General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: FISA & EPCA the facts & nothing more [View all]giftedgirl77
(4,713 posts)I am going to start at the beginning of the article & work my way down:
Greenwald states in the 3d paragraph below the Title No Individual Warrants Are Required Under 2008 FISA, "Under the FAA, which was just renewed last December for another five years, no warrants are needed for the NSA to eavesdrop on a wide array of calls, emails and online chats involving US citizens. Individualized warrants are required only when the target of the surveillance is a US person or the call is entirely domestic. But even under the law, no individualized warrant is needed to listen in on the calls or read the emails of Americans when they communicate with a foreign national whom the NSA has targeted for surveillance."
As I stated in my initial post, this is just a flat out distortion of what FISA states particularly subsection 702(b) which states specifically that an acquisition may not intentionally target any person known at the time of acquisition to be located in the United States; may not intentionally target a person reasonably believed to be located outside the United States if the purpose of such acquisition is to target a particular, known person reasonably believed to be in the United States; may not intentionally target a U.S. person reasonably believed to be located outside the United States; may not intentionally acquire any communication as to which the sender and all intended recipients are known at the time of the acquisition to be located in the United States; and must be conducted in a manner consistent with the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
A few key points of the excerpt of 702(b) above is this is the same thing I have been saying, there are very strict laws covering the Intel gathering techniques used when they are involving US persons whether they are here or abroad. All of that is covered above. Now as I stated in the original post it was decided by the Supreme Court in 1979 that obtaining just an individuals phone numbers is not considered a violation of the 4th Am due to no reasonable expectation of privacy. So gathering the phone records goes out the window. It may be crappy but until it is challenged with some relevancy it's the law, no different that many other laws we have on the books. The FISC as well as the AG/DNI are only authorized to to approve the court orders or target individuals listed above and specifically cannot target point to point individuals within the US.
Listed in the 2d paragraph following Warrantless interceptions of American's communications, Greenwald states that "communications of or concerning United States persons that may be related to the authorized purpose of the acquisition may be forwarded to analytic personnel responsible for producing intelligence information from the collected data." It also states that "such communications or information" - those from US citizens - "may be retained and disseminated" if it meets the guidelines set forth in the NSA's procedures.
This is alluding to the documents that were approved for procurement as noted in subection 702(b), so essentially what is occurring is once approval has been granted to obtain the documents have been obtained they are forwarded to an analyst for interpretation and/or dissemination. FISA spells out exactly how long these documents can be maintained & the warrant is only good for 1 year, it can not be a blanket warrant.
Finally, the entire tale going around about the FISC being one judge that just rubber stamps these orders is also inaccurate. Under 50 U.S.C. § 1803(a), what actually occurs is the Chief Justice of the US appoints 11 judges, from no fewer than 7 of the US districts, 3 of whom must live within 30 miles of DC. When a warrant comes up it goes to one of the 11 judges for review, if the request is denied, then the judge must write a memo stating why it was denied to include in the file. The denial cannot then be forwarded to another judge. However, there is a FISC Of Review, that apparently has gone completely unnoticed in all of this maylay. There are also 3 judges appointed to that court. If the Gov petitions the COR then the denial is sent to them under seal, if they still deny it then it can go to the SCOTUS.
This article has a whole lot of speculation & hearsay without much facts, yes, I stopped halfway through because I could make this a very long write up & I think I saw something yesterday saying there were rules against that.
If you genuinely have a question or want to have a real discussion about this I will be happy to do so.
I am not a cheer squad for anyone & this program needs a whole lot of work but, there is a lot more information out there than everyone is making it seem.
The link below is actually to a lot of information regarding FISA and the courts.
https://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/