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Pro-Privacy Senator Wyden on Fighting the NSA From Inside the System
Since Snowden is in the news again
From October 23, 2014
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/senator-ron-wyden-q-a/
Wyden on NSA’s backdoor search loophole: “The Bush administration, as incredible as it sounds, closed it before they left in 2008, and the Obama administration came back and re-opened it.”
The Snowden documents revealed a lot about NSA surveillance activities, but there are at least two “extraordinarily serious” areas that are still in the shadows: the NSA’s use of a so-called backdoor search-loophole and its use of Executive Order 12333, which some fear the NSA has been using as a “hall pass” to do virtually anything overseas with presidential approval.
Although the NSA is not allowed to target Americans for surveillance, under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, the NSA can collect data on suspected foreign terrorists and foreign agents, and in doing so, emails and other data belonging to Americans gets swept up as well. The NSA is supposed to take steps to “minimize” the acquisition, retention and distribution of this incidentally collected American data. But in 2011, the government got the FISA Court, which oversees surveillance under the FAA, to agree that the government could deliberately search this American data, using email addresses and phone numbers as the search terms, without needing a warrant—what civil liberties advocates refer to as a “backdoor” search since it allows the government to essentially target Americans through searches of incidental collection without specifically targeting their data for collection. The data isn’t just available to the NSA, however. The FBI also has access to it.
No one, however, not even the NSA, knows how much collected data belongs to Americans and how often it is searched. “I’ve gotten letters from director Clapper and others saying that this problem is growing,” Wyden says. “In fact director Clapper wrote me a letter saying the FBI doesn’t even keep track of them, which causes me to be even more concerned.”
Wyden’s outrage over the searches is all the stronger because he notes that “The Bush administration, as incredible as it sounds, closed [this loophole] before they left in 2008, and the Obama administration came back and re-opened it.” He’s referring to the fact that under the Bush administration, searches of the data was restricted.
The Snowden documents revealed a lot about NSA surveillance activities, but there are at least two “extraordinarily serious” areas that are still in the shadows: the NSA’s use of a so-called backdoor search-loophole and its use of Executive Order 12333, which some fear the NSA has been using as a “hall pass” to do virtually anything overseas with presidential approval.
Although the NSA is not allowed to target Americans for surveillance, under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, the NSA can collect data on suspected foreign terrorists and foreign agents, and in doing so, emails and other data belonging to Americans gets swept up as well. The NSA is supposed to take steps to “minimize” the acquisition, retention and distribution of this incidentally collected American data. But in 2011, the government got the FISA Court, which oversees surveillance under the FAA, to agree that the government could deliberately search this American data, using email addresses and phone numbers as the search terms, without needing a warrant—what civil liberties advocates refer to as a “backdoor” search since it allows the government to essentially target Americans through searches of incidental collection without specifically targeting their data for collection. The data isn’t just available to the NSA, however. The FBI also has access to it.
No one, however, not even the NSA, knows how much collected data belongs to Americans and how often it is searched. “I’ve gotten letters from director Clapper and others saying that this problem is growing,” Wyden says. “In fact director Clapper wrote me a letter saying the FBI doesn’t even keep track of them, which causes me to be even more concerned.”
Wyden’s outrage over the searches is all the stronger because he notes that “The Bush administration, as incredible as it sounds, closed [this loophole] before they left in 2008, and the Obama administration came back and re-opened it.” He’s referring to the fact that under the Bush administration, searches of the data was restricted.
19 replies
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So clearly the people wanted to choose the far more right wing guy over the Third Way guy because he wasn't liberal enough. 
This is the sentiment I hear a lot here and it's disappointing. I think we should judge officials on their merits, not whether or not they're part of a New Democrat coalition.
But yes I was quite disappointed in that outcome. It blew my mind. But midterms suck. We managed in 2010 but 2014 was a disaster.
