You are putting words in my mouth again. They cannot hack domestic infrastructure. They can infiltrate foreign infrastructure belonging to foreigners if it is helpful for national security (a very low bar because any networked computer can act as a jumping off point to attack another).
You still have to prove both that this was helpful to national security and that no US citizens were part of the target, and you need to do so for every hack done. Otherwise it's illegal.
The document doesn't say that any US citizens' data was taken. It just says that the NSA has access to those Chinese computer systems. This is not illegal. You would think that if Snowden had information about actually illegal things the NSA did with that access, that would show up in the giant stash of documents he took, but no such document has appeared.
This isn't how this works. Every hack is illegal unless the NSA gets proper authorization beforehand and then does not accidentally acquire any US citizens data. A "giant stash of documents" would only exisy if the NSA had gotten legal clearance for everything beforehand, it hasn't appeared because these were all illegal, and there isn't a need for more evidence to show that they were illegal.
> Every hack is illegal unless the NSA gets proper authorization beforehand
Wrong. I already told you that the authorization is granted to the NSA as part of its charter.
> and then does not accidentally acquire any US citizens data.
Also wrong. There is no law against accidental acquisition of Americans' data, and there is no reason to believe that merely obtaining access to computer systems magically results in acquisition of Americans'data.
> it hasn't appeared because these were all illegal,
This is the most obviously wrong of all your claims. Infiltrating Chinese computer systems was so clearly legal that nobody even bothered to file a lawsuit about it, not even Larry Klayman.
>Wrong. I already told you that the authorization is granted to the NSA as part of its charter.
After which I said that the NSA does not have carte blanche to hack any computer and you accused me of putting words in your mouth. This is how it works. Their charter still requires authorization, which doesn't exist, making these hacks illegal.
>Also wrong. There is no law against accidental acquisition of Americans' data
There are all worts of laws that make acquiring American data without a warrant illegal. If accidentally done, I believe the data is to be immediately destroyed and some sort of record of it happening is kept, I am not an expert.
>This is the most obviously wrong of all your claims.
Obviously wrong claims can be shown wrong. Try to do so. Until then, I'll believe the paper calling it illegal and the law that calls the action illegal without proper authorization.
> After which I said that the NSA does not have carte blanche to hack any computer and you accused me of putting words in your mouth.
Do you understand that there is a difference between being able to hack domestic computer systems and foreign computer systems? The latter is fair game, as long as it allows them to collect foreign intelligence, which is part of their charter.
> If accidentally done, I believe the data is to be immediately destroyed and some sort of record of it happening is kept
Exactly. The accidental acquisition is not illegal. Keeping the data knowingly is.
> Obviously wrong claims can be shown wrong. Try to do so.
Already done. If you believe it is illegal, try to get a lawyer and sue. The lawyer will laugh you out of the office, just as I have been laughing at that illiterate Snowden.
>The latter is fair game, as long as it allows them to collect foreign intelligence, which is part of their charter.
Civilian targets are still not open game, they have rights that need yo be respected.
>Exactly. The accidental acquisition is not illegal. Keeping the data knowingly is.
The accidental acquisition is still illegal, just not heavily punished.
>If you believe it is illegal, try to get a lawyer and sue. The lawyer will laugh you out of the office
Because this is not how "crimes" work. For me to sue, I would need to have been personally damaged by the act, and to my knowledge the actual people targeted were not revealed. This doesn't make an act "legal," so you have not even attempted to show that it is obviously legal.
> Civilian targets are still not open game, they have rights that need yo be respected.
No, they do not. There is no legal precedent for this.
> The accidental acquisition is still illegal,
Under what law? Police accidentally collect data all the time just from their body cams.
> Because this is not how "crimes" work. For me to sue, I would need to have been personally damaged by the act, and to my knowledge the actual people targeted were not revealed.
They were. Tsinghua, Huawei, multiple telecommunications services, etc.
The NSA does not have carte blanche to infiltrate any computer without question.