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National security officials are continually reassuring Americans that their communications arent getting caught in massive dragnets, and that when it does happen, the communications are handled responsibly. But recently-released opinions from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)the seven-judge panel charged with oversight of National Security Agency (NSA) spying programsshow just the opposite is true.

The heavily redacted documents, released on June 13 by the Department of Justice in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), show troubling abuses of surveillance powers granted under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act.

Section 702, signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2008, authorizes the intelligence community to collect data and metadata of foreign communications, while preventing the agencies from intentionally targeting American people. The goal of this type of online surveillance is to catch the communications of foreign terrorists before they make their way to the United States. Two of the main programs, PRISM and UPSTREAM, were disclosed by the leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013.

As the Washington Post pointed out in 2014, nine out of 10 internet users who have had their data collected under Section 702 were ordinary internet users and not actual surveillance targets. According to the FISC, around 56,000 Americans per year have their communications accidentally sucked up in this process. That means the types of hiccups and compliance issues that these new documents illustrate could be impacting thousands of Americans annually.

One Court opinion, released last week, shows the NSA has engaged in significant overcollection of the content of communications of non-target U.S. persons and persons in the U.S. This type of data collection is supposed to be expressly prohibited. If these allegations are true, this shows even more rampant hypocrisy within the intelligence community, who constantly defend and justify Section 702. If this overcollection is happening, theyve been blatantly lying.

During a June 7 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, NSA Director Mike Rogers continually downplayed issues of inadvertent collection of Americans communications under Section 702. Amid bipartisan questioning from Sens. Ron Wyden and Marco Rubio, he defended the program, calling it vital to national security andsaying it offers insight into foreign powers that could not be matched without the program.

Its bad enough that the intelligence apparatus is collecting too much of Americans communications under Section 702, but theyre also mishandling it once they have it. A 2010 FISC opinion states that the NSA had a compliance incident and failure to purge information that was required to be destroyed under the targeting and minimization procedures from certain NSA data repositories. Minimization procedures require the NSA to stop collecting data once it is determined that the target is within the United States. If the surveillance state is failing to comply with such a basic check on its power and holding onto communications that it should not be keeping, that is an egregious abuse of the powers it is given. It shows a lack of responsibility and failure to own up to mistakes on the part of the NSA.

A 2013 document, also released this week, highlights a similar compliance incident that concerned the [redacted] post-tasking checks NSA conducts to help ensure that [redacted] tasked for collection pursuant Sections 702, 704 and 705(b) of the Act are not being used from inside the United States. The term tasking refersto NSA requests for data or metadata from private companies, which can help NSA officials track the whereabouts of a target. This is particularly used under PRISM, which allows NSA to collect data from at least nine major internet companies servers.

Despite all of the abuses the documents highlight, some members of Congress continue to wholeheartedly endorse Section 702. On June 6, Sen. Tom Cotton introduced legislation to make Section 702 permanent, getting rid of the requirement that it be voted on every five years.

As a justification for the program, Cotton invokes the same need for foreign insights that Rogers mentioned in his testimony, while ignoring the inadvertent collection of Americans data. That type of disregard for Americans privacy is pervasive on both the left and the right.

While not surprising, these documents serve as yet another reminder of the continuing abuse of surveillance powers granted under Section 702. Hopefully the vast revelations of surveillance overreach from groups like EFF can jolt congressional representatives to let Section 702 sunset when its time comes on December 31. But based on Congress overwhelming support for reauthorizing Section 702 in 2012, and Cottons introduction of a bill to make it permit, civil libertarians shouldnt hold their collective breath.

Dan King is an advocate for Young Voices and a journalist residing in New Yorks Adirondacks. He writes about free speech, civil liberties and LGBT issues. He can be found on Twitter @Kinger_Editor.

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There Is Now Proof the NSA Overindulges in Data Collection - Observer

Tri-City Herald

Washington Angels 14U win B NSA state title Tri-City Herald The Washington Angels 14U softball team won the 14U B NSA state championship Sunday at Columbia Playfields in Richland. The Angels went 6-0 on the weekend, with a 6-2 win over the Monarch Crushers in the championship. Team members are: Lexi ...

