NSA’s Lawyers Missed “Virtually Every Record” over 25 Reviews
As I’ve written before, the Internet dragnet did not get through the its first 90 day Primary Order before it violated the rules laid out by the FISA Court. In an effort to convince Judge Kollar-Kotelly they could conduct the dragnet according to her orders, NSA’s Office of General Counsel agreed to do spot checks of the data twice every 90-day authorization. That requirement stayed in place for the rest of the dragnet.
Which means between 2004 and 2009, OGC should have conducted over 25 spot checks of the data NSA obtained under the program.
And yet, in that entire time, OGC somehow never noticed that “virtually every record” NSA was taking in included data that it was not authorized to collect.
That’s one of the two crazy things about the Internet dragnet that this month’s document dump made clear. I explain them in this piece at The Week. The other is that, in an end-to-end report conducted from roughly March through September of 2009, NSA also didn’t find that virtually every record they had collected had broken the law.
Exhibit A is a comprehensive end-to-end report that the NSA conducted in late summer or early fall of 2009, which focused on the work the agency did in metadata collection and analysis to try and identify people emailing terrorist suspects.
The report described a number of violations that the NSA had cleaned up since the beginning of that year — including using automatic alerts that had not been authorized and giving the FBI and CIA direct access to a database of query results. It concluded the internet dragnet was in pretty good shape. “NSA has taken significant steps designed to eliminate the possibility of any future compliance issues,” the last line of the report read, “and to ensure that mechanisms are in place to detect and respond quickly if any were to occur.”
But just weeks later, the Department of Justice informed the FISA Court, which oversees the NSA program, that the NSA had been collecting impermissible categories of data — potentially including content — for all five years of the program’s existence.
[snip]
Judge John Bates, then head of FISC, emphasized that the NSA had missed the unauthorized data in its comprehensive report. He noted “the extraordinary fact that NSA’s end-to-end review overlooked unauthorized acquisitions that were documented in virtually every record of what was acquired.” Bates went on, “[I]t must be added that those responsible for conducting oversight at NSA failed to do so effectively.”
Nevertheless, Bates went on to vastly expand the program.
No wonder James Clapper’s office made those documents so hard to read. There is no way to read them and believe the NSA can be trusted to stay within the law.
quote”That’s one of the two crazy things about the Internet dragnet that this month’s document dump made clear. I explain them in this piece at The Week. “unquote
Speaking of which, I read your article at the Week emptywheel, and I TRIED to post a comment. Unfortunately, I was BLOCKED.
http://httpics.com/Ricks%20Pictures/Civil/The Week.jpg
Which was the 31st site I’ve been BLOCKED when trying to submit a comment in the last 48 HOURS.
Emptywheel, PLEASE excuse me for using your comment section to post a warning , but there is something really weird happening across the comment sections of various blogs and news sites on the net. At least to me. And it has me wondering something. Here is the deal.
Two days ago, as I began my usual morning reading and commenting on various news stories and blogs, I wrote a comment to an article at Wired.com. When I hit the “submit” button, an orange field with the statement YOU HAVE BEEN BLOCKED by Wired, appeared.
At first, I didn’t think much about it, as I have frequently voiced my opinions at Wired, and as some people here may know, sometimes, in a moment of bad judgement, I can be less than civil in response to other peoples opinions. I just figured the mods had their fill of me. After all, even bmaz blocked me here..for a while. Cie la vie.
Meanwhile, I went to The Hill. Same thing.
http://httpics.com/Ricks%20Pictures/Civil/The Hill.jpg
At the time, I thought that was odd, but perhaps coincidental. Not.
Then I went to another site that is part of the “enquirer” web sites. I might mention, all of these use Discus as their comment section software. However..same thing, I got BLOCKED..although, I didn’t get a screenshot. This was all within a half hour or so. At this point, I started getting suspicious, as I had NEVER posted a comment at the enquirer site, which also uses Discus. However, I noticed at the bottom of the page, the enquirer is an “online publication” of..CANDI NAST, which is a media conglomerate. At the time, I figured maybe they have a corporate mod that can block across their entire catalog of sites.
In that light, I decided to try and post a comment at an independent blog, that doesn’t use Discus and isn’t affiliated with any other site. As an experiment, I arbitrarily found an independent site with proprietary comment section software, that I had never posted to prior, and wrote a comment and hit submit. Sure enough..YOU ARE BLOCKED appeared.
This is when I started really getting concerned, whereby I emailed the site editor/mod and asked why he had blocked me. He immediately emailed back and told me something weird was going on there as well, as he rarely if ever had to mod comments, but had 4 “pending” comments in the “que”, which was really strange. He hasn’t got back to me yet.
At this point, I knew something very strange was happening, and decided to contact Discus, who replied with interest, but claimed “they do not moderate”.
Ok, now I’m REALLY concerned. So far, I’ve documented being BLOCKED at 31 sites as of the article at the WEEK…all in 48 hours. All with the same Orange header and text. Most of which, I’ve NEVER commented at before, some Discus, some not, but here’s the weird thing. The ONLY connection I can figure, is every site and or article and blog, is in regards to “civil and gun rights”. As of yesterday, I’ve contacted every site mod/editor, and have only received ONE response in 48 hours. This tells me something. So, the question is..who and why is this happening.
This is why, I am appealing to people here to see if this is happening to ANY ONE ELSE!
Yesterday I posted this same appeal at The Intercept, as they would be the primary target for blocking people, at least in my view. Anyway, please accept my apology for using emptywheels blog to post this appeal, but I figured this is a very bizarre occurrence. One person has suggested my own computer may have been hacked or compromised, but if it can happen to me, it may have happened to others. Hence, my trying to find out.
Ok, nuff said. Carry on. Thanks for your patience.
This is why you can’t trust the NSA. Ever,
Holy moly. I tested those links before I posted them. They have DISAPPEARED FROM MY HOST SITE. I smell a rat. A big, 3 letter alphabet USG rat. This is getting weirder by the moment.
update.. the files are still at my host site. Somehow..they are being BLOCKED HERE.
wallace-
You need a %20 between The and Hill.jpg
Too many programs don’t do spaces in URLs well.
Wallace, dear, take a step back, look in the mirror. What do you see? Are you so impressed with the image that we should all share the same impression?
If Marcy hasn’t already said it, what do you think you might add to the conversation?
Breath deeply; try to relax; then, change your screen name.