May 01, 2017
The End of “About” Collection under Section 702
As Bobby and others have already noted, the NSA announced Friday that it is ending “about” collection under Section 702’s upstream component. I won’t rehash the basics here; readers should consult Charlie Savage’s essential New York Times story, NSA’s statements (here and here), and Bobby’s analysis. Rather, I want to inject into the discussion a few issues that I haven’t yet seen broached elsewhere.
1) What is the net effect for 702’s intelligence and counterterrorism value?
As Bobby notes, dropping “about” collection means that NSA will also lose some upstream collection of communications to or from a target. It appears that this was the price of placating the FISC after NSA analysts apparently (per the NYT) erroneously queried upstream data seeking information about one or more U.S. persons. (Recall that, as the PCLOB’s 2014 report explained, under the NSA’s 702 minimization procedures “U.S. person identifiers are prohibited from being used to query the NSA’s Section 702 upstream collection of Internet transactions.”).
In isolation, that collateral reduction in “to/from” collection would be a bad thing for NSA’s foreign intelligence mission. Several caveats are in order here, however.
Read the full article at Lawfare.
More from CNAS
-
Time for the US to declare independence from China
Commentary
Americans now know they can’t rely on China or even our allies to produce the goods we need during a pandemic. That’s why it’s time for the United States government to do what...
By Anthony Vinci & Dr. Nadia Schadlow
-
Transcript from Engagement and Competition: China, Technology, and Global Supply Chains with the Cyberspace Solarium Commission
Transcript
On March 26, 2020, the CNAS Technology and National Security Program and the Cyberspace Solarium Commission hosted a virtual panel discussion on "Engagement and Competition: C...
By Rep. Mike Gallagher, Samantha Ravich, John C. Inglis, Carrie Cordero & Martijn Rasser
-
The Cyberspace Solarium Commission’s Mandate to Fix Congressional Oversight
Commentary
The report of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission is finally out—and it provides a fresh look at congressional oversight on cybersecurity. Congress established the commission a...
By Carrie Cordero & David Thaw
-
Take Greenland Seriously and Literally as a Vital National Security Issue
Commentary
It is tempting to dismiss talk of Greenland’s significance for defense and foreign policy simply because President Trump infamously made it a punch line last year. The world’...
By David Priess & Martijn Rasser
