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Disputed NSA Phone Program Is Shut Down, Aide Says (nytimes.com)
According to a senior Republican congressional aide, the National Security Agency has quietly shut down a system that analyzes logs of Americans' domestic calls and texts. "The agency has not used the system in months, and the Trump administration might not ask Congress to renew its legal authority, which is set to expire at the end of the year, according to the aide, Luke Murry, the House minority leader's national security adviser," reports The New York Times. From the report: In a raw assertion of executive power, President George W. Bush's administration started the program as part of its intense pursuit for Qaeda conspirators in the weeks after the 2001 terrorist attacks, and a court later secretly blessed it. The intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden disclosed the program's existence in 2013, jolting the public and contributing to growing awareness of how both governments and private companies harvest and exploit personal data. The way that intelligence analysts have gained access to bulk records of Americans' phone calls and texts has evolved, but the purpose has been the same: They analyze social links to hunt for associates of known terrorism suspects.
Congress ended and replaced the program disclosed by Mr. Snowden with the U.S.A. Freedom Act of 2015, which will expire in December. Security and privacy advocates have been gearing up for a legislative battle over whether to extend or revise the program -- and with what changes, if any. Mr. Murry, who is an adviser for Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, raised doubts over the weekend about whether that debate will be necessary. His remarks came during a podcast for the national security website Lawfare. Mr. Murry brought up the pending expiration of the Freedom Act, but then disclosed that the Trump administration "hasn't actually been using it for the past six months." "I'm actually not certain that the administration will want to start that back up," Mr. Murry said. He referred to problems that the National Security Agency disclosed last year. "Technical irregularities" had contaminated the agency's database with message logs it had no authority to collect, so officials purged hundreds of millions of call and text records gathered from American telecommunications firms. A spokesman for Mr. McCarthy's office said that Mr. Murry "was not speaking on behalf of administration policy or what Congress intends to do on this issue."
Congress ended and replaced the program disclosed by Mr. Snowden with the U.S.A. Freedom Act of 2015, which will expire in December. Security and privacy advocates have been gearing up for a legislative battle over whether to extend or revise the program -- and with what changes, if any. Mr. Murry, who is an adviser for Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, raised doubts over the weekend about whether that debate will be necessary. His remarks came during a podcast for the national security website Lawfare. Mr. Murry brought up the pending expiration of the Freedom Act, but then disclosed that the Trump administration "hasn't actually been using it for the past six months." "I'm actually not certain that the administration will want to start that back up," Mr. Murry said. He referred to problems that the National Security Agency disclosed last year. "Technical irregularities" had contaminated the agency's database with message logs it had no authority to collect, so officials purged hundreds of millions of call and text records gathered from American telecommunications firms. A spokesman for Mr. McCarthy's office said that Mr. Murry "was not speaking on behalf of administration policy or what Congress intends to do on this issue."
Government officials outright denied having such program in the first place, up until Edward Snowden revealed that this stuff was indeed real and in use. How can we trust them to tell the truth now?
Google knows more about all of us than the NSA,
That ONE system isn't being used. They didn't mention the ones that ARE. They don't credibly claim that they've turned off XKEYSCORE and the entire chain. It's a very limited statement designed to say exactly what it says.
It's been superseded by a new, broader, more secretive, more intrusive, more brazenly unconstitutional program.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
... after James Clapper lied to Congress.
Sorry, I mean "simply forgot" to mention it as his lawyer puts it. "Oh, you Congressmen were asking questions about that surveillance program? I thought you meant another one."
It was so nice of Edward Snowden to remind him about it. And what thanks does he get?
--- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
No congressional authorization and almost certainly unconstitutional if all of the facts were declassified, and not a peep except from Rand Paul. Trump uses a law they wrote to have the military use construction funds to build his wall? ROAAARRRR MUH CONZTITUSHUNZ!!!
Until about 2016, a lot of us on the right didn't place too much stock in the MIC conspiracies, but I think the last 2.5 years have pretty much settled any dispute about whether or not we live in a welfare-warfare state.
They don't need it anymore. They got something better.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
> Why would Trump associates continue pursuing a back channel nine days before the inauguration?
See for example the Cuban missile crisis. Which would have been the nuclear war, had it not been for back channels facilitating a peaceful resolution by letting leaders on each side know what the other one would accept and not accept via official communications.
