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

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.

Comments

Does this program involves following people...

[sinij]

Does this program involves following people on Facebook?

That's their job.

[Train0987]

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

Re:That's their job.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:That's their job.

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re:That's their job.

[rtb61]

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.

Re:That's their job.

[BlueStrat]

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

Re:But privacy!

[fleabay]

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

huh?

[supernova87a]

What happened to Slashdot all day today??!!

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cloudflare challenge was accepted... ?

Re:huh?

[phantomfive]

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

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:huh?

[rsmith-mac]

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.

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

My bad.

Re:huh?

[antdude]

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

Re:huh?

[AmiMoJo]

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

Re:huh?

[chihowa]

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

jual tirai pvc

[oggii14]

visit : tirai pvc visit : tirai plastik pvc visit : jual pvc strip curtain visit : jual rockwool murah visit : jual roller conveyor visit : jual acrylic lembaran visit : jual brake lining