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/

Watch out, National Security Agency: Wikipedia’s coming after you.

On Tuesday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 to revive a lawsuit brought by the Wikimedia Foundation — the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia — claiming that the NSA’s massive surveillance program is unconstitutional and invades people’s privacy. The case will now head back to Maryland court, and its impact could be enormous.

Not only will it likely reveal more about the secret NSA surveillance program, but it could also potentially end such surveillance, explained Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. “This is a chance for a real challenge to the programmatic nature of the surveillance.”

“The NSA has secretly spied on Americans’ internet communications for years, but now this surveillance will finally face badly needed scrutiny in our public courts,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Patrick Toomey said in a statement. The ACLU is representing Wikimedia and the case’s eight other plaintiffs, which include Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International USA.

https://news.vice.com/story/newly-revived-wikipedia-suit-could-reveal-secrets-of-nsa-surveillance-program

In the post-Snowden era, we don't have to tell you how important it is to stay engaged with (and vigilant about) the surveillance state in America. Jennifer Granick is the Director of Civil Liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, and author of the new book American Spies — and this week she joins us for an in-depth discussion about the surveillance state today. Of course, shortly after we recorded this podcast, the NSA made major changes to one of its surveillance programs, so Jennifer returned to record an addendum examining this latest news, so make sure you listen to the end!

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/podcast/articles/20170502/12491237290/techdirt-podcast-episode-120-surveillance-state.shtml

The National Security Agency said Friday that it had halted one of the most disputed practices of its warrantless surveillance program, ending a once-secret form of wiretapping that dates to the Bush administration’s post-Sept. 11 expansion of national security powers.

The agency is no longer collecting Americans’ emails and texts exchanged with people overseas that simply mention identifying terms — like email addresses — for foreigners whom the agency is spying on, but are neither to nor from those targets.

The decision is a major development in American surveillance policy. Privacy advocates have argued that the practice skirted or overstepped the Fourth Amendment.

The change is unrelated to the surveillance imbroglio over the investigations into Russia and the Trump campaign, according to officials familiar with the matter. Rather, it stemmed from a discovery that N.S.A. analysts had violated rules imposed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court barring any searching for Americans’ information in certain messages captured through such wiretapping.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/us/politics/nsa-surveillance-terrorism-privacy.html

THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY on Friday suddenly announced it is curtailing one of its major surveillance programs.

Under pressure from the secret court that oversees its practices, the NSA said its “upstream” program would no longer grab communications directly from the U.S. internet backbone “about” specific foreign targets — only communication to and from those targets.

This is a major change, essentially abandoning a bulk surveillance program that captured vast amounts of communications of innocent Americans – and turning instead to a still extensive but more targeted approach.

“This change ends a practice that could result in Americans’ communications being collected without a warrant merely for mentioning a foreign target,” Senator Ron Wyden said in a statement. “For years, I’ve repeatedly raised concerns that this amounted to an end run around the Fourth Amendment. This transparency should be commended. To permanently protect Americans’ rights, I intend to introduce legislation banning this kind of collection in the future.”

The “upstream” surveillance program is one of two controversial programs authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is scheduled to expire in December unless it is reauthorized by Congress. It was among several programs whose existence was a secret until being revealed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

https://theintercept.com/2017/04/28/nsa-backs-down-on-major-surveillance-program-that-captured-americans-communications-without-a-warrant/

Washington’s Blog asked the highest-level NSA whistleblower in history – Bill Binney – whether he thought Trump had been bugged.

Binney told Washington’s Blog:

NSA has all the data through the Upstream programs (Fairview/Stormbrew/Blarney) [background] and backed up by second and some third party country collection.

Plus the FBI and CIA plus others, as of the last month of the Obama administration, have direct access to all the NSA collection (metadata and content on phones,email and banking/credit cards etc.) with no attempt at oversight by anybody [background]. This is all done under Executive Order 12333 [the order which allows unlimited spying no matter what intelligence officials claim] ….

FBI would only ask for a warrant if they wanted to be able to take it into court at some point given they have something meaningful as evidence. This is clearly true given the fact the President Trump’s phone conversations with other country leaders were leaked to the mainstream media.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2017/03/65929.html

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