NSA Chose Invasive Phone Analysis Option

Encrypted Anonymous Coward writes "The Baltimore Sun reveals the existence of an interesting experimental NSA program codenamed ThinThread from the late 90`s. The program involved link analysis of traffic data, with a twist; The phone numbers from the U.S. would only be analyzed in an encrypted form. This way the analysis would potentially be possible under existing privacy laws, according to the people behind the program. The NSA could gather further unencrypted details if there was evidence of a threat. Political infighting seems to have dropped an interesting and respectful program from the books."

Comments

Privacy Issues

[alx5000]

Well, if that is legal, I recommend you to change your laws...

Anonimity isn't really privacy. When I say "I love you" or "I'm going to kill you" I want to know it's ME saying THAT to THAT PERSON who is meant to receive it, and to no one else. I don't wanna be an anonymous coward sending my thoughts over to the NSA and get busted because they can look up my IP if I've been a bad boy...

Re:Privacy Issues

[mausmalone]

I think you're misunderstanding. The proposed program would look at phone call records only, not actual phone calls. (basically, it would know who's calling who and when, but not why or what they talked about... and even then it would only know that anonymous sudonym A was contacting anonymous sudonym B, not who you actually are) If they see some alarming pattern (i.e. one person calling another right before a terrorist attack, but never any other time) they could get a court order to expose who those encrypted phone numbers belong to.

Realistically, that doesn't really give them much information to work from, but if they were able to get some more narrowing information that's not an identifier (i.e. what country/state/province/city the numbers correlate to), they could actually search for some real patterns without knowing whose numbers they're looking at until there's probable cause for a warrant.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Enderandrew]

For better or worse, there really isn't a real "Right to Privacy" in the Constitution. The fifth amendment means you can't be forced to incriminate yourself, and we have laws about the collection of evidence.

However, people demand security. Often security and privacy conflict with one another and we as a society need to decide where that line needs to be drawn. If we don't want the government to look over our shoulders, then we can't bitch when they didn't see something coming.

Re:Privacy Issues

[mausmalone]

But the "right to privacy" in the sense of a right not to have unwarranted searches and seizures definitely extends into the realm of wiretapping and phone records. The government wants these records specifically to see if you're doing anything illegal, not for a benign purpose. In that respect it should fall under the fourth ammendment.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Obviously at the time of writing, phone lines didn't exist, but it's reasonable to see that as an "effect" belonging to an individual.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Jim_Maryland]

Having done some evaluation of products like Centrifuge for data analysis, showing patterns of calls alone is likely not enough. You really want to tie additional associations (person_to_organization, person_to_person, person_to_building, person_to_events, etc...) in order to derive intelligence. If they are looking for patterns without additional information, I'm not sure what NSA hopes to accomplish. I'm sure if they tracked calls from my cell phone, they'd find odd patterns when my kids get a hold of it (repeated calls to my wife's phone in order to annoy her).

Re:Privacy Issues

[MojoRilla]

For better or worse, there really isn't a real "Right to Privacy" in the Constitution. The fifth amendment means you can't be forced to incriminate yourself, and we have laws about the collection of evidence.

Uh...what about the fourth amendment?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I would consider monitoring my phone calls to be an unreasonable search, without probable cause.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Ohreally_factor]

Thank you!

One of the scariest/funniest things out of the Attorney General's mouth in response to the revelations back in December, was that the searches* "weren't unreasonable", and thus didn't need warrants.

*phone taps

Re:Privacy Issues

[CosmeticLobotamy]

there really isn't a real "Right to Privacy" in the Constitution

My comment here has nothing to do with anything, but why the hell not? Why is there less of a push for a privacy amendment than there is for a let-Arnold-run-for-president amendment? Frigging ridiculous. Someone with a law degree, or at least anyone more electable than an unemployed programmer, please get on top of that.

If we don't want the government to look over our shoulders, then we can't bitch when they didn't see something coming.

I bet we could if we tried real hard.

Re:Privacy Issues

[voice_of_all_reason]

If they see some alarming pattern... they could get a court order to expose who those encrypted phone numbers belong to.

I lol'd

Re:Privacy Issues

[Total_Wimp]

I think you're misunderstanding. The proposed program would look at phone call records only, not actual phone calls.

So what? Sorry, I don't mean to be flipant, but gathering my confidential call data and looking for criminal activity in my mind is as much a search as a pat down. The fact that they're not actually listening to me talk sexy with my girlfriend is nice, but it doesn't correct the problem that a the state would be analysing the time and phone number of every call I participate in then they'd be making a determination of whether or not I was probably a criminal. When the government conducts routine searches of our routine daily activities then that, in my mind, is both unreasonable, and, as a result, unconstitutional.

TW

Re:Privacy Issues

[jbailey999]

As opposed to the repeated phone calls for phone sex.

See? Content *is* important. =)

Re:Privacy Issues

[Asic Eng]

Also, I think it's reasonable to argue that wiretapping is a search, and the amendment wants people to be secure from unreasonable searches.

Re:Privacy Issues

[TheArtfulPianist]

there really isn't a real "Right to Privacy" in the Constitution

Well then there should be. Who's in favor of a 28th amendment guaranteeing an explicit right to privacy?

Re:Privacy Issues

[EvolveFuzzy]

The, "there is no right to privacy in the constitution," argument requires a strict interpretation of the constitution and it's amendments, and that you completely ignore the 9th amendment which specifically addresses the concept of unenumerated rights. I'm so tired of this myth.

Re:Privacy Issues

[ednopantz]

RE: more analysis.

Isn't that the point? Known nutjob Abdullah Jihadi calls the following people A, B ,C, D.

Suspected nutjob Faruk Ibn Dijjaj calls B, E, C, G,

Known nutjob Muhamad Abu Majnun calls B, H, I, J

So if I was analyzing this data, I want to know who "B" is, as well as anyone else who talks to B. I'd also be interested in C, although from this trivial example, he looks less interesting. This is, of course, a massive oversimplification. Who knows if network analysis would actually work?

Obviously there are both legal and practical reasons why these agencies aren't looking at the content of communications. (Who has the resources for that?) Isn't this just the electronic equivelant of writing down license plates outside the Badda Bing?

Re:Privacy Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Check the 9th and 10th amendment dude. The Constitution does not grant you rights it enumerates "some" of them. They are inherient from your Creator. The ones it does not list are implied.

Re:Privacy Issues

[TheCarp]

I don't care.

The problem here is and always has been the potential for abuse.

The FISA court exists for a reason you know. Why? Not because of some theoretical use of wiretaps to infringe on privacy.... because they were activly tapping the phone calls of people like Dr Martin Luther King in every hotel that he visited trying to dig up dirt on him.

This isn't conspiracy theory, its conspiracy fact. It is a matter of congressional record that wiretaps were indeed used to follow innocent people for political reasons.

Besides, sure, today its just intelligence on terrorists. However, once the system to do it is there, the ability to abuse it is there. All it takes is one unscrupulous operator, or a little pressure from a director, or dare I say, a secret presidential memo, to cause the system to be abused to any number of ends.

This is why we need oversight, and we need to hold these people responsible for what they do. If they can wiretap with impunity, then why not wiretap with impunity? If there is no punishment, then there is a lower bar to doing it.

Frankly, I think these programs should be outed, and every signle person involved, all the way up, should be indicted.

That goes for this program (if it was indeed illegal, if not they should fix the law), and the presidents wiretapping program thats been in the news. Intictments and impeachments are what should be going on right now.

-Steve

Re:Privacy Issues

[EvolveFuzzy]

As a matter of law - a police detective, in the course of a criminal investigation, can pull the LUDS for anyone without a warrant. This is essentially what the NSA is accused of doing on a massive scale. While I find both cases objectionable invasions, they are not illegal or unconstitutional.

Re:Privacy Issues

[(trb001)]

I have a difficult time seeing how a phone line or satellite that you don't own or operate counts as an "effect". The physical phone? Sure. The lines inside your house? Sure. If you want to talk from the upstairs to the downstairs, knock yourself out, but once that conversation leaves your house, I assume it's at the discretion of the phone company.

Not that I'm arguing a legal point with you; I'm actually not sure whether phone conversations are directly covered by the 4th amendment, other than the reasonable expectation of privacy that has been used before, and I couldn't cite a case to that effect anyways.

--trb

Re:Privacy Issues

[MacJedi]

The Supreme Court of the United States has generally ruled that the right to privacy is protected by the 9th ammendment and that aspects of the right privacy are explicitly protected, as you noted, by the 4th and 5th ammendments.

See: Loving v. Virginia , Griswald v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird , among others.

Re:Privacy Issues

[LifesABeach]

I can't help but think of the first televised broadcast. The statement made then was, "Let the Olympic Games Begin!" Damn, I'm becomming a little concerned.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Hrodvitnir]

What about a letter? If I send a letter to a friend, does it become public property once it leaves my house?

Is there a difference in whether I send the letter by USPS (gov't entity) or UPS/FedEx?

Re:Privacy Issues

[Enderandrew]

I don't see why people would be opposed.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Enderandrew]

The first case had absolutely nothing to do with privacy. The other rulings mention privacy, but aren't about privacy. In several instances when the Supreme Court wanted to hold up rights in regards to sexual choices, they upheld them in the right of "privacy" rather than make specific stands on sexual activites. However, it should be noted the Constitution does not directly protect privacy.

I think there should be clear legislation on where our rights lie there. Because why the Supreme Court gives us privacy in the bed room, do you think they'll take the same stance on NSA listening on our phone conversations when the NSA will scream national security?

Re:Privacy Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you having sex with your phone? Remind me not to borrow your phone.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Monkelectric]

Realistically, that doesn't really give them much information to work from,

I call BS. If it doesn't give them much to work from then why do they want to do it? Obviously some valuable information can be found out this way, or they wouldn't be doing it at all.

Stop drinking the koolaid.

Re:Privacy Issues

[caudron]

there really isn't a real "Right to Privacy" in the Constitution.

Well, actually, in 1965 the Constitutional basis for a right to privacy was recognized explicitly by the Supreme Court. It began with the case of Griswold v. Connecticut (381 U.S. 479). In short, they explained that the Constitution has what are called "penumbral rights"---rights that are inferrable by virtue of being necessary precursors to the rights more explicitly spelled out.

From Griswold v. Connecticut:
"The Fourth and Fifth Amendments were described in Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 630, as protection against all governmental invasions 'of the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life.' We recently referred in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 656, to the Fourth Amendment as creating a 'right to privacy, no less important than any other right carefully and particularly reserved to the people.' See Beaney, The Constitutional Right to Privacy, 1962 Sup. Ct. Rev. 212; Griswold, The Right to be Let Alone, 55 Nw. U. L. Rev. 216 (1960) ... The present case, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees."

The explicit rights that grant a right to privacy as a precursor are the 4th, 5th, and the 9th, though the Justices said (and have upheld numerous times since, fyi) that the right to privacy may be inferred from other amendments as well, it's just that the 4th, 5th, and the 9th are particularly obvious in their inference.

So, yes, since 1965, U.S. Law has upheld EXPLICITLY that we have a Contitutional right to privacy.

Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/

Re:Privacy Issues

[Lord_Slepnir]

there really isn't a real "Right to Privacy" in the Constitution.

Um, yes there is. The 9th amendment.

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Re:Privacy Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer to this is simple. If a private citizen (say your neighbor across the street) attempted to spy on your personal business (say by intercepting your private telephone calls), would you consider it an initiation of force, or would you consider it an instance of voluntary association? Is your neighbor doing this with your blessing, or is he doing it against your will?

At the very least I would consider it harrassment, and possibly trespassing. Both are clearly initiations of force, especially when it continues to happen after the victim has expressed a lack of voluntary consent. Both are therefore morally wrong.

Now, if a private citizen is morally wrong to employ coercion against you (for example by spying on you) then what exactly puts government in the right when it does the same thing? If it is morally wrong for one private citizen to initiate force against another private citizen, then logically, it is also morally wrong for that private citizen to delegate that initiation of force to any third party, including government.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Rob the Bold]

For better or worse, there really isn't a real "Right to Privacy" in the Constitution.

I heard Pat Roberts (chair of Sen. Intel. Ctte.) on the radio this morning, being quoted as saying that some secrets need to be kept secret despite people's desire to know. So it's good to hear that the government does value some privacy. Just not yours.

Re:Privacy Issues

[mausmalone]

Okay..... you need to understand that this program never happened, it was proposed. Its legality/illegality are moot as a lot of that would've hinged upon the implementation, and that was never decided. As proposed:

(a) they would be looking at calling records, not the calls themselves.
(b) they would not know whose encrypted number belongs to who.
(c) in order to find out, they would have to get a search warrant from a judge (probably in the FISA court) and then ask the phone company to decrypt it for them. They would not be allowed to decrypt the numbers themselves.

Would it have worked without infringing on people's privacy? I really don't know. Without details of implementation (which don't exist since the project was scrapped) we'll never know.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Enderandrew]

Read the 4th and 5th Amendments back to back, and pay special attention to how they are worded.

"unreasonable searches" sticks out.

You can't be forced to self incriminate. One could argue that there are "reasonable searches" then. If these searches were without a warrant, then it would likely be inadmissable in court, but the NSA could argue in a court of law that their analysis of encrypted data falls under "reasonable searches".

Re:Privacy Issues

[mjm1231]

...there really isn't a real "Right to Privacy" in the Constitution.

According to the 9th amendment, this does not mean that the right does not exist.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Jim_Maryland]

So if I was analyzing this data, I want to know who "B" is, as well as anyone else who talks to B.

That is pretty much my point. If you didn't know anything about the numbers in the first place, you wouldn't have a starting point to branch out from. You also have to consider that terrorist organizations probably aren't planning things in a short time frame so seeing a bunch of calls to/from a suspicious number may occur over months/years. I'd also guess that the "bad guys" are probably going to use disposable cell phones or pay phones (although these are becoming a bit rare nowadays) so discovering "connections" would be difficult. Just looking at phone_to_phone call logs probably isn't very useful without additional information.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Enderandrew]

And the 14th Amendment. However, sadly the government sees it the opposite way. If the Amendment doesn't strictly prohibit them from doing something (like what the NSA is doing) then the government will continue until the Supreme Court says otherwise.

One could argue all day long about various victim-less crimes and the 9th and 14th Amendments, for instance all these "protection of marriage acts". The Supreme Court ruled the 9th and 14th Amendments protect your right to sleep with whom you want privately, and marry whom you want. So why can we now pass laws restricting who you can marry?

Re:Privacy Issues

[TheCarp]

Oh, I misread, I thought they actually did this for a time then killed the project. Mea Culpa.

In any case, my point remains, once they have the ability to do wholesale surveillance, they have the ability. I mean, how do they obtain the encrypted form? Don't they first have to aquire the unencrypted form to encrypt it?

Once they have the ability to obtain the information at all without oversight FIRST, they have the ability to skirt their own system and abuse it.

So the point remains.... and the people ivolved in the prorgam that is happening should certainly be indicted.

-Steve

Re:Privacy Issues

[mjm1231]

Neither do I own the air which is used to transmit my voice when I speak to someone in a closed room, but it still requires a warrant to hide a recording device in the room. A person's speech is their effect, regardless of the medium used to transmit it.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Mister Whirly]

"Why is there less of a push for a privacy amendment than there is for a let-Arnold-run-for-president amendment? "

Because they are busy trying to get laws passed to prevent two gay people from "destroying the sanctity" of the word marriage...

Re:Privacy Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see why people would be opposed.

Perhaps because they'd rather see Cuba as a tourist than as an internee?

Re:Privacy Issues

[955301]

total bunk.

Read the Ninth Amendment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Amendment_to_th e_United_States_Constitution

The founders recognized the danger that enumerating a few of the rights would cause some people, such as yourself, to assume that meant other rights were not actually protected. They are - the emphasis in the constitution is that the federal government plays a specific role and the states & individuals retained the majority of the power.

Althought that's not how things have played out in the past 60 years, that is in fact how the constitution was origiginally written. The major disaster which cause most of the current problems was the instatement of an income tax by Lincoln during the civil war, followed by the massive power grabs steadily occurring since WWII.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Living in a country in which president has very little power, I think many of the problems in USA's administration come from the fact, that the president has very much power. No one in his adminstration group dares to critisize him if they want to keep their job and status in the party, so they have to bend backwards trying to rationalize the illegal things the president has done.

It's the problem of benevolent dictator. As long as the dictator is truly benevolent, everything is fine, but there is no way to ensure that the dictator won't change.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Enderandrew]

Read the thread. This is mentioned several times. The 14th Amendment also covers this to an extent. I am a big fan of both of those amendments. However that doesn't stop Congress from passing laws abridging rights they shouldn't. It doesn't stop the government from invading our privacy. In both instances the government argues that nothing directly protects our privacy, and in many cases the Supreme Court agrees with them.

The arguement that the right to privacy is implied is nice, but not particularly solid. It would be much nicer to have a clearly outlined protection in there.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Enderandrew]

Tons of people have brought this up. However, given that the 4th Amendment only restricts unreasonable searches, it is implied there are reasonable searches. And the 9th Amendment only protects rights retained, and only in a vague manner. It does not solidly, completely protect privacy. It just doesn't.

There is however specific laws giving the government the right to various searches and monitoring.

Given a dispute between clear legislation and very vague legislation, the clear legislation is likely going to win out.

