Still talking about the NSA spying on Americans

Two nights ago, Bill Maher, on his HBO show Real Time, spoke of his limited support for the NSA spying because of his fears of small nuclear bombs. Sorry, Bill - I don't buy it. There's just NOT enough oversight of the project to make me comfortable with what else is being watched.

From The Guardian
(Click on the link to read more)

NSA warned to rein in surveillance as agency reveals even greater scope

The National Security Agency revealed to an angry congressional panel on Wednesday that its analysis of phone records and online behavior goes exponentially beyond what it had previously disclosed.

John C Inglis, the deputy director of the surveillance agency, told a member of the House judiciary committee that NSA analysts can perform "a second or third hop query" through its collections of telephone data and internet records in order to find connections to terrorist organizations.

"Hops" refers to a technical term indicating connections between people. A three-hop query means that the NSA can look at data not only from a suspected terrorist, but from everyone that suspect communicated with, and then from everyone those people communicated with, and then from everyone all of those people communicated with.

Inglis did not elaborate, nor did the members of the House panel - many of whom expressed concern and even anger at the NSA - explore the legal and privacy implications of the breadth of "three-hop" analysis.

But Inglis and other intelligence and law enforcement officials testifying before the committee said that the NSA's ability to query the data follows rules set by the secret FISA court, although about two dozen NSA officials determine for themselves when those criteria are satisified.