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Yes, the Government Does Spy Under Grandfathered Approvals

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Charlie Savage is catching no end of shit today because he reported on a provision in the PATRIOT Act (one I just noticed Tuesday, actually, when finding the sunset language for something else) that specifies ongoing investigations may continue even after a sunset.

The law says that Section 215, along with another section of the Patriot Act, expires on “June 1, 2015, except that former provisions continue in effect with respect to any particular foreign intelligence investigation that began before June 1, 2015, or with respect to any particular offense or potential offense that began or occurred before June 1, 2015.”

Michael Davidson, who until his retirement in 2011 was the Senate Intelligence Committee’s top staff lawyer, said this meant that as long as there was an older counterterrorism investigation still open, the court could keep issuing Section 215 orders to phone companies indefinitely for that investigation.

“It was always understood that no investigation should be different the day after the sunset than it was the day before,” Mr. Davidson said, adding: “There are important reasons for Congress to legislate on what, if any, program is now warranted. But considering the actual language of the sunset provision, no one should believe the present program will disappear solely because of the sunset.”

Mr. Davidson said the widespread assumption by lawmakers and executive branch officials, as well as in news articles in The New York Times and elsewhere, that the program must lapse next summer without new legislation was incorrect.

The exception is obscure because it was recorded as a note accompanying Section 215; while still law, it does not receive its own listing in the United States Code. It was created by the original Patriot Act and was explicitly restated in a 2006 reauthorization bill, and then quietly carried forward in 2010 and in 2011.

Now, I’m happy to give Savage shit when I think he deserves it. But I’m confident those attacking him now are wrong.

Before I get into why, let me first say that to some degree it is moot. The Administration believes that, legally, it needs no Congressional authorization to carry out the phone dragnet. None. What limits its ability to engage in the phone dragnet is not the law (at least not until some courts start striking the Administration’s interpretation down). It’s the willingness of the telecoms to cooperate. Right now, the government appears to have a significant problem forcing Verizon to fully cooperate. Without Verizon, you don’t have an effective dragnet, which is significantly what USA Freedom and other “reform” efforts are about, to coerce or entice Verizon’s full cooperation without at the same time creating a legal basis to kill the entire program.

That said, not only is Davidson likely absolutely correct, but there’s precedent at the FISA Court for broadly approving grandfathering claims that make dubious sense.

As Davidson noted elsewhere in Savage’s story, the FBI has ongoing enterprise investigations that don’t lapse — and almost certainly have not lapsed since 9/11. Indeed, that’s the investigation(s) the government appears, from declassified documents, to have argued the dragnet is “relevant” to. So while some claim this perverts the definition of “particular,” that’s not the word that’s really at issue here, it’s the “relevant to” interpretation that USAF leaves intact, effectively ratifying (this time with uncontested full knowledge of Congress) the 2004 redefinition of it that everyone agrees was batshit insane. If you want to prevent this from happening, you need to affirmatively correct that FISA opinion, not to mention not ratify the definition again, which USAF would do (as would a straight reauthorization of PATRIOT next year).

And as I said, there is precedent for this kind of grandfathering at FISA, all now in the public record thanks to the declassification of the Yahoo challenge documents (and all probably known to Davidson, given that he was a lead negotiator on FISA Amendments Act which included significant discussion about sunset procedures, which they lifted from PAA.

For starters, on January 15, 2008, in an opinion approving the certifications for Protect America Act submitted in August and September 2007, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly approved the grand-fathering of the earlier 2007 large content dockets based on the government’s argument that they had generally considered the same factors they promised to follow under the PAA certifications and would subject the data obtained to the post-collection procedures in the certifications. (See page 15ff)

Effectively then, this permitted them to continue collection under the older, weaker protections, under near year-long PAA certifications.

In the weeks immediately following Kollar-Kotelly’s approval of the underlying certifications (though there’s evidence they had planned the move as far back as October, before they served Directives on Yahoo), the government significantly reorganized their FAA program, bringing FBI into a central role in the process and almost certainly setting up the back door searches that have become so controversial. They submitted new certifications on January 31, 2008, on what was supposed to be the original expiration date of the PAA. As Kollar-Kotelly described in an June 18, 2008 opinion (starting at 30), that came to her in the form of new procedures received on February 12, 2008, 4 days before the final expiration date of PAA.

