NEW YORK TIMES: The National Security Agency is searching the contents of vast amounts of Americans’ e-mail and text communications into and out of the country, hunting for people who mention information about foreigners under surveillance, according to intelligence officials. The N.S.A. is not just intercepting the communications of Americans who are in direct contact with foreigners targeted overseas, a practice that government officials have openly acknowledged. It is also casting a far wider net for people who cite information linked to those foreigners, like a little used e-mail address, according to a senior intelligence official. While it has long been known that the agency conducts extensive computer searches of data it vacuums up overseas, that it is systematically searching — without warrants — through the contents of Americans’ communications that cross the border reveals more about the scale of its secret operations. MORE
RELATED: When the House of Representatives recently considered an amendment that would have dismantled the NSA’s bulk phone records collection program, the White House swiftly condemned the measure. But only five years ago, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. was part of a group of legislators that supported substantial changes to NSA surveillance programs. Here are some of the proposals the president co-sponsored as a senator. As a senator, Obama wanted to limit bulk records collection.
Obama co-sponsored a 2007 bill, introduced by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., that would have required the government to demonstrate, with “specific and articulable facts,” that it wanted records related to “a suspected agent of a foreign power” or the records of people with one degree of separation from a suspect. The bill died in committee. Following pressure from the Bush administration, lawmakers had abandoned a similar 2005 measure, which Obama also supported. We now know the Obama administration has sought, and obtained, the phone records belonging to all Verizon Business Network Services subscribers (and reportedly, Sprint and AT&T subscribers, as well). Once the NSA has the database, analysts search through the phone records and look at people with two or three degrees of separation from suspected terrorists.
The measure Obama supported in 2007 is actually similar to the House amendment that the White House condemned earlier this month. That measure, introduced by Reps. Justin Amash, R-Mich., and John Conyers, D-Mich., would have ended bulk phone records collection but still allowed the NSA to collect records related to individual suspects without a warrant based on probable cause. We now know the Obama administration has sought, and obtained, the phone records belonging to all Verizon Business Network Services subscribers (and reportedly, Sprint and AT&T subscribers, as well). Once the NSA has the database, analysts search through the phone records and look at people with two or three degrees of separation from suspected terrorists. The measure Obama supported in 2007 is actually similar to the House amendment that the White House condemned earlier this month. That measure, introduced by Reps. Justin Amash, R-Mich., and John Conyers, D-Mich., would have ended bulk phone records collection but still allowed the NSA to collect records related to individual suspects without a warrant based on probable cause. MORE
FIREDOGLAKE: We are being lied to. Ever since Edward Snowden’s first disclosures on NSA spying, the White House and several members of Congress have claimed that there has been ‘robust oversight’ including regular briefings 
with elected officials. But Representatives Alan Grayson and Morgan Griffith are now blowing the whistle on efforts by leaders of the House Intelligence Committee to deny requests for information on the programs detailed in Snowden’s disclosures.1 This new information shows that not only do members of Congress lack prior knowledge of these programs, but what they have learned has come from the press. If Intel Chairman Mike Rogers and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger cannot fulfill their oversight duties as ranking members of the House Intelligence Committee, they should be removed from their leadership positions. Please call the offices of Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and ask that they remove Reps. Rogers and Ruppersberger from the Intelligence Committee if they continue to stonewall congressional oversight. Among the disclosures that Grayson and Griffith are looking to investigate is an 86-page FISA court opinion from 2011 that ruled that the NSA’s domestic dragnet of communications was a clear violation of the 4th amendment. Amazingly, despite the fact that we know this opinion exists, its text remains classified, and our members of Congress have no greater access to information on these subjects than we do. As Glenn Greenwald told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, those in charge of the intelligence committees that oversee the NSA and other agencies are standing directly in the way. Rogers and Ruppersberger are so deeply beholden to the industry that reform seems unlikely so long as they keep their committee assignments. Ranking member Ruppersberger has a particularly deep conflict of interest in enforcing accountability because he “represents the NSA’s district, [receiving] all kinds cash from the defense and intelligence agencies [and] industries.” MORE