Additionally the FISA court admits today it has to rely on the information presented to it when it determines legal authority. Also, the court has no mechanism to check the claims brought to it by the NSA or Justice Dept. One example is outlined in the Washington Post article.
(WASHINGTON POST)  The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.
Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by law and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.
The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. (more…)

By Kimberly Dvorak – This week Elise Jordan, wife of famed journalist Michael Hastings, who recently died under suspicious circumstances, corroborated this reporter’s sources that CIA Director, John Brennan was Hastings next exposé project (CNN clip).

Last month a source provided San Diego 6 News with an alarming email hacked from super secret CIA contractor Stratfor’s President Fred Burton. The email (link here) was posted on WikiLeaks and alleged that then Obama counter-terrorism Czar Brennan, was in charge of the government’s continued crackdown or witch-hunt on investigative journalists.
After providing the Stratfor email to the CIA for comment, the spymaster’s spokesperson responded in lightning speed. (more…)

MOSCOW — National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden left transit zone of a Moscow airport and entered Russia after authorities granted him temporary asylum, his lawyer said Thursday.
Anatoly Kucherena said that Snowden’s whereabouts will be kept secret for security reasons. The former NSA systems analyst was stuck at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport since his arrival from Hong Kong on June 23.
The U.S. has demanded that Russia send Snowden home to face prosecution for espionage, but President Vladimir Putin dismissed the request. (more…)

The discussions around the internet are quite extensive around the latest article from the “Snowden files” (my name). XKeyscore is the research/cyber search tool recently disclosed by The Guardian newspaper who have access to the Snowden whistleblower information.
The primary discussions around the article are framed around how the NSA can essentially, without warrant, snoop on any Facebook, email, or cyber chat room, based on a general sub-set of query data. In essence, data strip-mining.
We are still fully digesting the information and working out the “what if’s” that follow from such details being revealed. However, the immediate question pops to mind about “who” actually owns, or controls, such sleuthing cyber software. Is it only the NSA, or is it also used domestically by the FBI?
One can really, really, see how the dynamic of the entire conversation would immediately change if it were discovered the FBI also had use and access of this type of data search capability…. I wonder if anyone is looking into that?
(Here’s The Guardian Story) A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its “widest-reaching” system for developing intelligence from the internet. (more…)

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/statuses/348793179757219843

You mean President Obama and the administration officials lied?   Ya’ don’t say…

(Via The Guardian)  Top secret documents submitted to the court that oversees surveillance by US intelligence agencies show the judges have signed off on broad orders which allow the NSA to make use of information “inadvertently” collected from domestic US communications without a warrant.

The Guardian is publishing in full two documents submitted to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (known as the Fisa court), signed by Attorney General Eric Holder and stamped 29 July 2009. They detail the procedures the NSA is required to follow to target “non-US persons” under its foreign intelligence powers and what the agency does to minimize data collected on US citizens and residents in the course of that surveillance.

The documents show that even under authorities governing the collection of foreign intelligence from foreign targets, US communications can still be collected, retained and used. (more…)

WASHINGTON DC – The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed “simply based on an analyst deciding that.”

If 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. (more…)

In response to the NSA leaks, and the bazillions of questions from concerned Americans about their privacy being snooped on by the government, the administration coordinated a Senate Classified Briefing to explain the details of the program.   The intent was to inform the elected Senators so they could answer questions from their state citizenry.

Less than half of them attended.

WASHINGTON DC – Less than half (47) of US Senators attended a classified briefing on Thursday afternoon, instead choosing to head home for the weekend.  The briefing was with “with James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, Keith Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency (NSA), and other officials.”

Wow. (more…)