Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/fiscr082208.pdf

by sampsonjs • 13 years ago

202 61 13 years ago

sampsonjs• 13 years ago

'Yonatan Zunger, the chief architect of Google+, wrote in a Google+ post today that: "I can tell you that the only way in which Google reveals information about users are when we receive lawful, specific orders about individuals -- things like search warrants."'

From the court order: "We add, moreover, that there is a high degree of probability that requiring a warrant wound hinder the government's ability to collect time-sensitive information and, thus, would impede the vital national security interests that are at stake." Cough

justinschuh15• 13 years ago

I think you've misunderstood what you read. Under US law an FAA order carries the same compliance burden as a warrant. And, just like a warrant, the party served can push back on an overly broad or unjustified order. So, there's nothing untrue or even remotely misleading in the statement that "the only way in which Google reveals information about users are when we receive lawful, specific orders about individuals -- things like search warrants."

lawnchair_larry3• 13 years ago

You should read the second half of his paste. Maybe disclose bias too.

prawks• 13 years ago

"things like search warrants", where "things" may be, for example, a FISA order.

mtgx3• 13 years ago

The Protect America Act still exists? Why isn't there more discussion about it?

justinschuh15• 13 years ago

No it doesn't. Even this ruling clearly notes that the PAA had a one year sunset and expired in 2008.

declan5• 13 years ago

The PAA does not exist. But similar language appears in the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which Congress renewed most recently in December. Bipartisan enthusiasm, with approximately three-quarters of senators voting for it after safely defeating the pro-privacy amendments: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:HR5949:

justinschuh15• 13 years ago

The petitioner is redacted, so why does the title presume it to be Yahoo? Did I miss something?

Also, PRISM is an acronym for Planning Tool for Resource Integration, Synchronization, and Management. Could people please stop abusing it as a term for whatever random scary thing they want to believe the NSA is doing?

declan5• 13 years ago

We learned this month that the company was Yahoo. See:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/technology/secret-court-ru...

justinschuh15• 13 years ago

Thanks, that's certainly useful context. It's a shame the link is a bare PDF, without that background.

drivebyacct29• 13 years ago

Wait, are there actually people in the US who still assume that there someone has to get a warrant to investigate them under the auspices of terrorism or National Security? I assumed this was a more or less accepted fact by now.

They take everything they want off the wire anyway; the best case scenario is that they have FISA rubber stamp warrants for the times where they "need a warrant".

Do we really care about specific instances of uses of PRISM? I mean, in an honest way I'm curious :: is there really any benefit if we could definitely prove that PRISM was used without a warrant? Is it worse than any of the other things that have been disclosed or leaked since originally finding out about PRISM?

I don't think so, but I was screaming bloody murder about NSLs in 2006, soooo......

mtgx3• 13 years ago

The use of FISA "warrants" (misnomer, really) is highly questionable as is, especially when they're just rubber-stamped anyway, but if we can prove that most of the time they don't even bother to use those "warrants", then we can at least take steps to sue them over it and try to declare it unconstitutional, and hopefully get Congress to not only repeal many of the current laws allowing them to do with this their secret interpretations of those laws, but also create other laws that put a lot of restrictions and oversight in place.

justinschuh15• 13 years ago

I don't think there's a single factually accurate statement in your comment. A FISA order really is a warrant in the legal sense, so it's not a misnomer. There's no substantiated evidence that the government is failing to comply with its legal obligations under FISA and other relevant laws here. The Supreme court has consistently upheld that constitutional protections do not apply to non US persons. The general trend since roughly 2008 has actually been increased oversight and scaling back of 9/11 era expansion of surveillance powers.

hindsightbias• 13 years ago

soooo...

For some reason, it's not really been refreshing to see people paying more attention now. I thought maybe it was a holier than thou thing but hitting blogs where we were talking about it back then I see the same thing. People who were outraged then are doing what they were then - trying to read between the lines and figuring out how it really works while still being legally compliant. Try commenting on that, and you're called a sheeple and told how it's all un-constitutional, yada, yada.

