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The data included domestic communications from American citizens, and it comes from the companies listed in the slide. You're the one trying to claim that this data doesn't include domestic communications, and the reason you have so much trouble answering this question in an earnest way is that the answer destroys your position.
I'm going to trust Ron Wyden over an anonymous person on the internet when it comes to matters directly involving whether something was said to Ron Wyden or not. Do you have any evidence behind this claim?
Even if these strategies had a 100% success rate (which I highly doubt)... them getting caught and reprimanded does nothing to address the point that the fact they could actually do this is the problem! It's incredibly easy to design a system that doesn't fail in this way - you need to go to a court and apply for a search or wiretap warrant, then you can start collecting information on a target. If you actually enforce these requirements LOVEINT cannot happen outside cases where somebody is actively dating a legitimate surveillance target (in which case they should be forced to recuse themselves). Hell, some incredibly smart Americans actually came up with those requirements and put them into law hundreds of years ago.
No, the US government doesn't want this - nor would they pay me money for pointing out that they need to completely clean house in the intelligence community. A system which actually prevented abuse would prevent abuse, and it is abundantly clear that abuse was precisely what a lot of people in the US government wanted. There already WAS a system which functioned the way you're asking - the existing court system, where real judges in adversarial courts had to sign off on a warrant, not some rubber stamper that lets someone use opposition research they know is false to spy on presidential candidates. But that said, I'm not obligated to design a complete replacement for the government because I think that inescapable, warrantless surveillance is bad.
Yep. It's like if the gov't got a wiretap on Tony Soprano, and he called one of his kids' schoolteachers. One could say, "They're collecting the communications of schoolteachers!" But really, everyone knows that's bullshit. It's true, but it's bullshit. They're collecting Tony Soprano's communications.
Super ROFL to this. As shown above, I have literally no trouble answering this question. If Mike Flynn calls the Russian ambassador, yes, they collect Mike Flynn's call to the Russian ambassador.... because they collect all of the Russian ambassador's calls. Because he's a legit foreign intelligence target.
So you trust him when he says that he asked Clapper to correct the public record and that he did not, in fact, put classified information in the public record, right?
They do this for any targets that are in the US or are otherwise US Persons. The question is about foreign targets who are in foreign countries, but happen to have comms that transit the wires of US companies. People who have never had Fourth Amendment protections. Putin Lackey #6528, lives in Russia, but emails some people in Syria who have GMails. Maybe he even emails some US citizen schoolteachers. The question has always been, "What is the right process to collect on this guy?" Notice that we're worlds apart from some ridiculous claim that they're just monitoring all domestic comms. You've already admitted that the thing I said was false is actually false. We're literally just talking process now.
They got a warrant for that. From a judge. So, it seems like your solution would not prevent this problem. I have heard discussions of solutions that would prevent this problem, but your solution is not one of them. You are just not a serious person on this topic.
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