NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily

[AdamSmith]

Boggles belief.

NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily

Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama

• Glenn Greenwald
• The Guardian, Wednesday 5 June 2013

• Read the Verizon court order in full here

Under the terms of the order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data and the time and duration of all calls. Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

The disclosure is likely to reignite longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government's domestic spying powers.

Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama.

The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets.

The Guardian approached the National Security Agency, the White House and the Department of Justice for comment in advance of publication on Wednesday. All declined. The agencies were also offered the opportunity to raise specific security concerns regarding the publication of the court order.

The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI's request for its customers' records, or the court order itself.

"We decline comment," said Ed McFadden, a Washington-based Verizon spokesman.

The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson, compels Verizon to produce to the NSA electronic copies of "all call detail records or 'telephony metadata' created by Verizon for communications between the United States and abroad" or "wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls".

The order directs Verizon to "continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this order". It specifies that the records to be produced include "session identifying information", such as "originating and terminating number", the duration of each call, telephone calling card numbers, trunk identifiers, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number, and "comprehensive communication routing information".

The information is classed as "metadata", or transactional information, rather than communications, and so does not require individual warrants to access. The document also specifies that such "metadata" is not limited to the aforementioned items. A 2005 court ruling judged that cell site location data – the nearest cell tower a phone was connected to – was also transactional data, and so could potentially fall under the scope of the order.

While the order itself does not include either the contents of messages or the personal information of the subscriber of any particular cell number, its collection would allow the NSA to build easily a comprehensive picture of who any individual contacted, how and when, and possibly from where, retrospectively.

It is not known whether Verizon is the only cell-phone provider to be targeted with such an order, although previous reporting has suggested the NSA has collected cell records from all major mobile networks. It is also unclear from the leaked document whether the three-month order was a one-off, or the latest in a series of similar orders.

The court order appears to explain the numerous cryptic public warnings by two US senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, about the scope of the Obama administration's surveillance activities.

For roughly two years, the two Democrats have been stridently advising the public that the US government is relying on "secret legal interpretations" to claim surveillance powers so broad that the American public would be "stunned" to learn of the kind of domestic spying being conducted.

Because those activities are classified, the senators, both members of the Senate intelligence committee, have been prevented from specifying which domestic surveillance programs they find so alarming. But the information they have been able to disclose in their public warnings perfectly tracks both the specific law cited by the April 25 court order as well as the vast scope of record-gathering it authorized.

Julian Sanchez, a surveillance expert with the Cato Institute, explained: "We've certainly seen the government increasingly strain the bounds of 'relevance' to collect large numbers of records at once — everyone at one or two degrees of separation from a target — but vacuuming all metadata up indiscriminately would be an extraordinary repudiation of any pretence of constraint or particularized suspicion." The April order requested by the FBI and NSA does precisely that.

The law on which the order explicitly relies is the so-called "business records" provision of the Patriot Act, 50 USC section 1861. That is the provision which Wyden and Udall have repeatedly cited when warning the public of what they believe is the Obama administration's extreme interpretation of the law to engage in excessive domestic surveillance.

In a letter to attorney general Eric Holder last year, they argued that "there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows."

"We believe," they wrote, "that most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted" the "business records" provision of the Patriot Act.

Privacy advocates have long warned that allowing the government to collect and store unlimited "metadata" is a highly invasive form of surveillance of citizens' communications activities. Those records enable the government to know the identity of every person with whom an individual communicates electronically, how long they spoke, and their location at the time of the communication.

Such metadata is what the US government has long attempted to obtain in order to discover an individual's network of associations and communication patterns. The request for the bulk collection of all Verizon domestic telephone records indicates that the agency is continuing some version of the data-mining program begun by the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack.

The NSA, as part of a program secretly authorized by President Bush on 4 October 2001, implemented a bulk collection program of domestic telephone, internet and email records. A furore erupted in 2006 when USA Today reported that the NSA had "been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth" and was "using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity." Until now, there has been no indication that the Obama administration implemented a similar program.

