News How far should the Dragnet reach.

[nsaspook]

With the news leaking to the public of several surveillance programs targeting US citizens have we reached the limits of trust in what we allow our government to do when trying to stop the "bad guys".

http://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/us/nsa-verizon-calls.html?hp

My main objection is not that these programs exist but their level of secrecy and scope invites abuse without real public oversight to decide if it's in the best interest of the people of this country.

 

[Evo]

I'm not worried. If they monitored me they'd see recipes and gardening advice and pictures of dogs and kittens dressed up in funny costumes. Let them look all they want!

 

[Borg]

I'm OK with it as long as it doesn't get out of hand.

 

[Drakkith]

I am against anything which makes it so hard to live because you are in fear that you may slip up and accidentally break some law. Hopefully it doesn't reach that point.

 

[jhae2.718]

...

*looks at username*

On a serious note, if the NSA is monitoring domestic communications they are breaking the law, and that's a problem.

And by "if", I mean "they have the capability to do so so they are doing it".

 

[nsaspook]

And by "if", I mean "they have the capability to do so so they are doing it".

If only I looked that good today.

Yes, this is really old news but at least today major US news outlets are exposing it and not just some guy on RT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TuET0kpHoyM#!

 

[D H]

My main objection is not that these programs exist but their level of secrecy and scope invites abuse without real public oversight to decide if it's in the best interest of the people of this country.

I have qualms that these programs exist at all. The government needs a warrant to come into my house, a subpoena to look at my U.S. bank accounts. I don't have anything to hide now. That's irrelevant. Those protections exist to protect people who do have something to hide and to protect people from an overzealous government, which can manufacture a crime out of nothing. (Besides, I probably would have something to hide should an extreme left or extreme right political group get control of our government.) I'm glad those protections exist.

Except they don't exist. The Patriot Act has severely eroded our individual rights. At some point we and our elected officials have to realize that security and freedom are inherently in conflict. IMO, we as a nation have gone overboard on security.

 

[jim mcnamara]

@D H

Were you around in the 1950's? My Dad (Washington Post) covered the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and Joseph McCarthy's actions on the Government Operations Committee in the Senate. Lots of people were in favor of this stuff.

This new attempt at security is not different, just faster because of the speed of data access. IMO: anytime a politician can generate paranoia he/she can probably benefit from it. It is the rest of us who receive the detriment. As I understand this current bruhaha, it was engendered by court decisions rendered under sections of the Patriot Act. Hmm, name of that law sounds like something akin to what the name HUAC was trying to convey.

 

[TylerH]

I have qualms that these programs exist at all. The government needs a warrant to come into my house, a subpoena to look at my U.S. bank accounts. I don't have anything to hide now. That's irrelevant. Those protections exist to protect people who do have something to hide and to protect people from an overzealous government, which can manufacture a crime out of nothing. (Besides, I probably would have something to hide should an extreme left or extreme right political group get control of our government.) I'm glad those protections exist.

Except they don't exist. The Patriot Act has severely eroded our individual rights. At some point we and our elected officials have to realize that security and freedom are inherently in conflict. IMO, we as a nation have gone overboard on security.

Seriosly. I mean, has it been too long for people to remember the IRS targetting the Tea Party? (Note: I *don't* support the Tea Party. But I do support their right to exercise their rights. There's a big differece.) That is proof alone that the government has no qualms with violating (or chilling, in the case of the TP) rights of people/groups it doesn't like, whether they are protected under the Constitution or not. And you want me to trust you to read and listen to everything I *ever* say? How can anyone trust that? There's no guarantee of what is okay and what isn't. It's simply a function of who's in power.

 

[jim hardy]

Seriosly. I mean, has it been too long for people to remember the IRS targetting the Tea Party?

well, I'm old enough to remember when they had Nixon on tape saying with glee: "We'll use the IRS [and other agencies] to harass our enemies!".
That childish behavior is a symptom of a president who just isn't president material.
If we are there again, well, the nation has survived it before.

From spook's NYTimes link:

The confirmation of the classified program came just hours after government officials acknowledged a separate seven-year effort to sweep up records of telephone calls inside the United States. Together, the unfolding revelations opened a window into the growth of government surveillance that began under the Bush administration after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has clearly been embraced and even expanded under the Obama administration.

