The Executive Order That Led To Mass Spying, As Told By NSA Alumni

An anonymous reader writes with this Ars piece about the executive order that is the legal basis for the U.S. government's mass spying on citizens. One thing sits at the heart of what many consider a surveillance state within the US today. The problem does not begin with political systems that discourage transparency or technologies that can intercept everyday communications without notice. Like everything else in Washington, there's a legal basis for what many believe is extreme government overreach—in this case, it's Executive Order 12333, issued in 1981. “12333 is used to target foreigners abroad, and collection happens outside the US," whistleblower John Tye, a former State Department official, told Ars recently. "My complaint is not that they’re using it to target Americans, my complaint is that the volume of incidental collection on US persons is unconstitutional.” The document, known in government circles as "twelve triple three," gives incredible leeway to intelligence agencies sweeping up vast quantities of Americans' data. That data ranges from e-mail content to Facebook messages, from Skype chats to practically anything that passes over the Internet on an incidental basis. In other words, EO 12333 protects the tangential collection of Americans' data even when Americans aren't specifically targeted—otherwise it would be forbidden under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978.

Comments

Re:Different era

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

Yes, Yes he is.

Union breaker
Deficit balloons
Trickle Down
Sandinistas
Iran-Contra
Ollie North
Nancy making decisions when he gets Alzheimer's

You fucking got me started

Please RTFA

[whoever57]

Read the FA. THe summary doesn't explain exactly what is happening. EO 12333 originally allowed for collection of data abroad, but today, the collection happens in the USA -- in domestic Internet hubs. Naturally, the vast majority of the data scooped up this way is purely domestic and concerns US citizens, but the NSA claims that this is purely incidental. That's right -- the majority of the collection is "incidental". Yeah, right.

FISA? That rubber stamp is bypassed while collecting masses of data on US citizens.

"This program was started at least back in 2001 and has expanded to between 80 and 100 tap points on the fiber optic lines in the lower 48 states," he said by e-mail. "Most of these fiber optic tap points are not on the East or West coast. This means that the primary target of this collection is domestic... Most collection of US domestic communications and data is done under EO 12333, section 2.3 paragraph C in the Upstream program. They claim, near as I can tell, that all domestic collection is incidental. That's, of course, the vast majority of data."

Re:Haply so, but exec orders and agencies

[penix1]

Did you even read the executive order?

First of all, it has been modified many, many times since Ronald Reagen the last that I can find was in 2008. http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/...

Second, and more to your points, sprinkled throughout the document are statements like, any intelligence collected concerning United States citizens must go through the FBI / Attorney General. This is so they can begin criminal investigations using the tools (read WARRANTS) to gain physical evidence of a crime. And the collection of that data, according to the order, is tangential to foreign intelligence gathering. As an example, here is 1.1(a)

(a) All means, consistent with applicable Federal law and this order, and with full consideration of the rights of United States persons, shall be used to obtain reliable intelligence information to protect the United States and its interests.

[Emphasis added]

This is 20(A):

(A) The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shall coordinate the clandestine collection of foreign intelligence collected through human sources or through human-enabled means and counterintelligence activities inside the United States;

[Emphasis added]

So sticking to the topic at hand, namely that this order authorizes warrantless surveillance of United States citizens, is patently false. That may be the way it is used but that goes counter to the executive order's language.

By the way, the "human enabled means" is the metadata you are talking about.