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What the Surveillance State Does With Your Private Data
Lasrick writes "Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic writes up a new report (and infographic) from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. 'What the Government Does With Americans' Data' is the best single attempt I've seen to explain all of the ways that surveillance professionals are collecting, storing, and disseminating private data on U.S. citizens. The report's text and helpful flow-chart illustrations run to roughly 50 pages. Unless you're already one of America's foremost experts on these subjects, it is virtually impossible to read this synthesis without coming away better informed.."
Unless you're already one of America's foremost experts on these subjects,
Okay first, two things: Other countries are doing this too. Their experts are not any less 'expert-y' than the USA is. In fact, I'm betting they can at least build a data center that doesn't spontaniously shoot lightning at the equipment and catch fire. Soo... sorry but maybe you need to just stick with "expert" without the qualifier there, mate.
Second, why do you have to be a "foremost expert" on this? I see plenty of people in this thread that know everything! *cough* But more seriously; You don't have to work for the government, or be a security expert, to figure out how they use the data. Look at what they have access to, look at their stated goals, then forget the stated goals and look at what they're actually trying to do and have done... and it's easy-peasy:
They're supplying the internet with limitless porn captured from surveillance footage. Duh. Where do you think all the crappy amateur pics come from?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Gotta love the guy.
What could possibly go wrong with having "everyone pay their fair share"?
They track political dissenters.
5 years: How long the National Security Agency keeps “metadata” about all Americans’ domestic and international phone calls without suspicion of wrongdoing
5 years: How long the National Counterterrorism Center can keep and search databases of non-terrorism information about Americans
5 to 20 years: Retention periods for databases that store at least some information from border searches of Americans’ laptops, phones, hard drives, and more
6 years: Time period, beginning with the start of surveillance, that the NSA can keep Americans’ incidentally gathered communications
20 to 30 years: Amount of time the FBI keeps information collected via assessments and National Security Letters, even when it is irrelevant to a current investigation
30 years: Time period that Suspicious Activity Reports with no nexus to terrorism are kept by the FBI
1 Billion and growing: Records in the FBI’s Investigative Data Warehouse
1,000,000 sq. ft.: Size of National Security Agency’s data center (opening in 2014)
41 billion: Communications records stored by NSA’s XKEYSCORE system every 30 days
I already am one of America's foremost experts on these subjects.
The short answer is "anything they damned well want to".
If in 10 years they need to dig up dirt on you, they'll have it. If they want to question you because you knew someone with a criminal past, they will.
They're collecting it for terrorism reasons, but using for anything else they damned well please.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
for example say you have an unfavorable opinion of the government. perhaps that unfavorable opinion has been discovered and lets say the G20 or G8 is coming to your neighborhood. You've printed off a few dozen peaceful protest signs and plan to head to the streets, when Mr Doe and Mr Cardholder show up at your door with a few questions and you're 'detained' for them. I guess we missed the protest now, didnt we? now what if all your friends enjoyed the same fate?
or say someone in your apartment is pirating movies, and the RIAA decides they want to work with ICE and the FBI to extract royalties and blow through a round of biblical punishment 101. sure, you might not have done anything wrong but im sure your browsing history and the sheer number of video clips you've watched on youtube for a similar artist could be used to prove intent.
finally, what if you're running as the fabled third party? all is going well until you mention reigning in the surveillance state and shuttering the war machine. Suddenly the public starts seeing leaks about your browsing habits, or your ties to a friend who once wrote a scathing email to the israeli embassy.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I hate infographics. Maybe I have a fetish for tables, but the information presented could be summarized on an index card for Pete's sake!
"All your data belong to us. We'll use it any way we damn well want, Citizen. Now go back to work so you can pay taxes."
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I stopped at the little "info-graphic". Where's the DEA? We've already heard about their Special Operations Division and how it hides the true sources of intelligence from defendants. So I'm going to doubt that this article covers the entire scope of information sharing. It may be accurate, but I think there are still a lot of holes.
And what about unofficial information sharing? Got a buddy in the FBI? What to know what your business competitors are up to? No problem. We have their files right here.
Have gnu, will travel.
From the report:
Data Retention By the Numbers
5 years: How long the National Security Agency keeps “metadata” about all Americans’ domestic and international phone calls without suspicion of wrongdoing
5 years: How long the National Counterterrorism Center can keep and search databases of non-terrorism information about Americans
5 to 20 years: Retention periods for databases that store at least some information from border searches of Americans’ laptops, phones, hard drives, and more
6 years: Time period, beginning with the start of surveillance, that the NSA can keep Americans’ incidentally gathered communications
20 to 30 years: Amount of time the FBI keeps information collected via assessments and National Security Letters, even when it is irrelevant to a current investigation
30 years: Time period that Suspicious Activity Reports with no nexus to terrorism are kept by the FBI
1 Billion and growing: Records in the FBI’s Investigative Data Warehouse
1,000,000 sq. ft.: Size of National Security Agency’s data center (opening in 2014)
41 billion: Communications records stored by NSA’s XKEYSCORE system every 30 days
*********
Lest we forget, FISC court never made legal General Alexander's "collect and store it all" they authorized only "filter and throw away".
