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A Diverse America Votes to Uphold the Constitution; A Largely Male White America Votes to Abrogate It

The House Judiciary Committee just voted to send two articles of impeachment against Donald Trump to the full House.

The entire vote took just minutes. But it said so much about the state of America today.

It will forever be portrayed as a party line vote, with 23 Democrats in favor, and 17 Republicans against. But it was also a tribute to the degree to which polarization in America today pivots on issues of diversity.

The Democrats who voted in favor included 11 women, and 13 Latinx and people of color (Ted Lieu missed the vote recovering from a heart procedure). Three (plus Lieu) are immigrants. One is gay. These Democrats voted to uphold the Constitution a bunch of white men, several of them owners of African-American slaves, wrote hundreds of years ago.

The Republicans who voted against were all white. Just two were women.  These Republicans voted to permit a racist white male President to cheat to get reelected in violation of the rule of law.

This is about a clash between the rising America and the past. And it’s unclear who will win this battle for America. But the stakes are clear.

 

Author of USA Freedom Act Says “Nobody’s Got to Use the Internet”

As a number of outlets have reported, at a town hall last week, Wisconsin’s Jim Sensenbrenner told a constituent, asking about her congressman’s vote to overturn Obama’s broadband privacy rules, said, “Nobody’s got to use the Internet.”

“Facebook is not comparable to an ISP. I do not have to go on Facebook,” the town hall meeting attendee said. But when it comes to Internet service providers, the person said, “I have one choice. I don’t have to go on Google. My ISP provider is different than those providers.”

That’s when Sensenbrenner said, “Nobody’s got to use the Internet.” He praised ISPs for “invest[ing] an awful lot of money in having almost universal service now.” He then said, “I don’t think it’s my job to tell you that you cannot get advertising for your information being sold. My job, I think, is to tell you that you have the opportunity to do it, and then you take it upon yourself to make the choice.”

It’s of course an absurd comment. It is difficult to get a job in this day and age without Internet access; it’s hard to find a place to live. It’s not a matter of convenience, at this point it is necessary to be on the Internet to be a fully integrated citizen.

But note why Sensenbrenner said this: he pitched it in terms of the beneficent ISP providers who have kindly provided us all gateways to the Internet.

What no report I’ve seen has noted is that Sensenbrenner also happens to be the author of the USA Freedom Act as passed. In spite of his key role in defeating prior efforts to shut down the PATRIOT Act dragnets, Sensenbrenner managed to pose as a privacy advocate (making horseshit claims about knowing about the dragnet) so as to push through a bill that took the heat off telecoms, all while making more innocent Americans’ data available to NSA’s analytical maw.

Here, he reveals his true colors, a completely unrealistic view of the importance of the Internet on actual human beings.

Jim Sensenbrenner Flip-Flops Wildly on Value of Classified Hearings

Jenna McLaughlin has a report on what I noted here — House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte has scheduled a classified hearing to talk about Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act on February 2. In it, she includes this unbelievable quote from Jim Sensenbrenner.

“Closed briefings are necessary for members of Congress to ask questions about classified information,” said Judiciary Committee member Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., in a statement to The Intercept. “However, I would support a subsequent open hearing on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act because transparency and public discussion are critical to the reform and reauthorization of Section 702.”

It’s unbelievable because, after Sensenbrenner made some horseshit claims of ignorance immediately after Edward Snowden revealed the phone dragnet that had been authorized by legislation Sensenbrenner had authored, people started asking why he hadn’t gone to the classified hearings, at which DOJ briefed members about the dragnet (and FBI later lied about the abuses carried out in executing that dragnet).

Sensenbrenner’s spokesperson explained back in 2013 that he didn’t go to those classified hearing because he didn’t want to be restrained by confidentiality.

Asked whether his boss had attended any of those sessions during that period, Sensenbrenner spokesperson Ben Miller said the congressman “does not want to be limited by the restraints of confidentiality. Therefore, he believes in an open dialogue by which legislative solutions can be constructed and passed into law before the public.” Miller said Sensenbrenner had “attended confidential briefings in the past,” but didn’t say how many, which ones, or whether any dealt directly with the “sensitive” application of section 215.

