McLaughlin writes: "From 2013 to 2015, the NSA and CIA doubled the number of
warrantless searches they conducted for Americans' data in a massive NSA
database ostensibly collected for foreign intelligence purposes, according
to a new intelligence community transparency report."
James Clapper testifies during the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
hearing. (photo: AP)
NSA and CIA Double Their Warrantless Searches on Americans in Two Years
By Jenna McLaughlin, The Intercept
04 May 16
From 2013 to 2015, the NSA and CIA doubled the number of warrantless
searches they conducted for Americans' data in a massive NSA database
ostensibly collected for foreign intelligence purposes, according to a new
intelligence community transparency report.
The estimated number of search terms "concerning a known U.S. person" to get
contents of communications within what is known as the 702 database was
4,672 - more than double the 2013 figure.
And that doesn't even include the number of FBI searches on that database. A
recently released Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruling confirmed
that the FBI is allowed to run any number of searches it wants on that
database, not only for national security probes but also to hunt for
evidence of traditional crimes. No estimates have ever been released of how
often that happens.
Under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the NSA
collects hundreds of millions of digital communications at rest and in
transit from the major internet backbones running in and out of the U.S., as
well as from Google, Facebook, YouTube, and other companies, involving
"targets" overseas.
Americans' communications are constitutionally protected from warrantless
searches, but when those communications are swept up by the NSA
"incidentally" to its main goal, those protections have been essentially
ignored.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has said the practice of
searching the database for American communications is not "unlawful" because
the content is collected legitimately in the first place - and because there
are protections against sharing Americans' identities unless it's absolutely
necessary.
But many privacy activists, as well as lawmakers including Sen. Ron Wyden,
D-Ore., and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., describe this practice as a
"backdoor" search because it's a way to gather evidence on Americans without
getting court approval.
"If intelligence officials are deliberately searching for and reading the
communications of specific Americans, the Constitution requires a warrant,"
said Wyden in a press release in June 2014.
The ODNI director of legislative affairs, Deidre M. Walsh, wrote in a 2013
letter to Wyden that the NSA approved 198 searches, or "queries," for the
content of American communications in the 702 database - while the CIA
approved "fewer than 1900" queries - for about 2100 overall.
That's the number that more than doubled in 2015. But the ODNI doesn't make
its transparency reports easy to understand, leaving open the possibility of
misinterpretation. For instance, the 2015 figure includes "recurring
queries" - basically searches using the same terms more than once. In 2013,
the NSA said its estimate "may" have included repeated queries counted
individually. That could account for some of the increase between 2013 and
2015.
However, the number of queries for metadata - information about who the
communications are to and from, and so on, rather than their content - also
went up dramatically.
According to the 2014 letter to Wyden, NSA conducted "approximately 9,500
queries" of American metadata in 2013, including repeated queries - and
excluding CIA searches, because the agency doesn't track that information.
In 2015, the ODNI reported 23,800 searches on metadata - excluding "one IC
element" that couldn't provide statistics - presumably the CIA.
"The number of backdoor searches doubling since last reported shows that
warrantless Section 702 surveillance is a significant and growing problem
for Americans," Jake Laperruque, privacy fellow at The Constitution Project,
wrote in a message to The Intercept after reading the new report.
The missing data from the FBI is of great concern to privacy advocates. The
USA Freedom Act, passed in June 2015, "conspicuously exempts the FBI" from
disclosing how often it searches the 702 database, the Project on Government
Oversight (POGO) wrote in a letter to the Director of National Intelligence,
James Clapper, in October 2015.
"There is every reason to believe the number of FBI queries far exceeds
those of the CIA and NSA," POGO wrote. "To present a fair overview of how
foreign intelligence surveillance is used, it is essential that you work
with the attorney general to release statistics on the FBI's use of U.S.
person queries."
The new report also leaves unanswered how many Americans' communications are
collected in the first place.
Fourteen lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee sent Clapper a letter on
April 22 demanding to know how often programs authorized under Section 702
vacuum up communications belonging to innocent Americans. Others, including
Sen. Wyden, members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and
dozens of civil liberties activist groups have been asking the same question
for years.