If you really want a right to privacy there needs to be clear legislation outlining it.

Re:Privacy Issues

[ajs]

I think we're missing the point here. This was the system that was TOO RESPECTFUL OF PRIVACY!

This was discontinued in favor of a system which used the same technology, but did not encrypt the information. Sure, this system might have been a problem (it's like searching all cars on the highway, but only arresting the people who have illegal items), but this was tossed out in favor of WORSE.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Qzukk]

Known nutjob

Orrrrrrrr... you get a warrant to bust down the known nutjob's door, seize his property, subpoena his phone records and interrogate everyone he's called. Maybe then you'll have the proof needed to arrest his friend the suspected nutjob. And maybe you'll discover that B wasn't really a terrorist, but you've saved him from being blackmailed into blowing himself up. Or hey, maybe B is pizza hut. Terrorists have to eat too.

But in the end, you've removed a known terrorist from the wild, interrupting his plans and ruining his recruiting efforts. You have a trial (and hopefully a conviction) to show that you are actually doing something for the country. You have punishment suitable to discourage other would be terrorists. (life in prison is good. Ruling them insane and putting thim in a straight jacket, face mask and padded room for the rest of their life with daily happy pills would be so much better. Nothing says not-a-martyr like having to have someone else feed you and change your diapers while you drool and grunt.)

Re:Privacy Issues

[laklare]

I wonder when will our dictator start being benevolent...

Re:Privacy Issues

[Enderandrew]

The Supreme Court has also upheld the right of the government to do certain types of monitoring. And the cases you quoted weren't about privacy in general. The government was granting us privacy in the bedroom. You'll find that on hot-topic sexual issues, the Supreme Court didn't want to rule one way or another what should occur in our sex lives, so they scream "privacy" and wash their hands. However, when it comes to flat-out universal privacy, the Supreme Court has not made such a ruling.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Enderandrew]

Even better, given that the various arms of the intelligence community are restricted from cooperating together, the government firmly believes in keeping secrets from itself as well.

Re:Privacy Issues

[mausmalone]

I call BS. If it doesn't give them much to work from then why do they want to do it? Obviously some valuable information can be found out this way, or they wouldn't be doing it at all.

Stop drinking the koolaid.

I didn't drink the koolaid, and you obviously didn't read the article. They aren't gathering valuable information this way. It was a proposed program that never went into effect. It was shelved in favor of the current NSA wiretapping fiasco because it wouldn't have given them the "valuable" (illegal) information they wanted.

Re:Privacy Issues

[mausmalone]

Well, whether they would've received unencrypted data and then encrypted it, or received pre-encrypted data from the phone company would probably end up being an implementation decision, and they never got to that stage. So who knows on that one. I hope they would've done it right, but something inside tells me they wouldn't have.

And I agree with you wholeheartedly that the people involved in the current NSA wiretapping scandal should be indicted, and the first piece of evidence should be this abandoned program because it demonstrates that they consciously decided to abandon even the most cursory efforts to safeguard privacy in favor of an illegal activity.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>patterns of calls alone is likely not enough

Your real-world observation confirms what one academic just claimed:

opinion piece about limits of graph theory (New York Times, sorry)

Re:Privacy Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

"You really want to tie additional associations (person_to_organization, person_to_person, person_to_building, person_to_events, etc...) in order to derive intelligence."

That's when they join other databases to their archive and mine further associations not possible with the current data set. Things like voter registration databases, tax databases, DMV databases, security cameras with OCR capabilities that can read your plate numbers and tie that info back to you via that DMV link, through to the phone calls you've made all through the SSN value that can be used to join all these disparate tables together and act as one. Call me paranoid, but then again, have you been reading the headlines lately?

Re:Privacy Issues

[DSP_Geek]

Uh-huh. The Supremes don't care about the 4th when they say piss-testing for any job is acceptable. I blew off a job at USRobotics after passing the urine fetishists requirement because it offended me so goddamn much. What am I gonna do, go completely out of my mind on that wacky tobaccy and start pummeling people with keyboards?

The 4th is also so much toilet paper when cops acting under the War On Some Drugs can seize anything they want without a court decision. When it takes 20 grand of lawyer time to get back 10 thousand worth of stuff and the outcome is not even guaranteed, you're effectively screwed. Did I mention the people who lost their house because their grandson, unbeknownst to them, was dealing dope from his bedroom?

If you're counting on the 4th amendment as anything but pretty words on paper you're deluding yourself. This Court doesn't care about unreasonable.

Re:Privacy Issues

[sconeu]

And then throw in the 9th for good measure.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Martin Blank]

It all depends on how it's worded. Any time the Constitution is amended, a new balance is struck, and it potentially upsets existing court precedent, particularly when it has to do with personal rights. A change to allow foreign-born citizens to run for president is relatively easy to do -- most of the debate comes over how long a person must have been a citizen and has lived in the country. A change to personal rights can alter the very core of a society. Just off the top of my head, I can think of the following issues:

• How would a privacy amendment alter free press rights?
  
• How would a privacy amendment alter police searches?
  
• How would a privacy amendment alter searches by other authorities, such as school staff of lockers?

Lots of questions for such an amendment.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, if a private citizen is morally wrong to employ coercion against you (for example by spying on you) then what exactly puts government in the right when it does the same thing? If it is morally wrong for one private citizen to initiate force against another private citizen, then logically, it is also morally wrong for that private citizen to delegate that initiation of force to any third party, including government.

Looks like someone needs to repeat civics class. Does the phrase "consent of the governed" ring a bell? Or how 'bout "social contract" ?

Re:Privacy Issues

[TheCarp]

What botheres me too....

This whole phone number listing thing. I read the article. The part that seems TOTALLY IGNORED in the media is the conversations with QWEST. When QWEST execs asked why they didn't go to the FISA court or the AG, they said they were afraid they wouldn't agree....

Thats totally damning. I don't care if its legal or not... going forward with a program and avoiding oversight because your afraid its illegal is unethical whether it turns out to be defacto legal or not.

I think regardless of the legality, whoever was involved should be fired for ethical violations on that alone.

-Steve

Re:Privacy Issues

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>For better or worse, there really isn't a real "Right to Privacy" in the Constitution.

Did you know that some of the Founders didn't want to include a Bill of Rights? All were in favor of human rights (at least for white people, sigh) but some were afraid that if they wrote down a list then later generations might mistake it for an exhaustive list and might begin violating rights that hadn't been written down.

They put in the Ninth Amendment to spell out in black and white that all other rights were still guaranteed even if they didn't get a slot in the Bill of Rights. They did that to make absolutely sure that nobody in the future could ever disparage a right by saying "it's not in the Constitution".

>If we don't want the government to look over our shoulders, then we can't bitch when they didn't see something coming.

Why not? Aside from the "if they've got something why don't they get FISA warrants" question, why can't we bitch when the government finds plots (without mass domestic spying) and refuses to even ask for warrants?

Re:Privacy Issues

[Talinth]

I don't demand the government provide me with security. I have the second ammendment (for now) to cover that. Keep out foriegn invaders and I'm happy. I remember back right after 9/11 it was said that we shouldn't change our way of life any or the terrorists would win (this is true). And yet, FUD from the government changed this view. Get back to the basics. Realize that while you 'could' stop everyone, it would pretty much take video cameras in everyone's house.

Re:Privacy Issues

[yodhe]

According to this ruling phone records aren't protected by the fourth amendment.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>that doesn't really give them much information to work from

Not for busting sleeper cells, which aren't calling each other, but it's pure gold for smear tactics and blackmail.

Think about how bad you could make a non-terrorist look using guilt by association. For example, Osama bin Laden's brother invested in a company whose CEO later went into politics (hint: he's very well known). Also, you have enough information to control any Congressman who gets in your way if you can show he made weekly phone calls to Trixie's Barely Legal Escorts or to the Cocaine Rehab Clinic. Without checks and balances, nothing stops these abuses from happening except for Karl Rove's sense of ethics.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Sylver Dragon]

I don't think it's that far of a streach to assume that they knew from the get go that this program would never have passed Constitutional muster. With FISA warrants the NSA/FBI/CIA/ can go do what they want, and then ask the court if it was OK up to 72 hours after the collection has started. Evenatully they have to go back to the court and ask for an extension, if they want to keep it up. The down side is that they have to actually state what they are after and stop collecting once they have it. Somehow, the TLA groups decided that this was "cumbersome". How in the world is it cumbersome to ask for permission, in a secret court, after you have already started collecting? It's not. The only reason to avoid going before the FISA court and asking permission is that you know, or are reasonably certain that they will say, "no." Both of the programs, which have come to light recently, are in the same boat. The NSA must have assumed that the courts would have shut them down, so they did everything they could to avoid the courts. Now that they have been caught red-handed they are trying to find an excuse to avoid being nailed to the wall for it. On the same token, the congressional members who were briefed and didn't raise objections should be thrown out of office for failing the public trust.

Re:Privacy Issues

[smithmc]

  Obviously at the time of writing, phone lines didn't exist, but it's reasonable to see that as an "effect" belonging to an individual.

The switches that route your call, and record the source/destination/time, do not belong to you; they belong to the phone company. The same could be said about a written letter - the letter and its verbal content are yours, but the information about where the letter came from and where it is going are necessarily shared with the Postal Service, which then possesses that information and can do with it as it pleases.

Re:Privacy Issues

[WhiteWolf666]

This is not an argument against passing such an Amendment.

These are exactly the sorts of issues Congress is *supposed* to hash out. Not the relative merits of gay marriage, nor the sexual relations of the President.

Re:Privacy Issues

[legal_asshole]

The, "there is no right to privacy in the constitution," argument requires a strict interpretation of the constitution and it's amendments, and that you completely ignore the 9th amendment which specifically addresses the concept of unenumerated rights. I'm so tired of this myth.

Umm, apparently you're not aware that GWB appointed 2 justices recently who are more Scalia than Breyer Ginsburg... SCOTUS is at best a "strict interpertation"-leaning body right now.

Re:Privacy Issues

[BobSutan]

Thank you for that information. Its much appreciated.

Re:Privacy Issues

[TheCarp]

Exactly.... and maybe its just me working at a non-profit healthcare company but... we have an entire "compliance" department whose job is ethics.

The message from them is clear "if you are unsure, ask". In ethics you always want to err on the side of caution. Or as they like to say "avoid even the appearance of inpropriety"

Its not just about feeling good because you knew you were ethical, its about deserving to be trusted AND building trust.

It reminds me of a memorial article that I read recently called "the man who fired me was right" by a reporter remembering being fired for a prank... he put a tiny little edit... a fake award and recipient into an article about high school graduation. Not a big deal in the aggregate... just a tiny prank.

His editor found out later and said "people should be able to believe what they read in the news". Not that there are never erros, but a factual error is an error, an intentional lie is another story, even a small one.

-Steve

Re:Privacy Issues

[Sylver Dragon]

Why is there less of a push for a privacy amendment than there is for a let-Arnold-run-for-president amendment?

One is a pointless waste of time, which does not endager the continued centralization of power away from the people. The other would threaten the work already performed on carefully constructing a police state that the people will accept. I'll leave it to you to figure out which is which.

Re:Privacy Issues

[PriceIke]

You mean Bill Gates? Don't hold your breath.

Re:Privacy Issues

[jafac]

Frankly, I think these programs should be outed, and every signle person involved, all the way up, should be indicted.

and if found guilty, executed for Treason.

Contempt and spite for our Bill of Rights, and conspiring to undermine or ignore them is Treason.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Grym]

Well... for that matter, what about the Third Amendment?

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Bear in mind that quartering was not a military necessity but a way of finding and uprooting dissent at it's roots--the common household. They didn't just quarter at random. Suspected sympathizers were often specifically targeted for the simple reason that having a few brutish and nosey soldiers from the government in your house either makes you clean up your affairs or start explaining yourself in front of a judge.

The third amendment was a response to a specific type of attack on privacy by a people which had been traumatized by it. You can bet your powdered wig that if England had tried to read the correspondence of every suspected revolutionary (wire-tapping) or recorded data about every conversation that ever occurred in a public square and the parties involved (phone database), that those too would have been specifically mentioned as well.

Kept in its historical context, the third amendment represents a limit to the imposition of households and the government's ability to intrude upon the private lives of ordinary citizens.

But you know what? What about the Ninth Amendment?

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Any reasonable person can conclude that a right to privacy exists on some level. We shouldn't need a document of finite length, written over 200 years ago to tell us exactly what rights we, by virtue of our humanity, possess. In fact, this ridiculous argument we're having over whether a right to privacy exists or doesn't is the entire reason that the ninth Amendment was devised.

Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 84, said it best (emphasis mine):
"[I] affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not content that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it [an enumerated Bill of Rights] would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretence for claiming that power."

-Grym

Re:Privacy Issues

[Sylver Dragon]

And the 14th Amendment. However, sadly the government sees it the opposite way. If the Amendment doesn't strictly prohibit them from doing something (like what the NSA is doing) then the government will continue until the Supreme Court says otherwise.

you and I must be reading different 14th amendments. The only thing I see in there that comes close to this is:
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
There's nothing in there to permit the federal government to do anything it pleases. On the other hand, yes the Supreme Court needs to be the one to make this decision and with the way that they have been ruling in the past 100 years, I'm not expecting much.

Re:Privacy Issues

[orgelspieler]

Well, if that is legal, I recommend you to change your laws...

didn't you get the memo? All it takes for something to be legal is for the President and his staff to keep repeating to the media that it is legal. over and over. and over. And if that doesn't work, say you're doing it to catch terrorists, stop drug use, or protect the children. Eventually everybody will stop caring about it. So actually, changing the laws won't matter a bit.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Total_Wimp]

As a matter of law - a police detective, in the course of a criminal investigation, can pull the LUDS for anyone without a warrant.

I had to look up LUDS (Local [phone] Usage Detail for those still curious) and I think you may be only partially right. The references I saw (most were talking about Law & Order episodes) seem to indicate that the police can pull the details of calls made to or from the victim of a crime. Though I'm not disputing your details, mostly because I have so few myself, this would be quite a bit different than pulling all the records of a suspect without a warrant.

The first scenerio I have little difficulty with because it's actually a search of the victims phone record which the victim presumeably would agree to. The second scenerio would seem to be a blatant search of a suspect without a warrant.

While I find both cases objectionable invasions, they are not illegal or unconstitutional.


This is the problem. So many people think that because something has been declared "legal" that that's the end of the story. More people need to realize that if you find a legal act objectionable, you're well within your rights to call for a change of the law. In fact, many would argue that it's even a responsibility.

TW

Re:Privacy Issues

[(trb001)]

A person's speech is their effect, regardless of the medium used to transmit it.

No. This is decidedly false considering anything you do/say in public can be used against you without a warrant. The air inside your house is contained within your house, which you own. If you're so freaking loud that someone could hear you across the street, that could be used against you as well.

--trb

Re:Privacy Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

You're very perceptive: my point was that the "social contract" theory is morally illogical and therefore null and void. You cannot delegate an act to a third party which would be morally unlawful for you to perform yourself.

Yes, I'm saying that government is morally wrong by default, and this spying program is simply the latest evidence of that.

Here's a pop quiz for you: If the democratic process resulted in a law which says tax evasion is punishable by death, is that law morally acceptable? Why or why not?

Re:Privacy Issues

[Stealth Potato]

Well, that's what the 2nd is there for. :-)

Re:Privacy Issues

[(trb001)]

In my opinion, you have to read the privacy agreement for whatever mode of transit you choose. I don't think it becomes public property in either case, but you're relying on the service you've chosen to keep it private.

In the case of USPS, I think this addresses that. Number 7 might fit a similar program to the NSA's.

For UPS, I would assume a similar code, but I haven't found that addresses the contents of your package in my 5 minutes of surfing their site.

In general, if I want it to be truly private, I hand deliver or encrypt. There are privacy acts out there that address what transport companies must keep private, but there seem to be a lot of legal loopholes that I don't fully understand.

--trb

Re:Privacy Issues

[Martin Blank]

I never proposed it as an argument against the concept of such an amendment. I am concerned about how it affects society. If it provides adults the ability to not be harrassed or tried for what they do consensually behind closed doors, that could be a good thing. If it prevents the press from getting FOIA information on the grounds that someone in the information doesn't want to be in the press, that could be a bad thing.

As I opened my original post, it all depends on how it's worded.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Maxwell'sSilverLART]

The, "there is no right to privacy in the constitution," argument requires a strict interpretation of the constitution and it's amendments, and that you completely ignore the 9th amendment which specifically addresses the concept of unenumerated rights.

Actually, a truly strict reading of the Constitution would recognize that the Constitution doesn't restrict government powers, it grants them. Just like the Order DENY, ALLOW line in httpd.conf, if a power isn't specifically granted to the Feds, they don't have it. The Amendments were a compromise to placate the (well-founded) fears that the government would expand its own scope, though some were (correctly) worried that they would be interpreted as a checklist for the government to say "anything but these freedoms is fair game" (ALLOW, DENY). As you say, the 9th and 10th Amendments have been completely eviscerated.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Maxwell'sSilverLART]

because they were activly tapping the phone calls of people like Dr Martin Luther King in every hotel that he visited trying to dig up dirt on him.

Or, more recently, our last president using the FBI to monitor political opponents. Or our current president monitoring reporters who reveal embarassing informtion.

