Tag: NSA National Security Agency

WASHINGTON (TIP)The National Security Agency programmes that collect huge volumes of Internet data within the United States pass are constitutional and employ “reasonable” safeguards designed to protect the rights of Americans, an independent privacy and civil liberties board has found.

In a report released on Tuesday night, the bipartisan, five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, appointed by President Barack Obama, largely endorsed a set of NSA surveillance programmes that have provoked worldwide controversy since they were disclosed last year by former NSA systems administrator Edward Snowden.

Under a provision known as Section 702, added in 2008 to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, the NSA uses court orders and taps on fibre optic lines to target the data of foreigners living abroad when their emails, web chats, text messages and other communications traverse the US.

Section 702 includes the so-called PRISM programme, under which the NSA collects foreign intelligence from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and nearly every other major US technology firm. Because worldwide Internet communications are intermingled on fibre optic lines and in the cloud, the collection inevitably sweeps in the communications of Americans with no connection to terrorism or foreign intelligence.

Since the Snowden disclosures, activists have expressed concern that a secret intelligence agency is obtaining private American communications without individual warrants. Some have questioned how such a programme could be legal under the Constitution.

The board, including a Democratic federal judge, two privacy experts and two former Republican justice department officials, found that the NSA monitoring was legal and reasonable and that the NSA and other agencies take steps to prevent misuse of Americans’ data.

WASHINGTON (TIP): Senator Rand Paul, a possible Republican presidential candidate, sued the Obama administration on February 12 over the National Security Agency’s mass collection of millions of Americans’ phone records. The senator said he and the conservative activist group FreedomWorks filed the suit for themselves and on behalf of “everyone in America that has a phone”.

The lawsuit argues that the bulk collection program that’s been in existence since 2006 violates the US Constitution’s Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches. It calls for an end to the program, which was revealed by former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden. The Obama administration maintains that the program, begun under President George W Bush, is legal. Courts have largely sided with the government.

President Barack Obama has called for reforms to the program in an effort to regain public trust. Others, like Paul, have called for the end of this kind of surveillance. Paul dodged a question about his presidential ambitions during a news conference on Wednesday. But his lawsuit is the latest effort to propel the debate over the once-secret surveillance program into the 2016 presidential campaign. The surveillance debate has exposed intra-party tensions for Republicans. The party split on this issue between its leadership, which backs the program on security grounds, and libertarianminded members who are more wary of government involvement in Americans’ private lives.

The Republican National Committee, last month, approved a resolution to end the surveillance programs. While some Republicans played down its significance, the nonbinding vote was seen as a nod to Republicans like Paul. The White House and justice department did not comment on the lawsuit specifically, but said they believe the bulk collection of phone records is legal. “This, we believe, will be a historic lawsuit,” Paul said after filing the complaint in US district court in the District of Columbia.

“We believe that this lawsuit could conceivably represent hundreds of millions of people who have phone lines in this country or cellphones.” Ken Cuccinelli, the former attorney general of Virginia, is the lead counsel for Paul and FreedomWorks on the suit. Paul appeared at campaign rallies last October to support Cuccinelli’s unsuccessful bid for Virginia governor. In December, Paul’s advisers approached Cuccinelli about participating in the lawsuit. “This is a constitutional challenge primarily,” Cuccinelli told The Associated Press.

“We’re not debating national security policy.” Cuccinelli has sued the Obama administration before — he was the first state attorney general to mount a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the president’s signature health care overhaul. The bulk collection program, which is authorized in Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, sweeps up what’s known as metadata for every phone call made in the US. It collects the number called, the number from which the call is made and the duration and time of the call. The intelligence community says having this data is key to preventing terrorism.

While there is little evidence the program has been integral in preventing an attack, the Obama administration argues that being able to rule out a US connection is important because it provides “peace of mind”. Paul’s suit cites arguments made in another lawsuit filed last year by conservative lawyer Larry Klayman. In response to Klayman’s suit, US district court judge Richard Leon ruled that the bulk collection program was likely unconstitutional. It was the first time a judge did not side with the government on the issue. Paul’s lawsuit was filed against Obama; director of national intelligence James Clapper; NSA director Keith Alexander; and FBI director James Comey.

WASHINGTON (TIOP: Reforms to US surveillance announced by President Barack Obama have failed to reassure most Americans, with three-quarters saying their privacy will not be better protected under the changes, according to a new poll.

By a margin of 73-21%, Americans who followed Obama’s speech last week on the National Security Agency say his proposals will not make much difference when it comes to safeguarding privacy rights, said the Pew Research Center/USA Today poll published on January 22.

The poll of 1,504 adults, carried out between Wednesday and Sunday, showed the speech was not widely followed by Americans and that skepticism of the NSA’s electronic spying is growing. The survey said half of those surveyed heard “nothing at all” about Obama’s proposed measures and another 41% said they heard “only a little bit.”

