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A contentious piece of U.S. law giving the National Security Agency broad authority to spy on people overseas expires at the end of the year. Expect heated debate about the scope of U.S. surveillance law leading up to Dec. 31.

One major issue to watch involves the way the surveillance treats communications from U.S. residents. Critics say U.S. emails, texts, and chat logs -- potentially millions of them -- are caught up in surveillance authorized bySection 702of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

U.S. residents who communicate with foreign targets of the NSA surveillance have their data swept up in what the NSA calls "incidental" collection. The FBI can then search those communications, but it's unclear how often that happens.

A primer on Section 702:

Section 702 of FISA is the authorization the NSA needs to run programs like Prism and Upstream, revealed in 2013 by former agency contractor Edward Snowden. The U.S. intelligence community has called Section 702 surveillance its "most important tool" in its fight against terrorism, noted Representative Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, during a March 1 congressional hearing.

Section 702 surveillance is "critical" in the U.S. governments fight against terrorism, added April Doss, a lawyer at the NSA for 13 years.

At the agency, "I had the opportunity to witness firsthand the critical importance of robust intelligence information in supporting U.S. troops and in detecting terrorist plans and intentions that threatened the safety of the U.S. and its allies," she said in testimony March 1.

In the Prism program, the NSA and FBI allegedly gained access to the servers of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other internet companies as a way to collect audio, video, emails, and other content.

Upstream collectionallegedly involved the NSA intercepting telephone and internet traffic by tapping internet cables and switches.

Under 702, FISA allows the U.S. attorney general and the director of national intelligence to authorize "the targeting of persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information." The U.S.Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court reviews the targeting and minimization procedures adopted by the government and determines whether they comport with the statutory restrictions and the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says it conducts its surveillance with the "knowledge of the service provider," although several internet companies have denied cooperating with the NSA.

Doss and other defenders of Section 702 surveillance say that it's targeted, not so-called "bulk" surveillance. But the descriptions of both Prism and Upstream from the Snowden leaks and subsequent government descriptions suggest the surveillance is widespread. The intelligence community has long arguedthe legal definition of "bulk" surveillance is very specific.

The NSA also collected U.S. telephone records for several years under a separate program. The NSA and the FBI pointed to a different provision of FISA, Section 501, as authorization for the controversial metadata collection program. Congress curtailed the phone metadata collection program in the USA Freedom Act, passed in mid-2015.

Congress is certain to extend the surveillance authority in some form, even though many tech companies and privacy groups are pushing lawmakers to rein in the NSAs surveillance programs, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Most lawmakers see value in extending Section 702, although many Democrats and some Republicans have talked about ending or limiting the ability of the FBI and other intelligence agencies to search for U.S. communications swept up in the surveillance.

Given that Section 702 is one of the main authorizations for the NSA to conduct foreign surveillance, not even the most ardent privacy advocates believe Congress will let the provision expire.

Section 702 prohibits the NSA from targeting people inside the U.S., but the agency, in "incidental" collection, gathers information from U.S. residents who are communicating with the agencys overseas targets.

The law then allows the FBI and other intelligence agencies to search those U.S. communications for evidence of crimes, including crimes not connected to terrorism. Many digital rights groups, along with some lawmakers, want to end this so-called backdoor search of Section 702 records.

This collection of U.S. communications without a warrant is, "in a word, wrong," Representative John Conyers Jr., a Michigan Democrat, said during the March 1 hearing.

Details about the incidental collection are fuzzy. Going back to 2011, lawmakers have repeatedly asked for numbers of U.S. residents affected but have received no details from the ODNI.

In addition to the incidental collection of U.S. residents' communications, privacy advocates complain about an expansive surveillance of foreigners allowed under Section 702.

The provision allows the NSA to collect foreign intelligence information from "anyone" outside the U.S. not just suspected agents of foreign powers, said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "Intelligence information" is also defined broadly, he said.