[snip]

“While some members of Congress were briefed, particularly those on the intelligence committees, most, including myself, were not,” Sensenbrenner wrote in a column for The Guardian newspaper. Sensenbrenner did not disclose, as his spokesperson did for this story, that he chooses not to attend the briefings.

So back in 2013, when Sensenbrenner was disclaiming any responsibility for a dragnet, he didn’t to be restrained by what he gets told in a classified hearing.

But now, at a time when Congress might consider stopping FBI from doing its uncounted back door searches of people it has no evidence against, Sensenbrenner says “closed briefings are necessary.”

Given what 2013 Sensenbrenner said about the importance of conducting these discussions in the light of day, and given that Section 702 has always been debated in public, I would suggest Sensenbrenner’s support for closed hearings now suggests the fix is in.

One wonders what squeals of outrage Sensenbrenner will make in 2023 after new abuses of Section 702 get disclosed?

 

In October 2013, Patrick Leahy and Jim Sensenbrenner Rolled Out a Bill That Would Have Ended Upstream Cyber Collection

Back in October 2013, Jim Sensenbrenner and Patrick Leahy released the original, far better, version of the USA Freedom Act. As I noted in November 2013, it included a provision that would limit upstream collection to international terrorism and international proliferation of WMD uses.

It basically adds a paragraph to section d of Section 702 that limits upstream collection to two uses: international terrorism or WMD proliferation.

(C) limit the acquisition of the contents of any communication to those communications—

(i) to which any party is a target of  the acquisition; or

(ii) that contain an account identifier of a target of an acquisition, only if such communications are acquired to protect against international terrorism or the international proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.;

And adds a definition for “account identifier” limiting it to identifiers of people.

(1) ACCOUNT IDENTIFIER.—The term ‘account identifier’ means a telephone or instrument number, other subscriber number, email address, or  username used to uniquely identify an account.

At the time, I noted that this would give the NSA 6 months to shut down the use of upstream collection to collect cyber signatures.

Jonathan Mayer’s comments on the NYT/PP story today reveals why that would be important to do (this is a point I’ve been making for years): because if you’re collecting signatures of cyber attacks, you’re collecting victim data, as well, a problem that would only get worse under the cyberinformation sharing bills before Congress.

This understanding of the NSA’s domestic cybersecurity authority leads to, in my view, a more persuasive set of privacy objections. Information sharing legislation would create a concerning surveillance dividend for the agency.

nsa_cyber_2

Because this flow of information is indirect, it prevents businesses from acting as privacy gatekeepers. Even if firms carefully screen personal information out of their threat reports, the NSA can nevertheless intercept that information on the Internet backbone.

Furthermore, this flow of information greatly magnifies the scale of privacy impact associated with information sharing. Here’s an entirely realistic scenario: imagine that a business detects a handful of bots on its network. The business reports a signature to DHS, who hands it off to the NSA. The NSA, in turn, scans backbone traffic using that signature; it collects exfiltrated data from tens of thousands of bots. The agency can then use and share that data.12 What began as a tiny report is magnified to Internet scale.

But, instead of giving NSA 6 months to close this loophole, we instead passed USA F-ReDux, which does nothing to rein domestic spying in the name of cybersecurity.

Leahy released a remarkable statement in response to today’s story that doesn’t reveal whether he knew of this practice (someone knew to forbid it in their original bill!), but insisting he’ll fight for more limits on surveillance and transparency.

Today’s report that the NSA has expanded its warrantless surveillance of Internet traffic underscores the critical importance of placing reasonable and commonsense limits on government surveillance in order to protect the privacy of Americans.  Congress took an important step in this direction this week by passing the USA FREEDOM Act, but I have always believed and said that more reforms are needed.  Congress should have an open, transparent and honest debate about how to protect both our national security and our privacy.  As Congress continues to work on surveillance and cybersecurity legislation, I will continue to fight for more reforms, more transparency, and more accountability – particularly on issues related to the privacy of Americans’ personal communications.

