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Republicans Warn Reauthorization Of NSA Surveillance Tool Will Be Hard After Flynn Leaks – Daily Caller

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WASHINGTON House Intelligence Committee Republicans told the intelligence community Monday that they may not want to reauthorize an intelligence gathering tool that may have snagged and IDed former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn during surveillance of Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

I have every expectation that those we are going to get all the evidence that we need. Now if it wasnt then, yeah wed have a problem, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes told The Daily Caller when asked if members may not reauthorize the surveillance initiative if the intel community does not cooperate and provide names of any individual involved with the leak of Flynns name.

Florida Republican Rep. Tom Rooney, who chairs a subcommittee that oversees the National Security Agency, disclosed at the House Intelligence Committee hearing Monday he was concerned he will have a difficult time convincing his fellow Republican members that they should vote for reauthorizing an expiring section of the Patriot Act at the end of the year.

Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the government can collect intelligence by targeting foreigners suspected to be outside U.S. borders. However, incidental conversations these individuals have with Americans can happen and that is what members believe happened to Flynn.

But as an American citizen, his name must be masked. Instead, Flynns name was revealed and released to the press.

If it hurts, this leak, which through the 702 tool which we all agree is vital, you and I at least agree to that, do you think that leak threatens our national security? If its a crime and if its unveiling a masked personand this tool is so important and when we have to reauthorize it in a few months if this is used against us to reauthorize this tool and we cant get it done, Rooney said in an exchange with NSA director Admiral Mike Rogers.

He continued, Whoever did this leak or these nine people who did this leak [if they] create such a stir, whether it be in our legislative process or whatever, and they dont feel confident that a U.S. person under the 702 program can be masked successfully and not be leaked to the press, doesnt that leak hurt our national security?

Rogers answered in the affirmative.

Fellow intelligence committee member South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy stated that getting their members to support reauthorization may only happen if the intelligence community tell them who leaked Flynns name.

What we are reauthorizing this fall has nothing to do with what we are discussing, Gowdy said, but added that the public does not draw the distinction.

During the hearing, Rogers disclosed that only 20 people, including himself and FBI Director James Comey, could possibly have decided to have unmasked Flynns name. However, the other names were not revealed.

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Republicans Warn Reauthorization Of NSA Surveillance Tool Will Be Hard After Flynn Leaks - Daily Caller

Just crazy: Top NSA official ridicules Trump for British …

NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett answers questions during the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the House-passed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reform bill while on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 5, 2014. REUTERS/Larry Downing

Allegations from the United States that British spy agency GCHQ snooped on Donald Trump during his election campaign are arrant nonsense, the deputy head of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) said in an interview on Saturday.

President Trump has stood by unproven claims that the Obama administration tapped his phones during the 2016 White House race. On Thursday his spokesman cited a media report that Britains GCHQ was behind the surveillance.

Richard Ledgett, deputy director of the NSA, told BBC News the idea that Britain had a hand in spying on Trump was just crazy.

It belies a complete lack of understanding of how the relationship works between the intel community agencies, it completely ignores the political reality of would the UK government agree to do that?', Ledgett said.

There would be no advantage for Britains government in spying on Trump, given the potential cost, he said.

It would be epically stupid, said Ledgett, who is due to retire shortly.

Current and former NSA officials have described an acrimonious relationship between intelligence agencies and the Trump administration.

Trump, who became president in January, tweeted earlier this month that his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama had wiretapped him during the late stages of the 2016 campaign. The Republican president offered no evidence for the allegation, which an Obama spokesman said was simply false.

Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano on Tuesday accused the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) the British equivalent of the NSA of having helped Obama to spy on Trump.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer quoted Napolitanos comments on Thursday.

GCHQ said the claims it spied on Trump were utterly ridiculous and should be ignored, in a rare public statement.

On Friday, Trump said questions on this should be asked of Fox News, not him.

