Podcasts about foreign intelligence surveillance court

This week we talk about STELLARWIND, 9/11, and the NSA.We also discuss warrantless surveillance, intelligence agencies, and FISA.Recommended Book: Period: The Real Story of Menstruation by Kate ClancyTranscriptImmediately after the terrorist attacks in the US on September 11, 2001, then President George W. Bush gave his approval for the National Security Agency, the NSA, to run a portfolio of significant and ever-evolving cross-agency efforts aimed at preventing future attacks of that kind, scale, and scope.The thinking behind this collection of authorizations to various US intelligence agencies, which would operate in tandem with the NSA, was that we somehow didn't see this well-orchestrated, complex plan coming, and though revelations in later years suggested we kind of did, we just didn't act on the intelligence we had, in those early, post-attack days, everyone at the top was scrambling to reassure the country that things would be okay, while also worrying that more attacks from someone, somewhere, might be impending.So the President signed a bunch of go-aheads that typically wouldn't have been signed, and the government gave a lot of power to the NSA to amalgamate the resulting intelligence data in ways that also wouldn't have previously been okay'd, but that, in those unusual circumstances, were considered to be not just acceptable, but desirable and necessary.This jumble of intelligence service activities, approved by the president and delegated to the NSA, became known as the President's Surveillance Program, and they were kept secret, in part because of how unprecedented they were, and in part because those in charge didn't want to risk their opposition—those they knew about, like Al Qaeda, but also those that might be waiting in the wings to attack the US while it was perceptually weakened and vulnerable—they didn't want to risk those entities knowing what they were doing, what they knew about, how they were collecting data, and so on.The info that was gleaned via these programs was compiled and stored in an SCI, which stands for Sensitive Compartment Information, and which refers to a type of document control system, a bit like Top Secret or Classified, in that it allows those running it to set what level of access people must have to view, process, use, or even discuss its contents, and this particular SCI was codenamed STELLARWIND.Among other activities, the programs feeding data into the Stellarwind SCI mined huge databases of email and phone communications, alongside web-browsing and financial activities; all sorts of tracking information that's collected by various components of intelligence, law enforcement, and other government and government-adjacent services were tapped and harvested.All of this data was then funneled into this one program, and though the degree to which this much information is useful up for debate, because having a slew of data doesn't mean that data is organized in useful ways, in 2004 the US Justice Department discovered that the NSA was not just collecting this sort of data when it was connected to foreign entities or entities that have been connected to terrorism, it was also collecting it from sources and people, including just average everyday Americans and small businesses that were doing no terrorism at all, and which had no links to terrorism, and it was doing so on American soil.After this discovery, then-President Bush said, well, the NSA is allowed to do that, that's fine, but they can only look at collected metadata related to terrorism—so they can collect whatever they want, sweep up gobs of information, file-away whatever drifts into their expansive and undifferentiating nets, but they're not allowed to look at and use anything not related to terrorism; and with that clarification to keep the Justice Department from doing anything that might hinder the program, the president reauthorized it that same year, 2004.There was disagreement within the government about the legality of all this, some entities saying that warrantless wiretapping of American citizens was illegal, even if the collected data was supposedly unusable unless some kind of terrorism connection could be ginned up to justify it. But those in charge ultimately decided that it would be irresponsible not to use these wiretapping powers the NSA wielded to protect American lives, and even said that Congress had no power to stop them from doing so, because it fell within their wheelhouse, that of defense against potential future foreign attack.All of the President's Surveillance Programs officially expired on February 1 of 2007, but new legislation that same year, and more in 2008, extended some of these activities, all with the justification of protecting the US from future terrorist attacks, and in 2009, a report published by the Inspectors General of the country's intelligence agencies found, in essence, that the now-retired President's Surveillance Program went way beyond what was allowed, in terms of collecting this sort of data without a warrant, and indicated that there was little oversight keeping folks from looking at data they weren't supposed to be looking at, while also indicating that the program probably wasn't very effective—so there was all this data, collected on dubious legal grounds, approved during a period of fear and perceived vulnerability, that was also becoming this a major headache for folks concerned about what amounted to a big, secret surveillance program that was targeting the very people it was supposedly meant to protect from terrorism, all in the pursuit of purported security benefits that were more theoretical than real.A former NSA codebreaker went on the record with WIRED magazine in 2012, outlining how the NSA was surveilling Americans in this way, which got the codename Stellarwind into the press as a consequence, and the following year, in 2013, the Washington Post and The Guardian published a draft of that 2009 Inspector General report that said the program was going far beyond the bounds of what was legal and right and effective—that draft leaked by NSA employee and subcontractor Edward Snowden.Further revelations based on that leak came out in 2014, at which point there was abundant public evidence that much of what was happening within the Stellarwind program was kept secret even after supposed earlier divulgences, and a lot of it was seemingly very illegal, though this program still functions in various capacities and at various scales, even now, in 2024.What I'd like to talk about today is a portion of the Stellarwind program that was recently extended, though not without controversy and pushback.—The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, was passed in 1978 in response to the fairly brazen and regular violations of Americans' privacy under the Nixon administration; namely that his government regularly spied on, and used intelligence and law enforcement services to mess with, political and activist groups that Nixon didn't like.FISA was meant to establish guardrails for when and how that sort of surveillance could be conducted, who could access the relevant data, and how it could be used—though notably, all of this applied to collecting intelligence in US territory; the rules are a lot looser when it comes to surveillance of non-americans in other countries.Among other things, FISA established the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which is a court that decides who can use these tools and access this data—they oversee the divvying-out of surveillance warrants—and FISA was the basis for all those President's Surveillance Programs following 9/11; so it was meant to prevent abuses of surveillance and intelligence tools by the US government against its citizens, and this general framework was used as a scaffolding for those enhanced surveillance powers the government gave itself after the 9/11 attacks; it was also a primary resource for those who found all those post-9/11 additional powers to be illegal oversteps.One evolution of FISA following September 11 was the introduction of what's called Section 702, which is provision that allows the US government to undertake targeted surveillance efforts against non US citizens outside the US, leveraging the full weight