Slashdot Mirror
NSA (partially) Declassified
Lally Singh writes "Posted yesterday on the National Security Archives was the NSA's "Transition 2001" report, prepared as an introductory report for President Bush (II)'s incoming administration. "The largest U.S. spy agency warned the incoming Bush administration in its 'Transition 2001' report that the Information Age required rethinking the policies and authorities that kept the National Security Agency in compliance with the Constitution's 4th Amendment prohibition on 'unreasonable searches and seizures' without warrant and 'probable cause,' according to an updated briefing book of declassified NSA documents posted today on the World Wide Web.""
I can only assume the information declassified might intersect that which is already known...
Before anyone points out that now we'll find out the truth about the infamous NSAKEY in Windows or some dirty little secrets of Bush administration, I would like to remind you that according to Bruce Schneier "algorithms from the NSA are considered a sort of alien technology: They come from a superior race with no explanations." The most important implication of declassifying NSA would be a better understanding of the mysterious rationale of many of NSA decisions in crypto algorithms, because even many aspects of DES remain a mystery to this day. So please stop the explosion of crackpot conspiracy theories and focus on the most important issue: cryptoanallysis.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
he Information Age required rethinking the policies and authorities that kept the National Security Agency in compliance with the Constitution's 4th Amendment prohibition on 'unreasonable searches and seizures' without warrant and 'probable cause
Yet more "we should be above the law to protect you" crap. I don't usually wear a tinfoil hat, but 1984 seems to be approaching faster than I would like.
from page 32 (38 in PDF viewer of nsa25.pdf)
Make no mistake, NSA can and will perform its missions consistent with the fourth amendment and all applicable laws.
There is some concern at least. This would mean nothing if it were a public statement, but it's a bit reassuring that they think this even in documents not meant for public consumption
E = m c^3 Don't drink and derive E = m c^3
And if you want to help the NSAs comint mission to intercept keywords from the Internet, download and use random subsets of the following list frequently in your international communications:
_ chaff_valium_noforn_snie_winintel_orcon_oc/semioti c_war_lexical_chaff_valium_noforn_snie_winintel_or con_oc.html
http://www.spywarearcata.com/semiotic_war_lexical
This should greatly help the NSA to protect us from bad ideas. Please suggest improvements and additions to this list. 1836.15@gmail.com
"The need for action was underscored in January 2000 when NSA experienced a catastrophic network outage of 3 1/2 days. This outage greatly reduced the signals intelligence information available to national decision makers and military commanders. As one result, the President's Daily Briefin - 60% of which is normally based on SIGINT - was reduced to a small portion of its typical size."
Oh, an a few paragraph above, they presented their favoured solution : outsourcing (to the industry).
#include "coucou.h"
I have only had a few discussions with those in the government security community as a civilian moderator on a government security forum. What I have learned is the following:
1) The NSA is the most likely to be concerned about "unreasonable searches and seizures" and other Bill of Rights issues. The FBI and CIA routinely take the "extreme circumstance" route and use common loopholes to justify citizen and non-citizen monitoring. I would argue, however, that I have yet to see an ill-intented abuse of their power.
2) Members from all branches of the Department of Defense are active Slashdot readers and contributers. They just never talk about what they do and some use "Tor" to post from work.
3) The NSA has an extremely bright team of civilians that do the bulk of their cryptoanalysis work. One of which is famous, and not for the work he does in cryptology. You'd actually laugh aloud if you knew. I guess it is his hobby, but someone is taking him seriously.
4) The FBI is nothing like you see in the movies. The brightest agents last about 2 years before moving to a different area. Internally, the FBI has some serious issues with "dinosaurs" and "micro-management".
5) There is one member of the CIA that is single-handedly responsible for saving us from the plan devised by Jose Padilla. Unfortunately, they will never get the credit they deserve. It only took one person to say, "Why is this American talking with Abu Zubaydah twice?".
6) If you join the NSA, you voluntarily give up your rights to unreasonable searches and seizures. In fact, you have to agree to have your phone tapped and everything you do is monitored 24/7. It's a life-long career choice, but they take care of you "very well".
Is it not possible that since they knew the document would be declassified at some point they wrote it as if it was meant to be for public consumption?
I'm assuming that, if they're declassifying parts of the NSA, there is another, more classified organisation taking over from it. I think they did something like that with Area 51 -- shifting everything important to new locations -- when it became so well-known to the public.
If this report was first posted January 2000, then most of it was probably thrown out and re-written twenty months later. No wonder they declassified it.
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
The founding fathers were bitterly split between those opposed to a vigorous central government and those that thought it was necessary. This split became quite harsh after the adoption of the Constitution, and nearly came to spilling blood. One cannot truthfully say "the founders believed X" or "the founders believed Y" about the role of Federal government, when the fact is that they disagreed. Read Joseph Ellis' excellent biography, "His Excellency: George Washington", if you want to know more (and come to understand why Washington is considered a great man, which puzzled me 'till I read "His Excellency").
