A coalition of civil liberties groups and members of Congress are calling on President Obama to urgently review a controversial executive order being used by the National Security Agency to conduct mass surveillance.
Executive Order 12333, a Reagan-era authority, allows the NSA to covertly sweep up vast amounts of private data from overseas communication networks with no court oversight. Last week, The Intercept revealed how 12333 underpins a secret search engine the NSA built to share more than 850 billion records on phone calls, emails, cellphone locations, and internet chats with other U.S. government agencies, including domestic law enforcement. The search system, named ICREACH, contains information on the private communications of foreigners as well as, it appears, millions of Americans not accused of any wrongdoing.
Now, more than 40 organizations and rights groups – including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the American Civil Liberties Union – are calling on Obama and his surveillance review panel to ensure there is no “disproportionate or unnecessary collection” taking place under 12333.
In a letter to the President, dated 29 August and released on Tuesday, the groups say that the surveillance undermines “the fundamental rights of internet users everywhere” and demand that secret legal opinions or interpretations that relate to 12333 be declassified by the government. The letter states:
We, the undersigned former government officials, organizations, and members of Congress, write to express our concerns about the U.S. government’s surveillance activities conducted under the authority of Executive Order 12333. Many involve communications that are protected by the U.S. Constitution, and all implicate international human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the United States is a party. These activities undermine the fundamental rights of internet users everywhere.
The effort to rein in the surveillance is being led by digital rights group Access, which has enlisted the support of Representatives John Conyers (D-Mich.), Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), Rush Holt (D-N.J.), and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.). The Federal Trade Commission’s former Chief Technologist Ed Felton also co-signed the letter alongside two former State Department officials, Ian Schuler and John Tye.
In July, Tye was responsible for focusing public attention on 12333 when he wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post revealing that he had blown the whistle on the order while working for the State Department. The executive order as it is used today, Tye said, “threatens our democracy” because it can be used by the NSA to “incidentally” sweep up communications on Americans from foreign networks without any warrant and with minimal congressional scrutiny.
In his op-ed, Tye did not detail any specific classified programs that had caused him concern while inside the government. But recent disclosures from documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden – such as details about the vast ICREACH search engine – offer an insight into why he may have been alarmed, and have helped galvanize a growing campaign to limit the scope of 12333 surveillance operations.
“Revelations, such as that about ICREACH, have definitively helped raise the level of awareness of and opposition to the Executive Order, which helped bring this effort together,” Amie Stepanovich, senior policy counsel at Access, told The Intercept. “I think the breadth of signers on this letter shows an increasing consensus that reform is absolutely necessary.”
You’re asking Obama to stop spying?! Might as well ask a junkie to cut back on heroin.
Speaking of absurd law or Executive Orders that haven’t been updated in – forever, how about Congress revisits the CIA Act of 1949.
Nothing like making those secret government agencies pretty much immune to all laws – everywhere. Does it really say they can violate every international treaty OUR country’s signed and start revolutions over nationalized resources all around the world – in the name of keeping us safe…?
Thank you, Ryan, keep this up and they won’t like you…
Nice follow-up article Mr. Gallagher…although the new TI website design rather obscured it.
Access deserves another mention here: https://www.accessnow.org/
Thanks again.
So, as an Executive Order, it can be overturned or amended at the will of the President, nicht wahr? Will Obama actually have the balls to make any significant changes? Doubtful. If indeed, he really even desires anything more than cosmetic changes to the whole surveillance state.
I think his actions have made that perfectly clear.
Do you actually think anything will come from passing or killing a law? If any administration can break the laws imposed by Congress under the rationalization for national security, what good will any laws do? You would need monitors camped out at Fort Meade, and all other NSA sites, to verify that the technologies and processes aren’t being used against Americans. Oversight will be skirted for sure.
What Americans can’t count on is that any laws passed to limit government surveillance will be ignored!
The age of surveillance is here, there is no way to put the jeannie back in the bottle, and the Intercept should spend some time preparing citizens for the Brave New World. It is up to the citizen now to secure her communications through encryption and a return to the use of snail mail. It won’t be perfect, but anything that makes the gov’t’s job harder is the best course of action.
And if there are technologies on the horizon to scramble or encrypt voice calls, I’d like to hear it.
Correction:
“What Americans CAN count on is that any laws passed to limit government surveillance will be ignored!
It is up to the citizen now to secure her communications through encryption and a return to the use of snail mail.
