. Syria has, for the past few years, already been invaded by tens of thousands of foreign jihadists (financed mainly by the royal Sauds and Qataris, and armed mainly with U.S. weaponry) who are trying to overthrow and replace the Syrian government so that pipelines can be built through Syria into Europe to transport Saudi oil and Qatari gas into the EU, the world’s biggest energy-market, which now is dominated by Russia’s oil and gas. Since Syria is already being defended by Russia (those royals’ major competitor in the oil and gas markets), America’s invasion of Syria would necessarily place U.S. and Russia into an air-war against each other (for the benefit of those royal Arabs — who finance jihadist groups, as even Hillary Clinton acknowledges): Syria would thus become a battleground in a broader war against Russia. So: declaring war against Syria would be a second excuse for World War III, and one which would especially serve the desires not only of U.S. ‘defense’ firms but of the U.S. aristocracy’s royal Arabic allies, who buy much of those ‘defense’ firms’ exports (weaponry), and also U.S. oilfield services firms such as pipelines by Halliburton. (It’s good business for them, no one else. Taxpayers and war-victims pay, but those corporations — and royal families — would profit.)

The U.S. government also declares that Russia ‘conquered’ Crimea in 2014 and that Russia must restore it to Ukraine. The U.S. government wants Ukraine to be accepted into NATO, so that all NATO nations will be at war against Russia if Russia doesn’t return Crimea to Ukraine, of which Crimea had only briefly (1954-2014) been a part, until Crimeans voted on 16 March 2014 to rejoin Russia. This Crimean issue is already the basis for America’s economic sanctions against Russia, and thus Russia’s continuing refusal to coerce Crimeans to accept again being part of Ukraine would be yet a third excuse for WW III.

Hillary Clinton says “As President, I will make it clear, that the United States will treat cyber attacks just like any other attack.” She alleges that when information was unauthorizedly made public from Democratic National Committee computers, the cyberattacker was Russia. She can be counted as a strong proponent of that excuse for WW3. She’s with Barack Obama and the other neocons on that. She has furthermore said that the U.S. should shoot down any Russian and Syrian bombers in Syria — the phrase for that proposed U.S. policy is to “establish a no-fly zone” there. She makes clear: “I am advocating the no-fly zone.” It would be war against not only Syria, but Russia. (After all: a no-fly zone in which the U.S. is shooting down the government’s planes and Russia’s planes, would be war by the U.S. against both Syria and Russia, but that’s what she wants to do.) She can thus be counted as a strong proponent of those two excuses for WW3.

The Fed was sued by financial news network Bloomberg two years ago.  Bloomberg wants the Fed to reveal which banks received $2 trillion in bailout money and why.  Bloomberg won the case and the Fed appealed.  Bloomberg, also, won the appeal in March 2010!  The precedent setting case would force the Fed to reveal the details of secret bank bailouts–including $500 billion given to foreign financial firms!!    In a Bloomberg story earlier this week, lawyers representing the Federal Reserve (which is made up in part by big U.S. banks) said, “U.S. commercial banks will take their fight against disclosure of Federal Reserve (documents) in 2008 to the Supreme Court if necessary . . .”  Lawyers representing the Fed say they are worried that if details of trillions of dollars in bailouts are revealed, it could cause another financial meltdown.  General Council for the Fed, Paul Saltzman, says, “Our member banks are very concerned about real-time disclosure of information that could cause a run on the banks.”  This is another story, with dire implications, the mainstream media is ignoring.  (Click here for the complete Bloomberg story)

Indictment Looms For Hillary As FBI Declares 22 Home-Server Emails “Top Secret” The leaking of the Clinton emails has been compared to as the next “Watergate”. By ZeroHedge.com | January 30, 2016 Share this article! targ

The State Department will release more emails from Clinton’s time as secretary of state later Friday. But The Associated Press has learned that 7 email chains are being withheld in full for containing “top secret” material. The 37 pages include messages recently described by a key intelligence official as concerning so-called “special access programs” — a highly restricted subset of classified material that could point to confidential sources or clandestine programs like drone strikes or government eavesdropping. Department officials wouldn’t describe the substance of the emails, or say if Clinton had sent any herself. Spokesman John Kirby tells the AP that no judgment on past classification was made. But the department is looking into that, too.

