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NSA Official Disputes Chief's Claim That Agency Doesn't Collect American Data
NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander was playing a "word game" when he said the agency does not collect files on Americans according to William Binney, a former technical director at the NSA. Binney says the NSA does indeed collect e-mails, Twitter writings, internet searches and other data belonging to Americans and indexing it. "Unfortunately, once the software takes in data, it will build profiles on everyone in that data," he said. "You can simply call it up by the attributes of anyone you want and it's in place for people to look at."
would never do that :-)
rm -rf --no-preserve-root /
Collecting e-mail without a warrant violates the fourth amendment. Any government official who does this or orders it done is violating the civil rights of both the sender and the addressee under color of authority. If we had a justice system in this country, they'd end up behind bars for that.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
When did it become permissible to build data profiles on everyone, including your average law abiding citizen?
Investigating "terrorists" is one thing, but openly (or in this case secretively) spying on everyone is now considered ok by those in charge?
The "system" is corrupt.
The ridiculousness here is that anyone believes that NSA actually has a "dossier" on all Americans — or even cares about Americans at all, given that its sole purpose for existence is foreign signals intelligence as exponentially increasing amounts of foreign traffic travel through networks, systems, and infrastructure on US soil. All of those foreign linguists must be for illegally spying on Americans!
Basically what you're saying is, you'd prefer to believe, without proof, allegations that the NSA is illegally dragnet-spying on ALL Americans, and has been doing so for more than a decade, which would involve at the very LEAST hundreds, and more likely thousands, of civilian and military NSA employees, all of whom don't mind that they're directly violating the Constitution, but only one guy who hasn't been at NSA in over a decade is telling you "the truth"? That really seems plausible to you?
When the Terrorist Surveillance Program was revealed by the New York Times in 2005, it only touched on numbers of Americans in the hundreds, who had direct communications with individuals tied to terrorism, was authorized by the President under Article II under the AUMF, and was renewed and briefed to Congress every 45 days — and this was four years AFTER Binney claimed NSA was already dragnet-wiretapping ALL Americans.
Never mind that restrictions on US Persons are constantly drilled into civilian and military intelligence professionals every day. Never mind the complex procedures the IC maintains specifically to NOT target or collect on Americans. Never mind that the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 is stricter than previous law.
What we have done is shifted the notion of who is or isn't a US Person from the a place to a person.
Before 9/11, we assumed anyone — or any traffic — inside the US was a US Person, and that anyone outside the US was fair game. After 9/11, and with the increasing levels of foreign traffic traveling over the internet instead of walkie-talkies in foreign countries, the IC, and NSA in particular, was in the difficult position of needing to target traffic within the US. A series of secret orders and stopgap legislation (like the temporary Protect America Act) supported this.
The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 completely changes the pre-9/11 paradigm. Now an individual warrant is required to target a US Person anywhere on the globe, while foreign targets — even within the US — explicitly do NOT require a warrant. Foreign targets outside the US have never required a warrant, and shouldn't just because they or their traffic enter the US.
For anyone who claims to care about this topic at all, I urge you to read "REMARKS BY GENERAL MICHAEL V. HAYDEN", which is former NSA and CIA directory General Michael Hayden's remarks before the National Press Club in 2006. This was still pre-FISA Amendments Act of 2008, but it gives a (very) clear picture of what the landscape and our challenges was, and still are. Also, if you care at all about what NSA does, this excellent and very recent National Geographic documentary is as close as you're going to get in an unclassified context.
A key excerpt from General Hayden's speech is included below, but again, if you purport to care about this issue at all, I urge you to read the entire speech and the Q&A, and reflect on the fact that it's not possible given the secrecy of intelligence work for NSA to "prove" that it *isn't* doing something. Oversight of the IC comes from the executive (the President), legislative (Intelligence Committees of both houses of Congress and FISA legislation), and judicial (FISC) branches. That's how oversight of the Intelligence Community has always occurred.
The trouble is the mistaken and misguided belief that if there has ever been an example of abuse, or a mistake, then ALL activity MUST be abuse. If you choose to believe that the United S
9/11/2001
I spotted the fed!
- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
His whole insinuation is wrong, does he not realize that Americans do in fact live abroad? As such, even if we accept their position that they don't do any spying on domestic communications(which is hard to swallow to start with), I can guarantee that a lot of US citizens' communications still get caught in their net. Especially considering that Americans living abroad are much more likely to contact the US from abroad than basically anyone else, I am sure people like me who live overseas trip all sorts of traps.....
But then again, top Republicans have called us "traitors" in the past, I guess they have no problem shitting all over our rights since we left the "land of the free".
Monstar L
Yes, you're 100% correct. The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 is stricter than previous law. It is expressly prohibited to target, collect, store, analyze, or disseminate the communications content of US Persons without a warrant.
Your mistake is, apparently, believing that it's happening without any sort of proof.
What we have done is shifted the notion of who is or isn't a US Person from the a place to a person.
Before 9/11, we assumed anyone — or any traffic — inside the US was a US Person, and that anyone outside the US was fair game. After 9/11, and with the increasing levels of foreign traffic traveling over the internet instead of walkie-talkies in foreign countries, the IC, and NSA in particular, was in the difficult position of needing to target traffic within the US. A series of secret orders and stopgap legislation (like the temporary Protect America Act) supported this.
The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 completely changes the pre-9/11 paradigm. Now an individual warrant is required to target a US Person anywhere on the globe, while foreign targets — even within the US — explicitly do NOT require a warrant. Foreign targets outside the US have never required a warrant, and shouldn't just because they or their traffic enter the US.
Right now, this very second, government and law enforcement have all sorts of powers they can abuse, and they have since the founding of our nation. At the same time, intelligence operations require secrecy in order to be successful. Sun Tzu said this millennia ago, long before any construct of the US, much less the West, ever existed. Yet, instead of actually becoming informed about the purpose and function of our foreign intelligence activities, people choose to believe that our government is on a singular mission to spy on Americans illegally.
If anyone claims to care about this topic at all:
1. Read my other comment on this story
2. Read former NSA and CIA director General Michael Hayden's 2006 remarks on this topic at the National Press Club (if you do nothing else, just read this)
3. Watch this months-old National Geographic Documentary on NSA
4. Ask yourself if it really makes sense that hundreds, if not thousands, of professional civilian and military members of our government have so little regard for their fellow citizens that they are systematically violating both the letter and spirit of law and the Constitution, not just once or twice or a handful of times, but every single day, with respect to every single American — when NSA's primary purpose and reason for being is FOREIGN signals intelligence — while utterly ignoring the legitimate complexity and challenges of targeting foreign traffic, in real time, on equipment and networks within the United States.
Technicalities like you are pointing out are certainly little more than a poor cover for breaking our own laws. As I just pointed out in this thread, these people (as in NSA, financial and political elites, MIC etc) are no longer held accountable to the law of the land. The dont care that they are violating the fourth amendment, technicality or not... there are no repercussions for their illegal actions (other than some wining in some online forums and twitter - with no political consequences even for that).
The past decade has witnessed the most severe crimes imaginable by political and financial elites: the construction of a worldwide torture regime, domestic spying perpetrated jointly by the government and the telecom industry without the warrants required by the criminal law, an aggressive war waged on another country that killed hundreds of thousands of people, massive financial fraud that came close to collapsing the world economy and which destroyed the economic security of tens of millions, and systematic foreclosure fraud that, by design, bombarded courts with fraudulent documents in order to seize homes without legal entitlement. These are not bad policies or mere immoral acts. They are plainly criminal, and yet – due to the precepts of elite immunity which were first explicitly embraced during Ford’s pardon of Nixon — none of those crimes has produced legal punishments.
