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(47,953 posts) Tue Dec 16, 2014, 12:42 PM Dec 2014

Newly-Released Documents Show NSA Claiming An Email Address Is A 'Facility,'

f it's late Friday afternoon and the public's attention is focused elsewhere, it must mean it's time for another document release from James Clapper's office (ODNI). The heavily-redacted documents dumped by the ODNI deal with the precursors to the FISA Amendments Act (FAA): the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) and 2007's interim legislation (Protect America Act or PAA) that bridged the gap between the TSP and the FAA.

The most interesting document in the release is an April 3, 2007 order [pdf link] from the FISA court which contains some rare hesitation from a FISA judge (Roger Vinson) as he deals with the NSA's desire to capture communications without providing probable cause support for its actions.

A footnote attached to the first paragraph of the order makes it clear Judge Vinson felt he was drifting into uncharted waters, with much of that being due to the NSA's shifting definitions of surveillance terms in its previous legal arguments.

This order and opinion rests on an assumption, rather than a holding, that the surveillance at issue is 'electronic surveillance' as defined at 50 U.S.C. 1801(f), and that the application is within the jurisdiction of this Court.

Vinson's order points out that the NSA attempted to change the rules of its interception program, both in terms of the evidence it provides as well as its desire to collect communications of known US persons.

Until recently, these were the only circumstances in which the government had sought, or this Court had entered, a FISA order authorizing electronic surveillance of the telephone or e-mail communications of suspected international terrorists. However, on December 13, 2006, in Docket No. [redacted], the government filed an application seeking an order that would authorize the electronic surveillance of telephone numbers and e-mail addresses thought to be used by international terrorists without a judge's making the probable cause findings described above, either before the initiation of surveillance of within the 72 hours specified in 1805(f)...

more
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141214/08210429437/newly-released-documents-show-nsa-claiming-email-address-is-facility-skirting-probable-cause-requirements.shtml

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