These recent events reflect how profoundly the NSA's mission has transformed from an agency exclusively devoted to foreign intelligence gathering, into one that focuses increasingly on domestic communications. A 30-year employee of the NSA, William Binney, resigned from the agency shortly after 9/11 in protest at the agency's focus on domestic activities.

In the mid-1970s, Congress, for the first time, investigated the surveillance activities of the US government. Back then, the mandate of the NSA was that it would never direct its surveillance apparatus domestically.

At the conclusion of that investigation, Frank Church, the Democratic senator from Idaho who chaired the investigative committee, warned: "The NSA's capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter."

Additional reporting by Ewen MacAskill and Spencer Ackerman

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

[RA1]

Here is a prime example of what I just wrote in another thread. Why was a UK paper the first to break this story? Answer: Because our papers are not doing their jobs.

How many more freedoms shall we give up before realizing what is happening and taking the Congress and Executive branch to task? I fear this will not happen.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

The justification tango begins.

Obama administration defends NSA collection of Verizon phone records

White House upholds 'critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats' as senior politicians condemn surveillance

• Revealed: NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily

• Dan Roberts and Spencer Ackerman in Washington
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 June 2013 11.54 EDT

Obama administration said the practice was 'a critical tool in protecting the nation'. Photograph: Rex Features

The White House has sought to justify its surveillance of millions of Americans' phone records as anger grows over revelations that a secret court order gives the National Security Agency blanket authority to collect call data from a major phone carrier.

Politicians and civil liberties campaigners described the disclosures, revealed by the Guardian on Wednesday, as the most sweeping intrusion into private data they had ever seen by the US government.

But the Obama administration, while declining to comment on the specific order, said the practice was "a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States".

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

The disclosure has reignited longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government's domestic spying powers.

Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice under President Obama.

The White House stressed that orders such as the one disclosed by the Guardian would only cover data about the calls rather than their content. A senior administration official said: "Information of the sort described in the Guardian article has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States, as it allows counter-terrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.

"As we have publicly stated before, all three branches of government are involved in reviewing and authorising intelligence collection under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Congress passed that act and is regularly and fully briefed on how it is used, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorises such collection. There is a robust legal regime in place governing all activities conducted pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."

The administration stressed that the court order obtained by the Guardian relates to call data, and does not allow the government to listen in to anyone's calls.

This point was also made by the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, Dianne Feinstein. "This is just meta data. There is no content involved," she told reporters on Capitol Hill. "In other words, no content of a communication. … The records can only be accessed under heightened standards."

Senators Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, and Saxby Chambliss, the vice chairman, speak to reporters about the NSA cull of phone records. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

However, in 2013, such metadata can provide authorities with vast knowledge about a caller's identity. Particularly when cross-checked against other public records, the metadata can reveal someone's name, address, driver's licence, credit history, social security number and more. Government analysts would be able to work out whether the relationship between two people was ongoing, occasional or a one-off.

"From a civil liberties perspective, the program could hardly be any more alarming. It's a program in which some untold number of innocent people have been put under the constant surveillance of government agents," said Jameel Jaffer, American Civil Liberties Union deputy legal director. "It is beyond Orwellian, and it provides further evidence of the extent to which basic democratic rights are being surrendered in secret to the demands of unaccountable intelligence agencies."

The order names Verizon Business Services, a division of Verizon Communications. In its first-quarter earnings report, published in April, Verizon Communications listed about 10 million commercial lines out of a total of 121 million customers. The court order does not specify what type of lines are being tracked. It is not clear whether any additional orders exist to cover Verizon's wireless and residential customers, or those of other phone carriers.

Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific, named target suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets. The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual.

The Verizon order expressly bars the company from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI's request for its customers' records, or the court order itself. "We decline comment," said Ed McFadden, a Washington-based Verizon spokesman said on Wednesday.

