Well this isn't reassuring. The National Security Agency and Office of the Director of National Intelligence compare how they go about intercepting and stopping terrorists to stop-and-frisk.At the NSA, analysts follow a law that is "effectively the same standard that's used for stop-and-frisk," according to the agency's general counsel, Rajesh De, when asked this morning by Rachel Brand of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight board to explain the Reasonable and Articulable Suspicion Standard—the legal method through which NSA determines to further examine and query the phone records of supposed terrorists.“A lot of people feel it's ended up being implemented in a discriminatory way,” De added later. Wait—what, dude? Yes, the practices of NSA are considered by its own legal counsel to be comparable to yet another thing people really hate. Stop-and-frisk, in case you forgot, is based on having hunches. So is "reasonable suspicion."Of course, moments later, De basically contradicts the semblance."The intent of the standard is to be significant enough that a query can't be made on a hunch or for no particular reason at all, but sufficiently able to be met so that the tool can in fact be used as a discovery tool to discover unknown operatives, which is the whole point of the program," De explained. Officials added that NSA operations to query terrorist cell phone data takes, well—a bit more oversight than a law enforcement officer who randomly stops young black and Hispanic men.Is that the best you can do, NSA? At least compare yourself to finger-in-the-butt screenings at the airport, the Rockefeller drug laws, or better yet, the pre-cogs from Minority Report? I would advise using any of these as an example for comparison over the racially charged, highly ineffective, overused stop-and-frisk protocol—a law that New York City's most-likely-to-win mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio has said he will look to reform if he's elected.It's a wonder the nation's security lawyers can keep a staight face through all of this. Is it just bad PR? To their credit, the agency is constantly asking for help, advice, and repeating itself in its responses to the press. De's remarks seem to scatter the pieces in what has been a delicate game of eluding blame.To sift through supposed terrorist phone call data, the NSA takes a "far more regulated and rigorous process,” De said. It seems foolish that De would use such a simplistic comparison to defend the agency, considering the practices at NSA have continuously been described as facing Federal judges that are "not rubber stamps."There are only 22 agency employees with oversight of such searches, and the NSA has to document and send each request through a lengthy paper trail, involving an inspector general, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and quarterly auditing by the Department of Justice. Sounds a lot like pulling over a black teenager, harassing him, and proceeding to search his person under the hunch that he may be breaking the law—right?@danstuckey
Advertisement