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Snowden NSA Claims Partially Confirmed, Says Rep. Jerrold Nadler
bill_mcgonigle writes with this news from from CNET: "Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D NY) disclosed that NSA analysts eavesdrop on Americans' domestic telephone calls without court orders during a House Judiciary hearing. After clearing with FBI director Robert Mueller that the information was not classified, Nadler revealed that during a closed-door briefing to Congress, the Legislature was informed that the spying organization had implemented and uses this capability. This appears to confirm Edward Snowden's claim that he could, in his position at the NSA, 'wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president.' Declan McCullagh writes, 'Because the same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages, Nadler's disclosure indicates the NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications without going before a court and seeking approval.' The executive branch has defended its general warrants, claiming that 'the president had the constitutional authority, no matter what the law actually says, to order domestic spying without [constitutional] warrants,' while Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney at EFF claims such government activity 'epitomizes the problem of secret laws.'" Note that "listening in" versus "collecting metadata" is a distinction that defenders of government phone spying have been emphasizing. Tracking whom you called and when, goes the story, doesn't impinge on expectations of privacy. Speaking of the metadata collection, though, reader Bruce66423 writes "According to the Washington Post, the Bush administration took 'bulk metadata' from the phone companies under voluntary agreements for more than four years after 9/11 until a court agreed they could have it compulsorily." Related: First time accepted submitter fsagx writes that Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive has calculated the cost to store every phone call made in the U.S. over the course of a year: "It's surprisingly inexpensive. It puts the recent NSA stories (and reports from the Boston bombings about the FBI's ability to listen to past phone conversions) into perspective."
"So they HAVE been listening. That has got to stop, but we'll keep the metadata collection, because that's not so bad."
From a previous post, here's the collected list of suggested actions people can take to help change the situation.
Have more ideas? Please post below.
Links worthy of attention:
http://anticorruptionact.org/
http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html
http://action.fairelectionsnow.org/fairelections
http://represent.us/
http://www.protectourdemocracy.com/
http://www.wolf-pac.com/
https://www.unpac.org/
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/
Suggestion #1:
(My idea): If people could band together and agree to vote out the incumbent (senator, representative, president) whenever one of these incidents crop up, there would be incentive for politicians to better serve the people in order to continue in office. This would mean giving up party loyalty and the idea of "lessor of two evils", which a lot of people won't do. Some congressional elections are quite close, so 2,000 or so petitioners might be enough to swing a future election.
Someone added: Vote them out AND remove their lifetime, taxpayer-funded, free health care. See how fast the health care system gets fixed.
Someone added:You can start by letting your house and senate rep know how you feel about this issue / patriot act and encourage those you know to do the same.
If enough people let their representivies know how they feel obviously those officials who want to be reelected will tend to take notice. We have seen what happens when wikipedia and google go "dark", congressional switchboards melt and the 180's start to pile up.
I added: Fax is considered the best way to contact a congressperson,especially if it is on corporate letterhead.
Suggestion #2:
Tor, I2dP and the likes. Let's build a new common internet over the internet. Full strong anonymity and integrity. Transform what an
eavesdropper would see in a huge cypherpunk clusterfuck.
Taking back what's ours through technology and educated practices.
Let's go back to the 90' where the internet was a place for knowledgeable and cooperative people.
Someone Added: Let's go full scale by deploying small wireless routers across the globe creating a real mesh network as internet was designed to be!
Suggestion #3:
A first step might be understanding the extent towards which the government actually disagrees with the people. Are we talking about a situation where the government is enacting unpopular policies that people oppose? Or are we talking about a situation where people support the policies? Because the solutions to those two situations are very different.
In many cases involving "national security", I think the situation is closer to the second one. "Tough on X" policies are quite popular, and politicians often pander to people by enacting them. The USA Patriot Act, for example, was hugely popular when it was passed. And in general, politicians get voted out of office more often for being not "tough" on crime and terrorism and whatever else, than for being too over-the-top in pursuing those policies.
Suggestion #4:
What I feel is needed is a true 3rd party, not 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th parties, such as Green, Tea Party, Libertarian; we need an agreeable third party that can compete against the two majors without a lot of interference from small parties. We need a consensus third party.
Suggestion #5:
Replace the voting system. Plurality voting will always lead to the mess we have now. The only contribution towards politics I'v
There's precious little we can do about traffic analysis. But as for content, we can at least make the NSA work for it.
You mean to say that the initial story about Snowden just being a narcissistic traitor who couldn't possibly have known about those things that weren't happening in any case weren't entirely true?
