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According to previously classified documents obtained by Circa, the National Security Agency during the Obama administration intentionally and routinely violated American privacy protections and court-ordered guidelines implemented in accordance withfederal law.

The documents indicate that more than 5 percent of NSA searches obtained through upstream Internet data insideSection 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act violated the safeguards President Obama and his intelligence chiefs vowed to follow in 2011.

Upstream collection refers to the interception of data from the Internet backbone, such as major major Internet cables and switches, and accounts for roughly 9 percentof the NSAs collection haul.While upstream collection is a vital tool for gathering intelligence against foreign threats to the United States, it is another matter to deliberately target American citizens at home.

These concernswere reportedly disclosed by the Obama administration in a closed-door hearing on Oct. 26 before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, less than two weeks before Donald Trump was elected.The court allegedly stated that the failure to disclose the extent of the NSAs many violations at an earlier time amounted to aninstitutional lack of candor andthat the searches performed by the NSA presented a very serious Fourth Amendment issue, according to court documentsdated April 26, 2017.

Since 2011, NSAs minimization procedures have prohibited use of U.S.-person identifiers to query the results of upstream Internet collections under Section 702, the unsealed court ruling reportedly states. The Oct. 26, 2016 notice informed the court that NSA analysts had been conducting such queries in violation of that prohibition, with much greater frequency than had been previously disclosed to the Court.

Speaking Wednesday on Fox News, Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul saidthat, if true, these oversteps constitute an enormous abuse of power.

The American Civil Liberties Union also added that the newly disclosed violations are some of the most serious to ever be documented and casts doubt over the U.S. intelligence communitys ability to self-regulate and safeguard American citizens right to privacy.

I think what this emphasizes is the shocking lack of oversight of these programs, said Neema Singh Guliani, the ACLUs legislative counsel in Washington.

You have these problems going on for years that only come to the attention of the court late in the game and then it takes additional years to change its practices, she continued. I think it does call into question all those defenses that we kept hearing, that we always have a robust oversight structure and we have culture of adherence to privacy standards. And the headline now is they actually havent been in compliance for years and the FISA court itself says in its opinion is that the NSA suffers from a culture of a lack of candor.

The NSA responded by publishing a statement on their website in April claiming that their agency will no longer collect certain Internet communications that merely mention a foreign intelligence target.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Act is set to expire this year.

Davis Richardson is a writer whose work has appeared in VICE, Nylon Magazine, The Daily Caller, and WIRED. Follow him on Twitter

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Report: Obama Administration Conducted Illegal Searches On ... - The Daily Caller

In the aftermath of the WannaCry ransomware attacks this month, Microsoft took the unprecedented step of publically calling out the National Security Agency for hoarding vulnerabilities and exploits, such as EternalBlue.

The WannaCry ransomware worm used a critical vulnerability in the Windows Server Message Block protocol, known as EternalBlue, which was released to the public by the Shadow Brokers last month.

The Shadow Brokers claim to have stolen EternalBlue and other exploits and cyberweapons from another hacking outfit called the Equation Group, which has been tied to the NSA. While Microsoft issued a patch for the vulnerability a month before its disclosure, many organizations failed to update their Windows systems and were left exposed to the WannaCry ransomware worm.

Brad Smith, president and chief legal officer at Microsoft, wrote a blog post regarding WannaCry and claimed it was "yet another example of why the stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments is such a problem." He also criticized the NSA by name for failing to disclose EternalBlue and other serious exploits to vendors like Microsoft so they could be patched.

"This is an emerging pattern in 2017," Smith wrote. "We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability stolen from the NSA has affected customers around the world."

In part two of Risk & Repeat's discussion on the WannaCry ransomware attacks, SearchSecurity Senior Reporter Michael Heller joins editors Rob Wright and Peter Loshin to discuss Microsoft's pointed criticism of the U.S. government, the repercussions of the NSA's practice of hoarding vulnerabilities and the effect WannaCry may have on the Vulnerabilities Equities Process.

Link:
Risk & Repeat: Microsoft slams NSA over EternalBlue - TechTarget

National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers was asked by President Donald Trump to publicly push back against the FBI probe into Russia's interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion by Trump associates, a source familiar with the matter told ABC News.

