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Section 702 permits the NSA to collect communications and associated data from targets it reasonably believes to be non-Americans overseas suspected of contact with a foreign power. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/Associated Press

The escalating feud between Donald Trump and US intelligence is now putting the top 2017 legislative priority of the intelligence agencies at risk.

At the end of the year, a broad legal authority permitting sweeping surveillance is set to expire. The National Security Agency considers the authority, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), pivotal to fighting terrorism and stopping espionage. Civil libertarians consider the measure the wellspring of the NSAs Prism and upstream mass communications-data collection unconstitutional.

The typical balance of power on Capitol Hill over surveillance is such that opponents of renewing Section 702 face strong political headwinds. The measure was reauthorized with minimal challenge in 2012.

Now the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee has thrown reauthorization into question after extensive leaking about Trump and Russia that the president and his Capitol Hill allies have blamed on the US intelligence community.

Asked at a Tuesday press conference about the renewal of section 702 in light of ongoing leaks concerning Trump and Russia, Devin Nunes said, I think its very problematic.

He continued: Ive expressed this concern to the IC [intelligence community]. We have sent them many followup questions as it relates to intelligence thats been collected. And we expect prompt answers. I think we also expect unprecedented answers from them of the information that were going to be asking for.

First passed in 2008 to give legal cover to George W Bush-era warrantless surveillance, Section 702 permits the NSA to collect communications and associated data from targets it reasonably believes to be non-Americans overseas suspected of contact with a foreign power, even if they are in communication with Americans. The surveillance does not require a court order specifying its targets, purposes, or time frame; only the reapproval of the attorney general and the director of national intelligence.

NSA interception of communications between Russian officials or suspected operatives and Trumps associates would not necessarily involve using Section 702. The NSA or FBI can acquire such communications under the terms of the original 1978 Fisa law. Because of a provision in the law about understanding the foreign-intelligence value of the intercepted communications, neither agency would necessarily have to purge references to Americans.

It is not only the NSA that values Section 702 ardently. The FBI director, James Comey, last year called the surveillance activities permitted by Section 702 far more important than the bulk domestic phone-records data program that Congress curtailed in 2015. The FBI is permitted to warrantlessly search through the NSAs hoards of foreign-focused data with few restrictions.

Last week, as the House judiciary committee began hearings over the expiring provision, the Trump administration told Reuters it favors Section 702 reauthorization.

We support the clean reauthorization and the administration believes its necessary to protect the security of the nation, an anonymous official said.

Trumps nominee for director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, testified that he agreed Section 702 is the crown jewels of US intelligence and the intelligence community also sees it that way, the entire community.

Throughout Barack Obamas presidency and the Edward Snowden leaks, the vast majority of national-security-focused Republicans embraced the measure without reservation, with Republicans on the intelligence committee leading the way.

Nunes himself has been a full-throated defender of Section 702. Last year, he and colleague Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia took point in opposing a civil-libertarian effort to block it through an amendment to a defense-spending bill.

Citing the then recent case of Orlando nightclub murderer Omar Mateen, Nunes and Westmoreland circulated a letter to colleagues claiming the loss of 702 would deprive the intelligence community of the authorities it needs to detect and stop terrorist attacks.

But since then, Nunes has become a crucial ally to Trump. Nunes served on Trumps transition team, a closeness that has raised questions about Nunes independence as his committee investigates Trump associates ties to Russia.

Nunes has ardently defended Trumps first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and implied without evidence that the intelligence agencies abused their surveillance powers in leaking accounts of Flynns December conversations with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, that proved to be his downfall.

Trump has blamed the intelligence agencies for the leaks, in particular the FBI and NSA, and his administration has suggested that career intelligence officials are in league with former Obama officials. He has recently taken to claiming, baselessly, that Obama ordered Trump to be surveilled, an act that would be illegal if true.

There is no evidence to support that claim of Obama ordering Trump to be wiretapped, a US official told the Guardian over the weekend.

But Nunes has given the accusation credence. His committee on 1 March added the possible leaks of classified information that Trump wants investigated to its inquiry on Russian measures to interfere with the 2016 election, which the intelligence agencies publicly assessed in January were for Trumps benefit.