On February 12, 2008, the government filed in each of the 07 Dockets additional sets of procedures used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) when that agency acquires foreign intelligence information under PAA authorities. These procedures were adopted pursuant to amendments made by the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on January 31, 2008 to the certifications in the 07 Dockets.

Then, several weeks later — and therefore several weeks after PAA expired on February 16, 2008 — the government submitted still new procedures.

On March 3, 2008, the government submitted NSA and FBI procedures in a new matter [redacted]

[snip]

Because the FBI and NSA procedures submitted in Docket No. [redacted] are quite similar to the procedures submitted in the 07 Dockets, the Court has consolidated these matters for purposes of its review under 50 U.S.C. § 1805c.

For the reasons explained below, the Court concludes that it retains jurisdiction to review the above-described procedures under §1805c. On the merits, the Court finds that the FBI procedures submitted in each of the 07 Dockets, and the NSA and FBI procedures submitted in Docket No. [redacted] satisfy the applicable review for clear error under 50 U.S.C. § 1805c(b).

She regarded these new procedures, submitted well after the law had expired, a modification of existing certifications.

In all [redacted] of the above-captioned dockets, the DNI and the Attorney General authorized acquisitions of foreign intelligence information by making or amending certifications prior to February 16, 2009, pursuant to provisions of the PAA codified at 50 U.S.C. § 1805b.

She did this in part by relying on Reggie Walton’s interim April 25, 2008 opinion in the Yahoo case that the revisions affecting Yahoo were still kosher, without, apparently, considering the very different status of procedures changed after the law had expired.

The government even considered itself to be spying with Yahoo under a September 2007 certification (that is, the latter of at least two certifications affecting Yahoo) past the July 10, 2008 passage of FISA Amendments Act, which imposed additional protections for US persons.

These are, admittedly, a slightly different case. In two cases, they amount to retaining older, less protective laws even after their replacement gets passed by Congress. In the third, it amounts to modifying procedures under a law that has already expired but remains active because of the later expiration date of the underlying certificate.

Still, this is all stuff the FISC has already approved.

The FISC also maintains — incorrectly in my opinion, but I’m not a FISC judge so they don’t much give a damn — that the 2010 and 2011 PATRIOT reauthorizations ratified everything the court had already approved, even the dragnets not explicitly laid out in the law. This sunset language was public, and there’s nothing exotic about what they say. To argue the FISC wouldn’t consider these valid clauses grand-fathering the dragnet, you’d have to argue they don’t believe the 2010 and 2011 reauthorizations ratified even the secret things already in place. That’s highly unlikely to happen, as it would bring the validity of their 40ish reauthorizations under question, which they’re not going to do.

Again, I think it’s moot. The “reform” process before us is about getting Verizon to engage in a dragnet that is not actually authorized by the law as written. They’re not doing what the government would like them to do now, so there’s no reason to believe this grandfathered language would lead them to suddenly do so.

FISCR Used an Outdated Version of EO 12333 to Rule Protect America Act Legal

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If the documents relating to Yahoo’s challenge of Protect America Act released last month are accurate reflections of the documents actually submitted to the FISC and FISCR, then the government submitted a misleading document on June 5, 2008 that was central to FISCR’s ultimate ruling.

As I laid out here in 2009, FISCR relied on the the requirement  in EO 12333 that the Attorney General determine there is probable cause a wiretapping technique used in the US is directed against a foreign power to judge the Protect America Act met probable cause requirements.

The procedures incorporated through section 2.5 of Executive Order 12333, made applicable to the surveillances through the certifications and directives, serve to allay the probable cause concern.

The Attorney General hereby is delegated the power to approve the use for intelligence purposes, within the United States or against a United States person abroad, of any technique for which a warrant would be required if undertaken for law enforcement purposes, provided that such techniques shall not be undertaken unless the Attorney General has determined in each case that there is probable cause to believe that the technique is directed against a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.

44 Fed. Reg. at 59,951 (emphasis supplied). Thus, in order for the government to act upon the certifications, the AG first had to make a determination that probable cause existed to believe that the targeted person is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. Moreover, this determination was not made in a vacuum. The AG’s decision was informed by the contents of an application made pursuant to Department of Defense (DOD) regulations. See DOD, Procedures Governing the Activities of DOD Intelligence Components that Affect United States Persons, DOD 5240.1-R, Proc. 5, Pt. 2.C.  (Dec. 1982).