"Once you remove that, it's open season on many foreigners who pose no threat to U.S. national security," he added.

House members, in their March 1 hearing, talked little about the impact on people outside the U.S. At this point, it seems unlikely that U.S. lawmakers will limit the provisions foreign data collection.

Privacy advocates have an ace up their sleeves, however. Several privacy groups have encouraged the European Union to get involved in the debate and threaten to revoke Privacy Shield, the cross-Atlantic agreement that allows U.S. companies to handle EU residents'data, unless significant changes are made to 702.

The European Commission "has made it clear that it takes seriously its obligations to review the Privacy Shield Agreement," said Nathan White, senior legislative manager at Access Now, a digital rights group.

EU nations understand surveillance is can be necessary, but "surveillance must respect human rights," White added. "Surveillance doesnt trump human rights responsibilities."

The U.S. intelligence communitys surveillance programs have stirred up new controversies in recent weeks. In early March, President Donald Trump, in a series of tweets, accused former President Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower in New York City during the last presidential campaign.

While Trump has provided no evidence of the bombshell charge, it appears that the NSA intercepted some of his campaign staffers' communications when they talked to foreign surveillance targets. That type of surveillance would likely be authorized by Section 702.

A few days later, WikiLeaks published more than 8,700 documents that it says came from the CIA. The documents describe the spy agency's efforts to compromise iPhone, Android devices, smart TVs, automobile software, and major operating systems.

The CIA, however, runs separate surveillance programs from the NSA. CIA surveillance is supposed to be focused on specific foreign targets, as opposed to the widespread surveillance that the NSA does under the authority of Section 702. The CIA says it is "legally prohibited from conducting electronic surveillance targeting individuals here at home, including our fellow Americans."

More:
The NSA's foreign surveillance: 5 things to know - PCWorld

A German court has overturned a decision that would have required Berlin to transport whistleblower Edward Snowden to Germany and shield him from the U.S. government. Germany's Federal Court of Justice published a rulingWednesday in favor of the German government's position that Snowden didn't need to travel to Berlin for questioning from an ongoing investigation into U.S. surveillance.

German officials suggestedSnowden, a former National Security Agency employee who lives in Russia, be questioned via a video link instead. But Snowdenhas refused to cooperate with the investigation unless he is granted immunity and is allowed to travel to Berlin, according to local media reports.

German lawmakers launched theinvestigation into U.S. spyingin March 2014 after Snowden shared documents detailing Washington's mass surveillance of its allies and enemies across the globe, as well as U.S. citizens. After twolawmakers overseeing thegovernment committee's probedemanded that Snowden be calledin as a witness,the federal court ruled in February that the former NSA security contractor should travel to Berlin with the guarantee that he wouldn't be extradited to the U.S.

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Lawmakers from theChristian Democratic Union and Social Democratic Party appealed the ruling. The court's decision made public Wednesday backed up their stance that Snowden wasn't crucial to the investigation. Germany also argued it could not guarantee Snowden's protection because he is wanted in the U.S. on espionage charges.

The Snowden leaks disclosed that Washington spied onChancellor Angela Merkel's phone, among otherrevelations.Lawmakers from the opposition Greenand Left parties had requested that Snowden be allowed into Berlin.

My standard was that spying among friends is not acceptable, and if it happens we have to intervene, Merkel toldlawmakers in February as part of the investigation. She notedthe importance and difficulty of finding the right balance between freedom and security.

ButMartina Renner of the Left Party said the Germangovernmentfears [Snowdens] testimony.

When the leaks were first revealed in 2013, dozens of German political leaders called on Berlin to offer Snowdenasylum.Heiner Geissler, the former general secretary of Merkel's Christian Democrats, said at the time: "Snowden has done the Western world a great service. It is now up to us to help him."

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Edward Snowden Latest: NSA Leaker Won't Leave Russia for ... - Newsweek

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The demand comes as the committee is trying to figure out who revealed Flynns identity during his phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December and who illegally leaked the classified contents of those calls to the news media.

