Category Archives: Military Industrial Complex

09.25.13
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Politico: NSA Chief Attributes Calls For Restriction of Government Surveillance on “Sensationalized” Reporting and “Media Leaks”

Gen. Keith Alexander is pictured. | John Shinkle/POLITICO

The leader of the embattled National Security Agency doubled down Wednesday  against calls from Capitol Hill to restrict U.S. government surveillance programs — a campaign  he attributed to “sensationalized” reporting and “media leaks.”

On the same day that key Senate lawmakers pledged to bring new oversight to  the NSA, Gen. Keith Alexander mounted a public defense of his agency: He  stressed the intelligence community isn’t “listening to Americans’ phone calls  and reading their emails,” and he urged technology and government leaders to  help “get the facts out” and “get our nation to understand why we need these  tools” in the wake of Edward Snowden’s disclosures.

Speaking at a cybersecurity  conference in Washington, Alexander also commended companies for cooperating  with the federal government, and he made a plea for more power — particularly to  thwart terrorists who have elevated their activities to cyberspace.

“Over 950 people were killed in Kenya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan,” Alexander said at the Billington CyberSecurity Summit, referencing recent  violence in the region, “and we’re discussing more esoteric things here. Why?  Because we’ve stopped the terrorist attacks here.”

“We’ve been fortunate, and it’s not been luck,” the general continued. “It’s  our military that’s out [front], and it’s our intelligence community back here.  They can’t do it without tools. So we’re going to have a debate in this country:  Do we give up those tools? I’m concerned we’ll make the wrong decision.”

Alexander gave the speech before attending a classified meeting with  lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee — whose chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy  (D-Vt.), just this Tuesday called for sweeping changes to the NSA’s surveillance  powers.

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and other lawmakers later  unveiled their own blueprint for surveillance reform. The package would reform  the secret court that authorizes government surveillance requests while limiting  the NSA’s ability to collect U.S. phone call logs in bulk.

“It is designed to set a high bar and serve as a measure for true  intelligence reform,” Wyden said at a news conference, emphasizing the proposed  legislation is “not cosmetic.”

Alexander heads back to the Hill on Thursday to testify before the Senate  Intelligence Committee, which is exploring the NSA’s data collection and  retention practices under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.  He’ll return again next week for an open session with Leahy’s panel.

Even against those strong political currents, however, Alexander fiercely  defended the NSA’s existing authorities.

The general repeatedly referenced Sept. 11, 2001, saying the intelligence  community had learned from those attacks that it “had to connect the dots.” Alexander pointed to the Boston tragedy and “the threats this summer” as he made  the case for “speed and agility” in intelligence gathering. The NSA leader also  rebuffed charges that his agency had siphoned up mounds of Americans’ personal  data. Pointing to Section 215, the provision in the PATRIOT Act under which the  NSA has sought telephone  call logs in bulk, Alexander emphasized: “There is no content, there  [are] no names, just the numbers. That’s it. That’s all we asked for.”

Alexander also appeared to defend tech companies like Google and Microsoft,  both of which are actively are fighting the federal government to release more  data about government surveillance requests. Speaking only generally about “industry,” Alexander said companies aren’t “driving up to the NSA” and “dumping” data. They’re doing “what the courts are directing them to provide,” Alexander said. “Our industry have taken a beating on this, and it’s wrong.”

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Click below for the full article:

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/nsa-chief-slams-sensationalized-reporting-97337.html

09.11.13
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AP: Lingering doubts over Syria gas attack evidence

The U.S. government insists it has the intelligence to prove it, but the public has yet to see a single piece of concrete evidence produced by U.S. intelligence — no satellite imagery, no transcripts of Syrian military communications — connecting the government of President Bashar Assad to the alleged chemical weapons attack last month that killed hundreds of people.

In its absence, Damascus and its ally Russia have aggressively pushed another scenario: that rebels carried out the Aug. 21 chemical attack. Neither has produced evidence for that case, either. That’s left more questions than answers as the U.S. threatens a possible military strike.

The early morning assault in a rebel-held Damascus suburb known as Ghouta was said to be the deadliest chemical weapons attack in Syria’s 2½-year civil war. Survivors’ accounts, photographs of many of the dead wrapped peacefully in white sheets and dozens of videos showing victims in spasms and gasping for breath shocked the world and moved President Barack Obama to call for action because the use of chemical weapons crossed the red line he had drawn a year earlier.