Yahoo didn’t buy this argument. It had a number of problems with it, notably that nothing prevented the government from changing Executive Orders.

While Executive Order 12333 (if not repealed), provides some additional protections, it is still not enough.

[snip]

Thus, to the extent that it is even appropriate to examine the protections in the Executive Order that are not statutorily required, the scales of the reasonableness determination sway but do not tip towards reasonableness.

Yahoo made that argument on May 29, 2008.

Sadly, Yahoo appears not to have noticed the best argument that Courts shouldn’t rely on EO 12333 because the President could always change it: Sheldon Whitehouse’s revelation on December 7, 2007 (right in the middle of this litigation) that OLC had ruled the President could change it in secret and not note the change publicly. Whitehouse strongly suggested that the Executive in fact had changed EO 12333 without notice to accommodate its illegal wiretap program.

But the government appears to have intentionally withheld further evidence about how easily it could change EO 12333 — and in fact had, right in the middle of the litigation.

This is the copy of the Classified Annex to EO 12333 that (at least according to the ODNI release) the government submitted to FISCR in a classified appendix on June 5, 2008 (that is, after Yahoo had already argued that an EO, and the protections it affords, might change). It is a copy of the original Classified Appendix signed by Ed Meese in 1988.

As I have shown, Michael Hayden modified NSA/CSS Policy 1-23 on March 11, 2004, which includes and incorporates EO 12333, the day after the hospital confrontation. The content of the Classified Annex released in 2013 appears to be identical, in its unredacted bits, to the original as released in 1988 (see below for a list of the different things redacted in each version). So the actual content of what the government presented may (or may not be) a faithful representation of the Classified Appendix as it currently existed.

But the version of NSA/CSS Policy 1-23 released last year (starting at page 110) provides this modification history:

This Policy 1-23 supersedes Directive 10-30, dated 20 September 1990, and Change One thereto, dated June 1998. The Associate Director for Policy endorsed an administrative update, effective 27 December 2007 to make minor adjustments to this policy. This 29 May 2009 administrative update includes changes due to the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 and in core training requirements.

That is, Michael Hayden’s March 11, 2004 modification of the Policy changed to the Directive as existed before 2 changes made under Clinton.

Just as importantly, the modification history reflects “an administrative update” making “minor adjustments to this policy” effective December 27, 2007 — a month and a half after this challenge started.

By presenting the original Classified Appendix — to which Hayden had apparently reverted in 2004 — rather than the up-to-date Policy, the government was presenting what they were currently using. But they hid the fact that they had made changes to it right in the middle of this litigation. A fact that would have made it clear that Courts can’t rely on Executive Orders to protect the rights of Americans, especially when they include Classified Annexes hidden within Procedures.

In its language relying on EO 12333, FISCR specifically pointed to DOD 5240.1-R. The Classified Annex to EO 12333 is required under compliance with part of that that complies with the August 27, 2007 PAA compliance.

That is, this Classified Annex is a part of the Russian dolls of interlocking directives and orders that implement EO 12333.

And they were changing, even as this litigation was moving forward.

Only, the government appears to have hidden that information from the FISCR.

Update: Clarified that NSA/CSS Policy 1-23 is what got changed.

Update: Hahaha. The copy of DOD 5240.1 R which the government submitted on December 11, 2007, still bears the cover sheet labeling it as an Annex to NSA/CSS Directive 10-30. Which of course had been superseded in 2004.

Note how they cut off the date to hide that it was 1990?

Note how they cut off the date to hide that it was 1990?

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Why Doesn’t FISCR Have a Public Docket?

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In the government’s arguments justifying the constitutionality of Section 702 the government has made fairly breathtaking claims that there is a foreign intelligence to the Constitution’s warrant requirement.

Which has gotten me wondering about the status of the FISA Court of Review ruling that Yahoo had to comply with Protect America Act orders. Back in July, we were promised a newly declassified review of that order, which makes a fairy sustained argument that PAA was legal under a special needs exception to the Fourth Amendment. But we haven’t gotten that order.

Which made me realize something: Although, months ago, the FISA Court established a public docket and even recently gave it a snazzy face lift, the FISA Court of Review does not yet have a docket.

So that Yahoo order declassification could be bubbling along and we’d never know about it, even in spite of the government’s claimed commitment to declassify the order.

If FISC can have a docket, why can’t FISCR?

