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Schneier: Metadata Equals Surveillance
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Bruce Schneier writes that lots of people discount the seriousness of the NSA's actions by saying that it's just metadata — after all the NSA isn't really listening in on everybody's calls — they're just keeping track of who you call. 'Imagine you hired a detective to eavesdrop on someone,' writes Schneier. 'He might plant a bug in their office. He might tap their phone.' That's the data. 'Now imagine you hired that same detective to surveil that person. The result would be details of what he did: where he went, who he talked to, what he looked at, what he purchased — how he spent his day. That's all metadata.' When the government collects metadata on the entire country, they put everyone under surveillance says Schneier. 'Metadata equals surveillance; it's that simple.'"
This is a basic fact for anyone dealing with any substantive volume of data. The details are of no interest to anyone in power, but patterns are.
The dividing line people will have here is whether the 4th amendment(and the human right it's based on) protects a right to privacy or a right against freely targed witchhunt prosecutions. This spying won't especially invade the first, but could easily be construed to lead to the second.
It's gonna take awhile for everyone to get upto speed on this whole 'spying on everyone' thing.
Heck just 5 years ago if you made the statement 'the goverment is spying on all of us'. You'd get some sort of response involving tinfoil and hats even tho it was 100% true 5 years ago as it is today.
And now... People are starting to realize it wasn't just crazy tinfoil hat ramblings... Give them some time and they'll wise up. Somewhat...
Nother 10 years we might be able to even start fixing the problem. But i wouldn't bet on it.
Actually, while they did say that collecting metadata did not constitute a search, they have never said that putting someone under surveillance was a search either. The police do not need a search warrant to follow you around. In 1979, when the Supreme Court made the ruling in question, the metadata available was no more thorough than a police officer could obtain by following you around. Since that time, things have changed significantly. If a lawyer argued the case correctly, they could convince the court that it could overturn the precedent without having to find that the original ruling was a mistake.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The President of the United states refuses to divulge his visitor lists claiming that it might divulge privileged information. This has been going on for years under presidents of both parties. Visitor lists are metadata (who he talked to, not what they talked about). If the president recognizes his metadata is confidential, how can he claim other peoples' metadata is not confidential?
If the NSA collecting metadata on Americans isn't such a big deal then I propose the metadata for all politicians be posted on a publicly accessible website. I'm particularly interested in the phone records between Congress and K Street.
The fundamental difference between this and the Smith case is that the agencies had to do their own recording to accomplish it, as opposed to demanding (and getting, whether coerced, cooperative, or compelled) records. I have been saying for weeks that the most disturbing part of this is that even if your data is handed over by the telcos, you have no recourse because the documents searched were not yours in the first place. Even with the fourth amendment.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Since metadata is data about data nobody ever questioned if metadata was data. The argument was that it wasn't important data. Of course, the simple question: If it isn't important data, then why gather it? seems to elude most people even to this day.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
the metadata is how we figure you out.
the data is just the evidence when we finally put you in jail for thoughtcrimes.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You guys still haven't understood you lived in a police state ?
What's it gonna take ??
When they start quartering troops (e.g. bots) in our houses (e.g. computers).
oh.
wait.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Metadata can be abused as an ambiguous term, as we are seeing the NSA doing. I would like to hear the NSA definition of metadata in clear, no uncertain, and thorough terms. They are peddling the term to a populace that hasn't realized that by and large, they themselves don't know what it means. By saying "it's just metadata" that seems to be enough for much of the population to think what they are up to is benign without even knowing what it is, and I really don't understand why.
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Speak for yourself. The Slashdot audience is global and the problem is global.
Quite right: an apathetic public gave the government the ability (not the right) to violate its founding principles. The terrorist attacks were a pretext to accelerate the trend, not the real reason.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Politicians stole the word "metadata" from computer science, and declared it on-limits for warrantless spying. This is a sophistry, invented out of whole cloth.
The king of England would have used phone metadata to round up the Founding Fathers in quick order. Therefore government doesn't get to do this.
Stop government from building the tools of tyrrany to begin with. That is the meaning of the Constitution.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I don't think it's the left/right axis. Communism is left. Communism is also authoritarian. It's the authoritarian/libertarian axis that you're interested in here.