N.S.A. Said to Search Content of Messages to and From U.S.

The N.S.A. is not just intercepting the communications of Americans who are in direct contact with foreigners targeted overseas, a practice that government officials have openly acknowledged. It is also casting a far wider net for people who cite information linked to those foreigners, like a little used e-mail address, according to a senior intelligence official.

While it has long been known that the agency conducts extensive computer searches of data it vacuums up overseas, that it is systematically searching — without warrants — through the contents of Americans’ communications that cross the border reveals more about the scale of its secret operations.

It also adds another element to the unfolding debate, provoked by the disclosures of Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor, about whether the agency has infringed on Americans’ privacy as it scoops up e-mails and phone data in its quest to ferret out foreign intelligence.

Government officials say the cross-border surveillance was authorized by a 2008 law, the FISA Amendments Act, in which Congress approved eavesdropping on domestic soil without warrants as long as the “target” was a noncitizen abroad. Voice communications are not included in that surveillance, the senior official said.

Asked to comment, Judith A. Emmel, an N.S.A. spokeswoman, did not directly address surveillance of cross-border communications. But she said the agency’s activities were lawful and intended to gather intelligence not about Americans but about “foreign powers and their agents, foreign organizations, foreign persons or international terrorists.”

“In carrying out its signals intelligence mission, N.S.A. collects only what it is explicitly authorized to collect,” she said. “Moreover, the agency’s activities are deployed only in response to requirements for information to protect the country and its interests.”

Hints of the surveillance appeared in a set of rules, leaked by Mr. Snowden, for how the N.S.A. may carry out the 2008 FISA law. One paragraph mentions that the agency “seeks to acquire communications about the target that are not to or from the target.” The pages were posted online by the newspaper The Guardian on June 20, but the telltale paragraph, the only rule marked “Top Secret” amid 18 pages of restrictions, went largely overlooked amid other disclosures.

To conduct the surveillance, the N.S.A. is temporarily copying and then sifting through the contents of what is apparently most e-mails and other text-based communications that cross the border. The senior intelligence official, who, like other former and current government officials, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, said the N.S.A. makes a “clone of selected communication links” to gather the communications, but declined to specify details, like the volume of the data that passes through them.

Computer scientists said that it would be difficult to systematically search the contents of the communications without first gathering nearly all cross-border text-based data; fiber-optic networks work by breaking messages into tiny packets that flow at the speed of light over different pathways to their shared destination, so they would need to be captured and reassembled.

The official said that a computer searches the data for the identifying keywords or other “selectors” and stores those that match so that human analysts could later examine them. The remaining communications, the official said, are deleted; the entire process takes “a small number of seconds,” and the system has no ability to perform “retrospective searching.”

The official said the keyword and other terms were “very precise” to minimize the number of innocent American communications that were flagged by the program. At the same time, the official acknowledged that there had been times when changes by telecommunications providers or in the technology had led to inadvertent overcollection. The N.S.A. monitors for these problems, fixes them and reports such incidents to its overseers in the government, the official said.

The disclosure sheds additional light on statements intelligence officials have made recently, reassuring the public that they do not “target” Americans for surveillance without warrants.

Workstation: Messages Galore, but No Time to Think

Then, in the 1990s, came e-mail, and things were never the same. Besides delivering a serious blow to the sellers of those pieces of paper, e-mail made communicating with people incredibly — and, at first, delightfully — easy.

Now, a few decades later, people constantly complain that their e-mail in-boxes are unmanageable. And many more technologies have joined the workplace party. We can now use cellphones, texts, instant messaging, text messaging, social media, corporate intranets and cloud applications to communicate at work.

Something may have been lost as we adopted these new communication tools: the ability to concentrate.

“Nobody can think anymore because they’re constantly interrupted,” said Leslie Perlow, a Harvard Business School professor and author of “Sleeping With Your Smartphone.” “Technology has enabled this expectation that we always be on.” Workers fear the repercussions that could result if they are unavailable, she said.

The intermingling of work and personal life adds to the onslaught, as people communicate about personal topics during the workday, and about work topics when they are at home.

According to a 2011 article in The Ergonomics Open Journal, electronic communication tools can demand constant switching, which contributes to a feeling of “discontinuity” in the workplace. On the other hand, people sometimes deliberately introduce interruptions into their day as a way to reduce boredom and to socialize, the article said.

We’re only beginning to understand the workplace impact of new communication tools. The use of such technology in the office is “less rational than we would like to think,” said Steve Whittaker a professor of human-computer interaction at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Sometimes, “it’s one person who’s an evangelist,” he said. “They will start using a particular thing, and they will bring other people along with them.”

More tech-oriented types might favor the latest new communication “toy,” while others, like me, are less enthusiastic. In the name of simplicity, I even try to avoid instant messaging. But I also can’t help worrying that I am missing out.

Plenty of workplace advice focuses on how we, as individuals, can manage our technology, but in many cases, this is a collective, team-level issue, Professor Perlow said.

As Professor Whittaker put it, “We haven’t stabilized our regular practices,” and these may need to be negotiated among workers.

It’s important to distinguish between collaborative and one-on-one communication, he said. Cloud-based systems are meant for sharing and editing documents, and they can enable people in different cities to work together in real time. Internal social media pages can be useful for seeking and sharing knowledge.