Yet one week after Secretary of State John Kerry outlined the case against Assad, Americans — at least those without access to classified reports — haven’t seen a shred of his proof.

There is open-source evidence that provides clues about the attack, including videos of fragments from the rockets that analysts believe were likely used. U.S. officials on Saturday released a compilation of videos showing victims, including children, exhibiting what appear to be symptoms of nerve gas poisoning. Some experts think the size of the strike, and the amount of toxic chemicals that appear to have been delivered, make it doubtful that the rebels could have carried it out.

What’s missing from the public record is direct proof, rather than circumstantial evidence, tying this to the regime.

The Obama administration, searching for support from a divided Congress and skeptical world leaders, says its own assessment is based mainly on satellite and signals intelligence, including intercepted communications and satellite images indicating that in the three days prior to the attack that the regime was preparing to use poisonous gas.

But multiple requests to view that satellite imagery have been denied, though the administration produced copious amounts of satellite imagery earlier in the war to show the results of the Syrian regime’s military onslaught. When asked Friday whether such imagery would be made available showing the Aug. 21 incident, a spokesman referred The Associated Press to a map produced by the White House last week that shows what officials say are the unconfirmed areas that were attacked.

The Obama administration maintains it intercepted communications from a senior Syrian official on the use of chemical weapons, but requests to see that transcript have been denied. So has a request by the AP to see a transcript of communications allegedly ordering Syrian military personnel to prepare for a chemical weapons attack by readying gas masks.

The U.S. administration says its evidence is classified and is only sharing details in closed-door briefings with members of Congress and key allies.

Yet the assessment, also based on accounts by Syrian activists and hundreds of YouTube videos of the attack’s aftermath, has confounded many experts who cannot fathom what might have motivated Assad to unleash weapons of mass destruction on his own people — especially while U.N. experts were nearby and at a time when his troops had the upper hand on the ground.

Rebels who accuse Assad of the attack have suggested he had learned of fighters’ plans to advance on Damascus, his seat of power, and ordered the gassing to prevent that.

‘‘We can’t get our heads around this — why would any commander agree to rocketing a suburb of Damascus with chemical weapons for only a very short-term tactical gain for what is a long-term disaster,’’ said Charles Heyman, a former British military officer who edits The Armed Forces of the U.K., an authoritative bi-annual review of British forces.

Inconsistencies over the death toll and other details related to the attack also have fueled doubts among skeptics.

The Obama administration says 1,429 people died in 12 locations mostly east of the capital, an estimate close to the one put out by the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition. When asked for victims’ names, however, the group provided a list of 395.  On that list, some of the victims were identified by a first name only or said to be members of a certain family. There was no explanation for the hundreds of missing names.

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Click here for the full article.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middle-east/2013/09/08/lingering-doubts-over-syria-gas-attack-evidence/miUpIDnRiga99r5PCERY1K/story.html

09.08.13
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Yahoo News: Then and now: Obama on use of US military might

In this Aug. 31, 2013, photo, President Barack Obama arrives to make a statement about Syria in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington. As a candidate Obama championed restraint and global cooperation when faced with security threats but noww, as commander in chief of a world superpower, his rhetoric of the past is being tested by the reality of today as he presses Congress to allow the United States to launch a military strike against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad over the objections of most major U.S. allies. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
As a candidate focused on his own election, Barack Obama championed restraint and global cooperation when faced with security threats.Now, as commander in chief of a world superpower, his rhetoric of the past is being tested by the reality of today as he presses Congress to allow the United States to launch a military strike against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, over the objections of most major U.S. allies.

It’s a posture that conflicts with positions he took as a young senator, a 2008 presidential candidate and even a first-term president as he cast himself as a counterweight to the more aggressive approach to national security embodied by his Republican predecessor, President George W. Bush.

The Democratic president long has advocated a U.S. foreign policy that prioritizes negotiation over confrontation, humility over diplomatic bravado and communal action over unilateralism.

Those positions are under question as Obama seeks the approval of Congress back home and as he meets with skeptical world leaders abroad while at the G-20 summit in Russia this week.