'Secret blanket surveillance'

Feinstein said she believed the order had been in place for some time. She said: "As far as I know this is the exact three-month renewal of what has been the case for the past seven years. This renewal is carried out by the [foreign intelligence surveillance] court under the business records section of the Patriot Act. Therefore it is lawful. It has been briefed to Congress."

News of the order brought swift condemnation from senior US politicians. Former vice-president Al Gore described the "secret blanket surveillance" as "obscenely outrageous". "In [the] digital era, privacy must be a priority," he said.

The court order appears to explain the numerous cryptic public warnings by two US senators, Mark Udall and Ron Wyden, about the scope of the Obama administration's surveillance activities.

For about two years, the two Democrats have been stridently advising the public that the US government is relying on "secret legal interpretations" to claim surveillance powers so broad that the American public would be "stunned" to learn of the kind of domestic spying being conducted.

Udall, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, said on Wednesday night: "While I cannot corroborate the details of this particular report, this sort of widescale surveillance should concern all of us and is the kind of government overreach I've said Americans would find shocking."

Russell Tice, a retired National Security Agency intelligence analyst and whistleblower, said: "What is going on is much larger and more systemic than anything anyone has ever suspected or imagined."

Although an anonymous senior Obama administration official said that "on its face" the court order revealed by the Guardian did not authorise the government to listen in on people's phone calls, Tice now believes the NSA has constructed such a capability.

"I figured it would probably be about 2015" before the NSA had "the computer capacity ... to collect all digital communications word for word," Tice said. "But I think I'm wrong. I think they have it right now."

The Center for Constitutional Rights said in a statement that the secret court order was unprecedented. "As far as we know this order from the Fisa court is the broadest surveillance order to ever have been issued: it requires no level of suspicion and applies to all Verizon [business services] subscribers anywhere in the US.

"The Patriot Act's incredibly broad surveillance provision purportedly authorizes an order of this sort, though its constitutionality is in question and several senators have complained about it."

Mark Rumold, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said: "This is confirmation of what we've long feared, that the NSA has been tracking the calling patterns of the entire country. We hope more than anything else that the government will allow a judge to decide whether this is constitutional, and we can finally put an end to this practice."

Howard Wolfson, a deputy mayor of New York, described the revelations as "a shocking report that really exploded overnight".

"A lot of people are waking up now and I think they will be horrified," he said. "It is not just the civil libertarian wings of the Republican and Democratic parties; I think most Americans will be really surprised that their government is having access to all of the phone calls they make."

"I don't think the administration's response [so far] is anywhere near adequate. I think you will see a lot of questions being asked in the coming days."

Oregon senator Jeff Merkley said: "This type of secret bulk data collection is an outrageous breach of Americans' privacy. Can the FBI or the NSA really claim that they need data scooped up on tens of millions of Americans?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/obama-administration-nsa-verizon-records?guni=Network%20front:network-front%20main-2%20Special%20trail:Network%20front%20-%20special%20trail:Position1

[AdamSmith]

Verizon court order: telephone call metadata and what it can show

The US insists call data is not private information, but critics say it allows government to build detailed picture of individuals' lives

• • James Ball
  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 June 2013 10.12 EDT

The US government has long argued that 'metadata' isn't private or personal: it's the equivalent of looking at the envelope of a letter. Photograph: Manu Fernandez/AP

When does mass data collection get personal? When it comes to the contents of our communications – what we say on the phone, or in emails – most people agree that's private information, and so does US law and the constitution. But when it comes to who we speak to, and where we were when we did it, matters get far hazier.

That clash has been highlighted by a top secret court order obtained by the Guardian, which reveals the large-scale collection by the NSA of the call records of millions of Verizon customers, daily, since April.

The court order doesn't allow the NSA to collect any information whatsoever on the contents of phone calls, or even to obtain any names or addresses of customers.

What's covered instead is known as "metadata": the phone number of every caller and recipient; the unique serial number of the phones involved; the time and duration of each phone call; and potentially the location of each of the participants when the call happened.

All of this information is being collected on millions of calls every day – every conversation taking place within the US, or between the US and a foreign country is collected.

