Simple. A significant portion of long-term, powerful congressmen are in on the story too... They VOTED for it.
Remember too. Since the Cold War, certain amounts of spying are "necessary" that's why we have the NSA and CIA in the first place. The purpose of those organizations is to provide the President with information that cannot be obtained timely and/or legally to use against our nation-state enemies. They find spies and/or people working with spies committing high treason, show up at their door and shoot them in the face... These are not "police", they don't have trials, they act by the rules of war.
It all comes back to the misguided Patriot Act. These two organizations operations don't generally produce evidence legally usable in court. As their purpose was military court wasn't really an issue. But the side effect is that no matter what they spy on they don't have time or executive direction to enforce "civilian" laws. The patriot act was a crybaby act local police wanted to fight drugs. The FBI DIDNT want it, because it put them right back in J. Edgar days they didn't want to repeat. But enough other agencies cried about not getting NSA and CIA level intel Congress felt bad let them have it. Even though they didn't really have the ability to use such information properly for criminal investigation or in courts.
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Simple. A significant portion of long-term, powerful congressmen are in on the story too... They VOTED for it.
Remember too. Since the Cold War, certain amounts of spying are "necessary" that's why we have the NSA and CIA in the first place. The purpose of those organizations is to provide the President with information that cannot be obtained timely and/or legally to use against our nation-state enemies. They find spies and/or people working with spies committing high treason, show up at their door and shoot them in the face... These are not "police", they don't have trials, they act by the rules of war.
It all comes back to the misguided Patriot Act. These two organizations operations don't generally produce evidence legally usable in court. As their purpose was military court wasn't really an issue. But the side effect is that no matter what they spy on they don't have time or executive direction to enforce "civilian" laws. The patriot act was a crybaby act local police wanted to fight drugs. The FBI DIDNT want it, because it put them right back in J. Edgar days they didn't want to repeat. But enough other agencies cried about not getting NSA and CIA level intel Congress felt bad let them have it. Even though they didn't really have the ability to use such information properly for criminal investigation or in courts.