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The NSA's mass US phone surveillance ends tonight
The National Security Agency's long-running mass phone surveillance program is coming to an end. As promised, the USA Freedom Act will forbid the NSA from indiscriminately collecting Americans' call metadata at midnight on November 29th. Agents will have to get court orders to collect data from telecoms regarding specific people or groups, and then only for six months at a time -- they can't just scoop up everything in case something useful turns up. The NSA will still have access to five years' worth of legacy data through February 29th, but that's as far as its access will go.
Judge rules against NSA's phone data collection, to limited effect
Privacy advocates just secured a victory against the National Security Agency's bulk phone data surveillance... albeit a limited one. A federal judge has ordered the NSA to stop collecting the phone records of people represented by Freedom Watch founder Larry Klayman. The US government is trampling on constitutional rights in the name of security, according to the ruling. The judge has refused to stay the order, too, so the NSA can't keep snooping while it appeals the case. There's a possibility that the government will have to pay damages, but that will hinge on a future trial.
US won't stop the NSA's mass phone spying before a ban kicks in
If you were hoping that the courts would find a way to end the National Security Agency's mass phone surveillance a little early... well, you'll be disappointed. The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals says it won't overturn Congress' decision to offer the NSA a 180-day transition period ahead of the USA Freedom Act's more targeted spying requirements. It's a "reasonable decision" that helps the agency keep tabs on terrorists, according to the ruling. You might beg to differ given the potential privacy violations of bulk data collection, but it's a short-lived victory for the NSA regardless -- the outfit has to scale back its snooping on November 29th.[Image credit: AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana]
The NSA can keep spying on phone call metadata through November
The National Security Agency can keep on keeping on with the bulk collection of phone call metadata for a bit longer, sadly. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia killed an injunction that would've ended the previously-ruled-unconstitutional homegrown spying, according to The New York Times. The law won't fully end until November 29th, when the so-called transition period for the agency to swap over to a new style of data collection is over. The latest method? Telcos will hang onto the data and the government snoops will need court orders if they want to get their hands on it. We still have a ways to go before PRISM's effects are fully overturned, it'd seem.[Image credit: Shutterstock]
US limits the NSA's reach ahead of sweeping reform
The Senate has voted overwhelmingly to reform the powers of America's security services, at the expense of renewing existing provisions of the Patriot Act. In a contentious debate leading up to midnight, the house belatedly opted to support the USA Freedom Act, which will eventually end the bulk collection of phone metadata. By opting not to extend the existing legislation, agencies such as the NSA and FBI will supposedly no longer have unfettered access to our phone records, be able to request "roving wiretaps" or seize business records for an investigation.
Snowden documents reveal how the NSA searches voice calls
The Intercept has released a new document from Edward Snowden's cache of government files describing how the NSA has been converting voice calls to searchable text documents for nearly a decade. The NSA has long monitored signals intelligence (SIGNIT) around the world (as is its primary function), especially in active combat zones like Afghanistan and Iraq as well as in Latin America. Traditionally, this sort of data gathering required that a live operator listen in on calls and translate them in real-time. However, the NSA has reportedly developed what it calls "Google for Voice"; an automated system that provides a rough but keyword searchable transcription. According to the documents, the NSA has also developed analytical programs and sophisticated algorithms to flag conversations for human review.
NSA considered scrapping its mass phone surveillance program
The National Security Agency may present a united front when it defends against criticism of its bulk phone data collection, but it's now clear that there has been at least some doubt within the ranks. Associated Press sources have revealed that there was an internal proposal to kill the phone surveillance program in early 2013, not long before Edward Snowden's leaks made it public. Reportedly, some NSA officials were concerned that the initiative was not only expensive to run, but ineffective. It wasn't "central" to catching terrorist plots, and it wasn't capturing most cellphone calls. Not surprisingly, the critics were also worried about outrage if the truth came out -- which, of course, is exactly what happened.