of the US government to do so, including but not limited to coercing telecommunications companies, like internet or phone companies, to hand over whatever data and recordings and such they might have available.Section 702 is meant to be very targeted and specific, never allowing the surveillance of any US citizen, anywhere, any person from any country who's in the US, or any foreign person located anywhere on the planet who is communicating with a US citizen—which is a technique that was previously leveraged by some components of Stellarwinds, the idea being that if you wanted to surveil an American but had no evidence they have links to terrorism, you would just capture their phone calls and other communications with non-Americans, and you'd be good to go.There's a fairly rigid set of protocols involved in using Section 702 for surveillance, including Department of Justice oversight on every targeting request, and opportunities to deny the collection of, or subsequent access to data that is collected by a sequence of analysts who are disconnected from those requesting said data.That's what the rules and processes for this provision say, anyway.In practice, Section 702 has allegedly been used to track members of Congress, journalists, victims of various sorts of crime, political donors, and protestors—targeting them for surveillance, but also used to search existing data that's already been collected, baselessly, via so-called "backdoor searches" with no connection to terrorism or anything else that would allow for the formal use of these tools, seemingly in violation of those supposed hardcore guardrails, at the behest of the FBI, CIA, and NSA. And this seemingly happens on a fairly regular basis—more than 200,000 warrantless, backdoor searches are performed each year.All of which adds interesting context to a recent congressional vote to reauthorize Section 702 for another two years, right as it was about to expire.This extension vote was laden with drama, in part because two major US internet companies said they would no longer comply if Section 702 wasn't renewed, as the government had had its request to keep collecting data for another year approved, but it no longer had legal backing to demand such data from companies, with the ability to coerce them to hand over digital communications data, like email and text records, if they denied more polite requests. So these companies said, well, you can collect whatever data you can get your hands on, but you can't get your hands on our data, anymore.There was also political drama, though, in the shape of former US President, and current Presidential candidate Trump's loudly stated antagonism toward renewing this provision, something that aligned him with privacy oriented groups that he typically doesn't like or align with.A vote that would have ended all warrantless searches on these sorts of communications failed to pass earlier in April, due to a tied 212 to 212 vote in the House, and another that would have accomplished a similar outcome and which was voted upon a few days later was defeated by just a handful of votes.The conflict here is seemingly that while there are significant and persistent privacy issues with this and related programs, it's also considered to be a potentially useful tool in the US intelligence community's utility belt. And though most politicians would like to be seen as defending the privacy of American citizen from prying government eyes, few want to be seen as hobbling its defense infrastructure, even if the defense value of this and connected programs have been questioned and challenged, time and time again.What eventually helped a Section 702 extension bill attain approval from Congress was a compromise that approved the extension of some components of it, that allowed it to take new communications technologies into account, arguably making it more useful for surveillance purposes while simultaneously increasing the privacy risks it poses, but pairing those add-ons with a shortened extension period, down from five years to two. Which means it's likely there will be another showdown over whether it should be extended in just a few years, at which point it can be killed or further edited, depending on how this new, slightly iterated version, is functioning at that point.All of which is interesting and newly relevant in part because we're stepping into what some have called a new Cold War, with all sorts of real-deal military conflicts on the ground threatening to expand and encompass more of the planet, alongside rifts in the relationships between behemoths like the US and China, which could erupt into larger versions of the same, if these governments aren't careful.At such moments, we tend to see more support for measures that give heightened power to governments and other defense-oriented entities, even at the expense of individual rights.So rather than clipping the wings of this and similar programs in a few years when renewal is once more on the docket, it may be that Congress further empowers it—depending on how today's conflicts play out, and how the relationships between the US and its primary rivals evolve in the meantime.Show Noteshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/04/19/fisa-702-surveillance-internet/https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/04/20/congress-extends-controversial-warrantless-surveillance-law-two-years/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Acthttps://www.dni.gov/files/CLPT/documents/2023_ASTR_for_CY2022.pdf#page=24https://www.intelligence.gov/assets/documents/702%20Documents/declassified/2023/FISC_2023_FISA_702_Certifications_Opinion_April11_2023.pdf#page=89https://www.dni.gov/files/icotr/Section702-Basics-Infographic.pdfhttps://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/warrantless-surveillance-under-section-702-fisahttps://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/whats-next-reforming-section-702-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-acthttps://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/fisa-section-702-civil-rights-abuseshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Acthttps://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/20/us/politics/senate-passes-surveillance-law-extension.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President%27s_Surveillance_Programhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_compartmented_informationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_Wind This is a public episode. 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On this episode, Trey provides a brief analysis of the recent verdict of Right-Wing Conspiracy Theorist, Alex Jones' criminal trial for spreading misinformation on the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Trey reflects on the possible outcomes of Republicans regaining control of the House following the upcoming midterm elections. He also commends the discipline of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges and the confusing nature of sentencing criminals to life in prison. Follow Trey on Twitter: @TGowdySC Trey's forthcoming book Start, Stay, or Leave is available for pre-order NOW Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From June 14, 2014: At the 2014 Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference, a panel of experts debated the pros and cons of adding outside lawyers to litigation before two tribunals at the heart of the NSA surveillance controversy: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ("FISC") and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review ("FISCR"). As is well known, proceedings at those courts generally are held in secret and ex parte, with only the government arguing its position. But, in the wake of the Snowden revelations, many have called for reform, and for greater participation by non-government attorneys.The group was comprised of panelists Marc Zwillinger, an attorney with experience in surveillance matters; Alex Abdo of the American Civil Liberties Union; and Amie Stepanovich, of Access. Lawfare's Steve Vladeck moderated the discussion, which closely examined the question of whether, and how, to add more adversarial process to FISC and FISCR proceedings.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

