Earth to NSA: It’s Not ‘Inadvertent’ Collection of Private Data if You Know and Keep Doing It

Because it’s been a year since
media outlets began reporting information from the documents
provided by Edward Snowden, it looks like that’s enough time for
Obama administration to declare, “Oh, that? That’s old
news,” to any new stories, despite having previously denied certain
claims.

Such is the response to this weekend’s
revelations in The Washington Post that the
National Security Agency (NSA) has, indeed, intercepted and
collected all sorts of data from all sorts of people who were
American citizens and had no connection to terrorism.

Reason’s Nick Gillespie
pointed out the latest story Sunday morning. Obama
administration officials wasted no time trying to declare the news
to not be news at all over at
The New York Times:

On Sunday, Robert Litt, the general counsel to the director of
national intelligence, said in an interview that The Post’s article
cites “figures that suggest foreign intelligence collection
intercepts the communications of nine ‘bystanders’ for every
‘legally targeted’ foreigner.”

“These reports simply discuss the kind of incidental
interception of communications that we have always said takes place
under Section 702,” he said, referring to the law that governs the
collection of information on foreigners. “We target only valid
foreign intelligence targets under that authority, and the most
that you could conclude from these news reports is that each valid
foreign intelligence target talks to an average of nine people.”
The administration has made no secret of the fact that, as it
vacuums data from around the globe, it sometimes inadvertently
collects information from innocent people, including some
Americans.

Old news, folks! Move along! A shame the NSA still has still
been unable to erase this pivotal exchange where Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper
lies to the Senate Intelligence Committee about it in 2013,
months before Snowden’s leaks began:

Clapper here used the “not wittingly” addendum to try to weasel
out of factual accuracy. The thing, though, is that once you know a
process of data collection is “inadvertently” or “unintentionally”
collecting private information from Americans unconnected to any
terrorism investigation and you keep on using that system, then it
is no longer “inadvertent” or “unintentional.” The NSA may
actually, genuinely not want the data, but it cannot say it is not
purposefully gathering it. Here’s some of the information The
Washington Post has seen swept up from anybody whose paths
(both virtual and actual) crossed a target:

Among the latter are medical records sent from one family member
to another, résumés from job hunters and academic transcripts of
schoolchildren. In one photo, a young girl in religious dress beams
at a camera outside a mosque.

Scores of pictures show infants and toddlers in bathtubs, on
swings, sprawled on their backs and kissed by their mothers. In
some photos, men show off their physiques. In others, women model
lingerie, leaning suggestively into a webcam or striking risque
poses in shorts and bikini tops.

“None of the hits that were received were relevant,” two Navy
cryptologic technicians write in one of many summaries of
nonproductive surveillance. “No additional information,” writes a
civilian analyst. Another makes fun of a suspected kidnapper, newly
arrived in Syria before the current civil war, who begs for
employment as a janitor and makes wide-eyed observations about the
state of undress displayed by women on local beaches.

Last year: We’re not reading your e-mail! This year: What?
That’s old news!