Despite Post-Snowden Outcry, Report Details 'New Era of Secret Law'

Despite Post-Snowden Outcry, Report Details 'New Era of Secret Law'

Scores of legal memos, opinions, and letters from several agencies still being kept from public view

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/10/18/despite-post-snowden-outcry-report-details-new-era-secret-law

By: Nadia Prupis
Date: 2016-10-18

In the wake of 9/11, the U.S. government began creating what has now become an "unprecedented buildup" of secret laws, and even the recent public backlash against them has not stopped widespread use of covert rules that impact Americans' everyday lives without their knowledge, according to a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice.

The Department of Justice has kept classified at least 74 legal memos, opinions, and letters issued by the department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) from 2002 to 2009 on national security issues—from torture to mass surveillance—according to the report, The New Era of Secret Law (pdf), written by Elizabeth Gotein, co-director of the center's Liberty and National Security Program.

And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court, which rules on intelligence collecting activities, is also hiding 25 to 30 opinions issued between 2003 and 2013 "that were deemed significant by the Attorney General." In fact, most of the significant case law written before National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden's 2013 revelations remains undisclosed.

Snowden Helped Reduce Surveillance and Strengthen Resistance: Report

Snowden Helped Reduce Surveillance and Strengthen Resistance: Report

Audit from the Department of Justice inspector general finds 2013 revelations attached 'stigma' to data collection requests

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/09/30/snowden-helped-reduce-surveillance-and-strengthen-resistance-report

By: Nadia Prupis
Date: 2016-09-30

Government surveillance of civilians has declined in large part due to National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden's 2013 revelations, according to the latest inspector general audit of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

The report (pdf), released Thursday, which covers the department's activities from 2012 to 2014, finds that technology companies grew increasingly resistant to sharing information with the FBI after Snowden exposed the government's mass surveillance programs—and that the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved far fewer FBI requests for civilians' "business records" than it did before the revelations. The records were requested under the controversial Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which the government relied on at the time to collect bulk communications data.

Between 2012 and 2014, the FISA court issued 561 orders known as National Security Letters (NSL), which subpoena records like email time stamps, senders and recipients, and other metadata without a warrant. In 2012, the court issued a nine-year high of 212 NSLs; by 2014, that had dropped to 170. By 2015, it was 142.

Whistle-Blower, Beware

Whistle-Blower, Beware

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/opinion/whistle-blower-beware.html

By: Mark Hertsgaard
Date: 2016-05-26

SHOULD it be a crime to report a crime? Many top officials in Washington seem to think so, at least in the case of Edward Snowden.

June 6 will be the third anniversary of The Guardian’s publication of top-secret documents provided by Mr. Snowden that showed that the National Security Agency was collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans.

Outraged by this assault on the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable search and seizure, Tea Party Republicans and progressive Democrats joined to block reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act’s surveillance provisions last year. Only after the N.S.A. was required to obtain warrants to examine such records was reauthorization approved.

But Mr. Snowden, the whistle-blower who set this reform in motion with his disclosures, is persona non grata in the nation’s capital. Democrats and Republicans alike have denounced him as a traitor.

Snowden calls for whistleblower shield after claims by new Pentagon source

Snowden calls for whistleblower shield after claims by new Pentagon source

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/22/snowden-whistleblower-protections-john-crane

By: Edward Snowden
Date:

Accusations that Pentagon retaliated against a whistleblower undermine argument that there were options for Snowden other than leaking to the media.

Edward Snowden has called for a complete overhaul of US whistleblower protections after a new source from deep inside the Pentagon came forward with a startling account of how the system became a “trap” for those seeking to expose wrongdoing.

The account of John Crane, a former senior Pentagon investigator, appears to undermine Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other major establishment figures who argue that there were established routes for Snowden other than leaking to the media.

Crane, a longtime assistant inspector general at the Pentagon, has accused his old office of retaliating against a major surveillance whistleblower, Thomas Drake, in an episode that helps explain Snowden’s 2013 National Security Agency disclosures. Not only did Pentagon officials provide Drake’s name to criminal investigators, Crane told the Guardian, they destroyed documents relevant to his defence.