Face it: the government can't be trusted with power.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

"I think you're misunderstanding. The proposed program would look at phone call records only, not actual phone calls. (basically, it would know who's calling who and when, but not why or what they talked about"

How can you be sure about that? First, they said "Oh, one end has to be outside the U.S"...well that was a lie. Why is it that people who lie repeatedly, and especially BLATANTLY, are trusted so much?

"...but if they were able to get some more narrowing information that's not an identifier (i.e. what country/state/province/city the numbers correlate to), they could actually search for some real patterns without knowing whose numbers they're looking at until there's probable cause for a warrant."

All they need is a phone book....wait, they already have to phone companies doing their spying for them. Just a gut feeling, but what I think they're doing (or what seems logical to me) is that they are creating "profiles" for every person in the U.S., and the relationships between those people, and then, if they (or their algorithm) feels like you're a risk, they'll probably look closer at your life. Kind of like the way an insurance company might do it when they figure your rates out, except they're figuring the probability that you're a terrorist.

They probably have good intentions, and I doubt the people who are doing it care about ordinary people's lives, but this system seems set up for abuse. And, with society becoming like one giant system, a weird combination of feudalism and facism, it will be no time before everybody wants to abuse something like this.

Re:Privacy Issues

[bishop32x]

I believe that this Data (who called whom) isn't directly covered by the 4th amendment, which is why it can be tapped with an administrative supoena rather than a warrant. What's at issue here is that there is another law which states that these records are confidential, and shyould not therefore be given to the government without a warrant or supoena.

Re:Privacy Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, so basically, this program is the equivalent to the following:

The police walking down the street, opening up every trunk of every car, but not being allowed to look up who's car they happen to be searching. If they happen to find something "interesting" (bag of plant fertilizer, etc), then they go get a warrent, and get permission to look-up who the owner of the car is, then go knock on their door and insist on inspecting their house as well...

Its just matter of time (like last year?) before, say, a republican administration starts tracking who happens to be calling the press, (especially governement employees), so that they can elimiate potential whistlebowing of their misdeeds. Next step of course would be to bug the phones of all the democratic party officials, so that they "just happen" to anticipate (and prevent) any campaign move the democrats make, thus ensuring their own power base.

Anon.

Re:Privacy Issues

[NihilEst]

Monitoring (listening in) on your phone calls is one thing: NSA analysis of call records (which number called which number at what time/date) is quite another. Courts have repeatedly held that this isn't search and seizure of any kind.

NSA track record

[cyber_rigger]

...and of course the NSA has an excellent track record of unbreakable encryption (in case these records get in the wrong hands).

Re:NSA track record

[geoffspear]

I think the point is to keep the NSA from knowing whose phone records it's looking at, not to protect them in case they fall into the "wrong hands".

If you think it's more likely that the records are going to be stolen from the NSA than from your phone company, you're probably vastly overestimating the security and hiring practices at the phone company.

Re:NSA track record

[Ohreally_factor]

I think the point is to keep the NSA from knowing whose phone records it's looking at, not to protect them in case they fall into the "wrong hands".

Depending on the circumstances, how do you make the distinction between the NSA and the "wrong hands"? =)

But seriously, ThinThread as originally constituted contains the mechanism necessary for oversight. It's amazing that they dispensed with that part of the program, especially now in hindsight when the Administration is embroiled in a scandal. What were they thinking? Are they that arrogant? That stupid?

Re:NSA track record

[Anonymous Coward]

I vote for both.

Re:NSA track record

[Red Flayer]

"ut seriously, ThinThread as originally constituted contains the mechanism necessary for oversight. "

Oversight by whom? A court (like FISA)? Or by another level of NSA bureaucrats?

It's been suggested (sorry, can't find link right now, but IIRC, this rationale was given by people in the government) that the reason NSA hasn't gone to the FISA court for all their wiretapping is because they knew they wouldn't get approval. Authorized by executive order, of course.

So how does a mechanism for oversight, whether Congressional or Judicial, really make a difference when the Executive branch can choose when that oversight is applied? The fox watching the henhouse and all that....

Re:NSA track record

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing that they dispensed with that part of the program, especially now in hindsight when the Administration is embroiled in a scandal.

Unless of course, the encryption was already breakable to the NSA and therefor useless in the first place. Afterall, the encryption that NSA has is different than what anybody else uses.

Re:NSA track record

[geoffspear]

Considering the program ceased to exist before the NSA started deciding to bypass the FISA court, I'm not sure your objection is at all relevant. The technology was created to allow oversight by the FISA court. Whether it would, in other circumstances, be abused by moving the oversight to the Executive branch or just removing it altogether is tangental to the issue of whether the system, with its safeguards, is better than what replaced it.

If a police department went from a system where drugs and cash it seized were stored in a locked vault to a system where they were all just kept in an open break room, I don't think "But what if they guy with the key to the vault was corrupt" is a very useful way to look at the real problem.

Re:NSA track record

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>mechanism necessary for oversight. It's amazing that they dispensed with that part of the program,

Is it amazing or is it revealing?

Re:NSA track record

[Red Flayer]

I disagree. With security of private information, it's either broken or not broken. Corruption of the overseers is just as important an issue as location or encryption status of the files.

Also, just because it predates the FISA override doesn't mean that the FISA override is not relevant. In theory it might be a better system. In practice not so much.

It's no longer about letter of the law -- it's about potential for abuse. Time and again we've seen that the potential for gain outweighs the letter and spirit of the law among many of those with power.

To extend your contraband in the locked vault metaphor -- what if you knew the person with key had abused his access to the vault in the past? What if time and again, different 'guys with keys' used their access improperly? At what point do you design a system to eliminate the potential of a guy with a key having access to the contraband?

If you're involved in security systems, the answer is that your first design should eliminate the possibilty of a guy with a key gaining unauthorized access.

But the real problem with your analogy is that it ignores the fundamental problem with data collection -- the government shouldn't be collecting the information in the first place. Regardless of whether it's a 'better' system than the current one, both systems are IMO unconstitutional and illegal.

Data is Data

[ruisantos]

They would easely extrapolate the information and find out what is the hash for each number (I'm assuming they would use and hash for each number)

Re:Data is Data

[jginspace]

Yep, kind of what I was thinking. I imagine a sufficiently experienced/intelligent/devious operator would only have to perform one or two further sub-queries on that hashed information in order to find personally identifying information ... and from there get the info that was encrypted via public sources, if necessary. How do you protect against this kind of (mis)use?

Re:Data is Data

[twiddlingbits]

First of all the NSA is NOT going to use something as simple as a hash to protect information. The NSA has the best encryption algorithms most likely in the world. They wouldn't encrypt each number with the same key either, they would probably use a public-private key pair of at least 128 bits. That key pair is stored very securely somewhere and everything is compartmentalized, the right hand really does NOT know what the left is doing. Secondly, no where does it say the personal information travels thru the system with the number. In fact they wouldn't even need to have it, they could just do a reverse lookup on the decyrpted numbers that are suspicious. It's probably even more complex and convoluted than this, after all it is the NSA which used to be called 'The Puzzle Palace".

Re:Data is Data

[Ohreally_factor]

There was another component of ThinThread that "would have employed an automated auditing system to monitor how analysts handled the information, in order to prevent misuse and improve efficiency." Did you RTFA?

Re:Data is Data

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all the NSA is NOT going to use something as simple as a hash to protect information. The NSA has the best encryption algorithms most likely in the world.[snip]

Dude, you're missing the whole point. The NSA isn't encrypting the data, they're getting the data with encrypted phone numbers. Considering that the number of phone numbers is considerably less than 10^10 they could run all possible numbers through the hashing/encrypting algorithm on their computer banks in a couple of hours and have a full map. This is something a rookie NSA tech trainee could do over lunchtime with his secret decoder ring. Giving them "anonomyzed" phone numbers is pretty useless.

On condition of anonymity

[Billosaur]

Four intelligence officials knowledgeable about the program agreed to discuss it with The Sun only if granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Let's hope they didn't talk on the phone...

Re:On condition of anonymity

[Anonymous Coward]

Not +5, funny anymore, I am afraid its insightfull.

Can We Get the NSA involved in F/OSS?

[Quirk]

"...an interesting experimental NSA program codenamed ThinThread..."

3 lettered government agencies seem to be able to come up with cool codenames for their projects. Maybe they have a coterie of fine arts graduates, dressed in casual black outfits, drinking exotic coffee drinks, whose only job is to come up with cool names for projects.

I wonder if we can get them on board F/OSS projects in a naming capacity? F/OSS projects usually have some halfbaked, nerdy name like GIMP .Maybe if F/OSS projects had really cool names they would get mentioned in scifi flics by beautiful actresses dressed in black latex....

Re:Can We Get the NSA involved in F/OSS?

[gEvil (beta)]

Exactly! Perhaps they could come up with a descriptive name that alludes to the level of utility and usability of the program. In which case, they'd end up calling it...The Gimp!

*ducks*

Re:Can We Get the NSA involved in F/OSS?

[ettlz]

In projects like, um, SELinux, perhaps? And you missed an obvious emphasis:

beautiful actresses dressed in black LaTeX

Ooh, \matron!

Re:Can We Get the NSA involved in F/OSS?

[Castar]

The Gimp is *played* by actors in black latex. What more do you want?

thats OK then, AKA respectful my ass!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously turning the "encrypted number" back into a real one would never slip from "a threat was found" to "we wanted to know who it was".

Would it?

Of course not.

Re:thats OK then, AKA respectful my ass!

[mausmalone]

Part of the proposed program would make it illegal to do so without a court order. And therefore, any evidence gained from a surreptitiously decrypted number would be inadmissible in court (and very embarrassing for the NSA).

See, technically the only thing that stops the police from tapping every phone (other than respect for the community) is that it's illegal to do so and any evidence gathered is wholly worthless.

Re:thats OK then, AKA respectful my ass!

[CosmeticLobotamy]

Obviously turning the "encrypted number" back into a real one would never slip from "a threat was found" to "we wanted to know who it was".

You're crapping on an effective means of controlling who gets access to data because there's a possibility it might not be used properly in some instances. If it's not used properly, then we have the situation we already are in. At the very least, we can file this under "better and under no circumstances worse."

Whether or not we can label it "good" is beyond the scope of me.

Re:thats OK then, AKA respectful my ass!

[geoffspear]

It probably also helps that your local police:

a) care if the evidence they're collecting is admissible in court, because they actually want the people they're collecting evidence on to be prosecuted in a court, and
b) might actually be prosecuted themselves for illegal actions they take, because they inconveniently don't have the power to deny prosecutors and/or Internal Affairs officers the security clearances they need to investigate.

Re:thats OK then, AKA respectful my ass!

[mausmalone]

At the time the proposed program was written, there was no "enemy combatant" statute and Guantanamo wasn't used nearly as often nor for the same reasons. Today, however, yes ... the illegality of evidence gained might not be as strong a deterrent with that "out."

Re:thats OK then, AKA respectful my ass!

[saifrc]

Isn't it currently illegal to perform wiretaps on American citizens without a court order? This "need for a court order" doesn't seem to be the rock-solid check against power abuse that it's expected to be.

Don't worry. I'm sure that the need for a court order would have been respected in this case too.

Re:thats OK then, AKA respectful my ass!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

At the very least, we can file this under "better and under no circumstances worse."

I disagree. If such an ineffective 'protection' is enough to make such surveillence politically palatable that it is allowed to continue, then it is indeed worse than the original program.

Re:thats OK then, AKA respectful my ass!

[symbolic]

I might point out that the threat of inadmissibility is only important where one is trying to prosecute someone for criminal activity. If you have other motives, like blackmail or extortion (which could easily happen), admissibility isn't even a blip on the radar.

Re:thats OK then, AKA respectful my ass!

[kabocox]

Part of the proposed program would make it illegal to do so without a court order. And therefore, any evidence gained from a surreptitiously decrypted number would be inadmissible in court (and very embarrassing for the NSA).

See, technically the only thing that stops the police from tapping every phone (other than respect for the community) is that it's illegal to do so and any evidence gathered is wholly worthless.

Oh, please these aren't the police. Your local police could only have dreams of having a .005% of that sort of wiretapping ability. Be honest. These are Federal Spies and they aren't just tracking terrorists. That's just the current "hot button" issue that's the public excuse. I would like to know how long the NSA has really been doing this and what the "real" reason is. Terrorism or communism isn't even on my radar. Heck, total thought control isn't either for that control of media companies like Disney and Time Warner should be all that's required to keep the group think of the US all along the same lines.

I actually don't mind US Spies doing real Spy Stuff with all that data. Who knows there might be something actually useful in all that data. But I wouldn't want a single political interest to have oversight or use or knowledge of any of the details of the program. Call me wierd, but I can actually "trust" nameless US spies, but I couldn't "trust" any elected US politican with that kind of power.

Hmm

[The Living Fractal]

NSA: "Stand very still, we're going to beat you with this baseball bat."
U.S. Citizen: "Don't I have rights? You can't just beat me with that bat!"
NSA: "Don't worry, we've encrypted it."

Re:Hmm

[TubeSteak]

"Don't worry, we've encrypted it."

The decryption key is "Clue Stick"

But shhhh... you didn't hear that from me.

Right.

[Rob T Firefly]

And be assured, citizens, that we will never, ever, let a curious finger wander across the board and idly press the beautiful, shiny button labeled "decrypt."

The jolly, candy-like button...

Re:Right.

[frankie]

You totally miss the point. It's like you're complaining "hey, that dirty cop was going to frisk me" while his hand is currently in your pocket stealing your wallet.

Under the previous proposed system, individual privacy would have been respected BY DEFAULT. It would require additional manual effort to tie records back to a particular person. It implies a mindframe where abuse of citizen records would not be tolerated (at least, not after being exposed in the press).

Whereas under the now existing system, privacy is INVADED by default. Phone records are stored raw, and almost certainly linked back to various Lexis-type databases. This design stems from (and reinforces) the mindframe where omnipresent snooping reigns unchecked (as long as you invoke the magic phrase "9/11" while doing so).

Sure, any version of NSA phone logging is suboptimal for civil rights, and potentially subject to abuse. But when you start from the position "let's do this in a limited way that doesn't violate the law", the risk is (in precise technical terms) a gazillion-fold lower than starting from "the executive branch can do anything it wants to fight the War on Terra".

Re:Right.

[Rob T Firefly]

But when you start from the position "let's do this in a limited way that doesn't violate the law", the risk is (in precise technical terms) a gazillion-fold lower than starting from "the executive branch can do anything it wants to fight the War on Terra".

My point was, can you trust an agency which specializes in things like covert surveillance to keep their use of something like this within the boundaries of the law, when they hold the keys to it? The only thing stopping them from switching from "doesn't violate the law" to "doing anything it wants" is how they use their own system behind closed doors.

Civil liberties usually don't do so well when they are only defended with the "honor system."

HA!

[j0nkatz]

Yeah, and I "encrypt" all the mp3s I download for free off the internet. I never listen, I just analyze.

Re:OMG!

[nes11]

I don't believe. The Bush administration had to have some sort spies left in there. Probably left over from daddy's term.

Matrix

[fusto99]

So this is basically like the Matrix. Most people just see a bunch of encrypted characters running across the screen. However, someone who looks at this information every day sees the entire picture. "See, that tells me that there is a hot blonde walking down the street."

Re:Matrix

[Mister Whirly]

why does every subject posted on /. eventually come back to the Matrix, Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings?? Oh, yeah, geeks - that's right. Silly me.

Trust not

[Red Flayer]

"* Analyzed the data to identify relationships between callers and chronicle their contacts. Only when evidence of a potential threat had been developed would analysts be able to request decryption of the records.

Says who? The NSA?

Who defines what a potential threat is? A judge of the court, or some bureaucrats in the NSA?

Why would we trust an agaency known to play games with the law to have access to this data? A layer of separation (the encryption) doesn't change the fact that the data is still there for misuse. Just because it's harder to tie to an individual doesn't mean it can be misused.

All the encryption does is make it harder for a rogue/spy to get access to actual phone numbers. Systemic abuse or misuse of the data is not prevented at all. And frankly, systemic abuse/misuse frightens me much more than one person being able to misuse the data.

Re:Trust not

[Ohreally_factor]

Actually, this could be integrated into the FISA court quite easily, so there's your oversight.

Further, there was another (discarded) component of the program that would have automated oversight.

Would or could (if they decide to bring this back) any of this be perfect and avoid abuses? Maybe, maybe not. But it would be a hell of a lot better than the current set up, which is constitutional abuse in and of itself.

Re:Trust not

[Red Flayer]

Except of course that FISA oversight can be ignored via Executive Order (legally or not, that's one way it's happening).

In terms of this being a better system than the current one, sure, I agree. But as far as I'm concerned, a pre-emptive warrant is required for every instance of call-logging or wiretapping. Period. So the only way to fix the system is to stop all programs like this one.

Re:Trust not

[Mister Whirly]

If they had been using the FISA court in the first place, as in legally to obtain warrants, this would be a non-issue...

Re:Trust not

[Ohreally_factor]

Well, this system would remove at least one of the excuses the Bush Administration is using to ignore FISA via EO.

The call logging already occurs within TPCs, so that's not going to stop. However, I agree with you at least partly. All these programs must be brought to a halt until a system with proper and effective oversight and with safety mechanisms in place is created. Those who were involved with overstepping of legal boundaries must be removed from their positions of power. If this means the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, then so be it.