I don't mind when my outlying beliefs become hip, but I do get annoyed when they jump the shark.

mayneack• 13 years ago

Just because everyone "knew" doesn't make this less useful to be released. Last month if you went on CNN and claimed that the NSA had free reign to access whatever they wanted, you'd be considered a conspiracy theorist. Now you are at least just considered to be aiding the terrorists. This type of thing is also useful for groups like the ACLU filing lawsuits because they need more proof than "everyone knows already"

waqf• 13 years ago

"free rein". It's a metaphor about horses, not kingdoms (though I have heard that the one can be exchanged for the other).

drivebyacct29• 13 years ago

You're right. I don't know why I was being such a pessimist about it. More ammo, more attention, it's probably good unless or until we reach the max attention span of people who need to become more informed. Or if we encounter the 'disaster porn/fatigue' effect of this stuff.

I guess that's pretty much exactly what I'm experiencing. "Why bother trying if no one is listening". Not exactly the concept of 'disaster porn' but it's a close enough allusion.

mehwoot3• 13 years ago

This document doesn't say that somebody in the U.S. can be targeted without a warrant. It says

For these reasons, we hold that a foreign intelligence exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement exists when surveillance is conducted to obtain foreign intelligence for national security purposes and is directed against foreign powers or agents of foreign powers reasonably believed to be located outside the United States.

Not the same thing.

drivebyacct29• 13 years ago

Aka, FISA warrants and FISA courts which in practice haven't been limited to foreign spying for... decades? now?

rayiner2• 13 years ago

Wait, are there actually people in the US who still assume that there someone has to get a warrant to investigate them under the auspices of terrorism or National Security?

What's amusing is how many people assume that the police ever needed a warrant to "investigate them." The police need a warrant to search your person or your property. The police don't need anything to investigate you, and need nothing more than a court order to subpoena documents from people who might have information about you. This has always been the way our system worked.

Depending on what exactly PRISM does, it may very well not require a warrant, any more than the police require a warrant to get your bank records or other kinds of information about you held by third parties.

mehwoot3• 13 years ago

Because these are FISA requests for individuals "reasonably suspected to be residing outside the U.S.". Those have never required warrants. Before FISA existed they just did it to whomever they pleased; now it requires a FISA request which is not the same thing as a warrant.

Nowhere in that document does it say anything about not needing a warrant to get information on U.S. citizens residing in the U.S. What it does actually say is

I.e. a FISA request.

gcb0• 13 years ago

Keyword is "reasonably" believed to be located outside...

So, one access to a external server? Visiting overseas?

justinschuh15• 13 years ago

A few points. A FISA order really is a warrant, and the NSA needs one to collect on a US person (ie. US citizen anywhere or anyone on US soil). Before 9/11, FISA warrants were also used to compel US companies to comply with collection against non US persons for which they were the carrier. At some point after 9/11 the Bush administration realized the law could be reasonably interpreted as not strictly requiring this, so they stopped using FISA for this purpose. That was the heart of the warrantless wiretapping controversy, and the primary goal of the FISA Amendments Act was to add requirements and oversight for these situations.

lawnchair_larry3• 13 years ago

False, see Verizon order

mehwoot3• 13 years ago

A FISA order really is a warrant

Not according to the language used in this document it isn't. You can say it is similar if you want, but when they say "A warrant is not required" in this case they are not saying "no authorization is required".

nitrogen• 13 years ago

Was the Verizon FISC order that was leaked, requiring daily dumps on all calls even with both endpoints inside the US, targeting individuals reasonably believed to be outside the US?

mpyne2• 13 years ago

A U.S. cell phone number can be used abroad, last I knew.

magoon• 13 years ago

Can anybody decode this jibberish? Is it any wonder our rights are being violated by lawyers, lawyers-turned-lawmakers, and lawyers-turned-judges?

koops• 13 years ago

"...the petition requires us to weigh the nation's security interests against the Fourth Amendment privacy interests of United States persons."

The text Fourth Amendment doesn't narrow itself to "United States Persons". It says:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

fsckin• 13 years ago

Why do you think 'the people' in the Fourth Amendment is not a reference to the same "We 'the people' of the United States" in the Constitution?

Andrew_Quentin• 13 years ago

It is so strange to see a judgment reference a previous case as Re Sealed Case.

It feels like the judge is stating: The authority for this principle can be found in Black Box.

It may be justified for civil cases to be held in secret. After all, civil cases can be resolved by mediation, arbitration, even just negotiation. When the matter concerns a petition against the government however, or against a law, there is no reason for the case to be sealed or secret.

Whats next, the congress voted in a closed secret session a new secret law?

consonants• 13 years ago

The NSA has specifically stated that they have the ability to preliminarily gather data through PRISM a week before going to FISC for a warrant. What is presented to the judge as evidence is usually that very collected data.

Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

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