That's Not Oversight: Head Of FISC Admits He Relies On NSA's Statements To Make Sure They're Obeying The Law
from the that's-not-oversight dept
So, we already wrote about the reports revealing massive NSA abuses in collecting intelligence information, contrary to the claims of the surveillance program defenders -- and in a companion piece, the Washington Post blows up another myth. Beyond the "no abuse" talking point, we've seen the President and defenders, including James Clapper, Keith Alexander and Mike Rogers, regularly argue that the program has full oversight from the other branches of government -- including Congress and the judicial system, in the form of FISC. It's already been shown that the Congressional oversight is a joke, because of obstruction by the Intelligence Committee. And now we know that the "oversight" from the courts was similarly a joke. The chief judge of FISC, Reggie Walton, who has reacted angrily in the past to the claims of FISC being a "rubber stamp", has now admitted that the FISC really can't check on what the NSA is doing and relies on what they tell him to make sure that they're not breaking the law.“The FISC is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided to the Court,” its chief, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, said in a written statement to The Washington Post. “The FISC does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance, and in that respect the FISC is in the same position as any other court when it comes to enforcing [government] compliance with its orders.”That's not quite true. You see, with "any other court" when it comes to "enforcing compliance" things aren't all hidden away from everyone, so there is scrutiny to make sure that there's compliance. Not here.
Either way, this again shows just how laughable President Obama's claims are about the FISC's oversight abilities:
“We also have federal judges that we’ve put in place who are not subject to political pressure,” Obama said at a news conference in June. “They’ve got lifetime tenure as federal judges, and they’re empowered to look over our shoulder at the executive branch to make sure that these programs aren’t being abused.”Not quite. Now we know that they rely on the NSA to tell the judges what they might see if they were looking over their shoulders... and the NSA isn't entirely truthful to FISC about that. For example, in the last post, we noted that one of the big mistakes was collecting a ton of phone calls from the DC area, when someone accidentally typed in "202" -- the area code for DC -- instead of "20" -- the country code for Egypt. It should be worrisome enough that the system is designed in such a manner that such a typo still allows such a massive collection of data (I mean, if they really were trying to limit collection on US information, wouldn't they at least program it not to allow US area codes?). But, even worse, the NSA decided not to tell the FISC about this:
The description of the 2008 problem suggests that the inadvertent collection of U.S. phone calls was not reported to the FISA court.Ooops. No one standing over their shoulder there.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: barack obama, fisa court, fisc, james clapper, keith alexander, mike rogers, nsa, nsa surveillance, oversight, privacy, reggie walton
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
But it looks good!
And the paperwork is done, so the job must be done, too.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: But it looks good!
When the lights indicated that (say) a vent was set to be open and not whether it was open, it meant there was no indicator that a vent might be jammed shut. It made for a disaster waiting to happen.
And ultimately, it did.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Then, we'll wait for the next article on the Washington Post or The Guardian to refute it.
We're here ready for that debate you allegedly welcome.
But, you're going to have to stop lying first.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Hopefully NSA has internal procedures against the same agents making the errors and doing the investigation/prosecution. It is problematic in itself that NSA has to investigate NSA.
With the extremely shaky checks and balances in the rest of the system it would not be surprising, but it would be an even larger systematic failure than congress abuse of information, Obamas constant hypocricy and lying and Clappers lying to congress.
Ultimately we do not know enough about the internal procedure of NSA in these situations to condemn them to hades, yet!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Automating the approval process
Background: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/microsoftr-word-add-in-ends-rubber-stamp-use-and-automates-d ocument-marking-64236462.html
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
We follow the Least Untruth to its ultimate conclusion.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
In other news...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The more that comes out, the worse it looks. It is to the point it's just as bad as it looks to be, despite assurances coming out of Washington.
We know beyond doubt no one in charge of either security nor any one in the executive branch apparently can tell the truth about matters. The lying and cover up must stop. Exposure to the light of day is now required and not by those in charge.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
My congresscritters are all complicit.
So sending crappy email to them isn't going to do diddly.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Truth hurts, eh, Reggie? Suck it up.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's Depressing
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: It's Depressing
And that's why:
I like Chinese,
I like Chinese,
They only come up to your knees,
Yet they're always friendly and they're ready to please.
...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkGkv7NWyl4
Somehow the Britons have figured it all out long time ago.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Supervise
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I bet if you swear to the judge you never broke the law he'll take your word for granted in a trial, right?
Bs...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I fail to see how a setup that gives every reason for a judge to fall into total complacency should be a comfort.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Although it seems like its just falling into complacency since they only ever hear one side of things anyways.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
And make sure there are systems that actually work to safeguard against the judge's abuse of the safety during that term.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Just like Google sez: "We're not being evil! Honest!"
"The new Google privacy policy is: You have no privacy."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Just like Google sez: "We're not being evil! Honest!"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]