Declassified National Security Agency documents show that it unlawfully scooped up as many as 56,000 emails and other “wholly domestic” communications with no connection to terrorism annually over three years.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has authorized
the release of three secret US court opinions Wednesday. The
documents show how the NSA inadvertently collected tens of
thousands of emails and other communications by Americans over
three years, despite the fact they had no links to
terrorism.
The NSA collected huge amounts of data passing through
fiber-optic cables in the US. It then stored the material, along
with a selection of foreign communications. Though domestic data
was not officially targeted, the agency was unable to filter out
communications between Americans, the reports said.
When the NSA reported to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2011 -- three years after Congress authorized the surveillance programs that led to the improper gathering -- the court found the collection unconstitutional and ordered the agency to find ways to limit what it collected and how long it kept information.
The judge John D. Bates said that the government had “advised the court that the volume and nature of the information it has been collecting is fundamentally different from what the court had been led to believe,” according to the declassified 86-page opinion.
Clapper said that following the ruling the NSA changed how it gathered information so as to segregate the transactions of Americans which were deemed to be wholly domestic. In 2012, the agency destroyed the information that it had collected.
The new disclosures depict a FISA court, lauded by President
Obama and other government officials as proof the NSA operates
with careful checks in place, that allowed NSA programs to
continue without full understanding of their collection
capabilities. Critics have called the FISA court a ‘rubber stamp’
for NSA spying. For example, in 2012, the court did not deny any of the 1,789
applications made by the US government for authority to conduct
electronic surveillance and physical searches for foreign
intelligence purposes, according to official documents.
Lawmakers responded to the released documents with requests to
the White House for further clarification and oversight of NSA
activities. Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) asked for a briefing for
the full Senate from NSA director Keith Alexander to discuss
surveillance procedures.
“This briefing should discuss the totality of NSA operations,
including but not limited to those that have already been
discussed publicly,” Corker wrote to the White House.
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) stressed the need for more
oversight of NSA activities.
“A special advocate could force the FISA court to impose strict
limits on government surveillance, to ask tough questions of
Executive Branch officials, and to ensure that the government
cannot engage in unconstitutional activity for years before the
court finds out and shuts it down,” Blumenthal said.
The American Civil Liberties Union's Deputy Legal Director Jameel
Jaffer reacted to the disclosures highlighting how simple such
abuses in NSA surveillance programs have become.
“These opinions indicate that the NSA misrepresented its
activities to the court just as it misrepresented them to
Congress and the public, and they provide further evidence that
current oversight mechanisms are far too feeble. More
fundamentally, the documents serve as a reminder of how
incredibly permissive our surveillance laws are, allowing the NSA
to conduct wholesale surveillance of Americans’ communications
under the banner of foreign intelligence collection. This kind of
surveillance is unconstitutional, and Americans should make it
very clear to their representatives that they will not tolerate
it.”
In response to the myriad leaks regarding NSA spying programs,
the office of the Director of National Intelligence released
Wednesday a Tumblr page “to provide the public with direct
access to factual information related to the lawful foreign
surveillance activities carried out by the Intelligence
Community.” Though despite the new site, the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, which was responsible for the release
pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request, was first to
post the newly-disclosed 2011 FISA court opinion.
President Obama alluded to the transparency site on August 9 in
an address pertaining to the NSA leaks. During that speech, Obama
maintained that the government has not abused surveillance
programs, despite Wednesday’s disclosures suggesting otherwise.
"And if you look at the reports — even the disclosures that
Mr. Snowden has put forward — all the stories that have been
written, what you’re not reading about is the government actually
abusing these programs and listening in on people’s phone calls
or inappropriately reading people’s emails,”Obama said on Aug. 9. “What you’re hearing about
is the prospect that these could be abused. Now, part of the
reason they’re not abused is because these checks are in place,
and those abuses would be against the law and would be against
the orders of the FISC."
The new disclosures come months after former NSA contractor
Edward Snowden leaked thousands of documents to the Guardian and
The Washington Post about the huge surveillance programs of US
and UK spy agencies.
The British government has since made the Guardian destroy
Snowden’s files under the threat of legal action, citing reasons
of national security.
However, the Guardian said the material still exists in the US
and Brazil, and that it will still publish relevant stories on
the issue.