Remember: on Tuesday, Richard Burr vehemently denied we had secret law. And while this application of FISA wasn’t entirely secret — I figured it out pretty quickly, but a great great many people doubted me, as per usual — even Leahy is faced with a situation where he can’t admit he knew about a practice he already tried to shut down once.

emptywheel Coverage of USA F-ReDux, or, PRISM for Smart Phones

This post will include all my coverage on USA F-ReDux.

Ten Goodies USA F-ReDux Gives the Intelligence Community 

USA F-ReDux’s boosters often suggest the bill would be a big sacrifice for the Intelligence Community. That’s nonsense. This post lists just 10 of the goodies the IC will get under the bill, including chaining on Internet calls, a 2nd super-hop, emergency provisions ripe for abuse, and expansions of data sharing.

2nd Circuit Decision Striking Down Dragnet Should Require Tighter “Specific Selection Term” Language in USA F-ReDux 

The 2nd Circuit just ruled that the phone dragnet was not authorized by Section 215. The language in the opinion on DOJ’s misinterpretation of “relevant to” ought to lead Congress to tighten the definition of “Specific Selection Term” in the bill to better comply with the opinion.

USA F-ReDux: Chaining on “Session Identifying Information” that Is Not Call Detail Records 

As I correctly predicted a year ago, by outsourcing “connection chaining” to the providers, the Intelligence Community plans to be able to chain on session identifying information (things like location and cookies) that is probably illegal.

USA F-ReDux: Dianne Feinstein Raises the Data Handshake Again (Latest post)

Some months ago, Bob Litt emphasized USA Freedom would only work if the telecoms retained enough data for pattern analysis (which may or may not back my worry the government plans to outsource such pattern analysis to the telecoms). Nevertheless, no one seems to want to discuss whether and if so how USA F-ReDux will ensure providers do keep data. Except Dianne Feinstein, who today once again suggested there is a kind of “data handshake” whereby the telecoms will retain our data without being forced.

Unlike the Existing Phone Dragnet, USA F-ReDux Does Not Include “Telephony” in Its Definition of Call Detail Record 

The definition of Call Detail Record that will be adopted under USA F-ReDux is closely related to the definition currently used in the phone dragnet — though the USA F-ReDux does not require CDRs to be comprehensive records of calls as the existing phone dragnet does. The big difference, however, is that USA F-ReDux never specifies that calls include only telephony calls.

Congress’s Orwellian spying “reforms”: Why the government wants to outsource its surveillance to your Internet provider 

At Salon, I explain more about why the IC wants to create PRISM for Smart Phones with USA F-ReDux.

Google Applauds USA F-ReDux Because It “Modernizes” Surveillance 

Neither Google nor any of the other providers are admitting they’ll be getting expansive immunity to help spy on their users if USA F-ReDux passes. But Google does reveal they consider this move “modernization,” not reform. Is that because they’ll once again get a monopoly on spying on their users?

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How to Break the Law Under USA F-ReDux: The Emergency Provision that Would Blow Up the Bill

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As remarkable as was the House Judiciary Committee’s impotence to protect the Fourth Amendment in yesterday’s markup of USA F-ReDux, of equal importance was Raul Labrador’s effort to more narrowly tailor the emergency provision in the bill, which permits the Attorney General to authorize emergency production under Section 215 prior to getting FISA Court approval.

EMERGENCY AUTHORITY FOR PRODUCTION OF TANGIBLE THINGS.—

(1) Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, the Attorney General may require the emergency production of tangible things if the Attorney General—

(A) reasonably determines that an emergency situation requires the production of tangible things before an order authorizing such production can with due diligence be obtained;

(B) reasonably determines that the factual basis for the issuance of an order under this section to approve such production of tangible things exists;

Labrador (at 2:07) suggested that his amendment was very minor, just requiring the emergency provision be used only when there was an actual emergency.

I don’t see what it should blow up the bill, I don’t see why it would blow up the bill, all it’s doing is attempting to clarify the meaning of a term in the bill, which is an emergency situation, as one that involves the potential or imminent death or bodily harm to any person.

Yet, as Labrador noted, without the restriction would permit the AG to get records whenever she wanted.

As Zoe Lofgren noted, the lack of specificity in the bill is an invitation for abuse.

Labrador’s proposed change was even more minor given that we know NSA, at least, has redefined “threat of bodily harm” to “threat to property” in the case of corporate persons.

Jim Sensenbrenner, who argued that this emergency provision goes beyond what is required for emergency electronic surveillance or emergency physical surveillance under FISA, countered that tweaking the emergency provision would blow up the bill.

He and I may have a difference of opinion on what blows up this bill. You know, let me say this all was considered during the negotiations that were going on, I think there is an appropriate compromise to keep the dogs at bay, that is continued in the emergency appropriations of this bill and I am afraid that the amendment from the gentleman from Idaho would be who let the dogs out.

This is alarming.

I get that there’s a need for an emergency provision under Section 215 if it will cover things like Internet production, because the authorization process is too long for active investigations (which wouldn’t, mind you, meet the terms of Labrador’s amendment). But the emergency provision of USA F-ReDux will be one of the chief ways the IC will break the law under this bill (even going beyond what I believe to be a general violation of Riley‘s prohibition on searching smart phones without a warrant under the CDR provision).

That’s because of the way the bill significantly degrades the status quo on what happens if the FISC judges that this was an inappropriate use of Section 215. Currently, the FISC can make the government destroy the records. Under the bill, the government would be prevented from actually using the records in any official proceeding, but given that the AG polices that, and given that FBI basically has a department whose role is to parallel construct records like this, what this bill becomes is a means by which the FBI can get records they know to be illegal. Then, after the FISC rules the collection illegal (or, after FBI decides to “stop” collection before the 7 day deadline and thereby avoids telling the FISC what they’ve done), they can still keep those records so long as they parallel construct them. I’m not even sure collection ended before application would ever get reported to Congress.

And remember, there’s reason to believe that in the one year that the government has had an emergency provision for Section 215, it violated the prohibition on targeting someone for First Amendment protected activities.

If, as Sensenbrenner claims, closing some of the gaping loopholes on this provision would blow up the bill, it is an all but explicit admission that the Intelligence Community plans to use the immunity of this bill to be able to conduct illegal collection against people who are only “related” to an ongoing investigation.

Nine Members of Congress Vote to Postpone the Fourth Amendment

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John Conyers, Jim Sensenbrenner, Darrell Issa, Steve Cohen, Jerry Nadler, Sheila Jackson Lee, Trey Gowdy,  John Ratcliffe, Bob Goodlatte all voted to postpone the Fourth Amendment today.

At issue was Ted Poe’s amendment to the USA Freedom Act (USA F-ReDux; see the debate starting around 1:15), which prohibited warrantless back door searches and requiring companies from inserting technical back doors.

One after another House Judiciary Committee member claimed to support the amendment and, it seems, agreed that back door searches violate the Fourth Amendment. Though the claims of support from John Ratcliffe, who confessed to using back door searches as a US Attorney, and Bob Goodlatte, who voted against the Massie-Lofgren amendment last year, are suspect. But all of them claimed they needed to vote against the amendment to ensure the USA Freedom Act itself passed.

That judgment may or may not be correct, but it’s a fairly remarkable claim. Not because — in the case of people like Jerry Nader and John Conyers — there’s any question about their support for the Fourth Amendment. But because the committee in charge of guarding the Constitution could not do so because the Intelligence Committee had the sway to override their influence. That was a point made, at length, by both Jim Jordan and Ted Poe, with the latter introducing the point that those in support of the amendment but voting against it had basically agreed to postpone the Fourth Amendment until Section 702 reauthorization in 2017.

(1:37) Jordan: A vote for this amendment is not a vote to kill the bill. It’s not a vote for a poison pill. It’s not a vote to blow up the deal. It’s a vote for the Fourth Amendment. Plain and simple. All the Gentleman says in his amendment is, if you’re going to get information from an American citizen, you need a warrant. Imagine that? Consistent with the Fourth Amendment. And if this committee, the Judiciary Committee, the committee most responsible for protecting the Bill of Rights and the Constitution and fundamental liberties, if we can’t support this amendment, I just don’t see I it. I get all the arguments that you’re making, and they’re all good and the process and everything else but only in Congress does that trump — I mean, that should never trump the Fourth Amendment.

(1:49) Poe; We are it. The Judiciary Committee is it. We are the ones that are protecting or are supposed to protect, and I think we do, that Constitution that we have. And we’re not talking about postponing an Appropriations amount of money. We’re not talking about postponing building a bridge. We’re talking about postponing the Fourth Amendment — and letting it apply to American citizens — for at least two years. This is our opportunity. If the politics says that the Intel Committee — this amendment may be so important to them that they don’t like it they’ll kill the deal then maybe we need to reevaluate our position in that we ought to push forward for this amendment. Because it’s a constitutional protection that we demand occur for American citizens and we want it now. Not postpone it down the road to live to fight another day. I’ve heard that phrase so long in this Congress, for the last 10 years, live to fight another day, let’s kick the can down the road. You know? I think we have to do what we are supposed to do as a Committee. And most of the members of the Committee support this idea, they agree with the Fourth Amendment, that it ought to apply to American citizens under these circumstances. The Federal government is intrusive and abusive, trying to tell companies that they want to get information and the back door comments that Ms. Lofgren has talked about. We can prevent that. I think we should support the amendment and then we should fight to keep this in the legislation and bring the legislation to the floor and let the Intel Committee vote against the Fourth Amendment if that’s what they really want to do. And as far as leadership goes I think we ought to just bring it to the floor. Politely make sure that the law, the Constitution, trumps politics. Or we can let politics trump the Constitution. That’s really the decision.

Nevertheless, only Louie Gohmert, Raul Labrador, Zoe Lofgren, Suzan DelBene, Hakeem Jeffries, David Cicilline, and one other Congressman–possibly Farenthold–supported the amendment.

The committee purportedly overseeing the Intelligence Community and ensuring it doesn’t violate the Constitution has instead dictated to the committee that guards the Constitution it won’t be permitted to do its job.

Use the Cantor Shellacking to Reverse Course on USA Freedumber

Eric Cantor, who famously held up earthquake relief to his own district on Paygo rules, got his ass handed to him last night by Tea Party candidate Dave Brat.

And while my impression is Cantor lost because of that kind of disdain for his constituents, it is in fact the case that 1) Cantor was a key player in watering down and then passing the USA Freedumber Act and 2) Brat campaigned on an anti-surveillance platform. Which means pundits are already reading Cantor’s defeat as a loss for the NSA.

But it’s only a loss if it leads to the defeat of USA Freedumber, one of the last bills Cantor shepherded through the House before his shellacking.

So I think the privacy community should use it as an opportunity to do what it should have done as soon as USA Freedumb got watered down into USA Freedumber: loudly declare that Jim Sensenbrenner reneged on the deal made in the USA Freedumb Act and that the legislative effort needs to be reset.

I say that because right now the privacy community has lost all its leverage in this process by not loudly coming out against USA Freedumber after Cantor watered it down, by not rallying the privacy community on solid principles. Sure, doing so doesn’t help in the House, where significant damage has already been done. But doing so may be one of the few things that would restore the credibility of the institutional players and restore some kind of unity to the effort.

Why USA Freedumber Doesn’t End (What You and I Think of as) Bulk Collection

I fear, reading this Kevin Drum post, that my explanations of why USA Freedumber will not end what you and I think of as bulk collection have not been clear enough. So I’m going to try again.