But when one person wants to communicate with another privately, e-mail remains the go-to method, Professor Whittaker said. That’s why it is nearly universal, despite a general yearning for something better.

To lessen the disruptive nature of e-mail and other messages, teams need to discuss how to alter their work process to allow blocks of time where they can disconnect entirely, Professor Perlow said. “I don’t think you can do it without leadership support,” she added.

MAYBE more managers, consulting with their teams, need to set up clear guidelines for communication. When is it best to use the cloud? When is it best to use e-mail, or instant messaging? And when is it acceptable, even preferable, to turn off all technology? Not that managers need to be dictators, but a little clarity can lead to much more productivity.

Making it a priority to learn how to use the latest tools more effectively is a good idea, too. For example, how do those filters that help prioritize messages really work?

And let’s never forget the value of face-to-face, or voice-to-voice, communication. An actual unrehearsed conversation — requiring sustained attention and spontaneous reactions — may be old-fashioned, but it just might turn up something new.

Chinese Cafe Owner Given 8-Year Sentence Over Online Messages

The man, Cao Haibo, 27, of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, was accused of “subversion of state power” for trying to set up the “China Republican Party” — an entity that existed on paper, and only for one day.

His wife, Zhang Nian, 23, said he was sentenced on Wednesday but the court only notified her on Thursday. “It is a very severe punishment and long sentence,” she said, adding that the trial was held in secret.

The sentencing comes a week before a pivotal series of meetings in Beijing during which the party will ratify a new generation of leaders.

Mr. Cao’s lawyer, Ma Xiaopeng, told Reuters his client did not fully understand the risks he was taking when he sent antigovernment messages to his friends last year. “Cao Haibo does not understand politics in China,” Mr. Ma said. “We think he’s an immature child; he really did not know that the party would take it this seriously.”

Ms. Zhang said she and Mr. Cao were married three months before he was arrested last October. They have a 9-month-old child.

Renee Xia, international director of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, criticized the prosecution of Mr. Cao, noting that he was detained for eight months without trial and that even his family was barred from the proceedings. “Cao’s only ‘crime’ was to chat in an online group, where members discussed such ideas as democratic reform and constitutional rights,” she said. “This case is a travesty of justice. It demonstrates, once again, that China shows only disdain for rule of law.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 1, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated the given name of Cao Haibo’s wife. She is Zhang Nian, no Zhang Yan.

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City Room: Judge Orders Twitter to Release Protester's Messages

Thoughts may be ephemeral, but a tweet, apparently, is forever.

A Criminal Court judge in Manhattan ruled on Monday that Twitter must turn over to prosecutors messages sent by a Brooklyn writer during the Occupy Wall Street protests last fall. In doing so, the judge, Matthew A. Sciarrino Jr., indicated that although private speech was protected, the same did not apply to public comments on Twitter.

“The Constitution gives you the right to post, but as numerous people have learned, there are still consequences for your public posts,” Judge Sciarrino wrote. “What you give to the public belongs to the public. What you keep to yourself belongs only to you.”

The writer, Malcolm Harris, was one of about 700 protesters arrested in October while walking on the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge. He was charged with disorderly conduct, a violation. In January, the Manhattan district attorney’s office subpoenaed all messages that he had posted to Twitter from two days before the Occupy Wall Street protests began in September through the end of 2011.

Mr. Harris’s messages, which are no longer publicly available, are of interest to prosecutors because they may contradict an argument they expect him to make at trial: that the police led or escorted protesters off the pedestrian paths and into the bridge’s roadway.

His lawyer, Martin R. Stolar, filed a motion to quash the subpoena, saying it had not been delivered properly, was overly broad and was issued for an improper purpose.

Judge Sciarrino dismissed the motion in April, writing that Mr. Harris lacked the standing to oppose the subpoena because under Twitter’s policies, he had granted the company the “worldwide, nonexclusive, royalty-free” right to distribute his messages, which were all publicly available.

Twitter itself then sought to quash the subpoena. But in the decision released on Monday, Judge Sciarrino ordered it to turn over Mr. Harris’s messages. While noting that laws regarding social media were evolving, he held that public speech, regardless of the forum, did not enjoy the same protections as private speech.

The case over a minor criminal charge raises significant issues in the still-new area of social media.

As is becoming more common, prosecutors requested Mr. Harris’s postings and member information directly from Twitter, which then notified Mr. Harris. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, arguing that prosecutors should be required to obtain a search warrant from a judge for each request and that the person whose posts were being sought should have an opportunity to oppose the demand in court.

For law enforcement, social-media postings that document a person’s immediate thoughts and precise location provide a potent tool.

“We are pleased that the court has ruled for a second time that the tweets at issue must be turned over,” said Daniel R. Alonso, the chief assistant district attorney in Manhattan. “We look forward to Twitter’s complying and to moving forward with the trial.”

Twitter had argued that demands for postings and account information placed it under an undue burden of either turning over the information or fighting each request on behalf of its users.

In a statement, the company said it was “disappointed” with the ruling and was considering its options.

“Twitter’s terms of service have long made it absolutely clear that its users own their content,” the statement said. “We continue to have a steadfast commitment to our users and their rights.”