back to article FBI has its fingers deep in NSA surveillance pie, declassified report shows

The FBI had, and most likely still has, a much closer involvement with the NSA’s mass surveillance programs than previously thought – with access to raw foreign intelligence and data on Americans gleaned from the PRISM program. The 231-page report, from the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, was obtained – albeit in a …

  1. FrankAlphaXII

    The problem with figuring out anything to do with the FBI is its disjointed and internally highly competitive nature and with the redactions after skimming through it, I can't tell with 100% certainty who exactly was making the 702 requests, whether it was NSB at Quantico, Headquarters, or one (or some, or all) of the field offices. The field offices are their own personal little kingdoms and they don't cooperate with each other routinely, much less with HQ or Quantico unless it suits them.

    It shouldn't surprise anyone that FBI was/is part of PRISM or ECHELON or any of the other programs, though I have my doubts Criminal Investigations really did much with it due to its inadmissability outside of Espionage investigations, I'm sure it was used to point toward admissable evidence though. I might be wrong, but FBI's culture is idiotic and self-defeating alot of the time.

    You'd have to FOIA information directly pertaining to NSB and CIB's information sharing to find out for sure and good luck with that.

  2. streaky

    FBI gets access to foreign military intelligence what could possibly go wrong.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Mushroom

      Nothing to see here, please move along.

      Yours

      Richard M Nixon.

  3. regadpellagru

    Of course

    in each and every such matters, we must seggregate:

    1- who intercepts and stores/decrypt the data

    2- who consults the data

    1 is unique (otherwise, it's really too expensive). Can be X or Y, is NSA in this case. Other countries are different, but still a unique 1.

    2 is going to be 1 only, at first, then it's gonna evolve as each and every new security law is passed, going from FBI, to IRS, your mayor, his assistant, and any freaking Mac Donald's manager. All of that while slurped data is being stored for increasing periods of time (again, new anti-terror laws).

    That's how privacy laws are being scope-creeped for still a number of decades, as an ultimate achievement for terrorists.

  4. Tom 13

    Huh? What mean 'um "previously thought"?

    The FBI handles internal spying investigations, the NSA gather comms, and the CIA handles external stuff? Why wouldn't they have had access to NSA data on spies?

  5. scrubber

    Constitutional Shredder

    So ... The FBI gets access to illegally obtained NSA data on law abiding Americans in order to investigate the hacking of a Japanese company by (cough) North Korea?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

    In mind this is because of the confused responsibilities of the FBI. Are they a national police force, an internal security agency, or an intelligence agency?

    In the UK we have a more distinct separation of concerns but its starting to breakdown down now somewhat with the introduction of organizations like the NCA.

    Mass surveillance is justified in terms of the intelligence agencies protecting us from foreign threats but in reality the information they acquire through these programs is probably most useful to the internal security / policing agencies. Once the capability has been established its almost inevitable that they will acquire access

    The NCA will demand / require access to GCHQ's surveillance capabilities to catch drug traffickers, people traffickers, sex offenders, serial killers, serial parking fine evaders, people who don’t pay their TV license... you name it

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

      "Mass surveillance is justified in terms.. "

      No it's not. Collecting everything you can and then looking for something you can use to put people in jail, even decades later, isn't the way any society should be working, ever.

      Also it's totally illegal in most of the countries, regardless of "justification".

      That's just totally Stasi. And there's no way around that.

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