By very stark contrast, ordinary Americans are imprisoned more easily, for longer periods of time, and in greater numbers than any nation on earth. New legal classes of non-persons with no rights have been created over the last decade as well. Thus, over the same four decades that elite immunity has taken hold, the nation — namely,the same elite class that has aggressively vested itself with the right to act with impunity — has resorted to ever more merciless punishment schemes for ordinary Americans and others who are marginalized who, for multiple reasons, have very few defenses when the state targets them for punishment. While being rich and powerful has always been an advantage in the judicial system (and in all other aspects of American life), our political culture has now explicitly renounced the concept of equality of law, and it is thus now unabashedly clear that who you are is far more important than what you do.
I don't know about your criticism of the TSA or healthcare, but speaking out against Apple is a serious offense.
Ask yourself if it really makes sense that hundreds, if not thousands, of professional civilian and military members of our government have so little regard for their fellow citizens that they are systematically violating both the letter and spirit of law and the Constitution
It very much makes sense. We have fairly severe restrictions on our police forces and they regularly try and often succeed in circumventing them. The FBI has a decades long record of abusing the civil rights of US citizens. Every law enforcement and intelligence agency regularly chaffs against the restrictions placed on their power. Those same "professionals" you cite did nothing while our government condoned torture in clear violation of the spirit and letter of our laws. Why should I believe the NSA is any different? Those restrictions are inconvenient, expensive and it's not as if regular citizens can check their work to ensure they aren't breaking the rules. I believe they have power without sufficient accountability and that is almost certain to result in abuse of that power.
Trust the NSA? No I don't trust the NSA, it's employees or any other branch of our government and that is the way it should bet. We have checks and balances because we KNOW we cannot trust them. Unchecked power absolutely will be abused. The real question is do we have sufficient oversight from congress or the judiciary? It's not clear that we do.
Indeed, what about the Utah Data Center?
After all, the agency that has been the chief codemaker and codebreaker, and now (as USCYBERCOM) also has the responsibility for all defensive and offensive cyber operations, can't possibly have a need for massive computing resources!
To rehash things I have said recently elsewhere:
People bring up examples like the Utah Data Center (formally known as the Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center) as "proof" that NSA "must" be collecting information on Americans — what other possible reason would they build a data center in the heart of America? Indeed: why should our own military or government even have bases or offices in our own country? Suspicious, I tell you!
Explanations like skillful lobbying by Utah politicians, cheap, empty, existing federal land in Utah, or even more pedestrian explanations like cheap power are dismissed. The United States' legitimate cybersecurity and foreign intelligence interests are ignored. No: it must be illegally spying on Americans. Never mind that Binney claimed NSA was already doing this a decade ago — so the Utah Data Center is for what, then, exactly?
The broader point is that even a cursory examination of what's gone on since 9/11 utterly rejects claims that NSA is "dragnet-wiretapping every American" or "keeping a dossier on every American". Mark Lowenthal said it best: the Intelligence Community has a lot more important things to worry about, and with its gargantuan size and the post-9/11 gravy train the everyone rode, doesn't even have enough resources for those missions. We are YEARS behind in analyzing drone data alone. Yes, yes, let me guess: algorithms and automation will now make analysis moot, and will allow NSA to smoothly and effectively spy on every American illegally.
And now we have the ridiculous, baseless statement that the Utah Data Center can store "100 years of the world's communications". On what possible basis is that statement even being made? Certainly the secrecy of the Intelligence Community, and past transgressions, invites suspicion and scrutiny. But intelligence requires secrecy, and our adversaries — notably China — are not standing still. This is not a bogeyman argument; it's the simple truth. US investments in defense and intelligence have created the longest period without conflict between major powers in over 500 years. Laugh and scoff at this if you must.
There are actual threats in the world, and there are governments that do not favor principles of freedom and liberal democracy. There is actual tyranny and oppression in the world. In the broader global and historical context, the US is not even CLOSE to being the bad guys. For all of our faults, the dirty little secret few acknowledge is that national security and intelligence interests transcend politics and Presidential administrations. But NSA and the rest of the IC doesn't exist to serve itself. The IC is responsive to intelligence needs of senior leaders — that is its reason for being. NSA doesn't just "make up" missions, but it does execute the missions it has been assigned.
