Report reveals that the administration of President Barack Obama secretly expanded the warrantless surveillance of the National Security Agency on the Internet traffic of Americans, which has drawn both criticism and support from cybersecurity experts.
According to documents, the expansion was granted approval by the Justice Department in the year 2012, and was to target hackers from other countries. The law also gave authority to the NSA, with court permission, to acquire e-mails and other communications from technology companies in the United States.
There were concerns raised, however, by the Office of General Counsel of the NSA that such collections in the United States could also possibly include significant information on Americans, so data should be segregated to prevent this. It is unclear, however, if this was done.
The law in question, the FISA Amendments Act's Section 702, was established in 2008. The law placed under the oversight of the court a warrantless surveillance program that started shortly after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
The law also allowed the NSA to acquire not only communications made by terrorist groups from overseas but also data that related to general foreign intelligence. The NSA, however, noticed a widening gap in the collection of information regarding cyberthreats, as under the law, it was not allowed to target foreign hackers which were not linked to another government or a terrorist group.
To address this, the Justice Department approved in 2012 a provision to target certain signatures of hackers and specific Internet addresses even without the establishment of a link to a foreign entity.
However, while this gave the NSA more power in preventing and targeting foreign hackers, the agency would also be able to acquire significant volumes of information from Americans, including private e-mails, business deals and trade secrets. This is because if the NSA is monitoring the data that a hacker is stealing, it will involve the agency having to copy all that information as well.
"Today's report that the NSA has expanded its warrantless surveillance of Internet traffic underscores the critical importance of placing reasonable and commonsense limits on government surveillance in order to protect the privacy of Americans," said Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy, adding that Congress should stage an honest and transparent debate on how to protect both the privacy of Americans and uphold national security.
The effort is the latest revealed expansion of the warrantless surveillance program of the NSA, and leaked documents provided by former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the information on Americans acquired by the NSA should only be used by analysts that are monitoring the activity of foreign hackers.
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