...and in spook news...

NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds

By Barton Gellman, [Washington Post]

The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.

The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

In one instance, the NSA decided that it need not report the unintended surveillance of Americans. A notable example in 2008 was the interception of a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused the U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt, according to a “quality assurance” review that was not distributed to the NSA’s oversight staff.

In another case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has authority over some NSA operations, did not learn about a new collection method until it had been in operation for many months. The court ruled it unconstitutional.

...

i'm not sure there's any need to read further than that. the NSA seems to think it's above any supervision, even its own oversight staff and its pet court. this is doing nothing for my belief that it's in dire need of a supreme spanking.

various police departments and state election boards have been under court supervision at various times. has that ever happened to a federal agency? it appears needed here, and i don't mean supervision by a secret court issuing secret rulings (despite the fascinating tidbit that they apparently showed some spine once).

as they say over there, "macht spaß!"

a little poking around german newspapers found something that could produce, um, high-yield fallout:

Growing Alarm: German Prosecutors to Review Allegations of US Spying

SPIEGEL has learned that the German Federal Prosecutors' Office is looking into allegations that a US intelligence agency has conducted massive spying against German citizens. A first formal complaint has already been lodged in one city.

...

germany has had little problems with spying before under -- shall we say -- left- and right-wing governments, so they have actual laws against it. more importantly, they have a powerful constitutional court we set up after carrying out a little urban renewal for them back in the '40s and helping the right-wing government out of power (and the left-wing one in; typical US foreign policy SNAFU). the german constitutional court has made a habit of spanking german governments when they seem to be getting ideas (notably, invalidating parts of EU treaties which are unconstitutional in germany).

so, if the german federal prosecutors (bundesanwaltschaft) think that merkel's government has been too cozy with our spooks, they could hand the case off the constitutional court (bundesverfassungsgericht), who will probably have very little interest in tolerating BND cooperation with the NSA to spy on german citizens. they may also make amusing things about said cooperation public, because, well, that's part of their job.

this could be fun.

i stuck in the german names for the relevant bits of their government so that i don't have to look them up again. they're handy for searching german newspapers, since they don't translate all of their local news.)

edit: the linked story is from the end of june. there doesn't seem to be anything newer on the investigation.