Conason Asks Wyden Our Questions: Senator Reveals NSA Email Surveillance Program Recently 'Closed' f

[questionseverything]

Source: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10159

Conason: Well, we know they’re looking at emails, too, and the question is [whether they've been] storing emails.

Wyden: Well, there was an important development with respect to emails on that. This has now been declassified, but Senator Udall and I pushed very hard inside the Intelligence Committee to make the case that the bulk collection of the email records invaded people’s privacy and was not effectual. And the Obama administration a few weeks ago said that they had closed the program down for what they called operational reasons, and Senator Udall and I pointed out that we had spent a lot of time, and I believe the fact that two members of the committee made it clear that they were going to be relentless about exposing both the problems for Americans’ privacy rights and the ineffective nature of the program was the real reason it was closed down.


Read more: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10159

[questionseverything]

1. first i have heard of this

the Obama administration a few weeks ago said that they had closed the program down for what they called operational reasons

[frazzled]

6. We have known it ended in 2011 for more than a month:

Don't be confused by the "few weeks ago": a few weeks before this interview with Wyden was conducted is when the Obama administration asserted that it had closed the email surveillance program in 2011.

This was widely discussed here back in late June. A Guardian article from June confirms:

"The internet metadata collection program authorized by the Fisa court was discontinued in 2011 for operational and resource reasons and has not been restarted," Shawn Turner, the Obama administration's director of communications for National Intelligence, said in a statement to the Guardian.

"The program was discontinued by the executive branch as the result of an interagency review," Turner continued. He would not elaborate further.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-data-mining-authorised-obama

[questionseverything]

8. so just a new program?

Explaining that the five-year old program "began as a near-real-time metadata analyzer … for a classic collection system", the SSO official noted: "In its five year history, numerous other systems from across the Agency have come to use ShellTrumpet's processing capabilities for performance monitoring" and other tasks, such as "direct email tip alerting."

Almost half of those trillion pieces of internet metadata were processed in 2012, the document detailed: "though it took five years to get to the one trillion mark, almost half of this volume was processed in this calendar year".

Another SSO entry, dated February 6, 2013, described ongoing plans to expand metadata collection. A joint surveillance collection operation with an unnamed partner agency yielded a new program "to query metadata" that was "turned on in the Fall 2012". Two others, called MoonLightPath and Spinneret, "are planned to be added by September 2013."

A substantial portion of the internet metadata still collected and analyzed by the NSA comes from allied governments, including its British counterpart, GCHQ.

An SSO entry dated September 21, 2012, announced that "Transient Thurible, a new Government Communications Head Quarters (GCHQ) managed XKeyScore (XKS) Deep Dive was declared operational." The entry states that GCHQ "modified" an existing program so the NSA could "benefit" from what GCHQ harvested.

"Transient Thurible metadata [has been] flowing into NSA repositories since 13 August 2012," the entry states.

[struggle4progress]

19. +

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Probably just gave it a new name

After Holder wrote a memo saying it was lawful to not tell the Senate Intelligence Committee about it any more, because Terra.

[questionseverything]

4. maybe or maybe this

from the article...

Senator Udall and I pointed out that we had spent a lot of time, and I believe the fact that two members of the committee made it clear that they were going to be relentless about exposing both the problems for Americans’ privacy rights and the ineffective nature of the program was the real reason it was closed down.

either way i find it encouraging,looks like we have their attention at least

[99th_Monkey]

3. Wyden, Udall and Grayson are standing tall for the US Constitution. Woot! ~nt

[questionseverything]

5. ty

and dbl woot!

[forestpath]

7. +1

[snot]

9. At this point, I find it difficult to trust official assurances that the program has been closed

without the "but verify" part.

[questionseverything]

11. agreed

or perhaps the time frame is misleading,wyden says "a few weeks" but he could be referring to the program change in "11

either way i am still a huge wyden fan

[questionseverything]

10. more from the article

Conason: Our readers wonder what is the real attitude of the president and his administration on this issue? Is the president sincerely interested in reform here, or do you feel that they’re going to resist every real effort at reform right now?

Wyden: Well, you know, the president has told me personally that he wants to have a debate about reforms. I will tell you my gut feeling is that the administration is looking of their own volition at reforms in the bulk phone-records collection area…What I’ve been trying to do, in my discussions with the Obama administration, is to make the case, particularly with respect to leaders in the intelligence community, just how far off the rails this has gone. You’ve had prominent intelligence officials not just keep the American people in the dark, but they’ve actually misled the American people….Intelligence officials at the highest level have to be straight with the American people and with the Congress, and too often that has not been the case.

