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NSA Targeted 106,000 Foreigners In Spy Program Up For Renewal (bloomberg.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the tools-of-the-job dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The U.S. National Security Agency conducted targeted surveillance over the past year against 106,000 foreigners suspected of being involved in terrorism and other crimes, using powers granted in a controversial section of law that's set to expire at the end of this year. The number of foreigners targeted under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act rose from 94,000 in fiscal year 2015, according to U.S. intelligence officials, who asked not to be identified discussing the information. The program lets agencies collect the content of emails and other communications from suspected foreign criminals operating outside the U.S., but it has become a flash point with some lawmakers for potential infringement of Americans' constitutional rights. Congress has to decide by year-end whether to renew the NSA's power under Section 702, a program that came to light when former government contractor Edward Snowden revealed classified government documents in 2013. While the intelligence officials cautioned that changes would limit its effectiveness, lawmakers including Senate Intelligence Committee member Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, have indicated they'll seek adjustments to ensure against abuses.

41 comments

  1. Does this program involves following people... by sinij · · Score: 1

    Does this program involves following people on Facebook?

    1. Re:Does this program involves following people... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only if they followed back.

  2. But privacy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We'd rather be private and dead than spied on and alive. -Ben Franklin

    1. Re:But privacy! by fleabay · · Score: 2

      You'd rather be an Anonymous Coward than a known fool. amiright?

      --
      PlanetVulkan.com
    2. Re: But privacy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      After being spied on, humiliated, blackmailed, and harassed. Being alive becomes less and less valuable I would think. After a few years if you've managed to maintain a fragile grip on your sanity or any meaningful relationship death would just be what you've prepared for every morning. It's a good thing I'm crazy and none of this actually happened to me. I thought it was happening at one point till everyone convince otherwise

  3. That's their job. by Train0987 · · Score: 2

    Intelligence agencies exist to spy on foreigners. Why is this news?

    1. Re:That's their job. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      because their current methods involve hoovering data illegally on the more than 325 million u.s. citizens who aren't the subject of these investigations.

    2. Re:That's their job. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Intelligence agencies exist to spy on foreigners. Why is this news?

      1. It is not clear that only foreigners are targeted.
      2. It is not clear if this program is cost effective.

      The NSA is having difficulty coming up with any "success stories" that can be linked to this program. You might think that is because it is classified, so they don't want to disclose their successes, but that is not true. They can disclose information in closed door meetings of the oversight committee without compromising anything, but are still unable to do so. Secrecy can be used to protect national security, but it is used far more often to protect incompetence.

    3. Re:That's their job. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also their capabilities are such that you don't want them to go rogue and unaccountable, and that's exactly what is happening. The ones ultimately writing their paycheck should have minimum securances that they are actually working for them.

    4. Re:That's their job. by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      It likes this, people used to live in caves, monarchy used to keep power by publicly torturing to death any one who disagreed with them and wars were a common way for people to profit by plundering other people (well, that one still happens but only a few countries still do it ie USA). It is an criminal act, that leads to other criminal acts including extortion, further security issues, corruption of other countries democratic process, corruption of news services all over the globe, extremely disturbing associations with organised crime and not mercenary/security/espionage contractors actively foment conflict in order to sell more servers, actively lying and making up risks, in order to create the and sell their services.

      You are aware of the extreme criminal nature of it, how it fosters organised crime in other countries, how they extort, bribe and kill foreign politicians and how it destroys democracies. Why is it news because "WE ARE FUCKING SICK OF IT", now do you get it. The number one player, the USA, the worst of them all, the USA, the most lethal and corrupt, the USA, no wonder you see not fault in it.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    5. Re:That's their job. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. It is not clear that only foreigners are targeted.

      Actually it is CLEAR that only foreigners are targeted. However, it is NOT CLEAR whether the data they collected along the process is not linked or related directly to American citizens. In other words, targeting and data collecting (if their target is a foreigner) for them seem to be the same; therefore, by their power definition, they could do both at the same time.

    6. Re:That's their job. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Intelligence agencies exist to spy on foreigners. Why is this news?

      Say that again when the next article appears about foreign intelligence agencies spying on Americans.

    7. Re:That's their job. by BlueStrat · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Intelligence agencies exist to spy on foreigners. Why is this news?

      Because the systems, procedures, rules, laws, methods, and products they produce are only tangentially & marginally useful for preventing foreign-sourced terrorist attacks or catching foreign terrorists but are ideal for domestic spying for political ends, and recent revelations point to them being used for exactly that purpose contrary to law, Constitutional restrictions on government powers, and civil rights.

      But other than that, no idea why it would be news.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    8. Re:That's their job. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't get it. Do you want spying abolished worldwide or something?
      We spy on them; they spy on us. What's the problem?
      I don't expect to ever be interesting enough to be affected.

    9. Re:That's their job. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why is this news? Because 106,000 is a ridiculous number. It says "terrorism and other crimes", and that's the real key, isn't it?
      What vanishingly small fraction of that 106,000 are terrorism-related?
      The NSA is not supposed to be about law enforcement; it's an intelligence agency.