Senators kill bill aimed at ending NSA's mass phone surveillance
Back in May, the US government began to process a bill aimed at reining in the NSA's powers of surveillance -- if Google, Apple and Microsoft are sending group letters, you know it's an important bill. However, it's been left on Capitol Hill, rejected by the Senate. It failed a procedural vote, after senior Republicans said it would affect efforts to defend the country from enemies. It fell short of the 60 votes needed, gathering 58 to 42 votes. It's now unlikely to become law, as Republicans (who made up most of the opposition), will hold a majority in the Senate in the new year.
The NSA's mass surveillance program for phone call metadata is still going
Despite last night's vote by the House of Representatives and various plans for reform, the NSA is still peeking into places many think it shouldn't. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence just revealed that yesterday, the program that scoops up bulk metadata on phone calls has been renewed again. In February, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved some new limits on the program forcing the NSA to request court approval to pull records, and limiting it to info for people within two degrees of a target. Those restrictions are still in place, and this latest 90-day renewal extends the program until September 12th. For now, the changes proposed by President Obama are currently tied to the "gutted" USA Freedom Act that's being considered by the Senate.
Sprint had legal details of the NSA's bulk phone data collection in 2010
The public only started learning about the legal justifications for the NSA's collection of bulk phone records last June, but we now know that at least one telecom received notice much earlier. Both declassified info and Washington Post interviews have revealed that the White House gave Sprint the secret reasoning behind the NSA's surveillance in 2010 to fend off a threatened court challenge over the program's legality. Sprint dropped its formal opposition after that, but it pushed for the declassification last year as a retort to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court claims that there had been no court challenges. There might not have been a legal battle, a government official tells the Post, but there were still doubts.
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.
Privacy group blocks NSA from destroying phone records, calls them evidence
A US judge has temporarily stopped the National Security Agency (NSA) from destroying phone metadata it collected, thanks to an intervention by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The privacy watchdog argued that the documents were key to upcoming lawsuits against the spy agency stemming from Edward Snowden's revelations. Ironically, the NSA itself wants to preserve the records for intelligence purposes, but a foreign surveillance court ordered them destroyed. The reason? It judged the records would actually violate the rights of those in the phone lists. However, the EFF claimed that court wasn't aware of an existing order issued in July to keep the documents and another filed back in 2008. A hearing is now scheduled for March 19th to determine if the metadata will be permanently destroyed or not -- with your privacy as the main argument either way.
WSJ: NSA collects data from less than one-fifth of all cellphone records
The National Security Agency might be busy collecting your Angry Birds high scores, but our previous notions that the government is collecting all of our phone data may be over-exaggerated, according to the Wall Street Journal. The publication reported this morning that in reality, the agency actually collects less than 20 percent of all call data. So what's going on? There appear to be a few factors that have formed a bit of a roadblock for the NSA's collection efforts: The rapid growth of phone use has made it hard for it to keep pace, and it's also struggled to find ways to remove location data (which is illegal to collect) from phone records; this information contradicts December reports that the NSA collects 5 billion phone location records per day.Lastly, the NSA's orders to US operators don't cover a vast majority of the cellphone records available, and its collection efforts have also been slowed down due to demands on the agency to respond to criticisms from US courts. If these sources are to be believed, apparently the NSA's collection program isn't as widespread as we originally thought. Of course, this might be one reason why it's resorting to World of Warcraft to get information.
Secret court approves new limits on NSA-collected phone records
Just three weeks after President Barack Obama announced a series of changes designed to (partially) rein in the NSA's bulk data collection program, at least two of these measures are moving forward. The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has approved two of the president's measures, both of which limit the agency's access to Americans' phone records. In particular, the NSA must now seek court approval every time it wants someone's records. Additionally, the NSA can only seek information on people who are two degrees of separation, or "hops," from their main target; the limit used to be three hops.The ruling, which remains secret, is in many ways a formality for now: The government still controls the database containing metadata on billions of phone records. In his address to the nation last month, Obama called for a third party that would instead manage the database, but it remains unclear what that entity will be, or when it might assume custody of all those phone records.