It is now, with the bill in current form, a 4-part argument:

  • The bill uses the intelligence community definition of bulk collection in its claim to end bulk collection, not the plain English language meaning of it
  • The bill retains the “relevant to” language that got us into this problem
  • The “selection terms” it uses to prevent bulk collection would permit the collection of vast swaths of innocent people’s records
  • Such a reading would probably not rely on any new FISA Court opinion; existing opinions probably already authorize such collection

The intelligence versus the plain English definition of bulk collection

This entire bill is based on the intelligence community definition of bulk collection, not the common English definition of it. As defined by President Obama’s Presidential Policy Directive on SIGINT, bulk collection means,

the authorized collection of large quantities of signals intelligence data which, due to technical or operational considerations, is acquired without the use of discriminants (e.g., specific identifiers, selection terms, etc.).

Bulk collection, as defined by the intelligence commonly, only means collection that obtains all of a particular type of record: all phone records, all Internet metadata, all credit card records. Anything that stops short of that — all 202 Area Code phone records, all credit card records buying pressure cookers, all Internet metadata for email sent to Yemen — would not count as bulk collection under this definition.

A more commonsense meaning of bulk collection would be the collection of large volumes of data, sweeping up the data of totally innocent people, on which to do further (sometimes technically intrusive) searches to find the data of interest. What we call “Big Data,” for example, would very often not qualify as bulk collection as the intelligence community defines it (perhaps its starts with the health data of everyone born after 1946, for example, or the purchase records from just one online store) but would qualify as bulk collection as you and I would define it.

As I explained in this post, the means USA Freedumber uses to ensure that it does not permit bulk collection is to require the collection start from a “selection term.” Thus, by definition, it cannot be bulk collection because the technical (but not commonsense) definition of bulk collection is that which uses a selection term.

And because they defined it that way, it means that every time some well-intentioned Congressman (it was all men, pushing this bill) boasted that this bill “ends bulk collection” they were only laying a legislative record that would prohibit the intelligence community definition of bulk collection, not the commonsense meaning.

The bill retains the “relevant to” language that gave us bulk collection in the first place

Man, Jim Sensenbrenner must have complained about the way the FISA Court reinterpreted the plain meaning of “relevant to” from the 2006 reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act three or four times in the post-passage press conference. He’s still angry, you see, that a court, in secret, defined the term “relevant to” to mean “any data that could possibly include.”

But this bill does nothing to change that erroneous meaning of the term.

Worse, it relies on it!

For most authorities — the Pen Register (PRTT) authority, the non-call record Section 215 authority, and all National Security Letter authorities –USA Freedumber leaves that language intact. It now requires the use of a selection term, but unlike the new call record language, those authorities don’t require that the selection term be “associated with a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.” (You can compare the language for traditional Section 215 and the new call records Section 215 at b2B and b2C in this post.)  They don’t even require that the selection term itself be relevant to the investigation!

Thus, so long as there is a selection term — some term to ensure the NSA isn’t grabbing all of a certain kind of record — they’re going to still be able to get that data so long as they can argue that sorting through whatever data they get will yield useful information.

“Specific selection term” is too broad

Now, all that wouldn’t matter if the bill required specific selection terms to be tied to the individual or entity under investigation. Even the USA Freedumb bill didn’t require that.

But the language in USA Freedumber that got passed today makes things worse.

SPECIFIC SELECTION TERM.—The term ‘specific selection term’ means a discrete term, such as a term specifically identifying a person, entity, account, address, or device, used by the Government to limit the scope of the information or tangible things sought pursuant to the statute authorizing the provision of such information or tangible things to the Government.’

Again, note that the selection term only needs to limit the scope of production, not have a tie to the target of the investigation.

And while I actually find comfort from some of these terms — I’d be happy if the financial NSLs could only search on a specific account and the toll record NSL could only get phone records of a specific device (though FBI does use NSLs to get 2 degree separation, so this would return more than just that device’s records). As I’ve said in the past, “entity” is far too broad. It could include al Qaeda — allowing the NSA to obtain all data that might have al Qaeda data within it — or VISA — allowing the NSA to obtain all of that credit card entity’s data.

