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from the we're-not-listening....but-we-might dept.
Breaking a long silence about a high-profile National Security Agency program that sifts records of Americans' telephone calls and text messages in search of terrorists, the Trump administration on Thursday acknowledged for the first time that the system has been indefinitely shut down — but asked Congress to extend its legal basis anyway.
In a letter to Congress delivered on Thursday and obtained by The New York Times, the administration urged lawmakers to make permanent the legal authority for the National Security Agency to gain access to logs of Americans' domestic communications, the USA Freedom Act. The law, enacted after the intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden revealed the existence of the program in 2013, is set to expire in December, but the Trump administration wants it made permanent.
The unclassified letter, signed on Wednesday by Dan Coats in one of his last acts as the director of National Intelligence, also conceded that the N.S.A. has indefinitely shut down that program after recurring technical difficulties repeatedly caused it to collect more records than it had legal authority to gather. That fact has previously been reported, but the administration had refused to officially confirm its status.
[...] The executive branch had been internally divided over whether to push for an extension of the part of the Freedom Act that authorizes the phone records program. Months ago, the N.S.A. presented a bleak assessment of the program to the White House, saying it carried high costs and few benefits, but some officials argued that it made sense to keep the legal authority in case technical solutions emerged to make it work better, according to officials familiar with internal deliberations.
Trump Administration Asks Congress to Reauthorize N.S.A.'s Deactivated Call Records Program
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 18 2019, @12:22PM (3 children)
Sorry, but no. This surveillance thing is far less than 1% of the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act created dozens of laws, modified hundreds of laws directly and indirectly, when it was passed. The Patriot Act is responsible for the FISA courts, among other things. In short, the Patriot Act was a comprehensive reworking of United States Code.
One more authorization for mass surveillance? Just a drop in the bucket, by comparison. And, without the Patriot Act already in place, the NSA authorizations would quickly be found to be unconstitutional.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday August 18 2019, @03:30PM
To those who run the NSA, the constitution doesn't even exist.
There is no point in barking about them. Reining in the NSA will require that we elect a congress that would do it.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @01:38AM (1 child)
FISA already existed. It was put in place, in the 1970s, due to abuses of power by the FBI and CIA-- it was one of the reforms proposed by the Church Committee. Bad solution for the problem, though.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 19 2019, @02:55AM
https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/usa-patriot-act-amendments-to-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-act-authorities [fbi.gov]
Yes, FISA existed before the Patriot Act - but as I alluded, the Patriot Act gave FISA real teeth. Prior to the Patriot Act, FISA was a puppy, with little bitty milk teeth. After the Patriot Act, we had a full grown pit bull on our hands.