Meaning that the NSA developed a way to collect that data that hasn't been publicly disclosed...
NSA pulls plug on some email spying before Congress slaps it down
The NSA has, in theory, stopped snooping on American citizens' private communications that loosely involve foreigners in some way. According to the US government today, the spy agency has halted at least some of the surveillance it conducts under the legal fig leaf provided by the 2008 FISA Amendments Act. This is the law …
COMMENTS
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Friday 28th April 2017 23:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
I've confidence that the US Government...
Will hound Activists, Whistleblowers and Investigative-Journalists (Trump critics on Twitter etc), and not catch a single 'T' or 'P' using their military-industrial-spying-complex. I'm confident too that the US will keep conducting lucrative economic espionage even against allies (contracts of 200m or more). For anything else the 5-Eyes will keep collectively sharing+mining anyway!
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Friday 28th April 2017 23:26 GMT John Smith 19
Agreed. They don't want to reveal what a count query on their DB shows for nationality=US
And like the others I suspect they also have a "Plan B"
OTOH this won't be legal under the FISA court.
So if someone blows the whistle on them it's a)Completely illegal or b)"Legal" under some other piece of BS legislation.
It's not a policy decision.
It's a disease of the mind.
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Saturday 29th April 2017 21:07 GMT GrapeBunch
Re: Agreed. They don't want to reveal what a count query on their DB shows for nationality=US
If a foreign person gets a gmail account, I assume the US considers it fair game for the NSA to slurp his email. Moi, a "a foreign intelligence target"? Bien sûr. And a US citizen who gets a foreign e-mail account and doesn't publish the address and his identity for all to see, surely they'd slurp that, just for completeness. Going back to gmail, how are you sure that "John Smith" of Davenport, Iowa is actually who he says he is? Spies, traitors, terrorists and paedophiles, like government agencies, don't necessarily fight fair. So might as well slurp that, just to be safe. In case you missed it, I've just slurped all email in the world, for the NSA. That's even if you imagine that they are telling the truth. The ball is under the nth shell.
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Sunday 30th April 2017 09:22 GMT analyzer
Timelines and smoke and mirrors
So they no longer need all the data they've gathered since FISA Courts were set up.
"In addition, as part of this curtailment, NSA will delete the vast majority of previously acquired upstream internet communications as soon as practicable,"
Exactly what does "as soon as practicable" mean to a TLA such as the NSA?
Next week? month? year? decade? century? millennium? myriaannum? epoch?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Icon, and advocate I believe
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Sunday 30th April 2017 18:15 GMT Alistair
Better yet
Lets make this effective. All US citizens need to start adding long lists of "Foreign Terrorist Operatives" to the sig bolt on their emails in BG colour text at 3pts. If this becomes the default in, say, outlook and Thunderbird email clients we could have a *very* quick solution...
Ohhhhhhhhh. Now THERE's an (email) virus I could get behind....!!!
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Monday 1st May 2017 07:36 GMT Oengus
Weasel words
NSA will delete the vast majority of previously acquired upstream internet communications as soon as practicable
We have evaluated our data storage and found it mostly impracticable to identify and delete the aforementioned communications. Both messages that were identified as being practicable to remove have been deleted.
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Monday 1st May 2017 15:19 GMT Gigabob
Simpler Explanation
As the Nazi's found in WWII as they sought to disrupt Paris Underground - Its the Metadata that has 80% of the valuable surveillance information. I would expect true spies conversation does not include a phrase like - "We will break into the post office at 0230 tomorrow with our 4 man strike team". I expect to hear phrases like "That was a heck of surprise storm this weekend - maybe there is something to this global warming effects". So why use all those compute cycles and analyst time on breaking through VPN encryption and 2048-bit encrypted email messages when the time and disti list are the critical elements.
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Monday 1st May 2017 15:30 GMT Destroy All Monsters
What in tarnation
Curious time to stop listening to Americans talking about foreigners, eh, Donald?
This subtitle makes no sense at all.
The TLAs have grown to cancer-killing-host proportions under 4 terms of Bushbama (and arguably Clinton) and are now apparently calling the shots, telling the (Trumpenstein / The President Formerly Known As Hitler / Brave Freedom Defender and Avenger of Gassed Syrian Babies) what he should be blowing into the mic ... or else. A little "scandal" might emerge from the NYT and the assorted churnalists hordes or a sudden stroke might occur, life is risky etc.