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Uncle Sam's intelligence agencies have embarked on the next stage of their plan to retain spying powers over US citizens: getting Donald Trump onboard.

Knowing what we do about Donald's approach to policy issues, it seems unlikely that the American president is aware of what is going on. But somehow he has been persuaded to revive a civil liberties oversight body that was torn apart for criticizing a controversial spying program that requires reauthorization by Congress at the end of the year.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) has been dead for over a year. After it concluded that several of the NSA's spying programs were unconstitutional back in 2014, the intelligence services set about shutting it down. And they succeeded.

In 2016, Congress passed legislation that formally prohibited the board from reviewing covert activity, and gave politicians budget control over the board, requiring it to report directly to legislators.

In response, most of the PCLOB's staff and board resigned. Between January and March that year, three board members quit and a fourth's term was not renewed. That left a single person Elisebeth Collins to sit as chair.

Collins' position was renewed until 2020 with the entry of the Trump Administration in order to keep the PCLOB in existence, but the board has not done a single piece of work since its former chair David Medine resigned in March 2016. With no quorum of board members present, and no executive director, the PCLOB has been in stasis for 18 months.

This month however and on the same day that the NSA started a PR campaign to retain mass spying laws under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) President Trump suddenly decided to nominate a new chair to the PCLOB. (The PCLOB has a few choice words [PDF] about Section 702.)

"Adam I Klein of the District of Columbia to be a Member and Chairman of the Privacy & Civil Liberties Oversight Board," said the announcement, buried at the bottom of a four-appointee announcement that was put out with the trash on Friday.

It then lists Klein's achievements: "Mr Klein is the Robert M Gates Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, where his research centers on the intersection of national security policy and law. He previously served as a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia of the US Supreme Court and Judge Brett M Kavanaugh of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. He has also worked on national security policy at the RAND Corporation..." and so on.

In the context of the PCLOB however, what Mr Klein is renowned for is his defense of Section 702 of the FISA Act.

He even wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal just last month that defended the most controversial aspect of the spying program: the ability of the FBI to search a vast database of information on US citizens that was compiled using Section 702 a law that explicitly notes it is only to be used for foreign intelligence targets and exempts US citizens.

Klein claims that, despite the law, "keeping officials from searching this data would make it more difficult to prevent homegrown terrorist attacks."

His choice as chair of the PCLOB goes against everything the body is supposed to represent, and is akin to Trump's choice of climate-change denier Scott Pruitt as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, or Rick Perry as head of the Department of Energy after he publicly vowed to eliminate the government agency.

The NSA and FBI also know exactly what they will be getting with Klein heading up the PCLOB: a civil liberties fig leaf to continue their spying of US citizens using legislation explicitly designed not to include US citizens.

The legislation in question has to be reauthorized by Congress before the end of the year, and has already become a major political wrangle in the corridors of power. Many lawmakers, tech companies and civil liberties groups have argued for specific changes to make to the law to remove its worst aspects.

With the revival of the defunct PCLOB and the proposed appointment of Klein as its chair, it is clear that the powers-that-be already have a strategy in place to retain their powers, and are following through on it.

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NSA enters stage two of its spying revival plan: Getting Trump onboard - The Register

An Air Force veteran told FBI agents that she had leaked classified U.S. documents, but a legal technicality may prevent prosecutors from using the confession as evidence in her upcoming trial, the Associated Press reports.

Reality Winner, a 25-year-old former Air Force linguist, stands charged of copying a classified report and mailing it to a leak-friendly news site. Winner was working as a government contractor in Augusta, Georgia, when the leak occurred in early May. She held a top secret security clearance at the time.

Winner later admitted to a pair of FBI agents that she had leaked the documents, according to a criminal complaint filed June 5 in the U.S.s Southern Georgia District Court. The two agents were executing a search warrant at Winners apartment when the confession was made.