Typically weve had great trust with our intelligence agencies, Nunes said on Tuesday.

And I continue to have that trust, but we have to verify, in fact, that all of the tools that are in place, that we oversee, are being used ethically, responsibly and by the law. And if anybody has abused those, we want to know about that. And thats part of the reason why its important for us to know whether or not, as some press reports have indicated, the Department of Justice or any other agency tried to get the warrant on anybody related to the Trump campaign or any other campaign for that matter.

Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said the authority under Section 702 would be preserved when asked by the Guardian on Tuesday about Nunes comments. But he did not rule out potential reforms to the law if necessary.

Section 702 has been a far more impactful and important counter-terrorism program and tool, Schiff said during a press conference on Capitol Hill.

That doesnt mean though that we shouldnt explore whether there are ways to improve any of the protections in existing law or whether there are any changes that we need to make to the structure of the program.

Schiff said the intelligence committee had been engaged in periodic briefings with members, given the law is poised to sunset this year. Should any questions come up in the same context that are pertinent to the Russia investigation, he added, they ought to be answered so members understand how the program works [and] that its conducted in a lawful way.

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Trump v US intelligence: growing feud puts NSA's legislative priority ... - The Guardian

March 9, 2017

A still redacted incident prompted both agencies to discuss concerns about computer hacking into government agencies

In April 1987, the CIAs Chief of Information Systems Security submitted a memo detailing a meeting he had recently had with the Director of the NSAs National Computer Security Security Center.

The meeting had been prompted by an earlier incident, still redacted, that had generated mass confusion.

Hints as to what the incident could have been can be gleaned from the meetings agenda, which tackled concerns about computer hacking into government agencies

and the fact that as of 1987, there were no reporting requirements for cybersecurity incidents at the federal level.

So, a few important takeaways from this meeting that changed the way federal agencies handle cybersecurity FOREVER. One, start reporting those incidents.

Two, start taking advantage of the NSAs existing database of fixes and, you know, apply them.

And three, make staff generally aware that cybersecurity is a thing, which would probably take care of 99% of the problem right there.

The CIA then sealed this historic partnership in the most literal way possible - handing their counterpart at the NSA a literal seal.

The full memo is embedded below.

Image via 20th Century FOX

Original post:
Thirty years ago, the CIA and the NSA had a meeting that changed national cybersecurity - MuckRock

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By: Paul Meekin

Kotaku brought the gameOrwellto my attention today. Its a game about spying on peoples personal data in order to ascertain potential terrorist activity. Your end goal is to thwart that activity. The point of the game, in addition to being an entertaining pot boiler, is the fundamental question of when, and if, its okay to violate the privacy of human beings in order to prevent acts of terror. This is a wonderful concept and one I support fundamentally as a gamer and fan of thinking critically while playing them.

The point of the article was the question if people today even careabout privacy.The most popularcomment on the article?

I dont care. I mean first off what can we do to stop them from spying on us? Nothing. Even if we did complain they could say they stopped but keep on spying anyways.

Outside of that who cares. Let them see my life. My boring facebook posts. My boring emails once and awhile. My youtube watching. Going to Kotaku. Even any porn Ive looked at.

Actually why would you worry about what people see anyways? Unless your hiding something you have no reason to worry. Do you look at child porn? Do you hire hitmen? If not then who cares.

Sorry, I just threw up in my mouth a little.In 2013 we learned the NSA was in our business. Directly or indirectly, the fact of the matter was the NSA was gathering massive amounts of data on Americans, foreigners, and scorned lovers.

Its possible youre much like the commenter above and didnt care. You had nothing to hide and are perfectly okay with invasions of personal privacy and personal data in the name of security.

But its also possible youre a principled individual and dont think the constitution should be violated just in case youre up to no good.

The beauty of Orwellis that it could change your mind one way or another.Unfortunately, as a Mac user, I am unable to play Orwell, but I support it on principle.

A game I did play, that didchange my mind, was Tom ClancysSplinter Cell: Blacklist. Released in August 2013, a few months after the scale and scope of the NSAs activities were revealed.