For those that Clinton only read, and didn’t write or forward, she still would have been required to report classification slippages that she recognized. Possible responses for classification infractions include counseling, warnings or other action, State Department officials said, though they declined to say if these applied to Clinton or senior aides who’ve since left the department. The officials weren’t authorized to speak on the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. However, as we previously noted, the implications are tough for The DoJ – if they indict they crush their own candidate’s chances of the Presidency, if they do not – someone will leak the details and the FBI will revolt… The leaking of the Clinton emails has been compared to as the next “Watergate” by former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova this week, if current FBI investigations don’t proceed in an appropriate manner. The revelation comes after more emails from Hilary Clinton’s personal email have come to light. “[The investigation has reached] a critical mass,” DiGenova told radio host Laura Ingraham when discussing the FBI’s still pending investigation. Though Clinton is still yet to be charged with any crime, DiGenova advised on Tuesday that changes may be on the horizon. The mishandling over the classified intelligence may lead to an imminent indictment, with DiGenova suggesting it may come to a head within 60 days.

Concluding Thoughts

This case well illustrates both the challenges faced by modern law enforcement in retrieving information it needs to pursue and prosecute wrongdoers, and the threat to the privacy of innocent parties from a vigorous criminal investigation. At the time of Tamura, most individuals and enterprises kept records in their file cabinets or similar physical facilities. Today, the same kind of data is usually stored electronically, often far from the premises. Electronic storage facilities intermingle data, making them difficult to retrieve without a thorough understanding of the filing and classification systems used—something that can often only be determined by closely analyzing the data in a controlled environment. Tamura involved a few dozen boxes and was considered a broad seizure; but even inexpensive electronic storage media today can store the equivalent of millions of pages of information. 1176*1176 Wrongdoers and their collaborators have obvious incentives to make data difficult to find, but parties involved in lawful activities may also encrypt or compress data for entirely legitimate reasons: protection of privacy, preservation of privileged communications, warding off industrial espionage or preventing general mischief such as identity theft. Law enforcement today thus has a far more difficult, exacting and sensitive task in pursuing evidence of criminal activities than even in the relatively recent past. The legitimate need to scoop up large quantities of data, and sift through it carefully for concealed or disguised pieces of evidence, is one we've often recognized. See, e.g., United States v. Hill, 459 F.3d 966 (9th Cir.2006).

This pressing need of law enforcement for broad authorization to examine electronic records, so persuasively demonstrated in the introduction to the original warrant in this case, see pp. 1167-68 supra, creates a serious risk that every warrant for electronic information will become, in effect, a general warrant, rendering the Fourth Amendment irrelevant. The problem can be stated very simply: There is no way to be sure exactly what an electronic file contains without somehow examining its contents—either by opening it and looking, using specialized forensic software, keyword searching or some other such technique. But electronic files are generally found on media that also contain thousands or millions of other files among which the sought-after data may be stored or concealed. By necessity, government efforts to locate particular files will require examining a great many other files to exclude the possibility that the sought-after data are concealed there. Once a file is examined, however, the government may claim (as it did in this case) that its contents are in plain view and, if incriminating, the government can keep it. Authorization to search some computer files therefore automatically becomes authorization to search all files in the same sub-directory, and all files in an enveloping directory, a neighboring hard drive, a nearby computer or nearby storage media. Where computers are not near each other, but are connected electronically, the original search might justify examining files in computers many miles away, on a theory that incriminating electronic data could have been shuttled and concealed there.

