Snowden Effect Prompts Release of Info Showing Illegal NSA Domestic Surveillance
For months, the Obama administration fought to prevent the release of details about unlawful NSA surveillance of Americans. But now it has finally caved—publishing a startling secret court opinion that slams the NSA for illegally obtaining thousands of domestic emails sent to and from people with no link to terrorism.
Prior to the leaks of secret documents by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the existence of the classified opinion had been revealed by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. This prompted rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation to pursue Freedom of Information Act litigation to obtain the opinion, which the Justice Department fought aggressively in the courts, as I reported here back in May. The DOJ argued that the release of the material would pose “exceptionally grave and serious damage” to national security.
However, the administration has been under extreme pressure to embrace greater transparency on surveillance since Snowden’s leaks, and the DOJ faced a severe setback in June when a court ruling effectively gave it little option but to publish some of the details. Consequently, the administration finally decided to release a declassified version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion Wednesday, swiftly undermining previous claims that it needed to stay secret.
Far from being sensitive on national security grounds, it appears likely that the opinion was previously withheld only because it could have been perceived as politically damaging. In the 85-page ruling, FISA court judge John Bates blasts the government for withholding key information about a program involving the mass sifting of data about emails and other Internet communications directly off of Internet cables. Bates found that the NSA was “likely acquiring tens of thousands of discrete communications of non-target United States persons and persons in the United States,” violating Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. And the judge noted that it wasn’t the first time that the secret court was misled about the scope of NSA surveillance:
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/08/22/snowden_effect_prompts_release_of_info_showing_illegal_nsa_domestic_surveillance.html
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