The government has long argued that this information isn't private or personal. It is, they say, the equivalent of looking at the envelope of a letter: what's written on the outside is simple, functional information that's essentially already public.

That forms the basis of collection: because it's not personal information, but rather "transactional" or "business" data, there's no need to show probable cause to collect it. Collection is also helped by the fact this information is already disclosed by callers to their carriers – because your phone number is shared with your provider, you're not treating it as private.

But that is not a view shared by privacy advocates. Groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation say that by knowing who an individual speaks to, and when, and for how long, intelligence agencies can build up a detailed picture of that person, their social network, and more. Collecting information on where people are during the calls colours in that picture even further.

One recent case that highlights this tension is the recent subpoenas of the call records of Associated Press journalists, which led to clashes between the media and the White House over what was widely seen as intrusion into a free press.

The information collected on the AP was telephony metadata: precisely what the court order against Verizon shows is being collected by the NSA on millions of Americans every day.

Gary Pruitt, the president of the Associated Press, set forth how monitoring even these "envelopes" could become a serious intrusion: "These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know."

The view on whether such "transactional" data is personal, and how intrusive it can be, is also being tested in the appellate courts, and the supreme court is likely to see more cases on the issue in the near future.

Discussing the use of GPS data collected from mobile phones, an appellate court noted that even location information on its own could reveal a person's secrets: "A person who knows all of another's travels can deduce whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups," it read, "and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts."

The primary purpose of large-scale databases such as the NSA's call records is generally said to be data-mining: rather than examining individuals, algorithms are used to find patterns of unusual activity that may mark terrorism or criminal conspiracies.

However, collection and storage of this information gives government a power it's previously lacked: easy and retroactive surveillance.

If authorities become interested in an individual at a later stage, and obtain their number, officials can look back through the data and gather their movements, social network, and more – possibly for several years (although the secret court order only allows for three months of data collection).

In essence, you're being watched; the government just doesn't know your name while it's doing it.

Until now, such actions have been kept a tightly guarded and classified secret, speculated upon, suspected, and occasionally disclosed by sources, but never proven by documents.

Now the confirmation is in the open, the American public have the opportunity to decide which definition of private information they prefer: that of the privacy advocates, or that of the NSA and White House.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/phone-call-metadata-information-authorities

[RA1]

I am a privacy advocate but from their actions if not their sentiments I am willing to surmise that the general US public is not. Or, perhaps they are just not considering what they are doing and the various consequences. I support my claim by the widespread use of facebook and other "social media". At first all this was seemingly completely innocent; friends keeping up with friends, but many now know that almost anyone can know all too much about one's life. I have never understood this phenomenon but then I have never sent "Christmas letters" and the like to friends and family.

Regardless of what private citizens do, the government has no right to usurp what many believe to be Constitutional rights. Eventually, the Patriot Act may be and should be found to be illegal or unconstitutional.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

Obama Administration Releases Nation’s Phone Records To Public

‘We Are Making Every Effort To Be Transparent,’ Says President

News in Brief • Politics • politicians • barack obama • ISSUE 49•23 • Jun 6, 2013

WASHINGTON—On the heels of reports that the National Security Agency has secretly been amassing the private telephone records of Verizon’s more than 120 million customers, President Barack Obama announced Thursday that his administration is releasing the entire country’s phone records to the public in an effort to handle the situation with complete transparency. “Honesty and openness have always been the hallmarks of my presidency, which is why I believe that everybody should have free access to this essential information,” the president said at a press conference, encouraging the public to visit a newly created online database containing the time, duration, and location of every wireless and landline phone call made by all 315 million Americans. “We—all of us—are laying our cards on the table here. Now, everyone in the country will know who’s calling whom, and when, and how often, and for how long. My administration doesn’t have any secrets, and from now on, neither will you.” Obama noted that, for the sake of national security, personal emails, consumer reports, and medical histories will remain the exclusive property of the federal government.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/obama-administration-releases-nations-phone-record,32712/

[RA1]

Sorry, but I am not persuaded. BO's administration has had a LOT of secrets and by far most of them are not released or transparent. The early and often promised transparency just has not happened.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

That article is The Onion's take on the story.