NSA Director Finally Admits Encryption Is Needed to Protect Public’s Privacy The new stance denotes a growing awareness within the government that Americans are not comfortable with the State’s grip on their data. By Carey Wedler | AntiMedia | January 22, 2016 Share this article! https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&to&su=NSA%20Director%20Finally%20Admits%20Encryption%20Is%20Needed%20to%20Protect%20Public%E2%80%99s%20Privacy&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mintpress

At the same hearing, Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch declined to comment on whether they had proof the Paris attackers used encryption. Even so, Comey recently lobbied for tech companies to do away with end-to-end encryption. However, his crusade has fallen on unsympathetic ears, both from the private companies he seeks to control — and from the NSA. Prior to Rogers’ statements in support of encryption Thursday, former NSA chief Michael Hayden said, “I disagree with Jim Comey. I actually think end-to-end encryption is good for America.” Still another former NSA chair has criticized calls for backdoor access to information. In October, Mike McConnell told a panel at an encryption summit that the United States is “better served by stronger encryption, rather than baking in weaker encryption.” Former Department of Homeland Security chief, Michael Chertoff, has also spoken out against government being able to bypass encryption.

Rogers cited the recent Office of Personnel Management hack of over 20 million users as a reason to increase encryption rather than scale it back. “What you saw at OPM, you’re going to see a whole lot more of,” he said, referring to the massive hack that compromised the personal data about 20 million people who obtained background checks. Rogers’ comments, while forward-thinking, signify an about face in his stance on encryption. In February 2015, he said he “shares [FBI] Director [James] Comey’s concern” about cell phone companies’ decision to add encryption features to their products. Comey has been one loudest critics of encryption. However, Rogers’ comments on Thursday now directly conflict with Comey’s stated position. The FBI director has publicly chastised encryption, as well as the companies that provide it. In 2014, he claimed Apple’s then-new encryption feature could lead the world to “a very dark place.” At a Department of Justice hearing in November, Comey testified that “Increasingly, the shadow that is ‘going dark’ is falling across more and more of our work.” Though he claimed, “We support encryption,” he insisted “we have a problem that encryption is crashing into public safety and we have to figure out, as people who care about both, to resolve it. So, I think the conversation’s in a healthier place.”

In a new court filing, the Department of Justice revealed that it kept a secret database of telephone metadata—with one party in the United States and another abroad—that ended in 2013. The three-page partially-redacted affidavit from a top Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) official, which was filed Thursday, explained that the database was authorized under a particular federal drug trafficking statute. The law allows the government to use "administrative subpoenas" to obtain business records and other "tangible things." The affidavit does not specify which countries records were included, but specifically does mention Iran. This database program appears to be wholly separate from the National Security Agency’s metadata program revealed by Edward Snowden, but it targets similar materials and is collected by a different agency. The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, reported Friday that this newly-revealed program began in the 1990s and was shut down in August 2013.

The criminal case involves an Iranian-American man named Shantia Hassanshahi, who is accused of violating the American trade embargo against Iran. His lawyer, Mir Saied Kashani, told Ars that the government has clearly abused its authority. "They’ve converted this from a war on drugs to a war on privacy," he said. "[Hassanshahi] is not accused of any drug crime but they used this drug enforcement information to gather information against him, that's contrary to the law, and we will revisit that. We will bring motions in the court and we will appeal if necessary." Neither the DEA nor the Department of Justice immediately responded to Ars' query as to whether this program is continuing under a different authority.

The story begins in 2011, when a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agent received a tip about someone who might be in violation of American sanctions against Iran. The source provided an e-mail from an Iranian businessman, Manoucher Sheiki, who was involved in acquiring power grid equipment. A second Homeland Security agent, Joshua Akronowitz, wrote in a 2013 affidavit that he searched Sheiki’s Iranian phone number in this database, but declined to explain exactly what kind of database it was. Akronowitz found that the Iranian number came up exactly one time in the database, and was linked to an 818 number, based in Los Angeles County. That number turned out to be the Google Voice number of Hassanshahi. DHS then subpoenaed Google, and got Hassanshahi’s call log and later, metadata on his Gmail account. By early 2012, the agency found out that he was set to return to Los Angeles from Iran. At LAX Airport, customs agents seized his phone, laptop, thumb drives, camcorder, and SIM cards and sent them to Homeland Security. Last year, Kashani, Hassanshahi’s lawyer, argued that this evidence should be suppressed on account that it was the "fruit of the poisonous tree"—obtained via illicit means. In support of his arguments, Kashani cited an important ongoing NSA-related lawsuit, Klayman v. Obama, which remains the only instance where a judge has order the NSA metadata program to be shut down—that order was stayed pending an appeal. (Earlier this month, Ars explored Klayman and other pending notable surveillance cases.)