FISA Warranted Targets and the Phone Dragnet

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The identifiers (such as phone numbers) of people or facilities for which a FISA judge has approved a warrant can be used as identifiers in the phone dragnet without further review by NSA.

From a legal standpoint, this makes a lot of sense. The standard to be a phone dragnet identifier is just Reasonable Articulable Suspicion of some tie to terrorism — basically a digital stop-and-frisk. The standard for a warrant is probable cause that the target is an agent of a foreign government — and in the terrorism context, that US persons are preparing for terrorism. So of course RAS already exists for FISC targets.

So starting with the second order and continuing since, FISC’s primary orders include language approving the use of such targets as identifiers (see ¶E starting on page 8-9).

But there are several interesting details that come out of that.

Finding the Americans talking with people tapped under traditional FISA

First, consider what it says about FISC taps. The NSA is already getting all the content from that targeted phone number (along with any metadata that comes with that collection). But NSA may, in addition, find cause to run dragnet queries on the same number.

In its End-to-End report submission to Reggie Walton to justify the phone dragnet, NSA claimed it needed to do so to identify all parties in a conversation.

Collections pursuant to Title I of FISA, for example, do not provide NSA with information sufficient to perform multi-tiered contact chaining [redacted]Id. at 8. NSA’s signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection, because it focuses strictly on the foreign end of communications, provides only limited information to identify possible terrorist connections emanating from within the United States. Id. For telephone calls, signaling information includes the number being called (which is necessary to complete the call) and often does not include the number from which the call is made. Id. at 8-9. Calls originating inside the United States and collected overseas, therefore, often do not identify the caller’s telephone number. Id. Without this information, NSA analysts cannot identify U.S. telephone numbers or, more generally, even determine that calls originated inside the United States.

This is the same historically suspect Khalid al-Midhar claim, one they repeat later in the passage.

The language at the end of that passage emphasizing the importance of determining which calls come from the US alludes to the indexing function NSA Signals Intelligence Division Director Theresa Shea discussed before — a quick way for the NSA to decide which conversations to read (and especially, if the conversations are not in English, translate).

Section 215 bulk telephony metadata complements other counterterrorist-related collection sources by serving as a significant enabler for NSA intelligence analysis. It assists the NSA in applying limited linguistic resources available to the counterterrorism mission against links that have the highest probability of connection to terrorist targets. Put another way, while Section 215 does not contain content, analysis of the Section 215 metadata can help the NSA prioritize for content analysis communications of non-U.S. persons which it acquires under other authorities. Such persons are of heightened interest if they are in a communication network with persons located in the U.S. Thus, Section 215 metadata can provide the means for steering and applying content analysis so that the U.S. Government gains the best possible understanding of terrorist target actions and intentions. [my emphasis]

Though, as I have noted before, contrary to what Shea says, this by definition serves to access content of both non-US and US persons: NSA is admitting that the selection criteria prioritizes calls from the US. And in the case of a FISC warrant it could easily be entirely US person content.

In other words, the use of the dragnet in conjunction with content warrants makes it more likely that US person content will be read.

Excluding bulk targets

Now, my analysis about the legal logic of all this starts to break down once the FISC approves bulk orders. In those programs — Protect America Act and FISA Amendments Act — analysts choose targets with no judicial oversight and the standard (because targets are assumed to be foreign) doesn’t require probable cause. But the FISC recognized this. Starting with BR 07-16, the first order approved (on October 18, 2007) after the PAA  until the extant PAA orders expired, the primary orders included language excluding PAA targets. Starting with 08-08, the first order approved (on October 18, 2007) after FAA until the present, the primary orders included language excluding FAA targets.

Of course, this raises a rather important question about what happened between the enactment of PAA on August 5, 2007 and the new order on October 18, 2007, or what happened between enactment of FAA on July 10, 2008 and the new order on August 19, 2008. Read more →

Russ Feingold: Yahoo Didn’t Get the Info Needed to Challenge the Constitutionality of PRISM

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The NYT has a story that solves a question some of us have long been asking: Which company challenged a Protect America Act order in 2007, only to lose at the district and circuit level?

The answer: Yahoo.

The Yahoo ruling, from 2008, shows the company argued that the order violated its users’ Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. The court called that worry “overblown.”

But the NYT doesn’t explain something that Russ Feingold pointed out when the FISA Court of Review opinion was made public in 2009 (and therefore after implementation of FISA Amendments Act): the government didn’t (and still didn’t, under the PAA’s successor, the FISA Amendments Act, Feingold seems to suggests) give Yahoo some of the most important information it needed to challenge the constitutionality of the program.