U.S. government surveillance bubbled back up in headlines in recent weeks. Portugal's data protection authority halted transfers of data to the U.S. after complaints that census data were being sent back to the U.S. The same week, a U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court decision was published, in which it renewed a U.S. surveillance program even though it found some Federal Bureau of Investigation employees illegally accessed email data. This comes as the U.S. and EU try to hammer out a renewed data transfer agreement in the wake of the "Schrems II" decision that invalidated Privacy Shield. April Falcon Doss worked at the U.S. National Security Agency for 13 years. In 2017, Doss joined the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for the Russia investigation. She also wrote a book, "Cyber Privacy: Who Has Your Data and Why You Should Care," and took a new job at Georgetown University Law Center. Host Jedidiah Bracy recently caught up with Doss to discuss the state of play of U.S. surveillance law, her new book, what she found out while investigating the 2016 presidential election, and what's on the horizon with her new gig at Georgetown.

The dangerous Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and what you need to know about it as a citizen of the US.

In the inaugural episode of EFF's "How to Fix the Internet" podcast, the Cato Institute's specialist in surveillance legal policy, Julian Sanchez, joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O'Brien as they delve into the problems with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, also known as the FISC or the FISA Court. Sanchez explains how the FISA Court signs off on surveillance of huge swaths of our digital lives, and how the format and structure of the FISA Court is inherently flawed. In this episode, you'll learn about: How the FISA Court impacts your digital privacy The makeup of the FISA Court and how judges are chosen How almost all of the key decisions about the legality of America's mass Internet spying projects have been made by the FISC How the current system promotes ideological hegemony within the FISA court How the FISC's endless-secrecy-by-default system insulates it from the ecosystem of jurisprudence that could act as a guardrail against poor decisions as well as accountability for them How the FISC's remit has ballooned from approving individual surveillance orders to signing off on broad programmatic types of surveillance Why we need a stronger amicus role in the FISC, and especially a bigger role for technical experts to advise the court Specific reforms that could be enacted to address these systemic issues and ensure a more fair review of surveillance systems Julian is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and studies issues at the intersection of technology, privacy, and civil liberties, with a particular focus on national security and intelligence surveillance. Before joining Cato, Julian served as the Washington editor for the technology news site Ars Technica, where he covered surveillance, intellectual property, and telecom policy. He has also worked as a writer for The Economist's blog Democracy in America and as an editor for Reason magazine, where he remains a contributing editor. Sanchez has written on privacy and technology for a wide array of national publications, ranging from the National Review to The Nation, and is a founding editor of the policy blog Just Security. He studied philosophy and political science at New York University. Find him on Twitter at @Normative. A transcript of the episode, as well as legal resources – including links to important cases, books, and briefs discussed in the podcast – is available at https://eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/secret-court-approving-secret-surveillance. Please subscribe to How to Fix the Internet using your podcast player of choice. If you have any feedback on this episode, please email podcast@eff.org. Audio editing for this episode by Stuga Studios: https://www.stugastudios.com. Music by Nat Keefe: https://natkeefe.com/   This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is under scrutiny for its failures to properly check overzealous federal authorities. Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky says the court is not constitutional, but he's still offering reforms. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On March 15, 2020, certain authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) will expire absent renewal by Congress. The authorities set to expire fall into three categories: 1) the business records provision (often referred to as Section 215) that allows for collection of call detail records, among other things; 2) roving wiretaps; and 3) the lone wolf provision. On March 11, the House passed a compromise bill that the Senate will soon consider. However, several Republican Senators have already urged President Trump to veto the reauthorization bill, should it pass both chambers.This decision point comes at a time of heightened scrutiny, given the recent Department of Justice Inspector General report addressing the FBI's use of FISA while investigating the 2016 presidential election and a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review order expressing "serious concerns about the accuracy and completeness" of the FBI's FISA applications in that case. Please join us for a timely discussion of the mechanics and processes of FISA, recent controversies, and issues Congress will consider as it determines whether and how to renew these key provisions.Featuring:- Ashley Baker, Director of Public Policy, Committee for Justice- Nathan Leamer, Vice President of Public Affairs, Targeted VictoryVisit our website – RegProject.org – to learn more, view all of our content, and connect with us on social media.

On March 15, 2020, certain authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) will expire absent renewal by Congress. The authorities set to expire fall into three categories: 1) the business records provision (often referred to as Section 215) that allows for collection of call detail records, among other things; 2) roving wiretaps; and 3) the lone wolf provision. On March 11, the House passed a compromise bill that the Senate will soon consider. However, several Republican Senators have already urged President Trump to veto the reauthorization bill, should it pass both chambers.This decision point comes at a time of heightened scrutiny, given the recent Department of Justice Inspector General report addressing the FBI's use of FISA while investigating the 2016 presidential election and a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review order expressing "serious concerns about the accuracy and completeness" of the FBI's FISA applications in that case. Please join us for a timely discussion of the mechanics and processes of FISA, recent controversies, and issues Congress will consider as it determines whether and how to renew these key provisions.Featuring:- Ashley Baker, Director of Public Policy, Committee for Justice- Nathan Leamer, Vice President of Public Affairs, Targeted VictoryVisit our website – RegProject.org – to learn more, view all of our content, and connect with us on social media.

Congress faces a March 15 deadline to renew the statutory authority for several key provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This decision point comes at a time of heightened scrutiny, given the recent Department of Justice Inspector General report addressing the FBI's use of FISA while investigating the 2016 presidential election and a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review order expressing "serious concerns about the accuracy and completeness" of the FBI's FISA applications in that case. The panel will discuss the mechanics of FISA, the recent controversy, and issues for Congress to consider as it determines whether and how to renew these key FISA provisions.Featuring: -- Gregory T. Nojeim, Senior Counsel & Director of Freedom, Security and Technology Project, Center for Democracy & Technology-- Kenneth L. Wainstein, Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP-- Moderator: Daniel G. West, Associate, SCF Partners

Congress faces a March 15 deadline to renew the statutory authority for several key provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This decision point comes at a time of heightened scrutiny, given the recent Department of Justice Inspector General report addressing the FBI's use of FISA while investigating the 2016 presidential election and a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review order expressing "serious concerns about the accuracy and completeness" of the FBI's FISA applications in that case. The panel will discuss the mechanics of FISA, the recent controversy, and issues for Congress to consider as it determines whether and how to renew these key FISA provisions.Featuring: -- Gregory T. Nojeim, Senior Counsel & Director of Freedom, Security and Technology Project, Center for Democracy & Technology-- Kenneth L. Wainstein, Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP-- Moderator: Daniel G. West, Associate, SCF Partners

Sara A. Carter interviewed Rep. Andy Biggs about the U.S. deal with the Taliban, coronavirus, the U.S. Mexico border, and FISA reform. Rep. Biggs told Carter that he believes the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court should be abolished.

