Daily Archives: December 22, 2014

Legislative overhaul: Under the Obama administration's proposal, the National Security Agency could obtain specific records only with permission from a judge, using a new kind of court order. Photo: AFP

Washington: The Obama administration is preparing to unveil a legislative proposal for a far-reaching overhaul of the National Security Agencys once-secret bulk phone records program in a way that if approved by Congress would end the aspect that has most alarmed privacy advocates since its existence was leaked last year, according to senior administration officials.

Under the proposal, they said, the NSA would end its systematic collection of data about Americans calling habits. The records would stay in the hands of phone companies, which would not be required to retain the data for any longer than normal. And the NSA could obtain specific records only with permission from a judge, using a new kind of court order.

In a speech in January, US President Barack Obama said he wanted to get the NSA out of the business of collecting call records in bulk while preserving the programs capabilities. He acknowledged, however, that there was no easy way to do so and had instructed Justice Department and intelligence officials to come up with a plan by March 28, this Friday, when the current court order authorising the program expires.

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As part of the proposal, the administration has decided to ask the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to renew the program as it currently exists for at least one more 90-day cycle, senior administration officials said. But under the plan the administration has developed and now advocates, the officials said, it would late undergo major changes.

The new surveillance court orders envisioned by the administration would require phone companies to swiftly provide records in a technologically compatible data format, including making available, on a continuing basis, data about any new calls placed or received after the order is received, the officials said.

They would also allow the government to seek related records for callers up to two calls, or "hops", removed from the number that has come under suspicion, even if those callers are customers of other companies.

The NSA now retains the phone data for five years. But the administration considered and rejected imposing a mandate on phone companies that they hold onto their customers calling records for longer than the 18 months that federal regulations already generally require a burden that the companies had resisted and that was seen as a major obstacle to keeping the data in their hands. A senior administration official said that intelligence agencies had concluded that the impact of that change would be small because older data is less important.

The NSA uses the once-secret call records program sometimes known as the 215 program, after Section 215 of the Patriot Act to analyse links between callers in an effort to identify hidden terrorist associates, if they exist. It was part of the secret surveillance program that then president George W. Bush unilaterally put in place after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, outside of any legal framework or court oversight.

Link:
Obama to call for end to NSA's bulk data collection

A total of 19 months after NSA contractor Edward Snowden disclosed details of the National Security Agencys massive surveillance program, the debate has simmered down and a legislative fix looks unlikely.

At the heart of Snowdens disclosures was that the NSA has access to meta-data of millions of phone calls and is also able to access emails, transcripts from online chats and troves of other data directly from internet companies.

While several bills have been introduced and even voted on in Congress, a legislative fix looks unlikely.

In July of 2013, the Amash-Conyers Amendment, sponsored by Rep. Justin Amash, R-Michigan, and Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, would have effectively ended NSA collection of data, but narrowly failed the House of Representatives by a vote of 217-205. 211 votes were needed for the bill to pass that day.

More recently, the USA Freedom Act, which would have made some reforms passed the House by a vote of 303-121 in May. Amash sponsored the original bill, but voted against it because it was watered down after changes were made and in his opinion, did not go far enough in reforms. While it passed the House, it failed in the Senate in November, when it could not receive 60 votes to move forward.

One of the bills sponsor, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, blamed the failure on other Senators who were fear mongering, thus stalling debate on the bill.

The program has seen some challenges in court. Several district courts have heard the case against the program, one judge in the D.C. district court called the program likely unconstitutional and almost Orwellian, but other courts have issued opinions in favor of the program.

Dirk Deam, senior lecturer in political science at Iowa State, said the court challenges will likely not spur any changes, rather it is up to Congress.

Itll be up to Congress. At the root of this is application of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is an act of Congress, Deam said. Almost all the issues surrounding things that have been leaked are connected to FISA, so to the extent that people are going to react to that, theyre going to have to [make changes] through legislation.

Several students at Iowa State said they do not approve of the program.

Continue reading here:
As chances of NSA reform fade, opinions remain strong