Slashdot Mirror
NSA Overstepped the Law On Wiretaps
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that legal and operational problems surrounding the NSA's surveillance activities have come under scrutiny from the Obama administration, Congressional intelligence committees, and a secret national security court, and that the NSA had been engaged in 'overcollection' of domestic communications of Americans. The practice has been described as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional. The Justice Department has acknowledged that there had been problems with the NSA surveillance operation, but said they had been resolved. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the intelligence community, did not address specific aspects of the surveillance problems, but said in a statement that 'when inadvertent mistakes are made, we take it very seriously and work immediately to correct them.' The intelligence officials said the problems had grown out of changes enacted by Congress last July to the law that regulates the government's wiretapping powers, as well as the challenges posed by enacting a new framework for collecting intelligence on terrorism and spying suspects. Joe Klein at Time Magazine says the bad news is that 'the NSA apparently has been overstepping the law,' but the good news is that 'one of the safeguards in the [FISA Reform] law is a review procedure that seems to have the ability to catch the NSA when it's overstepping — and that the illegal activities have been exposed, and quickly.'"
I wind up in trouble. I hope the NSA does too
Nullius in verba
Telephone switches have had specific features to support this type of activity since at least the 1980's. The only difference, now, is that these practices are seeing the light of day.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Isn't this the same Obama administration that recently defended warrantless wiretapping?
I mean, wow. They violated the law the first time, and then after the law was changed to allow that, they did it again?
I mean, holy crap, who'da thunk?
Who bend the laws of freedom to fit their needs.
Bush was no conservative.
"When inadvertent mistakes are made, we take it very seriously and work immediately to correct them."
If such systemic negligence resulted in loss of employment, fines, and/or quality time in a federal PMITA prison, then perhaps they would take it seriously and make sure it didn't fucking happen in the first place.
Okay, so what? What's to stop the next Bush/Cheney right wing douche-o-rama from doing the same thing? If there are no consequences, the next time they get a chance they'll do the same thing. We know we can't count on the FBI and NSA to police themselves, the Supreme Court is loaded with people who don't care about the Constitution, so NSA gets a slap on the wrist and new guidance. Big hairy deal. They'd do the same thing again if some sock puppet Attorney General told them it was okay.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/obama-doj-worse-than-bush "The Obama Administration goes two steps further than Bush did, and claims that the US PATRIOT Act also renders the U.S. immune from suit under the two remaining key federal surveillance laws: the Wiretap Act and the Stored Communications Act. Essentially, the Obama Adminstration has claimed that the government cannot be held accountable for illegal surveillance under any federal statutes."
Just one example of newspeak framing:
"The practice has been described as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional."
"one official" -- makes the following sound like an "official" statement without anyone putting their name on the line. Who is the official?
"said it was believed to be" -- implies that others agree and that this is the general belief. Governmentsprech for "some people say."
Just reading this frames the subject, even if you know the announcement is full of s***. And framing is 90% of the battle. (Google George Lakoff on that one)
But you will notice that he didn't say it will stop!
We have secret laws and secret courts convicting you with secret evidence. Is there anyone here who STILL thinks we are doing the right thing?
I know that slashdot believes that information should be free. (And AP was wrong in accusing google because IIRC, Google does indeed license AP material from AP and they do pay AP money), but this is precisely the kind of story that you wouldn't get from bloggers or non-paid (free) journalism.
I wonder how much money NY Times paid for this story? $500k, $1m? So, remember, I will be modded down for this, but as you rail against the government for over-stomping our rights, this was the work of a paid Journalist or paid Team of Journalists who used their Journalism Major to bring home a paltry paycheck (well, paltry for those of us in the IT or engineering industry).
Stories like these make me hope that the newspaper industry finds a way to make money, because reporting like this takes money, but in a rare move by Big Content, that charged money benefits us all. (Unlike the latest Britney Spears release or Hollywood Movie).
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
The practice has been described as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional.
My 10 year old daughter uses that excuse. 'I didn't mean to throw cookie dough at my friend.
'For 10 minutes.'
Joe Klein at Time Magazine says the bad news is that 'the NSA apparently has been overstepping the law,' but the good news is that 'one of the safeguards in the [FISA Reform] law is a review procedure that seems to have the ability to catch the NSA when it's overstepping -- and that the illegal activities have been exposed, and quickly.'"
Yeah, quickly. They were exposed almost 5 years [1] ago. An entire term of office for the US chief executive, for those of you keeping score. The FISA Reform act was not required to expose the activity. It was required to stop the activity. Maybe Time Magazine doesn't remember history very well, but we do. And we prefer not to implicitly lie with our choice of verb.
Nor do we believe for a moment that the activity actually was stopped. Secret (kangaroo) courts and secret meetings and the utterly worthless assurances of the US Justice Department. Of course it's still on-going. I don't even have to wear a tin-foil hat to proclaim that. I don't sound the least bit nutty, saying that, because even major media reported the story, in detail, for months, and nobody cared.
You think they're going to stop now? Of course they're not. Nobody was shot for treason when they endorsed a program that raped the US Constitution. Nobody was sent to jail when they designed a spying program that raped the US Constitution. Nobody lost their job when they implemented a surveillance program that raped the US Constitution. Nobody had their pay docked for listening to the phone calls of random citizens. Nobody got their knuckles rapped with a ruler for reading the email of random citizens. No, instead, they got condemned in the press. Oooooooo. The horror.
They got away with it. Completely and utterly and totally. So why would they stop? When there are no negative consequences whatsoever, there's no reason at all to stop.
The saddest part of all is that it can not be stopped. If Congress chose to do something about it, the members who led the effort would be pilloried as partisan and would lose reelection. Daring to stand on principle would result in losing their job, because that's what the voters think is right.
Oh my people...
My bank has a record of every purchase I make, my doctor has my medical history, and my ISP knows what web sites I visit, but I'm not worried. So why do I care if the federal government has that information? Because I don't trust them, and for good reason. The Patriot Act was supposed to protect us from terrorists, but as soon as it was enacted the government used it to enforce copyright violations, kick homeless people out of a train station, and investigate drug dealers. Demonstrate some integrity and you'll earn people's trust.
I dunno 'bout you, but when I accidentally turn logging on some high-volume task, I usually find out about it pretty quickly when /var/log fills up.
Now, while I doubt that the high-volume task the NSA was monitoring -- like, oh, let's say all voice and data communications in the US -- went to /var/log, the fact is that when most folks build out storage for data collection, it tends to be built in proportion to the amount of data to be collected, plus some moderate wiggle room for unexpected overages. Exactly how much wiggle room you allocate depends, of course, on how big you think a plausible overage is, but since cost is a factor, even for -- or so I presume -- organizations with black budgets, you don't build out multiple petabytes to hold a couple of gigs worth of data, for example.
So if the NSA was really only intending to capture a few, carefully targeted communications, you'd think someone would have noticed very quickly if they'd accidentally recorded more than they'd intended. For fucking years.
I'm not sure what's worse: the original crime, lying about it, or this gross insult to the intelligence of everyone listening to their transparent fictions.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
You're familiar with careers right? If I break the law to further my career am less guilty? Something always motives both good and bad behavior, the idea with the bad I think is not to reward it.
Quack, quack.
When were U.S. citizens given rights to privacy over a public infrastructure such as phone lines
Katz vs. United States, which established that private telephone calls are protected by the Fourth Amendment.