As former NSA director General Michael Hayden said, "As a professional, I'm troubled if I'm not using the full authority allowed by law."
This is what governments do even in societies propagandized as free. Under the guise of protecting it's citizens from perceived evil, citizen's personal freedoms are eroded "for their own good". The price of a free society is evidently too costly to bear.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
You'd think if they had this awesome system that kept a file on every one of us and everything we were searching for, surely that guy would have raised some red flags.
This is a good comment. No, I don't think anyone is asking you to blindly trust NSA or any other element of government. But as government is ultimately here to serve the people, you can't exclusively have distrust of every single action government takes. Be cautious, be vigilant. But as I have said before, the mistake is believing that because there are some examples of abuse or mistakes — and there are plenty — that EVERY activity is intentional, systematic government abuse.
This is an excellent question, and one that has always been relevant to the Intelligence Community. Oversight of the IC has always been institutional oversight, not direct oversight by the public. But intelligence operations require secrecy to be effective — and that secrecy, especially in an open society, invites confusion, suspicion, misunderstanding, and distrust. So don't blindly "trust" NSA, but have the fortitude to thoroughly examine its purpose, missions, and history, and the challenges associated with executing its missions.
Many of those businesses are already required to use TLS, which while not SMTPS, it performs essentially the same role.
The trouble is the mistaken and misguided belief that if there has ever been an example of abuse, or a mistake, then ALL activity MUST be abuse.
Nice strawman. The problem is that sometimes there is ALWAYS the potential for abuse and sometimes there actually are abuses. Thus we need oversight and lots of it. No rational person is claiming everything the NSA has done is abuse or in error. But only a naive fool would assume that the NSA is an entity to be trusted.
Look, NSA intercepts communications, and it does so for only one purpose -- to protect the lives, the liberties and the well-being of the citizens of the United States from those who would do us harm
You cannot possibly know that with any actual certainty. However even if true, that does not mean that US citizens cannot be abused by the actions of the NSA in the process. We locked up thousands of innocent citizens of Japanese descent in the 1940s in the name of "protecting" US citizens. There are almost countless examples of our law enforcement and government agencies abusing citizens with all the good intentions in the world. Martin Luther King was considered extremely dangerous by the FBI. Our government has a LONG track record of abusing citizens even when they have the best of intentions and that's even taking into account that the US government is relatively benign and benevolent compared with some of the other governments out there. (it could be a lot worse) Believing the only purpose of the NSA and it's employees is to protect US citizens is naive on the face of it. And even it if were true, it doesn't mean that bad things won't happen to people who do not deserve it.
It's a question drilled into every employee of NSA from day one, and it shapes every decision about how NSA operates.
Even if true (and I very much doubt that it is) that means precisely nothing. People do all sorts of evil things while thinking they are doing the right thing. Laws get followed that are bad laws. Don't get me wrong, I think the NSA or an organization similar to it serves an important purpose. But I don't really care at all what comes out of the mouths of the people in charge of it. What they are doing has the potential to both violate the law and to result in real and tangible harm to the rights, person and property of US citizens and that is worthy of serious concern.
In the case of the NSA and the FBI at least, historical evidence shows American citizens would be wise to.
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
15 years ago I might have said the same thing, but not anymore.
15 years ago the government was not trying to extradite foreigners for civil (not criminal) allegations.
15 years ago US citizens were not being unilaterally assassinated without appropriate legal redress.
15 years ago I didn't have to worry about some unregulated domestic pseudo military institution stopping me on highways without cause.
15 years ago we didn't have to deal with unfair and unreasonable searches and seizures every time you want to get on a plane.
The landscape is different. I don't have a grudge against the NSA, but I do not trust the government anymore like I used to. Also, don't call me a tea partier because my desired solution isn't to eliminate the government, but to change the way it operates--to make it more answerable, and more removed from corporate interests.
The key think to remember in all of this is power differential. The government has more power than an individual citizen. In exchange, we expect complete transparency.