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Washington Angels 14U win B NSA state title - Tri-City Herald

Illustrative image of cyber counter-terrorism. (photo credit:INGIMAGE PHOTOS)

The foundation of civilization is under cyber attack, said the former commander of Israel's elite intelligence Unit 8200 Nadav Zafir on Monday.

Zafir claimed that the electoral process can be tampered with by unlawful cyber activity and damage infrastructure, putting democratic civilizations at risk.

Zafir, headed what is considered to be the Israeli NSA between 2009 - 2013, made the comments during Cyber Week at Tel Aviv University.

The current chief of the Shin Bet, Nadav Argaman, is scheduled to give a rare talk on Tuesday that will present the audience with some of the means the Israeli security services use to tackle threats from individual hackers. This would be the first time such details will be openly presented to the public.

Today marks the second day of the conference, a unique event that address the challenges of security and privacy, for governments as well as private people, as the Internet becomes ever more present in global communication, finance, and entertainment.

The former chief of the USNational Security Agency (NSA) Keith Alexander also addressed the summit, telling the audience that he recently met with USPresident Donald Trump and that, despite what you hear in the press, the president understands fully existential cyber threats.

Speakers include Homeland Security and Counter Terrorism official Thomas Bossert, who serves as assistant to Trump. Current director of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Nadav Argaman, Check Point CEO Gil Shwed and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani are also in the lineup.

Other speakers include chief information security officer of the Indian Axis bank Ashutosh Jain and Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems. Events include an international war game simulation, a panel on the role of cyber in aviation, and even a cocktail party.

In recent years Israel became a celebrated global leader in the realm of cyber security, hi-tech, and technological innovation. Leading many to label Israel as a "Hi-Tech Nation".

This is the sixth year in which Cyber Week had taken place. This year's event will include round table discussions discussing Israeli - French, India-Israel, and UK - Israel innovation and regulation in regard to cyber security.

Those visiting the conference will be greeted by a huge six meters (19.5 feet) sculpture of a Trojan horse created from molten bits of smartphones, keyboards, and television screens that have been made useless due to a virus attack or remote hacking. The piece, which weighs two tons, was designed by Israeli advertising executive Gideon Amichay for the 2016 conference and became an iconic piece at campus.

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Ex-Israeli NSA chief: Foundation of civilization is under attack - The Jerusalem Post

It is very likely, in fact, most probable that NSA does have those tapes, stated Binney.

Binney continued: I think you already have examples of it where you had conversations that President Trump had with the president of Mexico and also with Australia. All of those have been leaked. Also phone calls involving [former National Security Advisor Michael] Flynn and so on and the White House.

And the point is here, you see, I dont know of any time that the president makes a phone call that is not encrypted. So that means that the people who are intercepting the president have to be able to decrypt it. And the people who provide the encryption and the keys to the systems to be used are NSA, he added.

Binney was speaking Sunday night on this reporters talk radio program, Aaron Klein Investigative Radio, broadcast on New Yorks AM 970 The Answer and Philadelphias NewsTalk 990 AM.

Binney was an architect of the NSAs surveillance program. He became a famed whistleblower when he resigned on October 31, 2001 after spending more than 30 years with the agency. He has remained a sought-after expert on NSA surveillance.

Binney was responding to a series of tweets from the U.S. president last week in which Trump wrote that he did not make and does not have recordings of his conversations with Comey.

However, Trump allowed that with all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea whether there are tapes or recordings of my conversations with James Comey.

On May 12, after Comey had been fired and there was speculation he was behind leaks to the news media, Trump had ominously issued the following warning on Twitter:

In remarks to the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month, Comey described three in-person private conversations with Trump one in January at Trump Tower before the inauguration and two more in the White House after Trump became president and two phone calls between the two.

NSA Absolutely Tapping Trumps Calls

Asked pointedly whether he believes the NSA is bugging the Oval Office, Binney replied, Absolutely.

