The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls.
f the NSA wants "to listen to the phone," an analyst's decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. "I was rather startled," said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee.
Not only does this disclosure shed more light on how the NSA's formidable eavesdropping apparatus works domestically, it also suggests the Justice Department has secretly interpreted federal surveillance law to permit thousands of low-ranking analysts to eavesdrop on phone calls.
Because the same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages, Nadler's disclosure indicates the NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications without going before a court and seeking approval.
McConnell said during a separate congressional appearance around the same time that he believed the president had the constitutional authority, no matter what the law actually says, to order domestic spying without warrants.
Doesn't look like any distinction needs to be made before Joe Eavesdropper dives into content.
Because in many cases JE can not know the ID of Tx or Rx until after wading through content(1). Did not someone make that point upthread?
An analogy would be a LEO busting down some interesting house's door, getting an ID on the resident, and if the resident proves to be in the class of folk denied civil liberties, all is OK. If not, then well, JE had the best of intentions, I am sure. And besides, if the person who supposedly has civil rights has nothing to hide, what is the big deal? Oh well, when making omelettes, what are a few doors or hard fought for civil liberties?
(1) Unless there is a legitimate warrant that complies with the 4th Amendment, which would require that measures be taken to ensure the surveillance targets only the commo (implying tx & rx) of the person under suspicion. You know, like before the mass-hoovering begins. Little things like identifying the specific electronic devices he uses, his residence, and such. Almost like real police/CI work done in accord with COTUS. Yes, it
does sound quaint.
Collection without a warrant or equivalent -IS- illegal, and a felony.
As for metadata, well, its not yours to give, nor is it yours to restrict, its owned by your phone company (for your usage stats and other phone metadata), your Internet provider (for browser queries), the software provider (for data mining on free services like gmail) or a telco (for IP routing information).
So unless you want to host all your own stuff, and provide your own telco services, you actually can't restrict access to the data in question, beyond what is specified in your EULA with those providers.
The leviathan to reign in is -who- provides the information...concerned about metadata? Start a telco that refuses to supply any information to anybody (good luck) or only under specific (ie "data on this person") request with a warrant (much better chance). Also host your own email, etc, rent some dark fiber, and peer directly with who you want to exchange data with, and do it in an encrypted and protected basis.
What you are calling a warrant is nothing more than a bit of paper behind which lurk men with guns who will shoot you in the face, given persistent non-compliance. If it were an actual warrant, it would satisfy the requirements of the 4th Amendment. My suggestion is merely to make the law in accord with the COTUS. Make it easier for those currently breaking their oaths to keep them(1). MicroBalrog's formulation is a nice start.
Police and CI work in a free country is not supposed to be easy. Read the COTUS. It gives the breaks to the citizen and provides obstacles for gov't to surmount. Just about every time, the citizen gets the benefit of the doubt and gov't gets to pound sand.
That metadata is also not the government's to insist upon without a warrant in compliance with the 4th Amendment. Laws enacted to bend telcos to gov't will and protect telcos from customers' ire are every bit as illegitimate as the initial illegitimate demand.
And there is one whole lot more peril possible from fed.gov than any corporation, given misuse of this data.
(1) Which is a great part of the problem. Nobody reads the COTUS or takes it seriously. And oaths to uphold same are meaningless to people who have an empty space inside where their honor & integrity might have been.
And the hilarious part is that this has been enacted to counter a threat an order of magnitude less lethal to American citizens than than automobile accidents. And the cherry on top the confection of absurdity is that these unconstitutional and unAmerican actions are directed by default not at orthodox islam, which got lucky in 2001, but against the American citizenry. Orthodox muslims and their institutions receive greater protection from these actions than average citizens. This is the sort of thing you just can not make up.
Poll