And fully seven in 10 poll respondents said they should not have to give up privacy to stay safe from potential terror attacks, the poll said. A majority of 53% now disapprove of the NSA’s collection of telephone and internet data. In July, 50% approved and 44% disagreed with the surveillance program.

The shift in public opinion follows the explosive leak last June of NSA documents by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who has sparked a global uproar over the US government’s far-reaching surveillance. Nearly half of Americans, 48%, said there are insufficient limits on what telephone and internet data the government can collect, while 41% said there are adequate parameters on the government’s spying.

The survey revealed a division over whether Snowden’s unprecedented disclosures of classified information have damaged the country, with 45% saying the leaks have served the public interest and 43% saying the leaks have harmed it. Snowden faces espionage charges from US authorities over his leaks and has obtained temporary asylum in Russia, where he has said he has been vindicated by the public reaction to the disclosures. However, 56% of Americans say the government should prosecute Snowden while 32% did not favor pursuing criminal charges.

In his speech last Friday, Obama said a third party – not the government – should hold vast stores of phone metadata, and that the NSA would need a court order to search the data except in genuine emergencies. The US president also promised Washington would no longer eavesdrop on the leaders of friendly foreign governments and that a panel of independent lawyers should be allowed to argue in the interest of privacy rights before the secret court that oversees the NSA surveillance. The poll found 79% of Americans were not worried that Obama’s proposed reforms would undercut the government’s ability to fight terror groups.

WASHINGTON (TIP): President Barack Obama is expected to rein in spying on foreign leaders and is considering restricting National Security Agency access to Americans’ phone records, according to people familiar with a White House review of the government’s surveillance programs. Obama could unveil his highly anticipated decisions as early as next week. On Thursday, the president met with congressional leaders at the White House to discuss the review, while White House staff planned to meet with privacy advocates.

Representatives from tech companies are meeting with White House staff on January 10. The White House says Obama is still collecting information before making final decisions. Among the changes Obama is expected to announce is more oversight of the National Intelligence Priorities Framework, a classified document that ranks U.S. intelligence-gathering priorities and is used to make decisions on scrutiny of foreign leaders.

A presidential review board has recommended increasing the number of policy officials who help establish those priorities, and that could result in limits on surveillance of allies. Documents released by former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden revealed that the U.S. was monitoring the communications of several friendly foreign leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The revelations outraged Merkel as well as other leaders, and U.S. officials say the disclosures have damaged Obama’s relations around the world. The president also is said to be considering one of the review board’s most aggressive recommendations, a proposal to strip the NSA of its ability to store telephone records from millions of Americans and instead have phone companies or a third party hold the records. The NSA would be able to access the records only by obtaining separate court approval for each search, though exceptions could be made in the case of a national security emergency.

It’s unclear whether Obama will ultimately back the proposal or how quickly it could be carried out if he does. A House Intelligence Committee member, Rep. Peter King, R-NY, said he believes the surveillance changes under consideration go too far. But he said if Obama does decide to transfer U.S. phone metadata to a third party, he would work to salvage what he could of the program. “It would be a question of the lesser of two evils,” King said.

“If by doing that, it protects the program or preserves it, I would do it, even though I don’t think these reforms are necessary.” That White House review followed disclosures from Snowden, who leaked details of several secret government programs. He faces espionage charges in the U.S. but has been granted temporary asylum in Russia. On Thursday, the senior lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee said a classified Pentagon report showed that Snowden stole approximately 1.7 million intelligence files.

Most of those documents concern current military operations and could potentially jeopardize U.S. troops overseas, according to Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger, D-Md. Before making his final decisions, the president is supposed to receive a separate report from a semiindependent commission known as the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which was created by Congress. However, that panel’s report has been delayed without explanation until at least late January, meaning it won’t reach the president until after he makes his decisions public.

Members of that oversight board met with Obama on Wednesday and have briefed other administration officials on some of their preliminary findings. In a statement, the five-member panel said its meeting with the president focused on the NSA phone collection program and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees the data sweeps. It’s unclear why Obama will announce his recommendations before receiving the report from the privacy and civil liberties board.

One official familiar with the review process said some White House officials were puzzled by the board’s delay. The report would still be available to Congress, where lawmakers are grappling with several bills aimed at dismantling or preserving the NSA’s authority. That official and those familiar with the White House review insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the process by name. Obama also met Wednesday with members of the U.S. intelligence community, which largely supports keeping the NSA surveillance programs intact. Shortly after receiving the review board recommendations last month, Obama signaled that he could be open to significant surveillance changes, including to the bulk collecting of phone records.

“There are ways we can do it, potentially, that gives people greater assurance that there are checks and balances — that there’s sufficient oversight and sufficient transparency,” Obama said at a Dec. 20 news conference. He added that programs like the bulk collection “could be redesigned in ways that give you the same information when you need it without creating these potentials for abuse.

” The president also has backed the idea of adding a public advocate position to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which rules on many of the domestic surveillance decisions. The court typically hears only from the government as it decides cases, and the advocate would represent privacy and civil liberties concerns.