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Freedumb versus Freedumber

I’ve already done a few posts on the USA Freedumber bill, AKA HR 3361. This post shows that the Administration has gotten explicit that the chaining process is now about “connected” identifiers and not necessarily “contacts” between them. And this post shows they’ve added another trough of compensation at which intelligence contractors can feed.

But I realize now it really needs a systematic comparison of the bill with USA Freedumb, the previously gutted manager’s amendment. This will be a working thread.

PDF 3 Freedumber: Includes language explicitly envisioning getting call records outside of the limited method rolled out here.

(including an application for the production of call detail records other than in the manner described in subparagraph (C))

We know they always planned to be able to get historical call records via the old means (though new language in section C makes it clear the systematic program can get historical records too), but I wonder if this is also there to get call detail records from smaller telecoms.

Here’s that historical language:

in the case of an application for the production on a daily basis of call detail records created before, on, or after the date of the application relating to an authorized investigation [my emphasis]

See this post for how they changed the chaining language on PDF 5.

PDF6 : They changed the minimization language to be tied to “foreign intelligence” information. I wrote about it in this post at the Guardian.

PDF 7: They’ve gotten rid of language limiting emergency authorities to terrorist investigations as shown:

(A) reasonably determines that an emergency situation requires the production of tangible things to obtain information for an authorized investigation (other than a threat assessment) conducted in accordance with subsection (a)(2) to protect against international terrorism before an order authorizing such production can with due diligence be obtained;

The bill keeps the weak prohibition on using stuff that shouldn’t have been gotten under emergency powers (the AG ensures that such data are not used, but then AG is the one who originally thought it’d be kosher in the first place, making the AG the worst person to police its non-usage). So it turns the emergency powers into a bigger loophole.

PDF 11: I noted that they’ve extended compensation beyond just the telecoms to other advisors (AKA Booz). They’ve also given the Booz figures immunity.

(e)(1) No cause of action shall lie in any court against a person who—

(A) produces tangible things or provides information, facilities, or technical assistance pursuant to an order issued or an emergency production required under this section; or

(B) otherwise provides technical assistance to the Government under this section or to implement the amendments made to this section by the USA FREEDOM Act.

PDF 13: Here’s the new definition for Specific Selection Term. I’ll have a post on this later, but suffice it to say that “such as” is the new “relevant to.”

SPECIFIC SELECTION TERM.—The term ‘specific selection term’ means a discrete term, such as a term specifically identifying a person, entity, account, address, or device, used by the Government to limit the scope of the information or tangible things sought pursuant to the statute authorizing the provision of such information or tangible things to the Government.’

I’m not as bugged by “address” or “device” as some others are–I actually think they’re useful. Still, it’s far too broad.

PDF 15: For some reason, Freedumber gives the IC IG 6 months after the DOJ IG finishes his IG report (which retains the gap where 2010 and 2011 are) before he has to submit his report.

Not later than 180 days after the date on which the Inspector General of the Department of Justice submits the report required under subsection (c)(3), the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community  shall submit

These shouldn’t need to be sequential. So I wonder why they did this, if not to delay the required reporting out beyond the beginning of consideration of the sunset.

PDF 18: They can keep on dragnetting up until the moment when the new law goes into effect.

RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this Act shall be construed to alter or eliminate the authority of the Government to obtain an order under title V of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1861 et seq.) as in effect prior to the effective date described in subsection (a) during the period ending on such effective date.

So they’re stocking up on data. And why not! You never know what fun new data you’ll get under the new system you need a dragnet for?

PDF 19: The NGO community is really excited about this addition.

SEC. 110. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.

Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize the production of the contents (as such term is defined in section 2510(8) of title 18, United States Code) of any electronic communication from an electronic communication service provider (as such term is defined in section 701(b)(4) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1881(b)(4)) under title V of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1861 et seq.).

