Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Constitution Check: Have checks and balances failed to work on telephone spying?

Lyle Denniston looks at the movement toward placing an important safeguard in the secret court that authorizes the government to scan data about potential terrorist threats.
“The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or over-stepped its authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top secret documents.”
 – Barton Gellman, reporter for The Washington Post, in a front-page article on August 16 , describing the contents of some added secret documents that the newspaper said it had obtained in leaks by former NSA analyst Edward Snowden.
“The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided to the court.  The court does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance, and in that respect the court is in the same position as any other court when it comes to enforcing compliance with its orders.”

http://news.yahoo.com/constitution-check-checks-balances-failed-telephone-spying-181009892.html 

No comments: