Obama Admin. admits to surveillance methods: Beating a Dead Horse Pt. 74

[goDel]

The discussion relies too much on the metadata vs. data discrepancy, imo. The NSA doesnt need to hear your phone calls to see what you're up to. The metadata itself already shows them lots of information. The phone calls themselves are probably just something they need when a case reached the level they've actually got a warrant. And mostly an afterthought.

I forgot where I read it, but the PRISM thing apparently was mostly about metadata. Another program, which copies anything which goes in and out of the us via servers is probably not even discussed here. So, who's right and wrong tends to be a pretty lawyerly question and really depends on the context.

From the PRISM perspective the NSA hotshot might be right. But that doesn't mean someone from the NSA could flip a switch to another program, so to speak. As you say, it's worded very carefully and I wouldn't place too much emphasis on what people say in court.

[lumpenprol]

everyone's talking about metadata but what is it exactly? Is it just the time, date, and phone numbers that are involved in a call? If so, I don't really have a problem with that, and I'm guessing most Americans don't, either. I mean, if someone asked, would you rather the govt. know, or not, I'd say "I'd rather they don't know", but I can't get that excited about it.

 

If that is true, and they don't actively listen in unless they have permission, the question becomes do they store all calls anyway, for future retrieval? Given the size of the data centers they've been building, I'm guessing so, and that bothers me quite a bit more.

 

Then there's the issue if they do record all international calls, if so, that would give them a huge window into the domestic population as well, as I'm guessing about half of US citizens place calls/email overseas.

[goDel]

everyone's talking about metadata but what is it exactly? Is it just the time, date, and phone numbers that are involved in a call? If so, I don't really have a problem with that, and I'm guessing most Americans don't, either. I mean, if someone asked, would you rather the govt. know, or not, I'd say "I'd rather they don't know", but I can't get that excited about it.

 

If that is true, and they don't actively listen in unless they have permission, the question becomes do they store all calls anyway, for future retrieval? Given the size of the data centers they've been building, I'm guessing so, and that bothers me quite a bit more.

 

Then there's the issue if they do record all international calls, if so, that would give them a huge window into the domestic population as well, as I'm guessing about half of US citizens place calls/email overseas.

Yeah, you're pretty close to describing metadata. Think of it as all the information that's on the watmm-server WITHOUT the actual content of the posts themselves. ( kinda like watching a massive rolling lol... Ooooo the irony).

 

That other interview with the three whistleblowers is interesting as well. It kinda cries that the current procedure dealing with whistleblowers is effective in the sense that it completely keeps whistleblowers out of the public eye. In other words, completely opposite of what such a procedure ought to achieve.

[brian trageskin]

i just had a terrible thought (a rather paranoid one) that what if this is just all a big setup like the Dan Rather military discharge story from 2004 to ruin Glenn Greenwald's career.

 

 

 

i thought of the possibility of a setup from the very beginning. how about snowden is a fake paid by the nsa to act as a whistleblower, in a second time he can't prove shit, which exonerates the nsa so they can continue their business?

 

 

 

 

[awepittance]

if it is a setup to take him down and it isn't effective, i've heard we make pretty good strains of weaponized anthrax that have been sent to journalists before to shut them up.

[delet...]

remember at the time the strains of anthrax that were being used weren't the same as were in his lab and all sorts of crap like that, which had come up on zmag and elsewhere. (incidentally i stopped reading zmag somewhere around the mid '00s as they shifted focus to diatribes that i was less comfortable with the validity of. It seemed like the establishment had finally infiltrated the place. This is usually pretty easy to pick up on, as issues of note suddenly have angles to them which are fenced off.)

[delet...]

oh lol, there is a link with abbie giving a run down on the anthrax thing after the video you posted.

 

bah, i don't need to remember anything, (goes to his cave to write music instead).

[kcinsu]

It just came out today that the FBI has been using drones for surveillance in the US.

[awepittance]

game over man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIUE1pYmUks

this has been a KidzOnline production, no joke

[Guest A/D]

 

this has video: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/

did everyone watch this? I love these 3 guys

 

excellent video/summary . . those guys are wonderful human beings. Thanks for posting.

[Guest Atom Dowry Firth]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa

[luke viia]

articles just keep rolling in.

 

'Use of Tor and email crypto could increase chances the NSA keeps your data'

 

 

 

While the documents make clear that data collection and interception must cease immediately once it's determined a target is within the US, they still provide analysts with a fair amount of leeway. And that leeway seems to work to the disadvantage of people who take steps to protect their Internet communications from prying eyes. For instance, a person whose physical location is unknown—which more often than not is the case when someone uses anonymity software from the Tor Project—"will not be treated as a United States person, unless such person can be positively identified as such, or the nature or circumstances of the person's communications give rise to a reasonable belief that such person is a United States person," the secret document stated.

[lumpenprol]

They do indeed keep rolling in.

 

This is the most important I've seen, anyone ever heard of the Insider Threat Program?