A former National Security Agency "secret squirrel" explains how the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is supposed to protect the privacy of American citizens.

North Carolina Congressman Mark Meadows told "The Sara Carter Show" Monday that he - along with other senior Republican lawmakers - will send a letter to the presiding Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court demanding that FBI apologist David Kris be removed from overseeing bureau reforms demanded by the secret court.Kris, who openly criticized Republican lawmakers and defended the bureau's spying of short-term Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, is coming under heavy scrutiny for his online posts and blogs targeting Republican lawmakers investigations that uncovered malfeasance at the bureau.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has given the FBI until Jan. 10, 2020 to come up with fixes to abuses flagged by the Dept. of Justice Inspector General. In light of the revelations about FBI misbehavior in surveilling Trump campaign associates in 2016, it's clear we ignored screaming red flags that told us government abuse was not only possible-- but was happening. Subscribe to my two podcasts: “The Sharyl Attkisson Podcast” and “Full Measure After Hours.” Leave a review … and share with your friends! Visit SharylAttkisson.com and www.FullMeasure.news for original reporting. Do your own research. Make up your own mind. Think for yourself. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/sharylattkisson/support

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has given the FBI until Jan. 10, 2020 to come up with fixes to abuses flagged by the Dept. of Justice Inspector General. In light of the revelations about FBI misbehavior in surveilling Trump campaign associates in 2016, it's clear we ignored screaming red flags that told us government abuse was not only possible-- but was happening. Subscribe to my two podcasts: “The Sharyl Attkisson Podcast” and “Full Measure After Hours.” Leave a review … and share with your friends! Visit SharylAttkisson.com and www.FullMeasure.news for original reporting. Do your own research. Make up your own mind. Think for yourself. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sharylattkissonpodcast/message

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has given the FBI until Jan. 10, 2020 to come up with fixes to abuses flagged by the Dept. of Justice Inspector General. In light of the revelations about FBI misbehavior in surveilling Trump campaign associates in 2016, it's clear we ignored screaming red flags that told us government abuse was not only possible-- but was happening. Subscribe to my two podcasts: “The Sharyl Attkisson Podcast” and “Full Measure After Hours.” Leave a review … and share with your friends! Visit SharylAttkisson.com and www.FullMeasure.news for original reporting. Do your own research. Make up your own mind. Think for yourself. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fullmeasurepodcast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/fullmeasurepodcast/support

Julian Sanchez details some of the structural problems in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court after a rare rebuke of the FBI's mishandling of warrant applications. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

For this special edition of the Cyberlaw Podcast, we've convened a panel of experts on intelligence and surveillance legal matters. We take a look at the Department of Justice Inspector General's report on the FBI's use of FISA applications – and the many errors in those applications. We also touch on FBI Director Wray's response, as well as a public order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. We wrap up with thoughts on how to resolve some of the issues identified by the IG's report and suggestions for improving the FISA process. Joining me on the panel: Bob Litt, former general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. David Kris, who wrote the book on FISA and previously headed the DOJ's National Security Division, which is responsible for FISA warrants. Bobby Chesney of the University of Texas School of Law, as well as a founder of Lawfare and co-host of the National Security Law Podcast. The Cyberlaw Podcast is going on hiatus for the holidays. We'll be back in January with more insights into the latest events in technology, security, privacy, and government. Download the 294th Episode (mp3). You can subscribe to The Cyberlaw Podcast using iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Pocket Casts, or our RSS feed! As always, The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Be sure to engage with @stewartbaker on Twitter. Send your questions, comments, and suggestions for topics or interviewees to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com. Remember: If your suggested guest appears on the show, we will send you a highly coveted Cyberlaw Podcast mug! The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the firm.

Just in time for Christmas, Netflix is streaming the 46-minute Brazilian comedy special. A special that probably will not help their falling subscription numbers. The creators of ‘Empire” are reportedly considering bringing back Jussie Smollett, who was fired from the show after allegedly contriving a hoax hate crime in January of 2019, just to have him be part of the end of the series. Rosemary Collyer, Presiding Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, released a rare statement on Tuesday slamming the FBI’s misconduct in surveilling the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election which occurred under the leadership of disgraced former FBI Director James Comey. This and more as time allows, plus don't forget about the Edwards Notebook and the Veteran's Tip of the Day! 

More ransomware steals first, encrypts later. Are cobots vulnerable to novel forms of ransomware? Gangnam Industrial Style--the espionage campaign, not the K-pop dance number. Rancor is a persistent, well-resourced, and creative APT, but without much success to its credit. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court takes the FBI to the woodshed. And, hey, maybe he’s really Vlad the Updater? Tom Etheridge from CrowdStrike on incident response speed and the 1-10-60 concept. Guest is Eli Sugarman from the Hewlett Foundation with the results of their CyberVisuals contest.  For links to all of today's stories check our our CyberWire daily news brief: https://thecyberwire.com/issues/issues2019/December/CyberWire_2019_12_18.html  Support our show  

Just in time for Christmas, Netflix is streaming the 46-minute Brazilian comedy special. A special that probably will not help their falling subscription numbers. The creators of ‘Empire” are reportedly considering bringing back Jussie Smollett, who was fired from the show after allegedly contriving a hoax hate crime in January of 2019, just to have him be part of the end of the series. Rosemary Collyer, Presiding Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, released a rare statement on Tuesday slamming the FBI’s misconduct in surveilling the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election which occurred under the leadership of disgraced former FBI Director James Comey. This and more as time allows, plus don't forget about the Edwards Notebook and the Veteran's Tip of the Day! 