The backlash to these activities was massive. But along comes Splinter Cell. Without trying and without foreknowledge of this event, it made quite a case in favor of a bit of privacy invasion. Of course the reviewer of the game disregarded the plot as Right Wing mumbo jumbo on a podcast.

But it was mumbo jumbo with a point. Splinter Cell: Blacklist is a game that demonstrates the awesome force of the Military Industrial Complex. From wire tapping to drone strikes to covert operations to warrantless searches and seizures it demonstrated what a single team of highly qualified individuals were capable of when they *werent* restrained by thebureaucracy of the federal government and the morelimiting aspects of the Constitution (and The Bill of Rights in particular).

Obviously it was just a game, and not based on fact although some of the technology is quite believable in hindsight. But the point it makes has real world applications; Just how many times have lives been saved by illegal wire tapping and covert operations we never hear about?Well never know.

How many lives make that violation of privacy worth it? Batman seems to think its about two boatloads.

The Libertarian in me says no lives are worth it. That the fundamental cost of liberty is that the federal government shouldnt be in the business of convicting people for crimes before theyre committed and spying on them, again just in case.

If were willing to violate the privacy of lives to save lives, those lives arent worth as much as we initially thought, are they?

In playing Splinter Cell, you realize America is embroiled in a war with a stacked deck. The enemy doesnt obey the laws of combat. They fight dirty and they fight mean and they behead journalists, use children as suicide bombers, and drag bodies through the street. As a result, if we fight the war as governed by the Geneva convention, were essentially playing checkers while the enemy is playing tackle football.

Games have an amazing capacity to educate while entertaining. Unlike a movie you watch, or a book you read, you participate in a game. And the best of them, from Oregon Trail to Splinter Cell to even Madden Football, can enlighten you on a subject in a way no other media can.

Regarding the NSA? I still dont know how I feel. Theres valid arguments on both sides. I lean toward getting the government out of my computer.

Then again, I have nothing to hide.

-

gamingGeorge OrwellkotakuSplinter CellSpyingvideo games

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Gaming, NSA Spying, and You: Two Games That Could Change ... - The Libertarian Republic

Journalist Jason Leopold (currently in residence at Buzzfeed) has been given the nickname "FOIA terrorist" for his numerous requests and almost as numerous FOIA lawsuits. The government has taken notice of Leopold's activity. The Pentagon once offered Leopold a stack of documents in exchange for him leaving it alone. (He declined.) The FBI played keepaway with James Comey talking points, telling Leopold they were all exempt from disclosure. This obviously wasn't true, as these same talking points had been handed over to Mike Masnick by the agency months prior to the bogus denial it gave Leopold.

Now, it's the NSA using Leopold's "FOIA terrorist" nickname against him. (This is weird because federal employees gave Leopold the "terrorist" nickname. He didn't come up with it himself.) In Leopold's ongoing FOIA lawsuit against the agency, the NSA has asked for an "Open America" stay. What this would do is push Leopold's request back in line with the others the NSA has received. The agency argues that Leopold's decision to file a lawsuit over the agency's lack of a timely response shouldn't give his request precedence over FOIA requests that arrived before his did.

The agency points out its FOIA workload has increased significantly since "a former NSA contractor began a series of unprecedented, unauthorized, and unlawful disclosures" in 2013. The agency still processes thousands of FOIA requests a year, but it's unable to keep up with the increase in FOIA traffic.

What the NSA wants is more time. Three of Leopold's requests -- two of them dating back to 2014 -- are at the center of this lawsuit. The NSA wants to prevent Leopold's lawsuit from letting him jump the queue. From the filing [PDF]:

Given NSAs limited number of FOIA personnel, if the Court orders defendant to process plaintiffs requests at a rate greater than 400 pages per month, the individuals who filed the 1,603 pending requests in NSAs current backlog, many of which were filed well before plaintiffs, will be disadvantaged.

It also wants to process no more than 400 pages per month for him, despite there being more than 20,000 responsive pages.

In defense of its attempt to keep Leopold from litigating his way to the front of the line (and for delaying its already-delayed responses even further), the NSA attempts to use Leopold's press bio against him.

