NSA Performed Warrantless Searches on Americans’ Calls and Emails

Local Editor

US intelligence chiefs have confirmed that the National Security Agency has used a "back door" in surveillance law to perform warrantless searches on Americans' communications.

The NSA's collection programs are ostensibly targeted at foreigners, but in August the Guardian revealed a secret rule change allowing NSA analysts to search for Americans' details within the databases.

In a letter to Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat on the intelligence committee, the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, confirmed for the first time the use of this legal authority to search for data related to "US persons".

"There have been queries, using US person identifiers, of communications lawfully acquired to obtain foreign intelligence targeting non-US persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States," Clapper wrote in the letter, which has been obtained by the Guardian.

He further said: "These queries were performed pursuant to minimization procedures approved by the Fisa court and consistent with the statute and the fourth amendment."
The legal authority to perform the searches, revealed in top-secret NSA documents provided to the Guardian by Edward Snowden, was denounced by Wyden as a "backdoor search loophole."

Many of the NSA's most controversial programs collect information under the law affected by the so-called loophole. These include Prism, which allows the agency to collect data from Google, Apple, Facebook, Yahoo and other tech companies, and the agency's Upstream program - a huge network of internet cable taps.

Clapper did not disclose how many warrantless searches had been performed by the NSA.
Confirmation that the NSA has searched for Americans' communications in its phone call and email databases complicates President Barack Obama's initial defenses of the broad surveillance in June.

"When it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That's not what this program's about," Obama said. "As was indicated, what the intelligence community is doing is looking at phone numbers and durations of calls. They are not looking at people's names, and they're not looking at content."
Obama was referring specifically to the bulk collection of US phone records, but his answer misleadingly suggested that the NSA could not examine Americans' phone calls and emails.

At a recent hearing of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, administration lawyers defended their latitude to perform such searches.
The board is scheduled to deliver a report on the legal authority under which the communications are collected, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, passed in 2008.
Clapper referred to that debate in his letter to Wyden, which came in response to the senator's request in January for a public answer on whether the NSA had in fact conducted such searches.

"As you know, when Congress reauthorized Section 702, the proposal to restrict such queries was specifically raised and ultimately not adopted," Clapper wrote.
Initially, NSA rules on such data prevented the databases being searched for any details relating to "US persons" - that is, citizens or residents of the US. However, in October 2011 the Fisa court approved new procedures which allowed the agency to search for US person data, a revelation contained in documents revealed by Snowden.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team