And that, despite Senator Pelosi, wicked witch of the west's, assertions, congress was not in fact clued in to what was going on?
Color me shocked.
It is really sad but I simply assume anything that they deny in public, they are actually doing. they have no credibility at all about anything. Say what you will of bush, he opened the doors on this, but there is no way anyone should be able to support the over reaching, unconstitutional abuses of power that the current administration is doing.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
BY THE WAY, they've been recording calls for a long time. Maybe not everyone's, but a lot of them. Right after 9/11, they admitted that in the aftermath they went into these recordings to find out vital information.
This scary revelation was largely ignored at the time because of the go get 'em attitude in the nation as a whole, but I made a mental note of it.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This is true under current 4th amendment interpretations, but severely curtailed by statutes that are still in force.
Much of the law on the subject was developed in the 1960s and 70s over the use of pen registers and trap-and-trace devices, which would record a list of all incoming and outgoing calls (the numbers and times, but not the call contents). The Supreme Court ruled in 1979 that pen registers were not "searches" under the 4th amendment, because there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in phone-call metadata (as opposed to recording the call itself via a wiretap, which was held in 1967 to require a warrant).
However, Congress added statutory restrictions on the use of pen registers and similar devices in 1986; the current statute can be found here.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Where on earth does the constitution say this? Once found, it needs to be removed immediately, in my opinion. Further, any president willing to use such an outrageous power should also be removed immediately. And anyone who supports them using it.
I am a bit curious about the past tense wording (had the authority), though.
When will these taxpayer-funded criminals be arrested and prosectued?
'the president had the constitutional authority, no matter what the law actually says, to order domestic spying without [constitutional] warrants,'
This quote suggests two (independent) things:
1) that the constitution authorizes the president to order domestic spying.
2) that congress can [in essence] make no law that the president must obey (short of modifying the constitution).
Is that actually true? It would mean that when Bush (and Obama) made signing statements that they didn't need to follow certain laws, they were 100% correct. It means Reagan acted 100% legally in Iran Contra. It means that even if Obama directly ordered the IRS to harass certain groups, it was 100% legal. That's kind of scary.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
With a government like this, it's tough to make a living as a conspiracy theorist anymore.
the president had the constitutional authority, no matter what the law actually says, to order domestic spying without [constitutional] warrants
"no matter what the law actually says" - is that seriously what the people in charge think nowadays?
""According to the Washington Post, the Bush administration took 'bulk metadata' from the phone companies under voluntary agreements for more than four years after 9/11 until a court agreed they could have it compulsorily.""
For those who don't read TFA, the missing context is huge:
When the New York Times revealed the warrantless surveillance of voice calls, in December 2005, the telephone companies got nervous. One of them, unnamed in the report, approached the NSA with a request. Rather than volunteer the data, at a price, the “provider preferred to be compelled to do so by a court order,” the report said. Other companies followed suit.
And then they got immunity.
They were prohibited from selling it ABROAD, due to export regulations. That was back when the NSA was still not supposed to be spying on US citizens.
they are turning private life into something illegal. And like drugs, or in the past alcohol, its turning the environment where you can have privacy into fertile ground for crime. So you have a catch-22, or don't have privacy and be caught by sneezing in public or equivalent things, or think that have, but while doing so being in the neighbourhood of real criminals, so you become a prey for both groups.
Thanks. I've added that to the top of the list:
Join Senator Rand Paul's class action suit against the government for invading our privacy. (!!!)
Your first point implies that Nixon would have been perfectly legal in ordering the Watergate break-in, wiretapping, etc. As I recall, the final answer was that he didn't order, but did try to cover-up that it happened.
Your second point would also imply that the cover-up of which Nixon was a part, was not illegal.
I agree with you; kind of scary. Once started, where does it end?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/us/after-profits-defense-contractor-faces-the-pitfalls-of-cybersecurity.html?hp&_r=2&
You are welcome on my lawn.
"When asked by Maine Senator Susan Collins if Edward Snowden's claim that he could he could tap into virtually any American's phone call or e-mails. True or false?" Alexander said, "False. I know of no way to do that. "
The system is knowns as DCSNet, it lets them tap any phone in the country remotely:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCSNet
NSA general is fucking liar.
Furthest back I can personally say anything about for the ramp up of ubiquitous surveillance was seeing the 1999-ish Echelon report the the EU:
http://www.duncancampbell.org/content/echelon
While the scope was somewhat more limited (and more narrowly targeted) than current programs (targets being things like interception of spillover from point-to-point microwave relays, etc etc) similar questions were raised. Handling of info derived from phone call relays involving US citizens only vs mix of citizens and foreign nationals vs foreign nationals only. Scope of activity vs. charter of organization(s) doing the data handling.