A look at some of Obama’s historical and recent comments on the use of America’s military might:

ON CONGRESS

THEN: “In instances of self-defense, the president would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the legislative branch.” — Response to candidate questionnaire from The Boston Globe, December 2007.

NOW: “As commander in chief, I always preserve the right and the responsibility to act on behalf of America’s national security. I do not believe that I was required to take this to Congress. But I did not take this to Congress just because it’s an empty exercise. I think it’s important to have Congress’ support on it.” — News conference in Stockholm, Sept. 4, 2013.

ON ACTING ALONE

THEN: “In a world in which threats are more diffuse and missions more complex, America cannot act alone. America alone cannot secure the peace.” — Speech accepting Nobel Peace Prize, December 2009.

NOW: “I’m comfortable going forward without the approval of a United Nations Security Council that, so far, has been completely paralyzed and unwilling to hold Assad accountable.” — Remarks in the White House Rose Garden, Aug. 31, 2013.

ON APPETITE FOR WAR

THEN: “It is easier to start wars than to end them. It is easier to blame others than to look inward, to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path.” — Speech in Cairo, June 2009.

NOW: “The American people, understandably, want us to be focused on the business of rebuilding our economy here and putting people back to work. And I assure you, nobody ends up being more war-weary than me. But what I also believe is that part of our obligation as a leader in the world is making sure that when you have a regime that is willing to use weapons that are prohibited by international norms on their own people, including children, that they are held to account.” — Remarks at meeting with Baltic leaders, Aug. 30, 2013.

ON JUSTIFICATION

THEN: “We may not always have national security issues at stake, but we have moral issues at stake. If we could have intervened effectively in the Holocaust, who among us would say that we had a moral obligation not to go in? … And so I do believe that we have to consider it as part of our interests, our national interests, in intervening where possible.” — Presidential debate, October 2008.

NOW: “This kind of attack is a challenge to the world. We cannot accept a world where women and children and innocent civilians are gassed on a terrible scale. This kind of attack threatens our national security interests by violating well-established international norms against the use of chemical weapons. … If we are saying in a clear and decisive but very limited way, we send a shot across the bow saying, ‘Stop doing this,’ that can have a positive impact on our national security over the long term.” — Remarks at meeting with Baltic leaders, Aug. 30, 2013.

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Click below for the full article.

http://news.yahoo.com/then-now-obama-us-military-might-112844522–politics.html

08.23.13
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Reuters: Documents show NSA may have collected tens of thousands of emails of Americans

U.S. intelligence officials released new documents on Wednesday showing that the National Security Agency may have unintentionally collected as many as 56,000 emailed communications of Americans per year between 2008 and 2011.

The officials revealed the documents as part of an effort to explain how the NSA spotted, and then fixed, technical problems which led to the inadvertent collection of emails of American citizens without warrants.

The move is the Obama administration’s latest response to continuing controversy over alleged electronic eavesdropping excesses by the NSA.

The documents included a formerly “top-secret,” but newly-declassified ruling by the ultra-secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in which the court itself, in an obscure footnote, estimates, based on data supplied by NSA, that between 2008 and 2011, the agency might have unintentionally collected as many as 56,000 emailed communications of Americans in each of those three years.

U.S. intelligence officials who agreed to answer questions about the documents’ contents told reporters the domestic emails were collected in the execution of a program designed to target the emails of foreign terrorism suspects.

According to the officials and a court document which the administration released, the NSA decided to “purge” the material after discovering it was inadvertently collected.

Details about the secretive surveillance programs have been brought to light in recent months by fugitive U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked classified documents to media outlets.

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Click below for the full article, as well as a few updates from Reuters.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/21/us-usa-security-nsa-idUSBRE97K14Y20130821

08.06.13
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Reason.com: States Push for Domestic Drone Regulation

At least 40 states are pushing for regulations that would enact stricter requirements for law enforcement to use drones inside the United States. One example is in Ohio, where Ohio Rep. Rex Damschroder (R-District 88) has proposed legislation that would require law enforcement agencies to obtain search warrants before using drones to surveil on citizens.

From the Associated Press:

“Right now police can’t come into your house without a search warrant,” said Ohio Rep. Rex Damschroder, who has proposed drone regulations. “But with drones, they can come right over your backyard and take pictures.”

