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One of the NSA’s most important surveillance authorizations is set to expire on December 31st, and all year, reformers have been looking at the reauthorization as a way to pare back the agency’s powers. But after months of negotiating terms, Congress is now preparing a bill with none of the proposed limits, and a number of troubling new measures that say could greatly expand the agency’s power.
Submitted by Rep. Nunes on Tuesday afternoon, the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017 is based on a previous bill submitted by Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), generally seen as the most NSA-friendly of the proposals. The current bill is narrower than Burr’s proposal in some areas, but makes a significant expansion to “about” collection, which allows the NSA to search communications that mention a given target but was not sent or received by the target. In practical terms, that could mean searching a message simply because it contains an email address, phone number, or other string of characters associated with a target.
[...] The bill would also codify the backdoor search loophole, which allows for intelligence agencies to search communications to and from US citizens without obtaining a warrant, as long as those communications were intercepted overseas. While that loophole is most associated with the NSA, it also includes domestic agencies like the FBI, which the current bill says “has the discretion to seek a warrant” if the bureau deems it necessary.
A vote is expected this week.
Congress is sneaking through a major expansion of NSA surveillance powers
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday December 21 2017, @02:15PM (3 children)
Oh, bullshit. Or did you forget the /sarc tag?
Federal law enforcement wants to be allowed to tap into domestic communications without a warrant, because warrants require some degree of actual proof. They make it impossible to just go fishing.
And it's damned easy. All you have to do is take some random data stream and lie about the routing - pretend taht it is shorter to bounce the targetted packets across the border and back, rather than send then straight to their destination. And - voila - warrantless surveillance. Fishing expeditions enabled.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Informative) by captain normal on Thursday December 21 2017, @06:01PM (2 children)
Run a traceroute on packets from your server to SN's server. Even if you live close by, you might be surprised to find connections through Germany and South Korea.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday December 21 2017, @06:56PM
I would have thought Canada, Australia, New Zealand or the UK would be more likely, because of 5 Eyes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @08:59PM
Which Linode data center is SN housed in? My guess is Sweden since I get routed through Stockholm. That automatically makes all SN traffic "suspect".