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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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/

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[(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

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?

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...

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: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?

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: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: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.

HA!

[j0nkatz]

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

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.

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.

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'.

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.

[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.

[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.

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?

[belg4mit]

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

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: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.

"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)

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.

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"

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.)

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.

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 !

[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.

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: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.

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: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?

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.

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.

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'

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?