[AdamSmith]

Here is a prime example of what I just wrote in another thread. Why was a UK paper the first to break this story? Answer: Because our papers are not doing their jobs.

Others are noting the same thing.

Obama Administration Confirms Massive Surveillance Program Of U.S. Citizens

JONATHAN TURLEY Res ipsa loquitur ("The thing itself speaks")

Published 1, June 6, 2013

While the media in the United States (with some notable exceptions) have been criticized for relatively soft coverage of attacks on civil liberties by the Obama Administration, the British press appears to be filling the gap. The Guardian is reporting on a massive surveillance program by the Obama Administration where the government has ordered Verizon (and presumably other carriers) to turn over all calls made within the United States and calls between the United States and other countries. The surveillance was conducted under an order from our controversial secret court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and demanded by the Justice Department and the FBI. The Administration has confirmed the existence of the program — another blow to civil liberties under Attorney General Eric Holder and this president. It also adds another area where Obama officials appear less than candid with Congress.

The order signed by Judge Roger Vinson requires the company to turn over the phone numbers, location, duration, time and unique identifiers for all calls for all citizens. There is no effort to confine the search for individuals connected to any investigation. It is a sweeping surveillance on all citizens. Of course, just as Democrats have remained quiet over the recent attacks on the free press, it is not clear if even this abuse will generate opposition in Congress. Civil libertarians have been complaining for years about these programs and have met a wall of silence from Democrats protecting President Obama and Eric Holder.

In February, the Administration succeeded in blocking a challenge to its surveillance policies by arguing that any confirmation of such programs would put American lives at risk. Now that the case is dismissed, they have simply acknowledged the program. The decision is Clapper v. Amnesty International, No. 11-1025, and it is a true nightmare for civil liberties. The Supreme Court rejected the standing of civil liberties groups and citizens to challenge the Obama Administration’s surveillance programs. President Obama has long been criticized for his opposition to such lawsuits and his Justice Department has continued a successful attack on the ability of citizens to challenge the unconstitutional actions of their government in the war on terror. The 5-4 opinion by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. insulates such programs from judicial review in yet another narrowing of standing rules.

Alito rejected the ability of an array of journalists, lawyers and human rights advocates to challenge the constitutionality of the 2008 law allowing secret surveillance without meeting constitutional standards of probable cause. Alito simply said that the parties could not prove that they were subject to surveillance — since the Obama Administration has classified such evidence — and insisted that their fears and precautionary actions are merely efforts to “manufacture standing by incurring costs in anticipation of nonimminent harms.”

Alito wrote that just because no one may be able to challenge the law is no reason to recognize standing — a position that guts the separation of powers principles underlying judicial review. He also cites to the secret FISA as judicial review — a truly laughable proposition. I have been in that court as a NSA legal intern and the thought that it constitutes any real form of review is a preposterous notion. I have written and testified on this court in the past.

Now we can see the inevitable consequence of this secret court and the Administration’s surveillance program. The Administration is creating a massive databank for all calls, including calls within the United States. This surveillance program is the result of a sense of political immunity reflected in this Administration. With some Democrats blindly following this President, there appears no concern over excessive surveillance or the ever-expanding security state. It is the final evidence of how Obama has truly crippled the civil liberties movement in the United States.

http://jonathanturley.org/2013/06/06/obama-administration-confirms-massive-surveillance-program-by-nsa/

[RA1]

As noted previously, sometimes fact and fiction are very closely related. The WH did put out a report that all was OK with collecting phone records. Of course, neither the WH nor other "real" news sources mentioned caller's names, etc.

Thanks for the clarification although my comment largely remains the same.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

The New York Times is livid: "...The administration has now lost all credibility. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it..."

Editorial

President Obama’s Dragnet

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Published: June 6, 2013

Within hours of the disclosure that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.

Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability. The administration has now lost all credibility. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the 9/11 attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.