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130620/18182823551/obama-administration-has-declared-war-leakers-claims-any-leak-is-aiding-enemy.shtml

 

Also, this and this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-charges-snowden-with-espionage/2013/06/21/507497d8-dab1-11e2-a016-92547bf094cc_story_1.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa

 

I just realized all this stuff kind of renders The Wire obsolete doesn't it? I can just see my daughter in the future: "Daddy, why does McNulty have to go to a judge to listen to the drug dealer's phone calls? Why doesn't he just round them up, black bag their heads, and stick them in indefinite detention, like uncle Jerry?"

[DerWaschbar]

I can't help but feel most of the shock about this is feigned, though it definitely disturbing. How could anyone think that security agencies aren't gathering all of this neatly organized information? Even if they are prevented by law, they will do so clandestinely and especially if the work is outsourced to multiple competing private entities.

I'm pretty sure the most dangerous types are already off grid and using encryption when they need to use internet or phones.

[lumpenprol]

It's not feigned at all in my case. My guess is the reason you say it feels feigned, is it doesn't affect anyone directly...yet. You don't feel a noose of technology tightening around you? Technology, ideally, should be a tool that allows you to expand your freedoms and reach, but you have to be really vigilant to make sure it doesn't turn into the opposite.

 

For example, there's a pretty good argument to make for inserting RFID chips into everyone: you could track lost or kidnapped people, you could have all your medical records on it, etc etc. But I'm guessing most people have an intuitive understanding that that is going too far, and ripe for abuse.

 

I strongly believe communication should be free, and that law enforcement should have to present probable cause to the judiciary to tap someone's phones. This is the fundamental system of checks and balances. Having the judiciary write a blank check, in secret, to the NSA to spy on whomever they want, is a perversion of this idea. Getting our allies (UK) to store all international communication indefinitely is a perversion of this idea. Not only do I think it's unethical, and illegal, but it's also lazy. It's tossing away our freedoms because some intelligence agency decided to take the easy way out, and shit on personal freedom in the process.

 

Furthermore, as you pointed out, the really dastardly people will find a way around it. So remind me...what is there not to get outraged about? You just admitted it probably doesn't catch hardened criminals. So you're willing to give away your right to free (and private) speech just because "of course spy people do this kind of stuff?"

 

It's a new era, with new technology. It's clear when the telephone was invented, eventually they came up with the law that "hey, you need a warrant to wiretap". Now we have the internet, but we've never had that legal discussion, and it's high time we did.

[DerWaschbar]

Sorry for the confusion. I'm totally disgusted by this whole thing, but I'm not surprised. I'm more surprised by people not expecting this, which is more of an observation and maybe it's not very helpful.

The difference between this technology and those of the past is that the amount of of information available in the same stream is insurmountable. Converstations, opinions, GPS data. It's mind blowing the amount of detail you could easily access. What a honey pot. And with the history national security entities have of bending or ignoring the law...

[goDel]

About that Insider Threat Program I'm afraid it's not that difficult to take a position which could blow some fuses at a couple of readers.

 

The difference between leaking information and whistleblowing ( which that article completely missed, intentional, or unintentional). If you start with the idea that people could leak information BY ACCIDENT, for instance, it shouldn't be too difficult to see the difference with a whistleblower. The latter is a purely intentional act with a specific goal. Not every leaker is a whistleblower. And yes, every whistleblower is some sort of leaker.

If you also take into account that a large part of the activities of the various secret services are done by private companies, leaking does become a threat. And the existence of a program like this shouldn't be a surprise, imo. I don't know the specifics, but without having all the details this idea is not yet problematic, imo.

I'm not saying I agree with the program, or something. I'm only saying that calling Obama out for being hypocritical while completely ignoring this distinction, is a bit...well, let me just say I don't like the logic in the most assburgers way possible. Again, I'm not saying Obama isn't hypocritical. I only have some issues with that techdirt article. It's mostly dirt, and not because of the information. But rather the way it is written.

Ironically, there are better ways to draw a hypocritical Obama without falling back to techniques like ignoring certain nuances which are crucial to the argument. And that's simply because he hasn't been a convincing defender of these programs AT ALL, while he was more convincing during the elections about the support for whistleblowers, for instance. As long as he remains unable to defend his current policies against what he himself said during the elections, he's a hypocrite.

 

Also note that if he somehow will be able to come up with a more convincing argument somewhere in the future ( it IS a possibility), he stops being hypocritical as far as I'm concerned.

 

The broader argument about the government spying on its civilians has two crucial factors from a legal point of view, imo. Which are the distinction between data and metadata, and the distinction between probing people who aren't technically US civilians and probing US civilians. And the red flags are exactly at those places where distinctions like these become hard, or even impossible to make. Someone using TOR, for instance.

I also think it is important to note that if one agrees that a government needs to have a secret service in order to protect its civilians, issues like these are impossible to evade in a digital world. The argument that a government actually doesn't need a secret service is one that I haven't seen being made at all, btw.

Obama apparently argues his government has found a good balance within these issues. But because he hasn't made a convincing case, imo, it is still undecided ( imo, imo, imo). And why he hasn't been convincing is mostly because he simplified the argument at these two crucial distinctions. His current argument seems to only work in a world where distinctions between data and metadata, and communication between civilians in and outside the US are black and white. Because it's not that hard to find exceptions and gray areas, his argument is still shaky, to say the least.

