Silk Road forums

Discussion => Off topic => Topic started by: Boobonicchronic on August 16, 2013, 06:46 am

Title: Internal audit confirms the NSA has been illegally spying on Americans
Post by: Boobonicchronic on August 16, 2013, 06:46 am


The wide-reaching leak on data surveillance programs by Edward Snowden (who has sought asylum in Russia) is still ongoing.

According to the Washington Post, an internal audit and other top-secret documents show that the National Security Agency (NSA) has broken privacy laws or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since it was granted broader powers in 2008.

In most cases, the NSA was involved in unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the U.S., despite these being restricted by law and executive order.

As a result of infractions ranging from significant violations of law to typographical errors, the NSA was also involved in unintended interception of U.S. emails and calls.

The Washington Post says the NSA audit it obtained, dated May 2012, only spanned 12 months. This means the NSA could have been involved in such violations before and after.

Even so, the audit counted 2,776 incidents involving unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications — with most being unintended. Many cases were due to failures of due diligence or violations of standard operating procedure, while the most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders.

The NSA has provided the Washington Post with a statement in response to questions. An unnamed senior NSA official, speaking with White House permission, told the newspaper: “We’re a human-run agency operating in a complex environment with a number of different regulatory regimes, so at times we find ourselves on the wrong side of the line.”

The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which is meant to provide critical oversight of the government’s vast spying programs, also told the Washington Post that it has to trust the government to report when it spies on Americans improperly, given that the court lacks the tools to independently verify how often the government’s surveillance breaks the court’s rules that are aimed at protecting Americans’ privacy.

➤ Via The Washington Post

Headline image by NSA via Getty Images
Title: Re: Internal audit confirms the NSA has been illegally spying on Americans
Post by: Isobetadine on August 16, 2013, 08:23 pm
Now let's see what measures they will take.

Nothing satisfying i'm sure.
But this whole thing could not have come at a better time.

Thanks mr. Snowden.
Title: Re: Internal audit confirms the NSA has been illegally spying on Americans
Post by: Alutnarat on August 16, 2013, 11:10 pm
imo snowden deserves a memorial. we need more people to stand up for our rights, since the forth estate doesn't anymore.
Title: Re: Internal audit confirms the NSA has been illegally spying on Americans
Post by: Jack N Hoff on August 16, 2013, 11:20 pm
This thread again?
Title: Re: Internal audit confirms the NSA has been illegally spying on Americans
Post by: ripthesystem on August 16, 2013, 11:21 pm
I personally see very little importance in this issue. The 'public' internet itself is primarily for the monitoring and influencing of trends and behaviors in the public, and the pooling of data on all people in the civilized world. Saying that any amount of it is monitored is amusing because that is the whole point of it being released to the public. I'd be more worried about the things that the bigwigs do not allow to be leaked and do not allow large scale global media coverage of. You can be sure that anything covered so massively by the mainstream media services is being done so for an alternative motive. They don't care about this being covered because they know it will change nothing except public opinions, which by this point are not an important aspect of their businesses.