According to the source, Rogers rebuffed the president's request, deeming it inappropriate. The encounter between Rogers and Trump was documented in a contemporaneous memo.

The White House told ABC News in response to the story that it "does not confirm or deny unsubstantiated claims based on illegal leaks from anonymous individuals. The president will continue to focus on his agenda that he was elected to pursue by the American people."

Trumps request to Rogers is not the first time he has made such an appeal to a top intelligence official.

Following Trump's firing of James Comey on May 9, it was revealed that the former FBI director reportedly wrote a memo detailing a request Trump made to him in February to drop the FBIs investigation of National Security Adviser Mike Flynn.

Rogers later testified in front of the House Armed Services Committee but was not asked about the report.

The Washington Post was the first to report that Trump made the appeal to Rogers in March. The Post also reported that Trump made the same request to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

Asked about the report when he appeared today before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Coats declined to comment.

"I have always believed that given the nature of my position and the information which we share it's not appropriate for me to comment publicly on any of that," Coats said. "So on this topic, as well as other topics, I don't feel it's appropriate to characterize discussions and conversations with the president."

Coats said he was not aware of any attempts to contact other intelligence officials to drop the investigation into Flynn.

Though he would not confirm or deny The Post report, Coats said he would be forthcoming if hes asked about it by special counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election.

ABC News' Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.

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Trump asked NSA director to publicly push back against FBI's ...

New York Times

Federal Court Revives Wikimedia's Challenge to NSA Surveillance New York Times The ruling, by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, is significant because it increases the chances that the Supreme Court may someday scrutinize whether the N.S.A.'s so-called upstream system for internet surveillance complies with Fourth ... Newly revived Wikipedia suit could reveal secrets of NSA surveillance programVICE News Court revives Wikimedia lawsuit against NSAWashington Post Wikimedia's lawsuit against the NSA is backThe Verge EFF -WND.com -U.S. News & World Report -DocumentCloud all 33 news articles »

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Federal Court Revives Wikimedia's Challenge to NSA Surveillance - New York Times

On one front, he was being considered as a candidate for the job of director of national intelligence under President-elect Donald Trump. On another front, there were questions about whether he would be fired as director of the National Security Agency by then-President Barack Obama.

Obama's defense and intelligence chiefs had recommended firing Rogers due to the belief that Rogers was not working fast enough on a critical reorganization to address the cyberthreat, but Rogers survived and remained in his role as the director of the NSA and head of US Cyber Command under Trump.

In fact, Rogers has spent more time testifying about that topic than just about any other US official and is facing more questions from lawmakers on Tuesday as the probe continues to look into possible collusion between Russian officials and associates of the Trump campaign.

The revelations, first reported by The Washington Post, deepen the intrigue over alleged links between Trump's campaign and Russia as they follow the President's firing of Comey and his subsequent statement he did so because of the Russia probe.

Both Coats and Rogers were uncomfortable with the nature of the President's request and refused to comply, sources with knowledge of the situation told CNN.

Rogers also played a key role in last month's House hearing with Comey when he joined the FBI director in refuting Trump's claim that Obama had had his phones tapped during the campaign. He specifically batted down the notion that the Obama administration requested that the British eavesdrop on Trump, an unfounded assertion made on Fox News and later cited by White House officials.

Despite ultimately winning the election, Macron had been the victim of a "massive and coordinated hacking operation," his campaign team said.

"We had talked to our French counterparts ... and we gave them a heads up: 'Look, we are watching the Russians. We are seeing them penetrate some of your infrastructure. Here's what we've seen ... what can we do to assist?'" Rogers told lawmakers on the Senate armed services committee earlier this month.

Prior to assuming his current role at the NSA in 2014, Rogers served as the director for Intelligence for both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and US Pacific Command, and most recently as commander, US Fleet Cyber Command.

A native of Chicago, Rogers attended Auburn University. He graduated in 1981 and received his commission through the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps. He was selected for re-designation to information warfare in 1986 after initially serving as a surface warfare officer.

Read more here:
Who is NSA Director Mike Rogers? - CNN