President Obama spoke shortly after 11 AM EST Friday
morning and announced changes in data collection that he had ordered.
The NSA will not be able to obtain phone pen
registers of domestic civilians without court supervision. However, it appears that a database of the
metadata will still exist, but not be usable by the NSA without permission from
a third government party.
Normally information can be sought about calls and
Internet communications when there is some suspicion, like being within “two
degrees of separation” (down from three) from communication with a suspicious
agent overseas (like an Al Qeada safehouse).
Obama said that before 9/11, the NSA had information about calls to a
safehouse, but did not know that the third party was already in the US and it
does need to be able to find that out.
My take: as a practical matter, most of us are at
more risk from crime and terror (domestic and foreign) than the NSA, Snowden
notwithstanding. But a lot of
intelligence has to do with understanding what makes enemies tick, and
connecting the dots that probably don’t ahow up in NSA’s automated
processes. It’s amazing, and
frightening, what can show up in fully public posts in social media.
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