(Reporting by Andy Bruce; Editing by Dale Hudson)

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Just crazy: Top NSA official ridicules Trump for British ...

NSA official: Trump’s British spying claim is ‘nonsense’ – New York Post

Allegations from the United States that British spy agency GCHQ snooped on Donald Trump during his election campaign are arrant nonsense, the deputy head of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) said in an interview on Saturday.

President Trump has stood by unproven claims that the Obama administration tapped his phones during the 2016 White House race. On Thursday his spokesman cited a media report that Britains GCHQ was behind the surveillance.

Richard Ledgett, deputy director of the NSA, told BBC News the idea that Britain had a hand in spying on Trump was just crazy.

It belies a complete lack of understanding of how the relationship works between the intel community agencies, it completely ignores the political reality of would the UK government agree to do that?', Ledgett said.

There would be no advantage for Britains government in spying on Trump, given the potential cost, he said.

It would be epically stupid, said Ledgett, who is due to retire shortly.

Current and former NSA officials have described an acrimonious relationship between intelligence agencies and the Trump administration.

Trump, who became president in January, tweeted earlier this month that his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama had wiretapped him during the late stages of the 2016 campaign. The Republican president offered no evidence for the allegation, which an Obama spokesman said was simply false.

Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano on Tuesday accused the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) the British equivalent of the NSA of having helped Obama to spy on Trump.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer quoted Napolitanos comments on Thursday.

GCHQ said the claims it spied on Trump were utterly ridiculous and should be ignored, in a rare public statement.

On Friday, Trump said questions on this should be asked of Fox News, not him.

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NSA official: Trump's British spying claim is 'nonsense' - New York Post

Top NSA officials deny ‘blanket’ surveillance during Salt Lake City … – Salt Lake Tribune

In the sworn declarations, however, Murphy and Hayden argued no such thing occurred.

"Neither the PSP (President's Surveillance Program), nor any other NSA intelligence-gathering activity, at any time has involved indiscriminate 'blanket' surveillance in Salt Lake City or the vicinity of the 2002 Winter Olympic venues, whether during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games or otherwise," Murphy wrote.

He noted that NSA collection of communications did and does continue to exist but was "targeted at one-end foreign communications where a communicant was reasonably believed to be a member or agent of al-Qaeda or another international terrorist organization."

Murphy noted he wouldn't reveal more specific details about NSA surveillance techniques including the PSP program, which expired in 2007, because it remains classified in order "to protect sensitive intelligence sources and methods."

Even making a decision to deny the allegations of blanket surveillance was a decision "not taken lightly" within the NSA, Murphy said. Usually, he said, the NSA would neither "confirm nor deny" such allegations regarding intelligence gathering.

"Indeed, the very existence of the PSP was a closely guarded state secret for over four years, until a wave of unauthorized public disclosures about the (terrorist surveillance program) were reported by the media in December 2005," he wrote.

Murphy in his declaration also said it was untrue that the NSA had stored the contents of communications, or metadata, obtained as part of any blanket surveillance.

Hayden added that it was untrue that there was both blanket surveillance of email, text messages, and metadata of phone calls during the Olympics, and he denied that he was the one who "personally" caused the NSA to engage in such a practice.

"All of these allegations are false," Hayden said.

The plaintiffs are represented by former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. Anderson in 2015 told The Salt Lake Tribune that the Olympics surveillance "was the most immense, clearly illegal and unconstitutional, indiscriminate wholesale surveillance of the content of communications of people in this country by our government in our nation's history."

Anderson could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday.

The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, was the first to report in 2013 that the NSA and FBI "monitored the content of all email and text communications in the Salt Lake City area," around the 2002 Games.

lramseth@sltrib.com

Twitter: @lramseth

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Top NSA officials deny 'blanket' surveillance during Salt Lake City ... - Salt Lake Tribune

The NSA’s foreign surveillance: 5 things to know – PCWorld

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."

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