July 1, 2014

Number of Backdoor Searches of NSA Data Too High to Keep Track Of


A few days ago I mentioned that the House had voted to end “backdoor” searches. These are queries of the NSA’s surveillance database that are targeted at American citizens who were “inadvertently” spied on during surveillance of foreigners, and the NSA would like you to know that these queries are totally legal; not based on any loopholes; and very definitely not “backdoor.”

Be that as it may, Sen. Ron Wyden still wanted to know just how many of these queries take place. In the case of the NSA and the CIA, backdoor queries are allowed only if the goal is related to foreign intelligence gathering. The FBI, however, has no such restriction. They can query all those inadvertent US persons for pretty much any reason at all related to a suspected crime. So how many queries of the NSA database have they made?

There you have it. The FBI has no idea how many time it’s queried the NSA database, though it’s “substantial.” In fact, those records are automatically included every single time the FBI’s database is queried. Nonetheless, nobody should be alarmed because the FBI receives only a “small percentage” of the NSA’s trillions of records, which means they’ve probably received no more than a few billion records.

Nothing to see here, folks. You may go about your business.

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In this month’s Summer Membership Drive, we’ve got to raise $200,000 to support more crucial investigations. This is a pivotal moment in our nation, with democracy on the line, and we can only do this work because readers like you step up. Every donation, of any amount, makes a difference here. We cannot do this work without you.

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