As I continue to poke around under the hood of Google Federal — as the company’s DC operation is called — I’m surprised by the number of former spooks, high-level intelligence officials and revolving door military contractors running Google’s public sector division. Many of Google Federal’s top managers come from the biggest and baddest military and intel outfits: US Army, Air Force Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Director of National Intelligence, USAID, SAIC, Lockheed… the list keeps going on and on.

Google is boldly opposing an attempt by the US Justice Department to expand federal powers to search and seize digital data, warning that the changes would open the door to US “government hacking of any facility” in the world. In a strongly worded submission to the Washington committee that is considering the proposed changes, Google says that increasing the FBI’s powers set out in search warrants would raise “monumental and highly complex constitutional, legal and geopolitical concerns that should be left to Congress to decide”. The search giant warns that under updated proposals, FBI agents would be able to carry out covert raids on servers no matter where they were situated, giving the US government unfettered global access to vast amounts of private information.

In particular, Google sounds the alarm over the FBI’s desire to “remotely” search computers that have concealed their location – either through encryption or by obscuring their IP addresses using anonymity services such as Tor. Those government searches, Google says, “may take place anywhere in the world. This concern is not theoretical. ... [T]he nature of today’s technology is such that warrants issued under the proposed amendment will in many cases end up authorizing the government to conduct searches outside the United States.”

The Justice Department itself has tried to assuage anxieties about its proposed amendment. In its comment to the committee, DoJ officials say that federal agents would only request the new type of warrants where there was “probable cause to search for or seize evidence, fruits, or instrumentalities of crime”. But civil liberties and legal groups remain unconvvinced, insisting that the language is so vaguely worded that it would have draconian and global implications. In its submission, the American Civil Liberties Union said that the proposed changes could violate the fourth amendment of the US constitution, which bans unreasonable searches and seizures. The ACLU’s principal technologist, Christopher Soghoian, said: “The government is seeking a troubling expansion of its power to surreptitiously hack into computers, including using malware. Although this proposal is cloaked in the garb of a minor procedural update, in reality it would be a major and substantive change that would be better addressed by Congress.”

A member of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency has been detained for possibly spying for the US. The 31-year-old is suspected of giving a US spy agency information about a parliamentary inquiry of NSA activities. (Image: PictureAlliance/DPA))German news outlets on Friday are reporting that a so-called “double agent” has been detained after confessing to investigators that he was paid by U.S. agents to spy on the German parliamentary panel now investigating the extent of U.S. National Security Agency’s surveillance inside the country. According to Deutsche Welle: During questioning, the suspect reportedly told investigators that he had gathered information on an investigative committee from Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag. The panel is conducting an inquiry into NSA surveillance on German officials and citizens. A spokesperson for the Federal Prosecutor’s office declined to provide further details about the case, according to news agency AFP. German-US relations have been on the rocks since revelations of mass surveillance not only on German citizens, but also on Chancellor Angela Merkel and other politicians made headlines last year.

Der Spiegel (Google Translate) notes that initial information indicates the individual—who worked for the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s equivalent of the NSA—had “been specifically looking for information related to the NSA investigation committee of the Bundestag and given them to his American contact man.” As journalist Glenn Greenwald immediately observed: That’d be the ultimate irony: US Govt spied on German parliamentary investigation into US Govt spying on Germans http://t.co/P9WkGT83oQ — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 4, 2014 And David Meyer, writing for Gigaom, adds: The 31-year-old was originally arrested on suspicion of having contact with Russian intelligence, but then apparently confessed to having reported back at least once to the Americans on the Bundestag committee’s activities. He reportedly did this for money. The reports raise the possibility that he may be lying, but also note that the committee has long suspected it was being spied on. If this is all true, it may turn out to be an even bigger diplomatic scandal than the NSA’s bugging of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone, a formal probe into which was announced a month ago.