Anyone have some discussion of the downward slide starting earlier?
When you live in a sick society, just about everything you do is wrong.
Does this mean people are still going to keep voting for Democrat or Republican in future elections?
way back when the NSA was doing stuff like this,
http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/5/5263/1.html
My suggestion is to send a copy of 1984 to your representative and senators. Sending a brand new copies would show a measure of finacial commitment. Three copies should only set you back about $21 plus tax and shipping. Imagine the attention it would draw if the book started to arrive to congress by the truckload.
Of course including a letter describing your personal thoughts on the matter is even better.
So what exactly is metadata?
Many years ago I was a telecommunications engineer for a large company and worked CALEA. For the uninitiated, that is law-enforcement wiretapping.
My job was to make sure CALEA functioned properly on the new cellular network. We tested on an internal, micro-cell network that was isolated from the real world. The end result was to make sure targeted devices sent CDR (call data records, or metadata) and voice to the destination. This was all piped thru IPSec tunnels to the appropriate destination law-enforcement agency.
In the event of a tunnel failure, CDRs were required to buffer but voice was not. Saving voice during an outage required too much storage space, but the text nature of CDRs meant they were small and largely compressible.
Metadata consisted of EVERYTHING THAT WAS NOT VOICE.
To be clear, it included the following:
called number
calling number
time of call
duration of call
keys pressed during call
cell tower registered to
other cell towers in range
gps coordinates
signal strength
imei (cell phone serial number)
codec
and a few other bits of technical information.
Everything above "cell tower registered to" applies to traditional, POTS land line phones. This information seems to be what the disinformation campaign currently going on seems to revolve around. They never mention that there are over 327 MILLION cellular phones in the U.S., which is more than one per person. They never mention the bottom set of metadata.
Capturing all key presses makes sure things like call transfers, three-way calls and the like get captured.
It also grabs things like your voicemail PIN/password, which never seems to get explicitly mentioned.
But the cellular set is more interesting. This data come across in registration and keep-alive packets every few seconds. This is how the network knows you're still active and where to route calls to.
But by keeping all this metadata it allows whomever has it to plot of map of your phone's gross location and movements.
By "gross", I mean the location triangulated from cell tower strength and not GPS coordinates. Towers are triangular in nature and use panel antennas. They know which panel you connect thru and can triangulate your location down to a few meters just by the strength of your signal on a couple different towers.
GPS coordinates are "fine" location. For the most part the numbers sent across are either zeroed out or the last location your phone obtained a fix.
GPS isn't turned on all the time because it sucks batteries down. If you own a phone you know how long it can take to get a fix, so this feature isn't normally used.
HOWEVER, it can be turned on remotely and is a part of the E911 regulations pushed to help find incapacitated victims after 9/11.
[There is a reason the baseband radio chip in your phone has closed, binary-blob firmware -- whether or not the OS itself is FOSS. We wouldn't want the masses to be able to disable remote activation, would we? Or let them start changing frequencies and power levels.]
So, are we comfortable with the government knowing where we, thru our cell phones, are at every moment of the day? Because that is what metadata allows.
Think of what can be learned by applying modern pattern analysis to that data set.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Update Rep. Nadler in a statement to BuzzFeed says: “I am pleased that the administration has reiterated that, as I have always believed, the NSA cannot listen to the content of Americans’ phone calls without a specific warrant.”
Mr. Obama and company need to review article X of the U.S. constitution:
This is understood to mean that just because there isn't a specific prohibition on some action doesn't mean that the action is allowed. Thus, there is NO constitutional authority that allows the President (or any one else) to ignore the constitution and, especially, the fourth amendment:
I'd say that's pretty clear to me but I'm not a lawyer.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Thanks. I added it to the list:
Join the ACLU anti-surveillance petition.
The whole NSAKEY debacle is pure nonsense.
FTA, in the middle, see bolded text:
James Owens, a spokesman for Nadler, provided a statement on Sunday morning, a day after this article was published, saying: "I am pleased that the administration has reiterated that, as I have always believed, the NSA cannot listen to the content of Americans' phone calls without a specific warrant."
Huh? Can CNET tell the future? Don't they not know what an addendum is? Why is the article still dated June 15?!?
I've heard inklings of the following ultra cynical argument.