What I want to know is if the NSA has all this information why don't they let some other agencies use it to go after these &^E#%M^><~F@##$ telemarketers.
What with the $10,000 fine for each 'spoofed caller id' call they could pay off the debt in about a week.

 

[TylerH]

well, I'm old enough to remember when they had Nixon on tape saying with glee: "We'll use the IRS [and other agencies] to harass our enemies!".
That childish behavior is a symptom of a president who just isn't president material.
If we are there again, well, the nation has survived it before.

I was referring to the IRS targetting Tea Party organizations with harder reviews to grant them non-profit status (which came out a few weeks ago), which chills their right to freely associate and gather funds, by taxing the funds they raise for a protected reason.

What I want to know is if the NSA has all this information why don't they let some other agencies use it to go after these &^E#%M^><~F@##$ telemarketers.
What with the $10,000 fine for each 'spoofed caller id' call they could pay off the debt in about a week.

Lol. Okay, we can make an exception. Who needs rights when you can get rid of telemarketers? :P

 

[SpaceDreamer]

I have a big interest in history and world politics, and now when i look at the US they denounce other countries for monitoring and censoring the internet and right of others but are some of the worst offenders themselves. Sometimes I will end up worrying that just in a Google search that the government doesn't like could now get me arrested if things went far enough but most people don't seem to care now and it saddens me. I now always come to this quote when I more news on the issue:

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [i.e., securing inherent and inalienable rights, with powers derived from the consent of the governed], it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." --Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence, 1776

 

[OmCheeto]

I'm not worried. If they monitored me they'd see recipes and gardening advice and pictures of dogs and kittens dressed up in funny costumes. Let them look all they want!

That's the way I see it. Though if hackers break into the NSA, and get ahold of all the blasphemous things I say publicly on Facebook, and leak it to Monsanto, I'm screwed.

And they are going to take away my "Progressive Democrat" card if it is ever leaked that I referenced the following this morning:

It is a matter of controversy whether President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was directly influenced by fascist economic policies. Mussolini praised the New Deal as “boldly . . . interventionist in the field of economics,” and Roosevelt complimented Mussolini for his “honest purpose of restoring Italy” and acknowledged that he kept “in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman.” Also, Hugh Johnson, head of the National Recovery Administration, was known to carry a copy of Raffaello Viglione’s pro-Mussolini book, The Corporate State, with him, presented a copy to Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, and, on retirement, paid tribute to the Italian dictator.

Logical progression:

Roosevelt liked Mussolini
Mussolini was a fascist
Roosevelt was a fascist
Roosevelt was a democrat
OmCheeto is a democrat
OmCheeto is a fascist
Fascists are bad
OmCheeto is bad
Obama kills bad people with drones
OmCheeto dies in a drone strike
OmCheeto stupidly pushes the "Submit Reply" button
​

 

[nsaspook]

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

The categories of material have included fraud, drug trafficking and terrorism, but the criteria at anyone time are secret and are not subject to any public debate. GCHQ's compliance with the certificates is audited by the agency itself, but the results of those audits are also secret.

An indication of how broad the dragnet can be was laid bare in advice from GCHQ's lawyers, who said it would be impossible to list the total number of people targeted because "this would be an infinite list which we couldn't manage".

There is an investigatory powers tribunal to look into complaints that the data gathered by GCHQ has been improperly used, but the agency reassured NSA analysts in the early days of the programme, in 2009: "So far they have always found in our favour"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/legal-loopholes-gchq-spy-world

But there appears to be some nervousness about Tempora. In a paper written for National Security Agency (NSA) analysts entitled A Guide to Using Internet Buffers at GCHQ, the author notes: "[Tempora] represents an exciting opportunity to get direct access to enormous amounts of GCHQ's special source data.

"As large-scale buffering of metadata and content represent a new concept for GCHQ's exploitation of the internet, GCHQ's legal and policy officers are understandably taking a careful approach to their access and use."

So how did GCHQ secure the legal authority for setting up Tempora, and what safeguards are in place for sharing the intelligence with the Americans? According to the documents, the British government used Ripa to get taps on to the fibre-optic cables.

