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Chief NSA Lawyer Hints That NSA May Be Tracking US Citizens
itwbennett writes "Responding to questions from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence yesterday, Matthew Olsen, the NSA's general counsel, said that the NSA 'may', under 'certain circumstances' have the authority to track U.S. citizens by intercepting location data from cell phones, but it's 'very complicated.' 'There's no need to panic, or start shopping for aluminum-foil headwear,' says blogger Kevin Fogarty, but clearly the NSA has been thinking about it enough 'that the agency's chief lawyer was able to speak intelligently about it off the cuff while interviewing for a different job.'"
the NSA 'may', under 'certain circumstances' have the authority to track U.S. citizens by intercepting location data from cell phones, but it's 'very complicated.'
"Very complicated", referring of course to the process of determining whether your political leanings are threatening or not to the government in power.
. . . Fox News correspondents were seen sweating, nervously adjusting their collars, and making "SHHHH!" gestures to Mr. Olsen.
What about the secret rooms of ATT, where domestic US traffic was routed to the NSA?
NSA is, not "may be".
The chief NSA lawyer is surely a credible source.
The NSA tracks EVERYONE.
Yours In Miami,
Anonymous
'Very complicated' = "Now, don't you go worrying your pretty little heads about that."
On days that end in "Y", in months that have more than 27 days
So much for Imperial America going away with Bush the Lesser.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
"Under Certain circumstances" = anyone, anytime, anywhere with no warrant.
Those being "Whenever the hell we feel like it."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I am shocked! SHOCKED!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The "certain circumstances" would be if (and only if) the NSA has a proper search warrant. But, the NSA, and many other U.S. federal agencies, have demonstrated that they will invade your privacy if they want to, regardless of whether or not they have the authority to do so.
Discuss?:
Those government officials giving aid and comfort to the enemies of this country by invading the privacy of its citizens without proper warrants should be treated as the treasonous spies that they are after due process of law. This should include those officials passing laws enabling this sort of abuse and those laws should be declared unconstitutional.
It is definitely unthinkable that the "certain circumstances" could be when the FISA court has issued a warrant. Right?
Tracking via cellular phones has been doable with a decent degree
As long as the circumstances are "when we have a warrant", then I don't see an issue.
Always assume they have the code.
I always say that if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to worry about.
Mind you I'm stoned dude, and a bit stupid. That doesn't help.
Always use a pay phone.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
I'm sure the equipment to do this is.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Between that and the pesky old Fourth Amendment rules against illegal search and seizure, the obvious answer would be 'No.'
If you do nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide! Unless of course, the powers that be mistake you for someone else, abuse their power because they don't like you (Berkeley Atheist Homosexual), or because of their stupidity.
Then again, it's to fight those terrorists! At the cost of billions of more dollars ... let's just cut "entitlement" programs to pay for this because the Muslims! Entitlement programs just pay for poor people - who are that way because they don't work hard - to sit around watch TV, drink Cold .45, eat fried chicken and watermelon and vote for Obama's horrific policies - don't ask me what those policies are - they're just horrible because ... Obama!
Only a Liberal would be worried about the Fourth Amendment and those stupid Rights! Our founding Fathers would never have put up with this! Those Christian men knew what held this country together!
I'm hardly going to debate the ethics or constitutionality or whatever of this, because to the following, it's irrelevant:
If you care about your privacy that much, why are you willingly carrying around a device that's transmitting your position with little or no encryption to everyone who wants to see it? If you want to secure your network, do you leave an open WAP transmitting its SSID as widely as possible? This isn't someone planting a tracking device. This is you shouting loudly to everyone that you're here, and then complaining when someone takes note.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Ever since ECHELON chatter started 10-12 years ago, does anyone really think that the UK–USA Security Agreement nations hasn't been doing this?
The problem is that it'd be hard to track everyone at once, even with super computers and satellites like LACROSSE there are just too many people to track, so they can probably actively track a few thousand to a million people.
If they want to look up where anyone else is, they can hit phone location, email IP, social media logs, international and domestic flight, rail and mass transit tickets and easy passes.
Example - yesterday I traveled from Portland to Tacoma via Amtrak with a ticket (that would be in a database), I flew from Seatac to Anchorage and used a Passport for ID which was scanned. It would be trivial for NSA to know when I traveled, where I am and even what time my card paid for parking here in Alaska.
