US intelligence agencies have violated federal surveillance laws hundreds of times over the past decade, a painstaking analysis of declassified reviews, opinions, and documents has shown.

New research by the Open Tech Institute has found over 200 violations by the NSA and the FBI since the introduction of a controversial surveillance provision designed to collect foreign intelligence. Violations include over-collecting data, violating attorney-client privilege, and conducting unlawful surveillance of Americans, who are generally protected from spying under the constitution.

The research is the first comprehensive, compiled list of violations of the provision, known as section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is designed to collect data on foreign persons overseas, but also incidentally collects a large amount of data on Americans. The statute is the legal basis for the PRISM program and the tapping of global undersea fiber optic cables.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/us-violated-spy-laws-hundreds-of-times-in-the-past-decade/

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION is pushing hard for the reauthorization of a key 2008 surveillance law — section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA — three months before it sunsets in December.

To persuade senators to reauthorize the law in full, the Trump administration is holding classified, members-only briefings for the entire House and Senate next Wednesday, with heavy hitters in attendance: Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, NSA Director Mike Rogers, and FBI Director Christopher Wray will give the briefings, according to an internal announcement of the meetings provided to The Intercept and confirmed by multiple sources on Capitol Hill.

Section 702 serves as the legal basis for two of the NSA’s largest mass surveillance programs, both revealed by Edward Snowden. One program, PRISM, allows the government to collect messaging data sent to and from foreign targets, from major internet companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft. The other, UPSTREAM, scans internet backbone sites in the U.S. and copies communications to and from foreign targets.

Both programs ostensibly only “target” foreigners, but likely collect massive amounts of Americans’ communications as well. And despite persistent questioning from members of Congress, the Obama and Trump administrations have repeatedly refused to provide an estimate of how many domestic communications the programs collect. Civil liberties advocates have long warned liberal defenders of the program under President Obama that one day the surveillance apparatus may fall into the hands of a president with little regard for rule of law or constitutional protections.

https://theintercept.com/2017/09/29/trump-administration-lobbying-hard-for-sweeping-surveillance-law/

A change requested by the Trump administration will allow the NSA to keep information it acquired illegally.

This spring, the government announced a change to the way the National Security Agency collects information targeting foreigners, using the telecom backbone in what it calls "upstream" collection. Whereas for 10 years, the agency had sucked up communications mentioning a target's selector—say, collecting all emails sent to someone in this country that include Osama bin Laden's phone number in the body of the email—in April it stopped doing so domestically (though it will still do tons of it in collection overseas).

Not long after the announcement, the government released documents explaining why it had dropped this kind of collection, which it calls "about" collection. Those documents amounted to a confession that the NSA failed to follow rules the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court put in place in 2011 to ensure upstream collection complied with the Fourth Amendment.

There was a stink, at the time, accusing the Obama Administration of using Section 702 of FISA—which only permits the government to target foreigners—of using it to spy on Americans for five years. Those accusations were, technically, true (the NSA attributed such spying to technical failures, not legal ones). But the truth is far more troubling. In fact, from 2004 to 2016, the NSA was always engaging in collection the FISC would go on to deem unauthorized. For 12 years, under both the Bush and Obama Administrations, the NSA was collecting information that, if retained, would break the law.

But under the current presiding judge, overseeing the plans of the Trump Administration, NSA will be allowed to keep such data, a change from her three predecessors.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vb7eg9/the-nsas-12-year-struggle-to-follow-the-law

Intelligence agencies that are run by Technocrats are data hoarders who are compelled to collect everything that is collectible, illegal or not. We have stated many times that American intelligence agencies have long-since gone rogue, becoming unresponsive to courts and legislators alike. They must be stopped, at all costs. This is not about intelligence to keep Americans safe, but rather about building a surveillance network that will eventually lead to Scientific Dictatorship. Listen to the video in this article! ⁃ TN Editor

The NSA gets its authority to spy on U.S. Citizens from Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. The law will expire this year after it hits its five-year sunset. Lawmakers will soon be deliberating over whether to renew Section 702 for another five or maybe even make it permanent.

https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/2017/09/13/reason-its-time-to-rein-in-warrantless-domestic-spying-before-its-too-late/

https://www.end702.com/

At a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, several members expressed frustration that intelligence chiefs — first under Obama, and now under Trump — have failed to provide any kind of estimate, even in classified briefings.

“The members of this committee and the public at large require that estimate to engage in a meaningful debate,” said Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the leading Democrat on the committee. “We will not simply take the government’s word on the size of the so-called ‘incidental collection.’”

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which lapses at the end of the year, allows the NSA to collect vast amounts of domestic internet traffic as long as it maintains it is only “targeting” foreigners. Documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden described two huge surveillance programs that operate under that authority. One program, PRISM, allows the NSA to collect data in bulk from tech companies like Google, Facebook and Apple. The other program — Upstream — allows the NSA to tap the massive internet cables that carry information in and out of the U.S. and search for communications involving certain foreign “targets” or “selectors”.

https://theintercept.com/2017/03/04/trump-wants-nsa-program-reauthorized-but-wont-tell-congress-how-many-americans-it-spies-on/


White House supports renewal of spy law without reforms: official
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fisa-idUSKBN16855P