[Photo: National Security Agency, Ft. Meade, MD via Wikimedia]

NSA — Continually Violating FISA Since 2004

Last year, I did a report that catalogued all the times NSA had violated FISA since the Stellar Wind phone dragnet got moved under FISA in 2004. There were the five different practices deemed violations of 1809(a)(2), which prohibits the use of any data that was illegally collected.

From 2004 until 2009, in spite of twice quarterly Office of General Counsel spot checks imposed to prevent it, “‘[v]irtually every PR/TT record’ generated [by the bulk Internet metadata program] included some data that had not been authorized for collection.” 3

From 2007 until 2011, NSA collected entirely domestic and untargeted communications as part of Multiple Communication Transaction bundles without restricting access to the unrelated communications. 4

In June 2010, NSA admitted it had improperly retained Title I data in a management system that the court had deemed an overcollection; in May 2011, FISC found this retention problematic under 1809(a)(2). The government even argued that prohibitions 5 on using unlawfully collected information “only applied to interceptions authorized by the Court and did not apply to the fruits of unlawful surveillance.”

From 2011 to 2016, NSA retained Section 702 overcollection in its management systems, in spite of the 2011 FISC retention precedent ruling such retention a violation of 1809(a)(2). 7

In 2013, NSA discovered its post-tasking checks to ensure targeted phones had not roamed into the United States had not functioned properly for some redacted period of time (possibly dating back to 2008), meaning some of the telephone collection from that period may have been collected on individuals located inside the United States in violation of 702. 8

In addition to those, NSA had continued to conduct back door searches of data collected using upstream 702 collection even after John Bates prohibited the practice in 2011.

Because upstream collection foreseeably results in the collection of domestic communications, when John Bates first permitted searches of 702 data using US person identifiers in late 2011, he prohibited such searches on upstream data, for fear it would amount to using 702 for domestic surveillance. Yet NSA starting disclosing “many” such violations as early as 2013. 9

As NSA’s compliance organizations started looking more closely in 2015 and 2016, they discovered the NSA was even conducting such searches in systems “that do not interface with NSA’s query audit system,” raising questions about their ability to oversee US person queries 10 more generally. NSA discovered that some data obtained using upstream collection had been mislabeled as PRISM collection, meaning it would get no special treatment. With one tool used 11 to conduct queries of Americans located overseas, NSA experienced an 85% noncompliance rate. 12

While Rosemary Collyer (who is the worst presiding FISA Judge ever) didn’t deem that a violation of 1809(a)(2) — meaning NSA didn’t have to segregate and destroy andy data collected improperly — it still violated the minimization procedures that control 702 collection.

So between 2004 and 2016, NSA was always breaking the rules of FISA in one way or another.

And we can now extend that timeline to 2018. The NSA just revealed that it had destroyed all the call detail records it had collected since 2015, which would be all those collected under USA Freedom Act.

Consistent with NSA’s core values of respect for the law, accountability, integrity, and transparency we are making public notice that on May 23, 2018, NSA began deleting all call detail records (CDRs) acquired since 2015 under Title V of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)

The Government relies on Title V of FISA to obtain CDRs, which do not include the content of any calls. In accordance with this law, the Government obtains these CDRs, following a specific court-authorized process.

NSA is deleting the CDRs because several months ago NSA analysts noted technical irregularities in some data received from telecommunications service providers. These irregularities also resulted in the production to NSA of some CDRs that NSA was not authorized to receive. Because it was infeasible to identify and isolate properly produced data, NSA concluded that it should not use any of the CDRs. Consequently, NSA, in consultation with the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, decided that the appropriate course of action was to delete all CDRs. NSA notified the Congressional Oversight Committees, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and the Department of Justice of this decision. The Department of Justice, in turn, notified the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The root cause of the problem has since been addressed for future CDR acquisitions, and NSA has reviewed and revalidated its intelligence reporting to ensure that the reports were based on properly received CDRs.

Now it could well be these CDRs that NSA was not authorized to collect were selectors that went beyond what had been approved (though that’d be unlikely to trigger a technical alert). It may be these CDRs obtain something that counts as content — such as cookie information that identifies sublevel domains of a webpage.

But the only non content thing that is affirmatively permitted in USAF is location data, which as of last week would get treated as a search if not content. Which leads me to believe this is most likely location data (which would also explain the sudden transparency). It may be content data collected in ways the NSA didn’t understand, perhaps via apps that retain the location data shared from the phone. But it’s likely it was content data.

And given the specific reference to data “that NSA was not authorized to receive,” and the fact that NSA destroyed three years of CDRs, I suspect this, too, was deemed a violation of 1809(a)(2).

Which means the NSA’s streak of violating FISA just got extended several more years. It has been violating FISA, in one way or another, for 14 years.

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12 replies
  1. SpaceLifeForm says:

    This is a BullShit Cover Story.

    They allegedly destroyed 3 years of data leading up to Trump?

    No, they *think* they destroyed some Metadata that they do not want others to see.