These cables carry internet traffic in and out of the country and contain details of millions of emails and web searches. The information from these cables went straight into the Tempora storage programme.

In one presentation, which appeared to be for US analysts from the NSA, GCHQ explained: "Direct access to large volumes of unselected SSE data [is] collected under a Ripa warrant."

I'm impressed with the scope of information Snowden managed to steal about these operations.

 

[schema]

Prism is vastly ineffective and will never fully accomplish what it is intended to do, assuming that it is intended to intercept communications between "cyber criminals" and terrorists and the like by monitoring social media outlets and VOIP services. The truth is, the NSA is very competent and is monitoring these outlets for a reason. People really do pass sensitive information via Facebook and twitter- in plain sight- via steganography.

Assuming you belonged to an anonymous sect "arch angle", for instance, you would pass information to other sect members by embedding messages like " OP Bank Of America- DDoS 0800 CST. IRC channel 145 password: Schema" into a picture of a cat or something that seems out of place and post it on your wall- post it on your sect members wall or in a private group and then hash tag it with # arch angle and broadcast it on twitter. The same applies to videos. Those pretentious videos of anonymous members dawning guy fawkes masks are laden with embedded messages designed to organize the various sects for ops. The NSA knows this, but they don't have the resources to monitor every single wonky photo or video on the Internet. They don't have the resources, the man power or the funding. And besides, even if they did, real hackers would find another way. They are the some of the craftiest people on the planet; hackers built the internet.

You may think it is silly to monitor social media outlets, but make no mistake, the NSA is very competent and well informed. Never the less, PRISM isn't capable, and their simply isn't a mainframe big enough on the planet to analyze all the data that flows through T1 pipes per second.

 

[nsaspook]

You may think it is silly to monitor social media outlets, but make no mistake, the NSA is very competent and well informed. Never the less, PRISM isn't capable, and their simply isn't a mainframe big enough on the planet to analyze all the data that flows through T1 pipes per second.

I don't think it's silly to monitor communications of any kind as long as there is due process under law with individual warrants to cover each unique case. I also think the Justice Dept. should be doing it domestically not a branch of the military sanctioned to operate extra-constitutional acts of war against foreign powers.

 

[schema]

I don't think it's silly to monitor communications of any kind as long as there is due process under law with individual warrants to cover each unique case. I also think the Justice Dept. should be doing it domestically not a branch of the military sanctioned to operate extra-constitutional acts of war against foreign powers.

I couldn't agree more. Although I don't feel any "safer" knowing that my gmail conversations are being stored on a database somewhere for "good measure", I am rooting for the government. Cyber Espionage is an arms race and I would like to hope that we remain at the forefront.. no matter how unethical it may be.

 

[nsaspook]

http://www.scribd.com/doc/155530126...-Surveillance-at-Center-for-American-Progress

Ron Wyden's speech.

 

[nsaspook]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data

A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its "widest-reaching" system for developing intelligence from the internet.

 

[JesseC]

Do we trust agencies to act responsibly and ethically when conducting covert surveillance?

I don't.

In the UK uncover police have had sexual relations with, and even fathered children with some of the people they were conducting surveillance against. http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jan/20/undercover-police-children-activists

Why should I expect the intelligance analysts at GCHQ or NSA be any better?

 

[JesseC]

False positives:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police-terrorism-pressure-cooker

The system is not infallible.

 

[Office_Shredder]

At the bottom of the article we get

uffolk County police confirmed its officers had gone to the house. In a statement the office of the county's police commissioner said:

"Suffolk County criminal intelligence detectives received a tip from a Bay Shore-based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee. The former employee's computer searches took place on this employee's workplace computer. On that computer, the employee searched the terms 'pressure cooker bombs' and 'backpacks'."

It was a private company reporting on their own employee. Nothing to do with internet spying by the government

 

[Evo]

At the bottom of the article we get

It was a private company reporting on their own employee. Nothing to do with internet spying by the government

Oh, so she and her husband lied.

"Suffolk County criminal intelligence detectives received a tip from a Bay Shore-based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee. The former employee's computer searches took place on this employee's workplace computer. On that computer, the employee searched the terms 'pressure cooker bombs' and 'backpacks'."