At his confirmation hearing today, General Hayden complained that the security/intelligence services had become a political football, preventing them from doing their jobs. This is basically his fault, as well as Bush and Cheney's fault. If they had done things properly from the start, complying with the Constitution instead of trying skirting around it on the flimsiest of pretexts, they wouldn't have this problem.

And you know what? That troubles me. How can we trust him to head up the CIA, when his actions at the NSA (at the behest of the administration) have clearly compromised the NSA's operational effectiveness? (Let alone compromised out civil liberties.)

Re:Trust not

[Red Flayer]

Right on re: Red Foreman (Um, I mean Hayden).

I also agree re: removal from office of those responsible.

I have to say, though, that it is impossible to have effective oversight of a program like this. The only way to do so would be to monitor EVERY keystroke of every person with access -- and the monitoring would have to be done by an independent agency, not the NSA. IMO, the only way to approach this is to allow tracking of calls of specific individuals upon issuance of a valid warrant by a judge. Anything more would be data mining, and is forbidden.

Technology has made it easier to abuse power, which means we have to be more vigilant about what (even well-intentioned) tools we implement that have the capability for misuse.

Also, re: Hayden and the political football: This is a straw man he's set up. The politicization of intelligence doesn't affect his worthiness for the job, but by decrying the politicization, the administration hopes to overcome the real objections to his appointment. Similar tactic used for SCOTUS nominees.

Re:Trust not

[Ohreally_factor]

I have to say, though, that it is impossible to have effective oversight of a program like this.

This is were we disagree. I think it is possible, although I'm willing to admit that it won't ever be perfect. The important thing is to expect attempts at abuse and constantly monitor for them.

But please understand that I am sympathetic to your point. Maybe I'm a sell out because I think that somewhere there is a technically feasible compromise between Liberty and Security, or even that there can be any compromise at all. If these tools exist, these tools will get used. With oversight and controls, we can limit the abuse.

Re:Trust not

[Red Flayer]

You're right that we can limit abuse, but I have two concerns with figuring out how much abrogation of liberty we can accept in order to ensure our security:

Who watches the watchers? Unless the program is completely open (and therefore pretty much useless), we're still faced with placing our trust in some government entity.

What level of abuse is justified? IMO, none. 'Limiting' the abuse, to me, is unacceptable. There is no tolerable amount of violation of certain personal rights, IMO. Otherwise, when the next attack happens, we'll tolerate just a little more in the name of security... and the time after that. I know the slippery slope argument is pretty exhausted, but damn, it fits.

Historically, in times of war* we've seen our rights trampled upon by the Executive Branch, then, post-war, our rights restored, often expanded, by the Supreme Court. For example, the acceptable limitations on free speech during wartime have LESSENED in the aftermath of every war we've fought until now. Now, we're at a point where we're involved in an endless war against a nebulous concept, with a Supreme Court rapidly being packed by justices who've shown little respect for the rights of the individual. So what happens in the aftermath of this war, should it end before a generation has passed and we forget what life was like before the war on terra?

I admit I'm pretty cynical and bitter when it comes to the federal government, and though I am very liberal on social issues, I am extremely conservative when it comes to personal rights.

*Or war-like activity, a rose by any other name...

It was LEGAL

[coop535]

Yeah, and it was LEGAL. Under the watchful eye of Bush it was canned for one that was ILLEGAL. I just hope the didn't use a one way hash of the phone number larger than say 32 bits. Bill is pretty crafty. ;)

Re: FOSS naming practices

[biscon]

I am SO tired of the guy complaining about opensource naming in almost every /. story about F/OSS.
This story isn't even about FOSS. If you guys don't like the name suggest a new one to the maintainer. At least being FOSS you can always fork it and give it another name. Just stop the endless crap posts about the bad FOSS naming practice.

Re:OMG!

[nes11]

oops, forgot this part:
[/sarcasm]

Still tracable

[truthsearch]

Obviously the encrypted info could be decrypted or traced back to the source for further investigation. So this can't possibly bypass privacy laws. After all, it's the NSA. Isn't it part of their job to decrypt information? I'm glad it died.

So September 11th..

[Bruce McBruce]

Actually led to this pilot being shelved, and there being less evil law-evading call monitoring by the NSA. I'm amazed that something this insidious was actually abandoned in the wake of 'rising terror threats'.

Re:So September 11th..

[Anonymous Coward]

it got shelved since Bush didn't want to have to
get a "court order" to return the de-identified
point-id into an actual telephone number; it got
shelved since more "insidious" things were in the
works and this one would cost extra money for
privacy that we as citizens just don't deserve

Re:So September 11th..

[tinkerghost]

From what I read in the article, first of all, there was a lot of thought put into how to do data abstraction to actually protect your privacy unless they had enough evidence to ask a court (OVERSITE) to let them look closer. Second, there was a crapload of monitoring/controlling of the data - IE you actually needed to be accountable for what you asked for & what you did with it (OVERSITE). The data filtering algorhithms actually were designed to look for specific types of interactions not just general social network mapping.
So given a choice of a secret program with no oversite, that just maps everything for everybody, and doesn't restrict access to the data, or a tightly controlled and monitored system that takes deliberate care to protect anonymity - I think I will take the Monitored one.
Oh, and just for the NSA - If you're doing something you can't tell your supervisor about - it's probably not something you should be doing. (If your project is so secret you can't tell the congressional subcommities on Intelligence, it's probably illegal - and certainly shouldn't be secret)

We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[GundamFan]

We are at a crossroads, and we need to take a step back from the emotion of September eleventh (nearly 5 years later) and really look at what we want to see in the future.

I won't stand on a soapbox here and force my opinion on others but I think it is time for a very serious debate over what is acceptable to give up in the name of security, what secrets we will let our government keep from us and what checks and balances need to be in place.

I think we are in trouble of letting "terrorism" be the ultimate excuse for any unpopular move by the government and it sadens me to see that the events of 2001 have changed us so much.

P.S.
The latest Justifications I have heard for the NSA wire taping are indicative of the problem... saying "we havent had a terrorist atack because of this program" is like saying "the wolly mammoth repelant is working" unless you can show proof that attacks have been thwarted .

Re:We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[ERJ]

Not that I disagree with your statement, we need to be rational about this and figure out the best balance, but this is talking about a project which predates 9/11.

Re:We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[mausmalone]

The latest Justifications I have heard for the NSA wire taping are indicative of the problem... saying "we havent had a terrorist atack because of this program" is like saying "the wolly mammoth repelant is working" unless you can show proof that attacks have been thwarted.

I hate it when people justify using the calls intercepted on Sept. 10 but not translated until Sept. 12 that say stuff like "the match is tomorrow" or whatever and say "See! That's why we need wiretapping!"

No, ... we got those from legal wiretaps with warrants. If anything, it shows that the legal method worked. What we need is translators.

Re:We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[Nerd_52637]

saying "we havent had a terrorist atack because of this program" is like saying "the wolly mammoth repelant is working" unless you can show proof that attacks have been thwarted

I see your point and respect your desire for proof before offering blind faith, but the issue is not black and white. The problem is that the wooly mammoths watch the news too and if the public is told where and when every wooly mammoth attack was prevented, the mammoths will know how we administer our repellant and where we concentrate our repellant and where we (possibly) don't.

Re:We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[xeno-cat]

"I think it is time for a very serious debate over what is acceptable to give up in the name of security"

With all the effort it would take to get Americans to hold and respect a serious debate your energies would be better spent solving the problem. There is no way for serious debate at the highest levels of government. The people in power have no incentive as they only stand to loose. In their brains it's loosers who want to hold debates. And who wants to be seen on stage with loosers.

No, what is needed is _action_. Go down to town hall with a crowed and scream at your senators. Thats what gets them motivated. And remember not to use big words, we want to be effective.

Kind Regards

Re:We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[Infernal Device]

we need to take a step back from the emotion of September eleventh (nearly 5 years later) and really look at what we want to see in the future.

We had that debate - it was held in secret and American citizens lost. It would be nice to think that electing a different party to control the government would settle the issue, or turn the clock back, or ... anything, but the fact is, it won't.

This administration has mauled constitutional interpretation like a Dutch macacque and the next one only has to be a hair bit more ethical to look like a breath of fresh air. You know, 749 re-interpretations of signed law instead of 750 ...

After the next election, we'll talk about "healing" and "moving on", instead of starting impeachment proceedings and war tribunals to judge our own people. Instead of proving that the term "The Rule of Law" has meaning, even to us, we'll just toss the phrase around blithely and move on with our cozy little lives ...

Re:We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[Shelled]

Both the grandparent's oversight and your post's quick moderation point to the danger here. Discussions of this sort invariably degenerate into Democratic vs. Republican party arguments. Bush's administration is carrying on Clinton's work, War on Terror vs. War Against Drugs. All dministrations for decades have been actively finding ways to route around the Constitution.

Re:We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[ThrasherTT]

I think we are in trouble of letting "terrorism" be the ultimate excuse for any unpopular move by the government

I think you mean, in reference to the USA, guilty of. I wonder what it will take to open the eyes of the masses to what is at the bottom of the slippery slope we've started down...

Re:We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[bill_mcgonigle]

The latest Justifications I have heard for the NSA wire taping are indicative of the problem... saying "we havent had a terrorist atack because of this program" is like saying "the wolly mammoth repelant is working" unless you can show proof that attacks have been thwarted .

So the claim is aircraft attacks on the Library Tower in LA and the Sears Tower in Chicago and a welding gas tank attack on the supports of the Brooklyn Bridge were thrwarted by this program.

Based on your comment, are you unaware of these claims or are you disbelieving them? These comments were made by the President in February - odds are the program is no longer effective since the NYT blew its cover in December.

Re:We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[Qzukk]

are you unaware of these claims or are you disbelieving them?

Here's some more claims for you:
- a terrorist attack on the north pole was thwarted, saving Christamas for all the good little children
- terrorists secretly replaced Tiger Woods golfballs with talc, he was saved from humilation at the last second thanks to the efforts of the NSA
- terrorists planned to take over American Idol and force the show to be cancelled mid-sesason

Bush has repeatedly shown himself to be a man of half-truths and deceptions. If he doesn't want 70% of the country to disbelieve him now, he should either have thought of that sooner or offer us some proof. Until then, I have no reason to believe his fabrications over mine.

Re:We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[Lord_Dweomer]

'We are at a crossroads, and we need to take a step back from the emotion of September eleventh (nearly 5 years later) and really look at what we want to see in the future."

Can it wait a little bit? American Idol is on in a few minutes...

Re:We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[Proteus]

No, ... we got those from legal wiretaps with warrants. If anything, it shows that the legal method worked. What we need is translators.

I entirely agree with you. The thing that saddens me most about the current "debate" over wiretapping needs is how it exposes the sheer ignorance of the American populace. We live in a great, free country, and we're demonstrating that we don't care enough about that to educate ourselves about why it's so great -- and certainly not enough to actually do anything about it.

Our freedom is largely predicated on belief in the rule of law and due process. When we give these up -- by, say, allowing the NSA to short-circuit due process with indescriminate wiretaps -- we lose a large chunk of what makes this country great. And to do so in response to the actions a group of terrorists, who have demonstrated such powerful loathing toward our nation that they were willing to die to deprive us of a symbol, is to give victory and power to terrorism.

Legal wiretaps work -- the NSA can even get a FISC warrant ex post facto in urgent situations. That is, they can wiretap first and get the warrant later; all the "rapid response" justifications for warrantless wiretaps are so much FUD. Let's invest our intelligence dollars into measures that improve the quality of our intelligence (not just the quantity, as massive wiretaps would), and reducing our response time to that intelligence.

Again, legal wiretaps work. Following due process works. And even if it didn't, why are we unwilling to trade a few thousand lives for our freedom? Have we become so divorced from our ideals that we are willing to sacrifice our freedom to avoid the risk that a few thousand people will occasionally die in terrorist attacks?

My heart truly goes out to the victims of the WTC attacks, and to their friends, family, and loved ones. We dishonor their memory by giving up the freedoms we hold so dear; we make their deaths meaningless, when we should be rallying behind their sacrifice to demonstrate that our ideals stand regardless of what our enemies do.

Re:We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[Proteus]

So the claim is aircraft attacks on the Library Tower in LA and the Sears Tower in Chicago and a welding gas tank attack on the supports of the Brooklyn Bridge were thrwarted by this program.

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter whether or not attacks were thwarted by a warrantless wiretapping program; whether it works or not is not an issue. What is at issue, then?

1. Is there any evidence that the intelligence that thwarted these attacks would not have been gained under a targeted, FISA-warranted wiretap program?
   
   
2. Do we care more about our freedoms or preventing attacks?
   

Think about both of these carefully. It's easy to say "we got intelligence from this program, and that intelligence led to prevention of attacks." Unfortunately, that argument is akin to "we use Word to write our proposals, and our proposals got us $5,000,000 in profit this year." The question is left open "ok, but was that because of Word? Could you have used another tool and gotten the same result?" With wiretapping, that question is "ok, but how do we know that the FISA methodology would not have worked?"

Which comes down to issue #2, which is simply a specific case of "is it worth it?" Assuming we've resolved #1 to say that the warrantless approach is responsible for preventing these attacks (which is unproved): are you willing to give up everyone's freedom from search without due process to prevent these attacks?

People dying sucks: only a sociopath would feel that these people dying is a good thing. But is it better or worse than losing an important freedom? Before you answer, ask a WWII vet if this country's freedoms are worth dying for. Ask yourself if you'd be willing to go to war to protect our freedoms. Think on this, and try to figure out the difference between giving up freedoms to prevent terrorism and giving up freedoms rather than going to war. And remember, a lot fewer people die in terrorist attacks than in wars.

Re:We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[Anonymous Coward]

My mom was killed by a wooly mammoth last week, you insesitive clod.

Re:We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[Anonymous Coward]

...but this is talking about a project which predates 9/11.

- "Had this been in place prior to the attacks, two hijackers... almost certainly would have been identified as who they were, what they were and, most importantly, where they were," Gen. Michael Hayden told his Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing. Currently the headline article on CNN.

So which is it? Is the current administration stretching the program farther than its predecessors and chipping away at civil liberties, or is it just inept?

Not that I'm biased/bitter or anything.

Re:We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[bill_mcgonigle]

I respect where you're coming from but the issue isn't quite so black and white:

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter whether or not attacks were thwarted by a warrantless wiretapping program; whether it works or not is not an issue.

Government is compromise by definition. To make a compromise you need to do a cost benefit analysis - so you can't ignore potential benefit when assessing the balance.

1. Is there any evidence that the intelligence that thwarted these attacks would not have been gained under a targeted, FISA-warranted wiretap program?

It's claimed that the programs were discovered through the social network analysis, so yes.

2. Do we care more about our freedoms or preventing attacks?

Both.

With wiretapping, that question is "ok, but how do we know that the FISA methodology would not have worked?"

Because the FISA method doesn't permit social network analysis.

Which comes down to issue #2, which is simply a specific case of "is it worth it?"

Agreed.

are you willing to give up everyone's freedom from search without due process to prevent these attacks?

So according to the background with NSA attorneys the algorithm works like this:

if ( isDomestic(source.number) && isDomestic(destination.number) ) {
        next;
} else {
        analyze(source,destination);
}

An important number here is 183,000 - that's how many calls are placed every minute in the US - only a computer is ever seeing any of the domestic to domestic call records, people aren't.

So the question at hand, assuming the above referenced statements aren't complete fabrications by government goons is, "is it acceptable to trade line one of that algorithm for the destruction of the Sears Tower, the Library Tower, the Brooklyn Bridge, the people on those structures, and the economic chaos (and probably additional ensuing war) that would result.

Here I've concluded "yes". If you want to conclude "no", I'll respect that but urge you to consider the kind of government we have has worked pretty well and is basically dependent on giving up minimal freedoms (compared with a Free anarchist state) to keep things running smoothly. I'm far more pissed that I can't buy Sudafed anymore (I'm not going to submit to database tracking for a stuffy nose).

Before you answer, ask a WWII vet if this country's freedoms are worth dying for. Ask yourself if you'd be willing to go to war to protect our freedoms.

Interesting example - Harry Truman setup Project Shamrock as part of fighting WWII which was far more invasive.

And remember, a lot fewer people die in terrorist attacks than in wars.

Initially yes, but recent history proves that terrorist attacks cause wars.

Re:We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[Proteus]

I'm pleasantly surprised that a Slashdot discussion is proceeding this calmly, so thanks for your reply! I'd like to address two bits, though:

Interesting example - Harry Truman setup Project Shamrock as part of fighting WWII which was far more invasive.

I'll be the first to admit that our government has done some pretty scary things in the name of security during a time of war. Incarcerating citizens of Japanese descent is a poignant example. So, while I agree that much worse has been done than the NSA wiretaps, I don't want that to distract from the important point -- lots of people voluntarily put themselves in harms way to protect our freedoms, and many thousands of them died.

We make heroes of those that sacrificed in this way (though my generation and younger is starting to forget, sadly), and it bothers me that so few people are making the obvious connection. Those who died in the WTC terrorist attacks were victims, yes: but it's not hard to see that they died for our freedom. More exactly, they died because they were participating in our free society, which is hated by certain radical Muslims to the point that they committed an atrocity to make their point.

