What crime are they conspiring to commit?
2.3Collection of Information. Agencies within the Intelligence Community are authorized to collect, retain or disseminate information concerning United States persons only in accordance with procedures established by the head of the agency concerned and approved by the Attorney General, consistent with the authorities provided by Part 1 of this Order. Those procedures shall permit collection, retention and dissemination of the following types of information: (a) Information that is publicly available or collected with the consent of the person concerned; (b) Information constituting foreign intelligence or counterintelligence, including such information concerning corporations or other commercial organizations. Collection within the United States of foreign intelligence not otherwise obtainable shall be undertaken by the FBI or, when significant foreign intelligence is sought, by other authorized agencies of the Intelligence Community, provided that no foreign intelligence collection by such agencies may be undertaken for the purpose of acquiring information concerning the domestic activities of United States persons; (c) Information obtained in the course of a lawful foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, international narcotics or international terrorism investigation; (d) Information needed to protect the safety of any persons or organizations, including those who are targets, victims or hostages of international terrorist organizations; (e) Information needed to protect foreign intelligence or counterintelligence sources or methods from unauthorized disclosure. Collection within the United States shall be undertaken by the FBI except that other agencies of the Intelligence Community may also collect such information concerning present or former employees, present or former intelligence agency contractors or their present or former employees, or applicants for any such employment or contracting; (f) Information concerning persons who are reasonably believed to be potential sources or contacts for the purpose of determining their suitability or credibility; (g) Information arising out of a lawful personnel, physical or communications security investigation; (h) Information acquired by overhead reconnaissance not directed at specific United States persons; (i) Incidentally obtained information that may indicate involvement in activities that may violate federal, state, local or foreign laws; and (j) Information necessary for administrative purposes. In addition, agencies within the Intelligence Community may disseminate information, other than information derived from signals intelligence, to each appropriate agency within the Intelligence Community for purposes of allowing the recipient agency to determine whether the information is relevant to its responsibilities and can be retained by it.
I assume that they are operating under item “d”
Well, for one, the violation of the Fourth Amendment. The thing about governments spying on the public, while hiding their own acts, is that it’s hard for the public to know what the government is up to, or what crimes it is committing. The other branches are also involved in, let’s see, aggressive war, the use of incendiary weapons in populated areas, torture, massacres, coups, and contractors such as Dyncorp are involved in child rape, among other things.
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The Executive order dates to 1981. The NSA was formed in 1952. At the time the NSA was created the scope of its activities was not limited by statute or executive order to foreign surveillance.
The hook is almost certainly 2.3(b). Domestic information is collected because it is, or may be, relevant to the investigation of a foreign intelligence target. As it says in the Guardian article linked to, Section 215 of the Patriot Act is what the NSA is relying on to justify collecting metadata on domestic communications. In theory, this metadata is put into the lockbox databse, and the lockbox database is only searched/queried when there is reasonable articulable suspicion that the domestic communications that might be returned by the query are relevant to the investigation of a foreign surveillance target.
For example, just say the NSA has reasonable articulable suspicion that a foreign phone number belongs to a suspected terrorist. Based on this RAS, they may then query the database to see what US domestic phone numbers that foreign surveillance target has called. I believe the NSA is also claiming that up to three telephone-hops are relevant (which means that FISC probably agreed at some point), by which I mean they may then see who those US telephone numbers called, and then see who they in turn called: three degrees of separation from the foreign surveillance target are deemed relevant.
“They are human” is argument enough for the NSA not to have the powers they do.
Because they are human, and when humans get hold of power over other people, they rarely use it responsibly.
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Blame Feinstein if you want (I do) but Udall and Wyden have been fighting against the Patriot Act and its abuses for a number of years. Why should I paint them as villains?
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