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Comment by leobelle | Hacker News Reader

Given that everyone involved was an American citizen, the NSA would not have been authorized to use their database to look up this information. Based what we know of the 1,000 or so instances of illegal access by NSA employees of their database, there is no evidence that the NSA has ever been involved giving database information to an IRS Special Agent investigating American citizens. There is no evidence that the IRS or FBI has NSA style capabilities to circumvent internet encryption. So your rampant and incredulous speculation has no standing and borders on conspiratorial.

It is however likely the IRS or FBI simply used a subpoena to get their information through a court and a judge, which is entirely in accordance with the law.

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NSA policy is very explicit in stating that if they come across evidence of domestic criminal activity in the pursuit of foreign intel, they are free to share that with law enforcement. Given that tracking money laundering is a key approach to attacking terrorism, it's certainly possible that information related to this arrest could arise from that activity.

So while its most likely that this went through a subpoena, it's absolutely not conspiratorial to suggest NSA involvement.

Actually, it is conspiratorial. It's also true.

How are you certain that the NSA contributed to this case?

That's in contradiction with what a federal prosecutor says in this article: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE...

To quote: "In a Florida drug case he was handling, the prosecutor said, a DEA agent told him the investigation of a U.S. citizen began with a tip from an informant. When the prosecutor pressed for more information, he said, a DEA supervisor intervened and revealed that the tip had actually come through the SOD and from an NSA intercept."

Admittedly you only specified the IRS and FBI so perhaps you intentionally left out the DEA.

> Given that everyone involved was an American citizen, the NSA would not have been authorized to use their database to look up this information.

It doesn't seem that the NSA accepts anyone else's "authority". No authorized != doesn't happen. They can and do share information about regular crimes. See: "parallel construction". They provide this info secretly to local police so that they can create a clean chain of evidence without implicating the NSA.

Where does this 1000 estimate come from, and how is it calculated? Having all the calls from the District of Columbia recorded - is that 1 illegal access?

I have an article here that claims 2700+ incidents from 2011 to 2012. One of which affected 3,000 Americans: "The most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders. "[0] This is only an internal audit - the only cases I have read about are where this information is volunteered by the perpetrators or investigated after a suspicious victim, that knows about potential NSA involvement has come forward.

[0]http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-br...

If the NSA were authorised in another case or acquire the data unintentionally and happen upon incriminating evidence, they feel they are authorised to tip off the FBI - this is where parallel construction comes in.

Here's evidence that the IRS has received database information through SOD and the NSA, they have a manual for it:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/07/us-dea-irs-idUSBRE...

Funny how these NSA apologist comments always come from green accounts.

You have edited your comment from its original statement, no?

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