What bothers me most, though, is that these people's deaths are cheapened by our response to the whole thing; we are trying to take away precious freedom in order to prevent some few thousands of deaths, and that's just wrong in my book. This NSA fiasco is just the latest news on this front.

recent history proves that terrorist attacks cause wars.

That's somewhat spurious -- our political leaders allowed the WTC attacks to provoke a military response in Afghanistan. Not that I disagree with that response, but there were other options, and even the one we chose was not outright war.

Unless you were referring to Iraq? Well, anyone who still believes that the war in Iraq had anything to do with terrorism or the WTC attacks has just not been keeping up. Terrorism was a convenient excuse to go to war in Iraq; there's plenty of evidence to suggest that the current administration was looking for a reason to deal with Saddam from day 1 -- the WTC attacks were used as FUD to support that action.

Okay, have we caught anyone?

[digitaldc]

From all this invasion of privacy and analysis of our records, have we caught anyone? Stopped any attacks? Where's Osama?

It would just be nice to know for ONCE the consequences of the actions other than reading about how ordinary people can be spied upon by their Government.

Re:Okay, have we caught anyone?

[Colonel Angus]

Would you stop aiding the terrorists already! You know if they answer that, the terrorists will have won.

Re:Okay, have we caught anyone?

[hackstraw]

From all this invasion of privacy and analysis of our records, have we caught anyone? Stopped any attacks? Where's Osama?

We, as in the US. No. Well, we found Saddam in a hole, but we can't find anybody else. They did find the supposed "mastermind" behind the 9/11/01 attacks in Pakistan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Shaikh_Mohamme d

They just aren't that good at this stuff, but persistence is the key.

Re:Okay, have we caught anyone?

[belg4mit]

It doesn't matter, the ends don't justify the means.

Re:Okay, have we caught anyone?

[Original Replica]

Where's Osama?
His name is Osama bin Laden, as in the oil family Bin Ladens. Bush would never harm a hair on his head.

Re:Okay, have we caught anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they found and captured Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in March of 2003 -- more than 3 years ago. Where is he now? No one knows. He's in U.S. custody somewhere. He provided written "testimony" (if you can call 3rd-hand statements gathered from an interrogation "testimony") to Moussaoui's trial. Will KSM ever be put on trial for his own crimes (which are far more numerous, supposedly, than just the Sept. 11 attacks)? No one knows.

If Khalid's example is any indication, I get the feeling that even if Osama were captured, the U.S. wouldn't know what to do with him. Maybe they decided it's better they keep him bottled up somewhere, rather than actually catch him, because then people would demand he be put on trial, and then they'd have to put up with the inevitable public ranting.

Re:Okay, have we caught anyone?

[hackstraw]

I get the feeling that even if Osama were captured, the U.S. wouldn't know what to do with him.

I normally don't reply to an AC, but I guess this is here for others to see.

The US will NEVER catch Osama. Even if they did, they would "throw him back into the sea".

Based on public perception, the capturing of Osama would symbolically end the "War on Terror", and the government would have to create a new enemy, but Osama is good enough of one for now. At least 5-7 more years worth, maybe more.

The fact that the KSM guy was "caught" and received very little press and public attention says volumes.

Ah, soap operas, they aren't just for housewives in the daytime anymore.

Selective memory

[theid0]

Slashdot readers typically don't know much past what is being screamed about in the mainstream media.

Doesn't anyone here even remember ECHELON? Stop drinking the Kool Aid.

Re:Selective memory

[Red Flayer]

Oh I see, if it's being done already, then obviously it's OK to do.

ECHELON is not for domestic surveillance (though it is possible, even likely, that it has been used or is being used for domestic surveillance, whether directly or via intelligence-swap with the UK).

In theory, the NSA domestic surveillance programs are very different from ECHELON, and while discussion of ECHELON is relevant, calling slashdotters a bunch of Kool-aid drinkers is pointless, and doesn't apply here at all. You've used it as a tag-line insult that has nothing to do with the discussion -- do you even know what 'drinking the Kool-aid' means? I think maybe there's a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, there.

Re:Selective memory

[Colonel Angus]

"Let me put it to you in Texan: If al-Qaeda is calling into the United States, we want to know." - Bush, Feb 01 2006

I think it's safe to infer that "calling into" the United States would be done from outside of the United States. So why does Bush not use Echelon? It seems that it was designed for this situation. It's purported to have been used to track Khalid Shaikh Mohammed down in Pakistan.

Seems Echelon was doing its job - monitoring foreign communications - just fine.

Re:Selective memory

[theid0]

And if we had been "connecting the dots" within the U.S. five years ago we might be in a very different situation.

I'm just saying that people shouldn't fake outrage now for purely political reasons. If everybody was really so upset about telephone call logging, we would have seen this debate flare up nearly a decade ago. Of course it was much less known back then, because the media mostly ignored it when it was run during a Democrat presidency.

Actual operations are not much different today than in the 90s - we simply have better tools, more capacity, and a confirmed reason to be doing it.

Call connected thru the NSA

[WormholeFiend]

Call connected thru the NSA

Re:The Number To Call For Questions: +1, Seditious

[mausmalone]

P.S. Can you say Iran-Contra Part 2?

Considering that we're letting people like John Negroponte back into the government, it is all a little Déja Vù.

Encrypted or Not...

[Ruvim]

If one to assume that "analysis" == data mining, it doesn't matter whether it's encrypted or not: it's not like NSA wouldn't have a encryption key/algorithm available to look at any data at will.

"interesting and respectful"?

[GroeFaZ]

I highly doubt it. This layer of defense against privacy intrusion is less than paper-thin. If the NSA gets to decide what the NSA may or may not find "suspicious", then what's the point? Checks and Balances, kids, Checks and Balances. That's the only thing that can hope to be interesting and respectful. Get juidical approval or leave me TF alone. (I'm not American, but the point remains the same)

Re:"interesting and respectful"?

[KarmaMB84]

They take it to a judge and the judge must decide that it's suspicious enough and there's enough evidence to support decryption.

Re:"interesting and respectful"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you, but the point of the article is that they scrapped even the minimal internal checks and balances. The initial design was that an analyst who located a data pattern had to ask someone else to decrypt the data. Presumably this would have been more than a rubber-stamp process -- it would involve stating the reasons the pattern was considered significant and why the real data was needed. At minimum it creates two bureaucratic checks -- the analyst has to be interested enough to make the effort to pursue decryption, and the whole thing gets logged. Obviously it's better if this is all required to happen before a FISA judge, rather than some internal NSA arbiter.

The point, though, is that this system was already being set up, would not have posed a serious burden except to spurious snooping, and that dropping it is totally indefensible.

Re:"interesting and respectful"?

[WillAffleckUW]

heck, all they have to do is show up with badges, cow an operator, and get the switch log file on a flash card which includes all local and international calls that went thru the switch. no entry in the log and noone the wiser.

You Americans are big pussy, in Soviet Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

You Americans are big pussy. Here in Soviet Russia KGB kills you then listen to phone tap to see if mistake made.

Re:You Americans are big pussy, in Soviet Russia

[PriceIke]

Funniest post on here today. Too bad KGB took all mod points. They make mistake.

Oblig. Simpsons Reference

[ToxikFetus]

The latest Justifications I have heard for the NSA wire taping are indicative of the problem... saying "we havent had a terrorist atack because of this program" is like saying "the wolly mammoth repelant is working" unless you can show proof that attacks have been thwarted .

But what about the Bear Patrol tax and my rock that keeps tigers away? Are you saying these are ineffective? Well, I haven't been attacked by tigers or bears and I'd like it to stay that way.

Re:Oblig. Simpsons Reference

[Anonymous Coward]

We're moving to a Tiger Patrol tax as well. Tiger-repelling rocks will be banned in an effort to reduce the number of potentially dangerous devices left in the hands of civilians.

The average citizen has no need to keep and bear a tiger-repelling rock when a friendly Tiger Patrol officer can be at hand at most 15 minutes after a tiger attack has been notified. A tiger-repelling rock could fall and hurt children's feet.

Think of the children.

Bullshit

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Political infighting seems to have dropped an interesting and respectful program from the books.

Big freaking deal if the numbers are 'encrypted' or not. The problem is not that the NSA knows people's phone numbers - that's why we have phonebooks. The problem is that they have this huge database that lets anyone with access draw all kinds of inferences about people's relationships with each other. The right to freely associate is not free at all if it means that you end up on some big list in a government computer (or anyone else's computer for that matter).

Having your phone number encrypted when it is in the database doesn't help a bit because the encrypted number is just another unique identifier. Its the equivalent of saying that they used social security numbers in place of the phone numbers.

Re:Bullshit

[jelton]

The right to freely associate is not free at all if it means that you end up on some big list in a government computer (or anyone else's computer for that matter).

Regardless of whether they hand their records over to the NSA, every phone company keeps a record of all calls made.

Re:Bullshit

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Regardless of whether they hand their records over to the NSA, every phone company keeps a record of all calls made.

However:

1) It is not cross-referenced with a relationship graph already in place.
2) It only needs to exist until the bill is paid. They probably do keep it longer than that, but they only actually need to do so in very limited circumstances.

NSA is not supposed to operate inside the USA

[Creepy]

I don't see how this gets around the fact that, like the CIA, the NSA is NOT supposed to be gathering intelligence within the borders of the United States (see the executive order that created the NSA)- that is the FBI's responsibility. President Bush used an executive order to allow for the NSA to investigate within the USA after 9/11.

I believe that any monitoring that originates and terminates in the United States prior to Bush's executive order is illegal (it's also illegal after Bush's order, IMO) unless Clinton also gave an executive order to permit it.

From wikipedia: ...the NSA's United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18) strictly prohibits the interception or collection of information about "...US persons, entities, corporations or organizations..." without explicit written legal permission from the Attorney General of the United States"

Re:NSA is not supposed to operate inside the USA

[aztec rain god]

Remember what our old friend Henry Kissinger said:

"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer."

Always keep in mind the total contempt for everyday people those with power posess. I think this is just a natural consequence of the concentration of power that has taken place in this country over the last century- fewer and fewer people have any real decision making authority, and what is legal or illegal becomes an irrelevant distinction. Good times.

Re:NSA is not supposed to operate inside the USA

[esper]

the NSA's United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18) strictly prohibits the interception or collection of information about "...US persons, entities, corporations or organizations..." without explicit written legal permission from the Attorney General of the United States

Check that last bit again... "without explicit written legal permission from the Attorney General of the United States"

So the NSA is allowed to spy on US citizens, etc. if they get a note from the AG saying it's OK. Who's the AG again? Oh, yeah - Alberto "the President has the inherent Constitutional authority to ignore any law made by Congress which disagrees with his personal interpretation of his inherent Constitutional authority without needing to see whether the Supreme Court agrees or not" Gonzales.

If they need a note from the AG saying they can do whatever they damn well please, I'm sure he'd give it to them as soon as they asked (if he hasn't already).

Re:NSA is not supposed to operate inside the USA

[Creepy]

Yeah, don't get me started on Alberto but for him to provide a warrant on every citizen in the United States without reasonable cause seems a bit far fetched as well as being completely unconstitutional.

The argument used to address congress recently was that we're at war and any and all means of engaging the enemy are legal. While I understand and accept that the NSA has been given power to monitor conversations from US citizens to foreign countries, it still isn't legal for them to monitor internal domestic communications without a warrant, which, as far as I can tell, includes wartime.

If you have a lot of time, read through this document, which details how the domestic spying was found to be legal earlier this year. It does not show any evidence that the NSA has authority to collect a phone database of domestic calls and analyze them.

Re:NSA is not supposed to operate inside the USA

[will_die]

The quote makes sense since Congress does not have the power to take away Constitutional rights of another branch; but the later part being wrong.
So went off to find that quote and read the paper/speech/whatever that it came from and it does not exist. I there does not exist anything in Gonzales to support fully what you are quoting in essense or in actuallity.

Re:NSA is not supposed to operate inside the USA

[esper]

I intended it as a characterization of Gonzales' apparent attitude/beliefs, not a direct quote. I would be very surprised to find that he's actually said anything which even comes close to being that blatant of a statement that he believes the President's authority to trump that of the other two branches.

In essence, however... When he refuses to entertain the idea that it would be appropriate for NSA activities to be reviewed by the FISA court, despite it being a court which was set up to deal with exactly that sort of cases and should, therefore, have both the appropriate expertise and security clearances, simply because the executive branch is firmly convinced that the programs are legal, I have a hard time seeing that as anything other than a position that the executive branch is qualified to interpret the law and Constitution without consulting the judicial branch.

As far as inherent Constitutional authority of each branch, I agree that no branch has the power to do usurp the Constitutional powers of another branch. However, by unilaterally deciding which laws do and do not interfere with the President's Constitutional authority, the Bush administration is itself interfering with the Supreme Court's Constitutional authority to make that determination. Deciding which laws are Constitutional and which are not is not the executive branch's job, it's the judicial branch's.

Future options

[amightywind]

We are at a crossroads, and we need to take a step back from the emotion of September eleventh (nearly 5 years later) and really look at what we want to see in the future.

Polls suggest that another 9/11 type attack is the worst future option and that the government must take necessary steps to prevent it.

I won't stand on a soapbox here and force my opinion on others but I think it is time for a very serious debate over what is acceptable to give up in the name of security, what secrets we will let our government keep from us and what checks and balances need to be in place.

The Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact.

Re:Future options

[GundamFan]

Thank you for adding your thoughts. While I agree there is a point where the expectation of privacy is prempted by the governments obligation to protect us, I think at the very least there should be meaningfull oversite of any "fine line" matter like this.

Re:Future options

[Anonymous Coward]

The Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact.

Ah yes, the words of a true coward. Rather than those of an anonymous coward.

Re:Future options

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, wow. First of all, there were enough safeguards in place that 9/11 shouldn't have happened in the first place. The same agencies we are now trusting to spy on our citizens dropped the ball when it came to protecting us from foreign powers. Secondly, suicide pact? Hardly. I may be the only one, but 9/11 wasn't THAT BIG OF AN ATTACK. A few thousand died, it could have been prevented had the state agencies gotten off their asses. The agencies can do their job WITHOUT HAVING TO VIOLATE OUR RIGHTS and violating our rights has no measurable affect on their success. Get it? It isn't that hard of a concept.

Re:Future options

[NMerriam]

The Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact.

On the contrary, the founding documents of this nation were very much a suicide pact.

The Declaration of Independence said it quite explicitly:

And for the Support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honour.

Or, to put it more succinctly, "Give me Liberty or Give me Death".

Life without liberty is not life worth living, and the founding fathers knew quite well that they would either succeeed or be killed as traitors.

And of course the irony is that the only way we would commit "suicide" (ie, kill OURSELVES, as opposed to being destroyed by external forces) is to destroy the Constitution and Bill of Rights, exactly as we're doing so well right now. No terrorist bomb can accomplish that task, we're doing it all on our own.

Re:Future options

[GundamFan]

Well to be fair I think it is the terrorism that caused us to start taking our Bill of Rights apart, so it seems we are playing into there hands here.

Re:Future options

[karmafree]

We have been volutarily dismembering the Constitution for much longer than the last 5 or so years. You can pick almost any administration, from any party, at any time, and find examples where they felt that the Constitution didn't apply to them because they were doing what was right, or best, for America.

Re:Future options

[BenjiTheGreat98]

"Playing right into their hands" assumes the terrorist goal was to errode our freedoms away. I know that's popular opinion because of propaganda thrown around shortly after 9/11. Isn't their primary goal for the West to stop meddeling in the affairs of the Middle East and surrounding region?

Re:Future options

[Mister Whirly]

"The terrorists hate freedom"... but apparently not as much as the US government does...

Re:Future options

[Qzukk]

Polls suggest that another 9/11 type attack is the worst future option and that the government must take necessary steps to prevent it.

Let me know when they get around to doing that. I seem to recall a commission looking into what went wrong on 9/11 and how to prevent that from happening again. I don't recall their report suggesting that the government spy on it's own citizens. I also don't recall the government making most of the changes the commission called for either.

And the worst case isn't a "9/11 type attack" because 3/4 of the way through 9/11 Americans proved that they will never allow a plane to be hijacked again. No, the worst case is that terrorists walk right across the border with bombs and start blowing things up. And no, putting a few thousand guardsmen on patrol without even the power to make arrests is not going to prevent it.

Re:Future options

[Stealth Potato]

The Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact.

Yes, it is. The whole reason this country is here is because some people felt that liberty was worth fighting for; worth dying for. We should be Americans, dammit, not cowards.

Re:Future options

[Harry Coin]

God-damn right.

Re:So Overblown

[voice_of_all_reason]

(Further evidence of their cowardice was proven when they plunged the plane into the ground after the passengers fought back).

It's pretty much standard procedure to try and inflict as much "revenge" damage to your enemy if the mission fails, regardless of who "you" and "enemy" are.

Making illegal surveillance legal?!

[bjoeg]

So in the old days pre 11 sept all NSA had to do was take an unecrypted call, encrypt it, analyze it and decide if further action was needed?

Anonymous Resolution Engine

[IEEEmember]

Technical details of such a system are documented in "Vegas 911" in April's issue of the IEEE Spectrum.

