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This is because the things people are worried about is found in Executive Order 12333. From section 2.3 of the EO, “ Agencies within the Intelligence Community

by parsimo2010 6y ago

This is because the things people are worried about is found in Executive Order 12333. From section 2.3 of the EO, “ Agencies within the Intelligence Community are authorized to collect, retain or disseminate information concerning United States persons only in accordance with procedures established by the head of the agency concerned and approved by the Attorney General, consistent with the authorities provided by Part 1 of this Order ... Collection within the United States of foreign intelligence not otherwise obtainable shall be undertaken by the FBI” The tl;dr is that agencies in the intelligence communities must take full consideration of Americans’ rights when collecting information, and historically have not found suitable procedures to operate internally that satisfy the lawyers. That is how we ended up with FISA because we determined that the only way to protect Americans from the IC trampling on their rights (but still enable internal collection when necessary) was to have a judge examine every request to collect intelligence on US soil. The counter argument to this article is that the NSA doesn’t need specific permission from Congress to collect within the borders of the US- they just have to come up with a way to do it that their general counsel and the Attorney General agree protects the rights of Americans. I know FISA has shortfalls, but we shouldn’t get rid of it and enable mass surveillance of Americans by the NSA just because election security is a hot topic. The erosion of rights is nearly irreversible. There are other options that don’t worry me, such as asking the NSA to assist in securing our election process and critical infrastructure, to decrease the size of the blind spot they have and enable the FBI to do the internal monitoring as intended. https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12333.html#1.1 https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/execu...

austincheney 6y ago
From reading comments by the current NSA commander during his meeting with congress election security is not a top priority. I don’t believe he even raised the subject. He did comment on the SolarWinds and MS Exchange comprises as top concerns. From those points I suspect the concerns are foreign government intrusion into US information systems and data exfiltration generally speaking.
- parsimo2010 6y ago
  securing infrastructure for s/elections/whatever/ My thesis is that the existing rules and authorities aren't the problem, and Congress doesn't need let the NSA have any more authorities. Especially so because the NSA director didn't even ask. They can/should work within their existing orders to secure the nation's critical systems, to reduce the vulnerabilities to a level that the FBI can handle them. Congress pushing to enable government overreach is not the solution.

austincheney 6y ago

From reading comments by the current NSA commander during his meeting with congress election security is not a top priority. I don’t believe he even raised the subject. He did comment on the SolarWinds and MS Exchange comprises as top concerns. From those points I suspect the concerns are foreign government intrusion into US information systems and data exfiltration generally speaking.

parsimo2010 6y ago
securing infrastructure for s/elections/whatever/ My thesis is that the existing rules and authorities aren't the problem, and Congress doesn't need let the NSA have any more authorities. Especially so because the NSA director didn't even ask. They can/should work within their existing orders to secure the nation's critical systems, to reduce the vulnerabilities to a level that the FBI can handle them. Congress pushing to enable government overreach is not the solution.