Ah, what a difference the truth makes.

Ok, people, from now on, please read ALL of the article before flying off the handle and making false accusations. Not you jesse, although you should have read it first so you wouldn't have posted it in the first place, there was another post after yours, just trying to keep as much misinformation off as possible so we have the correct story. Ever heard of "yellow journalism"?

 

[Cthugha]

Ok, people, from now on, please read ALL of the article before flying off the handle and making false accusations.

I could not agree more.

Oh, so she and her husband lied.

The article clearly ends with:
"In a new post on her Tumblr on Thursday, Catalano said: "We found out through the Suffolk police department that the searches involved also things my husband looked up at his old job. We were not made aware of this at the time of questioning and were led to believe it was solely from searches from within our house."

She was very obviously not aware of the circumstances that led to the police showing up at her home at the time she made the first statement. Still accusing her of lying seems odd to me.A different story: Not really a false positive involving spying - just a reaction to a simple post on Facebook - but a story too funny not to mention it:

In Germany there are several well known "top-secret" (yes I am aware of the irony) NSA facilities like the dagger complex. One of the people living nearby tried to pull off a joke and invited others to a nature walk via Facebook for "joint research into the threatened habitat of NSA spies." hoping that "If we are really lucky, we might actually see a real NSA spy with our own eyes.". The next morning, the police investigated him - they were alarmed by the US military police. In the end, this of course even increased the attention his "nature walk" drew (http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/us-military-and-german-police-respond-to-facebook-post-about-nsa-walk-a-911451.html).

Besides that: Inside the US it is solely the business of the US how much and whether they want to trade off security versus individual privacy. What is happening abroad is a different thing and while I understand the desire and maybe need for a certain level of surveillance - I would be surprised if no official "allowed" foreign espionage quotas exist - the US are really walking the line. Bugging the European Union offices and networks in Washington and at the UN (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/29/us-usa-eu-spying-idUSBRE95S0AQ20130629) is a completely different quality which cannot be explained with the desire for security and cannot be turned down with "others do the same"-like arguments. The line between anti-terror measures and industrial espionage is very narrow and in the long run, continuing such behavior will drive at least parts of Europe away from the US.

 

[Evo]

The article clearly ends with:
"In a new post on her Tumblr on Thursday, Catalano said: "We found out through the Suffolk police department that the searches involved also things my husband looked up at his old job. We were not made aware of this at the time of questioning and were led to believe it was solely from searches from within our house."

She was very obviously not aware of the circumstances that led to the police showing up at her home at the time she made the first statement. Still accusing her of lying seems odd to me.

Since she's lied before, I assume this is another lie. In other words, when you lie, you lose your credibility.

 

[nsaspook]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...nd_audits_show_us_real_barriers_to_abuse.html

Maybe we could also add legal consequences for breaking the rules and “internal procedures” .

Yesterday, the Obama administration told its side of the story to the Senate Judiciary Committee. At a hearing on the NSA’s phone metadata program. Deputy Attorney General James Cole testified that “the government can only search the data if it has reasonable, articulable suspicion that the phone number being researched is associated with certain terrorist organizations.” Cole said analysts “can only access” the data once this requirement “has been met and documented.” Until then, he asserted, the data “cannot be accessed … You cannot enter that database and make a query and access any of those data.”

That’s a lot of cannot and can only. But on closer inspection, it’s just rules. When Cole testified that “you can’t get into” the database “without that gate being checked through,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, forced him to concede that the “gate”—presenting reasonable suspicion—doesn’t even involve a warrant. It’s just “internal procedures.”

 

[Cthugha]

Since she's lied before, I assume this is another lie.

Ehm...so where has she lied exactly? Her first post explicitly states "That’s how I imagine it played out, anyhow." and does not state anything of her assumptions of what made her family suspect as fact. If a task force came to my home and asked me about whether I have any bombs I would definitely not write such a calm post.

So could you please point out where exactly the lie is?

 

[Evo]

Ehm...so where has she lied exactly? Her first post explicitly states "That’s how I imagine it played out, anyhow." and does not state anything of her assumptions of what made her family suspect as fact. If a task force came to my home and asked me about whether I have any bombs I would definitely not write such a calm post.