In February on this reporters radio program, Binney made national headlines when he alleged the NSA was tapping Trumps Oval Office phone calls.

Binney further contended at the time that the NSA may have been behind a data leak that revealed Michael Flynn allegedly misled Vice-President Mike Pence and other Trump administration officials about the contents of his phone calls with Russias ambassador to Washington.

During the interview on Sunday, Binney addressed alleged illicit NSA domestic surveillance that he says is documented in NSA whistleblower Edward Snowdens slides on the agencys Fairview program, which is supposed to focus on the collection of data from foreign countries citizens utilizing switching stations located inside the U.S.

Binney stated:

The slides showing the tap points across the United States where the targets really are the U.S. population and not the foreigners. If they wanted the foreigners all they would have to do is tap the surfacing points for the transoceanic cables. That would be along the coast. You wouldnt need to tap points distributed with the populations of the company. So that is the main program they are using to collect all this data on the fiber networks.

Binney further stated the NSA could remotely turn on cell phone mics to record offline conversations.

Aaron Klein is Breitbarts Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. Follow him onTwitter @AaronKleinShow.Follow him onFacebook.

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EXCLUSIVE Whistleblower: 'Most Probable' That NSA Has Recordings of Trump Phone Calls with James Comey - Breitbart News

Edward Snowden / Getty Images

BY: Natalie Johnson June 24, 2017 5:00 am

The National Security Agency did not know how manyofficials were authorized to download and transfer top secret data from its servers prior tothe high-profile leaks by former contractor Edward Snowden, according to a recently declassified government report.

The NSA was also unsuccessful in attempts to meaningfully cut the number of officials with "privileged" access to its most sensitive databases, the Department of Defense's inspector general determined in the 2016 investigation. The heavily redacted report was obtained by the New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

The agency struggled to achieve the mandated reductions because it had no idea how many employees or contractors were designated data transfer agents or privileged access users prior to the leaks.

NSA officials told the inspector general they lost a "manually kept spreadsheet" that tracked the number of privileged users after receiving multiple requests from the inspector general to provide documents identifying the initial number. The lapse made it impossible for the agency to determine its baseline of privileged users from which reductions would be made.

The report said the NSA then "arbitrarily removed" privileged access from users, who were told to reapply for the authorization. While this enabled the agency to determine how many personnel were granted special access, the NSA still had no way of measuring how many privileged users had lost the clearance.

The inspector general said the NSA should have used this new baseline as a "starting point" to reduce privileged users instead of using the number to declare a reduction in those personnel.

In the case of data transfer agents, the NSA's "manually kept list" tracking the number of officials authorized to use removable devices, such as thumb drives, to transfer data to and from the agency's servers was "corrupted" in the months leading up to the Snowden leaks, the report said.

Without a baseline to measure potential reductions, the NSA then mandated data transfer agents to reapply for the authorization. Again, though this allowed the agency to determine how many personnel were given the authority, the NSA still had no way of gauging how many reductions were made, if any.

The threat proved ongoing earlier this month when former contractor Reality Winner was charged with removing classified information from NSA facilities regarding the Russian election hacks and leaking it to the press.

The initiatives to cut the number of people with access to classified data were part of a broader post-Snowden measure, called "Secure the Net," to strengthen protections of its sensitive surveillance and hacking methods.

The report determined that while the NSA made some progress in achieving reform, the agency "did not fully meet the intent of decreasing the risk of insider threats to its operations and the ability of insiders to exfiltrate data."

NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines acknowledged the report's conclusions in a statement issued to the New York Times last week.

"We welcome the observations and opportunities for improvement offered by the U.S. Defense Department's Inspector General," she said. "NSA has never stopped seeking and implementing ways to strengthen both security policies and internal controls."

It is unclear what steps the NSA has taken since the report was finalized in August 2016 to reduce the number of employees and contractors with access to its top-secret databases.

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Prior to Snowden, NSA Had No Clue How Many Were Approved to ... - Washington Free Beacon