NSA Agents Told to Conceal Information from Overseers

Provide generic info when asking for permission to surveil from FISA court

There's so much information that's coming out of last night's Washington Post bombshell that just continues to yield incredible information about what defenders of these programs have been saying as compared to what's actually happening.

Here's another one. One of the documents released with the report, via Ed Snowden, shows that NSA agents were directly told to give their overseers as little information as possible. The document explains to agents the process for justifying why they were requesting targeting (i.e., a more detailed look concerning an individual or group—not just at that person's communications, but potentially anyone even remotely connected to them), and makes it clear that they are to give the bare minimum necessary to fulfill their reporting requirements, but not even the slightest bit beyond that. In fact, they're told to give a single short sentence, and to make sure it includes no "extraneous information."