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http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/06/how-many-americans-does-the-nsa-spy-on-a-lot-of-them.html?mobify=0&intcid=full-site-mobile&mobify=0
" What I can say unequivocally is that,if you are a U.S. person, the N.S.A. cannot listen to your telephone calls,and the N.S.A. cannot target youre-mails,” the President said earlierthis week. A 2009 memorandum signed by Eric Holderestablishes a broader criteria,referring to people “reasonably believed” to be located abroad. That reasonable belief,as it turns out,can be quite shaky.
Among the information that the N.S.A. is told to use includes having had a phone or e-mail connection with a person “associated with a foreign power orforeign territory,”or being in the “‘buddy list’or address book”of such a person. It won’t be lost on anyone that Americans whose families include recent immigrants will be disproportionately vulnerable to such intrusions. (So,incidentally,will journalists.) The defaults in the analysis are telling: a person
whose location is unknown,will not be treated as a United States person unless such person can be positively identified as such,or the nature orcircumstances of the person’s give rise to a reasonable belief that such person is a United States person.
(The extent to which the N.S.A. can spy on a wide range of foreigners is its own,important discussion.)
The criteria also show the interaction of various N.S.A. programs: the Administration has defended the collection of telephony metadata by saying that if it ever produces an interesting match,investigators would have to go to court to get a proper warrant to lookmore closely.But metadata is mentioned in these documents as a basis for picking a target forthe surveillance under what appears to be a blanket FISA order—not an individualized one.
" What I can say unequivocally is that,if you are a U.S. person, the N.S.A. cannot listen to your telephone calls,and the N.S.A. cannot target youre-mails,” the President said earlierthis week. A 2009 memorandum signed by Eric Holderestablishes a broader criteria,referring to people “reasonably believed” to be located abroad. That reasonable belief,as it turns out,can be quite shaky.
Among the information that the N.S.A. is told to use includes having had a phone or e-mail connection with a person “associated with a foreign power orforeign territory,”or being in the “‘buddy list’or address book”of such a person. It won’t be lost on anyone that Americans whose families include recent immigrants will be disproportionately vulnerable to such intrusions. (So,incidentally,will journalists.) The defaults in the analysis are telling: a person
whose location is unknown,will not be treated as a United States person unless such person can be positively identified as such,or the nature orcircumstances of the person’s give rise to a reasonable belief that such person is a United States person.
(The extent to which the N.S.A. can spy on a wide range of foreigners is its own,important discussion.)
The criteria also show the interaction of various N.S.A. programs: the Administration has defended the collection of telephony metadata by saying that if it ever produces an interesting match,investigators would have to go to court to get a proper warrant to lookmore closely.But metadata is mentioned in these documents as a basis for picking a target forthe surveillance under what appears to be a blanket FISA order—not an individualized one.
