[liberationtech] NSA Admits: Okay, Okay, There Have Been A Bunch Of Intentional Abuses, Including Spying On Love Interests | Techdirt

[James S. Tyre]

Best summary: https://twitter.com/slworona/status/370946271646711809

--
James S. Tyre
Law Offices of James S. Tyre
10736 Jefferson Blvd., #512
Culver City, CA 90230-4969
310-839-4114/310-839-4602(fax)
jstyre at jstyre.com
Policy Fellow, Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://www.eff.org


> -----Original Message-----
> From: liberationtech-bounces at lists.stanford.edu [mailto:liberationtech-
> bounces at lists.stanford.edu] On Behalf Of coderman
> Sent: Friday, August 23, 2013 9:46 PM
> To: liberationtech; cpunks
> Subject: Re: [liberationtech] NSA Admits: Okay, Okay, There Have Been A Bunch Of
> Intentional Abuses, Including Spying On Love Interests | Techdirt
> 
> LOVEINT!!!
> 
> oh god this alone makes it all worth it,,, thank you Snowden!
> 
> P.S. setup a bitcoin donation address.
> 
> best regards,
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 9:21 PM, Yosem Companys <companys at stanford.edu> wrote:
> > http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130823/18432024301/nsa-admits-okay-
> > okay-there-have-been-bunch-intentional-abuses-including-spying-loved-o
> > nes.shtml
> >
> > NSA Admits: Okay, Okay, There Have Been A Bunch Of Intentional Abuses,
> > Including Spying On Love Interests
> >
> > from the and-we're-just-now-telling-congress dept
> >
> > So, this week, we wrote about the NSA quietly admitting that there had
> > been intentional abusesof its surveillance infrastructure, despite
> > earlier claims by NSA boss Keith Alexander and various folks in
> > Congress that there had been absolutely no "intentional" abuses. Late
> > on Friday (of course) the NSA finally put out an official statement
> > admitting to an average of one intentional abuser per year over the
> > past ten years. The AP is reporting that at least one of the abuses
> > involved an NSA employee spying on a former spouse. Meanwhile, the
> > Wall Street Journal suggests that spying on love interests happens somewhat more
> often:
> >
> > The practice isn't frequent - one official estimated a handful of
> > cases in the last decade - but it's common enough to garner its own spycraft label:
> > LOVEINT.
> >
> > A handful is still significantly more than once. And it's a lot more
> > than the "zero" times we'd been told about repeatedly by defenders of
> > the program.
> >
> > While the NSA says it takes these abuses seriously, there's no
> > indication that the analyst was fired.
> >
> > Much more troubling is that it appears that the NSA only told its
> > oversight committee in the Senate about all of this a few days ago:
> >
> > The Senate Intelligence Committee was briefed this week on the willful
> > violations by the NSA's inspector general's office, as first reported
> > by Bloomberg.
> >
> > "The committee has learned that in isolated cases over the past
> > decade, a very small number of NSA personnel have violated NSA
> > procedures - in roughly one case per year," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the
> > California Democrat who chairs the committee, said in a statement Friday.
> >
> > Of course, this is the same Dianne Feinstein who, exactly a week ago,
> > said the following:
> >
> > As I have said previously, the committee has never identified an
> > instance in which the NSA has intentionally abused its authority to
> > conduct surveillance for inappropriate purposes.
> >
> > Yeah. Because apparently the NSA chose not to tell the committee until
> > a few days later, despite it happening for years.
> >
> > And, of course, they release this all on a Friday night, hoping that
> > it'll avoid the news cycle...
> >
> > In the meantime, the NSA just made Senator Feinstein look like a
> > complete fool. She's been its strongest defender in Congress for
> > years, and has stood up for it time and time again, despite all of this questionable
> activity.
> > Then, last week, it lets her tell lies about it without telling her
> > beforehand that there had been such abuses. At this point, it's
> > abundantly clear that Feinstein's "oversight" of the NSA is a joke.
> > She's either incompetent or lying. Either way, it appears that the NSA
> > is running circles around her, and isn't subject to any real
> > Congressional oversight. At some point, you'd think that maybe she'd
> > stop defending it and actually start doing her job when it comes to
> > oversight. You'd think the fact that it let her make a complete fool
> > of herself by claiming there had been no intentional abuses should
> > make Feinstein realize that the NSA situation is out of control. But,
> > tragically, this seems unlikely. Even her statement seems to want to
> > minimize the seriousness of the fact that she -- the person in charge
> > of oversight -- was completely kept in the dark about very serious intentional
> abuses. Senator Feinstein just got hung out to dry by the NSA.
> > You'd think she'd stop going to bat for it and its lies.
> >
> > Either way, we've now gone from General Keith Alexander and Feinstein
> > claiming "no abuses," to them saying no "intentional" abuses, to this
> > latest admission of plenty of intentional abuses, including spying on lovers.
> > Perhaps, instead of lying, it's time for the NSA to come clean and to
> > get some real oversight.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google.
> > Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated:
> > https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech.
> > Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing
> > moderator at companys at stanford.edu.
> --
> Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. Violations of
> list guidelines will get you moderated:
> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to
> digest, or change password by emailing moderator at companys at stanford.edu.