NY Times: Other Agencies Clamor for Data N.S.A. Compiles

[Faryn Balyncd]

Other Agencies Clamor for Data N.S.A. Compiles
By Eric Lichtblau and Michael S. Schmidt


WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency’s dominant role as the nation’s spy warehouse has spurred frequent tensions and turf fights with other federal intelligence agencies that want to use its surveillance tools for their own investigations, officials say.

Agencies working to curb drug trafficking, cyberattacks, money laundering, counterfeiting and even copyright infringement complain that their attempts to exploit the security agency’s vast resources have often been turned down because their own investigations are not considered a high enough priority, current and former government officials say.

Intelligence officials say they have been careful to limit the use of the security agency’s troves of data and eavesdropping spyware for fear they could be misused in ways that violate Americans’ privacy rights. The recent disclosures of agency activities by its former contractor Edward J. Snowden have led to widespread criticism that its surveillance operations go too far and have prompted lawmakers in Washington to talk of reining them in. But out of public view, the intelligence community has been agitated in recent years for the opposite reason: frustrated officials outside the security agency say the spy tools are not used widely enough. . . . . “It’s a very common complaint about N.S.A.,” said Timothy H. Edgar, a former senior intelligence official at the White House and at the office of the director of national intelligence. “They collect all this information, but it’s difficult for the other agencies to get access to what they want. . . The other agencies feel they should be bigger players,” said Mr. Edgar, who heard many of the disputes before leaving government this year to become a visiting fellow at Brown University. “They view the N.S.A. — incorrectly, I think — as this big pot of data that they could go get if they were just able to pry it out of them.”

. . . Officials at the other agencies, speaking only on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the tensions, say the National Security Agency’s reluctance to allow access to data has been particularly frustrating because of post-Sept. 11 measures that were intended to encourage information-sharing among federal agencies. In fact, a change made in 2008 in the executive order governing intelligence was intended to make it easier for the security agency to share surveillance information with other agencies if it was considered “relevant” to their own investigations. It has often been left to the national intelligence director’s office to referee the frequent disputes over how and when the security agency’s spy tools can be used. The director’s office declined to comment for this article. . . . . .


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/us/other-agencies-clamor-for-data-nsa-compiles.html?hp&_r=3&

[mick063]

1. The first order of business it to snub Putin

We will figure out the other shit later.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Either "what could possibly go wrong" or "nobody could have anticipated"

applies. Actually both apply. As does: "if you build it they will come".

Expect the first acknowledged normal law enforcement use to involve "the children".

[mick063]

4. Without question this will end up in the courts

There will inevitably be a grand jury subpoena requesting NSA stored data.

The following litigation will determine if such evidence is admissible. The litigation will be conducted in secret to protect national security. Without public scrutiny, the ruling will not face needed public discourse to consider constitutionality. The ruling itself may not be disclosed without public pressure to do so. That is how secretive this entire process has demonstrated itself to be thus far.

It is so very predictable

[matthews]

3. Aw shucks! Who'd have thunk it?

In pressing for greater access, a number of smaller agencies maintain that their cases involve legitimate national security threats and could be helped significantly by the N.S.A.’s ability to trace e-mails and Internet activity or other tools.

Drug agency officials, for instance, have sought a higher place for global drug trafficking on the intelligence community’s classified list of surveillance priorities, according to two officials.

Dawn Dearden, a drug agency spokeswoman, said it was comfortable allowing the N.S.A. and the F.B.I. to take the lead in seeking surveillance warrants. “We don’t have the authority, and we don’t want it, and that comes from the top down,” she said.

But privately, intelligence officials at the drug agency and elsewhere have complained that they feel shut out of the process by the N.S.A. and the F.B.I. from start to finish, with little input on what groups are targeted with surveillance and only sporadic access to the classified material that is ultimately collected.


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