Michael Horowitz, the inspector general for the Department of Justice, released a damning report about the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Specifically, Horowitz found that the FBI abused the process of obtaining warrants to initiate surveillance on the campaign through the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, better known as FISA. My guest is Jerry Dunleavy, he’s a Justice Department reporter with the Washington Examiner. On today’s show, we’re going to discuss the I.G. report, how the FISA courts are supposed to work, and how the FBI abused the entire process. "Hashing it Out" is a podcast hosted by Siraj Hashmi, Washington Examiner's commentary video editor and writer. Each episode includes a political guest to offer historical context of the news and politics of the day and insight into how we got to where we are. If you want to find the deeper meaning behind current events, then "Hashing it Out" is the podcast for you.

Edward Snowden Welcome to the History of Computing Podcast, where we explore the history of information technology. Because by understanding the past, we're able to be prepared for the innovations of the future! Todays episode is about Edward Snowden, who leaked a trove of NSA documents that supposedly proved the NSA was storing and potentially weaponizing a lot of personal communications of US and foreign citizens. Now, before I tell an abridged version of his story I should say that I was conflicted about whether to do this episode. But I see the documents Edward Snowden released as a turning point in privacy. Before Snowden, there was talk of digital privacy at DefCon, in the ranks of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and of course amongst those who made hats of tin foil. But sometimes those tin foil mad hatters are right. Today, you see that word “Privacy” in sessions from developers at Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many other companies that host our data. It's front and center in sales and marketing. Many of those organizations claim they didn't know customer data was being captured. And we as a community have no reason not to trust them. But this is not a podcast about politics. For some, what Snowden did is an act of espionage. For others it's considered politically motivated. But many blame the leaker as a means of not addressing the information leaked. Things I've heard people say about what he did include: * He was just a disgruntled contractor * He was working for the Russians all along * This is the problem with Millenials * Espionage should be punishable by death * Wikileaks rapist * He gave Democratic server data to Trump * This is why we shouldn't allow trans people in the military * He is a hero These responses confuse a few different events. Which is understandable given the rapid rip and replace of these stories by the modern news cycle. Let's run through a quick review of some otherwise disconnected events. Chelsea Manning, then Bradley Manning, enlisted in 2007 and then leaked classified documents to Wikileaks in 2010. These documents included airstrike footage, diplomatic cables, documents about Guantanamo Bay detainees, and much more. Some of which possibly put lives in danger. Manning served seven years before having her sentence commuted by then US president, Barak Obama. She was not pardoned. Wikileaks.org is an active web site started in 2006 by Julian Assange. The site began as a community-driven wiki - but quickly ended up moving into more of a centralized distribution model, given some of the material that has been posted over the years. Assange has been in and out of courts throughout his adult life, first for hacking at a young age and then pushing the boundaries of freedom of speech, freedom of press, and the rights to the security of information owned by sovereign nations. I'm sure he was right in some of those actions and wrong in others. Wikileaks has been used as a tool for conservatives, liberals, various governments, and the intelligence communities of the US, Russia, and to get bosses or competitors for a promotion fired in the private sector. But hosting the truth knows no master. When those leaked documents help your cause it's a great freedom of speech. When they hurt your cause then it must be true that Assange and his acolytes are tools of a foreign power or worse, straight up spies. Any of it could be true. But again sometimes the truth can hurt -even if there are a few altered documents in a trove of mostly unaltered documents as has been alleged to be true of the hacked emails of John Podesta, the Democratic National Committee chair during the 2016 elections. Again, these aren't in any way political views, just facts. Because the Chelsea Manning trials were going on around the same time that Snowden went public, I do find these people and their stories can get all mixed up. Assange was all over the news as well. And I don't want to scope creep the episode. This episode is about what Edward Snowden did. And what he did was to leak NSA documents to journalists in 2013. These documents went into great detail about an unprecendented level of foreign and domestic data capture under the auspices of what he considered overreach by the intelligence community. Just because it is an unprecedented level doesn't make it right or wrong, just more than the previous precedent. Just because he considered it an overreach doesn't mean I do. It also doesn't mean that that much snooping into our personal lives, without probable cause, wasn't an overreach. And this is a bi-partisan issue. The overreach arguably began in ernest under Bush, based on research done while Clinton was in office and was then expanded under Obama. And of course, complained about by Trump while he actively sought to expand the programs. They were all complicit. How did Snowden end up with these documents? His father had served in the intelligence community. As with many of us, he became enamored with computers at a young age and turned his hobby into a career early in life. Snowden was working as a web developer when the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 hit. A lot of us were pretty devastated by those events but he wanted to do his patriotic duty and enlisted. Only problem is that he broke his legs during basic training. According to his autobiography it happened when he landed awkwardly while trying to avoid jumping on a snake. He then began life as a contractor in the intelligence community, which was exploding in the wake of 911. As with many, he hopped around into different roles finally joining the NSA for a bit, serving in Geneva before returning home to the DC area to resume life as a contractor. Contractors usually make more than staff in the intelligence community. Snowden would go on to build backup systems that would be used for even more overreach. He then took a step down to be a Sharepoint admin in Hawaii. Because Hawaii. And because he had started suffering from pretty bad epileptic seizures, an ailment he inherited from his mom. The people that do your IT have an unprecedented amount of information at their fingerprints. The backup admin can take almost everything anyone would want to know about your company home with them one day. You know, because it's Tuesday. In fact, we often defined that as an actual business process they were supposed to follow in the days before the cloud. We called them offsite backups. Sharepoint is a Microsoft product that allows you to share files, resources from other Microsoft products, news, and most anything digital with others. Snowden was a Sharepoint admin and boy did he share. Snowden took some time off from the NSA in 2013 and flew to Hong Kong where he met with Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill. He leaked a trove of documents to The Guardian and The Washington Post. The documents kept flowing to Der Spiegel and The New York Times. He was charged on violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and after going into hiding in Hong Kong tried to escape to Ecuador. But during a layover in Moscow he discovered his passport had been cancelled and he's been living there ever since. He has been offered asylum in a few countries but because there are no direct flights there from Moscow. Think about this: just over half of Americans had a cell phone on September 11th, 2001. And practically none had we now consider smart phones. In fact, only 35% had them in 2011. Today, nearly all Americans have a cell phone with 80 percent having a smart phone. Those devices create a lot of data. There's the GPS coordinates, the emails sent and received, the Facebook messages to our friends, the events we say we're going to, the recipes about the food we're going to cook, the type of content we like to assume, our financial records. Even our photos. Once upon a time, and it was not very long ago at all, you had to break into someones house to go through all that. Not any more. During the time since 911 we also moved a lot of data to the cloud. You know how your email lives on a server hosted by Google, Apple, Microsoft, or some other company. That's the cloud. You know how your documents live on Google, Dropbox or Box instead of on a small business server or large storage area network these days? That's the cloud. It's easy. It's cheaper. And you don't have to have a Snowden in every company in the world to host them yourself. The other thing that has changed between 2001 and 2013 was the actual law. The USA Patriot Act expanded the ability for the US to investigate the September 11th terror attacks and other incidents of terror. Suddenly people could be detained indefinitely, law enforcement could search records and homes without a court order. It was supposed to be temporary. It was renewed in 2005 under Bush and then extended in 2011 under Obama. It continued in 2015 but under Section 215 the NSA was told to stop collecting everyone's phone data. But phone companies will keep the data and provide it to the NSA upon request, so samesies. But they still called it the Freedom act. FISC, or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was established in 1978 with the passing of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. These hearings are ex partei given that they are about intelligence matters. The Patriot Act expanded those. The Freedom Act retained much of that language and the Trump Administration is likely to request these be made permanent. Since we all know what's happening, I guess our values have changed. Over the centuries, technology has constantly forced us to rethink our values, consciously or not. Can you imagine how your thinking might have changed going from a society where people didn't read to one where they did at the advent of the printing press? Just think of how email and instant messaging changed what we value. The laws, based on the ethics and the values are slow to respond to technology. Laws are meant to be deliberate and so deliberated over. When Trump, Biden, Bernie, or the next president or presidential hopefuls ask about the history of investigating them. The answer is probably that the government started when you got your first cell phone. Or your first email address. Do you value keeping that information private? I've never cared all that much. I guess the rest of the country doesn't either, as we haven't taken steps to change it. But I might care about my civil liberties some day in the future. Think about that come December 15th. We can undo anything. If we care to. Because our civil liberties are just one aspect of liberty. And no matter who is in office or what they're trying to accomplish, you still have values and on a case by case basis, you don't have to sacrifice or erode those due to partisan bickering, or with each transition of power and each cult of personality that rises, you will slowly see them disappear. So thank you for tuning in to yet another episode of the History of Computing Podcast. We're so lucky to have you. Have a great day!

