http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/us/hunting-for-hackers-nsa-secretly-expands-internet-spying-at-us-border.html
By CHARLIE SAVAGE, JULIA ANGWIN, JEFF LARSON and HENRIK MOLTKE
The New York Times
JUNE 4, 2015
WASHINGTON — Without public notice or debate, the Obama administration has
expanded the National Security Agency‘s warrantless surveillance of
Americans’ international Internet traffic to search for evidence of
malicious computer hacking, according to classified N.S.A. documents.
In mid-2012, Justice Department lawyers wrote two secret memos permitting
the spy agency to begin hunting on Internet cables, without a warrant and
on American soil, for data linked to computer intrusions originating
abroad — including traffic that flows to suspicious Internet addresses or
contains malware, the documents show.
The Justice Department allowed the agency to monitor only addresses and
“cybersignatures” — patterns associated with computer intrusions — that it
could tie to foreign governments. But the documents also note that the
N.S.A. sought permission to target hackers even when it could not
establish any links to foreign powers.
The disclosures, based on documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the
former N.S.A. contractor, and shared with The New York Times and
ProPublica, come at a time of unprecedented cyberattacks on American
financial institutions, businesses and government agencies, but also of
greater scrutiny of secret legal justifications for broader government
surveillance.
[...]
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