Clapper recently said he is working to provide an estimate on the number of
Americans caught up in the dragnet.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
James Clapper testifies during the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
hearing. (photo: AP)
https://theintercept.com/2016/05/03/nsa-and-cia-double-their-warrantless-sea
rches-on-americans-in-two-years/https://theintercept.com/2016/05/03/nsa-and-
cia-double-their-warrantless-searches-on-americans-in-two-years/
NSA and CIA Double Their Warrantless Searches on Americans in Two Years
By Jenna McLaughlin, The Intercept
04 May 16
rom 2013 to 2015, the NSA and CIA doubled the number of warrantless
searches they conducted for Americans' data in a massive NSA database
ostensibly collected for foreign intelligence purposes, according to a new
intelligence community transparency report.
The estimated number of search terms "concerning a known U.S. person" to get
contents of communications within what is known as the 702 database was
4,672 - more than double the 2013 figure.
And that doesn't even include the number of FBI searches on that database. A
recently released Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruling confirmed
that the FBI is allowed to run any number of searches it wants on that
database, not only for national security probes but also to hunt for
evidence of traditional crimes. No estimates have ever been released of how
often that happens.
Under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the NSA
collects hundreds of millions of digital communications at rest and in
transit from the major internet backbones running in and out of the U.S., as
well as from Google, Facebook, YouTube, and other companies, involving
"targets" overseas.
Americans' communications are constitutionally protected from warrantless
searches, but when those communications are swept up by the NSA
"incidentally" to its main goal, those protections have been essentially
ignored.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has said the practice of
searching the database for American communications is not "unlawful" because
the content is collected legitimately in the first place - and because there
are protections against sharing Americans' identities unless it's absolutely
necessary.
But many privacy activists, as well as lawmakers including Sen. Ron Wyden,
D-Ore., and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., describe this practice as a
"backdoor" search because it's a way to gather evidence on Americans without
getting court approval.
"If intelligence officials are deliberately searching for and reading the
communications of specific Americans, the Constitution requires a warrant,"
said Wyden in a press release in June 2014.
The ODNI director of legislative affairs, Deidre M. Walsh, wrote in a 2013
letter to Wyden that the NSA approved 198 searches, or "queries," for the
content of American communications in the 702 database - while the CIA
approved "fewer than 1900" queries - for about 2100 overall.
That's the number that more than doubled in 2015. But the ODNI doesn't make
its transparency reports easy to understand, leaving open the possibility of
misinterpretation. For instance, the 2015 figure includes "recurring
queries" - basically searches using the same terms more than once. In 2013,
the NSA said its estimate "may" have included repeated queries counted
individually. That could account for some of the increase between 2013 and
2015.
However, the number of queries for metadata - information about who the
communications are to and from, and so on, rather than their content - also
went up dramatically.
According to the 2014 letter to Wyden, NSA conducted "approximately 9,500
queries" of American metadata in 2013, including repeated queries - and
excluding CIA searches, because the agency doesn't track that information.
In 2015, the ODNI reported 23,800 searches on metadata - excluding "one IC
element" that couldn't provide statistics - presumably the CIA.
"The number of backdoor searches doubling since last reported shows that
warrantless Section 702 surveillance is a significant and growing problem
for Americans," Jake Laperruque, privacy fellow at The Constitution Project,
wrote in a message to The Intercept after reading the new report.
The missing data from the FBI is of great concern to privacy advocates. The
USA Freedom Act, passed in June 2015, "conspicuously exempts the FBI" from
disclosing how often it searches the 702 database, the Project on Government
Oversight (POGO) wrote in a letter to the Director of National Intelligence,
James Clapper, in October 2015.
"There is every reason to believe the number of FBI queries far exceeds
those of the CIA and NSA," POGO wrote. "To present a fair overview of how
foreign intelligence surveillance is used, it is essential that you work
with the attorney general to release statistics on the FBI's use of U.S.
person queries."
The new report also leaves unanswered how many Americans' communications are
collected in the first place.
Fourteen lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee sent Clapper a letter on
April 22 demanding to know how often programs authorized under Section 702
vacuum up communications belonging to innocent Americans. Others, including
Sen. Wyden, members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and
dozens of civil liberties activist groups have been asking the same question
for years.
Clapper recently said he is working to provide an estimate on the number of
Americans caught up in the dragnet.
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