NSA Officials Violated Secret Fed Court Orders - Temp Restrictions Imposed- Top Secret Docs Released

Today I learned that a congressional investigation has determine that Eric Holder had lied. And the GOP wrote a letter to Obama requesting a change in leadership for the Justice Department. AKA, fire his butt...

I want all of you to watch this video clip of Obama at the 4 min 15 sec mark. In this very video he says that everyone was apprised of everything the NSA did. So then what about Obama himself? Can anyone here say big fat liar in chief? Or will he just feign ignorance again?

Watch at 4 min 15 sec mark:


Ok and just to remind you that the NSA are a bunch of lying sacks of crap... Here are some of my other previously posted goodies of our liars in office. I think we need to do some major house cleaning.


The whole video is good but watch at the 1 min 40 sec mark.

Originally posted by Phage
It's a complex issue. The security value in this type of surveillance is obvious but the "gill net" aspect is appalling.

It's bad enough that there was a "special" court to permit the NSA to do this

The court does not exist to permit the NSA to do this. It exists to restrict what the NSA does and to enforce FISA. Before Congress enacted FISA, the NSA carried out surveillance programs without judicial oversight (e.g. Shamrock). It also acted without Court review early in the GWOT, under the Executive Branch's broad interpretation of the AUMF.

but the revelation that they went beyond even what that body authorized...

is to be expected when a new program, based on a newly enacted statute and evolving case law, and utilizing newly developed technology, is established. The violations were not "intentional or bad-faith." (Many of them seem to have been due to automated tools behaving in an unexpected manner, not human error or malfeasance.) They were reported to the Court and to Congress. The intelligence and judiciary committees got all the details, while everyone else was provided a summary and access to briefers. Limitations were imposed while safeguards were put in place to prevent similar violations in the future.

Given the rather remarkable level of oversight here--most intelligence activities have no judicial review, and NSA isn't required to talk to anyone outside the committees but it does so anyway--I'm not worried about compliance. One can argue for or against the wisdom of FISA, but in this case I am convinced NSA is following the law.

reply to post by elouina


We know how our gov't is supposed to work - but we'll see how this administration is going to try to work this.

I'm sorry, I'm so jaded. I'll be watching, and hoping.

reply to post by FurvusRexCaeli


Unless the congress actually struck down the 4th amendment - none of this should have taken place.

Unconsitutional.

reply to post by FurvusRexCaeli

This sounds like double speak to me. But I will play your game here... So who is the person that "permits" them to operate in the US collecting data? AKA, whose head should roll?

The More I read over what you wrote here, the more I am convinced that the FISA court did not want this to continue.

Plus are you saying that the NSA has the right to ignore the courts? If so, do you realize what you are saying?

reply to post by FurvusRexCaeli

The court does not exist to permit the NSA to do this. It exists to restrict what the NSA does and to enforce FISA.

You're correct. My wording was bad. Can you comment on the accusations that there was an aspect of rubberstamping with the authorizations? (not relevant to the discussion, I know)

They were reported to the Court and to Congress.

When? Or is this stuff with McClatchy and Wyden just political showboating?

reply to post by Phage


Phage, I could be remembering wrong, but Wyden is the one that is trying to get the FISA court ruling that the NSA surveillance was unconstitutional unclassified. If it wasn't for him, no one would have even known that the finding existed. I give him a lot of credit.

Edited to add... Yes it was Wyden.

Now that things have died down in this thread for the night, I am reviewing the documents in more detail. Off to bed after I type this quote. So what are your opinions on this particular section? I can already see that they are doing much more than allowed. But I am too sleepy to go into this further, and can barely keep my eyes open to continue..

This is from the 2011 document:

FISA COURT OVERSIGHT
To conduct these bulk collection programs, the government has obtained orders from several different FISA court judges based on legal standards set forth in section 215 and the FISA pen/trap provision. before obtaining any information from a telecommunications service provider, the government must establish, and the FISA court must conclude, that the information is relevant to an authorized investigation. In addition the government my comply with detailed "minimization procedures". required by the FISA court that govern the retention and dissemination of the information obtained. Before NSA analysts may query bulk records, they must have reasonable articulable suspicion - referred to as "RAS" that the number of email addresses that they submit is associated with (blanked out)

The RAS requirement is to protect against the indiscriminate querying of the collected data so that only information pertaining to one of the foreign powers listed in the relevant court order (blanked out) is provided to NSA personal for further intelligence analysis. The bulk data collected under each program can be retained for 5 years.

Good afternoon folks! Wow I thought for certain these previously top secret documents would have garnered more attention. I plan on reading a lot more today.

Typical. How much more can the people take?

They've all gone rouge, nsa, fbi, cia, dhs, pentagon black budget with billions tax payer dollars,missing.

Welcome to the corporate fascist military industrial complex now known as united scam of america. Flags should be flown upside down on july 4th, until the constitution is put back in effect and we clean house with a fresh start.

Sad

There has been a coup, and American's let it happen because they were too busy watching Honey Booboo and the Kardashians, letting their corrupt media tell them BS news, and blaming everything on Bush while ignoring the lies and hypocrisy of Obama.

America is no longer a democratic nation.

reply to post by GrantedBail


I couldn't agree more. People piss and moan and whine about "The Gubmint" and "they aren't representing me" blah blah blah. This is the fault of the American people. If you're voting Republican or Democrat and not helping remove these parasites from the political landscape you are part of the problem. Simple as that. Sitting on your behind at home watching Dancing With The Stars and taking part in our dog-and-pony show political process does ef-all other than perpetuate the slow descending spiral into fascism.

Originally posted by Ex_CT2
reply to post by VictorVonDoom

 

Pretty much my thoughts. Secret courts, no matter how independently thinking they may regard themselves, are still secret courts. Who answers to whom, and how do we know? This entire business is black as the heart of Satan.

Indeed!

You can't tell me that they can't stop terrorists with something less than a full-on dragnet of innocent bystanders.

Honestly, it was only ever a matter of time before they found a reason to do this. You know this is what they have always wanted anyway. They were obviously deep into planning all of this before the dust cleared from 9/11 (if they weren't actually involved in it to begin with). It was pretty obvious. Any intelligent person could instantly see where they were going. And for the first time in a very long time, they didn't have to really care if you could accuse them of police state tactics. Now they can always just point to 9/11 and that's the end of the discussion.

No one who saw that on live TV will ever forget it (and millions have no doubt seen it in their nightmares). We all know they will milk this thing for every last drop.

Now we have these assorted other events like Boston and the Sandy Hook thing. Nothing like 9/11 but they still exploited them the exact same way. And it was a resounding success. They will continue to do this (whether they're actually involved or not is kind of beside the point).