This NSA report, which, including supplemental material, totals more than 400 pages, has never been disclosed before nor have the details related to this incident. It is a missing piece of history and is extremely noteworthy.
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On March 12, 2013, @RonWyden asked then DNI James Clapper at a congressional hearing if NSA was collecting data on Americans
“No sir,” Clapper said. “Not wittingly.”
A couple wks earlier, an NSA analyst began to raise red flags about unauthorized surveillance activities
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This NSA employee, ID'd in the IG report as a global network analyst & referred to as "the source," spent the next several months trying to get NSA officials to address concerns abt another employee's SIGINT project that targeted a "large volume" of US persons phone numbers
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The global network analyst provided NSA officials with detailed info & data about how the other analyst's project was violating NSA surveillance rules and possibly the law. But the global network analyst was ultimately rebuffed.
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So on May 7, 2013, just about a month before the first stories based on @Snowden docs about NSA's vast surveillance programs, were pubbed, the global network analyst and another NSA employee contacted the IG
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There is no indication in the IG report that the events are related to NSA activities and programs revealed in the Snowden docs. However, the IG investigation occurred during a period in which the NSA was under intense pressure to address alleged wrongdoings.
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The NSA employee who was accused of wrongdoing and collecting "a large volume" of US person phone numbers with "no foreign intelligence purpose" became highly defensive during the IG's probe.
This is an email he sent in June 26, 2013, a few weeks after @Snowden disclosures
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The NSA employee who was accused of wrongdoing and collecting "a large volume" of US person phone numbers with "no foreign intelligence purpose" became highly defensive during the IG's probe.
This is an email he sent in June 26, 2013, a few weeks after @Snowden disclosures
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The NSA IG spent 3 years investigating whistleblowers allegations and whether the senior analyst violated the law by wrongfully collecting US persons' communications.
A year into the investigation, the whistleblower reached out to the IG again.
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In late December 2015, the NSA IG concluded its investigation and presented the findings to the analyst accused of improperly collecting US persons' comms. The analyst provided a point by point rebuttal which is heavily redacted.
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The NSA IG completed it's report in February 2016 and substantiated all of the whistleblowers' allegations.
The IG also called to attn a lack of oversight by NSA officials who told the IG they were aware of the analyst's project but didn't understand what he was doing.
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Then-NSA IG George Ellard sent a memo to the NSA's Signal Intelligence Director saying the analyst may have violated two provisions of FISA and clearly violated NSA internal policies and procedures related to the collection of US persons comms.
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It's unknown if the analyst was ever held accountable.
The NSA would not respond to detailed questions. Instead, the agency issued a statement to Bloomberg.
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.@RonWyden, who has spearheaded surveillance reforms, told Bloomberg this previously unreleased NSA IG report "further confirms that intelligence agencies sometimes commit abuses and violations."
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Finally, we reached out to @Snowden and shared the report with him because the timing of the allegations and the IG investigation are noteworthy as it relates to his revelations of surveillance absues at the agency
He told Bloomberg in a statement through his lawyer:
A little backstory on this week's FOIA Files newsletter 🧵
Not long after Russia launched airstrikes in Ukraine in 2022, I started seeing tweets that said some of Russia’s targets were labs where Ukraine had secretly been developing bio weapons w/the help of the US govt 1/
The allegations seemed to be an obvious attempt to justify the invasion. They garnered thousands of retweets. Soon Fox News was amplifying the claims.
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The stories had a huge impact. One poll in late March of that year found that more than a quarter of Americans believed the US-Ukraine bioweapons theory.
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NEW FOIA Files newsletter is out with a SCOOP based on 2500 pages of docunents about how a Defense Dept office struggled to fend off a "Russian lie" related to biolabs in Ukraine after the February 2022 invasion
The documents provide a rare behind-the-scenes look into an escalating disinformation war during a critical two-month period after the Ukraine invasion
It took me more than a year to liberate these records from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the division that was targeted by Russia's disinformation campaign
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One name that stands out prominently in the cache is Robert Pope, the director of DTRA’s Cooperative Threat Reduction program. Pope said he’d suspected that his agency would eventually wind up in Russia’s crosshairs.
SCOOP: 2nd edition of my weekly newsletter, FOIA Files, is out (SUBSCRIBE!), based on FBI docs related to the classified docs Trump took to MAL & how the Aug 2022 search roiled some of FBI's rank & file
The FBI employee sent that email to the FBI ombudsman shortly after the MAL search. “If he took documents, give him a call and ask for them back. Like ...Seriously? My own agency .... A bunch of democrat political hacks up top…I've lost just about all faith in our leadership”
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Another FBI employee was even harsher, characterizing the bureau as a “Banana Republic” and an “embarrassment,” and demanding answers to a series of questions.
Fighting for records continues to be painstaking, difficult work but my @business colleagues & I still managed to overcome the culture of secrecy & pry loose 1000s of pages of docs from state & federal agencies this year
The greatest hits
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The ultimate META FOIA: I FOIA'd Trump's FOIA to the IRS & then in Jan @laurapdavison & I landed this scoop: Trump used the FOIA to try and hinder IRS release of his tax returns
@laurapdavison Also in Jan, a FOIA lawsuit @business & I filed against NARA resulted in the first release docs related to the retrieval of 15 boxes of presidential records Trump stored at Mar-a-Lago.
🧵 For the past decade, DOD has been ignoring a handful of my #FOIA requests, the ones I didn't sue over
This week, I have received 9 letters from the agency asking me if I am still interested in receiving docs in response to requests I filed in 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018 & 2020
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These requests related to documents I sought about Guantanamo, Afghanistan, drone strikes and pressing policy issues. DOD just blatantly violated the law and didn't process a single one.
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These "still interested" letters are often sent out at the end of the fiscal year when agencies pad their FOIA stats and try to show their complying with the law. It's deceptive.
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