On Thursday, the Bundestag’s investigative committee looking into NSA surveillance heard testimony from two U.S. whistleblowers who worked, Thomas Drake and William Binney, for the spy agency but objected to what they consider its troubling tactics. As Deutsche Welle reports, Binney—who once headed the agencies technology division—accused the NSA of having a “totalitarian mentality” and wanting “total information control” over U.S. citizens and the entirety of the global digital environment. He went on to compare the NSA’s approach to that used by dictators against oppressed populations. According to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA): Drake said the BND had become a “vermiform appendix of the NSA,” referring to accusations it had been passing data on German citizens on to the American service – an act forbidden under Germany’s constitution. “The silence of the BND is terrible,” Drake told the committee, and said people had a right to know what was going on. “You shouldn’t wait for a German Edward Snowden to lift the veil.”

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has won the infamous Rosemary Award for worst open government performance in 2013, according to the citation published today by the National Security Archive at www.nsarchive.org. Despite heavy competition, Clapper's "No, sir" lie to Senator Ron Wyden's question: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" sealed his receipt of the dubious achievement award, which cites the vastly excessive secrecy of the entire U.S. surveillance establishment. The Rosemary Award citation leads with what Clapper later called the "least untruthful" answer possible to congressional questions about the secret bulk collection of Americans' phone call data. It further cites other Clapper claims later proved false, such as his 2012 statement that "we don't hold data on U.S. citizens." But the Award also recognizes Clapper's fellow secrecy fetishists and enablers, including:

Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the NSA, for multiple Rose Mary Woods-type stretches, such as (1) claiming that the secret bulk collection prevented 54 terrorist plots against the U.S. when the actual number, according to the congressionally-established Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) investigation (pp. 145-153), is zero; (2) his 2009 declaration to the wiretap court that multiple NSA violations of the court's orders arose from differences over "terminology," an explanation which the chief judge said "strains credulity;" and (3) public statements by the NSA about its programs that had to be taken down from its website for inaccuracies (see Documents 78, 85, 87 in The Snowden Affair), along with public statements by other top NSA officials now known to be untrue (see "Remarks of Rajesh De," NSA General Counsel, Document 53 in The Snowden Affair).

Robert Mueller, former FBI director, for suggesting (as have Gen. Alexander and many others) that the secret bulk collection program might have been able to prevent the 9/11 attacks, when the 9/11 Commission found explicitly the problem was not lack of data points, but failing to connect the many dots the intelligence community already had about the would-be hijackers living in San Diego. The National Security Division lawyers at the Justice Department, for misleading their own Solicitor General (Donald Verrilli) who then misled (inadvertently) the U.S. Supreme Court over whether Justice let defendants know that bulk collection had contributed to their prosecutions. The same National Security Division lawyers who swore under oath in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for a key wiretap court opinion that the entire text of the opinion was appropriately classified Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (release of which would cause "exceptionally grave damage" to U.S. national security). Only after the Edward Snowden leaks and the embarrassed governmental declassification of the opinion did we find that one key part of the opinion's text simply reproduced the actual language of the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the only "grave damage" was to the government's false claims.

In a 13-page brief filed on Friday in federal court in Washington, DC, government lawyers assert that a June 3 declaration signed by Guantanamo prison warden Colonel John Bogdan, which sought to justify the rationale behind the genital search policy , contains details about "operational-security and force-protection procedures" that, if made public, "would better enable our enemies to attack the detention facilities at Guantanamo or undermine security at the facility".