The article document's Jeffery Jonas' development of an anonymized system for the NSA based on his security work in Las Vegas. The work is now being done by IBM. The example in the article demonstrates how anonymized cruise passenger data could be compared with an anonymized watch list by a trusted third party. If the trusted third party finds correlations in the data, the government agency can get a warrant for the specific passenger data from the cruise line.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/apr06/3171 (registration required)

I wish the government had a better sense of humor

[hackstraw]

because the jokes they tell just don't have a funny punchline anymore. Take this quite from the FA:

ThinThread was designed to address two key challenges: The NSA had more information than it could digest, and, increasingly, its targets were in contact with people in the United States whose calls the agency was prohibited from monitoring.

a) they are spying on so many people that they can't even process the data. I've been under that assumption for quite some time, and now its clear. Hey, its a win for us.

b) they are spying on people they can, but the important stuff is "off limits"

Huh?

I'm beginning to think that these people are just like peeping toms or people rubernecking at an accident on the side of the road. They clearly don't even seem to know what the fuck they are doing, it just looks cool, they know they shouldn't do it, but they simply can't help themselves. What a bunch of children.

Now, although the article has not much more info, the article seems to imply that the NSA is going about their surveillance of innocent people, but to get around that pesky 4th amendment*, they are anomalizing (correct word?) the data via some encryption thingy, and if the random stuff looks interesting enough, I guess they have to get a warrant (or not??) to decrypt the data into something real.

Now, at first that sounded OK, but then I thought about it. Isn't the data already anonymous and anomalized (??) by default? I mean, even if they have my name, say George Bush, and phone number, and the name and phone number of the guy I called, say Aleister Crowley. Unless the NSA already knows both of these people, that data is still anonymous. It would take a little more investigation to determine if it was George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, or just a namesake or the real deal themselves.

So, in other words, get a fucking warrant, and stop wasting my tax money randomly looking at "chatter" of innocent people. The process goes like this. 1) Find out something is wrong 2) Get an idea of who is doing the wrong and develop "probable cause" 3) Get a warrant, and go after the bad guys.

Otherwise, sit on your asses and drink coffee or eat a donut. Don't waste my tax money and be a peeping tom.

Back to that pesky 4th amendment. If you haven't seen it yet, check out the new dipshit that is the new head of the NSA:

http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Countdown-nsa-Ha. mov (about 2.5 megs)

Absence of evidence is evidence. So they say.

[ianscot]

Among the most Orwellian moments I've had in the past several years -- and we've had our share of "the new people will go by 'Total Security Agency'" moments, haven't we? -- was the time when my ex-brother-in-law explained that the only way to tell an intelligence agency was succeeding was when you knew nothing about it at all.

In this person's world, by definition, the public should never be able to point to an intelligence accomplishment. Our best response to the existence of stuff like these NSA capers is to keep our heads down. So said my brother-in-law, who had previously explained to me his rationale by which Nixon was the best President we've ever had.

One can see the obvious stepping off point to "the real traitors are the ones who *reveal* our secret, extra-constitutional prison system."

Confronted with evidence of past incompetence on the part of the CIA -- I mentioned the massive expense of the Glomar Explorer misadventure, which got us basically nothing new (old details about an aging vintage Soviet sub) for the staggering money involved -- John simply suggested that there must've been a lot more to the story, and that it obviously succeeded because we didn't know about the successful parts. (Whereupon he spun straw into gold and disappeared like Colonel Flag on M*A*S*H -- "like the wind" -- from our family. I believe he's living as an expat in China now.)

Re:Absence of evidence is evidence. So they say.

[TubeSteak]

"the real traitors are the ones who *reveal* our secret, extra-constitutional prison system."Well if I was going to prison, I'd want to go to one with extra constitutional protections too.

/ducks

Re:Absence of evidence is evidence. So they say.

[smellsofbikes]

I wish I had modpoints to give to you. The central point of this line of reasoning is that it's unfalsifiable. No matter how much abuse there is, no matter how many attacks, the answer is always 'more police power' because it answers both situations: if attack, more police power needed, if no attack, police power needed to maintain the situation.

We who want freedom and the values upon which this country was founded, need to figure out how to address the semantics of the argument so that we can convincingly argue the point.

suggestions welcome...

Re:Absence of evidence is evidence. So they say.

[instarx]

One can see the obvious stepping off point to "the real traitors are the ones who *reveal* our secret, extra-constitutional prison system."

When the Nazis came to power and instituted torture, secret prisons, imprisonment without trial, and concentration camps they did not say "This is evil, heh, heh, and we'll do it anyway", they said "This is Patriotic and we do it for the good of the country and the people."

Now that the US has secret prisons, torture, imprisonment without trial, and concentration camps and I hear the same "This is Patriotic and we do it for the good of the country and the people" I get very, very worried.

NSA

[certel]

You know, I have to give them credit for trying to step around the laws, but man, that definitely hurts this investigation.

Late 90's?

[geoffrobinson]

I hope the Bush-bashers will take note of the date.

And, no, Bush didn't build a time machine. And even if time travel is possible, he isn't smart enough. Or is today a day where he is an evil genius? Keeping track of the dunce/evil genius paradigm is too hard.

Re:Late 90's?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, both major parties don't give a shit about the Constitution. Big fucking suprise there.

one more thing (didn't see page 2)

[hackstraw]

Another humorous quote:

Sources say the NSA's existing system for data-sorting has produced a database clogged with corrupted and useless information.

Be scared, very scared. What dipshits.

Re:one more thing (didn't see page 2)

[caluml]

Sources say the NSA's existing system for data-sorting has produced a database clogged with corrupted and useless information.

DELETE FROM database-clogged-with-corrupted-and-useless-inform ation;
75275001712992015750 rows affected;

Old Technique

[cvd6262]

Political infighting seems to have dropped an interesting and respectful program from the books.

I wouldn't call it "interesting". Any social researcher knows this is an effective method to circumvent Institutional Review Boards.

For example, if I wanted to record how students are using a certain web-based system, and then publish my findings, I would need to get IRB approval and have each student agree to an "Informed Consent" document.

Instead, a third party, such as the system provider, can gather the data (which they do not intend to publish), and then pass it to the researcher in an anonymous form. This requires no oversight.

If the researcher wants to group uses of the system by anonymous "user", the third party will hash the names or other IDs of the users before giving them the data.

The issue with the Feds doing this with telephone numbers, is that each provider would have to agree on the same identifier for each phone number.

But is it effective

[Original Replica]

In the 90's even when we had the intelligence on terrorists we did apparently little about it.

"It will later be revealed in US court that by April 1996, US intelligence agents are aware that an al-Qaeda cell exists in Kenya. By August 1996, US intelligence is continually monitoring five telephone lines in Nairobi used by the cell members. The tapping reveals that the cell is providing false passports and other documents to operatives....Yet, despite all of these monitored communications, neither Mohamed, nor Nawawi, nor the Nairobi operatives, are apprehended. Their plot to blow up two US embassies in Africa succeeds in August 1998 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?ti meline=complete_911_timeline

We used to sit and wait and no one cared about mass US wiretaps (like those in the article) Now we go too far the other way. Is it the spying that we care so much about or is it the "above the law" enforcement that follows it that bothers/frightens us so much?

Re:But is it effective

[geoffspear]

Well, obviously if we find out that some people in Kenya are falsifying passports, we should launch a full-scale invasion which will guarantee that we catch them.

By the way, how effective has the invasion of Afghanistan been in catching Osama so far?

I'm not even going to bother answering your straw man argument about how no one cared that the NSA was spying on people in Kenya so they shouldn't care if they're spying on Americans.

Re:But is it effective

[Buzz_Litebeer]

Nobody currently cares about US wiretapps of... foreigners, only Americans not involved in a warranted criminal investigation.

Re:But is it effective

[Original Replica]

I'm not even going to bother answering your straw man argument about how no one cared that the NSA was spying on people in Kenya so they shouldn't care if they're spying on Americans.
Perhaps I was not clear in my first post, I was illustrating the lack of direct action based on wiretaps in the 90's. In the article it dicusses a program to wiretap large numbers of Americans in the 90's. No one cared at the time about this wiretapping and it's constitutionallity. Now we do care about wiretapping Americans, and I'm wondering if differrence is because now there is action taken because of wiretap leads and that action can be somewhat extreme, such as loss of rights for American citizens who are deemed suspect.

Re:But is it effective

[geoffspear]

First of all, the article does not refer to any sort of wiretapping of Americans in the 90s, it refers to the tracking of information about those calls which didn't include the content of the calls.

More importantly, no one cared about that program then and people do care about a similar (but with fewer safeguards) program now because no one knew about the program then and they do know about it now.

In other news, there was absolutely no outrage about the Tuskegee study throughout the 1960s, but in 1972 everyone was suddenly outraged and shocked about the program. Would it be more logical to attribute this change in level of outrage to the fact that people actually found out that the study existed, or should I attribute it to the terrorist attack on the 1972 Olympics or something else completely irrelevant?

Why would anyone believe this?

[moosebreath]

There's not much point in reading newspaper accounts of the fictional world they live in. After all the lies and rumors that have been been spread as if they were facts, isn't it rather foolish to believe anything you find in a newspaper? You can believe it if it makes you feel better, I suppose, but the whole thing is getting very silly.

Not less invasive

[Anonymous Coward]

So Pres. Clinton's "less invasive" plan would "identify relationships between callers and chronicle their contacts. Only when evidence of a potential threat had been developed would analysts be able to request decryption of the records."

So, since the phone data is garbled, "evidence of a potential theat" is merely your understanding of the callers' identities. But, under this 'less invasive' plan, intelligence agents can still request to tap the line when they beleive one of the callers is an enemy.

So everything is the same, except now we've got to wait 3 weeks for some redundant FISA warrant, then another 3 weeks for an overworked defense employee to decrypt our data.

Oh, meanwhile the terrorists have just rented a cropduster in Albany.

Great plan, but I'll take the current one.

Re:Not less invasive

[WillAffleckUW]

So, since the phone data is garbled, "evidence of a potential theat" is merely your understanding of the callers' identities. But, under this 'less invasive' plan, intelligence agents can still request to tap the line when they beleive one of the callers is an enemy.

So everything is the same, except now we've got to wait 3 weeks for some redundant FISA warrant, then another 3 weeks for an overworked defense employee to decrypt our data.

Pardon me, but to do a wiretap, under current regs, you have 3 DAYS to notify the FISA courts AFTER you start tapping.

They usually approve within six to eight hours.

Let's deal with the reality of counter-terrorism (I served and have experience), not the fake War On Terror FUD that we can't do our jobs. We can do our jobs, you just want to remove our Consitutional Rights that we fought for back when King George wanted us to be serfs.

Re:Not less invasive

[element-o.p.]

Quote: except now we've got to wait 3 weeks for some redundant FISA warrant, then another 3 weeks for an overworked defense employee to decrypt our data...Oh, meanwhile the terrorists have just rented a cropduster in Albany. Except for the fact that FISA allowed for the government to make a time-sensitive tap *immediately* as long as the government submitted a request for a warrant within three days. Somehow, I just don't see what problem the current warrantless searches are intended to solve.

Re:Not less invasive

[Anonymous Coward]

fake War On Terror

"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic."

-- John F. Kennedy

Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

Re:Not less invasive

[Maximilio]

Those are MY civil rights you're giving away. Because of YOUR fear. I don't recall you asking my permission.

Bureaucratic shuffle

[Saint Facetious]

Lots of people seem to be worried that the encrypted information would have been decrypted and then misused. C'mon people, haven't any of you dealt with a federal government agency? Do you have any idea what kind of mounds of paperwork an analyst would have probably had to have gone through to decrypt anything? Probably so much paperwork that they'd rather just dismiss the most blatant evidence just so they wouldn't have to work on the bureaucratic shuffle.

Re:Bureaucratic shuffle

[Anonymous Coward]

everyone who blindly supports this encroachment on personal liberties seems to be arguing the data is too great for the government to to be effective in screwing john q public.

well, ask the jews in germany if it was to big a deal for the germans to identify their heritage and cart them off, EN MASSE?

the falsehood of your argument is that it assumes the government will never zero in and target a specific group. they will. eventually. probably not bush. maybe not the next guy. but it *will* happen, and much sooner if the president has no effective check or balance against his *POWER* to what he wants w/o oversight.

anyway, we had the information about planes flying into buildings 5 years BEFORE it happened. we even had a car bomb explode under the wtc as another sign someone wanted the building to fall.

we did nothing. clinton did nothing. bush did nothing.

it wasn't that they lacked data... they lacked foresight and initiative. no database will correct the FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM of ineptitude and mismanagent and thievery (if you spend your energy gaming the taxpayer, you have less time to focus on your job) at the governmental level.

however, all this encroachment on privacy will make a good excuse when the big one hits after a terrorist, perhpas bin alden himself, walks across the border and blows something up.

"we did all we could."

well, you could start randomly searching houses, next. oh, and don't tell anyone and threaten gitmo jail time if any of the searchies speak out.

hey, maybe just search them and toss them in gitmo to prevent them from talking...

america... ain't it beautiful?

I've said this for years:

[TheNoxx]

Bring back ninjas.

Fire everyone at the NSA.

At least you'll feel cool while being spied on.

Exactly - Mod Parent Up

[Aqua_boy17]

Someone with points please mod the partent post up.

This is a very important point that has been missing from nearly every recent discussion I have seen regarding the NSA. We have such short memories in this country that we forget that this agency was only allowed to become so powerful with the strict limitation (as stated in the directive) that it was expressly prohibited from using such intelligence against US citizens. The power mongers in office have abused the FUD created by 9/11 to broaden their own power base in the name of national security and create yet another bloated beaurocratic monstrosity called "Homeland Security".

Instead of fixing what was broken with our intelligence community prior to 9/11, we've created this mess. Somewhere deep in a cave, Osama and his minions are laughing at us because we have played right into their hands.

Constitution, who needs it !

[DrSkwid]

Universal Declaration of Human Rights
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

Adopted and proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948

Article 12.

            No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 30.

            Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

Member -- (Date of Admission)

United States of America -- (24 Oct. 1945)

Re:Constitution, who needs it !

[Enderandrew]

No one takes the UN seriously. China is on the security council and violates almost every precept of the security council and no one cares.

Iran last month flat-out said the UN was a joke and the UN has no response.

I'd like to see a good, solid world government. It doesn't exist. UN laws mean nothing, especially here.

Re:Constitution, who needs it !

[iminplaya]

...nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation...

Now there's a hole you can drive a truck through. Sounds like a good way to silence the critics of scientology, for example. Libel and slander laws are in direct conflict with freedom of expression. It is up to the listener or reader to verify the facts for themselves. Speech is speech. Action is something else altogether. And we shold focus on the action and only the action. If we are to claim that we have freedom of choice, then those who choose to act, no matter what "provoked" them, should alone be held responsible. Anything else is denial of free will.

Re:Constitution, who needs it !

[jahudabudy]

Speech is speech. Action is something else altogether.

I agree with your general sentiment of individuals being held responsible for their actions, but I think the speech/action divide is a little more gray than you say. For instance, what if I say "I will pay anyone $1 million to kill iminplaya", someone kills you, and I refuse to pay. I have done nothing but speak (I never paid), so by your definition, I have done nothing but exercise my rights to free speech. I think we need to have some limits on speech, it is just a question of where to draw the limits in order to maximize total freedoms.

Re:Constitution, who needs it !

[iamacat]

UN declaration only applies to actions of the government. Germans should beware...

Re:Constitution, who needs it !

[why-is-it]

UN laws mean nothing, especially here.

Are there any laws that mean anything to this administration?

Re:Constitution, who needs it !

[iminplaya]

If you put it on paper, with a signature, then you have a contract. Without that, it's simply your word against the other party's. As far as I'm concerned, if you don't pay out, then you're off the hook, and the other guy is solely responsible. I don't care what motivates him. He took the action. It was his choice. If you do pay up, then you just went beyond speech, and can be held as an accomplice. Same goes for the contract.

Re:Constitution, who needs it !

[jahudabudy]

Hmmm, it still feels wrong to me to suggest that b/c I lied about paying Killer, I should not be held accountable. What if, instead of paying Killer money, I promise to tell him a secret he desperately wants to know? Then, I have done nothing from beginning to end but talk, and yet I have effectively hired and paid a contract killer.

And why the distinction between saying something and writing it? Because writing leaves evidence? What if our supposed killer recorded me saying I would pay him? Or do you consider writing an act, whereas speaking is not? What about sign-language?

I agree with you that actions are more substantial than speech, but I don't think that makes all speech automatically right, and something that should therefore be legal. Words can still have a tremendous amount of power, and power can always be used for evil ends.

Re:Constitution, who needs it !

[iminplaya]

If words have that kind of power over me, then I would have to say that I don't have a free will. I simply can't go along with "The devil made me do it", no matter how powerful the motivation, even under threat of death(Though most courts would disagree, And even I would have think twice before deciding on the side of free speech). But there are people who absolutely refuse to act against their good conscious, and if they can do it, we can also. So ultimately I'll have to hold the actor accountable. The written thing involves a signed contract. Otherwise it's just a piece of paper with some writing on it. Both partys can deny having anything to do with it without the signature. Though if there was, you could say it was a forgery. Maybe I should stipulate that it be notarized also. Note, I'm not saying that the community should not react negatively to your offer, but there are ways of dealing with that(like simply turning their backs) without actively punishing you, and eventually you would act according to the norms of that community if you want to have a decent life within that community. Yeah, that's a restriction on your speech, but you will restrict yourself as opposed to somebody forcing you to.