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Masking refers to the protection of identities of Americans who are inadvertently caught up in surveillance for example, of foreign individuals in the U.S. and is referred to as a minimization procedure.

Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Ranking Member Adam Schiff (D-WA) made the request in a letter dated Mar. 15 addressed to Director of the National Security Agency Adm. Michael Rogers, FBI Director James Comey, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

As you know, the Committee has been very concerned regarding the purported unauthorized disclosures of classified information, particularly when they pertain to intelligence collection on, or related to, U.S. persons (USP). To take a prominent example, a January 12, 2017 article in a major newspaper was the first to claim that Retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, [then President-Elect] Trumps choice for national security adviser . phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29.

Such stories would appear to contain the unauthorized disclosure of USP identities. This potential misuse is a key reason why the Intelligence Community (IC) has developed robust minimization procedures for the protection of USP information, including requiring the masking of USP identities in most circumstances, they wrote.

However, as recent news stories seem to illustrate, individuals talking to the media would appear to have wantonly disregarded these procedures, they added.

Thus, the leaders have requested all policies and/or procedures each agency uses to determine when to unmask and disseminate the identity of an American and the number of individuals who can approve an unmasking.

They are also asking for the total number of times any unmasked American identity was disseminated between June 2016 and January 2017. They are also asking for the names of those unmasked Americans who had their identities disseminated in response to requests from intelligence community agencies, law enforcement, or any senior Executive Branch officials during that timeframe, in relation to either Trump or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

They also want to know who requested any unmasking and dissemination of individuals related to Trump or Clinton and why.

If those answers are not produced by Friday, Nunes and Schiff will issue a subpoena for them, they said.

The committee is scheduled to question Rogers and Comey at a public hearing on Monday.

Here is the original post:
House Intel Leaders Ask FBI, CIA, NSA How Many Americans They 'Unmasked' - Breitbart News

A contentious piece of U.S. law giving the National Security Agency broad authority to spy on people overseas expires at the end of the year. Expect heated debate about the scope of U.S. surveillance law leading up to Dec. 31.

One major issue to watch involves the way the surveillance treats communications from U.S. residents. Critics say U.S. emails, texts, and chat logs -- potentially millions of them -- are caught up in surveillance authorized bySection 702of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

U.S. residents who communicate with foreign targets of the NSA surveillance have their data swept up in what the NSA calls "incidental" collection. The FBI can then search those communications, but it's unclear how often that happens.

A primer on Section 702:

Section 702 of FISA is the authorization the NSA needs to run programs like Prism and Upstream, revealed in 2013 by former agency contractor Edward Snowden. The U.S. intelligence community has called Section 702 surveillance its "most important tool" in its fight against terrorism, noted Representative Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, during a March 1 congressional hearing.

Section 702 surveillance is "critical" in the U.S. governments fight against terrorism, added April Doss, a lawyer at the NSA for 13 years.

At the agency, "I had the opportunity to witness firsthand the critical importance of robust intelligence information in supporting U.S. troops and in detecting terrorist plans and intentions that threatened the safety of the U.S. and its allies," she said in testimony March 1.

In the Prism program, the NSA and FBI allegedly gained access to the servers of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other internet companies as a way to collect audio, video, emails, and other content.

Upstream collectionallegedly involved the NSA intercepting telephone and internet traffic by tapping internet cables and switches.

Under 702, FISA allows the U.S. attorney general and the director of national intelligence to authorize "the targeting of persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information." The U.S.Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court reviews the targeting and minimization procedures adopted by the government and determines whether they comport with the statutory restrictions and the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says it conducts its surveillance with the "knowledge of the service provider," although several internet companies have denied cooperating with the NSA.

Doss and other defenders of Section 702 surveillance say that it's targeted, not so-called "bulk" surveillance. But the descriptions of both Prism and Upstream from the Snowden leaks and subsequent government descriptions suggest the surveillance is widespread. The intelligence community has long arguedthe legal definition of "bulk" surveillance is very specific.

