Clapper Confesses: NSA Searching Americans’ Calls and Emails
Despite professions by intelligence officials that “backdoor” searches have been strictly limited to foreign individuals, reporting Tuesday has revealed that the NSA has also conducted warrantless searches of Americans’ calls and emails. ● In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on Friday, the former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper acknowledged, 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. These queries were performed “pursuant to minimization procedures approved by the FISA court and consistent with the statute and the fourth amendment,” Clapper said—referring to Section 702 of the Fisa Amendments Act (FAA), which gives the NSA authority to search without warrant the communications of foreign targets.
Andre Damon: US intelligence director confirms that NSA runs warrantless searches of Americans’ communications ■ James R. Clapper, the US Director of National Intelligence, admitted in a letter made public Tuesday that the National Security Agency (NSA) conducts searches for the personal information of Americans among the vast numbers of call and email records it collects. Since the NSA claims the right to collect the communications of people within multiple “hops,” or degrees of separation, from a foreign individual targeted for surveillance, the number of US citizens whose communications are being recorded is potentially vast. Previously, the NSA and White House have insisted that the intelligence agencies merely store, but do not run searches against, these communications. But Clapper’s admission is a clear statement that the NSA, as a matter of procedure, not only collects, but views and monitors the correspondence of US citizens.