You copy-pasted a lot of stuff about "December 1" and "days before the inauguration". That's when Trump was the president-elect. When he was about to take control of the nuclear football (the big button). It would be extraordinarily reckless for him to NOT start opening lines of communication at that point. Like end-of-world reckless. A US president damn well better have a way to get a message to someone to who can whisper in Putin's ear, and vice-versa.
You wouldn't like people who used fan fiction paid for by your political opponent as the basis for turning the entire US intelligence gathering powers against you either.
Because that's what the fantasy-based ("uncorroborated" and "unconfirmed") Steele dossier is - Hillary-paid-for fan fiction.
And the FBI used it as the basis of at least four FISA warrants, and deliberately used it to brief Trump so they could then leak it to the press.
Much of the Steele Dossier has been proven true by subsequent investigation. None of it has been proven false, AFAIK.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
"The agency has not used the system in months, and the Trump administration might not ask Congress to renew its legal authority, which is set to expire at the end of the year, according to the aide, Luke Murry, the House minority leader's national security adviser," reports The New York Times.
Theyâ(TM)ve likely just found newer, less legally challenging ways to achieve the goals of the original program. They are doing something with their SLC data center...
Ken
Really? lawfareblog? Glen Greenwald, not exactly a conservative, has called lawfareblog a tool "serving, venerating and justifying the acts of those in power", in this case the Democrats. It's highly regarded by left wing pundits.
So basically the best you've got is a dossier put together by a British intelligence mercenary for opposition research paid for by the DNC.
The truth is that none of the dossier has been proven true, despite the claims of many left wing media "news" services. Despite the point made that politically motivated "top intelligence officials" pushed it, when Comey was under oath he refused to state the dossier was confirmed. Because it wasn't. What we have here is a bunch of deep state actors who would love for it to be true so that their illegal actions to hamstring the duly elected president of the United States during the period before his inauguration and after could be justified. Former UK ambassador to Russia has stated the dossier is inconsistent with British Intelligence's information. Steele made it up. The DNC paid for it. Bad actors in the intelligence and justice bureaucracy used it to try to illegally overturn the election.
That's a good question. There are several reasons, some of which are unique to international relations and some of which apply to any negotiation, and you can use yourself.
In high-profile political relations, one thing very important to the leaders is to look like they won. In many cultures, they want to look "tough". They don't want the appearance of giving in. In fact, for their career it's often better to not make a deal at all than to look like they gave in. For their countries, making a deal is normally better. Looking tough is a low priority. There are things that are important talking points to the leader's political base, and there are things that actually matter. So there is a difference between what the leaders want to show on Twitter and what is actually good in the political relationship.
It's not unusual for staff to exchange appearance, words, for concrete things. "He doesn't mind giving you most of what you want, if you give us these things, but he needs you to publicly be hesitant, act like he drove a hard bargain." So one leader gives up the political points of bragging, acting like he won, in exchange for getting what his country wants. Timing matters. "He has to stay tough for now because we're also negotiating with Iran. After the Iran negotiation is over, he can take a softer position".
At work we're in negotiations with a supplier. The supplier starting out saying they want to raise the price they charge us by 400%. They think we are dependent on them. It wouldn't have hurt if one of our engineers bumped into one of their engineers at a conference and mentioned that we're testing open source replacements and there is no way our boss is going to agree to anything like 400%. Also an increase more than 35% requires a ton of paperwork on our side to get it approved. Our guy could quietly hint to them that our boss would probably do 35%, but 36% would be a much harder sell. That's kinda what happened, though not exactly.
Managers get a certain budget approved for raises every year. They can then apportion those raises among their people. Before you ask for a raise, do you think it would be helpful to know if your manager has a big pool available this year, or a small pool? A back channel can tell you, so you start the direct negotiation with the manager from a workable starting point. I learned that this year my manager didn't get his usual bonus because thr company is trying to cut payroll expenses for a year. Do you think that's useful information if I'm thinking about asking him to get me a lot more money?
I'd say more about that last point, but it's NEXT week that I have a meeting planned with my manager and someone at work reads Slashdot. Let's just say that my plans are affected by back channel info about what he can and can't agree to.