Independent federal review board calls for NSA to end 'illegal' phone call data collection
Following up on what we've learned about the NSA's various spying activities over the last year, the aptly-named Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is apparently ready to issue a report on the mess. Established in 2004 (but only fully operational since November) within the executive branch to serve as an independent source of advice to the president on... privacy and civil liberties, it has arrived somewhat late to the party (President Obama announced reform plans last week, but has said its recommendations will be considered going forward), and delivering a split opinion which leans in favor of ending the NSA's bulk collection of information about phone calls (phone numbers, call times and duration). The 238-page report will be released later today but reporters for the New York Times and Washington Post got an early peek and have highlighted the key points.The board has concluded that the NSA's phone metadata program does not meet the legal standard of the Patriot Act, raises serious privacy threats and is only of limited value at best. It's also opposed to a tweak proposed by the president's appointed panel that would see data held by a third party instead. Pointing out specific cases where other methods could have been used, it's recommending ending the program and making sure any government requests for data are tied to specific investigations. So far the program has continued on even after its existence was revealed and declassified, we'll see if these and other opinions have any affect the next time it's up for consideration.
Reuters: Obama will prevent NSA from looking at phone records without a legal reason
Barack Obama is due to give a important speech about the NSA today, but Reuters claims to have had an early heads-up about what the US president will propose. The news agency believes he will announce measures that will prevent the NSA from automatically querying its vast database of private telephone records without a "judicial finding" to support each query. It's also expected that Obama will change the way the government holds "bulk telephone metadata" in general -- a practice initially revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden -- but it's too early to say exactly how far he'll go against the wishes of the Senate and House Intelligence committees, which have both called for existing data collection practices to carry on in the name of fighting terrorism. In any case, we'll be covering the President's speech in detail when it happens at 11am ET.
FISA court reauthorizes NSA to collect call metadata (again)
Need another sign that the NSA's phone surveillance program is considered legal? The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is happy to oblige. This week FISA renewed the agencies' authority to collect call metadata, echoing an October approval from the same court. That's actually standard -- the program needs to be reassessed every 90 days, but typically the authorizations fly under the radar. This time around, the Director of National Intelligence declassified the action "in order to provide the public with a more thorough and balanced understanding of the program."Even so, its not giving detractors any ground: the announcement also reasserts the program's legality, citing the "holdings of the United States District Courts of the Southern District of New York and Southern District of California, as well as the findings of 15 judges of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on 36 separate occasions over the last seven years." The statement at least closes on an amicable note, promising to be open to tweaking the program in ways that "achieve our counterterrorism mission in a manner that gives the American people greater confidence." Check out the full statement at the source link below.
Judge rejects ACLU challenge, says NSA telephone data collection is legal (update)
We don't expect this back and forth to flame out any time soon, of course, but a US District judge in Manhattan certainly issued a blow to an American Civil Liberties Union challenge of the National Security Agency's massive telephone data collection. The judge acknowledged that the agency has, indeed, been "vacuum[ing] up information about virtually every telephone call to, from, or within the United States," but said he saw no evidence that it was being used for anything beyond attempting to foil terrorist plots, denying the ACLU's motion for preliminary injunction. The ACLU hasn't issued a statement on the matter yet, but we imagine it's not giving up the fight any time soon.Update: You can now read the full ruling here in PDF form.
NSA review group tells Obama to ditch bulk phone surveillance
2013 has been a hard year for the White House. It's been working overtime to try and manage the PR nightmare sparked by Edward Snowden's NSA whistleblowing -- fighting the outcry of angry citizens, CEOs and major tech firms. President Barack Obama eventually created a panel to review the government's surveillance programs and propose changes that will help restore public's trust. Today, the group's recommendations are in, and in summary, they aren't too surprising: don't spy on your citizens.The report's most public facing suggestion mandates ending the NSA's habit of collecting US phone call metadata. The agency would still be allowed to collect some records, of course, but the panel suggests that this data be maintained by a private third party, or the phone companies themselves. More importantly, this data would only be accessible with an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That's hardly the panel's only critique, either: the 308 page document actually makes a total of 46 recommendations. It suggests putting international spy operations under heavier scrutiny, for instance, and says that decisions to monitor such communications need to be made by the Commander in Chief -- not the nation's intelligence agencies. It even suggests major tweak to the NSA's structure, asking the president to consider making the next Director of the NSA a civilian.
