Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
What information does the NSA collect and how?
We donâ€
t know all of the different types of information the NSA collects, but several secret collection programs have been revealed:
A record of most calls made in the U.S., including the telephone number of the phones making and receiving the call, and how long the call lasted. This information is known as “metadata†and doesnâ€
t include a recording of the actual call (but see below). This program was revealed through a leakedÂ
secret court order instructing Verizon to turn over all such information on a daily basis. Other phone companies, includingÂ
AT&T and Sprint, also reportedly give their records to the NSA on a continual basis. All together, this isÂ
several billion calls per day.
Email, Facebook posts and instant messages for an unknown number of people, viaÂ
PRISM, which involves the cooperation of at least nine different technology companies. Google, Facebook, Yahoo and others have denied that the NSA has “direct access†to their servers, saying they only release user information in response to a court order. Facebook has revealed that, in the last six months of 2012, they handed over the private data ofÂ
between 18,000 and 19,000 users to law enforcement of all types -- including local police and federal agencies, such as the FBI, Federal Marshals and the NSA.
Massive amounts of raw Internet traffic The NSA intercepts huge amounts of raw data, and storesÂ
billions of communication records per day in its databases. Using the NSAâ€
sÂ
XKEYSCORE software, analysts can see “nearly everything a user does on the Internetâ€Â
including emails, social media posts, web sites you visit, addresses typed into Google Maps, files sent, and more. Currently the NSA is only authorized to intercept Internet communications with at leastÂ
one end outside the U.S., though the domestic collection programÂ
used to be broader. But because there is no fully reliable automatic way to separate domestic from international communications, this program also captures some amount of U.S. citizensâ€
purely domestic Internet activity, such asÂ
emails, social media posts, instant messages, the sites you visit and online purchases you make.
The contents of an unknown number of phone calls There have beenÂ
severalÂ
reports that the NSA records the audio contents of some phone calls and a leaked documentÂ
confirms this. ThisÂ
reportedly happens “on a much smaller scale†than the programs above,Â
after analysts select specific people as “targets.†Calls to or from U.S. phone numbersÂ
can be recorded, as long as the other end is outside the U.S. or one of the callers is involved in "
international terrorism". There does not seem to be any public information about the collection of text messages, which would be much more practical to collect in bulk because of their smaller size.
The NSA has been prohibited from recording domestic communications since theÂ
passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act but at least two of these programs -- phone records collection and Internet cable taps -- involve huge volumes of Americansâ€
data.
Does the NSA record everything about everyone, all the time?
The NSA records as much information as it can, subject to technical limitations (thereâ€
s a lot of data) and legal constraints. This currently includes the metadata for nearly all telephone calls made in the U.S. (but not their content) and massive amounts of Internet traffic withÂ
at least one end outside the U.S.Itâ€
s not clear exactly how many cables have been tapped, though we know of at least oneÂ
inside the U.S., a secret report about the program by the NSAâ€
s Inspector General mentionsÂ
multiple cables, and the volume of intercepted information is so large that it was processed atÂ
150 sites around the world as of 2008. We also know that Britainâ€
s GCHQ, which shares some intelligence with the NSA, had tappedÂ
over 200 cables as of 2012, belonging toÂ
seven different telecommunications companies.          Â
Until 2011 the NSA also operated a domestic Internet metadata program whichÂ
collected mass records of who emailed who even if both parties were inside the U.S.
Because it is not always possible to separate domestic from foreign communications by automatic means, the NSA still captures some amount of purely domestic information, and it isÂ
allowed to do so by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
more:
https://www.propublica.org/article/nsa-d...ection-faq
N.S.A. Triples Collection of Data From U.S. Phone Companies
WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency vacuumed up more than 534 million records of phone calls and text messages from American telecommunications providers like AT&T and Verizon last year — more than three times what it collected in 2016, a new report revealed on Friday.
Intelligence analysts are also more frequently searching for information about Americans within the agencyâ€s expanding collection of so-called call detail records — telecom metadata logging who contacted whom and when, but not the contents of what they said.
The new report — an annual set of surveillance-related statistics issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — did not explain why the number of records increased so dramatically. But in an interview, Alex Joel, the officeâ€s chief civil liberties officer, said the N.S.A. had not reinterpreted its legal authorities to change the way it collects such data.
He cited a variety of factors that might have contributed to the increase, potentially including changes in the amount of historical data companies are choosing to keep, the number of phone accounts used by each target and changes to how the telecommunications industry creates records based on constantly shifting technology and practices.
more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/04/us/po...eport.html
