National Security Agency - Truman's Legacy

In June 1952, President Harry Truman (that would be president number 33, the same guy who authorized the only nuclear weapons releases during wartime) signed a secret order that formed the National Security Agency, NSA, which in and of itself was an outgrowth of the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA), formed in 1949, which was to coordinate the communications and electronic intelligence activities of all the US military intelligence units.

The formation of the NSA under Harry Truman took this a step even further to a national level, and extended its reach beyond the armed forces into the civilian population.

The mission of the NSA, by US law, is limited to monitoring foreign communications, whether it is electronic intelligence (ELINT) or signal intelligence (SIGINT). The CIA, by comparison, mainly acts on human intelligence gathering (HUMINT), and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) primarily uses satellite space imaging as their main assets.

So, while the NSA's legal charter limits them to foreign communications, in reality, foreign combatants (terrorist organizations and state-sponsored entities) will have used US-based systems to conduct their operations. The US Patriot Act has made NSA wiretapping on US soil something of a gray area, particularly now that the NSA, the CIA, and the FBI freely exchange information with each other in the interests of national security.

NSA started with radio transmissions and analogue telephone signals as the world went digital.  It wiretaps the internet. PRISM simply extends that wiretapping to not just the traffic moving across the "pipes," but now, presumably, directly into the databases of the providers hosting the most widely-used applications and services in the cloud which include intrusive private emails and online activities.

If these new technologies were not available, would we have got "Geronimo" on Zero Dark Thirty? It's difficult to say, but easy to assume that they certainly didn't hinder surveillance activities either. Many say they're happier and will sleep better at night knowing that the NSA and our executive branch have these tools at their disposal.

The times have and are ever-changing rapidly with morphing technologies' advances. I must add that, first and foremost, our Constitutional rights must be constantly updated to include them as we utilize these newer weapons in our terrorist espionage arsenal.

Therefore, the law of the Patriot Act must be revisited for defining search warrants to prevent unspecified dragnets and random fishing expeditions trawling unfettered for criminal activities everywhere. The way the warrants are written or rewritten under collabortive judicial oversight and filed in the courts determine how judges develop opinions for jurisdiction and decide whether they are to be classified or non-classified cases.

At issue against FISA courts is their clandestine legal process that is not adversarial since it only requires the filing agency and the judge and it is at the judge's option to include or not a third party representing the defendants. Under this FISA court system an individual does not necessarily have any "legal standing" to even file an action or "constitutional recourse" to reverse actions or seek civil satisfaction in any Federal court of law.

To then balance fairness, FISA courts should include an outside, independent ombudsman representing the rights of citizens in challenging all authorities about warrants being filed or after proceeding as a conduit to seek entry into a court to hear an individual's civil rights case seeking protection and remedy under Federal law statutes. 

The Executive branch of government has usurped tremendous powers beyond its Constitutional laws and now Obama's own actions have proved out how this political abuse does happen. The Patriot Act itself must be reined in now on how this law of the land has been distorted and administered by the current President using Homeland Security.