Based on an article in The Guardian published Wednesday night, we now know the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency used the Patriot Act to obtain a secret warrant to compel Verizon’s business services division to turn over data on every single call that went through its system. We know that this particular order was a routine extension of surveillance that has been going on for years, and it seems very likely that it extends beyond Verizon’s business division. There is every reason to believe the federal government has been collecting every bit of information about every American’s phone calls except the words actually exchanged in those calls.

A senior administration official quoted in The Times offered the lame observation that the information does not include the name of any caller, as though there would be the slightest difficulty in matching numbers to names. He said the information “has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats,” because it allows the government “to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.”

That is a vital goal, but how is it served by collecting everyone’s call data? The government can easily collect phone records (including the actual content of those calls) on “known or suspected terrorists” without logging every call made. In fact, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was expanded in 2008 for that very purpose. Essentially, the administration is saying that without any individual suspicion of wrongdoing, the government is allowed to know who Americans are calling every time they make a phone call, for how long they talk and from where.

This sort of tracking can reveal a lot of personal and intimate information about an individual. To casually permit this surveillance — with the American public having no idea that the executive branch is now exercising this power — fundamentally shifts power between the individual and the state, and repudiates constitutional principles governing search, seizure and privacy.

The defense of this practice offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to be preventing this sort of overreaching, was absurd. She said today that the authorities need this information in case someone might become a terrorist in the future. Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the vice chairman of the committee, said the surveillance has “proved meritorious, because we have gathered significant information on bad guys and only on bad guys over the years.”

But what assurance do we have of that, especially since Ms. Feinstein went on to say that she actually did not know how the data being collected was used?

The senior administration official quoted in The Times said the executive branch internally reviews surveillance programs to ensure that they “comply with the Constitution and laws of the United States and appropriately protect privacy and civil liberties.”

That’s no longer good enough. Mr. Obama clearly had no intention of revealing this eavesdropping, just as he would not have acknowledged the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, had it not been reported in the press. Even then, it took him more than a year and a half to acknowledge the killing, and he is still keeping secret the protocol by which he makes such decisions.

We are not questioning the legality under the Patriot Act of the court order disclosed by The Guardian. But we strongly object to using that power in this manner. It is the very sort of thing against which Mr. Obama once railed, when he said in 2007 that the Bush administration’s surveillance policy “puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide.”

Two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, have raised warnings about the government’s overbroad interpretation of its surveillance powers. “We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted Section 215 of the Patriot Act,” they wrote last year in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. “As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows. This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn’t know what its government thinks the law says.”

On Thursday, Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, who introduced the Patriot Act in 2001, said that the National Security Agency overstepped its bounds by issuing a secret order to collect phone log records from millions of Americans. “As the author of the Patriot Act, I am extremely troubled by the F.B.I.’s interpretation of this legislation,” he said in a statement. “While I believe the Patriot Act appropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights, I have always worried about potential abuses.” He added: “Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.”

This stunning use of the act shows, once again, why it needs to be sharply curtailed if not repealed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/opinion/president-obamas-dragnet.html?_r=0

[Guest EXPAT]

[Guest hitoallusa]

I know it may sound insensitive but let's take it granted that the US government is doing this and shift focus on how to make these programs run by the government effective to deter terrorist attacks. Despite of these programs, the government still fails to prevent attacks on Americans such as Boston bombing. I understand privacy is important and must be respected but we need to deter terrorists attacks. I have nothing to hide and they can listen to whatever conversations I carry out. I don't think they will be too interested in my shoes. If they come and try to take away my shoes, then I will fight to the death.

For me the issue is not whether they tap into my conversations or not. Either way I will be fine. I'm more focused on how they use it effectively to make a safe environment for the country. It is inevitable that the government has to monitor all communications in the future. People will come up with ways to counter government surveillance programs anyways and it will get so complicated and complex that even though the government has all the communications they won't be able to catch up with attempts to evade the surveillance.