The NSA also collected U.S. telephone records for several years under a separate program. The NSA and the FBI pointed to a different provision of FISA, Section 501, as authorization for the controversial metadata collection program. Congress curtailed the phone metadata collection program in the USA Freedom Act, passed in mid-2015.

Congress is certain to extend the surveillance authority in some form, even though many tech companies and privacy groups are pushing lawmakers to rein in the NSAs surveillance programs, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Most lawmakers see value in extending Section 702, although many Democrats and some Republicans have talked about ending or limiting the ability of the FBI and other intelligence agencies to search for U.S. communications swept up in the surveillance.

Given that Section 702 is one of the main authorizations for the NSA to conduct foreign surveillance, not even the most ardent privacy advocates believe Congress will let the provision expire.

Section 702 prohibits the NSA from targeting people inside the U.S., but the agency, in "incidental" collection, gathers information from U.S. residents who are communicating with the agencys overseas targets.

The law then allows the FBI and other intelligence agencies to search those U.S. communications for evidence of crimes, including crimes not connected to terrorism. Many digital rights groups, along with some lawmakers, want to end this so-called backdoor search of Section 702 records.

This collection of U.S. communications without a warrant is, "in a word, wrong," Representative John Conyers Jr., a Michigan Democrat, said during the March 1 hearing.

Details about the incidental collection are fuzzy. Going back to 2011, lawmakers have repeatedly asked for numbers of U.S. residents affected but have received no details from the ODNI.

In addition to the incidental collection of U.S. residents' communications, privacy advocates complain about an expansive surveillance of foreigners allowed under Section 702.

The provision allows the NSA to collect foreign intelligence information from "anyone" outside the U.S. not just suspected agents of foreign powers, said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "Intelligence information" is also defined broadly, he said.

"Once you remove that, it's open season on many foreigners who pose no threat to U.S. national security," he added.

House members, in their March 1 hearing, talked little about the impact on people outside the U.S. At this point, it seems unlikely that U.S. lawmakers will limit the provisions foreign data collection.

Privacy advocates have an ace up their sleeves, however. Several privacy groups have encouraged the European Union to get involved in the debate and threaten to revoke Privacy Shield, the cross-Atlantic agreement that allows U.S. companies to handle EU residents'data, unless significant changes are made to 702.

The European Commission "has made it clear that it takes seriously its obligations to review the Privacy Shield Agreement," said Nathan White, senior legislative manager at Access Now, a digital rights group.

EU nations understand surveillance is can be necessary, but "surveillance must respect human rights," White added. "Surveillance doesnt trump human rights responsibilities."

The U.S. intelligence communitys surveillance programs have stirred up new controversies in recent weeks. In early March, President Donald Trump, in a series of tweets, accused former President Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower in New York City during the last presidential campaign.

While Trump has provided no evidence of the bombshell charge, it appears that the NSA intercepted some of his campaign staffers' communications when they talked to foreign surveillance targets. That type of surveillance would likely be authorized by Section 702.

A few days later, WikiLeaks published more than 8,700 documents that it says came from the CIA. The documents describe the spy agency's efforts to compromise iPhone, Android devices, smart TVs, automobile software, and major operating systems.

The CIA, however, runs separate surveillance programs from the NSA. CIA surveillance is supposed to be focused on specific foreign targets, as opposed to the widespread surveillance that the NSA does under the authority of Section 702. The CIA says it is "legally prohibited from conducting electronic surveillance targeting individuals here at home, including our fellow Americans."

Read more from the original source:
The NSA's foreign surveillance: 5 things to know - ITworld

Advanced computing experts at the National Security Agency and the Department of Energy are warning that China is "extremely likely" to take leadership in supercomputing as early as 2020, unless the U.S. acts quickly to increase spending.

