Obama administration had restrictions on NSA reversed in 2011

[woo me with science]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-administration-had-restrictions-on-nsa-reversed-in-2011/2013/09/07/c26ef658-0fe5-11e3-85b6-d27422650fd5_story.html

Obama administration had restrictions on NSA reversed in 2011
By Ellen Nakashima, E-mail the writer

The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases, according to interviews with government officials and recently declassified material.

In addition, the court extended the length of time that the NSA is allowed to retain intercepted U.S. communications from five years to six years — and more under special circumstances, according to the documents, which include a recently released 2011 opinion by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, then chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

What had not been previously acknowledged is that the court in 2008 imposed an explicit ban — at the government’s request — on those kinds of searches, that officials in 2011 got the court to lift the bar and that the search authority has been used.

Together the permission to search and to keep data longer expanded the NSA’s authority in significant ways without public debate or any specific authority from Congress. The administration’s assurances rely on legalistic definitions of the term “target” that can be at odds with ordinary English usage. The enlarged authority is part of a fundamental shift in the government’s approach to surveillance: collecting first, and protecting Americans’ privacy later.

....

[leftstreet]

1. So Obama lied

He specifically stated there is no spying on Americans

Obama To Leno: 'There Is No Spying On Americans'

by Greg Henderson
August 07, 201312:44 AM


President Obama defended the US government's surveillance program, telling NBC's Jay Leno on Tuesday that: "There is no spying on Americans."

"We don't have a domestic spying program," Obama said on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. "What we do have is some mechanisms that can track a phone number or an email address that is connected to a terrorist attack. ... That information is useful."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/06/209692380/obama-to-leno-there-is-no-spying-on-americans

[DirkGently]

8. Doesn't look good. n/t

[jsr]

2. Transparency, my ass.

[MotherPetrie]

3. Sure gives me confidence Obama's being truthful about Syria!

[Logical]

4. What a disappointment this man has been. Thanks for posting this. n-t

[pscot]

5. Another WTF moment

in a long parade of them. After Clinton I swore I'd never be sold by a politician again. It's embarrassing.

[Divernan]

6. dupe - already posted in LBN about an hour ago

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014588731

[scarletwoman]

10. There's no rule about duplicate posts in General Discussion. Only in LBN. (nt)

[nashville_brook]

7. definitions of the term “target” that can be at odds with ordinary English usage

wow.

[kenny blankenship]

9. President Bush is a mortal enemy of our Constitution!

I don't know what our Constitution ever did to hurt him, but it's clear he regards it as something to be ignored in public, destroyed in private. I don't like his mother, the Quaker Oats Man, either. I don't think her mind is beautiful, at all. It's gross like the rest of her.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, woo me with science.

[Catherina]

12. It just gets worse and worse. & Greenwald said he's got even better stuff coming soon

What a year this is turning out to be.

[OnyxCollie]

13. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[kath]

14. Ain't it fokkin' GREAT having a Constitutional Scholar in the WH?!?? And one that calls himself a

Democrat to boot?
WOO-HOO!

[WillyT]

15. K & R !!!

[woo me with science]

16. kick

[LondonReign2]

17. Kick

But this is old news!

[1awake]

18. K&R n/t

[markiv]

19. GILLIGAN! Did you reverse these NSA restrictions?

uh, yes skipper

professor 'do you know what this means? now all of our phone calls have been tracked'

gilligan 'oh no'

skipper ' you've done it again, gilligan!'