foreignintelligencesurveillancecourt
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US surveillance court didn't reject a single spy order last year
For years, critics have claimed that the US' Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is a pushover: it's allegedly so reluctant to reject spying orders that it's little more than a speed bump for the FBI and NSA. True or not, that reputation isn't about to change any time soon. Reuters has obtained a Justice Department memo showing that FISC didn't reject any of the 1,457 surveillance order requests it received in 2015, even in part. That's no different than in 2014, but it suggests that the court isn't any less forgiving in an era of tighter government controls.
US fines over data requests would have destroyed Yahoo in a year
The US government's threat that it would fine Yahoo $250,000 per day back in 2008 was bad enough by itself, but declassified documents show that the penalties could easily have been much, much worse. Marc Zwillinger and Jacob Sommer (who were on Yahoo's side in the case) note that $250,000 was merely the baseline, and that the requested fines would double for every week that Yahoo refused to hand over user data. There wasn't a ceiling, either. At that rate, holding out for any significant amount of time would have been impossible -- Yahoo would have lost all of its assets, or $13.8 billion, in just over a year. As such, the fine wasn't so much a punishment as a weapon that forced the internet firm to comply with a surveillance order it was planning to contest in court.
Verizon fought the NSA's metadata collection program but lost anyway
It looks like Verizon's concerns about government snooping go beyond publishing transparency reports -- but also haven't had much of a tangible effect. The Washington Post understands through both a declassified ruling and sources that Big Red quietly challenged the constitutionality of the NSA's call metadata collection in January, only to be shot down by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in March.
Companies would be in charge of phone records under Obama's new data collection proposal
The extent to which the NSA collects bulk phone call metadata has been one of the most prominent topics within the ongoing government-surveillance scandal. President Barack Obama promised reform, and not long after, a court approved measures that meant the NSA had to begin formally requesting access to records, and could only stray two degrees of separation from the original target. Today, news from the White House explains how the program could change further (much of which was revealed unofficially a couple of days ago). The proposal, which was drafted following a full review of the program, puts telecom companies in charge of the data, not the government. They'd keep it for no longer than they currently do (around 18 months), but would be "compelled" under court orders to provide records in a "timely manner" and a "usable format."Once a data request has been court-approved, the powers that be have a window of time in which to solicit records without needing repeated approvals. The hope is that, if approved "with the passage of appropriate legislation," this tweaked program will alleviate some privacy concerns by taking the data out of the government's hands, while still keeping the intel available for when it's needed. As the proposal is only under consideration, the Obama administration will ask the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) for a 90-day renewal of the current phone metadata collection program, February amendments included.
WSJ: Four ways to distance the NSA from phone records that'll be considered by government
President Obama has his work cut out for him as he tries to restore faith in the US government following the whole NSA spying scandal. He first talked of surveillance reform last year, then in a January 2014 speech promised to revamp the NSA's program for collecting phone records. While the agency must now seek court approval to access phone data, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that "administration lawyers" have finished drafting several proposals that would bring about more radical changes to the program by taking the database out of the NSA's hands. These are said to be part of a wider report due in March, in which other scenarios that strip some power from the government spy agency will be explored. One of the proposals would see phone companies responsible for managing the records, which the NSA would then request on a case-by-case basis. Apparently the idea hasn't gone down too well, with companies wary of being inundated with data requests from elsewhere; not to mention they haven't been involved in crafting the proposals. (Besides, do you trust AT&T and Verizon anymore than the government?) Another idea would see a different government entity such as the FBI (which is allegedly a contender, despite its own indiscretions) or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court be put in charge. It's also been suggested a new independent organization be created that would technically be neither a part of the government nor a phone company. Though, the concern there is any newly created body would ultimately end up serving as an extension of the NSA. Of course, there's always the last option of doing away with the phone surveillance altogether, which we're sure many would celebrate, but seems highly unlikely. There's always the possibility that another solution is agreed upon, but for now these seem to be the primary options available to the Commander in Chief.
Leaked NSA audit shows privacy violations in cellular and fiber optic surveillance
The NSA insists that it respects American privacy, but documents leaked by Edward Snowden to the Washington Post suggest that the agency has trouble maintaining that respect. A May 2012 audit, buried in the documents, 2,776 incidents where the NSA's Washington-area facilities inadvertently obtained protected American data through a mix of human errors and technical limits. Among its larger gaffes, the NSA regularly had problems determining when foreign cellphones were roaming in the US, leading to unintentional snooping on domestic calls. The agency also spent months tapping and temporarily storing a mix of international and domestic data from US fiber lines until the Foreign Intelligence Surveilliance Court ruled that the technique was unconstitutional. NSA officials responding to the leak say that their agency corrects and mitigates incidents where possible, and argue that it's difficult for the organization to avoid errors altogether. However, the audit also reveals that the NSA doesn't always report violations to overseers -- the division may be interested in fixing mistakes, but it's not eager to mention them.
US government will declassify Yahoo documents and court decision by September
Earlier this month, the US government was put in the hot seat with regards to the Justice Department's 2008 battle with Yahoo over its request for user data. Yahoo fought the PRISM demand and ultimately lost; five years later, we're finally going to be able to see the court decision that's been kept under lock and key since then. The clock is ticking for the federal government, as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has set a September deadline for unveiling those classified documents. While this might be a victory for transparency, it's important to remember that declassification doesn't necessarily mean full disclosure. The government will still have the option to redact certain portions of text that it feels must remain classified. Considering its reticence to share the information in the first place, we can probably expect to see a liberal distribution of those pesky black rectangles.