So could you please point out where exactly the lie is?

Here.

Where trying to learn how to cook some lentils could possibly land you on a watch list. Where you have to watch every little thing you do because someone else is watching every little thing you do.

All I know is if I'm going to buy a pressure cooker in the near future, I'm not doing it online.

I'm scared. And not of the right things.

Don't know who made up the lentil nonsense. Dried lentils take 30 minutes to cook, you don't cook them in a pressure cooker but that's neither here nor there if she said that, more nonsense on her part. Quinoa takes 15 minutes, definitely not something you need a pressure cooker for. More lies?

No, she used her employer's computer to search for "pressure cooker BOMBS" She also lied that her husband searched for "backpacks" when the truth is she did. He might have also, but she lied.

Michele Catalano, who lives in Long Island, New York, said her web searches for pressure cookers, her husband's hunt for backpacks

No, the truth is

Suffolk County criminal intelligence detectives received a tip from a Bay Shore-based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee. The former employee's computer searches took place on this employee's workplace computer. On that computer, the employee searched the terms 'pressure cooker bombs' and 'backpacks'.

And don't forget it was her EMPLOYER that called the police. This has nothing to do with NSA Surveillance . No Surveillance at all! This hysteria and lies have got to stop. I cannot believe how gullible, paranoid and easily fooled people have become. Anything negative that is posted is believed without any normal questioning of the facts. Unbelievable.

"Oh, storm troopers raided our home because I was wanting to cook lentils". This woman actually said

Members of what she described as a "joint terrorism task force" descended on Catalano's home on Wednesday.

This woman is a loon, IMO.

She also stated

Michele Catalano, who lives in Long Island, New York, said her web searches for pressure cookers, her husband's hunt for backpacks and her "news junkie" son's craving for information on the Boston bombings had combined somewhere in the internet ether to create a "perfect storm of terrorism profiling".

Except she lied about everything. It was her employer that found her searches about pressure cooker bombs relating to the Boston bombings that made them contact the police. It was those police that visited her. There was no profiling. There were no government agents. This is a sick woman, IMO and now she's been exposed.

 

[Cthugha]

Don't know who made up the lentil nonsense. Dried lentils take 30 minutes to cook, you don't cook them in a pressure cooker but that's neither here nor there if she said that, more nonsense on her part. Quinoa takes 15 minutes, definitely not something you need a pressure cooker for.

A quick google search turns up a large number of pages showing how to cook lentils in a pressure cooker. Maybe she was looking for a pressure cooker for that reasons. Maybe she was not. I cannot tell. However, in my opinion this really does not qualify as a lie.

No, she used her employer's computer to search for "pressure cooker BOMBS" She also lied that her husband searched for "backpacks" when the truth is she did. He might have also, but she lied.

Interesting. That might make a point. Could you cite the source, where you got this from? The article we were discussing so far suggests that it was indeed her husband who performed that search.

And don't forget it was her EMPLOYER that called the police. This has nothing to do with NSA Surveillance . No Surveillance at all! This hysteria and lies have got to stop. I cannot believe how gullible, paranoid and easily fooled people have become. Anything negative that is posted is believed without any normal questioning of the facts. Unbelievable.

I am fully aware of that. However, the woman in question never claimed that it was NSA surveillance. Neither did I. Neither did JesseC, by the way. Of course she must have suspected that, but in the end her description "Someone whose job it is to piece together the things people do on the internet raised the red flag when they saw our search history." was not even wrong. This matches the workplace admin, too. Everything else was marked as "That’s how I imagine it played out, anyhow." which makes it pretty clear that everything else are mere assumptions.

Except she lied about everything. It was her employer that found her searches about pressure cooker bombs relating to the Boston bombings that made them contact the police. It was those police that visited her. There was no profiling. There were no government agents. This is a sick woman, IMO and now she's been exposed.

Could you link the report saying it was really her and not her husband looking up all these things? I would be very interested. Besides that, I am much more shocked how easily people get accused of lying and being "sick" and a "loon". Yes, this case is not about surveillance via prism, but these are serious accusations one should not simply use without rock-solid evidence. It is not the fault of this woman when the media simply publishes a shortened version of her post and skips the part where she states that she is describing her assumptions and makes them look like facts.

 

[Evo]

A quick google search turns up a large number of pages showing how to cook lentils in a pressure cooker. Maybe she was looking for a pressure cooker for that reasons. Maybe she was not. I cannot tell. However, in my opinion this really does not qualify as a lie.

She specifically looked up "pressure cooker BOMBS"

Interesting. That might make a point. Could you cite the source, where you got this from? The article we were discussing so far suggests that it was indeed her husband who performed that search.

It's the same article. I even posted it.

I am fully aware of that. However, the woman in question never claimed that it was NSA surveillance. Neither did I. Neither did JesseC, by the way. Of course she must have suspected that, but in the end her description "Someone whose job it is to piece together the things people do on the internet raised the red flag when they saw our search history." was not even wrong.

It was completely wrong. Read the article. It was her employer when they checked her computer. It had nothing to do with surveillance.

Could you link the report saying it was really her and not her husband looking up all these things?

It's in the article. Perhaps you should read it.

Enough of this nonsense, unless you can come up with verifiable information that contradicts this, you are trolling.

 

[JesseC]

And don't forget it was her EMPLOYER that called the police. This has nothing to do with NSA Surveillance . No Surveillance at all! This hysteria and lies have got to stop. I cannot believe how gullible, paranoid and easily fooled people have become. Anything negative that is posted is believed without any normal questioning of the facts. Unbelievable.

Sorry for posting the article. Either I didn't read it correctly or it was edited again after I originally read it.

Had I not seen the facts, which are often not available anyway, I would have considered it a totally believable story. I think everyone else I knew would have as well. Many people have a very deep seated suspicion of government and the police, which is not just based on gullibility or paranoia, but real incidents in the past that have shown the police and other government agencies to be completely incompetant at times.

 

[nsaspook]

Sorry for posting the article. Either I didn't read it correctly or it was edited again after I originally read it.

Had I not seen the facts, which are often not available anyway, I would have considered it a totally believable story. I think everyone else I knew would have as well. Many people have a very deep seated suspicion of government and the police, which is not just based on gullibility or paranoia, but real incidents in the past that have shown the police and other government agencies to be completely incompetant at times.

Suspicion with a sprinkle of paranoia is a healthy thing when dealing with your personal liberty.

Her story did change from one day to the next but I don't think anybody lied. It's just as likely the police just didn't tell her the source of the tip in the beginning due to it being a open case file in a investigation that needed to be closed, so the questions asked of her seems be be related to home activities (Of which IMO they also legally searched online before asking him/her about them). When the media asked about it in detail after the visit (the investigation was closed then) the origin of the tip was revealed.

 

[StrayCatalyst]

As the government is treating Americans as suspects - to be closely monitored, lied to, and feared - while government secrecy is at an all time high (so much for "the most transparent administration in history") I look at the NSA widespread, warrantless, suspicionless domestic spying program as a fast-forward into a 1984 style tyranny.The FISA court approved 1788 of 1789 requests for monitoring last year, but insists that (in spite of their 99.94% chance of telling the government that it's okay to spy on people!) there are still checks and balances... but they're so secretive, we didn't even know that there was such a court. That court hears one side of the story - the government's side - and has no opposing viewpoint. If I'd heard a person tell me about this, a year ago, I'd have accused them of wearing a tinfoil hat to keep out the mind control signals - but now, in bits and pieces, it's become obvious that it's real.

Our country's infrastructure is collapsing due to lack of money. The sequester has placed millions into hardship, and veterans are back to sleeping under bridges due to lack of cash to take care of them - but the government spent $4B on the new NSA computer center during this fiscal crisis. Judging from priorities, bridge collapses and crumbling roads are far less important then being able to monitor every cellphone, email, facebook page, and chat in America. Bankrupt cities are laying off cops and firefighters - but the NSA is hiring. Obama trots out his human props to show how terrible it is that Gramma has to starve due to the fact that he can't raise taxes any faster - but the CIA is rolling in cash.

People who lived in East Germany before the wall fell, are familiar with this sort of thing. It's why we're getting the nickname of "the United Stasi" - and we've earned the name.