[Winner] admitted removing the classified intelligence reporting from her office space, retaining it, and mailing it from Augusta, Georgia, to the news outlet, which she knew was not authorized to receive or possess the documents, according to a Department of Justice statement released on June 5.

Winners defense attorneys are now asking a federal judge to suppress any comments she made during the interview because the agents never gave her a Miranda warning, which law enforcement officials must read to criminal suspects in custody. But Winner had not been formally arrested at that point.

However, according to the AP, in a court motion filed on Aug. 29, an attorney for Winner said that she believed she was under arrest as she was being questioned in her apartment, noting that the agents were standing in front of the door.

Winner was never told she was free to leave, nor was she advised as to her arrest status, Winners attorneys wrote. Indeed, when she specifically asked whether she was under arrest, the agents told her they did not know the answer to that yet.

As of Aug. 31, the judge had not yet ruled on the defense motion, nor had prosecutors filed a reply. But on Aug. 30, U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian K. Epps agreed to postpone Winners trial, which was due to begin in October. The case has now been rescheduled for March 2018.

According to the AP, Winner has pleaded not guilty to charges that she illegally retained and transmitted national defense information. And while authorities have not publicly discussed what that information was or to whom Winner transmitted it to, it seems fairly obvious.

The Intercept reported in May that it had obtained a classified National Security Agency report suggesting Russian military intelligence executed a cyberattack on at least one U.S. voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials just days before last Novembers presidential election.

The Intercept said the NSA report was dated May 5, which is the same date that appeared on the document Winner is charged with leaking.

Soon after Winners arrest, The Intercept announced that its parent company, First Look Media, had decided to provide independent support for her legal defense, and argued that the leak highlighted vulnerabilities in the U.S. election system and [provided] vital context for the current debate over Russian interference in the election.

Winner could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

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Air Force Vet Admitted To Leaking NSA Documents, But Her Confession Might Not Count In Court - Task & Purpose

LORD INGLEWOOD of Hutton in the Forest, Penrith, Cumbria, has been announced as the new president of the National Sheep Association.

He takes over the position from His Grace The Duke of Montrose who handed over the reins at the recent NSA AGM in Ballymena, County Antrim.

As well as being a farmer and landowner in Cumbria with both upland and lowland farming interests, Lord Inglewood is actively involved as a member of the House of Lords. Among other commitments, he is also president of the Uplands Alliance and fulfils an influential role within the Livestock Auctioneers Association.

On his appointment as NSA president, Lord Inglewood said: At a moment when UK agriculture is under review as never before, I am delighted to support those in the sheep sector an integral part of livestock farming at this crucial moment. I am looking forward to working closely with NSA in the near future.

Speaking at the AGM, NSA chief executive Phil Stocker said: The role of NSA president is an essential one for the organisation and its influence can have a significant bearing on the future for the sheep industry here in the UK.

Our outgoing president, His Grace The Duke of Montrose, held this position for six years and has been an incredible ambassador for NSA, opening many doors for us and supporting a good number of NSA events around the country. I would like to give a huge thank you to the Duke for all he has done, and at the same time welcome Lord Inglewood into this role. I look forward to involving him in NSAs work during this crucial time.

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NSA welcomes new association president - The Scottish Farmer

MARCH 16, 2015: Illustration of a spying CPU inside a computer with the NSA logo on it.

The National Security Agency is raising the stakes in the debate to renew sweeping surveillance powers contained in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Act, arguing the law saves lives and that failing to reauthorize it could cost them.

Last year a foreign attack resulted in the deaths of more than 20 people, the signals intelligence agency said in a rare but vague blog post on its website Thursday. Who was behind it? Had they also taught others how to carry out such malicious acts? It was NSAs Section 702 collection that revealed the identities of the overseas terrorists who were responsible.

Section 702 authorizes NSA to tap the physical infrastructure of internet service providers, like fiber connections, to intercept foreign emails, instant messages, and other communications belonging to foreign nationals as they exit and enter the U.S. But according to NSA, the program also incidentally sweeps up the communications of Americans corresponding with, and until recently, merely even mentioning foreign targets.

