NSA, Prism, Snowden,FISA..I am trying to make sense of it

[Peacetrain]

Every time I pull one thread, and think I have an understanding of what happened, three others appear.. like a big old spider web

I am tired of all the ranting, because I do not understand it, and would not mind a little cool headed discussion to get a better feel for this.

This is what I either knew previously or found out trying to sort it out.

FISA courts have been around since the 70's and they are used to snoop on people. You need clearance to listen to phone calls etc.. some reason for it

After 9/11 the goverment more or less threw the FISA courts out the window.. and just started collecting data. There was a brouhaha to end all over that. I remember the craziness of them searching our library cards.. and even judges quit court over the abuse and misuse not non use of the FISA court

Enter the PRISM program in 2007..The Bush Administration was under so much heat they put through congress a new Protect America Act and PRISM is under that, where they could do warrentless searches on communications from big companies without going through the FISA courts.

This is where Snowden comes in. He went to the Guardian and the Post reporters and told them about how large companies like Verizon, Google.. whoever.. because they are routed through the United States, the intelligence community could look at communications of Americans with people overseas.

And since Prism was enacted in 2007, no one had to go to the FISA courts because it was under the Protect America Act

Have I got this straight now?

Because if this IS how it happened, there could be issues later on, for sure, if peoples information and communications were cherry picked.. they could almost be put together in any sort of way, if someone had a preconceived notion, you could pull out certain things and prove almost anything couldn't you?

This is all an act of congress. They are the ones who did the Protect America Act for the Bush Administration.

And since that act is in place, there is no way to go back and prosecute the Bush Administration that I can see.

We have to revisit that PAA in order to get this all straightened out don't we?

I used Wikipedia to try and sort this out.

[dkf]

1. I don't think Congress knows exactly what is being collected and when it started.

Durbin had to add that request for info to a defense bill to attempt to get it from the NSA. I bet it will come back all marked classified.

So no Wikipedia isn't going to give us a full picture because there are very few who know exactly what the facts are and they aren't telling us and are in fact lying to us.

[Peacetrain]

2. I will be honest with you dkf.. I am sure we are not getting the whole story

but once I started reading about the Protect America Act.. It suddenly made sense why Cheney and company did not get prosecuted..they got basically a pass with that act before they left office.

It seems to be the center of this mess, as much as I can make out of it.

EDIT TO ADD: I always have Patriot Act in my head when we start talking about these things, but we could roll the Patriot Act all the way back, we would still have these provisions under the Protect America Act .. If I am understanding this correctly

[dkf]

3. Hmm I don't know much about that act.

Looks like it needs further examination. I wouldn't be surprised if congress gave Bushco a get out of jail card though. Maybe they didn't want to know so they can't be held accountable.

Oh wow....I see it was submitted by Bush.

On July 28, 2007, President Bush announced that his Administration had submitted a bill to Congress to amend FISA. He suggested that the current law was "badly out of date" – despite amendments passed in October 2001 – and did not apply to disposable cell phones and Internet-based communications. The bill he submitted to Congress would address these new technologies, Bush said, as well as restore FISA's "original focus" on protecting the privacy of people within the United States, "so we don't have to obtain court orders to effectively collect foreign intelligence about foreign targets located in foreign locations." He asked that Congress pass the legislation before its August 2007 recess, stating that "Every day that Congress puts off these reforms increases the danger to our nation. Our intelligence community warns that under the current statute, we are missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country".[8]

On August 3, 2007, the Senate passed the bill (S. 1927) in a vote of 60 to 28(110th Congress 1st Session Vote 309). The House followed by passing the bill, 227-183(House Roll Call 836) on August 3, 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protect_America_Act_of_2007

Well that is suspect.

[Peacetrain]

4. That is what it looks like to me

I am not going to lie to you.. this Protect America Act was not even on my horizon.. I do not even think I had heard of it before till I started reading this stuff.. and the one thing that worries me about Wikipedia is that it can be edited too ..

[Fumesucker]

6. Plausible deniability is always important in intelligence work, that would have been built in

It's hardly surprising that much of Congress is ignorant of what's going on, the last thing most of them want is to have any uncomfortable knowledge that can only cause them problems and brings no benefit with it.

"I don't recall." -Ronald Reagan

[Peacetrain]

8. Fumesucker how could some little retired person from Iowa

find this out, and congress does not? Either I am not understanding what I am reading, or we have the dumbest group of clucks in congress that has ever been in those halls..

[Fumesucker]

11. Because you want to know and they devoutly desire ignorance

Not exactly a new phenomenon.

"Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself." -Mark Twain

[Peacetrain]

14. Congress just wears me out

I have never seen a group of people so determined to do nothing and know nothing..

[Mojorabbit]

22. or they don't want to know. It is maddening isn't it? nt

[pnwmom]

5. No, not quite. You're right that after 9/11 Bush began to bypass

FISA and engage in warrantless wiretapping.

But in 2007, with the passage of the Protect America Act, the NSA was allowed to conduct foreign surveillance outside of the US without a warrant. But the government was still required to use the FISA courts to approve warrants for internal US surveillance.

Under the PRISM program, NSA can still spy on foreign targets, but they must go to the FISA court for a warrant in order to spy on US targets (although sometimes the person at the other end of a foreign communication may be in the US, and that person's part of the conversation would be spied on, too).

At least, this is what is supposed to be happening, and what the Obama administration says is happening

In another program, Obama is continuing to collect telephone metadata information on all calls in the US -- ie. phone bill type information, but not listening in on calls (without a warrant). There was a similar program in the Bush administration involving email, that Obama cancelled in 2011.

[Peacetrain]

7. pnwmom, this is a whole different ball of wax if I am reading this right

This is not the Patriot Act.. but a separate Act. I just did a general search ,and there were a ton of sites talking about the Protect America Act. So I am thinking this is a separate act?

[pnwmom]

9. The Protect America act has to do with foreign targets believed to be outside of the U.S.

From Wikipedia:

"The Protect America Act of 2007 (PAA), (Pub.L. 110–55, 121 Stat. 552, enacted by S. 1927), is a controversial amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on August 5, 2007. It removed the warrant requirement for government surveillance of foreign intelligence targets "reasonably believed" to be outside of the United States. The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 reauthorized many provisions of the Protect America Act in Title VII of FISA.[2]"

__________________________

You're right that this was the bill passed in 2007 (and I changed my previous post to reflect that.) The Patriot Act was originally passed in 2001 and re-authorized repeatedly since then. Bush was using the Patriot Act as a legal foundation for warrantless wiretapping within the US -- and Congress was opposed to that. So The Protect America Act was passed to authorize him to conduct foreign surveillance without a warrant -- but left intact laws requiring Bush to obtain warrants from the FISA court for surveillance directed at targets within the US.

[Peacetrain]

13. Yep yep .. I got that..

That is where the Prism program came from..

[pnwmom]

15. Right. But under the PRISM program and under the Protect America Act,

the government is still required to get warrants when they want to engage in surveillance of US targets.

[Peacetrain]

16. pnwmom.. I am pulling this quote out of your earlier post

because I am thinking this is where the whole Snowden mess, the inability to hold anyone in the Bush?Cheney Administration accountable, etc

"The Protect America Act of 2007 (PAA), (Pub.L. 110–55, 121 Stat. 552, enacted by S. 1927), is a controversial amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on August 5, 2007. It removed the warrant requirement for government surveillance of foreign intelligence targets "reasonably believed" to be outside of the United States. The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 reauthorized many provisions of the Protect America Act in Title VII of FISA."

Its that reasonably believed..how could anyone prove it otherwise. You know what I mean. Its so ambiguous, that almost anything could fall under that

I did not even know the thing existed till I was trying to figure out what all this was about, since we have had the Patriot Act for so long.

The article I read about Snowden is that he went to the Post and the Guardian, because..here is where is got sticky for me, all data basically goes through the United States.. and if I am reading this right.. he was concerned because intelligence could sift through any of it, because it comes through ours networks.

So it seems to go back to the PAA .. Everything seems to go back to that one act?

EDIT TO ADD.. this is all going back to Congress.. they are the ones who passed this.

[pnwmom]

17. Unfortunately, a lot of law has gray areas -- not everything is black and white.

I agree that "reasonable belief" is fuzzy language, but so is a lot of legal language -- and one of the things courts do is sort out the meaning of fuzzy language.

I fully support Congress reopening the debate as to what exactly they intended to authorize with these acts.

[Peacetrain]

19. You are absolutely right..

That one thing.. reopening the debate on that one act, might settle out a whole host of issues..I probably am looking for a more definitive answer than is possible. I was just so pulled up short when I started reading about this. How did I miss it? or was there so much stuff thrown out it just went over my head..

[pnwmom]

21. I think everything's still murky now -- the facts need to come out.

And for that we can thank Snowden. I just wish he'd stopped with that and not gone on to passing information about the NSA spying on Russian and China, etc.

[KharmaTrain]

10. There Needs To Be A New Church Commission...

...a full investigation into how pervasive survellience has become in this post Patriot Act age. This has been long overdue this will answer a lot of questions; separate what's tin foil from fact.