I agree with your point that using encryption and making the cost to the government to pursue its “collect it all” mentality as high as possible are the only recourse left for any who value privacy. Can’t recall if it was Snowden or Assange (or perhaps someone else) who stated that our salvation will not come from government, but rather from the tech community. But for that to posture to be widely adopted the technology used will need to become a lot simpler as so many people are deeply engaged in the machinations of simple survival these days thanks to the corruption inherent in our system of government and economy.
I would raise a caveat about considering the postal service as a secure means of communication, however. As this story notes, that hasn’t been the case for some time now:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
@ Benito Mussolini
03 Sep 2014 at 5:23 am
Fancy meeting you here… there and everywhere.
Interesting article re ars technica. Of course, Marcy Wheeler @ Emptywheel has been reporting on EO 12333 triple nipple for some time now … http://www.emptywheel.net/2014/07/19/eo-12333-threatens-our-democracy/
*>”So it is better to simply accept the truth that there are no legal constraints on government.”
As usual you have the cart before the horse, and ass-backwards at that. There are [in theory] legal constraints on government … just nobody willing to enforce them.
ps. Hope springs eternal.
The logic behind using executive orders to justify all government actions is quite simple.
Love the distinction whereby Americans are held to hold a higher right to privacy, leaving it open season on the rest of the world.
Just a few decades ago, our communications were well protected by first class mail and the telephone. Our personal information collected by governments and business were pretty well protected in filing cabinets all over town and country too.
Technology has changed all that. As have the rules of access to our PI and communications since 9/11. One might ask, what rules?
We have to get back to the security standards of private letters. And the need for warrants to intercept our communications or retrieve our information from the organizations with which we deal.
From a recent article in Ars Technica, with respect to Twelve Triple Three:
I understand his concern, as this seems slightly disproportionate, even to me. However, challenging a particular Executive Order is like chasing the snark – it will never lead to any kind of resolution. The NSA collects everything and then picks an Executive Order to justify it. After a long battle, they may be willing to concede that perhaps 12333 does not justify it, but that EO 13470 does. Or they might simply issue a new EO. People need to internalize the concept that rule of law is merely a fiction; government does what it wishes and then directs the lawyers to craft a rationale explaining why it is legitimate. If the rationale is successfully demolished, they merely smile and create a new one. So it is better to simply accept the truth that there are no legal constraints on government.
After all, Twelve Triple Three also bans the US government from performing assassinations, but that was later interpreted to mean ‘except for people connected to terrorism‘, i.e. anybody we wish to assassinate.
You’re arguing against a meaningless conception of “rule of law”. It’s obvious that law does not enforce itself. Law will “rule” only if it is enforced by those who are charged by law with enforcing it. So the question is not whether rule of law is a “fiction”, but simply whether government officials will do the jobs they are supposed to do by law. It’s not unusual for people to do the jobs they’re supposed to do. Of course, it’s important to hire the right people, and fire the wrong people. But there’s no reason to believe that the right people for positions in a system of justice cannot be found.
It’s true that the basic reality is always “rule of man”. “Rule of law” is a way that we can choose to rule ourselves. It’s only a “fiction” if we don’t make that choice, or aren’t sufficiently committed to it.
Intercept readers, lets start linking to this site more often. Dialectical reporting should reach far more people than it is now.
Just wondering, what will we do if the American gov. backed by the EU partners ultimately just respond to the demands to stop surveillance with something along the lines of “make me”? These governments have showed, for example, they have no problem sending in the national guard against protests…
Where are names of individual
targets?
“Training” societies in tolerating interceptions
http://goo.gl/80gV1M
1) Good info Ryan G. – it was worth reading the entire list of organizations who have signed the letter.
2) Thanks for the link, nmb; it was a good read. I especially liked:
“The media increasingly avoid using the word “scandal” regarding interceptions. It is more likely for you to hear the word scandal for the extramarital relationships of a famous Hollywood star, than for the fact that the NSA intercepted the main communication links that carry data of millions of users of Google and Yahoo.”
3) Yo, TI – you REALLY need to do some front page changes IMO!!! I actually found reference to this article originally through a google search. So what happened when I actually came to your home page to find it? I had to scroll way down to find it buried in “popular’? Give me a break! Let us see the new stuff FIRST!!! And I’m asking once again , please STOP with the opening picture taking up the entire screen. It’s WAY too in your face — especially the red/black whatever you call it that accompanies the article on Turkey. It’s been a HUGE turnoff for me and one reason I’ve actually delayed reading the article itself.
Thank you feline16
It is true more people are beginning to see that all of this when taken together poses some serious considerations about the nature of privacy and due process in the age of mass surveillance. That is progress.