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NSA Collected Americans' Phone Records Despite Law Change, Says Report (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. National Security Agency collected more than 151 million records of Americans' phone calls last year, even after Congress limited its ability to collect bulk phone records, according to an annual report issued on Tuesday by the top U.S. intelligence officer. The report from the office of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats was the first measure of the effects of the 2015 USA Freedom Act, which limited the NSA to collecting phone records and contacts of people U.S. and allied intelligence agencies suspect may have ties to terrorism. It found that the NSA collected the 151 million records even though it had warrants from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court to spy on only 42 terrorism suspects in 2016, in addition to a handful identified the previous year. The report came as Congress faced a decision on whether to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which permits the NSA to collect foreign intelligence information on non-U.S. persons outside the United States, and is scheduled to expire at the end of this year.
It's been going on even before that. The metadata of a call is of course calling, called, date, time, duration and in the case of mobile phones location. You can put together a fairly comprehensive case with just those.
42 warrants, 151 million conversations collected. Maybe it's time to downsize NSA? When an agency operates outside of its legal scope it's receiving a much larger budget than necessary, is not operating with the public consent and it is therefore illegal. You can not do anything you want and attempt to hide under the guise of national security, cowards do that. I don't want to think of my government as being run by cowards. Those kind of numbers are not just alarming, they prove we are currently living in a West Germany style country. Mass surveillance is unacceptable in any democratic country that has any semblance of right and wrong. This kind of program is untenable and unacceptable for a democratic country.
the CIA has been breaking laws for quite some time. It will take a GIANT public stink before the CIA stops blatantly breaking laws in the name of well...whatever it wants to justify it's behavior with at the time. (Now it's "national security" back in the 50-60's it was "fighting communism"). When Kennedy tried to get the CIA on more government reins...well we know what happened to him.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Despite the mounting evidence that the phone surveillance was in full force even last year, most of the news media will still pretend that those 151 million phone records couldn't possibly include Donald Trump or his associates. Obama allowed and expanded the surveillance despite promisingâ during his campaign to abolish it. It should be clearer than ever that Obama was indeed responsible for monitoring the phones of Trump and his associates.
Trump's allegation was that he was specifically wiretapped at the orders of Obama. Not that his conversations were swept up in a dragnet. Not that expect him to actually stand by what he says, because he's Donald Trump and changes positions daily. But the rest of us can at least be clear.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
There's no way an honest group of people like the NSA would ever do such a thing!
I tend to rant.
He was in charge. No repercussions. That's all you need to know.
Laws and the consequences for breaking them are for the poor and unconnected.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
"But Trump is lying when he says Obama was spying on him!"
- Said someone who hasn't heard of Edward Snowden
Things like this seriously undermine the credibility of anyone who claims that the US is still a 'nation under the rule of law'.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
If there are no repercussions for agencies that break laws then they will just continue breaking them. If you allow agencies to continue breaking laws then your government loses credibility. Governments without credibility are prone to upheaval and a loss of the rule of law.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
And people will be going to prison for this in 3, 2, 1....
Shit. Let's try again. Like any other person violating the CFAA they will be held accountable in 3, 2, 1....
Shit, still nothing. How about violations of the 4th amendment? 3, 2, 1...
Nope.
Well, I guess that's that. they are truly above the law.
The whole point of the massive NSA datacenter in Utah is that they collect _everything_. The argument from the NSA and Federal Government was that they would only look at data where they had a warrant. Our argument back was that there is no way to ensure data is only viewed by warrant, especially when they were looking at ways of cataloguing data they could see, and trying to crack encryption on what they could not.
We were right, they were dishonest. Nothing new in terms of Government abusing power, and nobody should be surprised that the more we give them the more they abuse.
Since the hardware is already in place to copy all traffic to the NSA, law changes which impact collection of data would have to tackle that particular issue. Good luck with that. ISPs and Telecom providers get paid massive tax dollars to provide the service, so you know that they won't complain.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Remember, location is usually implicit for landline calls. Usually.
Do not doubt they perform disambiguation for landline calls where location is not assured to be exact. Mobile phones are not special cases, save that location may change during a call.
And we haven't been told what they collect for text messages. Sure they do.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
This is what allows Susan Rice to "unmask" US citizens: using the power of the state against its citizenry.
Hell, the Republicans were on Obama's nuts for years because he said, "If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance".
Republicans where after Obama on this because he KNEW what he was saying wasn't true when he said it, but the bill had to pass so it was about PR over truth.
Because no one ever uses the President's name to refer to the action of an administration?
