NSA AFF

NSA has broken privacy rules thousands of times each year

From NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds published on
the Washington times by Barton Gellman on August 20th 2013
National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority
thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in
2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.
Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign
intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and
executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that
resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.
Barton Gellman was a special projects reporter at The Washington Post, following tours
that covered diplomacy, the Middle East, the Pentagon, and the D.C. superior court.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-brokeprivacy-rules-thousands-of-times-per-year-auditfinds/2013/08/15/3310e554-05ca-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html
From May 2012 over 2,700 unauthorized collections of storage were
found
From NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds published on
the Washington times by Barton Gellman on August 20th 2013
The NSA audit obtained by The Post, dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the
preceding 12 months of unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of
legally protected communications. Most were unintended. Many involved failures of due
diligence or violations of standard operating procedure. The most serious incidents
included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000
Americans and green-card holders.
Barton Gellman was a special projects reporter at The Washington Post, following tours
that covered diplomacy, the Middle East, the Pentagon, and the D.C. superior court.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-brokeprivacy-rules-thousands-of-times-per-year-auditfinds/2013/08/15/3310e554-05ca-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html

NSA official admits that they arent perfect in the slightest

From NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds published on
the Washington times by Barton Gellman on August 20th 2013
Were a human-run agency operating in a complex environment with a number of
different regulatory regimes, so at times we find ourselves on the wrong side of the line,
a senior NSA official said in an interview, speaking with White House permission on the
condition of anonymity.
Barton Gellman was a special projects reporter at The Washington Post, following tours
that covered diplomacy, the Middle East, the Pentagon, and the D.C. superior court.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-brokeprivacy-rules-thousands-of-times-per-year-auditfinds/2013/08/15/3310e554-05ca-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html
The NSA was spying on Americans in order to find a reason to spy on
Americans
From Government Releases NSA Surveillance Docs and Previously Secret FISA Court
Opinions In Response to EFF Lawsuit by Trevor Timm published on the Electronic
Frontier Foundation

The NSA apparently believed that it had the authority to search the telephone records
database in order to obtain the 'reasonable articulable suspicion' required to investigate
those numbers. Essentially, they were conducting suspicionless searches to obtain the
suspicion the FISA court required to conduct searches.

Trevor Timm is an activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He specializes in

surveillance, free speech, and government transparency issues. He graduated from
Northeastern University and has a J.D. from New York Law School.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/09/government-releases-nsa-surveillance-docs-andpreviously-secret-fisa-court

Out of the 17,000 numbers that the NSA held, only 1,800 were listed as
Reasonable Articulable suspicion
From Government Releases NSA Surveillance Docs and Previously Secret FISA Court
Opinions In Response to EFF Lawsuit by Trevor Timm published on the Electronic
Frontier Foundation
According to intelligence officials, this FISA court opinion focuses on the NSA's use of
an "alert list" which is a list of "phone numbers of interest" that they queried every day
as new data came into their phone records database. The court had told the NSA they
were only allowed to query numbers that had "reasonable articulable suspicion (RAS)"
of being involved in terrorism. Apparently, out of the more than 17,000 numbers on this
list in 2009, the NSA only had RAS for 1,800 of them.
Trevor Timm is an activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He specializes in
surveillance, free speech, and government transparency issues. He graduated from
Northeastern University and has a J.D. from New York Law School.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/09/government-releases-nsa-surveillance-docs-andpreviously-secret-fisa-court

Intelligence officials said today that no one at the NSA fully

understands how their surveillance system works
From Government Releases NSA Surveillance Docs and Previously Secret FISA Court
Opinions In Response to EFF Lawsuit by Trevor Timm published on the Electronic
Frontier Foundation

Incredibly, intelligence officials said today that no one at the NSA fully understood how
its own surveillance system worked at the time so they could not adequately explain it to
the court. This is a breathtaking admission: the NSA's surveillance apparatus, for years,
was so complex and compartmentalized that no single person could comprehend it.
Trevor Timm is an activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He specializes in
surveillance, free speech, and government transparency issues. He graduated from
Northeastern University and has a J.D. from New York Law School.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/09/government-releases-nsa-surveillance-docs-andpreviously-secret-fisa-court

The intelligence officials have acknowledged that they havent been a

good basis of American democracy
From Government Releases NSA Surveillance Docs and Previously Secret FISA Court
Opinions In Response to EFF Lawsuit by Trevor Timm published on the Electronic
Frontier Foundation
The intelligence officials also acknowledged that the court has to base its decisions on the
information the NSA gives it, which has never been a good basis for the checks and
balances that is a hallmark of American democracy.
Trevor Timm is an activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He specializes in
surveillance, free speech, and government transparency issues. He graduated from
Northeastern University and has a J.D. from New York Law School.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/09/government-releases-nsa-surveillance-docs-andpreviously-secret-fisa-court

Senators disagree with the statement right Balance

From Udall, Wyden Question the value, efficacy of phone records collection in stopping
Attacks by Senators Mark Udall and Ron Wyden published on Markudall.Senate.Gov on
June 7th 2013
We also disagree with the statement that the broad Patriot Act collection strikes the "right
balance" between protecting American security and protecting Americans' privacy. In our
view it does not. When Americans call their friends and family, whom they call, when
they call, and where they call from is private information. We believe the large-scale
collection of this information by the government has a very significant impact on
Americans' privacy, whether senior government officials recognize that fact or not.
Mark Udall was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2008. In the U.S. Senate, Mark serves on
three committees: Armed Services, Energy and Natural Resources, and the Select
Committee on Intelligence.
http://www.markudall.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=3479

Senator Mark Udell says theres nothing that prohibits the Intelligence community
from searching metadata
From U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad
secret program by Barton Gellmen, published on the Washington Post, June 7th 2013
As it is written, there is nothing to prohibit the intelligence community from searching
through a pile of communications, which may have been incidentally or accidentally been
collected without a warrant, to deliberately search for the phone calls or e-mails of
specific Americans,
Barton Gellmen has twice won the Pulitzer Prize In 2010 he left The Washington Post to
begin a new book project and take up a position as contributing editor at large for TIME
magazine.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nineus-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845d970ccb04497_story_2.html