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WASHINGTON (AP) The nations signals intelligence agency said Friday it will no longer collect certain communications moving on the internet simply because they mention a foreign intelligence target, in a move applauded by privacy advocates.

The National Security Agency said it will now limit such collection to internet communications sent directly to or from a foreign target. It wont permit intelligence officials to collect emails, texts and other communications between two people who mention a target by name, but are not themselves targets of surveillance.

The changes, first reported by The New York Times, are designed to reduce the chances of sweeping up communications of U.S. citizens or others in a way that some critics charged was overly broad.

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden or Oregon, a leading NSA critic, said the practice of collecting information for mentioning a target was a magnet for abuse.

This is something Ive been working to get rid of for years and years, Wyden told The Associated Press in an interview Friday.

Since 2008, U.S. intelligence agencies have relied on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as they conduct surveillance on specific foreign targets outside the United States to collect intelligence on issues ranging from terrorism to cybersecurity.

The NSA said an in-house review of Section 702 activities uncovered several inadvertent compliance lapses. It said such incidents were properly reported to Congress and the federal court overseeing foreign intelligence surveillance activities. The court issued two extensions as the NSA worked to fix the problems and recently approved the changes.

Wyden commended the NSA for recognizing the problem and said he would work to make the changes part of law. Section 702 is set to expire at the end of this year and lawmakers are weighing its reauthorization.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, called the decision a sound response to the technological challenges of the program and the unintended collection of certain U.S. person information.

Concern over the Americans communications renewed this year as the Trump administration accused the intelligence community of improperly revealing the names of Americans that came up through incidental collections.

In February, President Donald Trump fired his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, after saying he lied about phone conversations with a Russian diplomat. But Trump accused Susan Rice, former President Barack Obamas security adviser, of illegally unmasking Flynns identity before details of the conversations were leaked to the press.

FBI Director James Comey has said the complaints about unmasking arent related to Section 702 of the foreign intelligence surveillance law.

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Associated Press writer Eileen Sullivan contributed to this report.

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NSA to stop collecting some internet communications - WIAT 42

The NSA announced Friday that they would stop the controversial program which sweeps up all emails and text messages which an American exchanges with someone overseas that makes reference to a real target of NSA surveillance.

By way of background, if Russias Putin was an NSA target, and an American received an email from a Russian saying I hate Putin, then that American could be surveilled by the NSA.

Washingtons Blog asked Bill Binney what he thought of the NSAs announcement.

Binney is the NSA executive who created the agencys mass surveillance program for digital information, who served as the senior technical director within the agency, who managed six thousand NSA employees, the 36-year NSA veteran widely regarded as a legend within the agency and the NSAs best-ever analyst and code-breaker, who mapped out the Soviet command-and-control structure before anyone else knew how, and so predicted Soviet invasions before they happened (in the 1970s, he decrypted the Soviet Unions command system, which provided the US and its allies with real-time surveillance of all Soviet troop movements and Russian atomic weapons). Binney is the real McCoy. Binney has been interviewed by virtually all of the mainstream media, including CBS, ABC, CNN, New York Times, USA Today, Fox News, PBS and many others.

Specifically, we asked Binney:

Do you buy it? https://www.yahoo.com/tech/us-nsa-spy-agency-halts-controversial-email-sweep-215107654.html

Or do you think theyre just collecting under a different authorization/program?

Binney responded:

Short answer, NO.

This is a farce given the bulk continuous domestic data collection and storage from the Upstream programs: Fairview, Stormbrew and Blarney. [Heres background on Fairview/Stormbrew/Blarney.]

This FAA 702 [Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] has been a charade from the beginning. [Specifically, the NSA is spying on all Americans under Executive Order 12333, and only talking about Section 702 to confuse people as to what theyre doing.]

It was a way to make people/congress/judiciary think that they were trying to conform to the law.

And, by spreading false information, which our useless MSM fail to challenge, its a way of subverting our republic all done in secret with only a few people in the know of what really is going on.

Meanwhile in the background, NSA through program Muscular was unilaterally tapping the fiber lines between Google and Yahoo and others data centers; so that when they backed up their data between centers, NSA got it all and the companies did not even know that was happening.

Absolutely nothing has changed.

Read more from the original source:
No, the NSA Has NOT Stopped Spying On Americans' Emails - Center for Research on Globalization

The NSA Says It Is Ending One of Its Most Controversial Spying Practices, But It Could Be Resurrected if Congress ... Common Dreams The NSA indicated Friday that it will halt one of its most controversial spying practices, related to its surveillance of virtually all text-based communications entering or exiting the United States. If true, this is a significant step forward in the ...

Excerpt from:
The NSA Says It Is Ending One of Its Most Controversial Spying Practices, But It Could Be Resurrected if Congress ... - Common Dreams

The National Security Agency is scaling back the way it spies on some communications over the Internet.

The NSA says it discovered what it called "lapses" in compliance with U.S. law.

They're called "about" communications: The NSA not only watches messages traveling to and from a foreign target, but those that mention one.

That can mean the NSA sometimes sweeps up data from Americans without a warrant. In the past, officials said the spy agency was still mindful of citizens' privacy.

But now NSA says it has discovered "several inadvertent compliance lapses," which it reported to Congress and a secret court that oversees intelligence gathering.

There aren't many more details, but the NSA now says it will, quote, "stop the practice to reduce the chance that it would acquire communications of U.S. persons or others who are not in direct contact with a foreign intelligence target."

Here's the full statement from the NSA:

NSA Stops Certain Foreign Intelligence Collection Activities Under Section 702

The National Security Agency is instituting several changes in the way it collects information under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Section 702, set to expire at the end of this year, allows the Intelligence Community to conduct surveillance on only specific foreign targets located outside the United States to collect foreign intelligence, including intelligence needed in the fight against international terrorism and cyber threats.

NSA will no longer collect certain internet communications that merely mention a foreign intelligence target. This information is referred to in the Intelligence Community as "about" communications in Section 702 "upstream" internet surveillance. Instead, NSA will limit such collection to internet communications that are sent directly to or from a foreign target.

Even though NSA does not have the ability at this time to stop collecting "about" information without losing some other important data, the Agency will stop the practice to reduce the chance that it would acquire communications of U.S. persons or others who are not in direct contact with a foreign intelligence target.

Finally, even though the Agency was legally allowed to retain such "about" information previously collected under Section 702, the NSA will delete the vast majority of its upstream internet data to further protect the privacy of U.S. person communications.

The changes in policy followed an in-house review of Section 702 activities in which NSA discovered several inadvertent compliance lapses.

NSA self-reported the incidents to both Congress and the FISC, as it is required to do. Following these reports, the FISC issued two extensions as NSA worked to fix the problems before the government submitted a new application for continued Section 702 certification. The FISC recently approved the changes after an extensive review.

The Agency's efforts are part of its commitment to continuous improvement as we work to keep the nation safe. NSA has a solemn responsibility and duty to do our work exactly right while carrying out our critical mission.

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NSA To Limit Some Collection Of Internet Communication - KUCB

Mashable

Snowden takes a bow for whistleblowing after NSA pulls back surveillance Mashable Before Friday, the NSA had a policy of sucking up texts and emails exchanged between Americans and people outside the U.S., with impunity, if those communications even mentioned non-American targets of NSA surveillance. The agency did not require a ...

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Snowden takes a bow for whistleblowing after NSA pulls back surveillance - Mashable