The Department of Justice has finalized regulations that would give multiple federal agencies far greater access to e-mails and other information acquired by the National Security Agency (NSA), according to a breaking story from The New York Times. Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program and co-author of the related report Overseas Surveillance in an Interconnected World, is available for your coverage and analysis.
The regulations address the sharing of information acquired under Executive Order 12333, which allows the NSA to collect communications from points overseas without any judicial oversight. Although the NSA may not deliberately target particular, known Americans for collection, it is permitted to engage in bulk collection that sweeps up Americans’ communications, which routinely transit overseas. In the past there were strict limits on the NSA’s dissemination of this data to domestic law enforcement agencies. The new regulations eviscerate those limits.
“These regulations take a huge bite out of the constitutional protection for Americans,” said Goitein. “They give the FBI, DEA, and other federal agencies access to innocent Americans’ calls and e-mails in massive numbers, without having to show probable cause of wrongdoing to a judge and obtain a warrant. That is not what our founders envisioned when they enshrined privacy rights in the Fourth Amendment.”
To schedule an interview, contact Naren Daniel at (646) 292–8381 or naren.daniel@nyu.edu.
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