Exactly How the NSA Is Getting Away With Spying on US Citizens
The laws written are very ridiculous, intentionally designed to allow it.
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The Guardian published two documents: one showing the procedures for determining if their target is foreign for purposes of surveillance under the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) and theother describing the NSA’s “minimization” procedures when they come across United States persons, which also sets out the myriad ways they can keep Americans’ communications instead of minimizing them.
Weak Standards for Avoiding Intentionally Targeting Americans
The FAA was enacted in 2008, intending to put a veneer of legal restrictions on aspects of the unconstitutional NSA spying program that has been in place since 2001. The heavily criticized law purports to protect Americans by prohibiting the NSA from “intentionally targeting” United States persons. The procedures describe a process more intent on making sure it was not “intentional” than ensuring Americans were not actually spied upon.
The Washington Post previously reported that the NSA only needs to have 51% confidence in a person’s “foreignness.” These new documents reveal that if the NSA cannot determine its target's 'foreignness,' they can keep on spying. Instead, you “will be presumed to be a non-United States person unless [you] can be positively identified as a United States person."
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Minimizing Domestic Communications Rules Littered With Exceptions
The second document published yesterday explains the NSA’s “minimization” procedures. Minimization refers to the process that is supposed to limit the exposure of Americans. The NSA, however, has decided to minimize the minimization.
Critically, this document reveals various loopholes that allow the NSA to access your data and read your emails without a warrant. According to the NSA document, they can retain and use information from Americans if:
They were retained due to limitation on the NSA’s ability to filter communications.
They contain information on criminal activity or a threat of harm to people or property. This is not very comforting – the Fourth Amendment wouldn’t mean anything if the government could search your house everyday, but would only act if they found evidence of a crime inside.
They are encrypted or could be used for traffic analysis.
They contain "foreign intelligence information," including if it is contained within attorney-client communications.
http://gizmodo.com/exactly-how-the-nsa-is-getting-away-with-spying-on-us-c-540606531
