NSA mistakenly intercepted emails, phone calls of innocent Americans

[Antares]

The National Security Agency has at times mistakenly intercepted the private email messages and phone calls of Americans who had no link to terrorism, requiring Justice Department officials to report the errors to a secret national security court and destroy the data, according to two former U.S. intelligence officials.


At least some of the phone calls and emails were pulled from among the hundreds of millions stored by telecommunications companies as part of an NSA surveillance program. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, Thursday night publicly acknowledged what he called “a sensitive intelligence collection program” after its existence was disclosed by the Guardian newspaper.

Officials: NSA mistakenly intercepted emails, phone calls of innocent Americans - Open Channel

These guys fit right in with the rest of the Obama people.

NONE of them know what the fuck they are doing.

 

[waltky]

Clapper on the surveillance scandal...

At social event, DNI Clapper acknowledges "the elephant in the room"
June 8th, 2013 - It would probably be an understatement to say this was one of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s worst weeks on the job.

Leaked details of two top secret surveillance programs had the intelligence community and the Obama Administration scrambling to respond to what appears to be a massive effort to collect phone records of Americans and the e-mails and other communications of foreigners by the National Security Agency. At a dinner Friday night honoring former CIA Director Michael Hayden, the DNI acknowledged his tough few days with a quip: “So many emails to read, so little time.” But Clapper had serious comments about what he called “the elephant in the room.”

He said the unauthorized disclosure of the secret spy programs was “reprehensible and egregious,” a comment which drew applause from the mostly current and former intelligence officers who filled the ballroom for the Intelligence and National Security Alliance awards ceremony. Referring to what President Barack Obama had said earlier in the day, Clapper maintained the programs were legal, had been authorized by Congress after much debate and they provided valuable intelligence that has helped keep the nation safe and secure. After the brief diversion, Clapper then went on to pay tribute to the guest of honor, Michael Hayden.

Hayden himself is very familiar with controversy generated from the unauthorized leak of a surveillance program. In 2005, the New York Times exposed the domestic warrantless wiretap program Hayden had initiated when he was Director of the National Security Agency during the Bush administration. The outcry over that program forced the Bush administration to make changes. At the Friday night dinner, Hayden called the current NSA surveillance programs “descendants” of the one he began. He referred to President George W. Bush and Obama as being “incredibly different presidents,” but said they had “congruity when facing threats.”

Hayden went on to chastise what he called the “political elites” who criticize the intelligence community for not doing enough, but as soon as they feel safe, “pontificate that we’re doing too much.” But all in all, the controversy generated by the revelations of PRISM and the collection of metadata had Hayden saying it’s “a great day to be a former senior intelligence officer.”

At social event, DNI Clapper acknowledges "the elephant in the room" ? CNN Security Clearance - CNN.com Blogs

See also:

Clapper backs US Internet spy program
Mon, Jun 10, 2013 - ‘MAKE SOME CHOICES’:The US’ director of national intelligence said PRISM was legal, did not target Americans, and that its disclosure would only help terrorists

The top US intelligence official stressed on Saturday that a previously undisclosed program for tapping into Internet usage is authorized by the US Congress, falls under strict supervision of a secret court and cannot intentionally target a US citizen. He decried the revelation of that and another intelligence-gathering program as reckless. US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, eager to quell a domestic furor over US spying, took the rare step for the second time in three days of declassifying some details of an intelligence program to respond to media reports about government counter-terrorism techniques. “Disclosing information about the specific methods the government uses to collect communications can obviously give our enemies a ‘playbook’ of how to avoid detection,” he said in a statement.

Clapper said the data collection under the program, first unveiled by the Washington Post and the Guardian, was with the approval of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court and with the knowledge of Internet service providers. The US National Security Agency (NSA) filed a criminal report with the US Department of Justice last week in relation to the leaks, US Office of the Director of National Intelligence spokesman Shawn Turner said in an e-mail on Saturday.

US President Barack Obama defended the counter-terrorism methods on Friday and said Americans need to “make some choices” in balancing privacy and security. Late on Thursday, Clapper declassified some details of a program employed by the NSA that aims to obtain on an “ongoing, daily basis” the records of telephone companies’ customers’ calls. Clapper said that only a small fraction of the records collected ever get examined because most are unrelated to terrorism activities.

His statement and declassification on Saturday addressed the Internet scouring program, code-named PRISM, that allowed the NSA and FBI to tap directly into the servers of major US Internet companies. Like the telephone-records program, PRISM was approved by a judge in a secret court order. However, unlike that program, PRISM allowed the government to seize actual conversations. Clapper said the program, authorized in the USA Patriot Act, has been in place since 2008 and “has proven vital to keeping the nation and our allies safe.”

MORE