SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
A screenshot of the NSA materials released December 24, 2014.
ACLU Calls Out NSA's Christmas Eve Document Dump
Reports on compliance violations were published 'when basically no one would be paying attention to the internet or in the mood to think about unchecked government snooping for at least the next 30 hours.'
Dec 27, 2014
The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday accused the National Security Agency of using the holiday as cover to "minimize the impact" of its Christmas Eve document dump, which showed--amidst heavy redaction--that the agency's mass surveillance program targeting U.S. citizens went on for more than 10 years and was rife with both human error and technical mistakes.
"I certainly think the NSA would prefer to have the documents released right ahead of the holidays in order to have less public attention on what they contain," Patrick Toomey, a staff attorney at the ACLU's national security project, told the Guardian.
Toomey told the paper that the documents, made up of annual and quarterly reports filed since 2001 and released in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by the ACLU, "really vindicate some of the things [Edward] Snowden said when he first described the NSA surveillance in terms of the ability of analysts to conduct queries--without authorization--of raw internet traffic."
Posted to the NSA's website at 1:30 pm on Christmas Eve, the internal report reveals a large number of compliance violations, including examples of data on Americans being e-mailed to unauthorized recipients, stored in unsecured computers and retained after it was supposed to be destroyed, according to reporting by Bloomberg.
The Guardian reported:
Among the items redacted are sections detailing the total number of violations reported, with many ending up like this entry from 2013 "On [redacted] occasions during the fourth quarter, selectors were incorrectly tasked because of typographical errors."
This makes the scale of the problem difficult to gauge. Toomey said the ACLU would continue to sue for the release of those numbers.
"More generally," Toomey said, "just the range of different compliance violations makes it clear that at every step of the NSA's collection of information there are vulnerabilities that leave the privacy of Americans at risk."
"Hooray for transparency!" Meg Neal wrote at Gizmodo. "Of course, [NSA] released them midday on Christmas Eve, when basically no one would be paying attention to the internet or in the mood to think about unchecked government snooping for at least the next 30 hours."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, The U.S. is on a fast track to authoritarianism like nothing I've ever seen. Meanwhile, corporate news outlets are utterly capitulating to Trump, twisting their coverage to avoid drawing his ire while lining up to stuff cash in his pockets. That's why I believe that Common Dreams is doing the best and most consequential reporting that we've ever done. Our small but mighty team is a progressive reporting powerhouse, covering the news every day that the corporate media never will. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. And to ignite change for the common good. Now here's the key piece that I want all our readers to understand: None of this would be possible without your financial support. That's not just some fundraising cliche. It's the absolute and literal truth. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. Will you donate now to help power the nonprofit, independent reporting of Common Dreams? Thank you for being a vital member of our community. Together, we can keep independent journalism alive when it’s needed most. - Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Deirdre Fulton
Deirdre Fulton is a former Common Dreams senior editor and staff writer. Previously she worked as an editor and writer for the Portland Phoenix and the Boston Phoenix, where she was honored by the New England Press Association and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. A Boston University graduate, Deirdre is a co-founder of the Maine-based Lorem Ipsum Theater Collective and the PortFringe theater festival. She writes young adult fiction in her spare time.
The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday accused the National Security Agency of using the holiday as cover to "minimize the impact" of its Christmas Eve document dump, which showed--amidst heavy redaction--that the agency's mass surveillance program targeting U.S. citizens went on for more than 10 years and was rife with both human error and technical mistakes.
"I certainly think the NSA would prefer to have the documents released right ahead of the holidays in order to have less public attention on what they contain," Patrick Toomey, a staff attorney at the ACLU's national security project, told the Guardian.
Toomey told the paper that the documents, made up of annual and quarterly reports filed since 2001 and released in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by the ACLU, "really vindicate some of the things [Edward] Snowden said when he first described the NSA surveillance in terms of the ability of analysts to conduct queries--without authorization--of raw internet traffic."
Posted to the NSA's website at 1:30 pm on Christmas Eve, the internal report reveals a large number of compliance violations, including examples of data on Americans being e-mailed to unauthorized recipients, stored in unsecured computers and retained after it was supposed to be destroyed, according to reporting by Bloomberg.
The Guardian reported:
Among the items redacted are sections detailing the total number of violations reported, with many ending up like this entry from 2013 "On [redacted] occasions during the fourth quarter, selectors were incorrectly tasked because of typographical errors."
This makes the scale of the problem difficult to gauge. Toomey said the ACLU would continue to sue for the release of those numbers.
"More generally," Toomey said, "just the range of different compliance violations makes it clear that at every step of the NSA's collection of information there are vulnerabilities that leave the privacy of Americans at risk."
"Hooray for transparency!" Meg Neal wrote at Gizmodo. "Of course, [NSA] released them midday on Christmas Eve, when basically no one would be paying attention to the internet or in the mood to think about unchecked government snooping for at least the next 30 hours."
Deirdre Fulton
Deirdre Fulton is a former Common Dreams senior editor and staff writer. Previously she worked as an editor and writer for the Portland Phoenix and the Boston Phoenix, where she was honored by the New England Press Association and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. A Boston University graduate, Deirdre is a co-founder of the Maine-based Lorem Ipsum Theater Collective and the PortFringe theater festival. She writes young adult fiction in her spare time.
The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday accused the National Security Agency of using the holiday as cover to "minimize the impact" of its Christmas Eve document dump, which showed--amidst heavy redaction--that the agency's mass surveillance program targeting U.S. citizens went on for more than 10 years and was rife with both human error and technical mistakes.
"I certainly think the NSA would prefer to have the documents released right ahead of the holidays in order to have less public attention on what they contain," Patrick Toomey, a staff attorney at the ACLU's national security project, told the Guardian.
Toomey told the paper that the documents, made up of annual and quarterly reports filed since 2001 and released in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by the ACLU, "really vindicate some of the things [Edward] Snowden said when he first described the NSA surveillance in terms of the ability of analysts to conduct queries--without authorization--of raw internet traffic."
Posted to the NSA's website at 1:30 pm on Christmas Eve, the internal report reveals a large number of compliance violations, including examples of data on Americans being e-mailed to unauthorized recipients, stored in unsecured computers and retained after it was supposed to be destroyed, according to reporting by Bloomberg.
The Guardian reported:
Among the items redacted are sections detailing the total number of violations reported, with many ending up like this entry from 2013 "On [redacted] occasions during the fourth quarter, selectors were incorrectly tasked because of typographical errors."
This makes the scale of the problem difficult to gauge. Toomey said the ACLU would continue to sue for the release of those numbers.
"More generally," Toomey said, "just the range of different compliance violations makes it clear that at every step of the NSA's collection of information there are vulnerabilities that leave the privacy of Americans at risk."
"Hooray for transparency!" Meg Neal wrote at Gizmodo. "Of course, [NSA] released them midday on Christmas Eve, when basically no one would be paying attention to the internet or in the mood to think about unchecked government snooping for at least the next 30 hours."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.