This is old news.
Why is Snark Required?
you insensitive clod!
Well if you cock cant get past the lip, I understand your frustration.
sit down and write a very terse letter to my congress-person expressing my disappointment.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
an unnamed project called by Bush after it was revealed the "terrorist surveillance program" (not its real name)
the NSA also uses pieces of the earlier Thinthread project, but with their privacy and anonmyization guts ripped out
the newest IT system (and/or "transformation system") they have is 'Turbulence', which includes offensive capabilities according to James Bamford's "Shadow Factory"
wives back home. while they are deployed to afghanistan. at least according to Bamford's "Shadow Factory" (citing Adrienne Kinney, a former intelligence worker who was at an NSA in Georgia)
if only more insiders were willing to speak out...
how many great artists and scientists have been at some time or another, drunk and/or homeless?
I watch you seep. I like that.
This shit never ends....
My regret, I'll be dead before spaces is opened up.
Another attempt another place to get it right.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
I avoid doing anything illegal
There are so many laws in the states these days, it's impossible to know for certain you haven't done anything illegal. If someone watches you for long enough, they WILL find something to nail your ass to the ground for.
The only complicated part of this is the 'find some jackass to give a legal justification'.
~Sticky
And any of this matters how? Historically, all of the collective of government spy agencies (USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), has made sharing of information opaque. Its not a 'request for information on a form', its a fat pipe 24/7/365 data stream. Now all of these countries have governments that strictly forbid that these agencies do not spy on the country they are in: The NSA does not spy on citizens within the United States, the GCHQ does not spy on citizens within the UK, the CSE does not spy on citizens within Canada, the DSD does not spy on citizens within Australia, and the GCSB does not spy on citizens within New Zealand. There are no laws stopping the NSA from spying on Australia, Canada, UK or New Zealand. There are no laws stopping the CSE from spying on the US, UK or NZ or Australia. There are no laws stopping the GCHQ from spying on Australia, Canada, US or NZ. There are no laws stopping the DSD from spying on US, UK, Canada, or NZ. There are no laws stopping the GCSB from spying on Australia, US, UK or Canada. So if there happens to be information on the big fat data pipe that runs 24/7/365 that happens to be intercepted from 'partner agencies' about people outside of your normal mandate, then you didn't obtain it from within, and you didn't spy on locals, you just received intel from partner agencies about your own backyard. According to agreements, all of the information gathered from partner agencies is fair game.
Sincerely, Anonymous Coward.
With a warrant, any cop can do this.
Why is it either a surprise or a scare that the NSA can, with what is bound to be much higher standards for justification (as long as the Republicans aren't in the White House, in which case justification involves merely setting up plausible deniability)?
Even if you look at NSA's intentions in the best possible light, the underlying message is that people who aren't you, have the capability to do this. Now, that's not at all surprising, nor is it "news," when we're talking about cellphone location tracking.
Nevertheless, suppose you believe that individual privacy rights, when there isn't a court order after due process, extend to protecting people's locations. (Whether this is a good position or not, is debatable. On one hand, you may not always be in public when you're trackable; i.e. most people think they have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their bedroom. On the other hand, you are voluntarily transmitting over a radio, and the government certainly didn't force you to do that.) If you believe your routine privacy rights extend this far, then it is perfectly reasonable to take countermeasures, and therefore it is best practices for the design of any system to deny this capability to any and all attackers. (Including the government, since an attacked system doesn't know the difference between the government attacker and a common street criminal. Machines are dumb.)
So basically, this is either completely ho-hum not-news, or it's a reminder that our phone system is deeply flawed and insecure. Depending on how far you think privacy rights extend when someone is carring a cellphone.
Anyone within the intelligence community could have been able to "speak intelligently about it off the cuff'. It is clearly spelled out in Executive Order 12333. Everyone within the intelligence community is given yearly reinforcement training on it.
The most important part that is emphasized during the training is that the US Intelligence Community cannot collect or maintain intelligence information on US citizens or those assumed to be US citizens (anyone physically in the US is considered a US citizen unless it is known that they are not) unless they are suspected of working for a foreign "entity".