The decision placed the burden of proof on the company to identify problems related to the implementation of the law, information to which the company did not have access. The court upheld the constitutionality of the PAA, as applied, without the benefit of an effective adversarial process. The court concluded that “[t]he record supports the government. Notwithstanding the parade of horribles trotted out by the petitioner, it has presented no evidence of any actual harm, any egregious risk of error, or any broad potential for abuse in the circumstances of the instant case.” However, the company did not have access to all relevant information, including problems related to the implementation of the PAA. Senator Feingold, who has repeatedly raised concerns about the implementation of the PAA and its successor, the FISA Amendments Act (“FAA”), in classified communications with the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General, has stated that the court’s analysis would have been fundamentally altered had the company had access to this information and been able to bring it before the court.

In the absence of specific complaints from the company, the court relied on the good faith of the government. As the court concluded, “[w]ithout something more than a purely speculative set of imaginings, we cannot infer that the purpose of the directives (and, thus, of the surveillance) is other than their stated purpose… The petitioner suggests that, by placing discretion entirely in the hands of the Executive Branch without prior judicial involvement, the procedures cede to that Branch overly broad power that invites abuse. But this is little more than a lament about the risk that government officials will not operate in good faith.” One example of the court’s deference to the government concerns minimization procedures, which require the government to limit the dissemination of information about Americans that it collects in the course of its surveillance. Because the company did not raise concerns about minimization, the court “s[aw] no reason to question the adequacy of the minimization protocol.” And yet, the existence of adequate minimization procedures, as applied in this case, was central to the court’s constitutional analysis. [bold original, underline mine]

This post — which again, applies to PAA, though seems to be valid for the way the government has conducted FAA — explains why.

The court’s ruling makes it clear that PAA (and by association, FAA) by itself is not Constitutional. By itself, a PAA or FAA order lacks both probable cause and particularity.

The programs get probable cause from Executive Order 12333 (the one that John Yoo has been known to change without notice), from an Attorney General assertion that he has probable cause that the target of his surveillance is associated with a foreign power.

And the programs get particularity (which is mandated from a prior decision from the court, possibly the 2002 one on information sharing) from a set of procedures (the descriptor was redacted in the unsealed opinion, but particularly given what Feingold said, it’s likely these are the minimization procedures both PAA and FAA required the government to attest to) that give it particularity. The court decision makes it clear the government only submitted those — even in this case, even to a secret court — ex parte.

The petitioner’s arguments about particularity and prior judicial review are defeated by the way in which the statute has been applied. When combined with the PAA’s other protections, the [redacted] procedures and the procedures incorporated through the Executive Order are constitutionally sufficient compensation for any encroachments.

The [redacted] procedures [redacted] are delineated in an ex parte appendix filed by the government. They also are described, albeit with greater generality, in the government’s brief. [redacted] Although the PAA itself does not mandate a showing of particularity, see 50 USC 1805b(b), this pre-surveillance procedure strikes us as analogous to and in conformity with the particularity showing contemplated by Sealed Case.

In other words, even the court ruling makes it clear that Yahoo saw only generalized descriptions of these procedures that were critical to its finding the order itself (but not the PAA in isolation from them) was constitutional.

Incidentally, while Feingold suggests the company (Yahoo) had to rely on the government’s good faith, to a significant extent, so does the court. During both the PAA and FAA battles, the government successfully fought efforts to give the FISA Court authority to review the implementation of minimization procedures.

The NYT story suggests that the ruling which found the program violated the Fourth Amendment pertained to FAA.

Last year, the FISA court said the minimization rules were unconstitutional, and on Wednesday, ruled that it had no objection to sharing that opinion publicly. It is now up to a federal court.

I’m not positive that applies to FAA, as distinct from the 215 dragnet or the two working in tandem.

But other reporting on PRISM has made one thing clear: the providers are still operating in the dark. The WaPo reported from an Inspector General’s report (I wonder whether this is the one that was held up until after FAA renewal last year?) that they don’t even have visibility into individual queries, much less what happens to the data once the government has obtained it.

But because the program is so highly classified, only a few people at most at each company would legally be allowed to know about PRISM, let alone the details of its operations.