If every conversation is swept-up in a dragnet, it makes no sense to physically tap a phone connection, you just query the Utah Data Repository under the guise of "National Security" and with the blessing of the FISA court's rubber-stamp warrant.
We do know, with absolute certainty (because she herself admitted it on camera) was that Susan Rice, in her capacity as National Security Advisor, repeatedly and specifically asked for the redaction of Trump campaign workers and known associates during the campaign. Why did she do it, because she needed "context". We are to believe that Susan "A YouTube video caused Benghazi" Rice was conducting her own investigations out of her office, because she doesn't trust the FBI, CIA, etc. to do their jobs...
What I want to know is what did Peter Schiff see in the SCIF that made him stop attacking Repubicans and their "Politically-motivated witch hunt"?
Nothing suspicious there, perfectly normal - every National Security Advisor in recent administrations has been a part-time sleuth.
Ken
The NSA is clearly going to do whatever they feel like doing, laws be damned.
Congress needs to take a break from legislation and focus on enforcement for awhile. Then once the NSA is back to actually following the laws they pass, then get back to legislating. Until then, you're just wasting your time passing new laws. Don't renew their inch, they're just going to laugh at you and take another foot. If you're not going to hold them accountable, at least show them the "power of the purse" - cut their funding so they simply can't afford to keep breaking the law.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
So, you're going to blame Trump for everything his administration does, but the one true Obama only takes credit for what his department does, no blame for what his underlings did.
Obama is responsible for everything his cabinet appointees did and approved. He was the head of the executive branch, it's his responsibility. Trump is responsible now for everything his cabinet appointees do. He's responsible for everything the executive branch does. Yup, it's a big responsibility, but you gotta put on your big boy britches when you ask for the job.
Hell, the Republicans were on Obama's nuts for years because he said, "If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance".
Republicans where after Obama on this because he KNEW what he was saying wasn't true when he said it, but the bill had to pass so it was about PR over truth.
Perhaps so. The problem with Trump is that he doesn't seem to consider whether or not something is true when he says it. He just says whatever sounds good at the time.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Because no one ever uses the President's name to refer to the action of an administration?
No, because Trump specified it himself. "Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory." He said "Obama had my wires tapped". That means Obama specifically ordered his communications to be monitored.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
But are you seriously arguing that Trump's complete and total inconsistency is just like any other President?
Yes. The man has been in media for sometime and obviously he understands it by running successful media endeavors and a successful presidential campaign against a better funded and more experienced opponent. Obviously, there is method to his madness even if you or CNN don't understand it. His "inconsistency" I think is part of that method and I think many of his ardent supporters rationalize it to "deal making" or some other favorable trait that they admire even if they don't agree with the way it is done or the outcome.
It isn't right or wrong it is just different.
It's been going on even before that.
It has been going on for a long time. But here is the thing, Obama made campaign promises to start ripping the system down, and instead, as revealed by several cases, used it to spy on Americans and Journalists. And that makes him actually worse than GWB who did a lot of it. At least we knew what we were getting with GWB, Obama ended up being a backstabbing weasel.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Records -- not content.
Smith v Maryland (1979) holds that phone call records, as "business records" provided to a third party, do not have an expectation of privacy and are not protected by the Fourth Amendment. In order for this to change, Congress needs to act, or SCOTUS will need to speak again on the matter -- the nature of which admittedly has changed in the ensuing 38 years.
Targeted collection of communications *content* of US Persons anywhere in the world requires an individualized warrant.
Additionally, there are over 1 trillion cell phone calls made in the US annually, which means this record collection represents 0.015% of total domestic wireless calls.
This issue and its handling is a lot more complex and nuanced than the contemporaneous articles would lead an observer to believe...
Honestly, I did not foresee the rise of Trump muppets here on SlashDot every day since he got elected, gaslighting and pushing their alt-right bullshit.
That is a error in judgment you made because you assumed they were all just unpaid volunteers, doing it in their free time. They aren't unpaid though. They aren't volunteers. They didn't vote for Trump; they're not even American.
I have no doubt that some highly moral people join the NSA with the idea that they can be a good guy. Just like most cops join the force to protect and server their community, and most military people join to serve their country and protect our Constitution.
The immorality at the higher levels breaks the delusion,and people either conform to a morality they disagree with to maintain a job or they leave.
All absolutely normal human behavior, well documented, and full of historical references.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
This totally wouldn't be happening if Hillary had been elected.
Sarcasm aside, I hope more and more people are starting to get that we're being screwed by both sides of the aisle.
Bleh.
They are not "engaged in activities covered under it in the course of their official duties."
They are rouge actors operating out side the law.
And that is with out consideration of the 4 amendment position that any law allowing them to do this would be illegal anyway.