[RA1]

We shouldn't have to "come up with ways" to counter government programs of any sort. The ability to lead a quiet and peaceful, productive life is called a right. The feds are interfering with those rights and it is only getting worse.

The government cannot make one safe. In a free and open society there is always the risk that someone will do something "unsafe". That includes your neighbor getting drunk and killing someone or a terrorist attack. We may be on the verge of a police state now. I urge everyone to think this over.

Best regards,

RA1

[lookin]

I have nothing to hide and they can listen to whatever conversations I carry out. I don't think they will be too interested in my shoes. If they come and try to take away my shoes, then I will fight to the death.

Hito, the piece you seem to be overlooking is that the intentions of a government - or any organization - can change over time. Even if those currently in power remain committed to your freedoms, right up until the day they leave office, new officials will eventually be elected or appointed. And those new officials may not be as committed to the freedoms you enjoy today. What if someone decides in secret one day that you are a threat to the "Homeland"? While you may be unable or unwilling to consider that possibility, I'd encourage you to start paying some heed to it.

History is full of examples of bad folks grabbing power from good folks, and of good folks turning into bad folks, and of folks who started out acting good and then ended up acting bad. Plenty of Germans were happy to see Hitler become a dictator, as he promised a renewed country with goodies for all but a very few. It was only after he became der Führer that the dangers of that form of government began to manifest themselves.

Just because you're happy to open yourself up to those in power today doesn't mean you'll be happy if tomorrow's government officials become anti-freedom, anti-gay, or - Heaven forfend! - anti-Ferragamo.

Unless we're all soothsayers, we can't predict that future. All we can do is try to set up a government that is based on the rule of law - law that we all get to know about, and law that we all get to vote on - and then fight like hell to protect that form of government.

If we start giving up our active roles in how that government operates, there will be no shortage of folks who will be eager to mold that government to their own ends. If you are in a position to be one of the inner circle, you may be fine. But, should you find yourself an outsider one day, you may regret having surrendered your voice.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Oh my no to anti-Ferragamo! Lookin I get your point.

[RA1]

Do you? I think you are a very nice guy, but do you GET our points?

Best regards,

RA1

[Guest hitoallusa]

GET? What does it stand for? Gather, Elaborate, and Transfer. It sounds like a motto for an agency. Just kidding.

I do get Lookin's point but I'm a realist. What's happening is inevitable and people will eventually change perspective on this matter. Not saying that our privacy will be ignored. Government will find ways to do this without infringing one's privacy too much.

Do you? I think you are a very nice guy, but do you GET our points?

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

I do get Lookin's point but I'm a realist.

We need to have a discussion about this realism.

In a position that we have not heretofore tabled.

[RA1]

_{You are going to hide his shoes and then bring up other things for consideration?}

_{Best regards,}

_RA1

[AdamSmith]

This abuse of the Patriot Act must end

President Obama falsely claims Congress authorised all NSA surveillance. In fact, our law was designed to protect liberties

• • Jim Sensenbrenner
  • guardian.co.uk, Sunday 9 June 2013 07.00 EDT

We've gotten used to what "Big Government" looks like – Washington's unchecked deficit spending, the Obama administration's policing of the press and the IRS's targeting of conservative groups. But the problem is bigger than we thought. "Big Brother" is watching. And he is monitoring the phone calls and digital communications of every American, as well as of any foreigners who make or receive calls to or from the United States.

Last week, the Guardian reported that the Obama administration is collecting records of every call made to, from or within the US, as well as records of many digital communications. President Obama has tried to deflect criticism by claiming "every member of Congress has been briefed on this program." While some members of Congress were briefed – particularly those on the intelligence committees – most, including myself, were not.

The administration claims authority to sift through details of our private lives because the Patriot Act says that it can. I disagree. I authored the Patriot Act, and this is an abuse of that law.

I was the chairman of the House judiciary committee when the US was attacked on 11 September 2001. Five days later, the Justice Department delivered its proposal for new legislation. Although I, along with every other American, knew we had to strengthen our ability to combat those targeting our country, this version went too far. I believed then and now that we can defend our country and our liberty at the same time.