[snip]

According to a more precise description contained in a classified NSA inspector general’s report, also obtained by The Post, PRISM allows “collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,” rather than directly to company servers. The companies cannot see the queries that are sent from the NSA to the systems installed on their premises, according to sources familiar with the PRISM process. [my emphasis]

This gets to the heart of the reason why Administration claims that “the Courts” have approved this program are false. In a signature case where an Internet provider challenged it — which ultimately led the other providers to concede they would have to comply — the government withheld some of the most important information pertaining to constitutionality from the plaintiff.

The government likes to claim this is constitutional, but that legal claim has always relied on preventing the providers and, to some extent, the FISA Court itself from seeing everything it was doing.

James Clapper’s Tip for Avoiding Lies: Don’t Do Talking Points

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[youtube]QwiUVUJmGjs[/youtube]

For a guy who warned for years about an abuse of the FISA Amendments Act and Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, I have to admit Ron Wyden was pretty circumspect  yesterday. He issued a statement, partly to reiterate his call to make this public, partly to suggest the program isn’t worth much.

The administration has an obligation to give a substantive and timely response to the American people and I hope this story will force a real debate about the government’s domestic surveillance authorities. The American people have a right to know whether their government thinks that the sweeping, dragnet surveillance that has been alleged in this story is allowed under the law and whether it is actually being conducted. Furthermore, they have a right to know whether the program that has been described is actually of value in preventing attacks. Based on several years of oversight, I believe that its value and effectiveness remain unclear.

And he sent out three tweets:

Of course, it’s the second tweet — showing the Director of National Intelligence lying in testimony to Congress about whether the NSA collects “any data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans” — I found most interesting.

Wyden always has had a knack for exposing people as liars.

By the end of the day the National Journal had contacted Clapper to provide him an opportunity to explain why this lie to Congress wasn’t a lie. He offered a nonsensical explanation.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Thursday that he stood by what he told Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in March when he said that the National Security Agency does not “wittingly” collect data on millions of Americans.

“What I said was, the NSA does not voyeuristically pore through U.S. citizens’ e-mails. I stand by that,” Clapper told National Journal in a telephone interview.

On March 12, at a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Wyden asked Clapper: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Clapper responded: “No, sir.” When Wyden followed up by asking, “It does not?” Clapper said: “Not wittingly. There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect—but not wittingly.” Clapper did not specify at the time that he was referring to e-mail. [my emphasis]

Clapper’s lie — that he took Wyden’s “collected any type of data at all” to mean “voyeuristically pore through emails” — is all the worse for how bad a non-sequitur it is. Caught in a lie, the head of our Intelligence Community responded with word salad.

Given that abysmal attempt to explain away his lie, I find it all the more curious the Administration decided Clapper, newly exposed as a liar, would be the guy to head pushback to the revelations of the last few days. Late in the day Clapper issued first one, then another “statement” on the revelations.

Both, of course, issued stern condemnations of leaks revealing that he had lied (and that Americans have no privacy).

The unauthorized disclosure of a top secret U.S. court document threatens potentially long-lasting and irreversible harm to our ability to identify and respond to the many threats facing our nation.

[snip]

The unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely legal program is reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans.

Those are hollow warnings, of course, for the reasons I laid out here.

Clapper then goes on to claim that both stories misrepresent the programs.

The article omits key information regarding how a classified intelligence collection program is used to prevent terrorist attacks and the numerous safeguards that protect privacy and civil liberties.

[snip]

The Guardian and The Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.  They contain numerous inaccuracies.

Worlds tiniest violin! After refusing urgent requests from members of Congress who had been briefed on this to be transparent for years, the Intelligence Community has lost its ability to spin this!

Perhaps the most interesting part of Clapper’s two statements, however, is the way Clapper purportedly clarified a detail about the WaPo/Guardian stories on PRISM.

Clapper — and an anonymous statement from a Senior Administration Official issued minutes before Clapper’s — made explicitly clear PRISM operates under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act.

Section 702 is a provision of FISA that is designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-U.S. persons located outside the United States. It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States.

Activities authorized by Section 702 are subject to oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Executive Branch, and Congress. They involve extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to ensure that only non-U.S. persons outside the U.S. are targeted, and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about U.S. persons.

Section 702 was recently reauthorized by Congress after extensive hearings and debate.

Section 702, Section 702, Section 702.

This claim had only been implicit in the reporting in the WaPo and Guardian.

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