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This is an interesting article, thanks for sharing. Your summary does not quite reflect the article though. You say "In fact, it's been known for months that th
by czr80 13y ago
This is an interesting article, thanks for sharing. Your summary does not quite reflect the article though. You say "In fact, it's been known for months that the DEA receives intercepts from the NSA in such volume that they have an office devoted to handling them (the DEA's "Special Operations Division")", which to me created the impression that the NSA was funneling large amounts of information about US citizens to the DEA.
However, the article actually says: "...two dozen arms of the government working with the Special Operations Division, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency.", and later that "the Special Operations Division of the DEA funnels information from overseas NSA intercepts, domestic wiretaps, informants and a large DEA database of telephone records to authorities nationwide to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. The DEA phone database is distinct from a NSA database disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden." [emphasis mine]
It's quite possible that the NSA passed only occasional information about non-US citizens - it's impossible to tell from that article - if that's the case, then to many people they're acting within their mandate.
I'm not trying to defend the NSA, and I'm deeply troubled by the implications of mass surveillance. But it's important I think to be clear about the claims we're making since otherwise it's easy for people to dismiss us.
- rst 13y agoThanks for the close reading. I guess it depends what you think "no domestic intercepts" excludes, and how much you believe that everyone in the NSA follows the rules. Even if most of them do, a few have the tools to become a very big problem --- and the rest of the organization wouldn't necessarily know, since in an organization like the NSA, people aren't supposed to know what's happening in the office down the hall. To start with the scope of what's available: it almost certainly includes data on US persons "incidentally" acquired in taps on an authorized target. I'm not aware of anything on DEA procedures there specifically, but as for the general rules, see here: http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/11/08/the-intelligence-communitys-wide-open-unprotected-back-door-to-all-your-content/ http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/11/08/the-intelligence-commun... Of course, even if NSA analysts know that they have DEA "customers" (as they apparently call the recipients of their intelligence), it might be a breach of the rules to select overseas targets which would be likely to have domestic contacts of interest to the DEA. But given that knowingly breaking the rules in pursuit of an authorized goal seems to count in NSA audits as mere "lack of due diligence", and not classed as "abuse", I'm not sure how much comfort to take from that. Analysis of NSA audit data from Marcy Wheeler here: http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/08/16/lack-of-due-diligence-the-nsas-the-analyst-didnt-give-a-fuck-violation/ http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/08/16/lack-of-due-diligence-t... ... with further notes on the audit process, and narrow definitions of "abuse" here: http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/08/20/if-nsa-commits-database-query-violations-but-nobody-audits-them-do-they-really-happen/ http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/08/20/if-nsa-commits-database...