Comment by a3n
12 years ago
> The infiltration is especially striking because the NSA, under a separate program known as PRISM, has front-door access to Google and Yahoo user accounts through a court-approved process.
1. Spy on whatever the hell you want without benefit of warrant.
2. Discover something interesting.
3. "Parallel construct" a way that the information could have been legally obtained.
4. Get a warrant based on the parallel construction.
5. Profit.
It's parallel construction all the way down. Discover via extralegal, point mass-capture in that direction, sniff out and send to 'legal' 702 or 215 databases, hint to FBI/DEA buddies, get normal warrant, and now you've got your criminals!
In that way, killing the 702 or 215 powers really wouldn't do that much, because they can just derive their parallel construction from elsewhere.