Hacker News Reader

Comment by atoav | Hacker News Reader

I am not a US citizen but doesn’t this “second time” refer to some kind of promise the NSA made not to spy on US citizen?

View on HN

Not an expert on it, but I don't think so. They are and always have been allowed to collect information on US citizens that are in contact with foreigners. Many consider this a problem, because ultimately every US citizen is in contact with a foreigner at one time or another, but AFAIK the general rule has never changed.

For me and the vast majority of the world population the distinction doesn't matter, because according to US law the NSA is allowed to spy on us as they please. Of course, this practice is illegal were we live, but that's not going to bother them.

Contact with foreign entities when that person is under investigation for illegal activities. The NSA does not investigate your communication just because you call a foreign entity.

This is a false statement. The NSA does bulk collection of the data you describe.

Bulk collection of data has nothing to do with what I said.

Correct me if I am wrong, but is your argument “they aren’t investigating you, they are just collecting all of your call data and other traffic and storing it in case they want to investigate you later”?

I said no such thing. I said they aren't looking into your data just because you called a foreign entity.

They collect it and store it indefinitely, though, which we now know thanks to Edward Snowden.

I think you are moving the goalposts with terms like “looking into”. They are in possession of it and have permanent access to it. For emails and SMS, this involves full content, too.

It even includes US-US communication if the stored communications provider replicates it out of the country, which is so common as to be expected in almost all cases.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com