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WASHINGTON -- A massive email surveillance program run by the National Security Agency is not directed at Americans and is legally permissible and highly useful for anti-terror operation, a senior administration official said in a statement Thursday night.
UPDATE: 10:25 p.m. -- James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, has released his first on-the-record statement about the PRISM program, calling the disclosure of it reprehensible and insisting that Americans arent targeted. The full statement is below.
The Guardian and The Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They contain numerous inaccuracies.
Section 702 is a provision of FISA that is designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-U.S. persons located outside the United States. It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States.
Activities authorized by Section 702 are subject to oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Executive Branch, and Congress. They involve extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to ensure that only non-U.S. persons outside the U.S. are targeted, and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about U.S. persons.
Section 702 was recently reauthorized by Congress after extensive hearings and debate.
Information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable foreign intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats.
The unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely legal program is reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans.
Why would people get so upset over our government trying to keep us safe?
Why would people get so upset over our government trying to keep us safe?
???
Our government is working with Al Queda in Syria, while targeting Libertarians.
NSA's Verizon Spying Order Specifically Targeted Americans, Not Foreigners - Forbes
NSA's Verizon Spying Order Specifically Targeted Americans, Not Foreigners
The National Security Agency has long justified its spying powers by arguing that its charter allows surveillance on those outside of the United States, while avoiding intrusions into the private communications of American citizens. But the latest revelation of the extent of the NSA’s surveillance shows that it has focused specifically on Americans, to the degree that its data collection has in at least one major spying incident explicitly excluded those outside the United States.
In a top secret order obtained by the Guardian newspaper and published Wednesday evening, the FBI on the NSA’s behalf demanded that Verizon turn over all metadata for phone records originating in the United States for the three months beginning in late April and ending on the 19th of July. That metadata includes all so-called “non-content” data for millions of American customers’ phone calls, such as the subscriber data, recipients, locations, times and durations of every call made during that period.
Aside from the sheer scope of that surveillance order, reminiscent of the warrantless wiretapping scandal under the Bush administration, the other shocking aspect of the order its target: The order specifically states that only data regarding calls originating in America are to be handed over, not those between foreigners.
“It is hereby ordered that [Verizon Business Network Services'] Custodian of Records shall produce to the National Security Agency…all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls,” the Guardian’s copy of the order reads. “This Order does not require Verizon to include telephony metadata for communications wholly originating and terminating in foreign countries.”
Though the classified, top secret order comes from the FBI, it clearly states that the data is to be given to the NSA. That means the leaked document may serve as one of the first concrete pieces of evidence that the NSA’s spying goes beyond foreigners to include Americans, despite its charter specifically disallowing surveillance of those within the United States.
“In many ways it’s even more troubling than [Bush era] warrantless wiretapping, in part because the program is purely domestic,” says Alex Abdo, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project.”But this is also an indiscriminate dragnet. Say what you will about warrantless wiretapping, at least it was targeted at agents of Al Qaeda. This includes every customer of Verizon Business Services.”
The leaked document, in fact, is labelled as an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a body whose powers were created under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and then broadened after the September 11th, 2001 attacks, with the purpose of intercepting communications between foreign agents and those between enemies abroad and their agents within the U.S. Similarly, the NSA’s charter states that it focuses on interception and analysis of foreign communications, not those within the United States.
But the Verizon order seems to show that the NSA, using FISA, has specifically gathered communications data that both begins and ends with Americans. That domestic surveillance may be allowed under FISA’s low standard for the “relevance” of the data demanded from Internet companies and telephone carriers in the investigations of foreigners, says Julian Sanchez, a research fellow with the CATO Institute focused on privacy and civil liberties. ”The overall purpose of this program is to identify foreign terrorists,” says Julian Sanchez. “But in fact it extends well beyond whether the individual you’re investigating is foreign. If you think an American citizens’s email has information about what a foreign power or individual is doing, that’s ‘relevant.’ The purpose of the investigation is not a constraint on the target or the people from whom the information is sought.”
“If they data mine huge blocks of call records, they’re getting lots of innocent Americans’ data,” adds Sanchez, “But the argument, I imagine, is ‘we’re doing data mining to look for suspicious patterns to help us identify foreign terrorists.’”
