Responding to msg by nobody@kaiwan.com (Anonymous) on Sat, 13 Aug 8:2 AM
If you have a public reference on *any* limitation of NSA's operations please post here or send by email.
There is indeed a NSA charter which has recently been published due, in part, as I understand it to the efforts of John Gilmore. But most of the actual detailed operational guidelines are contained in classified executive national security directives, most of which have not been revealed publicly even in vague terms. More significant however is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act of 1978 as amended and the ECPA (of 1986 as amended). These two Federal laws substantially tighten the definitions of permissable national security wiretapping (and later also radiotapping in the ECPA) which were originally contained in the Omnibus Crime and Safe Streets act of 1968. That is the law that for the first time spelled out the terms and conditions under which the government could legally intercept communications. (All of this is contained in title 18 of the Federal criminal code around about section 2100.) Dave Emery