Fourth Amendment The Fourth amendment protects people from unlawful searches and seizures. For example, in the 1970s the Supreme Court ruled that a warrant is necessary in order to listen in on telephone conversations, but not to collect the phone numbers. This is the precedent that allows for big data to collect a vast amount of information about people on the internet. Further, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has determined that the legal analysis for the Fourth amendment is the same, whether the right is applied to millions of people or to just one. Data privacy and literacy The issue with collecting data at scale is that it becomes granular and social. At that point, the data is no longer innocuous but is invasive of privacy. It turns out that our every-day seemingly trivial interactions matter profoundly in the aggregate, and our habit of almost blindly agreeing to arcane privacy policies on the internet is misguided. We need newer forms of transparency that really tell us how the data is being used and how it affects our online profile, as well as a collective effort to prioritize data and technological literacy. We also need to have a conversation about what kind of analyses are and are not allowed. Technological Determinism Technological determinism is a vision of history in which technology leads the way and pushes a narrative that certain changes in technology are inevitable to the point of altering the people’s expectations. It’s also a reminder that decisions are always being made along the way, whether consciously or not, to yield the current system. We now accept the model of advertising services based on the surveillance of users' everyday interactions, but there were actually technological developments in the 1990s that would have made cash transactions largely anonymous. The internet could have developed differently.  Find out more: Matthew L. Jones is the James R. Barker Professor of Contemporary Civilization at Columbia University. He studies the history of science and technology, focused on early modern Europe and on recent information technologies.  A Guggenheim Fellow for 2012-13 and a Mellon New Directions fellow for 2012-15, he is writing a book on computing and state surveillance of communications, and is working on Data Mining: The Critique of Artificial Reason, 1963-2005, a historical and ethnographic account of “big data,” its relation to statistics and machine learning, and its growth as a fundamental new form of technical expertise in business and scientific research. He was also a Data & Society Fellow for 2017-2018 and authored numerous other papers. Follow Matthew L. Jones on Twitter @nescioquid

Something a little different on the podcast today: the launch of a special series—the Culper Partners Rule of Law Series. David Kris and Nates Jones, the founders of the Culper Partners consulting firm, have recorded a limited-edition podcast series exploring various aspects of the rule of law, particularly as it relates to U.S. national security and criminal law enforcement. Over the course of several episodes, which we will be dropping into the Lawfare Podcast feed over the coming weeks and months, David and Nate examine topics including legislative and judicial oversight of the executive branch, the rule of law in counterterrorism, the relationship between law, economic security, and national security, foreign relations and the rule of law, and law and politics. Each episode features an interview with a current or former senior government official, or a leader in the private sector. In this first episode, Nate and David talk with Judge John Bates, Senior Judge on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Judge Bates has had a long and distinguished career in government and private practice, including work at two private law firms, as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in DC, and as Deputy Independent Counsel in the Whitewater investigation. Most recently, from 2013 to 2015, he was Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Judge Bates became a federal judge in 2001, and from 2006 to 2013 he served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, where he was the court’s Presiding Judge beginning in 2009.