 

So there, this is my case against Obama. !?

 

* constipates huge amounts of gogurts*

 

I'm sorry for posting again, btw. I really should be ignoring this thread by now...

[lumpenprol]

why does everyone talk about gogurts and say this thread is boring? This event is the most interesting in the past...er...maybe 10 years? Since 9/11? Or at least last 5 (after the 2008 financial collapse)? Certainly more important than things like the Boston bombing, with which we concern ourselves.

 

The whole thing, to me, seems like it could be easily resolved, with some simple ground rules:

1) Henceforth, no country has the right to "tap" international communications hubs and siphon info (yeah this is a huge temptation but it's got to stop)

2) metadata can be collected, but you will always need a case-by-case order in order to access the contents (can't be a blanket "open invitation")

3) have a statute of limitation on data, data cannot be backed up longer than X years. Or, maybe say it can't be backed up at all without a warrant.

 

This outcome seems acceptable to me.

 

I think we all know that no matter what, the world is still fucked, with drones in the sky, the potential for nano-whatevers in the future, cameras on every streetcorner, etc. We know that privacy is like a boxer that has been bloodied to a pulp and is hanging from the ropes. Still....I think this particular case is still very much worth fighting for.

 

It really makes me want to pull a BoC and go and live IABPOITC. Or on an island.

[goDel]

Yeah, Well everyone gogirting is basically sr4's response to my posts.

 

I dont think this thread or the subject is boring at all. But from the looks of it, i'm better off keeping out of this discussion. Seeing the amounts of crap my posts seem to attract.

 

Internationally speaking, the US might even do a relatively good job protecting its civilians rights, btw. In the UK everything is being registered. Regardless of data and metadata, or nationalities. And there are no warrants involved.

[eugene]

i believe that the issue at this stage is the fact that actual people are involved in this surveillance, too much information is given to people to analyze, giving them an insane amount of power. so there's a technological solution to the loss of privacy due to surveillance - R.F.S.A (really fucking smart algorithms) ! i don't believe that machines are capable of hurting our privacy by themselves, i don't feel violated when firefox is storing my browsing history, but if a human got access to it i'd feel differently. likewise i wouldn't mind if some software/supercomputer "knew" exactly what i did/who i met/what i said during the day - i just need a confirmation that this data wouldn't be given to some human for a poor reasons, so it's up to the RFSA software to flag me correctly and to not let some dirty NSA agent sift through my stuff.

 

possible scenario: RFSA flags the stuff, forwards the evidence to the judge and the judge decides whether to let the NSA agent do more active intervention. that's something that can be fixed with proper regulation and technology and prevent that blanket human surveillance that's allegedly going on now.

[SR4]

whats the deal with the whole gogurt thing anyway?

[goDel]

I think Greenwald did an ok job in the mourning joe interview of explaining what the issue is. It's a political issue (apart from the ethical and legal aspects). Fundamental and far reaching decisions are made in the government (and also at lower levels in the secret agencies, perhaps by contractors even) outside of the transparent checks and balances. Congressmen who are part of this process and disagree with the policies are unable to voice their objections to a broader public, even though it directly relates to that broader public. This way, the political discourse (which should be an integral part of those checks/balances) is being crippled.

 

Again though, Greenwalds accusational tone really does create a significant noise in the message, imo. For instance, him "accusing" Mika of using government talking points. Those accusations are distractions from the actual message and it really doesn't help his case at all. Again, imo.

 

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/06/10/watch-guardians-greenwald-defends-leak-as-essential-to-democracy/

[Plarkreluke Banloboh]

We need a new name for these big data suckers. I vote to call them 'Extractionists'. They can't create ideas or appreciate life so they seek to siphon the good stuff and separate it from the source.

 

Just imagine the kind of sickly vampires that would try to maintain a subsistence on this Go-Gurt tube culture.

[lumpenprol]

 

 

possible scenario: RFSA flags the stuff, forwards the evidence to the judge and the judge decides whether to let the NSA agent do more active intervention. that's something that can be fixed with proper regulation and technology and prevent that blanket human surveillance that's allegedly going on now.

that works, although you don't mention the problem of them archiving huge amounts of data, I think there also needs to be some sort of statute of limitation on data collection, the same way there is a statute of limitations on crimes, or on IRS audits. Say, for example, they dump all the data after 3 years.

 

I would prefer, in fact, that they don't archive any communication data whatsoever. If they have probable cause, they should just be able to "dip into the data stream" at that point, makes perfect sense to me. They shouldn't be able to go over to "ye vast supercomputer" and sift through all your past emails.

[lumpenprol]

By the way I officially hate American complacency, and the news media that feeds it. I wanted to see the latest update on Snowden so I went to CNN.com. Not a single mention anywhere on the front page. Then I noticed I was on the "US Edition". So I clicked the "International Edition" and the first large article is on Assange and Snowden. W.T.F.

 

Fuck you, CNN.

 

Just look at this shit (on left is US, right is Int'l). Also notice ad placement is more prominent on the US version.