Oh, yes - and remember why we closed Fermilab? Because we can't afford science - but we can afford to abridge the fourth amendment of the Constitution to allow for more intrusive spying upon Americans. The dragnet has already spread too far, but governments very rarely give up power once they have it, and our government is as power-hungry and conscienceless as any dictatorship in any other part of the world.

 

[edward]

Just to stir the pot a bit: Snail mail is also being monitored in a manner that I had never imagined. Last year the Postal Service took pictures of over 1.6 BILLION pieces of mail.

Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, July 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. Postal Service photographs all mail processed nationwide in a program similar to U.S. electronic surveillance, officials and security experts say.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013...enforcement/UPI-36491372921200/#ixzz2aqLrwGJy

I just hope the end results are worth the cost. It is my understanding that this is done for all law enforcement agencies not just the NSA.

Edit: I would imagine that UPS and FedEx are required to do the same thing. This morning I received an overnight FedEx delivery of an envelope sent three days ago. The original envelope had been repackaged and put into a second FedEx envelope?

 

[nsaspook]

Just to stir the pot a bit: Snail mail is also being monitored in a manner that I had never imagined. Last year the Postal Service took pictures of over 1.6 BILLION pieces of mail.

At least they got their all of their mail, half my moms cookies would be missing from her packages to me when (re)opened while on station overseas.

 

[nsaspook]

http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-u-directs-agents-cover-program-used-investigate-091643729.html

One current federal prosecutor learned how agents were using SOD tips after a drug agent misled him, the prosecutor told Reuters. 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.

"I was pissed," the prosecutor said. "Lying about where the information came from is a bad start if you're trying to comply with the law because it can lead to all kinds of problems with discovery and candor to the court." The prosecutor never filed charges in the case because he lost confidence in the investigation, he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/dea-program-differs-recent-nsa-revelations-091643143.html

Reuters has uncovered previously unreported details about a separate program, run by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, that extends well beyond intelligence gathering. Its use, legal experts say, raises fundamental questions about whether the government is concealing information used to investigate and help build criminal cases against American citizens.

 

[nsaspook]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/09/usa-surveillance-obama-idUSL1N0GA17E20130809

WASHINGTON, Aug 9 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama announced plans on Friday to limit sweeping U.S. government surveillance programs that have come under criticism since leaks by a former spy agency contractor, saying the United States "can and must be more transparent."

"Given the history of abuse by governments, it's right to ask questions about surveillance, particularly as technology is reshaping every aspect of our lives," Obama told a news conference at the White House.

 

[jim hardy]

At least they got their all of their mail, half my moms cookies would be missing from her packages to me when (re)opened while on station overseas.

My "Rocket Propellant Handbook" took three weeks to arrive, and when it did it too was repackaged and postmarked someplace in Ohio instead of Oregon.

I guess I'm on the list as well...

 

[nsaspook]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...8c8c44-05cd-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html

The leader of the secret court that is supposed to provide critical oversight of the government’s vast spying programs said that its ability to do so is limited and that it must trust the government to report when it improperly spies on Americans.

The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said the court lacks the tools to independently verify how often the government’s surveillance breaks the court’s rules that aim to protect Americans’ privacy. Without taking drastic steps, it also cannot check the veracity of the government’s assertions that the violations its staff members report are unintentional mistakes.
...
Walton’s comments came in response to internal government records obtained by The Post showing that National Security Agency staff members in Washington overstepped their authority on spy programs thousands of times per year. The records also show that the number of violations has been on the rise.

 

[nsaspook]

Finally a censored version of FISA courts actions on unconstitutional 'upstream' surveillance released under FOIA.

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/775818/fisc-opinion-unconstitutional-surveillance-0.pdf

 

[nsaspook]

The "Black" budget.
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/inside-the-2013-us-intelligence-black-budget/420/

 

[Pythagorean]

A breakdown of a NSA's response to the Wallstreet Journal calling them out:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/illustration-how-nsa-misleads-public-without-actually-lying

Here's the original document from the NSA:

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/speeches_testimonies/2013_08_21_Joint_Statement_ODNI_NSA.pdf

I like how they respond to a criticism on their US communications traffic monitoring by giving statistics of their world traffic monitoring.