Edward Snowden is a former National Security Agency subcontractor who made headlines in 2013 when he leaked top secret information about NSA surveillance activities | Born in North Carolina in 1983, Edward Snowden later worked for the National Security Agency through subcontractor Booz Allen in the organization's Oahu office. During his time there, Snowden collected top-secret documents regarding NSA domestic surveillance practices that he found disturbing. After Snowden fled to Hong Kong, China and met with journalists from The Guardian and filmmaker Laura Poitras, newspapers began printing the documents that he had leaked, many of them detailing the monitoring of American citizens. The U.S. has charged Snowden with violations of the Espionage Act while many groups call him a hero. Snowden has found asylum in Russia and continues to speak about his work. Citzenfour, a documentary by Poitras about his story, won an Oscar in 2015. He is also the subject of Snowden, a 2016 biopic directed by Oliver Stone and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Edward Snowden was born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, on June 21, 1983. His mother works for the federal court in Baltimore (the family moved to Maryland during Snowden's youth) as chief deputy clerk for administration and information technology. Snowden's father, a former Coast Guard officer, later relocated to Pennsylvania and remarried. Snowden eventually landed a job as a security guard at the University of Maryland's Center for Advanced Study of Language. The institution had ties to the National Security Agency, and, by 2006, Snowden had taken an information-technology job at the Central Intelligence Agency. In 2009, after being suspected of trying to break into classified files, he left to work for private contractors, among them Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton, a tech consulting firm. While at Dell, he worked as a subcontractor in an NSA office in Japan before being transferred to an office in Hawaii. After a short time, he moved from Dell to Booz Allen, another NSA subcontractor, and remained with the company for only three months During his years of IT work, Snowden had noticed the far reach of the NSA's everyday surveillance. While working for Booz Allen, Snowden began copying top-secret NSA documents, building a dossier on practices that he found invasive and disturbing. The documents contained vast information on the NSA's domestic surveillance practices. After he had compiled a large store of documents, Snowden told his NSA supervisor that he needed a leave of absence for medical reasons, stating he had been diagnosed with epilepsy. On May 20, 2013, Snowden took a flight to Hong Kong, China, where he remained as he orchestrated a clandestine meeting with journalists from the U.K. publication The Guardian as well as filmmaker Laura Poitras. On June 5, The Guardian released secret documents obtained from Snowden. In these documents, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court implemented an order that required Verizon to release information to the NSA on an "ongoing, daily basis" culled from its American customers' phone activities. The following day, The Guardian and The Washington Post released Snowden's leaked information on PRISM, an NSA program that allows real-time information collection electronically. A flood of information followed, and both domestic and international debate ensued. "I'm willing to sacrifice [my former life] because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building," Snowden said in interviews given from his Hong Kong hotel room. One of the people he left behind was his girlfriend Lindsay Mills. The pair had been living together in Hawaii, and she reportedly had no idea that he was about to disclose classified information to the public.

Intelligence experts have generally been skeptical of the conclusions of the "Nunes memo," but the fight over this document may do long-term damage to attempts to provide important oversight for the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Julian Sanchez comments.View full event See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The recent release of the memo from GOP Rep. Devin Nunes revealed one major fact that stands out above all other revelations: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant-or FISA warrant on Carter Page (and the three subsequent renewals of the warrant) omitted a material fact. While the FBI admitted that the information came from a politically motivated source, the bureau did not disclose that the source had been financed by Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. That's a damning omission. The non-disclosure of a material fact in an application for a FISA warrant-its minimization, indeed one could argue its camouflaging-is a very big deal and its provenance should be thoroughly investigated. It threatens to undermine every warrant submitted to a FISA court. What I've called "Trump torque" is pulling on everyone in the news business-his critics are often overheated and his defenders tend to ignore his errors. This "torque" is twisting every single story in one direction or another. But: It's not about President Trump. Or at least this one shouldn't be. It's about when American courts approve surveillance of Americans. And that's every American's concern.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

THE MEMO released by the House Intelligence Committee Friday summarizes the evidence behind the biggest scandal in Washington, D.C. since Watergate -- or at least it should be. You wouldn't know it from reports about the memo in the mainstream media. We discuss a disturbing chain of events that reads like the plot of a Tom Clancy novel: Ten days after the election in November, 2016, the Director of the NSA, Admiral Mike Rogers, apparently briefed Donald Trump on the FBI's illegal use of NSA intercepts to spy on his campaign, which led the Trump transition team to abandon Trump Tower two weeks after the election. The day after Trump moved out of New York, a story leaked to the Washington Post revealed that members of Barack Obama's cabinet were urging President Obama to fire Admiral Rogers. Further, evidence of the FBI's abuses convinced the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the Bureau violated the Fourth Amendment rights of U.S. citizens by providing raw FISA information to private contractors -- one of which was presumably Fusion-GPS, the company that assembled the infamous Steele dossier (paid for by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign) that was used to secure a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. This outrageous politicization of the Department of Justice by the Obama administration goes far beyond the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon. Also: The dark future of Transhumanism as depicted in the new Netflix series Altered Carbon. Join us in Dallas March 22-25, 2018 for the Hear the Watchmen Conference featuring L.A. Marzulli, Carl Gallups, Bill Salus, and many others! Save $20 on your registration by using the promo code GILBERT20 at www.HearTheWatchmen.com. There are still a few slots available if you'd like to join us and Dr. Michael Heiser for our tour of Israel May 6-16, 2018! Click here for more information. If you're interested in joining Steve Quayle, Timothy Alberino, and us for the True Legends Expedition to Rome and Sardinia, click here for more information. Please join Derek and Sharon Gilbert each Sunday for the Gilbert House Fellowship, our weekly Bible study podcast. Log on to www.GilbertHouse.org for more details. Check out the new video version of Derek's interview program, A View from the Bunker. Please subscribe to the YouTube channel to get automatic updates when new shows are ready! To get all of the Gilberts' audio from PID Radio, the Gilbert House Fellowship, and Derek's interview program A View from the Bunker, go to www.spreaker.com/user/gilberthouse.

In this week’s episode, your devoted hosts dig into a bonanza of national security law odds-and-ends. First up is an en banc decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review involving the standing of...

