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

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

[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

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: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

[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/