Latest in NSA Warrantless Wiretapping
Some 1940s history can help us better understand the Church Committee's exposure of Operation SHAMROCK and Operation MINARET—which in turn sheds light on today's surveillance controversies.
According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency will no longer access the historical metadata collected under Section 215 after the 180-day transition period authorized under the USA Freedom Act. The Agency will retain the information for three additional months (so, until sometime in late February 2016) to allow technical personel to evaluate the integrity of data from the new collection method, but it will be off limits for analytical purposes.
Dustin Volz of the National Journal brings us the news that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has "revived the National Security Agency's bulk collection of Americans' phone records" for an additional five months, as allowed under the USA Freedom Act passed earlier this month.
The order, written by Judge Michael W. Mosman, begins