With Repeated Reports Of Long-Term NSA Abuses, Does Anyone Actually Believe NSA Is Following The Law Today?

from the simple-question dept

Wed, Nov 20th 2013 2:43pm — Mike Masnick

Throughout this process of discussing the NSA's surveillance efforts, thanks to Ed Snowden and his whistleblowing, defenders have continued to insist (1) that the NSA isn't abusing its powers and (2) that there's tremendous oversight of the NSA's activities, mainly by FISC. Yet, with this week's declassification of a second FISC ruling in which a judge detailed major, long-term abuses by the NSA, with no consequences, does anyone actually believe the NSA has stopped abusing its powers to violate everyone's privacy?

As a reminder, back in September it was revealed that FISC judge Reggie Walton was pretty angry about abuses by the NSA:

The minimization procedures… have been so frequently and systemically violated that it can fairly be said that this critical element of the overall BR regime has never functioned effectively.

Then there was Judge John Bates' ruling just revealed this week:

...the government acknowledges that NSA exceeded the scope of authorized acquisition continuously during the more than [redacted] years of acquisition under these orders.

These are different violations. And, yet, in both cases, they seemed to indicate rather systematic abuses by the NSA, and very little concern on the part of the NSA to get it right. After all, these problems appeared to go on for years, and were either unreported or not clearly reported to the FISC, which could do little about it.

And that raises a key question, pointed out by Steve Vladeck -- Given these two relatively recent rulings, detailing systematic, widespread and long-term abuses by the NSA in violation of the law, how can any NSA defender claim with a straight face that the NSA is now in compliance?

There may well be explanations for each of the compliance incidents documented in the Walton and Bates opinions; that’s not the point. Instead, the larger message that comes through these newly disclosed opinions is the pervasiveness of compliance incidents, and the extent to which careful supervision by the FISA Court, while apparently able to produce some accountability in response to such incidents (as in the opinions released yesterday), simply does not seem to have mooted these concerns. That is to say, with every new FISA Court opinion responding to new compliance incidents, it becomes that much harder to trust that compliance concerns are ancient history.

Of course, when there's no real "cost" for being non-compliant, why would the NSA care that much about being compliant?

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Filed Under: compliance, fisa court, fisc, nsa

26 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 20 Nov 2013 @ 3:09pm

Kind of reminds me of DMCA notices. There's nothing preventing them from being douches so they will be douches. No penalty for it.

It would be nice if we didn't have NSA defenders quite so far up the NSA's ass. As was mentioned in another article they sound like NSA publicists rather than oversight.

Would you like to know more....
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orbitalinsertion (profile), 20 Nov 2013 @ 3:50pm

I dunno. Did anyone believe they were following the law 20 years ago? The laws themselves aren't so hot , and they just keep getting worse, yet some agencies just have to exceed them no matter what. The intersection of authoritarianism, the worst elements of bureaucracies, and the collector/hoarder impulses is just too much.

I remember right after The Big Terrorist Attacks� watching Congressional hearings where this spokesperson for the FBI was saying that we didn't need new laws, expansion of old laws, or other new crap (like the DHS), we just needed to interact and do our jobs better. I wonder what ever happened to him.
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Christenson, 20 Nov 2013 @ 3:55pm

Bridges In Brooklyn for sale, built by a famous bridge designer
Ever since Ed Snowden documents started coming out, I have been wondering why anyone believed NSA wasn't up to illegalities. I mean, we assassinated Osama Bin Laden, so what else is our government willing to do?
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383bigblock (profile), 20 Nov 2013 @ 3:57pm

Damage Contro....full swing
The answer is "HELL NO". They are already doing damage control. I watched the latest NCIS show last night that portrayed an NSA agent (who will most likely be joining the NCIS Team) who was an analyst. They made a joke (kinda) several times where the character Abbey accused the NSA of spying.... and the canned response was so bad, "You know we can't do that without a court order". She said it on 3 different occasions as if that is the definitive testimony to the truth. It's the old adage, if you repeat a lie enough times it becomes the truth. I wonder if Dianne Feinstein (Frankenstein) had her liberal cronies write that into the script.
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Jason, 20 Nov 2013 @ 3:59pm

You mean
You mean how can we sure they're following the law we're not allowed to see?
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That One Guy (profile), 20 Nov 2013 @ 4:20pm

You know what they say, 'The 567th time's the charm'
Surely after that stern talking to the court gave them(right before signing off on all their requests), surely they're following the law now, right?
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Guardian, 20 Nov 2013 @ 4:21pm

so the nsa teaches kids to say FUCK THE LAW
yup good govt lesson here.
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Guardian, 20 Nov 2013 @ 4:23pm

