Security News > 2023 > January > NSA asks Congress to let it get on with that warrantless data harvesting, again

NSA director General Paul Nakasone told the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board yesterday that the loss of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act would mean American spies would "Lose critical insights into the most significant threats to our nation" if allowed to lapse on December 31.

In his speech, Nakasone said Section 702 is "Irreplaceable," and he provided several stories of the FBI and NSA cooperating using the law to stop terrorist plots and online attacks to justify his claim.

The NSA has long held that Section 702 saved American lives and protected the nation and its allies, though documents declassified in 2019 showed that it was frequently used against US persons, despite the law specifically being designed to only apply to foreign targets.

When asked about the use of Section 702-gathered data to surveil US persons during hearings over its previous renewal in 2017, the NSA refused to provide figures.

There's no better way to relay the conclusions than the report itself: "We found that the Department's management practices and password complexity requirements were not sufficient to prevent potential unauthorized access to its systems and data," the OIG said [PDF].

The Inspector General had eight recommendations for the DOI, including not implementing MFA methods that can be bypassed, as is currently the case, and enhancing password complexity requirements.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/01/14/in_brief_security/