FBI Quietly Changes Its Privacy Rules For Accessing NSA Data On Americans (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The FBI has quietly revised its privacy rules for searching data involving Americans' international communications that was collected by the NSA, U.S. officials have confirmed to the Guardian. The classified revisions were accepted by the secret U.S. court that governs surveillance, during its annual recertification of the agencies' broad surveillance powers. The new rules affect a set of powers colloquially known as Section 702, the portion of the law that authorizes the NSA's sweeping "Prism" program to collect internet data. Section 702 falls under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and is a provision set to expire later this year. A government civil liberties watchdog, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, alluded to the change in its recent overview of ongoing surveillance practices. The PCLOB's new compliance report, released last month, found that the administration has submitted "revised FBI minimization procedures" that address at least some of the group's concerns about "many" FBI agents who use NSA-gathered data. Sharon Bradford Franklin, a spokesperson for the PCLOB, said the rule changes move to enhance privacy. She could not say when the rules actually changed -- that, too, is classified. Last February, a compliance audit alluded to imminent changes to the FBI's freedom to search the data for Americans' identifying information. "FBI's minimization procedures will be updated to more clearly reflect the FBI's standard for conducting U.S. person queries and to require additional supervisory approval to access query results in certain circumstances," the review stated. The reference to "supervisory approval" suggests the FBI may not require court approval for their searches -- unlike the new system Congress enacted last year for NSA or FBI acquisition of U.S. phone metadata in terrorism or espionage cases.

Comments

Translation: You are still Serfs

[WillAffleckUW]

The sad thing is, it's only Americans who are serfs in America. Canadian and citizens of the EU have real privacy rights guaranteed by US/Canada and US/EU data treaties, which are binding.

They can even sue for their rights.

You can't.

Oh, wait, serfs had the right of appeal. You don't even have that.

Umm...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

So a secret court stamped 'legal' on a classified set of rules governing what access the FBI has to the data that the NSA officially does not collect?

I think, comrade, that we might have made an error somewhere in the process of implementing this 'representative government' concept...

Re:Umm...

[buck-yar]

This NSA spying is needed. Govt would be in the dark if it wasn't for PRISM. Do we really want the LEO that keep us safe to be blind?

The 4th does not protect your data when you send it plaintext over the internet. Every router from you to the destination sees your information. NSA is just seeing the same thing every random router has seen since the dawn of the internet.

Re:Can somebody summarize the summary?

[sumdumass]

In short, a section of the patriot act allows the FBI access to data collected by the NSA. A privacy group has been on the FBI's ass and the FBI finally submitted a new plan outlining the data access policy to the FISA court. The FISA court accepted the new rules but the details is being kept secret. The privacy group claims partial victory but won't give enough details on how they know that amount to much more than a guess.

Short enough?

a summary that uses a lot of words to say nothing

[bloodhawk]

who the fuck wrote this awful summary. was it really that hard to add a little about what the fuck the changes actually are