Therefore, if that person is suspected or known to be working for a foreign entity, the information can be maintained.
There are no legal consequences if it's found that a US intelligence agency accidentally (or incidentally) collected information on a US citizen (think phone call between foreign person and US person), that information is purged from the system, and if related to a crime given to the FBI. There is only a legal consequence if the US continues to maintain the information once it's found and confirms that the US person doesn't fit the criteria in order to keep it. Keep in mind that most of the information that the NSA collects is never reviewed by a human and so isn't looked at to try and figure out if it involves a US person.
Also note that there is nothing that prohibits the US from giving the "incidentally" collected information to US allies who would, of course, share it with us at our request. The executive order only says that the US cannot maintain it.
Yours In Miami,
Anonymous
... but not to the NSA.
This is true. I expect that machines are sifting as fast as they can, and people are rapidly eyeballing the results (or listening to audio keyword excerpts at high speed) for human judgements. Something like what Phil Dick described in A Scanner Darkly.
Consider also that analysis of collective behavior can be useful in a variety of ways: controlling the individuals as a herd saves you the trouble of controlling the individuals as individuals.
-kgj
You must be joking... it sounded as if you believe there are laws might restrict us when all we are doing is in defense of liberty.
HURR DURRR BECAUSE WE NO FOR SHORE THAT ADVERTISERZ LISTEN WEN WE USE THE DO-NO-TRACK SETTING IN OUR BROWZERZZZ. DUURRRRRRRRRRRRP.
A * B * C = X
If "X" is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
"When we REALLY REALLY want to."
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
They will die of boredom. M-F - go to work/go home. Sat: go grocery shopping, go home. Sunday: go to church, go home. At home: surf Internet, mainly technology sites. This site is one of the "extremist" sites I go to. Damn, I'm boring.
How about those #regional_sporting_team ... abend( meme_tag_replace() ) I think they are going to have a good season!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Wait... ok... so, itwbennett writes about what Mathew Olson said "and" what Kevin Fogarty said about what Mathew Olson said... So... really... itwbennett says that Mathew says, "NSA might track any given person for any given reason, if that it may, be... Nothing new... "and", also says, what Kevin says about what Mathew said... Am I right? Am I on the right track? Yeah, this is complicated! Ok... so... I can be tracked by my cell phone, but it's complicated... But Kevin(never heard of him) said I don't need to panic and take off my tinfoil hat... Check... But, the chief lawyer(never heard of him either) is looking for a new job and talking "intelligently" yet "Off the Cuff" with a prospective employer about... why he's looking for a new job? Ok... one last try... She says, "He said this." and then she says, "This other guy said that.". She then says, "Some third guy said something about what the first guy said, with someone else who may have offered him a job... Right? eh? wink, wink, nudge, nudge?
Of course they track and watch some Americans. Some Americans are trying to do some very bad things. Simply being a US Citizen does not (unfortunately) mean you don't want to do harm.
Does it need to be done carefully? yes
Does it need oversight? YES
Could it be abused? yes
Can we stop doing it? no
Do we really want them to stop it? NO
it's not like after this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trailblazer_Project they just gave up that line of thought and went on to other things =)
If any of your names are Hussein, you are being surveiled, no exceptions...
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
What should the citizens be more worried about, a private company violating their privacy by hacking their phones or their government violating their privacy by doing the same?
I know what I am more worried about, and it's not a private business (though, of-course, a private business that works with the government is another thing altogether.)
You can't handle the truth.
Is that an alloy of coper and ton? Ah no, that's broonz.
When you use the word sheeple you start the us/them falacy which made wolves out of the previous users of the word.
blog.sam.liddicott.com
NSA...protecting us from box cutters since 1952.
Based on a survey of American cell phones, the NSA said today that approximately 83% of the citizens were shocked to discover the NSA is listening in on their phones. NSA spokesman David Koch said, "That shows that only 17% of the population is real Americans and that half of those are illegal immigrants" (the kind of people who built America).
and surprised...here i totally thought we were a nation of laws made by the people for the people. one would think that domestic surveillance would only be necessary for a regime that doesnt serve its people but rather operates solely to enrich a tiny elite.
how weird is that! must be a mistake, they must only do it to protect us, yeah, that must be it.
look sig is kool