  4. Changes would limit its effectiveness? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What effectiveness? 106000 people have their communications swept up. Confirmed thwartings of terroist acts based on that intelligence? Zero.

    It doesn't get less effective than that.

  5. 100,000 terrorists.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    need i say more, oh yeah, fuck you NSA, you bunch of terrorists.

  6. Key words "and other crimes" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This was never about national security or even terrorism. National security doesn't concern itself with a mere 3000 lives. We have 7000 or so people die every day in the US. This has always been about a power grab. It's about those in power wanting ever more of it. The only way to resolve this issue is to end government. End the funding of murders and thieves. Stop giving into these people. The only way you'll see that happen is if enough people gather together who think alike that prefer freedom and liberty to "safety". The Free State Project is the only thing currently happening thats having any success in this regards.

  7. ALERT: Weasel word - "targeted" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Remember, the "incidentally" collected is separate. Just remember, the 702 program is the authorization they used to capture every single phone call made in the Bahamas and Afghanistan. The 97 billion DNIs specified by Snowden's "Boundless Informant" slides are largely from the 702 program.

    To represent that it's only some 100k foreigners is a damnable lie.

  8. SlashDONG Is Up Again! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Once you've had black, you won't go back.
     
    What happened here? Did BeauHD spill coffee on the 386SX running "slashcode" and not understand that the big clunking box is called a computer? Yes, phones and tablets are not the only things you can do Internety stuff on.

    1. Re:SlashDONG Is Up Again! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah, simpler than that. Beau was trying to figure out how to print the site's TLS certificate and get his teacher to sign it so he could show it to mommy.

    2. Re:SlashDONG Is Up Again! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Instructions for NOT killing Slashdot. Beau's too young to have seen this guide.

  9. huh? by supernova87a · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What happened to Slashdot all day today??!!

    1. Re: huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right?

    2. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Cloudflare challenge was accepted... ?

    3. Re:huh? by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      Maybe they should have asked Ham Radio Operators to fly to......wherever Slashdot is located.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    4. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Things I noticed:

      * Gave expired SSL cert.
      * When that wasn't borked, it gave bogus CSS.
      * When both of those things weren't borked (rare), it was in read-only mode.

      Did /. get hacked, or was this a botched migration?

    5. Re:huh? by rsmith-mac · · Score: 2

      No idea, but the ops team is apparently going to post a write-up later this week.

      It sounds like the problem was internal, as Slashdot was up in read-only mode all day, and SlashdotMedia has explicitly stated it wasn't a cyberattack.

    6. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      The last guy that knew how to run a webserver left.

    7. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      My bad.

    8. Re:huh? by antdude · · Score: 1

      https://twitter.com/slashdot/s... only mentions brief details. :(

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    9. Re:huh? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Funny

      I dunno man... After the first few hours I went catatonic and passed out, then it was back and I could breathe again

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    10. Re:huh? by chihowa · · Score: 1

      I was wildly productive and now I have nothing else to do for the rest of the week...

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
  10. test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    test

  11. Didn't do their job by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They targetted terrorism, a minor threat to the USA, meanwhile US was the victim of a Russian beheading strike, right in front of the NSAs eyes.

    Priorities all screwed up?

  12. Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They are supposed to watch the outsiders.

  13. Finally doing their job by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's right, spy agency's jobs are to spy on foreigners NOT US Citizens.

  14. At least 3 SSL certificates are in play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At least 3 SSL certificates are in play:

    cert A : ???
    cert B : DST Root CA X3 -> Let's Encrypt -> slashdot.org + SANs
    cert C : Starfield Class 2 -> [...] -> Amazon -> [...] -> *.slashdot.org
    ---

    SSL cert was changed from [A]
    SSL cert was changed to [B] which had expired on Jan 30/31 2017
    SSL cert was changed to [C] which now requires SNI, and drops explicit SANs for wildcard

    C is new (notbefore 2017.09.26)
    B is old, and would not have worked for the last 8+ months

    So what was A? Anyone know?

    Known key id's and FPs for posterity:

    Cert "B"
    Subject: CN=slashdot.org
    AKEY ID: A8 4A 6A 63 04 7D DD BA E6 D1 39 B7 A6 45 65 EF F3 A8 EC A1
    SKEY ID: D3 24 D4 1D 93 EE FD 77 7B C5 0D 58 35 06 F4 5D DC 5F 13 42
    FP: 46 DB 8A 16 97 BB 0E 6A 1B ED 75 FD 49 FC 5A 3A B6 B8 BB 7A

    Cert "C"
    Subject: CN=slashdot.org
    AKEY ID: 59 A4 66 06 52 A0 7B 95 92 3C A3 94 07 27 96 74 5B F9 3D D0
    SKEY ID: 49 02 28 AD 17 59 62 70 52 D3 63 27 AB B6 69 09 24 17 1E 77
    FP: BC 33 45 98 94 91 01 2E AE 6A B9 61 F5 BD A4 55 FB C8 1E F5

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