Damschroder’s proposed bill would prohibit law enforcement agencies from using drones to get evidence or other information without a search warrant. Exceptions would include credible risks of terrorist attacks or the need for swift action to prevent imminent harm to life or property or to prevent suspects from escaping or destroying evidence.

The Republican said he isn’t against drones but worries they could threaten constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

“I don’t want the government just going up and down every street snooping,” Damschroder said.

Rep. Damschroder’s bill would restrict law enforcement’s ability to use drones with a few exceptions:

  • The U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security has determined it could prevent a terrorist attack;
  • The police agency has gotten a search warrant from a judge;
  • If there’s a “reasonable suspicion” the drone’s use will prevent “imminent harm.”

The bill’s fate is still uncertain–the Ohio House Speaker declined comment on whether it might pass. But drone limits are not unique to Ohio. The AP notes that Florida, Idaho, Montana, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia have all enacted drone legislation. (The ACLU has a comprehensive breakdown of domestic drone policy details here.)

Several other states are considering similar legislation as the drone technology becomes more populized among law enforcement agencies. This February, the Federal Aviation Administration reported that it had approved more than 1,400 requests for drone use since 2006 to over 80 law enforcement agencies.

The efforts to limit drone use have opposition from law enforcement hardliners and–the people who make the drones.

[The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International] wants guidelines covering manned aircraft applied to unmanned aircraft.

“We don’t support rewriting existing search warrant requirements under the guise of privacy,” said Mario Mairena, government relations manager for the Arlington, Va.-based Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.

The association predicts unmanned aircraft systems will generate billions of dollars in economic impact in the next few years and says privacy concerns are unwarranted.

But the movement against drones won’t go down without a fight. The town of Deer Trail, Colorado plans to vote on an ordinance that would issue “drone hunting licenses” at $25 a pop, according to CBS News. Phillip Steel, a Deer Trail resident who proposed the ordinance, says, “if you don’t want your drone to go down, don’t fly in town. That’s our motto.”

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Click below for the full article.

http://reason.com/blog/2013/08/06/states-begin-push-for-drone-regulation

07.28.13
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Market Watch: Attempt to curb NSA surveillance defeated in House

House lawmakers on Wednesday defeated an attempt to drastically curb a national-security program that collects the phone records of millions of Americans, after a tense debate on the balance between privacy rights and
government efforts to find terrorists.

The measure was narrowly defeated, 205-217, after last-minute lobbying by the Obama administration and House members on the intelligence panel, who said the program was crucial to national security.

House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), who doesn’t often cast a ballot, voted against the amendment, reflecting nervousness among opponents about whether they would be able to defeat the bill.

The measure, from Rep. Justin Amash (R., Mich.), would have blocked funding for the National Security Agency to collect phone records unless they pertained to a particular person under investigation. The program came to public attention due to disclosures by Edward Snowden, the former NSA employee who recently released details of two classified programs.

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Click below for the full article.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/attempt-to-curb-nsa-surveillance-defeated-in-house-2013-07-25?siteid=yhoof2

07.27.13
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NY Times: The Pros and Cons of a Surveillance Society

Here are three topics much in the news these days: Prism, the surveillance program of the national security agency; the death of Trayvon Martin; and Google Glass and the rise of wearable computers that record everything.

Although these might not seem connected, they are part of a growing move for, or against, a surveillance society.

On one side of this issue we have people declaring that too much surveillance, especially in the form of wearable cameras and computers, is detrimental and leaves people without any privacy in public. On the other side there are people who argue that a society with cameras everywhere will make the world safer and hold criminals more accountable for their actions.

But it leaves us with this one very important question: Do we want to live in a surveillance society that might ensure justice for all, yet privacy for none?

In the case of Mr. Martin, an unarmed black teenager who was fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, the most crucial evidence about how an altercation between the two began — one that ultimately led to Mr. Martin’s death — came down to Mr. Zimmerman’s word.

As the trial showed, eyewitness accounts all differed. One neighbor who was closest to the altercation saw a “lighter-skinned” man on the bottom during a fight that ensued. Two other neighbors believed that Mr. Zimmerman was on top during the fight. One said she saw the man on top walk away after the fight.