[P]laintiff Jason Leopold is a self-styled FOIA terrorist who, according to a recent press release by his new employer, BuzzFeed.com, makes his living by deluging the federal government with Freedom of Information Act requests. He proudly claims to have brought more FOIA lawsuits by himself than any other news organization except the New York Times.

Again, Leopold may be a "self-styled" FOIA enthusiast, but the government called him a "terrorist" first. And, again, the number of lawsuits means nothing. If the government replied in a more timely fashion, withheld fewer documents, and generally made a better effort at being transparent, it's unlikely Leopold would be chasing every FOIA request with a FOIA lawsuit.

While I agree with the NSA FOIA requesters shouldn't be able to use litigation to move their requests ahead of others (who may not have the financial means to engage in litigation), the fact is without litigation, most government responses would be delayed indefinitely. Agencies are statutorily required to respond within a certain time period. After that time has elapsed, the only option in most cases is to bring a lawsuit. Periodically reminding the agency about your outstanding request has almost zero motivational effect.

Handing out litigation stays doesn't mean requesters who haven't filed a lawsuit will be receiving faster responses. All it means is litigating requesters will be receiving their responses more slowly. The NSA's inference that Leopold's requests are somehow less legit simply because there are so many of them is bogus. I'm sure Leopold would rather have faster request fulfillment than the double-duty of tracking dozens of open requests and multiple concurrent FOIA lawsuits.

If the problem is staffing, there are solutions available -- but agencies have to want to be more responsive, not just shrug their way through FOIA lawsuit filings complaining about how impossible it is to keep up. They have direct lines to the legislators that pass their budgets. If they really wanted to do more, FOIA-wise, they'd have asked for more help already.

Read more from the original source:
NSA Tries To Stonewall Jason Leopold's Requests Because He's A ... - Techdirt

(TNS) -- WASHINGTON Nearly four years after National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden blew the lid off domestic spying, the vast surveillance programs cherished as the crown jewels of the U.S. intelligence establishment are about to spring back into public debate and not just because of Donald Trumps allegation that hes been the subject of wiretaps.

The legal framework for some of the broadest U.S. surveillance programs, authorized for a five-year period in 2012, will expire Dec. 31 unless Congress reauthorizes it. Already, the debate about those programs has begun, with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee focused on finding an answer to a simple question: How many Americans have emails, text messages and telephone conversations picked up in the governments electronic sweep?

Is it a few thousand? Or is it a lot higher?

We need that number, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told Dan Coats, Trumps nominee to serve as director of national intelligence, at a confirmation hearing Feb. 28. We have sought it for years and years. More and more Americans are getting swept up in these searches.

Wyden pressed Coats on whether he would nail down a number. Coats hedged.

It has been extremely hard to come up with that number for various reasons which I dont fully understand, said Coats, a former member of the Intelligence Committee now weighing his nomination. I will do my best to work to try to find out if we can get that number, but I need first to talk find out about why we cant get it.

Trumps allegation that President Barack Obama ordered his phones tapped last fall, a claim for which he has offered no evidence, has little to do with the coming debate. But it is an indication of the sensitivities surrounding surveillance practices that do not cleave easily along party lines.

While the issue is often cast as a balance of privacy vs. national security, many Republicans, especially those with libertarian streaks, are troubled by what they see as invasive practices. And many Democrats offer strong support of the intelligence community.

At a separate hearing before a House of Representatives committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who earns a perfect score from the American Conservative Union, read incredulously a response he had gotten to his official query to the U.S. intelligence director in which he was told it would be difficult if not impossible to calculate the number of Americans whose communications are intercepted.

That seems like baloney to me, Jordan said. Were talking about the greatest intelligence service on the planet. Youd think they would be able to know that, right?

Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat far to Jordans political left, said, The government can, and does, collect massive amounts of information about our citizens under this authority.

At hearings, Snowdens name hardly arises. But few doubt that his revelations in 2013 helped mold the current debate. Worldwide, Snowden is seen from sharply distinct angles traitor and villain, or global celebrity for data privacy. From his exile in Moscow, where he fled after spilling the secrets, Snowden continues to cast a long shadow.