@4
ya cause a hollywood fantasy show is reality

half your problem is your watching tv ( being spie don by the tv i might add ROFL , which is why they want digital boxes and all the drm on it ...and to make it illegal for you to tamper)
and maybe the other half is your here yapping and doing notta , nothing but stating the obvious.
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383bigblock (profile), 20 Nov 2013 @ 4:45pm

@4 ......idiot
Who taught you English. you're not even ranting coherently (sorry was that too big of a word). Maybe you haven't realized just how politics and the machine works. Feed crap to the sheeple as much as you can and as often as you can and you can rewrite history. I saw the show since my wife had it on, thought it was a pretty lame attempt to "set the record straight". Maybe you didn't catch that nuance from the liberal left (that's Hollywood to you). Pull you head out.......then wash your face.
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Brent Ashley (profile), 20 Nov 2013 @ 5:51pm

The NSA should hook up with the mayor of Toronto.
Then they could join him in his daily news conferences every time yet another agregious transgression is exposed.
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Araldo (profile), 20 Nov 2013 @ 5:52pm

General Alexander and his minions in the NSA, GCHQ and other secret agencies already have more secret power and information about us citizens, than Lavrentiy Beria or Heinrich Himmler both infamous secret services chiefs during Stalin's rule of the Soviet Union or Hitler's rule of Nazi Germany. Now, they want to destroy the freedom of the press in order to have total control. They are no different from other human beings anywhere, when given uncontrolled power they become corrupt, arrogant, paranoid and quite dangerous to us all. It is high time to stop them using any available non-violent means of resistance as our freedoms and democracies are at stake!

I am sending a link to a an article by Sheldon Wolin which everyone should read it:

A Kind of Fascism Is Replacing Our Democracy

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0718-07.htm
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Nov 2013 @ 6:19pm

Are you asking for my least untruthful answer?
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Nov 2013 @ 6:38pm

Sigh
Hey NSA I lost my shopping list do you guys mind sending me a new redacted one?
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Pixelation, 20 Nov 2013 @ 7:52pm

NSA following the law? C'mon, they're out front, making it up as they go.
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Guardian, 20 Nov 2013 @ 8:55pm

@9
i go tthinkin other day about grammer nazis....they enter a thread and whil3 i had no 1ssue r3@ding what he wr0te you do....now the mantra of a neo con is to attack when the message one says is true....

i call then what he says from your actions to be a validation of it....and i got think!ng y0ur a l@wyer or NS@ typ3 whom needs us to typ3 p3rfectly so you can h0ld !t against him/me/us/any0n3 in da n3ar future....

have a nice fcking day
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 2:43am

Re:
Does anyone believe they were following the law 30years ago? or 40 or 50 or 100?

NSA and its previous equivalents have been listening (illegally) to peoples phone calls since phones existed.
(Charlie Chaplin's phone was regularly monitored without a warrant or any sort of evidence other than he "sort of looked wrong - same for Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and endless others)

They've been opening mail since the Pony Express (again illegally) and they're just continuing what they've always been doing its just that now its easier to collect data in bulk via the internet.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 2:45am

Re: You mean
Of course they are, and when they're found NOT following the law we think they should be, they'll just announce the secret law that they were following nicely all along!
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 2:47am

Re: Sigh
Sure:

3 ----------
half a pound of ---------------
12 cans of --------------
a packet of ---------------
and 4 -----------s of -----------
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 2:48am

Re: @9
Or needs us to type perfectly because their NSA filtering software has an issue with @ ! � etc :)
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Pragmatic, 21 Nov 2013 @ 5:24am

Re: Damage Contro....full swing
Does that mean Peter King is a liberal, too?
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 5:35am

"Of course, when there's no real "cost" for being non-compliant, why would the NSA care that much about being compliant?"

There is very much a cost for being non-compliant. They are only beginning to realize the cost now as Congress drafts bills to limit the authority granted by the Patriot Act.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 5:52am

Re: Re: Sigh
it's da bomb
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 9:37am

i doubt it. it's just hard to get it admitted
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 2:35pm

Nope.
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Rekrul, 21 Nov 2013 @ 4:36pm

Re: @9
i go tthinkin other day about grammer nazis...

I count six mistakes in this sentence fragment alone.
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Rekrul, 21 Nov 2013 @ 4:43pm

FISC: The NSA has repeatedly abused the data collection rules for years. We're outraged!

NSA: Sorry about that. Oh by the way, would you mind re-authorizing the bulk data collection plans that we've been abusing?

FISC: Sure thing! Here you go!
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