Snowden went to Hong Kong not because of the city's "spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent.”, but because the other secrets he knows would have the greatest value, should he need to barter them for protection and other expenses
Is it true? It doesn't need to be true. It only needs to be plausible.
he's still an idiot with internet-troll-dork level logic...
The guys is no idiots. He made pretty smart moves, like finding refuge in Hong Kong and right after letting out the proof the NSA and co. doing hacking actions / spying in China. Just that move alone shows it's well thought out. Quite clever.
EFF Action: Demand Answers Now! [Direct e-mail form to contact POTUS and your senators+House rep]:
https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=9260
https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9297 [Form for non-US citizens; directed at implicated corporations]
The links below are to resources of the personal-privacy type, as opposed to the those intended to help bring about change:
EFF Surveillance Self-Defense Project [Guide to surveillance-avoidance tools and techniques for individuals]:
https://ssd.eff.org/
EFF's HTTPS Everywhere [Chrome/FF plug-in enforces HTTPS on compatible sites using rule-list (hundreds included)]:
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
https-finder: Plug-in for HTTPS Everywhere users; auto-detects sites' HTTPS support and adds them to rule-list:
https://code.google.com/p/https-finder/
Privacy-oriented search engines:
https://duckduckgo.com/ [Only search engine on EFF's Organizational Member list]
https://ixquick.com/ [Provides HTTPS proxy through which search results may be accessed]
Privacy/security-oriented free web-mail providers:
https://www.safe-mail.net/
https://www.hushmail.com/
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
He has thrown his life away and will probably never step a free foot on US soil for the rest of his life!
This part made me laugh...out of sadness...
Fsking 'clever'? Taking your last desperate option is NOT clever. Hong Kong is about as 'clever' as ifthe FBI spy Hanssen had arranged to live in the Soviet Union...
He would have been 'clever' if he could have gotten the Guardian to **hire him** as a journalist so he could co-report on his own information as both writer AND source...
His actions betray nothing but a Dungeons and Dragons Dungeonmaster on a power trip...that's his level...he had his say...now he will pay the consequences.
You are wrong in ever way to glorify his actions.
**He could have had the same effect (starting a national conversation) WITHOUT SPEAKING PUBLICLY OR RELEASING HIS NAME**
The fact that he did shows he's the opposite of clever...
Thank you Dave Raggett
See http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/06/jerrold-nadler-does-not-thinks-nsa-can-listen-us-phone-calls/66278/. It looks likely that this was primarily a miscommunication and not what was actually going on.
A: Deep Throat
Q:
I call 100% bullshit on your notions again. The leaker of the Pentagon Papers and the guy who helped sink Nixon **both** managed to find responsible journalists to protect them
**AND**
keep their fsking mouths shut...
You are again proven wrong by basic history. You need to rethink some siht man. You are coming from a wrong place.
Thank you Dave Raggett
you're trolling, but you aren't an AC and you represent, what appears to be, a sizable minority opinion...the 'peanut gallery with a IT experience' crowd...
here's the *main point* of my post:
That's what this is all about. You can argue against a hypothetical I presented as a sort of 'falsifyable' proof of my theory, but that doesn't change the correctness of my *main point*
Snowden is bad news...avoid
Thank you Dave Raggett
Look at yourselves. Go on, look at you. People of the United States, you've been had. Hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Run amuck
If it were people of Turkey or people of any banana republic, I can't fault them, not even a bit, for human beings are very easily bamboozled
However, for the Americans - I am one of them - THERE IS NO EXCUSE !!
The founding fathers had repeatedly reminded us, in their writings, of the dangers of letting the government runs amok
The founding fathers had even outlined what could went wrong, and what did went wrong in their time, and what they had done to rectify the wrongs
So many of our ancestors sacrificed so much in their struggle to regain their liberties, and yet, look at us
Are we even fit to call ourselves "AMERICANS" ??
We have failed
We have failed to uphold the spirit of America
We have failed the founding fathers
And more importantly, we have failed our children, and their children, in giving away our country and our liberties to the scoundrels
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
... just fscking shoot him. Well, maybe not. But you might ask him how we got from Smith v. Maryland, which determined that the police could legally collect dialed numbers from suspects without a warrant, all the way to where we are, where the NSA and FBI can legally collect everything about phone calls except the actual voice, on EVERYBODY, ALWAYS?
Those savvy to 2600 I am sure remember, but for the rest: Ma Bell was recording metadata and voice without wiretaps. It began with Project Greenstar and was used to evaluate and catch the first phone phreaks. (See "Exploding The Phone:..." by Phil Lapsley for an interesting read on this.)
