NSA Semiannual report outlines massive allowances for spying on United States citizens through intelligence agencies meant to gather foreigners’ communication.
QUICK FACTS:
- NSA Semiannual report outlines massive allowances for spying on United States citizens through intelligence agencies meant to gather foreigners’ communication.
- The National Security Administration’s semiannual report outlined a loophole in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that allows for spying on American citizens.
- According to a report by Reclaim The Net, the allowance is meant to allow intelligence agencies to gather communications of foreigners without warrants.
- However, the Inspector General revealed that the holds in place to prohibit information gathering on Americans was meant to the gathering on American citizens was not automatically blocking the queries of US person.
- The report state that the civil liberties and privacy determinations of Section 712 should be amended to require warrants if information about Americans is the object of the search.
NSA STATEMENT:
- “The NSA remains fully committed to the rigorous and independent oversight provided by the NSA inspector general’s office,” an NSA spokesman said in a statement to CNN.
- “NSA continues to employ measures to assist analysts in conducting their work compliantly with civil liberties and privacies protections. As the OIG included in its report, the agency has in place multiple processes to aid in ensuring query compliance.”
BACKGROUND:
- The same issue was cited in the summer of 2013 when The Guardian reported that the NSA had a “secret backdoor into its vast databases” that could be accessed with legal authority.
- The publication reported that the authority was approved in 2011 and contrasted what former President Barack Obama and senior intelligence officials told Congress and the American people.