Maybe intelligence has always been a bit secret, but my feeling is that if there's one whiff they're doing anything questionable, they should lose all of the privilege of that secrecy in order to maintain accountability. "This is the way it's always been" isn't an excuse for throwing away accountability.
Pray tell; how is an ordinary US citizen supposed to be vigilant against those that hold all the cards and wield that power with absolutely no verifiable checks in place?
It is unfortunate that we have reached a point where we expect and accept that our government officials lie to us. We accept it as a necessary evil in a dangerous world. And yet, it is the very people who lie to us who tell us what a dangerous world it is. The American people have lost control of their government.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
This is a good comment. No, I don't think anyone is asking you to blindly trust NSA or any other element of government. But as government is ultimately here to serve the people, you can't exclusively have distrust of every single action government takes.
In theory or in practice? In theory, the government is here to serve the people. In modern America however, the government has been taken over by powerful private interests, through campaign contributions and other means, to use for their own purposes. This has been made clear by the fact that there are multiple cases of criminality that have been reported, and no one has been prosecuted for them
This is an excellent question, and one that has always been relevant to the Intelligence Community. Oversight of the IC has always been institutional oversight, not direct oversight by the public. But intelligence operations require secrecy to be effective — and that secrecy, especially in an open society, invites confusion, suspicion, misunderstanding, and distrust. So don't blindly "trust" NSA, but have the fortitude to thoroughly examine its purpose, missions, and history, and the challenges associated with executing its missions.
I think it's pretty easy to understand that an agency built on secrecy cannot be overseen effectively. How are we to examine the purpose, mission and history of an agency that is by definition, secret? You or I cannot find out what the NSA is up to. As we have seen, the Congress cannot either. The same goes for the CIA, NRO, and the other one that is so secret the fact that it exists is secret.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
"The American people have lost control of their government."
That assumes the "people" ever did control their government? See:
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/
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Q: So, who does rule America?
A: The owners and managers of large income-producing properties; i.e., corporations, banks, and agri-businesses. But they have plenty of help from the managers and experts they hire. You can read the essential details of the argument in this summary of Who Rules America?, or look for the book itself at Amazon.com.
Q: Do the same people rule at the local level that rule at the federal level?
A: No, not quite. The local level is dominated by the land owners and businesses related to real estate that come together as growth coalitions, making cities into growth machines.
Q: Do they rule secretly from behind the scenes, as a conspiracy?
A: No, conspiracy theories are wrong, though it's true that some corporate leaders lie and steal, and that some government officials try to keep things secret (but usually fail).
Q: Then how do they rule?
A: That's a complicated story, but the short answer is through open and direct involvement in policy planning, through participation in political campaigns and elections, and through appointments to key decision-making positions in government.
Q: Are you saying that elections don't matter?
A: No, but they usually matter a lot less than they could, and a lot less in America than they do in other industrialized democracies. That's because of the nature of the electoral rules and the unique history of the South.
Q: Does social science research have anything useful to say about making progressive social change more effective?
A: Yes, it does, but few if any people pay much attention to that research.
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See also my essay "On dealing with social hurricanes (like the US CIA)":
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html
"This approximately 60 page document is a ramble about ways to ensure the CIA (as well as other big organizations) remains (or becomes) accountable to human needs and the needs of healthy, prosperous, joyful, secure, educated communities. The primarily suggestion is to encourage a paradigm shift away from scarcity thinking & competition thinking towards abundance thinking & cooperation thinking within the CIA and other organizations. I suggest that shift could be encouraged in part by providing publicly accessible free "intelligence" tools and other publicly accessible free information that all people (including in the CIA and elsewhere) can, if they want, use to better connect the dots about global issues and see those issues from multiple perspectives, to provide a better context for providing broad policy advice. It links that effort to bigger efforts to transform our global society into a place that works well for (almost) everyone that millions of people are engaged in. A central Haudenosaunee story-related theme is the transformation of Tadodaho through the efforts of the Peacemaker from someone who was evil and hurtful to someone who was good and helpful."
And also this suggestion: http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/The-need-for-FOSS-intelligence-tools-for-sensemaking-etc./76207-8319
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.