China's supercomputing advances are not only putting national security at risk, but also U.S. leadership in high-tech manufacturing. If China succeeds, it may "undermine profitable parts of the U.S. economy," according to a report titled U.S. Leadership in High Performance Computing by HPC technical experts at the NSA, the DOE, the National Science Foundation and other agencies.

"To maintain U.S. leadership in HPC," the report says, "a surge" of U.S. "investment and action is needed to address HPC priorities."

Concern about China's technical advances have been raised before by U.S. scientists and industry groups, but never in such striking terms -- or by representatives of a spy agency.

The report stems from a workshop held in September that was attended by 60 people, many scientists, 40 of whom work in government, with the balance representing industry and academia. The report, which summarizes that meeting, was just posted online.

The threat from China is so acute that "absent aggressive action by the U.S. -- the U.S. will lose leadership and not control its own future in HPC," the report states.

Indeed, the report says that "assuming status quo conditions, the meeting participants believe that a change in HPC leadership was extremely likely, with only minor disagreement on the timescale; many suggested that China would be leading the U.S. as early as 2020."

China supercomputing systems have been leading the Top 500 list, the global ranking of supercomputers, for several years. But that's not a measure of supercomputing leadership alone.

One workshop attendee, Paul Messina, a computer scientist and distinguished fellow at Argonne National Labs and the head of its Exascale Computing Project, sketched out the HPC leadership criteria: It means leadership in producing and using systems, as well as "first mover advantage." It also means staying in the lead at all times. The U.S. needs to control its HPC destiny and "can't depend on other countries to sell us what we need," he said in an email.

Something to keep in mind is that this report was written at a time when many assumed that supercomputing funding was not under threat. The report calls for more spending while the Trump administration, along with the Republican-controlled Congress, is planning major cuts in the federal budget.

"National security requires the best computing available, and loss of leadership in HPC will severely compromise our national security," the report says. "Loss of leadership in HPC could significantly reduce the U.S. nuclear deterrence and the sophistication of our future weapons systems."

Among those at the meeting was Barry Bolding, a senior vice president and chief strategy officer at supercomputer company Cray. "I will say from Cray's view, [the report] accurately reflects the discussion of the workshop and mostly accurately reflects some of our primary concerns regarding HPC competitiveness."

Steve Conway, an HPC analyst and research vice president at Hyperion Research, said the meeting "and report are important for alerting the U.S. HPC community, especially government officials, to the dangers of taking U.S. HPC leadership for granted when other nations, particularly China, are intent on seizing global leadership of the market for supercomputers."

The report makes three overarching observations about China's Sunway TaihuLight system, which at 93 petaflops, is ranked first on the Top500 list of supercomputers.

The TaihuLight supercomputer is "homegrown," and includes processors that were designed and fabricated in China. The Chinese chip design "includes architectural innovations," and was designed using "a true co-design approach" where the applications are tuned to take advantage of the chip design, the report said.

The machine "is not a stunt," the report notes, meaning China didn't develop this system for bragging rights. The machine "is being used for cutting edge research," and three of the six finalists for the Gordon Bell Prize, the top research award in HPC, were the result of Chinese efforts.

The report offers something particularly insightful about China's motivations.

"Meeting participants, especially those from industry, noted that it can be easy for Americans to draw the wrong conclusions about what HPC investments by China mean without considering China's motivations," the report states.

"These participants stressed that their personal interactions with Chinese researchers and at supercomputing centers showed a mindset where computing is first and foremost a strategic capability for improving the country; for pulling a billion people out of poverty; for supporting companies that are looking to build better products, or bridges, or rail networks; for transitioning away from a role as a low-cost manufacturer for the world; for enabling the economy to move from 'Made in China' to 'Made by China,' " the report states.

But it also pointed out that the computer codes developed for industry, "are good proxies for the tools needed to design many different weapons systems."

Read more here:
NSA, DOE say China's supercomputing advances put US at risk - Computerworld