 

[nsaspook]

I wish they would concentrate on their mission "real foreign intelligence", like keeping track of Syrian WMD movements and use instead of these domestic fishing expeditions that are mainly used to reconstruct events, match people and places after something has happened while going little to actually stop anything.

 

[nsaspook]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-foils-much-internet-encryption.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&hp

The agency’s success in defeating many of the privacy protections offered by encryption does not change the rules that prohibit the deliberate targeting of Americans’ e-mails or phone calls without a warrant. But it shows that the agency, which was sharply rebuked by a federal judge in 2011 for violating the rules and misleading the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, cannot necessarily be restrained by privacy technology. N.S.A. rules permit the agency to store any encrypted communication, domestic or foreign, for as long as the agency is trying to decrypt it or analyze its technical features.

 

[nsaspook]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2049...-upper-limit-on-phone-records-collection.html

A U.S. surveillance court has given the National Security Agency no limit on the number of U.S. telephone records it collects in the name of fighting terrorism, the NSA director said Thursday.

The NSA intends to collect all U.S. telephone records and put them in a searchable “lock box” in the interest of national security, General Keith Alexander, the NSA’s director, told U.S. senators.

“There is no upper limit” on NSA telephone-records collection, Alexander said. “I believe it is in the nation’s best interest to put all the phone records into a lock box that we can search when the nation needs to do it.”

http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti...urb_NSA_collection_of_phone_and_other_records

Under the proposed amendments in the new bill to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the government would still be able to obtain records of anyone suspected of terrorism or espionage, or anyone in contact with a suspected terrorist or spy. But the bulk collection of "records of law-abiding Americans with no connection to terrorism or espionage will no longer be legal," according to an explanatory brief of the proposed legislation.

 

[nsaspook]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/2/nsa-chief-figures-foiled-terror-plots-misleading/

Pressed by the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at an oversight hearing, Gen. Keith B. Alexander admitted that the number of terrorist plots foiled by the NSA’s huge database of every phone call made in or to America was only one or perhaps two — far smaller than the 54 originally claimed by the administration.
...
“There is no evidence that [bulk] phone records collection helped to thwart dozens or even several terrorist plots,” Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and committee chairman, told Gen. Alexander of the 54 cases that administration officials — including the general himself — have cited as the fruit of the NSA’s domestic snooping.

“These weren’t all plots and they weren’t all foiled,” he said.

 

[jim hardy]

Remember "Animal Farm"
the rules got infringed as necessary, Squealer(?) painted them over at night

...
and if you don't want it public don't put it in electronic form.

 

[nsaspook]

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/p..._spooks_why_in_the_world_would_we_burn_google

To capture or siphon off data at the point labeled GFE, the NSA could implant surveillance equipment, said two of the experts. This could be a fairly small piece of hardware, but it might be difficult to install without the consent of the people running the data center. One of the experts likened it to the secret room that the NSA is believed to have installed at an AT&T facility in San Francisco, where data was split from the company's network and given to the NSA. That GFE point would be the likely place to install such a facility.

Curiously, both experts noted, in the world of official surveillance, GFE stands for something else: "government furnished equipment."

 

[russ_watters]

Is the NSA spying on Germany's PM relevant to this thread? I'm wondering if anyone cares?

My perception is that the entire issue is just bluster. It is an issue only because it went public. Because it is public, the German government has to pretend to be outraged while Obama has to pretend to be sorry, all the while, everyone is spying on everyone because that's what spy agencies do.

 

[Bystander]

Is the NSA spying on Germany's PM relevant to this thread? I'm wondering if anyone cares?

My perception is that the entire issue is just bluster. It is an issue only because it went public. Because it is public, the German government has to pretend to be outraged while Obama has to pretend to be sorry, all the while, everyone is spying on everyone because that's what spy agencies do.

Bluster? Yes. Pretense of outrage? Yes, everybody knows everyone else is doing it.

Might also be an issue due to what, in the past, is a presumption of discretion --- i.e., "I know you know that I know that you know, but we'll trust each other to keep some of the embarassing material off the front page headlines." Foreign governments might be justified in being concerned about the current apparent inability of NSA to keep the lid on anything.