Clearly the memory of one or all of those neighbors had been spoiled by time, confusion and adrenaline. But if one of those witnesses — including Mr. Martin or Mr. Zimmerman — had been wearing Google Glass or another type of personal recording device, the facts of that night might have been much clearer.

“Whenever something mysterious happens we ask: ‘Why can’t we hit rewind? Why can’t we go to the database?’” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington. “We want to follow the data trail and know everything that we need to know. The big question is: Who is going to be in control of that recording and data?”

Prism, the highly secretive government program that was brought to light last month by a government whistleblower, is an example of a much larger scale of recording and data. President Obama has defended the government’s spying programs, saying they help in the fight against terrorists and ensure that Americans stay safe.

But critics say it goes too far. Representative James Sensenbrenner, the longtime Republican lawmaker from Wisconsin, compared today’s government surveillance to “Big Brother” from the Geroge Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four.”

Michael Shelden, author of “Orwell: The Authorized Biography,” told NPR earlier this month that today’s surveillance society is just like the book.

Orwell, Mr. Shelden said, “could see that war and defeating an enemy could be used as a reason for increasing political surveillance.” He added, “You were fighting a never-ending war that gave you a never-ending excuse for looking into people’s lives.”

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Click below for the full article.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/16/the-pros-and-cons-of-a-surveillance-society/?partner=yahoofinance&_r=0

07.21.13
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Roll Call: GOP Leaders Face Libertarian Revolt Over NSA, Egypt, Syria

House GOP leaders are scrambling to quell a quiet libertarian rebellion that threatens to block consideration of the Defense appropriations bill.

A small group of Republicans are holding the spending bill hostage until they get votes on several controversial amendments.

“We’ve conveyed to the whip team that we won’t vote for the rule if they don’t allow debate and votes,” Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said Friday. “We don’t need all the amendments to be allowed. We need at least one substantial amendment on three things: Egypt, Syria and NSA.”

Massie has two amendments before the Rules Committee: one that would defund military operations in Syria and one that would defund military operations in Egypt. Another leader in the Republican rebellion, Justin Amash of Michigan, has an amendment that would end funds for the National Security Agency’s blanket collection of telephone call records in the wake of Edward Snowden’s leaking of the program.

Rules Committee member Rich Nugent, R-Fla., has a similar NSA amendment, but the libertarian lawmakers say it insufficiently addresses the issue.

GOP leaders have been coming off a string of impressive victories lately — from passing the farm bill without a single Democratic vote to navigating a No Child Left Behind rewrite. But the Rules Committee postponed their meeting Thursday on the Defense appropriations bill, and leaders are still figuring out if they have the votes to squash the Republican revolt.

Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has pleaded with lawmakers in the group to not shoot down the rule and, consequently, shoot Republicans in the foot.

According to an aide to one lawmaker in the group threatening to vote down the rule, leadership has used “every tool in the toolbox” to block the amendments. The aide said they have faced a number of procedural roadblocks, from leadership saying their amendments legislate on an appropriations bill to having their amendments submitted to the Congressional Budget Office for a score. The aide said it has been a “concerted effort.”

But the lawmakers have cleared the hurdles, they say, and they want votes. They are drafting a letter calling for the opportunity to vote on their amendments, and they are seeking signatories.

On Friday, Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who will be controlling the Defense appropriations rule on the floor for the Democrats, said the Republican Conference is “just chaos.”

“They can’t seem to get their act together. So they got a problem,” McGovern said. “The Republican leadership long ago lost the ability to lead.”

McGovern, who is also a Rules panel member, said Democrats were initially told the Rules Committee was delaying its Thursday meeting on the Defense appropriations bill “out of deference to us” so Democrats could vote in the ranking member of the Natural Resources election, even though no Democrat asked the committee to delay the hearing.

“And then they delayed for another hour, and then they delayed it indefinitely and never told us why,” McGovern said. “We all know why: It’s because of these NSA votes.”

The Rules Committee plans to mark up the rule for the Defense appropriations bill at 5 p.m. on July 22, and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said Friday that the House will consider the DOD appropriations bill next week.