I mean, they show up at congressional hearings and they say that the phone records program is like a grand jury subpoena kind of process. I don’t know of grand jury proceedings that, on an ongoing basis, authorize the collection of millions and millions of phone records. So yesterday [during a speech at the Center for American Progress], I said, “I’m sure we’ve got some lawyers here. If any of you want to come up after the talk, and tell me about any grand jury proceedings that on an ongoing basis authorize the collection of millions and millions of phone records of law-abiding Americans, come on up.” I was not exactly swarmed in the process. [Laughter.]

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Also interesting, fronm the National Memo pages:

Conason: If somebody like Snowden…came to you and said, “Senator, I don’t want to flee the country. I want to reveal this information. I think it’s in the national interest,” what would you have done?

Wyden: I can’t comment on something like that, Joe, but I could tell you that, of course, I was already aware of the fact that millions and millions of records were being collected on law-abiding people. And I had spent all that time dealing with the fact that the head of the NSA had said, “we don’t collect any data at all,” and I kept trying to pin that down because, again, it just cried out for follow-up. We weren’t able to get answers, and that’s why I notified (Director of National Intelligence) General (James) Clapper the day before the public hearing, that I was going to ask him on the record to respond… He had said repeatedly that they don’t collect data. We were very troubled by all those comments because they were in a public forum…So I think I’ll leave it at that. I would always advise someone not to breach the law, but I can’t comment on that any further.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/wyden-how-we-forced-the-nsa-to-curtail-email-spying-programs/2/

Now, I think that if it was clear that what Snowden has revealed could have been done so by him giving it to the senator, who could then tell the American people, then Wyden would have been able to say that. But instead, he points out how he couldn't tell people how Clapper was misleading them. Which sounds to me as if the only way this could have become public was for Snowden to leak it to an independent media, since senators and government officials would have been bound by the same secrecy laws.

[questionseverything]

13. good point

sounds to me as if the only way this could have become public was for Snowden to leak it to an independent media, since senators and government officials would have been bound by the same secrecy laws.

[Mojorabbit]

16. +100 nt

[JDPriestly]

17. Yes. If something is secret, members of congress cannot divulge it.

I think that destroys the balance of powers that our Constitution requires.

It takes issues away from Congress and permits the president to decide them all by himself.

[oNobodyo]

20. actually...no

Any member of congress can read anything they want into the record and thus 'declassify' it...

Taking a look at the constituents of the intelligence committee might provide a better understanding as to why this hasn't been done.

[PSPS]

14. LOL. "said that they had closed the program down"

And the Obama administration a few weeks ago said that they had closed the program down for what they called operational reasons...

Yes, and pull the other finger. Given Obama's track record, we have to assume this is, at best, "the least untruthful answer." Is it another outright lie? If not, has started back up again? Do you just call it something else now? Is it, instead, being done in another country and then funneled back?

Of course, we can't really know because, well, you know. It's a "secret."

[questionseverything]

15. or a different authority?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-online-metadata-collection

The NSA called it the "One-End Foreign (1EF) solution". It intended the program, codenamed EvilOlive, for "broadening the scope" of what it is able to collect. It relied, legally, on "FAA Authority", a reference to the 2008 Fisa Amendments Act that relaxed surveillance restrictions.

////////////////////////////////////////////

the original bradblog article i posted was very recent....some here contend that we had known one program was stopped and another started...which i tend to agree with but makes me question,

does wyden even know about the new program? or did he deliberately not mention it?

and of course i agree the secret aspect is a HUGEEEEEEEEEEEEEE problem

[blackspade]

18. Thanks for the info.

[kelliekat44]

21. So you try a security program and shut it down when you find out it doesn't work?

closed down in 2011? Are some politicians just trying to make some political hay without looking like they really hate that Obama is President? Does all this give them, in their own mind, a legitimate reason to go after the President without appearing to be what it really is?

[questionseverything]

24. see response 15

looks like a bigger program took it's place

[delrem]

22. Problem is, it's impossible to know the truth about these statements.

Snowden showed us something. Manning showed us something.
So we know that the US admin habitually lies to the people.
And after the skunks Alexander and Clapper testified we know for certain that the heads of National Intelligence and NSA will outright lie to congress.

So I don't believe *anything* that's said - the situation is that bad.

[questionseverything]

23. delrem i think it is a big club

as citizens all we can do is keep the pressure up,continue to tell our gov't to follow the Constitution,and support those in congress that seem to want to do so