The type of government the founding fathers envisioned could never hope to effectively govern the US as it is today.
The type of government they imagined would have done better. Consider that each of the states was to handle anything within that state, and that they are about the same size as many countries in the E.U.
The Federal Government was meant to be literally a Federation of state governments, overseeing interstate commerce, organizing the state militias into a common force, and providing absolute limits on the power any state government could weild against it's citizens.
Why? idn't a large number of Germans support the Nazi government too?
Ok, so death row isn't quite a the same as Germans cleansing disabled and mentally ill, but most of the people on death row are mentally ill, so I'll make the comparison.
Nazis may have been a bit coarser with their torture methods at home, but there not much different to the torture techniques used in Albania to obtain 'key information' about AlQuida that is 'lapped up by' the American and British governments.
The Nazis may have ethnically cleansed a few million people, but I didn't see too many Americans waving white flags when the troops were cleansing the Iraqi non-conferments.
I'll just ignore that lynch mob, and Vietnam for now.
add your excuse to the list
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
An ex-NASA/Airforce acquaintance recently recounted how his group used some specalized technical services of "some people who don't exist". When I replied "oh, you mean NSA/CIA?" he responded "No they still don't exist, and I really shouldn't say any more". The Men In Black do exist!! :)
And Iran is our enemy because we supported an anti-democratic fascistic dictator (the Shah) instead of allowing the people there to get on with their own lives and evolve towards democracy. At around the same time we supported other anti-democratic fascists in the Ba'ath party and look where that got us. The CIA supported that Ba'ath Party coup in Iraq.
Then later on the CIA fucked around supporting directly the Mujaheddin while they were busy dealing drugs, raping little boys and women and being allround asshats. Look where that got us.
The CIA are crap at preventing problems from external enemies: they seem to create all the external enemies. For a good read (after you've come down from your "external enemy" hysteria high, you could have a read of Chalmers Johnston's "Blowback" or Alexander Cockburn's "Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press".
If you still believe that the CIA are more effective at preventing terror than creating it by their cack-handed and immoral interventions abroad then I'll eat your hat.
' Because it's uncomfortable to thing that "we" can be evil, just like "them"'
Sorry, you've just used the G word which means you've lost the argument.
What G word, well what G word would you associate with 'good' and 'evil'?
Try saying 'our G word is better than yours so we are Good and you are Evil' and I think you could be writing Bush's next speech.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
That's well-documented, and horrific. It also has nothing to do with detainees in Afghanistan
Bingo it doesn't. But what does this NSA topic have to do with beatings in Cuba? Nothing but it was modded insightful because many, many people here love to hear of stories where the Americans are made to look bad.
Torture produces bad intelligence. People will say anything to make it stop. Public knowledge that we torture and kill prisoners is also a fine recruitment tool for terrorists.
You know what else is a good recruitment tool? Giving them nothing to fear. We build irragation farms to give water to the people and terrorists blow it up yet who do they yell at.. "you stupid americans can't you fix it faster!" Trust me these people are not short on reasons to hate. Abu ghraib and two soldiers killed while in custody apparently out weighs the 150 people killed in a car bomb, the bodies being dragged through streets, schools being built by us and blown up by them. Yet Europe/Arab nations want no part of it, they'd rather write about how evil the americans are. Now you tell me what do you think hurts your safty more, stories of abused prisoners once every 5 years or "journalists" and bloggers spitting their hate of the USA to every ear who is there.
Look at this itallian journalist for instance. A known hater of the U.S. wants to come out and say she was targeted and that the terrorists warned her of how the americans wanted her dead. She used a tradigty to push her agenda of hate, that is basically what a slashdotter did in this thread and he was modded insightful for it because his opinion falls inline with many here.
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
First of all, there are different classes of prison here in the US. Some of them are "farms" which are not bad places - you get all of the stuff you're talking about. Some of them are maximum security, and you share a room the size of a small bathroom with another man and a toilet, and nothing else. You get out for a few hours to exercise and are put back in your box. Sometimes people get put into the latter class of institution simply because they have multiple offenses, even if all of them are victimless crimes (like posession and/or use of marijuana and/or paraphenalia.) Clearly you do not know shit about the US prison system. I've never so much as been in jail (though I have been taken to the PD before, and dragged before a judge) but I know lots of people who have been in all types of prison (except for the ones for women.) Obviously you don't.
Second of all, torturing prisoners is on the highest order of hypocrisy. We expect other nations not to torture our people, yet we do it to them. That's a bunch of bullshit. One standard, please.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"