This collection provided the necessary insights and reporting on the attack that refuted the terrorist organizations denial of any involvement, the NSA post continues. Specifically, Section 702 collection provided a direct claim of responsibility from the terror groups leaders and included a list of terrorists trained for the operation. This was crucial for supporting timely U.S. and coalition force planning and operations against terrorists in the region.

The statute received increased criticism from Congress, federal courts, digital and civil rights groups this year as it approaches expiration at the end of December. Experts say it likely results in tens of millions of warrantless intercepts of Americans communications, and prolific NSA leaker Edward Snowden and Democratic privacy hawk Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon suggest it could be manipulated to target communications that are entirely domestic.

NSA and others in the intelligence community are pushing back against those arguments, going so far as to pressure Congress to permanently enact the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, under which Section 702 is codified.

The post on NSAs website came one day after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a cache of documents describing the training NSA signals intelligence analysts go through and annual reports on the number of intelligence reports it disseminated to other agencies containing data on Americans. Those documents were released pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request related to a lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union brought against NSA in New York.

Wyden, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, and others have for years asked former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and now Dan Coats, the nations new top spy, for an estimate of how many Americans are swept up in Section 702 collection. Both, alongside NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers, say its impossible to calculate without violating the very privacy rights Wyden, Paul and others are seeking to protect, since it would require looking for Americans directly in the NSAs broad dragnet.

One report covering Sept. 1, 2014 to Aug. 31, 2015 shows NSA disseminated 4,318 intelligence reports containing Section 702 information with at least one reference to a U.S. person. However this only includes U.S. person data that made it into a report, not data on U.S. persons the NSA collects and stores, but hasnt yet queried.

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NSA Says Expiring Surveillance Powers Under FISA Section 702 ... - InsideSources

PrintWednesday 30th August, 2017By Edna A. Quansah, GNA Accra, Aug. 30, GNA - ShalinaHealthcare Limited, manufacturers of pharmaceutical products has donated a sumof GH15,000.00 and medical products to the National Sports Authority (NSA)towards the National sports festival, which commences on August 31 at the BabaYara Sports Stadium in Kumasi.Presenting the cash and products to theNSA on Wednesday, the Country Directo

By Edna A. Quansah, GNA

Accra, Aug. 30, GNA - ShalinaHealthcare Limited, manufacturers of pharmaceutical products has donated a sumof GH15,000.00 and medical products to the National Sports Authority (NSA)towards the National sports festival, which commences on August 31 at the BabaYara Sports Stadium in Kumasi.

Presenting the cash and products to theNSA on Wednesday, the Country Director of Shalina Health Care Ghana Mr. AmritPal Singh said it was part of his outfits Corporate Social Responsibility tosupport this great event, which is geared towards unearthing potential athletesin the country.

Mr Singh encouraged the athletes tocompete in line with the rules of the game and admonished them to becompetitive and bring their best in any discipline they compete in. This is acompetition which will bring the youth in this country together. A healthy bodyis a healthy mind that is why we associate ourselves with this event tosponsor.

Meanwhile, the NSA has also receiveddonations from Stanbic Bank and Fero Phones with GH10,000.00 and 30 pieces ofphones respectively to support the National Sports Festival.

The donated will be given tooutstanding athletes who will perform well in the various disciplines.

The Director General of the NSA Mr.Robert Sarfo Mensah thanked the sponsors for their immense contributionstowards the event, adding that, his doors are still opened for more corporateentities to come on board to support.

He said preparations for the sportsfestival are almost complete in terms of accommodation, feeding andtransportation.

The Ministry of Youth and Sports hasgiven USD 130,000 towards the event and other sponsors include Goil, GoldenBean Hotel, Angel Group of Companies, Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly andSoccerbet have also donated towards the games.

GNA

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Shalina Healthcare donates products plus GH15000.00 to NSA - Ghana News Agency