There are precious few facts and lots of claims. Every day there's even more tin foil thrown about that may hold some validity but the polarization in this issue has made it hard to get a serious discussion going without names being called. This doesn't help further any discussion of this topic and turns many people off.

The issue is where do your privacy rights end? When you go out in public are you still entitled to annonymity? And does this extend to when you leave your home electronically via the internet or phone system? These are grey areas that I would like defined as well. I find it a bit presumptive that the government is listening to every call, reading every email and saving it all for some future blackmail purposes. I am concerned about how our personal information is bought and sold by companies that can affect your ability to get a job or buy a house or car.

This is a big issue that is now all wrapped up in hyperbole and name calling...

Cheers...

[Peacetrain]

12. Its hard to see the big picture of this..

Yep, name calling does no one any good.. just gets all the juices up and then people cannot get past their own irritation at someone..

So much of this seems to be tied up with these large corporations you are right about that..and all the information they are collecting on us, and that we let them collect on us.. even to the point of knowing what aisle we are shopping in ( I was astounded when I read that the other day).. it is something we need to come to grips with as a nation.

I know what you mean about reading everyone's emails etc.. that is just too much info for anyone to sit and read millions and millions of emails.. but it is disconcerting to think that we have let all this information out there.. and it can be manipulated if needed to prove anything I would think, just because there is so much of it.

[KittyWampus]

18. My understanding from what the whistleblower said is that the system built to collect this data

COULD have been made to protect American citizens' privacy and the gentleman WANTED to build it that way but they were told not too… so the system was deliberately built to invade our privacy and it was more costly as well.

[Peacetrain]

20. It is mind boggling to me..

It just seems like everything that is driving us all around that proverbial bend is coming from that one act.

[AppleBottom]

23. Secret policies that infringe upon the privacy of your fellow Americans

Is really all you need to know. Right?!

Fear and propaganda are great control tools perpetual war helps to reinforce that state of fear.

[reusrename]

24. I think you're on the right track and maybe we can clarify a few things.

Upthread you were discussing the "reasonably believed to be outside the US" part of the statute. Understanding that issue, and a couple more, is sort of key to unraveling the whole scheme.

The statute also allows for inadvertently collected information to be retained and sorted through. The inadvertent stuff (domestic data on US citizens) is supposed to be destroyed. The FISA court has produced secret rules to get around that too:

However, alongside those provisions, the Fisa court-approved policies allow the NSA to:

• Keep data that could potentially contain details of US persons for up to five years;

• Retain and make use of "inadvertently acquired" domestic communications if they contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity;

• Preserve "foreign intelligence information" contained within attorney-client communications;

• Access the content of communications gathered from "U.S. based machine" or phone numbers in order to establish if targets are located in the US, for the purposes of ceasing further surveillance.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3242719

First, under Bush they started bypassing the FISA court all together. These were the laws that were set up back in the 70's. They just flat-out broke the law. So Congress passed the Protect America Act and gave retroactive immunity to a whole class of criminals. And it also set up completely new legal hurdles for surveillance.

My understanding is that the FISA court then went on to make some secret rulings that define precisely what legal requirements must be met in order to snoop on people. Of course, this is all secret, so we don't really know much. But then, enter Snowden who presents a proper set of breadcrumbs to begin unraveling this stuff. His disclosures help to explain how these abstract policies have been physically implemented.

The whole PRISM program is designed to satisfy all of those secret requirements set forth by the secret court. When the PRISM system is used for snooping, the software automatically complies with all of those legal requirements, no matter who is being spied on, or why.

The PRISM system is set up EXACTLY like the robosigners that were used for the illegal bank foreclosures. Only in this case the FISA court and Congress have approved the robosigners, which probably makes it legal.

What the robosigners did during the bank foreclosures was swear under oath in affidavits that they had personally reviewed the relevant paperwork and had determined that everything was in order. In many cases they never even had the relevant paperwork, and even if they did they were signing hundreds of these thing a day. They were just lying.

In order to meet the "reasonably believed" requirement of the law, all that is required is that a duly authorized person execute a sworn affidavit that he believes it to be so, and that we need to take a peek or we will all die. The law grants individual analysts this power, once they have been verbally authorized by either the Director of National Security (Clapper) or by the Attorney General (Holder).


Much more here, if you want to go further into it, here:

The metadata and content are apples and oranges.

and here:

The metadata is the greater danger to liberty and freedom.

[Scurrilous]

25. Kick

[War Horse]

26. K&R for trying to start a rational discussion on this n/t