So, if I kill myself, do I get the money?

Re:Constitution, who needs it !

[Sylver Dragon]

Are there any laws that mean anything to this administration?

Lots, most of them just happen to have been written by people working for Stalin.

Re:Constitution, who needs it !

[jahudabudy]

So, if I kill myself, do I get the money?

I'm afraid I can only answer that question via telephone.

Re:Constitution, who needs it !

[iminplaya]

;) 555-1212. I take it Qwest is your provider.

too many ems

[MacJedi]

Er, amendment. That'll learn me not to hit preview. :(

In that example, get a warrant.

[khasim]

You have two "known" "nutjobs". If you want to know who they're talking to and what they're saying, then get a warrant.

That way, when they both implicate "B", you can immediately get a warrant to find out who "B" is talking to.

Also, you might find out that "C" is a "nutjob", too. Then you can get a warrant for his phone.

All very easy and all very legal under existing laws.

Re:In that example, get a warrant.

[hackstraw]

You have two "known" "nutjobs". If you want to know who they're talking to and what they're saying, then get a warrant./i.

Ah, and this is why the new NSA dude rewrote the 4th amendment to do away with that pesky "probable cause" thing.

The data is clear. What over 90 probably closer to 99% of all convicted people keep doing what they are doing, which is parallel to being a known "nut job". But its still a violation of their rights to spy on them because there is no probable _cause_. There is probable crime, but no foreknowledge by the police and a judge of intent or extent or specifics for a warrant.

A warrant requires language to search for specific items at a specific place at a specific time. Typically, a search warrant is ordered to search people and private property in order to seize suspected contraband and/or criminal evidence.

Being a nut job or convict does not provide that much specificity for a warrant.

The people that set up this country knew what they were doing. I wish the current residents knew these things, and removed people from office that don't abide by the rules of this country. And no, a blowjob from a fat chick does not count. Fat girls need love too.

Re:In that example, get a warrant.

[ipfwadm]

But its still a violation of their rights to spy on them because there is no probable _cause_. There is probable crime, but no foreknowledge by the police and a judge of intent or extent or specifics for a warrant.

A warrant requires language to search for specific items at a specific place at a specific time. Typically, a search warrant is ordered to search people and private property in order to seize suspected contraband and/or criminal evidence.

Pen registers don't require warrants. They require only that investigators show that "the information likely to be obtained is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation" (from Wikipedia). Any judge should issue this for a "known nutjob", assuming that's a euphemism for "ties to known terrorists". Listening to the content of the call is clearly a different story.

They have specialists for that

[jfengel]

Actually, they DO have a department that makes up these names. Seriously. You call down to the department and they give you a code name for a project. Often they're two semi-random words stuck together like that, though occasionally they'll recognize that projects are related by giving them related names.

There's a very good reason for having a separate department to make up the names: it ensures that you're not accidentally giving away information about the project in its name. The name is usually unclassified in and of itself, even if everything else about the project is.

(Sorry for getting serious all over your joke.)

Re:They have specialists for that

[TrekkieGod]

Often they're two semi-random words stuck together like that

ThinThread is anything but random. Given that they recognized the illegality of performing surveillance on American citizens without the proper warrants, they devised this plan of encrypting the numbers in order to get what they want while still walking the thin line between the illegal action and the legal one.

Agreed, also

[circusboy]

I believe the use of ECHELON required (and got) warrants from FISA for its work...

do please correct me if you know this not to be true...

[ramble]
quis custodiet custodes is the phrase I think I'm looking for... though my memory is a less than it ought...

Being the 'good guy' is almost always a losing proposition, except in Hayes code movies and Comics code comics. There is always someone who will say "look at that sucker..." and take advantage of some possibility for profit when they think they 'can get away with it' which these days seems to be the general equivalent in many minds for 'legal' which it seems so many do not realize is not synonymous with 'right'
[/ramble]

btw, as far as kool-aid goes, we talking leary or jones? I generally thought that 'drinking the kool-aid' as a way of indicating sheep-hood was referencing jonestown, where 'drinking the kool-aid' as a way of indicating loopy ideas was referencing 'the electric kool-aid acid test' and the 60's

Re:Agreed, also

[Red Flayer]

There has been a lot of suspicion that in order to avoid having to go to FISA court for after-the-fact warrants, the UK and the US just swapped intel on the others' domestic activity. Since the UK can legally spy on Americans (by their law) and vice versa, and since intelligence trading is legal, the idea is that this was used to circumvent prohibitions against domestic spying.

Re: the Kool-aid, my interpretation is that 'drinking the kool-aid' refers to believing fringe ideas blindly -- the important part is the 'fringe'. I think it's an allusion to not taking the requisite grain of salt when dealing with loonies -- and that it has little to do with Leary at all, but instead derives completely from Jonestown (interestingly enough, they didn't use Kool-aid at Jonestown -- it was Flavor-Aid).

The reason I think 'drinking the kool-aid' is used so much now is that it's a way of not just insulting the person doing the drinking, but also a way of discrediting the ideas they are believing -- since the 'kool-aid' is a metaphor for the loony ideas. On conservative and progressive websites, blogs, etc, you'll see a lot of kool-aid references, because both sides see the other side as a fringe, as compared to the 'mainstream' they feel a part of.

Just my $.02... I'm sure other interpretations are just as valid (if not more so :))

Re:Agreed, also

[Library Spoff]

Wasn't it Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters that drank the laced Kool-Aid, not Tim Leary? Though Leary may have used it as well...

See Tom Wolfe's `Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test` for more info

Personally I stopped taking LSD when my mates mum was talking to me one Xmas Night and she appeared to have a wasps head *shudder*

Re:Agreed, also

[jelle]

Maybe /. should have built-in wikipedia linking...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kool-Aid

Isall splained right there bro.

Re:Agreed, also

[Red Flayer]

Not a bad starting point, but the problem with wikipedia is that it's not definitive and should never be used as a crutch. I find the wikipedia koolaid article to be incomplete -- and I don't have the knowledge necessary to complete the article :)

I'd like to see more OED-type info in Wikipedia -- first known use, examples of first known substantively different uses, etc -- for cultural phrases.

Yes (n/t)

[tinkerghost]

I said there was no text

Bruce Schneier says it better than I could

[why-is-it]

For better or worse, there really isn't a real "Right to Privacy" in the Constitution.

Do you only have the rights that are explicitly defined in your constitution?

However, people demand security. Often security and privacy conflict with one another and we as a society need to decide where that line needs to be drawn. If we don't want the government to look over our shoulders, then we can't bitch when they didn't see something coming.

I think that Bruce Schneier's recent article in Wired is one of the most reasoned and insightful responses to your line of argumentation.

As he states, it is not a debate over security versus privacy - it is liberty versus tyranny.

Re:Bruce Schneier says it better than I could

[Enderandrew]

Look, I want a middle ground personally. However, right after 9/11 every person in this country was screaming "why didn't the US have more intelligence? Why didn't they know everything about these guys?"

In return the US passes the Patriot Act, which is supported universally by both parties. The Patriot Act as best as I can tell from reading the summary headlines of each section doesn't really take away any civil rights from me, but right now we're in the backlash stage.

5 years ago we wanted the government to know everything about everything. Today we don't want them looking anywhere.

Which is it? And while it is easy to throw out the tyranny lines, it is hyperbole. Is it really tyranny? Is your quality of line lessened if the NSA is analyzing data from lines that are encrypted to begin with?

Let's say that you say on the phone you want to blow up the world. The NSA manages to catch this. It isn't admissable in court. However, do we want people to look into these things?

I'm not making that distinction where the line should be drawn yet, because I'm not totally sold on exactly where it should be. However I believe there should be some serious debate on the issue rather than polar stances on absolute privacy, or security at the sake of zero privacy.

Re:Bruce Schneier says it better than I could

[karmafree]

However, right after 9/11 every person in this country was screaming "why didn't the US have more intelligence? Why didn't they know everything about these guys?"

Bullshit. After 9/11 I was saying things like, "Why the hell did they let them take knives on the planes", and "What kind of fucking nutjob would fly a plane full of people into a building, and how could you find enough of them to do it to four planes". Never once did I say anything like you imply simply because I realize that the government can't know everything about those people even if they destroy ALL of our rights trying. Apparently sanity and logic aren't a strong suit for a lot of people I guess.

Re:Bruce Schneier says it better than I could

[Enderandrew]

That was what you reaction was. Your reaction does not necessarily equate to the masses. People clamored for stronger intelligence, and that is why both parties universally supported the Patriot Act. The media, which normally is very heavy on civil liberties and anti-government, was calling for the government to step up intelligence.

Re:Bruce Schneier says it better than I could

[Anonymous Coward]

You underestimate the number of people that disagree with you.
Jsut because conservatives have been yelling loader for half a
decade doesn't make them right.

Re:Bruce Schneier says it better than I could

[karmafree]

Well, the masses aren't everyone. Not by a longshot.

Re:Bruce Schneier says it better than I could

[why-is-it]

The Patriot Act as best as I can tell from reading the summary headlines of each section doesn't really take away any civil rights from me

Nor are you likely to, and I suppose that was it's intent. The patriot act is an omnibus bill that modifies existing legislation, and you are unlikely to understand the implications of any section of the patriot act unless you can see the before-and-after versions of the laws it alters.

The fact that such a lengthy and detailed document could be conjured up on such short notice suggests that law enforcement agencies had previously collaborated on a wish list of things they wanted, and it was waiting for the right set of circumstances before it was unveiled.

The question is whether it was really necessary. Al Capone was ultimately arrested for tax evasion. There were sufficient laws on the books to get public enemy #1 then, and I fail to see how the situation today is any different. Prior to the patriot act, I assume it was already a crime to murder/conspire to murder someone?

Let's say that you say on the phone you want to blow up the world. The NSA manages to catch this. It isn't admissable in court. However, do we want people to look into these things?

Well, if I were to do such a thing, I would probably be subject to extra-ordinary rendition, sent to Guantanamo Bay, subjected to interrogation techniques that civilized nations consider torture, before I was finally tried and sentenced by a secret military tribunal.

And you ask whether the use of the term tyranny is hyperbole?

Excessive police surveillance is one of the fundamental characteristics of a police state. After 9/11 people wanted answers. I don't recall anyone asking for the NSA to track everyone's phone calls, or Internet access.

People gave gov't power to govern

[AHumbleOpinion]

If a private citizen (say your neighbor across the street) attempted to spy on your personal business (say by intercepting your private telephone calls), would you consider it an initiation of force, or would you consider it an instance of voluntary association? ... Now, if a private citizen is morally wrong to employ coercion against you (for example by spying on you) then what exactly puts government in the right when it does the same thing?

The fact that we intentionally gave the government the power to govern us. Governing involves "force". For example you are forced to give the government your financial information so that they can tax you. Private financial info that you would not want your neighbor to know, unless (s)he's your accountant.

Re:People gave gov't power to govern

[sconeu]

Yes, but we specifically restricted the power of the government. See the US Constitution, particularly Amendments 1, 4, 5, 9, and 10.

Re:People gave gov't power to govern

[AHumbleOpinion]

"The fact that we intentionally gave the government the power to govern us. Governing involves "force". For example you are forced to give the government your financial information so that they can tax you. Private financial info that you would not want your neighbor to know, unless (s)he's your accountant."

Yes, but we specifically restricted the power of the government. See the US Constitution, particularly Amendments 1, 4, 5, 9, and 10.

And those restrictions do not seem to apply to your financial information, nor do they seem to apply to the phone numbers you called. The contents of a telephone conversation, that would be different. More importantly that data (two points connected in a network) may belong to the phone company.

Re:People gave gov't power to govern

[sconeu]

And those restrictions do not seem to apply to your financial information, nor do they seem to apply to the phone numbers you called.

Really. Where is the power granted to the Feds (per the 10th) to acces my private financial info, or to keep track of who I talk to (given that the freedom of assembly is explicitly mentioned in the 1st)?

Re:People gave gov't power to govern

[AHumbleOpinion]

And those restrictions do not seem to apply to your financial information, nor do they seem to apply to the phone numbers you called.

Really. Where is the power granted to the Feds (per the 10th) to acces my private financial info, or to keep track of who I talk to (given that the freedom of assembly is explicitly mentioned in the 1st)?

They are granted via the power to collect taxes, wage war, and enact legislation to implement the preceding.

Because

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no "right to privacy" because the consitution is not an enumeration of citizen rights, it is two things: a structure for government and a limit on it's power.

It's like the dumb "There is no consitutional right to drive".

Well. No, there isn't.

But there is no constitutional right to breathe either. So logically the first statement is probably not correct.

anonomous strip search

[0xC2]

As long as you wear a paper bag over your head, the Feds should be able to explore your body cavities!

I've been in the Shack at Yakima

[WillAffleckUW]

and overheard your private state-to-state calls when they were put on speaker.

if it bounced off a satellite or went thru a transoceanic cable (hi, Hawaii!), we intercepted it.

I'm just saying that invasive phone searches, legal or otherwise, were happening back in the 80s.

That said, my gut feel, based on when I had clearance (note I don't give specifics), is that the rabbit hole goes way deeper since the current Admin came into power.

Dig deeper my friend - you took the blue pill and the red pill is the right one.

Legal?

[kludge99]

The NSA was chartered to spy on foreign citizens in foreign countries, and never to be allowed to spy on US Citizens. My how this administration likes to twist and distort the law to it's favor even to the point of untruthfulness.

Not quite...

[ChePibe]

You're correct in that the CIA, NSA, and other arms of the Intelligence Community are tasked to target foreign entities, but they are not as geographically limited as you might imagine.

The CIA, for example, operates within the U.S. performing some functions like those it has overseas. It attempts to recruit foreign assets who will work with them upon return to their home countries, interviews Americans that travel overseas to countries of interest on a strictly voluntary basis, and supports and cooperates in counter-intelligence operations with the FBI. It is also involved in tracking and collecting intelligence on foreigners visiting the U.S. The matter is not geography so much as nationality. For the CIA to target a U.S. citizen requires authorization, a strong reason to do so, and generally is done as a result of that citizen's affiliation with a foreign power and frequently as part of a CI operation. Obviously, the CIA does not have the authority to carry out arrests or other traditional law enforcement tasks.

The NSA is similar. It was actually created in 1952, although it receives much of its marching orders from EO 12333, which generally directs the IC (or at least it did so before the restructuring of 2003). It openly targets foreign missions and embassies operating within the U.S. and it only makes sense to involve it in foreign threats to the U.S., such as terrorists and intelligence agencies (everyone from the Chinese to the French...). The question in the original "wiretapping" scandal was phone calls from FOREIGN entities to the U.S. - if it's from a foreigner, it's free game provided with proper authorization which came in the last case. It must be noted that FISA was written to deal with CI matters, not international terrorism, which is a fundamentally different threat.

Unless Osama is in Barstow...

[lquam]

Chatting up his cells in Wherever USA, I would not expect a program designed to track domestic calls to have any use in tracking him down. Since he probably is in some hut or cave in the Hindu Kush, not likely to help us find him.

As to why the encryption and 'abuse prevention' aspects of the program were abandoned, isn't it far more likely to assume that they simply didn't work (like so many government computer systems) and therefore they went with whatever they had that worked, rather than spend another 5 years and billion dollars trying to make it work? Never attribute to malice what can be more logically attributed to incompetence.

Easy answers to your "hard" questions

[Anonymous Coward]

debate over what is acceptable to give up in the name of security,

The rich's money, the bureaucrats' and politicians' sweat, and nothing else whatever. Certainly not our rights.

what secrets we will let our government keep from us

Troop movements, location of our spies, and damned little else.

and what checks and balances need to be in place.

As many as we can come up with.

Any more "hard" questions, son? Glad I could help.

Too much 'beautification' in this sentence

[unity100]

and too much 'politically correct' saying.

It should not be 'NSA Chose Invasive Phone Analysis Option' ..

Its correct saying is 'NSA have violated your privacy'

Re:The Number To Call For Questions: +1, Seditious

[Mister Whirly]

Terrorists - they're the new Sandanistas!

Mmm, no not really

[SmallFurryCreature]

Since they ain't seizing your telephone line. That remains right where it is.

In fact the entire bit you quote says nothing about speech. It says nothing about you not being allowed to be eavesdropped on.

It seems to say that you cannot be willfully arrested, or have your house/papers/effects seized or searched. Where does it say anything about your words?

I am not entirely sure what they mean with the word "effects" but to me the constitution does not seem to mention privacy as in being spied upon. Perhaps it is somewhere else.

Would be intresting if they really left it out wouldn't it.

Re:Mmm, no not really

[Moofie]

So the Framers did not intend for us to be free to communicate electronically, without unreasonable search?

I think that's a pretty silly claim, since the Framers had no concept of telecommunications, and explicitly specified "papers" (the communications medium of the time) as one of the things that should be secure from unreasonable search and seizure.

Re:Mmm, no not really

[Sylver Dragon]

Telephone conversations would fall more in line with the "papers" as odd as this seems. Keep in mind that, at the time the Constitution was written, phones did not exist. The main form of communication was physical mail, and "papers" was meant to cover this. In much the same way that I do not own the phone lines, over which my conversation carries I do not own the US Postal system. Still, when I send a letter I have a reasonable expectation of privacy of that letter. Since the Constitution was intended as a living document, to be interpreted as times changes, the courts have extended the Fourth Amendment to cover telephone conversations.
Also, if you want to get really nitpicky about what is actually written in the US Constitution look at the 9th and 10th Amendments closely.