WASHINGTON -- A massive email surveillance program run by the National Security Agency is not directed at Americans and is legally permissible and highly useful for anti-terror operation, a senior administration official said in a statement Thursday night.
UPDATE: 10:25 p.m. -- James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, has released his first on-the-record statement about the PRISM program, calling the disclosure of it “reprehensible” and insisting that Americans aren’t targeted. The full statement is below.
The Guardian and The Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They contain numerous inaccuracies.
Section 702 is a provision of FISA that is designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-U.S. persons located outside the United States. It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States.
Activities authorized by Section 702 are subject to oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Executive Branch, and Congress. They involve extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to ensure that only non-U.S. persons outside the U.S. are targeted, and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about U.S. persons.
Section 702 was recently reauthorized by Congress after extensive hearings and debate.
Information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable foreign intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats.
The unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely legal program is reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans.
More: Obama Administration On PRISM Program: 'Only Non-U.S. Persons Outside The U.S. Are Targeted' (UPDATE) - By Sam Stein
Why would people get so upset over our government trying to keep us safe?
If the government doesn't protect us - who will? The NRA?
If the government doesn't protect us - who will? The NRA?
What civil rights are you willing to give up for this "Protection"?
Will you be as happy about it when it is a Republican in office as you apparently are now?
If the government doesn't protect us - who will? The NRA?
What civil rights are you willing to give up for this "Protection"?
Will you be as happy about it when it is a Republican in office as you apparently are now?
Who cares, so long as the information isn't misused. PRISM has lots of oversight. We tolerated it under Bush. Happiness has nothing to do with it.
What civil rights are you willing to give up for this "Protection"?
Will you be as happy about it when it is a Republican in office as you apparently are now?
Who cares, so long as the information isn't misused. PRISM has lots of oversight. We tolerated it under Bush. Happiness has nothing to do with it.
Supposedly the IRS had a lot of "oversight" and look at what it was used for.
I care and I care a lot.
Once again, Government employees with access to your records will abuse it. Cops run license plates to get names and addresses for women they see. IRS agents delay application decisions for years. State Employees run record checks on people who embarrass the President. Office workers release personnel records of people who make the news. Tax records get released to political opponents. Medical records are released. School records are released.
All these things were done, illegally I may add, by Government workers despite the safeguards put in place to prevent them from happening.
If government doesn't protect us - who will? The NRA?
Who cares, so long as the information isn't misused. PRISM has lots of oversight. We tolerated it under Bush. Happiness has nothing to do with it.
Supposedly the IRS had a lot of "oversight" and look at what it was used for.
I care and I care a lot.
Once again, Government employees with access to your records will abuse it. Cops run license plates to get names and addresses for women they see. IRS agents delay application decisions for years. State Employees run record checks on people who embarrass the President. Office workers release personnel records of people who make the news. Tax records get released to political opponents. Medical records are released. School records are released.
All these things were done, illegally I may add, by Government workers despite the safeguards put in place to prevent them from happening.
Well, Sparky, it ain't utopia - but it's what your God gave us. Would you rather have the NRA in charge?
Supposedly the IRS had a lot of "oversight" and look at what it was used for.
I care and I care a lot.
Once again, Government employees with access to your records will abuse it. Cops run license plates to get names and addresses for women they see. IRS agents delay application decisions for years. State Employees run record checks on people who embarrass the President. Office workers release personnel records of people who make the news. Tax records get released to political opponents. Medical records are released. School records are released.
All these things were done, illegally I may add, by Government workers despite the safeguards put in place to prevent them from happening.
Well, Sparky, it ain't utopia - but it's what your God gave us. Would you rather have the NRA in charge?
Actually God did give us Eden... But a woman, as usual, thought she knew better and got us kicked out.
I'd rather have people in charge that believed in the Constitution and actually protected our rights.
The Clapper Commercial - YouTube
Clap on! Clap off!
(Repeat)
Clap on! Clap off!
(Chorus-descending tone)
Clap on Clap off The Clapper!
That simple fucker lost me the second he claimed the muslim brotherhood was "mostly secular". And he's the director of National intelligence, Poor America
Anyone thinking the government having this information on all us lowly peasants is harmless need look no further than the IRS to see what they can and will do with your information.
I applaud James Clapper's statement. Makes sense to me.
