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| Public gets first look at once-secret court order on NSA surveillance - Los Angeles Times Posted: 31 Jul 2013 08:57 AM PDT WASHINGTON -- The public got its first look at the secret court order that authorized the government's vast collection of records of domestic telephone calls as the Obama administration moved Wednesday to try to boost public confidence in the National Security Agency's program. The order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court lays out the rules under which the program operates, mirroring the descriptions that U.S. officials have given in the weeks since the program was disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The order stipulates that a small number of analysts and supervisors are authorized to access the records for the limited purpose of matching them against phone numbers linked to terrorism. Also disclosed were two letters to Congress, in 2009 and 2011, explaining that the government was using the Patriot Act and other provisions to justify bulk collection of U.S. phone records and, until 2011, email "to and from" information. PHOTOS: 2013's memorable political moments But while the safeguards contained in the order may address some public concerns about the program's costs, U.S. intelligence officials continued to have difficulty convincing members of Congress about its benefits. Under questioning at the Senate Judiciary Committee, officials remained unable to come up with more than one relatively minor terrorism-financing case in which the phone records had proved instrumental. The committee's chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), said the Obama administration had failed to convince lawmakers or the public that the collection of U.S. phone records is a crucial tool. "It's been far too difficult to get a straight answer about the effectiveness" of the program, Leahy said. "I think the patience of the American people is beginning to wear thin, but what has to be of more concern in a democracy is the trust of the American people is wearing thin." Asked how many terrorism cases were cracked using U.S. phone records, John "Chris" Inglis, NSA's deputy director, answered that a dozen domestic terrorism investigations had made use of the records. But Inglis could cite only one in which the records were instrumental: a group of men from San Diego who sent $8,500 to Al Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia. PHOTOS: Team Obama, where are they now? One of the defendants in that case was discovered when a known terrorist phone number in Somalia was compared against the database, Inglis said. Leahy questioned whether that record met the balancing test between privacy and security. "We could have more security if we strip-searched everybody that came into every building in America," he said. "We're not going to do that. We have more security if we close our borders completely to everybody; we're not going to do that. If we put a wiretap on everybody's cellphone in America, if we search everybody's home. But there are certain areas of our own privacy that we Americans expect, and at some point, you have to know where the balance is." Follow Politics Now on Twitter and Facebook Twitter: @KenDilanianLAT |
| Egypt's government tells police to break up pro-Morsi protests - Washington Post Posted: 31 Jul 2013 09:05 AM PDT CAIRO — Egypt's military-backed government on Wednesday ordered the police to break up demonstrations in support of ousted President Mohamed Morsi, saying the protests pose an "unacceptable threat" to national security, the Associated Press reported. Morsi backers have camped out in two locations in Cairo — outside a mosque and a university campus — ever since the July 3 coup. Egypt's interim leaders appear increasingly determined to clear the pro-Morsi demonstrators away – a process that would likely be tremendously violent. Dozens of protesters have been killed in clashes with security forces in recent weeks. In a televised statement, Information Minister Dorreya Sharaf el-Din said police are to end the demonstrations "within the law and the constitution," AP reported. Late Tuesday, Morsi was visited by a group of African Union officials, the second time in recent days he has been allowed to meet with a foreign delegation after being held incommunicado for four weeks. News of the meeting came as Morsi's former prime minister was ordered to prison for a year. The ruling by a Cairo misdemeanor court against former Prime Minister Hisham Qandil, who was not a member of the Morsi-affiliated Muslim Brotherhood but was seen as sympathetic to Islamists, further broadens the wide-scale crackdown on Morsi allies, with an increasing number of Islamist politicians and leaders being arrested and thrown in jail. But Egypt's government also has allowed more access to Morsi since Monday, raising the possibility of some sort of negotiation between the president who was deposed on July 3 and his successors. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton met with Morsi late Monday. Neither she nor the African Union group disclosed where Morsi is being held or the substance of their conversations, although both delegations said that Morsi appeared to be doing well. The African Union delegation met with him for an hour late Tuesday, a member said at a Wednesday news conference. Qandil, a technocratic prime minister who served during Morsi's year in office, was ordered to a year in prison by Judge Mohamed el-Sawy after losing an appeal of a court ruling decided April 9. The case stemmed from a 2005 decision to privatize a state-owned company, seven years before Qandil took office. An administrative court ordered that Qandil's cabinet undo the privatization; it did not, and Qandil was held liable for the failure to uphold the order. Egypt's judiciary, comprised largely of appointees from the time of former President Hosni Mubarak, tangled frequently with Morsi and his associates, and the April 9 ruling was one of those instances. Ashton's Monday meeting with Morsi was the first contact he with an independent official since he was taken into military custody almost a month ago. By allowing the meeting, Egypt's military signaled that it may be willing to work with Morsi toward a political solution to the country's ongoing crisis, which has spawned repeated violence between security forces and the ousted president's supporters. |
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