I’m not so excited. First, while this language makes it clear the bill does not affirmatively authorized such production, if FISC has already approved it, they don’t need a bill, they’ve got authorization. In addition, I think there are some Internet entities that aren’t included in the definition of electronic communication service providers.’

PDF 20: Wow, they’ve utterly gutted the minimization procedures they had tried to add to Pen Register authority (which had included minimization procedures in applications and allowed the judge to review them). Instead of that we get,

(h) The Attorney General shall ensure that appropriate policies and procedures are in place to safeguard nonpublicly available information concerning United States persons that is collected through the use of a pen register or trap and trace device installed under this section. Such policies and procedures shall, to the maximum extent practicable and consistent with the need to protect  national security, include protections for the collection, retention, and use of information concerning United States persons.

Which would lead me to believe they either are or intend to resume using this abusively.

PDF 21: THe new bill takes out language trying to cut down on reverse targeting (it had made it illegal if it was a purpose of the acquisition at all). Great. So they’re now legislatively approving reverse targeting.

PDF 21: They changed limits on upstream collection from this:

(B) consistent with such definition, minimize the acquisition, and prohibit the retention and dissemination, of any communication as to which the sender and all intended recipients are determined to be located in the United States and prohibit the use of any discrete, non-target communication that is determined to be to or from a United States person or a person who appears to be located in the United States, except to protect against an immediate threat to  human life.’’.

To this (emphasis mine):

(B) consistent with such definition—

(i) minimize the acquisition, and prohibit the retention and dissemination, of any communication as to which the sender and all intended recipients are determined to be located in the United States at the time of acquisition, consistent with the need of the United States to obtain, produce, and disseminate foreign intelligence information; and

(ii) prohibit the use of any discrete communication that is not to, from, or about the target of an acquisition and is to or from an identifiable United States person or a person reasonably believed to be located in the United States, except to protect against an immediate threat to human life.’

The first clause could be read two ways: either to require minimization of data for which recipients were in the US when the data was collected. Or, more likely, they mean to require minimization of data that NSA immediately determines (at the the acquisition) to be in the US. If it’s the latter, it expands upstream collection.

The second clause limits the prohibition on using MCATs (that is, unrelated comms picked up off of targeted comms in the associated inbox) that aren’t targeted to those that involve identifiable US persons. In its discussions with John Bates, the NSA claimed it couldn’t identify which comms were USPs. Which means this would gut the minimization procedures put in place in 2011.

In other words, this language guts John Bates’ efforts to rein in illegal unconstitutional collection of US person content within the US.

PDF 27: As others have noted Freedumber gives the DNI the authority over declassification decisions on significant FISC opinions. It specifies the requirement to apply to any “significant interpretation of the term ‘specific selection term’.”

PDF 33: A reporting requirement on Section 215 is watered down to become a summary of compliance reviews, rather than the reviews themselves.

More troubling still, the same passage eliminates the language requiring reports on PRTT.

(6) any compliance reviews conducted by the Federal Government of electronic surveillance, physical searches, the installation of pen register or trap  and trace devices, access to records, or acquisitions conducted under this Act.’’.

PDF 33-34: Freedumber includes a DNI report of aggregate requests, but only with detail on targets, not on number of people affected (or even number of selectors). This is the cover up report for the dragnets. For NSLs, it also only provides the number of requests for information, but doesn’t break out targets. This may be solely because of the subscriber function but it would seem to permit the hiding of bulk collection under other NSLs. (That is, this may well be worse than current reporting.)

PDF 40: Freedumber shifts reporting requirements pertaining to FISC decisions such that Congress only gets notice of a denied or modified application if it includes a significant construction of law. Given that there’s been a huge increase in modified programs, this would serve to hide the kinds of bulk collection going on. It also takes out a requirement that the government summarize what went on.

In addition, there are changes on transparency the companies can do. I’ll sort that out at another time, but even what is there is not transparent.