I immediately called then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert and asked him for time to redraft the legislation. I told the speaker that if the legislation moved forward as drafted, I would not only vote against it, but would actively oppose it.

The country wanted action, and the pressure from the White House was intense. To his credit, Speaker Hastert gave us more time. There were endless meetings and non-stop negotiations with the White House, the FBI and the intelligence community. The question could not have been more fundamental: how could we defend our liberty and protect the American people at the same time?

The legislation had to be narrowly tailored – everyone agreed that we could not allow unrestrained surveillance. The Patriot Act had 17 provisions. To prevent abuse, I insisted on sunsetting all the provisions so that they would automatically expire if Congress did not renew them. This would allow Congress to conduct oversight of the administration's implementation of the act.

In 2006, Congress made 14 of the provisions permanent because they were noncontroversial. The three remaining provisions, including the so-called business records provision the administration relied on for the programs in question, will expire in 2015 if they are not reauthorized.

The final draft was bipartisan and passed the judiciary committee unanimously. The Patriot Act has saved lives by ensuring that information is shared among those responsible for defending our country and by giving the intelligence community the tools it needs to identify and track terrorists.

In his press conference on Friday, President Obama described the massive collection of phone and digital records as "two programs that were originally authorized by Congress, have been repeatedly authorized by Congress". But Congress has never specifically authorized these programs, and the Patriot Act was never intended to allow the daily spying the Obama administration is conducting.

To obtain a business records order like the one the administration obtained, the Patriot Act requires the government to prove to a special federal court, known as a Fisa court, that it is complying with specific guidelines set by the attorney general and that the information sought is relevant to an authorized investigation. Intentionally targeting US citizens is prohibited.

Technically, the administration's actions were lawful insofar as they were done pursuant to an order from the Fisa court. But based on the scope of the released order, both the administration and the Fisa court are relying on an unbounded interpretation of the act that Congress never intended.

The released Fisa order requires daily productions of the details of every call that every American makes, as well as calls made by foreigners to or from the United States. Congress intended to allow the intelligence communities to access targeted information for specific investigations. How can every call that every American makes or receives be relevant to a specific investigation?

This is well beyond what the Patriot Act allows.

President Obama's claim that "this is the most transparent administration in history" has once again proven false. In fact, it appears that no administration has ever peered more closely or intimately into the lives of innocent Americans. The president should immediately direct his administration to stop abusing the US constitution.

We all know the saying "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." We are seeing that truth demonstrated once again.

Our liberties are secure only so long as we are prepared to defend them. I and many other members of Congress intend to take immediate action to ensure that such abuses are not repeated.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/09/abuse-patriot-act-must-end?guni=Network%20front:network-front%20full-width-1%20bento-box:Bento%20box:Position2

[Guest hitoallusa]

Well I want stop poverty in the end and not a single person suffer from poverty. In reality, I can't do that. Why? I don't think people who created this kind of program is mean spirited or evil. They did it out of necessity because of our reality. It will be great if we don't have to use condoms during sex but we need them to protect ourselves. The program is needed and will be accepted in the future out of necessity. What I'm thinking is a program not necessary listening into conversations but look for patterns. Banks operate in a certain pattern different from other businesses, if we can pick up a "frequency" or pattern of a certain activity such as purchasing weapons by terrorists, we can effectively deter major terrorists attacks and also do something effectively about drug and human trafficking. I bet counter measure programs to a government surveillance program such as Prism will be developed by criminals, hackers, adventurers and enemies. In turn, counter counter measures will be devised again. It's not all negative since during the process, new technologies and inventions will eventually emerge and modified to benefit our society.

We can't simply label the NSA as this evil entity that is out there to invade our privacy. We need to work with them so that they can properly function as part of the intelligence community. There are conflict, anger, hatred, arrogance, boast, materialism, despise, abuse, exploitation in our daily lives. The government has its responsibility to protect the country in the presence of many threats and conflicts. They might not be doing everything right and they of course might be doing something wrong.