Amendment IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Just because it isn't listed, does not mean it does not exist. The Bill of Rights was not meant to be an all inclusive list. In fact, what we are seeing now is an example of one of the arguments against it: that people would treat it as an exhustive list and use it as an excuse to claim that other rights do not exist. For example, even if there isn't an explicit right to privacy doesn't mean we don't have one.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

This one has been dead for a while. Essentially it says that any power not explicitly given to the Federal Government in the Constitution cannot be wielded by the Federal Government. If you ever get bored spend some time reading the Constitution and try to justify every part of the current Federal Government within it's mandate, I've not been able to do this.

Re:Mmm, no not really

[mausmalone]

In fact the entire bit you quote says nothing about speech. It says nothing about you not being allowed to be eavesdropped on.

Yes, this is true. There's no mention about an exclusion from eavesdropping, but remember when the ammendment was written. Without electronic communication, you had 2 ways of communicating with someone: direct or via some sort of letter courrier.

In the case of direct communication, you do not have an expectation of privacy in a public space. But, you do within the home (mostly because eavesdropping would require one to illegally enter ('search') your premises).

In the case of courrier mail, you have an expectation of privacy because the letter is seen as private property belonging to you until its delivered to the intended recipient. Seizing and reading said letter without probable cause would be an unreasonable seizure.

Courts have ruled that direct person-to-person calls do indeed have a reasonable expectation of privacy, akin to the expectation of privacy involved in sending mail or communicating directly within the home. With a warrant and probable cause, you can be eavesdropped on, but otherwise you have a right to privacy.

The fact that the Bill of Rights makes no mention of electronic communication does not mean that the government has the right to eavesdrop on electronic communiques.

Contrast with the invasive one W's NSA did choose

[ianscot]

you need to understand that this program never happened, it was proposed.

Whereas evidently the NSA did implement, shortly after 9/11, a far more invasive program, which we're seeing in the news this week.

Personally I find the evidence of this old, potential, nixed program reassuring in some ways. It sure looks like the NSA and those overseeing it were trying to balance security and constitutional concerns, doesn't it? Our ./ article describes "political" infighting killing the potential program -- which means someone was checking on the NSA and deciding that certain behaviors were unacceptable. Maybe the horrible old politicos botched something, but it's not like the executive branch was acting entirely without congressional involvement in violation of the constitution.

The contrast with the Bush-Cheney doctrine of executive prerogative couldn't be more striking. These are people who think the make-up of the group of people who set their energy policy is sufficiently sensitive that neither congress nor the American people deserve to see the list of names -- leaving alone their notions about what they can do in the name of national security (following a disaster on their watch that was at least partly due to their own negligence, no less).

Lame.

[Shivetya]

So they are guilty because they fail to tell you of what successes they have? So unless an attack is thwarted and made public in a big expose its not occured?

This sounds like the same crap reporting that USA today recently did about the NSA. They ADMITTED that the listed Verizon and BellSouth as giving data to the NSA because neither company replied to their //USA TODAY's// inquiry.

What kind of ignorant logic is that?

I think this program was dropped because it was over the line. Encrypted or not they were analyzing domestic to domestic calls which is wrong. The nice thing is that Congress wasn't controlled by the same party that controlled the White House. That seems to bring out the worst in either party - they get both sides and feel as if they are entitled to run roughshod over anyone else.

Too bad there are very few real Democrats or Republicans in Washington DC now, its nearly a majority of Politicians who are a class unto themselves.

Re:Lame.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just saved your life.

You owe me big time.

Red Herring

[karlandtanya]

Encrypted? By whom? Not by me, that's for sure. Who controls the decryption? Again not somebody who answers to me. Encryption is not a magic incantation that protects secrecy. Encrypting some data produces some other data, which in itself is useless--you have to reverse the process to get the original data back. Encryption happens to be a special sort of process can only be reversed under certain conditions (when the correct keys are present). You don't need a technical understanding of the latest encryption technology to understand this. It's common freaking sense. Somebody has spied on you. They promise to keep the results of their spying a secret. Therefore, your rights have not been violated. Seriously--does anybody buy this? Are we that stupid? Oh, yeah--this message has been encrypted, so it's safe. See? Rapelcgrq? Ol jubz? Abg ol zr, gung\'f sbe fher. Jub pbagebyf gur qrpelcgvba? Ntnva abg fbzrobql jub nafjref gb zr. Rapelcgvba vf abg n zntvp vapnagngvba gung cebgrpgf frperpl. Rapelcgvat fbzr qngn cebqhprf fbzr bgure qngn, juvpu va vgfrys vf hfryrff--lbh unir gb erirefr gur cebprff gb trg gur bevtvany qngn onpx. Rapelcgvba unccraf gb or n fcrpvny fbeg bs cebprff pna bayl or erirefrq haqre pregnva pbaqvgvbaf (jura gur pbeerpg xrlf ner cerfrag). Lbh qba\'g arrq n grpuavpny haqrefgnaqvat bs gur yngrfg rapelcgvba grpuabybtl gb haqrefgnaq guvf. Vg\'f pbzzba sernxvat frafr. Fbzrobql unf fcvrq ba lbh. Gurl cebzvfr gb xrrc gur erfhygf bs gurve fclvat n frperg. Gurersber, lbhe evtugf unir abg orra ivbyngrq. Frevbhfyl--qbrf nalobql ohl guvf? Ner jr gung fghcvq? Bu, lrnu--guvf zrffntr unf orra rapelcgrq, fb vg\'f fnsr. Frr?

Red Herring (with formatting; sorry!)

[karlandtanya]

It should have been encrypted. Then it would have been safe. If only if only they would have encrypted it.

Encrypted?
By whom? Not by me, that's for sure.
Who controls the decryption? Again not somebody who answers to me.

Encryption is not a magic incantation that protects secrecy.
Encrypting some data produces some other data, which in itself is useless--you have to reverse the process to get the original data back.
Encryption happens to be a special sort of process can only be reversed under certain conditions (when the correct keys are present).

You don't need a technical understanding of the latest encryption technology to understand this. It's common freaking sense.
Somebody has spied on you. They promise to keep the results of their spying a secret. Therefore, your rights have not been violated.

Seriously--does anybody buy this? Are we that stupid?

Oh, yeah--this message has been encrypted, so it's safe. See?

Rapelcgrq?
Ol jubz? Abg ol zr, gung\'f sbe fher.
Jub pbagebyf gur qrpelcgvba? Ntnva abg fbzrobql jub nafjref gb zr.

Rapelcgvba vf abg n zntvp vapnagngvba gung cebgrpgf frperpl.
Rapelcgvat fbzr qngn cebqhprf fbzr bgure qngn, juvpu va vgfrys vf hfryrff--lbh unir gb erirefr gur cebprff gb trg gur bevtvany qngn onpx.
Rapelcgvba unccraf gb or n fcrpvny fbeg bs cebprff pna bayl or erirefrq haqre pregnva pbaqvgvbaf (jura gur pbeerpg xrlf ner cerfrag).

Lbh qba\'g arrq n grpuavpny haqrefgnaqvat bs gur yngrfg rapelcgvba grpuabybtl gb haqrefgnaq guvf. Vg\'f pbzzba sernxvat frafr.
Fbzrobql unf fcvrq ba lbh. Gurl cebzvfr gb xrrc gur erfhygf bs gurve fclvat n frperg. Gurersber, lbhe evtugf unir abg orra ivbyngrq.

Frevbhfyl--qbrf nalobql ohl guvf? Ner jr gung fghcvq?

Bu, lrnu--guvf zrffntr unf orra rapelcgrq, fb vg\'f fnsr. Frr?

Re:So Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

cowardly take over a plane of unarmed civilians and slam it into buildings

Why are there so many idiots at /.? This f'moron is saying (just like the f'moron in the White House) that someone who is not afraid to die is a coward?

War is peace, freedom is slavery, white is black. Stupid is the new smart, apparently.

Oh, and Hayden Insists NSA Surveillance Is Legal. "We always balance privacy and security." Erm, isn't that a tad backwards? Good reason to NOT confirm him!

Rights don't exist in a bubble

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone keeps on talking their rights. Rights don't exist in a bubble. Yes, NSA should not be abusing their power, but *equally so* you shouldn't be making it utterly impossible for NSA to track down and take out terrorists. In case you have forgotten, rights are easily taken away. Just look at what happened in Afganistan.

Whether the NSA has the decryption key is not the point. The point is that the individual analysts looking at phone data do not have the ability decrypt it and those people on top that have the decryption key have undergone extensive security checks, etc and if someone violates the laws *they* are the ones who are held legally responsible because *they* are the ones holding the keys. Expecting anything more from the NSA is simply irresponsible. If you have a better idea that allows them to hunt down terrorists while violating your sense of privacy less feel free to suggest it, but *don't* suggest we shut down the entire NSA because that's just dumb.

Candy Buttons

[The Iconoclast]

What, is the decryption machine made by Apple?

Kneejerk

[N8F8]

What re really need is an informed public not being misrepresented about the activities of the government. Most of what you assume you know is wrong because the press fed it to your brain that way.

The Foxes are Deciding What is Legal...

[Anonymous Coward]

...in the Hen House...

think about it.

these guys and gals are so sociopathic and short sighted that they act like no government has ever abused power in the history of the world.

i will guarantee you one thing... someone will come to power in the us and blatantly abuse their power... the question is... what will our system of government do to protect the citizens from this attack?

some think bush is already this person as evidenced by the bumper sticker i saw today... "Frodo failed, Bush has the ring!"

however, as bad as bush might be, there is much worse waiting in the wings. just give it time. by the time this worse person is revealed, he'll have near unlimited power to do anything... and absolute power corrputs absolutely.

It's not a myth...

[Elemenope]

It's a method of interpretation, and a fairly well-respected one at that. Its only failing, so far as I can see, is its difficulty dealing with unenumerated rights, and to be perfectly honest while I understand the original intent of the ninth amendment I can't think of a particularly elegant mechanism for determining exactly what they hell some of those unenumerated rights are. Should a government take an expansive view of what rights are retained by the people? You bet! Should a court enforce a made-up constitutional interpretation based upon a poorly worded amendment (which doesn't provide a judge even the slightest clue how to apply it)? It's not so clear.

Re:It's not a myth...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not nearly as complicated as you make it sound.

The Constitution makes it explicit that it is granting powers to the government. Quite simply, if the Constitution doesn't say the government can do it, then it can't. The Bill of Rights is, in fact, entirely redundant, because there's nothing in the main body of the Constitution which grants the government the power to curtail those rights to begin with.

Unfortunately, the mere existence of the Bill of Rights has led people to believe that those are what's protected, and everything else is up for grabs. Not that I think the BoR was a bad move; if it wasn't there, then the situation would probably be even worse. But the idea that the situation is confusing because the rights are unenumerated is silly; take the government act, see if the Constitution allows it. If it does not, then it's not allowed, end of story.

This procedure is rarely followed these days, but then again the Constitution itself is rarely followed these days.

It's already being abused

[MarkusQ]

Besides, sure, today its just intelligence on terrorists.

Ah, but it's not. They're already monitoring reporters calls to find their sources for stories that might embarrass the administration.

Combine that with the fact that they already get news outlets to bury many of the stories that do get out, it looks like they're already stomping on the first amendment.

--MarkusQ

Encryption type?

[rthille]

Did they use double or quadruple ROT13?

Re:I wish the government had a better sense of hum

[makomk]

a) they are spying on so many people that they can't even process the data. I've been under that assumption for quite some time, and now its clear. Hey, its a win for us.

Not really. They can probably still sift out enough information to spy on a few known individuals (say, politically inconvenient individuals or reporters who've obtained embarassing leaked information). It makes it pretty useless for spying on the general population, but that's probably not the point (way, *way* too much information). I also suspect it's not that much use for anti-terrorism use - they seem to have enough trouble monitoring known suspects as it is...

you can't effectively encrypt/hash phone numbers

[inio]

Hashing is only effective when an exhaustive search of the possible input space isn't feasible. How many phone numbers are there in the US? 10^10 at most. That's less than 34 bits of search space. An exhaustive search of that space would be trivial meaning than no matter how good the "encryption" of your phone number is, if the algorithm is known the number could be found trivially.

Re:So Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the troll was trying to say only a coward kills people who can't fight back.

don't you just love the emotional responses on slashdot. :)

One little hyphen gets us Biggie-sized torture!

[ianscot]

"Extra-constitutional," "extra constitutional"...

Hey, Bush always has been clumsy with the language. Maybe it's an honest mistake.

used social security numbers in place of the phone

[HornWumpus]

Amazingly you stumbled onto their encryption process.

Now they will have to kill you.

We Beat a King George Before

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to do it again?

However, it would be well to keep in mind:
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
    -- John F. Kennedy

Double blind != Legal search

[Dot_Killer]

What basically amounts to a single or double blind investigation does not mean it is LEGAL. How does 'encrypting' someone's personal information while you are investigating them without a warrant or probable cause amount to a legal search. If the search or investigation is legal you do not need to hide/encrypt the personal details of the person you are tracking. The fact that they were hiding the details from themselves until they came up with proof of something amounts to some bad version of pre-crime.

The whole encryption thing is supposed to be some kind of warm-blanket for law enforcement to cuddle us with. They are under the belief if someone is not physically or directly tracking you and they know your contact information then there is no invasion of privacy.

What I get from the details of the program when they were conducting it was that the NSA was trolling through untold number of emails and phone calls and then playing 7-degrees of Kevin Bacon. Then if they find or think there is some kind of association then they unencrypt the personal information.

The fact of the matter is if the search is legal there is no need for this double blind encryption because you have followed the law and followed the leads to their conclusion. On the other hand if it is ILLEGAL then there is no amount of blinding or encryption that can launder it into a legal investigation.

Re:Contrast with the invasive one W's NSA did choo

[TheCarp]

yup...

though you know, there is something encouraging that came out of this... we were wrong! The NSA has finnaly tipped their hand and inadvertently admitted that they don't have the capabilities that many of us thought they already did.

What am I talking about? Simple...

It has been speculated for years that the NSA, with is vast computing power, and secret fingers in every pie, was already using their secret advanced techniques and high powered computers to, indeed, "monitor" every call in the US.

Not monitor as in really listen to but, you know, scan and flag with AI, look for words in various languages that would record and flag for review.

This was speculative at best, and nobody had any proof, but I know I have heard the conspiracy theory many times.

Now, with the recent revealations, we know for a fact that its not true. If they had that ability, then surely there would be no need to pressure phone companies for these records, they would already have the ability to have them.

that, or the nsa got tired of us thinking that, and this whole fiasco is counter intelligence....

-Steve

Easy legality test

[BagMan2]

Just figure out if Clinton had the same policies in place. If he did, then it must be legal.

Re:Easy legality test

[will_die]

Considering this and other similar project where started in the mid/late 90s it is reasonable to guess that Bush did not start them.
What is funny is that with the dates of when theses projects started coming out you now see some left wing web sites start to take credit for them and say it was an example of how Clinton was protecting the US from terrorist attacks.

ThinThread, Trailblazer, Trailmapper...

[saviormoney]

In the baltimore sun version of this article at http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-t e.nsa18may18,0,2392814.story they mention that Thinthread was rejected in favor of another program called TrailBlazer around 1999 or 2000, quote:

"Despite its success in tests, ThinThread's information-sorting system was viewed by some in the agency as a competitor to Trailblazer, a $1.2 billion program that was being developed with similar goals. The NSA was committed to Trailblazer, which later ran into trouble and has been essentially abandoned."

Well, anyone remember another report that came out around 2000 - interception capabilities 2000, the report to the Director General for Research of the European Parliament on "the development of surveillance technology and risk of abuse of economic information." http://www.cyber-rights.org/interception/stoa/inte rception_capabilities_2000.htm

A very informative report on the state of USA COMINT surveillance capabilities and operations around 2000. It briefly touches on the potential for the unlawful use of this calibre of surveillance information in an economic context to give unfair competitive advantage to US corporate interests.

It also mentions an piece of NSA comint surveillance software called Trailmapper, including screenshots of it and another program... (Actually the report has many pretty pictures...)

I always thought COMINT and the NSA in general were only supposed to direct these surveillance capabilities at communications where at least one of the parties is located internationally. In theory anyway. I could be wrong. If it did exist that limitation does certainly seem to have been removed since this reports publication.

Perhaps Trailblazer and Trailmapper are the same program, and that the name was ever so slightly redacted in one version.

Re:ThinThread, Trailblazer, Trailmapper...

[saviormoney]

Oops, just realized its the same article with a different headline depending on whether its viewed from http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-n sa517,0,5970724.story?page=1&coll=bal-home-headlin es "killed" or http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-t e.nsa18may18,0,2392814.story "rejected". My bad.

Wikipedia on NSA

[wprowe]

Read the Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA on the NSA. It has links to a lot of information. One interesting note in the ECHELON section is the suggestion that the NSA "end runs" around privacy by reciprocating spying activities with other countries. Ask another country to spy on someone in the US and we will spy on someone in their country in return. Through semantics, they can argue that they are not spying on US citizens. No concrete evidence is offered. It merely suggests that is happening.