Hunting for Hackers, N.S.A. Secretly Expands Internet Spying at U.S. Border

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

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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