It was his disclosures that let Americans and people around the world learn of NSA programs like PRISM, Dishfire and XKeyscore, which, respectively, allowed for the monitoring of electronic data retrieved from nine large tech companies, grabbed 200 million text messages a day and saw nearly everything a targeted user did on the internet.

Leaders of allied nations like Germany and Brazil bristled when they learned from Snowdens disclosures that their officials were among dozens of leaders tapped by the NSA.

Much of the bulk collection of data by the NSA was rolled back or halted in 2015 under the USA Freedom Act.

On Capitol Hill, Snowdens name is sometimes uttered with revulsion mixed with recognition that his actions accelerated change.

What he exposed, Im glad that we learned about it. It allowed us to make reforms that were necessary, said Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. But the way that he did it was so reckless. He exposed information that put our troops at risk and hurt important relationships with our allies.

Trump called Snowden a terrible traitor in a 2013 television interview and suggested he should be executed.

Digital rights activists credit Snowden with forcing major intelligence agencies to talk more openly about surveillance.

What Snowden did was enable the debate and provide more disclosures by the intelligence community when it saw the debate move in a direction it didnt like, said Gregory T. Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a Washington research group that advocates for an open and free internet.

Civil rights activists voice concern over what they describe as gaps in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which provides the legal framework for the NSA to monitor non-U.S. persons without warrants.

As of 2015, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported that 94,368 foreigners or entities abroad were targets of U.S. surveillance for intelligence purposes. The NSA is presumed to vacuum up hundreds of millions of electronic communications a year from those foreign targets, including any they may have had with Americans.

The impact is actually much greater than 94,000 because each of these individuals talks to potentially hundreds of people, said Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union.

How many Americans have their communications monitored in so-called incidental collection remains a guess. In the House hearing last week, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, pressed Elizabeth Goitein, an expert on surveillance at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, for an estimate.

If you conservatively assume that even 1 out of 100 of every foreign targets communications was with an American that would still be millions of American communications, Goitein said.

Pressed further at another point, Goitein said: I had said millions earlier, which I think is conservative. Potentially tens of millions. I dont know. I really hesitate to speculate.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act regulations require the NSA, CIA and FBI all of which have access to the database of collected communications to minimize information about U.S. citizens or green card holders when it is incidentally swept up.

But the databases are widely available one report on how the FBI handles searches of the databases monitored use in 13 FBI field offices and agents in those offices can query the databases even when they have no suspicion of wrongdoing, said David Medine, who until July 1 was chair of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, a bipartisan watchdog that seeks to ensure government compliance with privacy and civil liberties rules.

They are just sort of entitled to poke around and see if something is going on, Medine told a Senate panel in May.

Critics of Section 702 say that sort of backdoor search allows authorities to snoop on citizens without having to show probable cause and obtain constitutionally required warrants.

You have this authority, and the government says the goal is national security and to help us prevent terrorism. The reality is that they can collect information that has no connection to terrorism, national security or weapons of mass destruction, Guliani said.

Defenders of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act surveillance said they hoped legislators reauthorized its use. They say evidence of abuse is minimal.

Throughout my time at NSA, I routinely saw analysts self-report if they ran an improper query, April Doss, a former assistant general counsel at the agency, wrote in her submitted testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on March 1.

Auditors review logs for signs of improper queries, Doss said in an interview, calling existing laws robust and effective and noting the oversight of three branches of government.

Doss and other supporters of the status quo make an unusual argument: Simply trying to satisfy legislators who want to know how many U.S. citizens turn up in the electronic sweeping would require the NSA to act intrusively, would divert analysts from hunting terrorists and would possibly even break the law by actively tracking the Americans they find, raising new privacy concerns.

It would prompt intelligence analysts to look for communications that they would not otherwise see, communications that have no intelligence value, Doss said.

For his part, Swalwell, the California legislator, said convincing the citizenry that surveillance was being done properly was vital to the health of the intelligence community.

The more transparent we are about 702, the better, he said. When Americans understand how their government is protecting them, theyre more willing, I think, to go along with whats necessary to keep us safe.

2017 McClatchy Washington Bureau Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Controversial NSA Surveillance Programs Up for Renewal at Year's ... - Government Technology