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Click below for the full article.

http://blogs.rollcall.com/goppers/gop-leaders-face-libertarian-rebellion/

07.18.13
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Yahoo News: NSA spying under fire: ‘You’ve got a problem’

Robert S. Litt, general counsel in the Office of Director of National Intelligence testifies during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Wednesday, July 17, 2013. Six weeks after a leaked document exposed the scope of the government's monitoring of Americans' phone records, the House Judiciary Committee calls on key administration figures from the intelligence world to answer questions about the sweeping government surveillance of Americans in war on terrorism. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

In a heated confrontation over domestic spying, members of Congress said Wednesday they never intended to allow the National Security Agency to build a database of every phone call in America. And they threatened to curtail the government’s surveillance authority.

Top Obama administration officials countered that the once-secret program was legal and necessary to keep America safe. And they left open the possibility that they could build similar databases of people’s credit card transactions, hotel records and Internet searches.

The clash on Capitol Hill undercut President Barack Obama’s assurances that Congress had fully understood the dramatic expansion of government power it authorized repeatedly over the past decade.

The House Judiciary Committee hearing also represented perhaps the most public, substantive congressional debate on surveillance powers since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Previous debates have been largely theoretical and legalistic, with officials in the Bush and Obama administrations keeping the details hidden behind the cloak of classified information.

That changed last month when former government contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents to the Guardian newspaper revealing that the NSA collects every American’s phone records, knowing that the overwhelming majority of people have no ties to terrorism.

Civil rights groups have warned for years that the government would use the USA Patriot Act to conduct such wholesale data collection. The government denied it.

The Obama administration says it needs a library of everyone’s phone records so that when it finds a suspected terrorist, it can search its archives for the suspect’s calling habits. The administration says the database was authorized under a provision in the Patriot Act that Congress hurriedly passed after 9/11 and reauthorized in 2005 and 2010.

The sponsor of that bill, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said Wednesday that Congress meant only to allow seizures directly relevant to national security investigations. No one expected the government to obtain every phone record and store them in a huge database to search later.

As Deputy Attorney General James Cole explained why that was necessary, Sensenbrenner cut him off and reminded him that his surveillance authority expires in 2015.

“And unless you realize you’ve got a problem,” Sensenbrenner said, “that is not going to be renewed.”

He was followed by Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who picked up where his colleague left off. The problem, he said, is that the administration considers “everything in the world” relevant to fighting terrorism.

Later, Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, asked whether the NSA could build similar databases of everyone’s Internet searches, hotel records and credit card transactions.

Robert S. Litt, general counsel in the Office of Director of National Intelligence, didn’t directly answer, saying it would depend on whether the government believed those records — like phone records — to be relevant to terrorism investigations.

After the phone surveillance became public, Obama assured Americans that Congress was well aware of what was going on.

“When it comes to telephone calls, every member of Congress has been briefed on this program,” he said.

Whether lawmakers willingly kept themselves in the dark or were misled, it was apparent Wednesday that one of the key oversight bodies in Congress remained unclear about the scope of surveillance, more than a decade after it was authorized.

The Judiciary Committee’s senior Democrat, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, noted that the panel had “primary jurisdiction” over the surveillance laws that were the foundation for the NSA programs. Yet one lawmaker, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, said some members of Congress wouldn’t have known about the NSA surveillance without the sensational leaks: “Snowden, I don’t like him at all, but we would never have known what happened if he hadn’t told us.”

The NSA says it only looks at numbers as part of narrow terrorism investigations, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.

For the first time, NSA deputy director John C. Inglis disclosed Wednesday that the agency sometimes conducts what’s known as three-hop analysis. That means the government can look at the phone data of a suspect terrorist, plus the data of all of his contacts, then all of those people’s contacts, and finally, all of those people’s contacts.

If the average person calls 40 unique people, three-hop analysis could allow the government to mine the records of 2.5 million Americans when investigating one suspected terrorist.

Rep Randy Forbes, R-Va., said such a huge database was ripe for government abuse. When Inglis said there was no evidence of that, Forbes interrupted:

“I said I wasn’t going to yell at you and I’m going to try not to. That’s exactly what the American people are worried about,” he said. “That’s what’s infuriating the American people. They’re understanding that if you collect that amount of data, people can get access to it in ways that can harm them.”

The government says it stores everybody’s phone records for five years. Cole explained that because the phone companies don’t keep records that long, the NSA had to build its own database.

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Click below for the full article.

http://news.yahoo.com/nsa-spying-under-fire-youve-got-problem-164530431.html