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N.S.A. Report Outlined Goals for More Power

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posted on Nov, 23 2013 @ 07:21 AM
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In a February 2012 paper laying out the four-year strategy for the N.S.A.’s signals intelligence operations, which include the agency’s eavesdropping and communications data collection around the world, agency officials set an objective to “aggressively pursue legal authorities and a policy framework mapped more fully to the information age.”

Written as an agency mission statement with broad goals, the five-page document said that existing American laws were not adequate to meet the needs of the N.S.A. to conduct broad surveillance in what it cited as “the golden age of Sigint,” or signals intelligence. “The interpretation and guidelines for applying our authorities, and in some cases the authorities themselves, have not kept pace with the complexity of the technology and target environments, or the operational expectations levied on N.S.A.’s mission,” the document concluded.

Using sweeping language, the paper also outlined some of the agency’s other ambitions. They included defeating the cybersecurity practices of adversaries in order to acquire the data the agency needs from “anyone, anytime, anywhere.” The agency also said it would try to decrypt or bypass codes that keep communications secret by influencing “the global commercial encryption market through commercial relationships,” human spies and intelligence partners in other countries. It also talked of the need to “revolutionize” analysis of its vast collections of data to “radically increase operational impact.”


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It just keeps getting worse. With secret courts and an attitude of "don't give a fug about the constitution", our Fourth Amendment is being shredded. These regular peeks into the eyes of the security state shed a glaring light into what has been created. A behemoth that will never be eradicated.

The slippery slope that was the Patriot Act and all of our fears have been realized. There is no turning back. Only hand wringing and faux legislative controls. That is all folks.



posted on Nov, 23 2013 @ 07:39 AM
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reply to post by GrantedBail
 




After years of secrecy, the National Security Agency’s phone records surveillance program had its day in open court on Friday, as civil liberties lawyers asked a federal judge in New York to shut it down, and government lawyers claimed ordinary Americans cannot legally challenge it.

U.S. District Court Judge William H. Pauley III did not immediately rule on issuing an injunction against the NSA program. But he did push the government on whether it respected Americans’ rights to privacy and freedom of association, and whether Congress was adequately informed about the program.

“Never before has the government attempted a program of dragnet surveillance on this scale,” warned Alexander Abdo, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union. The group brought its lawsuit against the program in June, just days after NSA leaker Edward Snowden revealed its existence. The ACLU is arguing that the government’s surveillance exceeds both its powers under the Patriot Act, and under the First and Fourth amendments.


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I don't imagine that our bought and paid for judiciary will protect us and uphold the constitution. Just like our bought and paid for legislators and executive will not.

Like JFK said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." We are in for the long haul. May the mother of earth help us all.



posted on Nov, 23 2013 @ 08:08 AM
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reply to post by GrantedBail
 


You mention the bought and paid for judiciary.
I believe it is worse than that.
I believe that someone behind the NSA owns the judiciary through blackmail.
We are truly effed in my opinion.

Great OP!



posted on Nov, 23 2013 @ 08:34 AM
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reply to post by butcherguy
 


If they didn't having this lower lever of oversight, they they would be idiots. It is like thinking that the CIA was not behind JFK killing and for propping and approving of presidents...

J. Edgar Hoover FBI clearly demonstrated how it is all done, it predates most of these new kids in the block and there are organizations that predate even the founding of the nation...



posted on Nov, 23 2013 @ 08:59 AM
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I think this shows the ultimate trap of secrecy for the sake of secrecy. I don't think the Courts have forsaken the Constitution, but they've gone down a very dark alley here. Perhaps, they let themselves be led down it.

They acknowledge the NSA could have the right, under any circumstances, to do much of what they've done by simply having the "Special Courts" to approve all this nonsense. Then it's just a matter of one factor. Can the NSA make the threat presented, great enough to justify whatever they are seeking for themselves?

Well, of course they can. They can claim secrecy even to the Special Court and even at that level, for at least some things. Some things are enough to say 'I know something you don't, and it'll get you killed if you don't believe me'. When it's the NSA saying it and the man having to decide is, in the end, some old lawyer who made it big by appointments to higher Bench positions?

Well... The NSA were professionals at twisting weak minds decades ago. I doubt twisting up some old lawyers in black robes has given them too much challenge... The whole Secret orders from Secret Courts for Secret actions HAS to go. It's the very rot within our system that can simply never be gotten past, IMO.



posted on Nov, 25 2013 @ 05:29 PM
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reply to post by GrantedBail
 


When you see terms like, "The law is not prepared to handle the complexity of....", you know you are reading a bunch of power grabbing nonsense. If the law is inadequate to mete out justice, then that means justice would not be served by being meted out.

We don't need more laws. We need the NSA to go away, along with the CIA, DIA, and all other "intelligence agencies". The law is inadequate for their missions because their missions were not meant to be allowed.

The OP link detailed 5 pages of Orwellian double speak meant to trick fools into bleating more and talking less.
edit on 25-11-2013 by bigfatfurrytexan because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 25 2013 @ 06:42 PM
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bigfatfurrytexan
reply to post by GrantedBail
 


When you see terms like, "The law is not prepared to handle the complexity of....", you know you are reading a bunch of power grabbing nonsense. If the law is inadequate to mete out justice, then that means justice would not be served by being meted out.

We don't need more laws. We need the NSA to go away, along with the CIA, DIA, and all other "intelligence agencies". The law is inadequate for their missions because their missions were not meant to be allowed.

The OP link detailed 5 pages of Orwellian double speak meant to trick fools into bleating more and talking less.
edit on 25-11-2013 by bigfatfurrytexan because: (no reason given)


I had no problem with the original missions which were all external by definition and governed by established law and Constitutional constraints.

The Patriot Act was only supposed to be a TEMPORARY measure which has morphed into permanence.

9/11 did show that intelligence sharing was needed when pertinent however nothing can be said to be Constitutionally pertinent when wholesale collection and searching of data is done on a domestic level under the guise of a "star chamber" like kangaroo court process that offers carte blanche violation of all Americans 4th Amendment rights.

Nothing justifies this - nothing at all - even security.

A case by case basis identifying particular objects, papers and goods or persons to be seized is the only named Constitutional warrant to be issued by a court and with good reason.

All of this needs to be redirected outwards unless and until there is specific named reason why it becomes a domestic matter, the "star chamber" should be required to publish its cases, warrants and decisions within 1 year of such decisions and/or submit itself to oversight by civilian commission for review.

This situation is out of hand.



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