Revealed: NSA collecting phone records of millions of Americans daily | World news The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April. The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries. The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing. The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19. The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual.
Forget phones, PRISM plan shows internet firms give NSA everything It has been a rough 24 hours for the US National Security Agency. First a leaked court order (and the political reaction) showed that the agency routinely harvests US mobile-use data, and now a new document has been uncovered that claims to show the larger internet companies do the same thing. A 41-page presentation, given in April this year and obtained by the Washington Post, details the PRISM project, a system described as being the largest single source of information for NSA analytic reports. Nine companies are currently part of PRISM. Apple held out for five years, but signed up in October last year, and video chat room provider PalTalk is also on board, with DropBox billed as coming soon. The claimed PRISM participants According to the Post, the presentations states that data from PRISM made it into 1,477 presidential briefing articles last year and is used in one out of seven NSA intelligence reports. "Google cares deeply about the security of our users' data.
NSA taps in to systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and others, secret files reveal | World news The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian. The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called Prism, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says. The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. Although the presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a Guardian request for comment on Thursday denied knowledge of any such program. In a statement, Google said: "Google cares deeply about the security of our users' data. An Apple spokesman said it had "never heard" of Prism.
NSA has been collecting records on every call made in America for the last seven years Yesterday a leaked court order revealed that Verizon was compelled to turn over phone records to the National Security Agency, and tonight on the NBC Nightly News Andrea Mitchell reported that this was simply one part of a much broader program. According to Mitchell, under the Patriot Act the US government has been collecting records on every telephone call made in the country for the last seven years. The "telephony metadata," as its referred to in the leaked Verizon court order, is stored on NSA computer systems. Names and recordings of the conversations themselves aren't included, though the government can opt to go back to the provider in question and ask permission to listen in on a given phone number should it believe a specific threat is likely. The Wall Street Journal corroborated the report, with its own sources confirming that AT&T and Sprint were both involved as well.
A guide to FISA §1881a: The law behind it all Simply put, the National Security Agency is an intelligence agency. Its purpose is to monitor the world's communications, which it traditionally collected by using spy satellites, taps on cables, and placing listening stations around the world. In 2008, by making changes to U.S. law, the U.S. Congress enabled the NSA to make U.S. industry complicit in its mission. No longer would the NSA have to rely only on international gathering points. Below we carefully analyse the legal framework around these requests. Of particular concern is U.S. law's distinction between foreigners and U.S. citizens or residents -- legally referred to as "U.S. persons." About the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act § 1881a (a.k.a. FISA was established in 1978 in response to abuses in domestic intelligence surveillance powers. Who may be targeted? The law authorizes surveillance to be used against any individual or group of non-U.S. persons outside of the U.S. For what purposes can these powers be used? No. Yes.
Under the Patriot Act, the government stores a record of each phone call made in the US Today NBC News tweeted that under the power granted by the Patriot Act, the United States government has collected a record on every phone call made in the United States. This goes far further than yesterday’s leak to the Guardian in which it was laid bare that Verizon was under a short term order to share call information from its network. All calls, as allowed under the Patriot Act . On its nightly news broadcast, NBC played the following clip . The above news dovetails with today’s previous news of PRISM, a government program that, according to twin reports in the Guardian and the Washington Post , the government had access to servers and user information at a number of large, key Internet companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google . This week has seen the unveiling of precisely how deeply the government has delved into our private digital lives. Top Image Credit: Zoe Rudisill
Secret Court Ruling Put Tech Companies in Data Bind FISA requests can be as broad as seeking court approval to ask a company to turn over information about the online activities of people in a certain country. Between 2008 and 2012, only two of 8,591 applications were rejected, according to data gathered by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit research center in Washington. Without obtaining court approval, intelligence agents can then add more specific requests — like names of individuals and additional Internet services to track — every day for a year. National Security Letters are limited to the name, address, length of service and toll billing records of a service’s subscribers. Because national security requests ban recipients from even acknowledging their existence, it is difficult to know exactly how, and how often, the companies cooperate or resist. The Yahoo ruling, from 2008, shows the company argued that the order violated its users’ Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Verizon Breaks Silence on Top-Secret Surveillance of Its Customers | Threat Level Verizon responded to allegations that the telecom was served with a top-secret court order demanding it provide the FBI and the NSA with customer call records continuously, and in bulk, saying it respects “customers’ privacy” but must comply with the law. The telecom’s comments came a day after the Guardian disclosed that a secretive U.S. court, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, issued a sweeping order requiring Verizon Business Services — formerly MCI — to give the National Security Agency a feed of metadata on all calls within the United States and between the United States and foreign countries on an “ongoing, daily basis” for three months. Verizon declined to comment on the “accuracy” of the story, but noted that the order published by the Guardian “forbids Verizon from revealing the order’s existence.” “Verizon continually takes steps to safeguard its customers’ privacy. “There is no indication that this order to Verizon was unique or novel. Go Back to Top.
Understanding the 2008 Changes to FISA — A Visual Guide (Flowchart) | Ketchup and Caviar (Political Commentary) Understanding Recent Changes to FISA — A Visual Guide (Flowchart) July 11th, 2008 Posted in Politics I have to admit that despite the fact that I read Glenn Greenwald’s blog and have followed his numerous posts on FISA , until recently I haven’t fully understand the law or how it recently changed . So I took the time to do some careful reading, diagramming as I went. What you’ll see below are two diagrams comparing Old and New FISA. I Used the Following resources for these charts: I wanted to know what combinations of the following factors triggered a FISA Warrant requirement under the old and new laws, and which didn’t: Is the Communications Domestic, Foreign-to-Foreign, or Foreign-to-U.S.? I’m sure I’ve got some of this wrong (let me know), but I think I’ve go the big picture. The focus of change is the bolded red line marked “U.S. or non-U.S. What New FISA does is create a special case involving our bold red line in the first chart. Additional Resources Fisa Timeline ShareThis
A Guide to the New FISA Bill, Part III A Guide to the New FISA Bill, Part III Guest Blogger David Kris [Here is Part I and Part II] In my last post, I compared the pending legislation to my speculation about the January 2007 FISA Court orders. The opposite is true, however, with respect to stored e-mail. The second major limit in current FISA is that the statute does not apply where the surveillance target is located abroad and the surveillance occurs abroad. The third major limit is that current FISA does not apply to wire surveillance where the target is a foreigner, and the surveillance occurs abroad. Fourth and finally, current FISA does not apply to radio surveillance not targeting a U.S. person located in the United States where any party to the radio communication is outside the United States. 2. (a) U.S. (b) foreign-to-U.S. communications, also known as one-end-U.S. communications; and (c) foreign-to-foreign communications. a. b.
A Guide to the New FISA Bill, Part I A Guide to the New FISA Bill, Part I Guest Blogger David Kris Marty Lederman and Jack Balkin invited me to submit a post on the FISA modernization bill (H.R. 6304) that was passed on Thursday by the House of Representatives, and that appears to be on the verge of becoming law. To understand this new legislation, I think you need to appreciate three matters: (1) some elements of the current version of FISA, which are what is at stake in the (soon to be concluded) debate over modernizing the statute; (2) the main legal and operational arguments for and against modernizing FISA; and (3) the Bush Administration’s actual efforts to modernize electronic surveillance, beginning with the NSA’s Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) in 2001, and ending with the new legislation. Even in abbreviated, non-technical form, these three matters require some heavy lifting, so I’ll cover the first two today, and then address the third in a separate post that will appear tomorrow. 1. 2.
A Guide to the New FISA Bill, Part II A Guide to the New FISA Bill, Part II Guest Blogger David Kris Yesterday, in discussing H.R. 6304, the FISA modernization bill passed by the House on Thursday, I identified the key elements of current FISA, and described what I see as the main legal and operational arguments for and against modernizing the statute. Today, I’d like to describe the Bush Administration’s actual efforts to “modernize” electronic surveillance. There have been, essentially, three Administration approaches to modernizing electronic surveillance – one directed at each branch of the federal government. a. b. As noted in yesterday’s post, FISA has three essential substantive requirements: first, a target that is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power; second, a facility being used by that target; and third, minimization. The broadest possible facility is harder to identify. The problem, of course, is that while al Qaeda is using those switches, so is everyone else. c.