    Sure, and I have a bridge for sale.  Cheap.  I’ll throw in a condo at TT too.  Only asking for 4 cases of Bud Light.  Hell, I’ll even arrange a night out with Press Secretary too!

     

  2. SpaceLifeForm says:

    Timing is everything. Note the players.

    http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/28/investing/deutsche-bank-fed-stress-test/index.html

    Deutsche Bank was the only major financial institution to fail the Federal Reserve’s annual stress test exam, dealing another blow to Germany’s largest lender.

    The Fed raised more moderate concerns about Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley that will limit the ability of those Wall Street banks to raise their dividends and buy back more of their stock. The stress test also revealed State Street would suffer “large losses” if one of its business partners came under financial pressure.

    • SpaceLifeForm says:

      https://thinkprogress.org/trump-justin-anthony-kennedy-deutsche-bank-scotus-4ba95e7ce0be/amp/

      But the Trump family’s relationship with Justice Kennedy’s family goes beyond friendship. As The New York Times detailed in a recent article about “the White House’s quiet campaign to create a Supreme Court opening,” Justin Kennedy — who spent more than a decade working in a senior role at Deutsche Bank — may been more responsible than anyone else for saving the Trump family’s business during the darkest days of the Great Recession:

      [Justin] worked closely with Mr. Trump when he was a real estate developer, according to two people with knowledge of his role.

      During Mr. Kennedy’s tenure, Deutsche Bank became Mr. Trump’s most important lender, dispensing well over $1 billion in loans to him for the renovation and construction of skyscrapers in New York and Chicago at a time other mainstream banks were wary of doing business with him because of his troubled business history.

      [Note Chicago]

    • SpaceLifeForm says:

      No dots, no. Do not look behind the curtain. There is nothing there, no, there is no pupppetmaster. Oh, and it’s not RICO either!

      Citigroup and Deutsche Bank face ‘criminal cartel’ charges

      http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/01/investing/citigroup-deutsche-anz-cartel-charges/index.html

      Big banks are raking in monster profits

      [No shit]

      By Jethro Mullen June 1, 2018: 10:25 AM ET

      Citigroup and Deutsche Bank are facing criminal charges in Australia following an investigation into their role in the sale of shares in one the country’s top banks.

      The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) said Friday that it expected prosecutors to bring “criminal cartel” charges against Citigroup (C), Deutsche Bank (DB) and the Australian bank, ANZ (ANZBY).

      The regulator said the charges will concern trading in ANZ’s stock after it issued 81 million new shares worth about 2.5 billion Australian dollars ($1.9 billion) in August 2015 in a deal backed by Citigroup and Deutsche Bank.

  3. SpaceLifeForm says:

    @RonWyden

    Pretty certain this attack can be carried out with a stingray and a laptop (that also has cellnet) from within a van.

    https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/06/lte-wireless-connections-used-by-billions-arent-as-secure-as-we-thought/

    LTE wireless connections used by billions aren’t as secure as we thought
    LTE was supposed to fix security and privacy shortcomings—now it’s broken, too.

    by Dan Goodin – Jun 29, 2018 6:30pm UTC

    The Long Term Evolution mobile device standard used by billions of people was designed to fix many of the security shortcomings in the predecessor standard known as Global System for Mobile communications. Mutual authentication between end users and base stations and the use of proven encryption schemes were two of the major overhauls. Now, researchers are publicly identifying weaknesses in LTE that allow attackers to send nearby users to malicious websites and fingerprint the sites they visit.

    The attacks work because of weaknesses built into the LTE standard itself. The most crucial weakness is a form of encryption that doesn’t protect the integrity of the data. The lack of data authentication makes it possible for an attacker to surreptitiously manipulate the IP addresses within an encrypted packet. Dubbed aLTEr, the researchers’ attack causes mobile devices to use a malicious domain name system server that, in turn, redirects the user to a malicious server masquerading as Hotmail. The other two weaknesses involve the way LTE maps users across a cellular network and leaks sensitive information about the data passing between base stations and end users.

    [Hey SLF: this kind of comment really abuses both Fair Use and our readers — I’ve cropped out all the extraneous bajillion unrelated links you didn’t remove, including advert links, and reduced the content’s wording. Either summarize content and provided a link only in the future. To EW readers: do follow the link above to learn more. / ~Rayne]

    • SpaceLifeForm says:

      Audio can be found at link

      https://newrepublic.com/minutes/149506/comedian-stuttering-john-just-punked-donald-trump

      Melendez phoned up the White House pretending to be Senator Bob Menendez, asking to speak with Trump about immigration. Perhaps eager to talk to a Democrat he can win over, Trump on Air Force One called back the pretend Bob Menendez. The president expressed sympathy for Menandez’s recent corruption case, in which he was acquitted.

      [Why on AF1 yesterday?]

      The prank is all the more impressive because Trump and Stuttering John have talked before, back in the era when they were both regulars on the Howard Stern show.

      [How many chicks from that show does trump know?]

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