The government made these claims in response to a motion to intervene  filed by this reporter in federal court last month which sought to unseal Bogdan's six-page declaration. Journalists can intervene in court cases and argue for the release of certain materials on the grounds that the public has a right of access to judicial records. The warden's declaration was submitted by the government - under seal - in response to a lawsuit filed by Guantanamo attorneys, who argued the genital search policy Bogdan enacted at the height of a mass hunger strike in April interfered with prisoners' access to their lawyers. The new procedures required prisoners to agree to have their genitals searched whenever they left their cells to meet with attorneys, and upon return, to ensure they were not transporting "contraband". Rather than submit to the searches, numerous prisoners declined to meet with their lawyers.

Last month, US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth banned the searches, calling them "religiously and culturally abhorrent". Lamberth said the protocol Bogdan implemented under the guise of security was actually intended to deter prisoners from meeting with their lawyers. The judge noted the "government is a recidivist when it comes to denying counsel access" to the prisoners. Three days after Lamberth issued his opinion, this reporter's Washington, DC-based attorney, Jeffrey Light, filed a motion to intervene to unseal Bogdan's declaration. The following week a federal appeals court reversed Lamberth's decision while the government prepared a formal appeal.

When one transfers the learned behavior of selfishness to the world of economics, it is east to see how we got to the world of adjustable rate mortgages, thirty-to-one leverage, credit default swaps, and thirty year hedge fund workers acting as is million dollar paychecks was an otherwise normal entitlement.  If it felt good, it was therefore right – and by all means, don’t rock the boat.  And what we are witnessing today in Washington and Wall Street in response to our economic crisis is nothing but a conscious and willing decision to pass off to the next generation the cost of our mistakes.

the fundamental principles of capitalism – namely that bad actors need to fail.

First and most foremost, the Congress needs to institute a modernized version of Glass-Stegall and separate commercial banking from investment banking activities. What we have seen in the abolishment Glass-Stegall (please thank Mr. Rubin formerly of Goldman Sachs) is the creation of federally subsidize casinos masquerading as publicly traded financial institutions.  They kept profits from over-leveraged bets and were kind enough to pass their losses onto the taxpayers.  Second, Congress needs to repeal legislation (Gramm-Leach) that allowed financial institutions not only to leverage in ways previously not permitted, but which also granted banks and financial situations exemption from federal gambling laws. Third, and this is where moral outrage hits home to those on Wall Street, we cannot live in a country in which any company is allowed to manipulate the levers of government in such a way as to make itself obscenely rich at the expense of the public.

Although the government’s warrantless surveillance program is associated with the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has gradually become a significant player in administering it, a newly declassified report shows.In 2008, according to the report, the F.B.I. assumed the power to review email accounts the N.S.A. wanted to collect through the “Prism” system, which collects emails of foreigners from providers like Yahoo and Google. The bureau’s top lawyer, Valerie E. Caproni, who is now a Federal District Court judge, developed procedures to make sure no such accounts belonged to Americans.

Then, in October 2009, the F.B.I. started retaining copies of unprocessed communications gathered without a warrant to analyze for its own purposes. And in April 2012, the bureau began nominating new email accounts and phone numbers belonging to foreigners for collection, including through the N.S.A.’s “upstream” system, which collects communications transiting network switches.That information is in a 231-page study by the Justice Department’s inspector general about the F.B.I.’s activities under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which authorized the surveillance program. The report was entirely classified when completed in September 2012. But the government has now made a semi-redacted version of the report public in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by The New York Times.

The report also filled in a gap about the evolving legality of the warrantless wiretapping program, which traces back to a decision by President George W. Bush in October 2001 to direct the N.S.A. to collect Americans’ international phone calls and emails, from network locations on domestic soil, without the individual warrants required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. The Times revealed that program in December 2005.After the article appeared, telecommunications providers that had voluntarily participated in the program were sued, and a Federal District Court judge in Detroit ruled that the program was illegal, although that decision was later vacated. The Bush administration sought to put the program on more solid legal footing by gaining orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approving it.Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story In January 2007, the Bush administration persuaded the court’s Judge Malcolm Howard to issue an order to telephone and network companies requiring them to let the security agency target foreigners’ accounts for collection without individual warrants. But in April 2007, when the order came up for renewal before Judge Roger Vinson, he said that it was illegal.