Greenwald release shows NSA foreign program prohibits targeting Americans, considering rule change

[ProSense]

NSA loophole allows warrantless search for US citizens' emails and phone calls

Exclusive: Spy agency has secret backdoor permission to search databases for individual Americans' communications



The National Security Agency has a secret backdoor into its vast databases under a legal authority enabling it to search for US citizens' email and phone calls without a warrant, according to a top-secret document passed to the Guardian by Edward Snowden.

<...>

"While the FAA 702 minimization procedures approved on 3 October 2011 now allow for use of certain United States person names and identifiers as query terms when reviewing collected FAA 702 data," the glossary states, "analysts may NOT/NOT (not repeat not)implement any USP (US persons) queries until an effective oversight process has been developed by NSA and agreed to by DOJ/ODNI (Office of the Director of National Intelligence)."

The term "identifiers" is NSA jargon for information relating to an individual, such as telephone number, email address, IP address and username as well as their name.

The document – which is undated, though metadata suggests this version was last updated in June 2012 – does not say whether the oversight process it mentions has been established or whether any searches against US person names have taken place.

- more -

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/09/nsa-loophole-warrantless-searches-email-calls

The NSA explicitly prohibits targeting Americans via the foreign program, but there is footnote about a yet-to-be-implemented rule that could allow targeting "certain United States persons."

[Katashi_itto]

1. Oh well it's in writing. That makes all the difference...

Except

NSA loophole allows warrantless search for US citizens' emails and phone calls

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014561265

[ProSense]

2. Same article.

Content and document don't support the headline.

[Katashi_itto]

4. Ummm yeah....whatever

You miss the point.

[ProSense]

5. No, that is the point. n/t

[Katashi_itto]

18. Snicker

[Rex]

3. Brilliant move.

nt.

[ProSense]

6. Gotta love the Guardian headlines. n/t

[Rex]

8. Yeah I just read they are really starting to get defensive.

I knew this would become a huge 'he said, she said'. Now it is entire new organizations getting into the fray.

[ProSense]

10. When the reporting confirms the legality of the process

"Yeah I just read they are really starting to get defensive."

...and the person reporting keep screaming it's illegal, that happens.

[Rex]

11. I know I've been watching with facination as they vacillate between

legal and illegal.

It is legal and they want it to be illegal, okay I can understand that - good luck getting Congress to do anything about it...but quit waffling about the legality of it. It is legal...maybe they should stick with the 'morality of it being legal' and not mixing that up with 'well we want it to be illegal NOW, so we can write about it'.

[PowerToThePeople]

7. Ooohhh. Murder is explicitly prohibited too. Rape is explicitly prohibited.

Do you want me to go on?

[ProSense]

9. "Do you want me to go on?"

No.

[phleshdef]

12. LOL.

[Waiting For Everyman]

13. Greenwald? This is by James Ball and Spencer Ackerman. nt

[ProSense]

14. It's a Greenwald document.

Snowden is in Russia.

[Waiting For Everyman]

15. I don't see that stated anywhere.

It's a section of the Fisa Amendment Act. How is that a Greenwald document?

[ProSense]

16. "according to a top-secret document passed to the Guardian by Edward Snowden."

We can pretend that Greenwald wasn't who the documents were passed to.

US reporter says he has huge cache of Snowden files
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023415993

New U.S. spying revelations coming from Snowden leaks: journalist

By Anthony Boadle

(Reuters) - Glenn Greenwald, the American journalist who published documents leaked by fugitive former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, plans to make new revelations "within the next 10 days or so" on secret U.S. surveillance of the Internet.

"The articles we have published so far are a very small part of the revelations that ought to be published," Greenwald on Tuesday told a Brazilian congressional hearing that is investigating the U.S. internet surveillance in Brazil.

<...>

The Rio de Janeiro-based columnist for Britain's Guardian newspaper said he has recruited the help of experts to understand some of the 15,000 to 20,000 classified documents from the National Security Agency that Snowden passed him, some of which are "very long and complex and take time to read."

Greenwald told Reuters he does not believe the pro-transparency website WikiLeaks had obtained a package of documents from Snowden, and that only he and filmmaker Laura Poitras have complete archives of the leaked material.

- more -

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/07/us-usa-security-snowden-brazil-idUSBRE97600L20130807

[Waiting For Everyman]

17. Ok I see, you meant some other document, from some other article, not the one in the picture.

Because under the picture it says this:

Detail of Section 702 of the Fisa Amendments Act (FAA), which gives the NSA authority to target without warrant the communications of foreign targets.

So the two actual writers of the article merely refer to a document that Greenwald previously referred to, and that's Greenwald's involvement in this piece.