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If you thought government surveillance was bad already, it just got worse. A lot worse.
[T]he Obama administration on Thursday announced new rules that will let the NSA share vast amounts of private data gathered without warrant, court orders or congressional authorization with 16 other agencies, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security.
The new rules allow employees doing intelligence work for those agencies to sift through raw data collected under a broad, Reagan-era executive order that gives the NSA virtually unlimited authority to intercept communications abroad. Previously, NSA analysts would filter out information they deemed irrelevant and mask the names of innocent Americans before passing it along.
[...] Executive Order 12333, often referred to as "twelve triple-three," has attracted less debate than congressional wiretapping laws, but serves as authorization for the NSA's most massive surveillance programs — far more than the NSA's other programs combined. Under 12333, the NSA taps phone and internet backbones throughout the world, records the phone calls of entire countries, vacuums up traffic from Google and Yahoo's data centers overseas, and more.
In 2014, The Intercept revealed that the NSA uses 12333 as a legal basis for an internal NSA search engine that spans more than 850 billion phone and internet records and contains the unfiltered private information of millions of Americans.
[...] But this massive database inevitably includes vast amount of American's communications — swept up when they speak to people abroad, when they go abroad themselves, or even if their domestic communications are simply routed abroad. That's why access was previously limited to data that had already been screened to remove unrelated information and information identifying U.S. persons. The new rules still ostensibly limit access to authorized foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes — not ordinary law enforcement purposes — and require screening before they are more widely shared. But privacy activists are skeptical.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Monday January 16 2017, @03:19PM
"Thanks, Obama!!!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @04:15PM
Had the last 8 years been 8 glorious years of "Republican ideal governmental leadership" this still would have happened, just at the beginning of their term not the end. Thank yourself for giving into partisan and personal attacks. You are to blame for allowing it to happen. Blaming the other side or the President or even the nearest person of color does not absolve your blame.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:39PM
Breaking news: liberals have no sense of humor, because humor is offensive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @04:27PM
To be fair, Bush still got a lot of blame while Obama was president. Of course, neither were god-kings so Congress deserves more blame than they get.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday January 16 2017, @05:34PM
Congress get blamed enough already.
Witness their punishing single-digits approval ratings and insulting sub-99% re-election rate.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @05:29PM
These people are trying to destroy the world. It would be a surprise if obama did not start a nuclear war with some country within the next day or so.
The cabal behind this president and the previous ones want total control, and the only way they know is start a full-scale war so they can take whats left.
And now that their world-view did not turn out exactly as they wanted, they are doing all they can to get the same results as they would have gotten with hillrey as president. This is mind-boggling, really.
One of the good things that the new president can do is send this criminal obama to prison for life, along with hillrey and all members (past and present) of AIPAC.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @05:34PM
Let's revisit your retarded paranoia post on the 21st and see how many nukes Obama managed to launch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @07:39PM
Why is it that only Republican Presidents get to leave behind a stinking mess for the next gu? This is new normal. I hope Trump finds cement in the toilets.