He never authorized the use of the unfiltered UK feed by NSA staff in the UK as far as any of the documents show.
UK Snoopers Charter never made it into law, GCHQ are breaking UK law by spying on British communications, handing all the data to the NSA for filtering does not launder the evidence of that crime.
Congress was kept in the dark. Senate was kept in the dark. British Parliament was kept in the dark. The Cabinet Ministers were kept in the dark.
industrial espionage, finding dirty secrets of people with influence, spying on the political opposition, ... betting on the stock market (oops already said that).
Exactly, anyone familiar with this: http://www.mpp.org/our-work/campaigns/drug-czar/gao-rejects-us-rep-pauls.html
Who then has watched the news media just lap up every word the ONDCP puts out as if the drug czar was reading the word of god off golden tablets for them; knows this is nothing new, but is a huge problem.
These people get way more credibility than they rightly deserve.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Imagine a boot stomping on a face, forever.
You're that face.
I can't believe that nobody gets this yet. Sure, the data can be used for blackmail, intimidation, or extortion. But that's merely a bonus to them, the icing on the cake. It's not the reason they wanted a surveillance state in the first place.
The real value of the data isn't the data itself -- it's how much it justifies in government spending. We are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars per year. It doesn't matter where the money goes, or what comes of it. What matters is that it passes through their hands, giving them the opportunity to leverage that cash flow for personal gain.
The real story here is even more despicable than blackmail, intimidation, and extortion. The real story is greed, and the power of coercive authority being used to satisfy that greed. They are after money, period.
As demonstrated over and over again throughout history, power is merely a stepping stone to riches.
The idea that the United States clumsily, but accidentally, brought the terrorism situation and surveillance state that followed on itself can be approached from enough angles that it represents an undeniable truth... or does it fully? We all now know that the tin foil hat crowd was not only right all along, the didn't take it far enough. Perhaps we are still not taking it far enough. With extreme paranoia over our governments conspiracy to subvert its people now wholly justified, perhaps creating the terrorist situation was intentional and represents a broader and more sinister plan that has been in play longer than we know with goals more far reaching than we are prepared to entertain.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
As vague as I'm being, I know that I am still presenting a level of paranoia that is completely insane... or am I? It sounds crazy now, and I hope it is.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
ONE (the most important) - to 'read' the mind of the public. Your masters control you via propaganda- control messages disseminated via mainstream media and public schooling. The NSA provides near real-time feedback as to the effectiveness of any given propaganda project, allowing that project to be refined for greater effectiveness, or even aborted (see the recent failure of Obama's intended holocaust of Syria- killed by an inability to gain public support despite a saturated mainstream media project demonising Syria at the time).
TWO- to identify ALL emerging grassroots social and political activity, allowing groups and potential leaders to be co-opted or eliminated BEFORE they reach significant levels of power and/or influence.
THREE- to gather blackmail and coercion intelligence on ALL people in potential positions of power and influence, so they can be 'persuaded' to follow the 'correct' agendas as and when required. The mainstream media, for instance, was created in its modern form as a 'scandal' mechanism to allow the ire of the sheeple to be directed at ANY target designated by those that rule. Assange, and the recent rape scandal that ruined the prospects of one of France's likely next leaders shows this tactic in action.
It should be noted that throughout Human History, intelligence agencies have ALWAYS existed to serve the above three listed agendas. Fighting crime and 'terrorism' (which is almost non-existent outside of state-sponsered terror by nations like the USA, Britain, and Israel) has always been the domain of ordinary policing. NSA full surveillance is about YOU. Who you are, what you think, and who you may become.
Considering all of this has materialized after the concept of corporate lobbying I'd have to say that what doesn't fall into what the goberment is directly looking for: (actual terrorists, and undermine the lives of individuals they do not like, and corporate secrets sold to competitors), the rest is probably sold as marketing data. This would be congruent to the 3 pronged, both sides played against the middle template of the war on drugs, yet another ponzi scheme just like the war on terror. Just goes to show ya, if it's illegal and the goberment does it, it's classified, goberment seems to be into crime, and they don't like competitors.
In my state the Gestapo even searches closed purses.
The out of control Surveillance State is becoming a worse and worse deal every day, right, Wade?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If the entire security apparatus is built around you conducting your business, whether it be terrorism or shopping at Amazon, via the Internet then the obvious solution is "Don't use the Internet".
Then what do they have? All the information that has been public for decades.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."