In this week’s episode, your devoted hosts dig into a bonanza of national security law odds-and-ends. First up is an en banc decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review involving the standing of...

Despite the success of last year’s surveillance reform legislation (the “USA FREEDOM Act”), the U.S. retains the ability to collect millions of Americans’ phone calls and e-mails without a warrant—and without any oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court—under Executive Order 12333 (EO 12333). The order underlies the intelligence community’s most expansive surveillance authorities. It generally governs the interception of electronic communications overseas, but as a Brennan Center report shows, its broad scope has significant implications for Americans.   Just Security, the Brennan Center for Justice, and a panel of leading experts discussed a range of issues about the questions surrounding EO 12333 surveillance.  Panelists included Neema Singh Guliani Legislative Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union; Deborah Pearlman, Associate Professor, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law; Rebecca Richards, Director, Office of Civil Liberties and Privacy, National Security Agency; Ames Toh, Legal Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression; former Counsel, Brennan Center for Justice; and Harlan Yu, Principal, Upturn.      

Case Western Reserve University School of Law Arthur W. Fiske Lecture Series Institute for Global Security Law & Policy Speaker: Catherine Lotrionte Visiting Assistant Professor of Government and Foreign Service Director of the Institute for Law, Science and Global Security Georgetown University Summary: After a heated battle that played out on Capitol Hill, the US Congress, on June 2, 2015, passed the USA Freedom Act, extending three surveillance provisions of the USA Patriot Act which had expired and amending, arguably the most controversial provision of that statute, section 215, which allowed bulk collection of US phone records by the National Security Agency. According to the new provisions on bulk collection, the NSA will no longer maintain the database of US phone records. Rather the NSA will have to request such records from the phone companies holding the records pursuant to an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Both the roving wiretap and lone-wolf provisions of the USA Patriot will go back into effect under the USA Freedom Act. The new law also requires the declassification of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinions containing significant legal decisions. While the new law has been described as a win for privacy, the security-versus-privacy debate is far from over. Certainly, the law has been a significant post 9-11 surveillance reform measure but the ultimate ramifications for security and privacy based on what was changed and what was not changed by the law needs further public discussion. The fact that there still remain numerous legal authorities that the federal government can rely on to conduct surveillance both domestically and internationally along with the continued concern voiced by intelligence officials about the threats facing this nation call for a much closer look at the effectiveness of the reform measures with both privacy and security in mind. This talk will outline the legal changes under the USA Freedom Act and what they mean for intelligence collection. It will also identify additional existing legal authorities for intelligence collection outside the USA Freedom Act, raising questions of whether further reform may be in the future. Lastly, it will identify some of the challenges the new law will pose for those responsible for protecting the nation from threats.

In our seventy-fourth episode of the Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast, Stewart Baker, Jason Weinstein, and Michael Vatis discuss: China’s new security law; FTC settles with a virtual currency mining app makers; This Week in Hacks: FBI report ties Anthem and OPM hack; Anthem class action filed; OPM class action; FTC releases new security guidance; Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court reauthorizes metadata program; WikiLeaks rolls out more alleged NSA docs; Russia modifies its right to be forgotten bill. In our second half we have an interview with Catherine Lotrionte, Associate Director of the Institute for Law, Science and Global Security at Georgetown University. The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the firm.

On Tuesday, at the 2014 Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference, a panel of experts debated the pros and cons of adding outside lawyers to litigation before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Generally proceedings at that court are held in secret and ex parte, with only the government arguing its position. But, in the wake of the Snowden revelations, many have called for reform, and for greater participation by non-government attorneys.  The panel---comprised of Marc Zwillinger, Alex Abdo, Amie Stepanovich, and moderator Steve Vladeck---discussed the question of whether, and how, to add more adversarial process to FISC proceedings.  

February 24, 2014 Speaker Judge James G. Carr Senior federal judge for the Northern District of Ohio, and former Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge from 2002 to 2008

How should we strike the right balance between national security and privacy and civil liberties in federal counterterrorism programs? Join members of the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to discuss the importance of government transparency regarding counterterrorism efforts, international issues raised by US surveillance programs, the impact of NSA programs on US industry and the Internet, and the Board’s role going forward. The U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is a bipartisan independent federal agency. Chairman David Medine and board members Rachel Brand, Elisebeth Collins Cook, and James Dempsey will discuss the Board's recent report and recommendations on the NSA telephony metadata program and reform of the operations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan tried to attach an amendment to the Department of Defense funding bill for 2014 which would have limited the government's authority to collect our telephone records. The amendment failed but not by much; the episode highlights the debate. Links to Information in This Episode Text of the Amash Amendment At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the following new section: Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to execute a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order pursuant to section 501 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1861) that does not include the following sentence: ``This Order limits the collection of any tangible things (including telephone numbers dialed, telephone numbers of incoming calls, and the duration of calls) that may be authorized to be collected pursuant to this Order to those tangible things that pertain to a person who is the subject of an investigation described in section 501 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1861).''. Who Voted for/against the Amash Amendment? The FISA court In Secret, Court Vastly Broadens Powers of the N.S.A by Eric Lichtblau, published by The New York Times, July 6, 2013. The death of Thinthread: The system that could have stopped 9/11 Obama's War on Whistleblowers by Tom Shorrock, published by The Nation, March 26, 2013 The Secret Sharer by Jane Mayer, published by The New Yorker, May 23, 2011 Total Information Awareness Wikipedia The NSA is Building The Country's Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say) by James Bamford, published by Wired, March 15, 2012. The Secret War by James Bamford, published by Wired, June 12, 2013 NSA Slides Expain the PRISM Data-Collection Program, Washington Post, updated July 10, 2013 Edward Snowden worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, not the U.S. government "Company filings show that 99% of Booz Allen's revenue comes from various levels of the federal government" from Booz Allen Hamilton In Spotlight Over Leak by Charles Riley, published by CNN, June 10, 2013. Representatives Quoted in This Episode Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota Rep. Ted Poe of Texas Rep. Joe Barton of Texas