From personal experience and knowledge of people involved, the US gov't was at least capturing voice data on select people since before 1964. This came to light to me in 1988, as related by someone that was interviewed and questioned about phone conversations that took place prior to 1964. This did not involve illegal activity prior to 1964 nor in 1988. Upon learning of this, I assumed the gov't has been capturing but not listening to all that it can (just as was done in Project Greenstar) and that only when certain issues came to light, was the listening performed.
what's your point?
unless you respond, quoting me and offering counter arguments, then your last post is considered your surrender flag...
you've proven to be a troll...firing off some random fact means nothing...you can't defend your position b/c it is indefensible
you're either 1. self deluded or 2. a paid commenter...I'm betting the former b/c you're logged in and if you were the latter you'd have better logic keep trolling longer
Thank you Dave Raggett
jerk...
you conceded your argument but first, do you just copy/paste "please argue without name calling" randomly in your responses?
n/m don't answer I don't care...
what I **do** care about is what you're arguing now? you just sort of conceded all your points and then now...
since you agree otherwise, this has become a question of logistics...are you asking me can it happen? I know it is possible but I don't want to take the time to explain or link to my resume just to prove a troll wrong...
YES...HE COULD HAVE WORKED WITH **professional journalists with the best 1st amendment lawyers available** AND DONE THIS ANONYMOUSLY
are you saying that it is *physically* impossible for a person to anonymously leak information?
if not, then what? b/c you agree with me everywhere else...
Thank you Dave Raggett
Or maybe they are. Read the oath taken by military officers: American officers are required to disobey illegal orders. Certainly any military officer involved in direct and clear violations of the Geneva Conventions (torture, indefinite detainment of civiliains, etc.) is guilty of following illegal orders. This applies from the JCS on down - there have been a *lot* of illegal and unconstitutional orders that should have been rejected.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Reported number of local phone calls (for peek year, 1999) [1, Table 10.2]: 553,853,237 thousand.
Reported number of long distance calls (for peek year, 2000) [1, Table 10.2]: 102,245,666 thousand.
Average phone call length: 3 minutes (+/- 1 minute):
(180 seconds) * 8 Kbps (minimum bitrate) = 180 kilobytes per call.
(180 seconds) * 32 Kbps (maximium bitrate) = 720 kilobytes per call.
(553,853,237,000 + 102,245,666,000) * 180 kilobytes = 107.409326 petabytes
(553,853,237,000 + 102,245,666,000) * 720 kilobytes = 429.637303 petabytes
So for the NSA to record and retain every call for the year would be in the ball park of 107 to 430 petabytes. Retaining one months worth of calls would be in the ball park of 9 to 36 petabytes, and one weeks worth of calls would be 2 to 8 petabytes. Worth noting, these figures are pre-text messaging era, I believe call volume is actually much less today.
[1]: http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/FCC-State_Link/IAD/trend605.pdf
The government claims this data was, for years given "voluntarily" by the companies from whom they get it. I believe this is the same definition of "voluntary" they are using at the airport when they claim TSA searches are "voluntary" because you chose to fly.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Let me sum up all such released FOIA documents for you: "[REDACTED]"
Real time surveillance and listening to phone calls, emails and text messages have been available for years via CALEA, which mandates that all ISPs provide access for this purpose for law enforcement (see the Wikipedia article). It's rather baffling that CALEA isn't mentioned more often.
Of course not, the NSA believes it is operating under "proper legal authorization". Or at least it's deluded itself into thinking that.
The DNI does not say, "The statement that a single analyst can eavesdrop on domestic communications is incorrect and was not briefed to Congress."
See?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
One should never vote for someone who wants to be elected to office. Political ambition is a dangerous character flaw. Consider: why are there far more lawyers in legislatures than religious leaders?
Yeah, it would be easy for my friends to "dupe" me. I trust them.
How do you know that...has it been reported? How is **coming out publicly** and revealing their identity protect them???
The original coming out article talked about it. It created a clear division between himself and his family. So that it doesn't affect their jobs.
I gather this nonsense statement (National Security is THE trump card) is intended to lend 'significance' or 'weight'
Yes. National Security can prevent the case from being open.
the point is he could have and chose not to and it was a **DUMB CHOICE** b/c he can never come to his home country again
This is really what we're arguing over. I don't think it was a dumb choice. We're also making the assumption that he really is in Hong Kong too. We'll see how this all plays out, in time. Always fun arguing with you : )
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman