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NSA Head Asks How To Spy Without Collecting Metadata
jfruh writes "NSA Director Keith Alexander, testifying before the Senate this week, got weirdly petulant, asking his critics how he was supposed to do his job without collecting metadata on American communications. 'If we can come up with a better way, we ought to put it on the table and argue our way through it,' he said. 'There is no other way that we know of to connect the dots.' He also implied that major U.S. tech companies might have greater capacities than his organizations, and that they should help him out with new ideas."
Is he doesn't know how to do his job without violating all our rights then he should be replaced.
just LOL.
I want an Oompah Loompah NOW!
The same way we did it before we were capable of meta data collection based spying.
He means, how can I spy without spying?
You can't.
+----------------- | What is the question!
you obtain the necessary warrant and then perform whatever action is necessary without breaking the law. was that so hard?
Maybe you just shouldn't do it.
Spying on your own citizens is bad.
So instead of actually doing targeted investigations, you've decided that collecting everything about everybody is the best way to go about it, and if you happen to pick up unrelated stuff for which you had no probable cause, too bad.
Sorry buddy, but just because you can't figure out how to do your job without turning the country (and the entire world) into the worst sort of Big Brother environment is YOUR problem.
And since you've decided that the easiest way to do this is to spy on the whole planet -- fuck you, because the rest of the world hasn't consented to that and doesn't give a shit about the challenges of you doing your job in compliance with the law.
All I'm hearing is "waah, how are we supposed to spy on just some people without effort, warrants, probably cause, and following the law?".
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"Metadata". I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Proverbs 21:19
Dammit I don't mind him getting the metadata he actually needs tp defend the United States. What I object to is the idea that he gets ALL the metadata without showing any need for the vast majority of it.
The 4th Amendment was written with the express intent of forbidding general warrants. Yet that's what we have.
Stop it.
This isn't even slightly hard.
Step 1: Require that the companies collect the information and retain it.
Step 2: Get a court order when you need to obtain information about a specific individual, and then obtain only that information.
It's not the metadata that's the problem. It's the fact that you're in possession of it, not just for the people you're legitimately investigating, but for everybody, and the fact that with our legal system being as complex as it is, you can almost certainly find patterns sufficient to suspect any honest person of a crime.
For example, I recently received an email about repairing strings of Christmas lights from someone whose last name is Snowden. Assuming that there's some relation, there's a good chance that my metadata is caught up in one of these f**king dragnets even though I have jack s**t to do with the guy who released confidential info from our government. There's no legitimate reason for them to study me—I'm pretty boring, frankly—but I would not be in the least bit surprised if it happened.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
they will say, "We can't do our job without a camera in every home".
Seriously, if you have a reason to suspect someone, you go ask a judge for a warrant to go spy on them. He might give it to you. After that you can spy on them.
And let me make this perfectly clear:
WITHOUT THE WARRANT, SPYING ON THEM IS ILLEGAL.
And by and far spying on foreigners is ALSO ILLEGAL. At least, according to their laws. The same way that it's illegal for their citizens to spy on us according to our laws. Those laws are ignored when we are at war with them. Breaking the NAZI codes was a legit thing to do because we didn't give a flying fuck about their laws, you know, at the time. You're not supposed to treat US citizens like the enemy. We're at peace.
Bill Binney Interview on Real Time with Bill Maher
Because you fired the one guy who had your answer.
Constitution first. If you can't do what you are trying to justify within the bounds of that very plain-language document, then you DO NOT DO IT.
It would be easy to stamp out all domestic abuse. Just post a federal officer in every couples' bedroom.
Same applies for violent crime with firearms; turn every home upside down and confiscate every firearm you find. If any "missed" or hidden turn up later, immediate death penalty. Possession or use after this point - also immediate death penalty.
It would sure make the cops' jobs easier! We should totally do that! Except it's flagrantly in violation of both the spirit and the word of the Constitution - just like the NSA's metadata dragnets - so too fucking bad.
Do your jobs above board, according to the law. You know, those pesky things you make and ignore, but we serfs have to follow? Those.
The *beep* NSA is not supposed to be connecting the dots on everybody without a solid case and a warrant. The constitution explicitly guarantees a basic level of privacy of communication.
He is asking whether anybody knows a better way to a total surveillance state fundamentally in violation of the constitution. If there is one, nobody in the U.S.A., particularly any government institution, is allowed to take it.
It's a crime. And he asks whether somebody knows whether there is a better way to commit crimes.
Of course, who better to ask than the leaders of the organized crime syndicate running the U.S. government?
So, despite its long and productive pre-history as a Black Chamber and special-ops division during the Cold War -- before the dawn of the Internet -- now the NSA claims that the only way they can do their job is to do things we find to be unacceptable.
Turn. It. Off.
Thanks for making it easy.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Budget, time frame, method. You only get to chose two, one if you chose poorly or create arbitrary restrictions.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
You have it wrong. The 4th amendment protects your data, not your metadata. The fact that you are mailing letters to your co-conspirators is not protected, the content of those letters are. Just because things have been automated does not mean they gain additional protection.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Go ahead and spy on our enemies. Go ahead and spy on our allies if that's somehow helpful.
But don't violate American rights because you don't have enough to do.
If it can't be done without violating people's rights, then don't do it. It's really that simple.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
So now they are past the stage of denial, and just openly admit they are trashing the Constitution, because they already built their system to work this way, so fuck off.
Mr Alexander should have been handed a pink slip long ago. One of the issues at the NSA is like the FBI under Hoover everyone is afraid of the organization so they do not get the oversight they badly need. Also what they ought to be doing is asking themselves what would Bruce Schneier do?
The NSA has been doing this since well before all of you (okay, nearly all of you) were born. It's right in their mission statement. Where the fuck have you people been. Oh, right - you've been living in near absolute safety while they feed this information to the military to go kill brown people who hate us.
"NSA Director Keith Alexander, testifying before the Senate this week admitted he's not qualified to protect us from terrorism." He said " I have a limited imagination and can only come up with one illegal solution to the problem". This is despite the fact that many terrorist plots have been discovered without violating rights, and his spying solution has failed to stop others. All he has is a hammer so every problem looks like a nail.
The difference between truth and fiction is that fiction has to be plausible.
Stop Spying.
Spy only on those you have valid reason to need to spy on and you won't have to ask stupid feckin questions like "how can we spy without collecting metadata", because our problems with the spying isn't that it's metadata you're collecting, but that you're spying on anyone and everyone and hoping that some baddies will be found.
You might as wel lock everyone up in the hopes that some criminals will get caught.
If his job is to prevent terrorism, he's right... he can't do that without a substantial surveillance dragnet that tramples the 4th Amendment.
If his job is to investigate and prosecute terrorism after it occurs, he can do that and stay within the Constitution.
I think he would have to convince his bosses (both the administration and the American people) to be comfortable with a different mandate. Are we comfortable with that? I am -- but then, I'm one of those who believes the risk of a government with that level of surveillance abusing its powers seems to me like a worse environment than one in which another 9-11 occurs every 5 to 10 years.
There's a balance that needs to be struck. In my opinion, there's an imbalance right now.
Why does this have to be such an extreme set of operation? Why has America slipped into this great fear-based society, that must be constantly defended? If this guy's job is so hard, maybe we should start asking why the job is so hard, rather than how to do the job? Because it just may be that there is no answer for this question, it's the question that's the problem.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
The cost of freedom is that you must acknowledge that you must remain vulnerable to attack. Otherwise you destroy the freedom you are supposedly trying to protect.
In this case, that the job exists at all is the problem. That makes the solution simple and elegant. The only remaining issue, is accepting that everytime somthing bad happens, we are necessarilly limited in our ability prevent it.
The government cannot ever make me safe. all they can do is protect my liberties, and over the last 12 years they have been doing a piss-poor job of it.
Just subcontract the job to a private company.
THEY can do whatever they want, no warrants needed.
Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. are collecting and selling the metainformation anyway.
If his job can't be done without violating the fourth amendment, then his job should be eliminated.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
That's a classic "define the argument" tactic. He doesn't want the debate to be "is spying cost effective" or "is spying itself harmful" so he attempts to make the argument about metadata collection, hoping his audience will accept the necessary premise of that argument: Spying is required/beneficial.
Don't get suckered. It doesn't matter whether the NSA uses metadata, payload inspection, facial tracking, or anything else...what matters is that a surveillance state is harmful to everyone near or under it.
Split the NSA into the Department of Big Brother and the New-NSA. Big Brother collects all the data and tracks everything about everyone, but the data is not query-able without a warrant (and all access is logged and reviewed, and abuse is actually penalized). Then the New-NSA can do their job the way they're supposed to, using warrants.
If his job is to prevent terrorism, he's right... he can't do that without a substantial surveillance dragnet that tramples the 4th Amendment.
He can't do it with that dragnet, either. All this NSA dragnet shit was in place for YEARS at the time of the Boston Marathon bombing, and it wasn't worth shit.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
We don't want you to spy on us, period.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
"NSA Director Keith Alexander, testifying before the Senate this week, got weirdly petulant, asking his critics how he was supposed to do his job without collecting metadata on American communications.
Easy. Assume we're all guilty until we can each prove our innocence - oh, wait...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
While we're brainstorming on this, can someone tell me how to shoplift food without stealing it? Until we solve that problem, I'm going to have to continue to break the law to feed my Doritos addiction, but I really don't see any alternative.
The fact that you are mailing letters to your co-conspirators is not protected,
Not sure I follow.
Let me put the text here "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Not seeing 'only except data we can sorta see anyway'. Which is metadata. Is it really that hard to get a warrant to look for the specific data?
However, your way breaks the fifth and the sixth. As I am being held to testify for others crimes even though I was not involved at all. I am also not getting an impartial jury (frankly none). You could even make the case they are breaking the first amendment. "and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." As how do I talk to a secret court to say 'dont spy on me'?
Our judicial and congressional system has seen fit to ignore it and take it upon themselves to protect us by violating our rights. Both in law and in practice.
A recent foia request by propublica for emails between NSA employees and employees of the National Geographic Channel over a time period that the TV station had aired a friendly documentary on the NSA resulted in the following response from the NSA (the supercomputing powerhouse) "There's no central method to search an email at this time with the way our records are set up, unfortunately.... [the system is] a little antiquated and archaic." A former employee of the department of labor statistics said that the department's entire data set fits on a single hard drive. Note that in the 90’s the IRS was still using vacuum tube technology. The National Security Agency in the last couple of years just started building modern data centers in Utah. There is abundant evidence provided by the Thomas Drake prosecution and the 9-11 commission report that information management is a problem in the intelligence community. Does google have better information management technology than the NSA? If corporations do have better data on the U.S. economy and population than the U.S. government doesn't it make sense to be governed by these corporations, ie government sachs? Is it not true that he who has the information has the power? And of course doesn't that create a clear “moral hazard”and “regulatory capture” situation as the corporations are regulated by the gov? Regulatory capture is basically when the cops and judges are owned, the book "13 bankers" goes over the issue for wall street. Isn’t corporate control of government part of what occupy wall street activists protested?
That's not right. Current law (ECPA) allows LEO access without warrant to the CONTENT of emails stored for over 180 days by third parties.
This is outrageous. It is clearly a violation of a reasonable expectation of privacy if you extent the analogy of physical mail to email. Some members of Congress believe this and have filed legislation to end this practice.
The other aspect of this is that collection of ALL one's metadata in this age is a very different proposition to collecting the addresses on the outside of a few envelopes. The former provides a very deep insight, the latter quite limited.
Some judges have expressed opinions of this type, for example ruling that a physical 'tail' on an individual may not require a warrant, however tracking a person by planing a GPS device on their car does.
And finally the idea of general authorization of any collection activity is something the founders would deny.
Soon he will be able to fly commercial and just listen for all the info he needs.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
Big technical challenge. Huge. Here's a few billion dollars to figure out how to do it within the spirit and letter of the law. Oh, right, we already gave you billions to do that. So, here's another few?
On the plus side, at least he's finally getting it: that, yes, the public need to have a conversation about what exactly is and isn't acceptable while carrying out the job. Now that the information is out there, that process can finally begin. Don't get frustrated now about something you should have begun to discuss years ago. Engage in the conversation. Don't get exasperated about it.
If soldiers can have rules of engagement, then you guys should be able to come up with similar principles about obtaining intelligence, and make sure the public is okay with the balance that you have struck. It's not going to be easy or quick, but get on with it.
Our job is to tell you what you can't do. Your job is to be effective despite this. If you don't have the imagination to do your job without meticulously raping the document you swore to uphold, maybe it's time to let someone else have the chance to do things right. Also, feel free to take a swan dive off a building. Regards, The American People, CC: the rest of the world.
Saying "the ends justify the means" is a clear sign of someone is out of control. Read the 4th amendment. It doesn't say, "unless you can't thing of a better way", because everyone knows what that kind of reasoning leads to.
Now, will any of these solve the problem? No. Will it make everyone happy? No. Like always, security, like liberty. is a compromise.
Except that when collected in bulk, the metadata reveals your data. A few examples:
"Consider the following hypothetical example: A young woman calls her gynecologist; then immediately calls her mother; then a man who, during the past few months, she had repeatedly spoken to on the telephone after 11pm; followed by a call to a family planning center that also offers abortions. A likely storyline emerges that would not be as evident by examining the record of a single telephone call."
"The phone records indicating that someone called a sexual assault hotline or a tax fraud reporting hotline will of course not reveal the exact words that were spoken during those calls, but phone records indicating a 30-minute call to one of these numbers will still reveal information that virtually everyone would consider extremely private."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/in-aclu-lawsuit-scientist-demolishes-nsa-its-just-metadata-excuse/
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/2013.08.26_aclu_pi_brief_and_declarations.pdf
http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~felten/testimony-2013-10-02.pdf
How about we ask Keith to ask of his people to quit, and tender his resignation voluntarily? No questions asked.
There, solved that for ya. It would be really easy to lower taxpayer liability by just putting organizations like his on the chopping block, and ending all overseas adventures. Please don't patronize us with your idealistic beliefs in safety -- one could only imagine what D.C. would be like with a Kiev-style protest.
We're asking you nicely now -- and putting it into public discourse. The next time time, I don't know how nicely people will ask. I think it might get ugly.
Nations have been spying on each other for thousands of years before we had the Internet, wireless telephone service, or even wired landline service for that matter, how the hell did you do your goddamned jobs back then!? Also, stating the obvious here: You do not need to spy on every goddamned one of us you fucking hacks! Get your noses out of our lives you sonofabitch!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The 4th amendment protects your data, not your metadata.
There is no such exception in the fourth amendment, and those two are the same things.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Given that the NSA utterly failed to "connect the dots" before Sept. 11, 2001, before the shoe bombing attempt, before the underwear bombing attempt, before the Times Square bombing attempt, before Tim McVeigh and Eric Rudolph and Ted Kaczynski and the Boston Marathon bombers, I would say the illegal methods by which trying to "connect the dots" aren't worth a damn, either. Not for their publicly-stated purpose of foreseeing a future terrorist attack.
If he's talking about "connecting the dots" *after* an attack, then it should be pretty goddamn easy to get a warrant for that investigation.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Your mandate is to monitor foreign signals and communications and disseminate that intelligence to the other intelligence agencies. Please stop wasting your time on monitoring domestic communications (as that's the job of law enforcement, such as the FBI, when accompanied by a warrant), and use that extra man- and computing- power to actually disseminate intelligence to the boots-on-the-ground that need it. At the same time, when some foreign terrorist douchebag decides he is coming to the U.S., please let the boys at the FBI and INS know so they can meet the guy at the airport, before they get to executing an attack on some marathon or office tower.
Signed,
(well, you already have the meta-data anyway, so why bother)
Choice A: Live in a more free country that is more vulnerable to a surprise attack.
Choice B: Live in a less free country that is less vulnerable to a surprise attack.
While I'm not one to say "stop all spying" I am one to say "I'm willing to take my chances at being the next victim of a 9/11-style attack in exchange for greatly reducing the amount of spying."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
So apart from the blatant Constitutional shredding, which in and of itself should be plenty to call BS on the whole thing, how about the simple ROI of the whole damn thing? How much money, resources and man-hours have we shit away for practically no public good or protection? I would guess in the billions and growing. This whole ordeal is nothing but a power grab for control. It has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with pure unadulterated power.
Metadata;
Ask Slashdot
In the same vein, you can kill everyone in the planet, so terrorist won't attack and they won't cause any victims.
They are not protecting US from attacks, they are attacking them, and everyone else, stripping every human of a fundamental human right, creating enemies and losing allies.
And this would happen even if the process were done entirely by machines only searching for terrorism. But they are done by men, by for-profit companies, and under orders of politicians that live in a place where money means everything, is guaranteed that it will be used for profit and economic advantage, not for protection.
gee, you know, with listening devices for single homes/locations and stakeouts and gadgets?
Allow Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, etc to maintain the "metadata" as they do now. When the NSA wants to search for the contacts of a particular email address, etc, they can ask the corportate overlords to do it. they only do it a few hundred times a year, no problem. We will always give up our privacy for free email accounts.
As far as we know the NSA, et al has been very good at reducing attacks. Or maybe not, we just don't know.
Even if all you say is true, the government has no right to cast its gaze on things protected by the 4th.
Good-bye
The way to do the job, which, by the way, is not to spy on Americans, is to... not spy on Americans.
The answer is, of course, that we should undermine the principles of our free society in order to protect our society from those who hate our freedom. Makes perfect sense, right?
The difference with the mail is that you are giving your letter to a Federal agency to deliver it to the intended recipient. They know the sender and recipient because you are voluntarily telling them.
In the case of "business records" kept by a private company or an individual I say they have a right to keep those records private unless the government obtains a warrant.
Whether it is an individual or a business it doesn't matter. If I have a letter from you in my possession then it is my fourth amendment right to keep that private unless the government has a warrant. But it would also be my right to surrender that letter to the government at their request.
The parts I object to regarding current practices are the government demanding that letter and forcing me to turn it over and the fact that congress has interfered with private contracts between companies or individuals and other individuals by saying that companies or people are not liable for violating their privacy agreements by complying with government requests for data. If I have an agreement with you that you will not give my letter to anyone without a warrant, then courts should uphold that as a legal contract.
Companies should be free to refuse demands for data that don't come with a warrant and customers should be free to sue companies if they violate their privacy agreements by conveying specified business records to the government. And therefore companies should be able to compete on the strength of their privacy agreements and customers can decide what level of privacy they want.
How am I supposed to spy if we don't collect data?
The question assumes that spying is needed. This is an unproven assumption. We have no evidence the spying is needed or beneficial, it has been proven only harmful or at best useless.
We're not threatened by other large nations because we have Mutually Assured Nuclear Destruction. Therefore the scaremongers had to invent a new bogieman: Terrorism. The threat is inconsequential. Falling in the bathtub is a greater threat to American lives than terrorism. You're about 4 times more likely to get struck by lightning than die in a terrorist attack. Accidents and Heart Disease kill FOUR HUNDRED TIMES more people EVERY YEAR than a 9/11 scale attack. When you compare the threat of terrorist attack to any other real threat to human lives their scaremongering doesn't match the facts.
Six times more people die from the flu every year than a 9/11 scale attack. We need proportional protection. The budget to protect us from terrorists is out of control. The anti-terrorism budget should be AT MOST one sixth of the budget we spend on ant-flu or 1/200th of the anti-accident budget, 1/200th the anti-heart-disease budget. How much does the government spend to protect citizens from lightning attacks? Is it FOUR TIMES the NSA's budget?!
The government needs no secrets. Our army is big enough and we are powerful enough that we need keep secret nothing. If nothing is secret, you need not fear spies, eh? They've taken the limited power we gave for them to have secrets, and used it against their own people to create a Stasi-like despotic apparatus -- The very thing our soldiers have fought against. Who will answer the call to fight for a government who's action has become indistinguishable from the enemy? The NSA has damaged us, stripped our honor, and shamed us in the world's eyes, our technology sector is suffering due to distrust. The NSA is a threat to national security.
The people should KNOW they can trust their government. We must not allow them to keep secrets. No one has proved the secrets are needed. We are brave enough to risk 400 times the threat of a terrorist attack by driving to McDonald's for a kid's Happy Meal. The public shouldn't have to wear tinfoil hats fearing government spying of citizens unless the government is also handing out lightning insulation suits. We should be able to prove their actions are not harmful to the people or violations of our constitution. We can't do this if there are secret unconstitutional actions.
PRISM is not the first spying apparatus. There was Omnivore, Carnivore, ECHELON, Five-Eyes, and more. Remember how the PATRIOT Act granted immunity to the ISPs retroactively for their assistance in violating the 4th amendment? Yes, remember BEFORE 9/11 how the NSA had secret rooms in telco buildings where all the fiber optics ran through -- Where it was apparently split by mirrors to create PRISM? BEFORE 9/11?!?!!?! OK, NSA. Your fucking move. Prove you are not fucking pointless, you fuckers had your decades of spying on all communications and you FUCKING FAILED to prevent the worst terrorist attack we've ever faced! We even gave you MORE powers and you FAILED again to prevent the Boston Marathon Bombing. The ball is in your court to stand down, the evidence is not in your favor, pushing the issue will get you eliminated for good.
Expensive + Useless = Unnecessary; NSA == Unnecessary.
I'm a scientist, so before we agree to continue funding for these expensive and pointless pork-spending protection systems, including the DHS, I need hard evidence that they are needed. As it stands the facts prove these expenses should be stripped from the budget and given to health care, and research, or at the very least, NASA. The biggest thre
Does Alexander really not get why people are pissed off? We're not saying the NSA shouldn't collect metadata, we're saying they should be identifying specific targets, obtaining warrants, and only collecting data pertaining to the named targets. I know that's way-outside-the-box thinking for guys like him. The NSA is supposed to be helping to protect Americans, not treat them all as suspects. I'm pretty sure all school children understand the principle of "innocent until proven guilty."
If his job is to prevent terrorism, he's right... he can't do that without a substantial surveillance dragnet that tramples the 4th Amendment.
He can't do it with that dragnet, either. All this NSA dragnet shit was in place for YEARS at the time of the Boston Marathon bombing, and it wasn't worth shit.
That's a misrepresentation. If the NSA would not have been busy collecting a haystack, it could have listened to the Russian agents which explicitly warned them about those terrorists.
The problem is that the fascination with poking indiscriminately into everybody's life is not just not worth shit, it's actually distracting the NSA from doing its real job, namely following pointers given to them. They were having relevant information about 9/11 and did not follow up on it, the were having very significant information about the Boston bombers and were not following up on it, and the reason for that is that their brightest people are drunk on their plans to find terrorists "without cheating", namely without actually following hints they did not siphon off somebody by themselves.
And all the focus on eavesdropping has made them incapable of doing what their job is, namely putting two and two together.
The same way you did it before the metadata was available.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
... that owning another human being as a slave was perfectly legal too, and that it was also unconstitutional for Congress to make any law prohibiting slavery... this was the Dred Scott decision of 1857. It took a new constitutional amendment (the 13th) to overturn that decision.
General, in the case of Landline phones, are you allowed to record every single call on every single circuit without a warrant? No.
Even if you are allowed all pen logs indefinitely, is it right for you to retain all of them "just in case?" No.
I don't give a damn if you're scanning every bit of metadata passing through the intertubes looking for particular users, IP, or Traffic, and retain that. (i.e. You've Got A Clue about what you're already looking for.)
I DO care if you retain all of it for *any* length of time.
You either KNOW whom you're targeting or you STAY THE HELL AWAY from keeping the data.
This is private internet traffic you're dicking with, not open imagery data of satellites.
Why is that so hard to understand, General?
I know it's fairly unpopular/un-pc to mention it, but Christians (yeah, the fundamentalist bible basher type) have for years pointed to the prophecy in Revelations 13 etc. regarding total world population control.
Seems record-keeping with the purpose of keeping tabs on a population goes back a long long way. Some claim that was part of Nimrod's empire and the purpose for building the tower of Babel.
My take is that people in power will always strive to increase their control over a population, to increase their power. The technology is at a point where this has become possible for the world population, at least for those who use any level of technological advancement. Even while you think you need to protest and fight this, it will not go away.
This will probably be labelled as Troll, but it is not. I'm just trying to see the situation from a more neutral point of view than what usually flies these days.
Simply put, I think Alexander is in a no-win position.
If he doesn't supply the necessary intelligence, and something happens that he could have prevented, then (1) people die and their blood is on partly on his hands and (2) he's seriously and culpably failing in his sworn duties. Fine, the law says he can't indiscriminately spy on nationals. The very real problem is that it's impossible to know what's indiscriminate and what's warranted until it's "too late". What can they do? Three choices: (a) stop all spying, (b) try to do safe sampling, or (c) weasel around the laws and be indiscriminate. Unfortunately, (a) isn't acceptable if a preventable occurs, (b) is what they claim they're trying to do but that isn't good enough for the public, and we're left with (c) which is unacceptable in a free society.
The problem is not the NSA, it's bigger than them. It's global, it's political, it's economic, it's social. The current NSA is a consequence in a long line of consequences and in the current situation they're just going to have to be the "bad guy" and do what they're sworn to do. Well, that sucks for everybody. Are we going to fix the political, social and economic issues this year? No? Then don't expect a reasonable, actionable alternative for them to follow.
Last, I have seen persistent, voluntary attempts by Alexander to generate good will. It's not working, he's got to know it, and yet he keeps trying. Why? Really, there's no need for him to take it on the chin the way he has. Yes, maybe it's a hope that repeating some vague notion of lying enough will help, but if so, the way they're going about it doesn't make much sense. Maybe, instead, he's tried to do the right thing.
I think they are in a no-win position.
Asking for "a better way to do X" presumes that X should be done to begin with.
"Help us find a better way to torture prisoners!"
Naturally the Senate didn't challenge him on this presumption just as it didn't hold him accountable for lying to them to begin with.
As it currently stands, they are gathering more data than they could conceivably know what to do with. Wouldn't they be more effective if they only target actual suspects? No matter how many colossal data centers they build or how many employees they hire, there is no way to effectively put that much data to use. It seems to me that the NSA cares less about being good at what they do and more about collecting more and more data just because they are addicted to the power it gives them. When the NSA chief models his "war room" after the freaking bridge from Star Trek, it says a lot about his mindset on the whole thing. Seriously, I bet that most of their ideas start with something like "Hey, wouldn't it be awesome if we could just tap Google's data center links and get ALL their data?". Everyone has these sorts of fantasies at their jobs; the difference being that the NSA can then proceed to actually DO them because they have been given a blank check to do whatever they want with as much taxpayer money as they need to make it happen. This is getting beyond ridiculous.
Are gun owners required to be in the militia? Is the State free to draft gun owners?
According to U.S. Federal Law all U.S. able bodied adult males up to a certain age are in the "inactive" Federal Militia. "Inactive" means that there is no requirement to gather or train. Many states have similar laws regarding the state militias. The federal law also makes it clear that the militia is not the National Guard since that upper age limit is increased if a person had ever served in the "active" military forces. The National Guard is an "active" force since it meets and trains regularly and its training is dictated by the U.S. Army.
Automatically being in the Federal Militia is part of the legal basis for the draft. In a technical sense you are being "transferred" from the inactive militia to the active duty reserve (IIRC) force.
Also note that there is an inactive reserve, meaning after you leave the military you no longer have to meet or train but the military still owns your butt for some time frame. They can immediately return you to active duty in the event of a pressing need.
In general the U.S. military has the following components according the federal law (IIRC):
Regular Forces
Active Reserve Forces
Inactive Reserve Forces
National Guard (normally under command of state, can be transferred to federal authority, training dictated by feds)
Active Militia
Inactive Militia (all able bodied males of a certain age range automatically belong)
He can't do it with that dragnet, either. All this NSA dragnet shit was in place for YEARS at the time of the Boston Marathon bombing, and it wasn't worth shit.
But let's say it prevented 100+ Boston Marathon-esque bombings, because the government stopped it before it got too far. Would it be an acceptable risk then?
U.S. tech companies have been "unfairly hurt" by revelations of NSA surveillance this year, he said.
First off, considering the degree of collaboration we've seen, I'd say that the hurting (if any) has been more than fair.
But what really bothers me is that this is all that matters here. It's not that there's blanket spying going on, it's that the revelation is hurting the bottom line of some major campaign contributors. No violin is too tiny for AT&T!
What a dolt.
You don't own the phone lines, either, or the Postal Service, right? But (landline) phone calls, and (snail-) mailed correspondence are long understood to have First and Fourth Amendment protections.
I agree that the spying is necessary, and I agree that the crossing that line is a reasonable cost of the system.
I'm not happy about it, but I agree that the state of affairs would be much more expensive to tax payers to avoid my meta data.
But that doesn't mean you need to store it for decades. So how about this: you have ten days to accuse me of something. After that, you get to permanently destroy anything you have on me.
I'll even extend that to fingerprints and dna and blood. You want to "rule me out" as a possible suspect? No problem. But then you don't get to keep me on file such that I can come up later, by accident or otherwise.
And here's the thing. We can easily build it into your current laws under the fourth ammendment. The ten-day-old data requires a search warrant to have, the present-day data doesn't. Done. Then you can easily fight illegal search and siezure after-the-fact if you're ever accused based on old data.
So that's my idea. It's been my idea for a while.
We could do actual targeted investigation! The kind where you see a person that's suspect, you get a warrant, you listen to all of their communications, and you record who they're talking to. If it's the local pizza hut, you ignore it. If it's another shady suspect, you get another warrent, and listen to this new guy. If New Guy is just a legitimate carpet cleaning company or something, you ignore that too.
You could fire some tech guys and hire some people I'll call "agents", who's job it would be to investigate people. Maybe they'd hang out in unmarked cars, plant some high tech listening devices, maybe go undercover and get jobs with the people you'd be investigating. Maybe they'd write up a report saying "Yes, Bob is a terrorist, we need to keep an eye on this guy".
Or, maybe the odds of me actually getting hurt by a terrorist are so low that I shouldn't worry about it. Or, maybe my magic Anti Terrorist rock is working. I should sell these things!
Is he doesn't know how to do his job without violating all our rights then he should be replaced.
The problem isn't with the mere fact that the NSA is looking for people with bad intentions. That by itself is fine up to a point. The problem is that the NSA and congress and the executive branch refuse to have an adult discussion with the electorate about boundaries and the fact that the NSA presently is not answerable to the electorate. "Trust us" is not remotely sufficient assurance that the NSA is not abusing their power, especially when every indication is that they are behaving badly.
Some surveillance is reasonable and appropriate but there are boundaries beyond which the government should not step without extremely strict oversight. We have the fourth amendment prohibiting unreasonable searches precisely because governments have a hard time restraining themselves. Ensuring judicial oversight is inconvenient for the government and that is precisely the point of that judicial oversight. Governments have proven time and again that they will abuse power. We understand the need for some reasonable surveillance but that doesn't mean we can or should give carte-blanche to the NSA to do whatever the hell they want. The electorate should have a say in exactly what constitutes "reasonable".
In a democracy the government is supposed to be ultimately answerable to the people. When you have a secretive branch of government, implementing secret policies, "overseen" by a secret (and apparently toothless) court, with secret findings that are never released to the public, then there is no way for the NSA to be answerable to the people. THAT is the problem.
Go ahead and scoop everything then within 14 days scan everything for keywords (certain terms , endpoints and "persons of interest"). When you are done delete the filtered out info. If you need extra time (to unwind something complex) then GO TO A JUDGE and get one of those inconvenient "warrant" things.
the 9/11 attack WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN so stop using it as an excuse to use the Bill Of Rights as cheap TP.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Finally a new use for Gitmo.
Profiling is just another form of indiscriminate metadata.
"Profiling" is a form of rational statistical analysis with a big social problem attached. If you have a known population of people with a propensity to behave in a certain way, then the rational thing to do is to look closely at that population. It is no different analytically than observing that white people are more prone to sunburns and thus have higher rates of skin cancer. If I worked for El Al Airlines security, it would be stupid to not look a little closer at people of Arab descent from a security standpoint because there is a known threat from some portion of that population. It doesn't mean that all Arabs are a threat (most are not) but it does make for a smaller haystack to search through. Profiling by itself is simply a rational form of analysis BUT there is a big problem with using it for policing purposes.
The problem with profiling is that it becomes a cover for overt racism. I know very few black people who have not at some point been harassed by police for no reason other than the color of their skin. Sometimes people do behave in ways that should draw attention from law enforcement but it has to be more than solely the color of one's skin or country of origin.
Alexander and his NSA are tools for Obama.
When Obama Care tanks from lack of money where will Obama go? Use the metadata from Alexander for extortion and money theft.
Level The Playing Field!
Alexander wants dirt on every U.S.A. citizen which he hates almost as much as Obama.
We get the dirt on Alexander, Obama and every tool-employee of the Fed and use it on them as they use theirs on us.
Simple
Get real. How else is this national conversation supposed to proceed ? OK so he got petulant- that is if we accept the editors editorializing on the facts- but so what? So the fuck what? This THIS is the back and forth we are desperately looking for and which we desperately, desperately need. Here it is. The director of the NSA openly soliciting for alternative ways to be effective and what does he get? A pile on of cynical snarky comments.
What does that say? It says you have no idea how to help him do his job. You've got the inflammatory rhetoric and taking offense bases well covered but when it comes down to someone actually doing what you claim you want - solicit the public for input- *tap tap* you're found to be a little thin.
Imagine his job. Anyone anywhere including malcontents in this nation (the US) could start putting together a doomsday microbe or nanobot or virus or whatever and anyone claiming that those things are possibilities either literally have no idea what they're talking about or have no grasp of the velocity of technology.
All of human civilization has a problem that's completely sui generis to our times in both magnitude and difficulty. It's that the ascending vector of technological capability and the descending vector representing the number of people it takes to wield that technology in completely arbitrary ways are whizzing past each other with frightening magnitude.
What are we going to do when all it takes to effect millions of billions of people is five or six like minded people? When the normal instinct for self preservation is absent in those five or six people? What happens when that describes the world ? How do we defend ourselves against that?
The world , if humans and mammals generally are going to continue to exist on it, is going to have to radically reorg itself with respect to the Big Issues of security, privacy and liberty. Going forward as we always have is a prescription for self-annihilation.
You may *think* the NSA is doing what it's doing because it's power mad and seeking fascist control over everyone - and that actually IS a danger , is just as Snowden termed it- "turnkey fascism" but in fact we have no evidence that they've involved themselves in running interference in the mundane affairs of making money and political freedoms excepting where they thought it intersected in national security , i.e. Wikileaks - an affair in which I think they took a very wrong turn BTW.
No the reality is that whatever very real and very dangerous potential for turnkey fascism is implicit in the uber-surveillance they've implemented, it hasn't been realized and that's not their intention. Their intention is to keep very very very bad things from happening.
So now you have the director of the NSA openly asking for assistance- whatever his tone (which you can imagine is rightly or wrongly likely semi-sarcastic just as your tone would be if some amateurs one day presumed to start telling you how to do your very complicated job) and what ideas do you have that aren't a form of pure rhetoric and which directly address the near-future calamity of Shiva-style power being accessible to any small group of lunatics.
What we consider our privacy is its present form is not going to survive this century. That's a fact. Either we have some king of incredible transparency on demand for everyone everywhere including the government or we take seriously the notion that we need to change what human beings are and what they're inclined to.
Neither of those really leaves much room for your freedom and liberty and self-determination and privacy as you understand them today.
People in the Middle Ages never would have accepted modernity if through some miracle it were thrust upon them suddenly and en toto. They would have gladly died fighting against it. We moderns feel differently about things because we have a concept of our selves and our freedoms and responsibilities . What we have to realize is that w
If your society is not truly "opt-in", then Big Brother surveillance is the only real option for safety. We (America) let tons of people into our country with all sorts of whacko beliefs (yes, blowing up buildings full of civilians defines you as a "whacko"), and we have lots of homegrown nutters too. Being/becoming a "citizen" is easy, all citizens get the same rights, and everybody gets to vote. Many people never display an iota of civil responsibility, yet they are granted the same "power" (rights + votes) as others who would sacrifice much or all to contribute to the common good. If you make it tough to become a citizen, then all of a sudden you might not need to monitor citizens.
Then get a fucking warrant
Targeted individuals to the NSA_GLOBAL_DATASTORE, not with the current Orwellian Dragnet, m'kay?
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
The US separates military and police for very good reasons. We give the military all sorts of devices (grenades, napalm, thermonuclear bombs) that we do not give to the police, but we prohibit using the military as law enforcement inside of the country.
I believe we should do the same with information. The military gathering information doesn't bother me much if it is ONLY used against external threats. What I mostly object to is military type information gathering used to enforce drug laws, copyright, child porn and other purely internal criminal issues.
In my mind the burden to prove efficacy in the reduction or prevention of terrorism rests on the NSA. If they were doing a pretty good job, I think they'd let us know, so we'd get off their collective back. As long as they aren't forthcoming with their actual accomplishments, I'm going to assume it's because they don't have any great accomplishments to speak of.
As has been stated before ... its not just the government that does this. Google, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Target, Walmart, Amazon - they all collect, analyze, and *sell* your information. They have a complete profile of you, your interests, your life. They sell this data, use it to target you for ads, commercials, flyers, etc. You really think Google and Yahoo aren't reading your email? Of course they are, thats how they generate targeted ads and thats why when you delete an email it just strips the label and puts it in All Mail - so they can continue to parse. LinkedIn has been called out for contact chaining and reading your email. Google has been accused of collecting home wireless data, and they keep going back to court to argue why collecting your personal confidential wireless traffic is legal and why its in your best interest they do it. Get real. The only difference with these situations is youre getting a direct service for this - whether its "opt in" or not. The NSA mission is much larger and more important than capitalism and large companies making money off you. These companies have your complete life profile, accessible very easily. Surprise surprise, lets keep passing the buck and diverting the blame. If the US is really that bad, move to North Korea or Iran or Syria or China ... a place where life really sucks.
Namely that basically everyone part of Legislative, Judicative or Executive branches (with some exceptions in the highest echelon of Nazis) was declared "denazified" and reinstated in exactly the same job...
You will not get rid of the spying bastards by replacing the highest echelon or creating a "new" agency. Not until you have every single last NSA employee and contractor hanging from the nearest tree or lamppost.
That such behaviour wouldn't be remotely moral as well goes without saying, but you should be aware of it.
I can come up with a better way of catching terrorists than the one they are currently employing. Do nothing. It will catch you just as many terrorists. What has been the benefit to the citizens of the USA for all the money that has been spent and all the privacy we have lost. Show me the terrorists. Show me the plots that have been foiled. Seems to me like all this money has been spent to prevent hypothetical terrorists. Or in other words to defend against an enemy that does not exist. The current system that costs so much and invades so much isn't catching terrorists either.
The issue is that revealing successes (publically) could easily escalate the arms race they're involved in, leading to them preventing more in the future. It's a real problem.
I don't have an easy solution for that. If there was a politician I trusted, I'd be happy if he stated publicly that he was briefed in and it was good. Who that would be....
Your ad here. Ask me how!
You wouldn't believe how many otherwise intelligent people tell me they think it's fine to give up all their rights to the gov because they aren't doing anything wrong.
Such fools.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
It's easy, do what the original programmers of this stuff intended. I can't find the link right now, but I remember something from wired or someplace about a older spook programmer/code breaker who was actually behind most of the tech that was the foundation for all of this.
In its original design, large amounts of data were still captured, but it used computers to find links, look for key words/phrases, patterns and the like and would then 'float up' data collections that seemed to be 'hits'. All data was encrypted, only very loosely defined tags were attached like 'bomb materials' 'extensive communications with 3 known criminals' etc would be known.
The intent is that if it turned out to be a legitimate person of interest they would go and get a proper warrant from FISA or whoever saying, yes, we have this guy, calling/emailing/ whatever with these other people who are known criminals and under surveillance, and we followed up and have X,Y,Z evidence meeting reasonable suspicion.
After the warrant is issued a process is followed the encryption key is produced, they unlock the contents, and view data at leisure.
The main point is that the system keeps them from just snooping at will, there has to be links to actual known crimes or criminals, there has to be actual suspicious data in the data set, and it is not trivial to get at the data of normal citizens...
And lastly because of the requirement to get a warrant and decryption key they now have a paper trail in case of abuses.
He was pushed out of the intelligence community after decades because he made a stink when they tried to push out 'total information awareness' but removed all encryption and warrant requirements.
It is not really that hard. Debate if the taking of this data in the first place is legal or moral, but there is a way to have such system and at least have SOME protections in place. Just implement the original system
of course the wishes of 300M people trump those of the rest of the world, for the american gov. every country should put the rights and safety of their own population over that of the rest of the world. but there are ways to do that without pissing off the rest of the world. i.e. don't get caught, don't push policies abroad that will cause the world to hate.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Obama will never fire him. He is too good at bleating like a sheep, and saying yes to his ideas.
"the right of the people to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" how is this not plain language? only to lawyer types is this NOT plain language.
The constitution outlines principles but those principles still have to be clarified with specifics. As the old maxim goes, the devil is in the details. What constitutes "arms"? Does that mean I can own a nuclear weapon legally? Is that reasonable? If it is not reasonable where is the line between what is a reasonable arm to carry and an unreasonable one? Are my rights infringed upon if I cannot keep a nuclear weapon? What constitutes "infringement" with regard to keeping and bearing arms? Does bearing arms mean that I can carry them in a manner that threatens others?
I'm not even a lawyer and it is pretty easy to point out that the second amendment needs a LOT of clarification to be useful in a civil society. Same for every other part of the US Constitution.
1) Make the telecoms, ISPs, VOIPs, search companies, etc. liable for their technology being used to commit a terrorist attack.
2) Offer immunity from liability if they actively search for possible terrorists activity on the networks (They could probably do it better anyway).
3) Have an "electronic hotline" that make it possible for the carrier to report the suspicious activity.
4) Request warrants to follow leads produced from the hotline.
Hell Google and Facebook can spy on their customers all they want since the customers give them permission in order to use the service. Just make it cost effective for them to report criminal activity to the authorities.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
You cannot have complete security and freedom.
No one is arguing that, or at least no one reasonable is arguing that. The problem is that those providing the "security" refuse to have a discussion with those they are charged with protecting regarding what constitutes reasonable surveillance. Instead we have a secret and unaccountable organization apparently running rampant over civil liberties and doing whatever they want in what seems to be blatant violation of at least the spirit of the Constitution if not the letter of it.
They aren't actually breaking the law now with metadata collection. The courts have ruled on that.
No they have not. The courts have punted on the issue by claiming that those who have brought suits lack standing. Basically because we cannot prove the classified activities of the NSA have harmed us the courts refuse to consider whether the NSA is violating the law. Basically the courts are saying that unless the NSA does something really stupid publicly, they can take away our civil liberties at will. This leaves us in limbo because Congress will not act for fear of appearing soft on terrorism and the Executive branch gains in power from the inaction of the other two branches.
Lets say it hasn't prevented any Boston-Marathon-esqu bombings.
It's not acceptable.
No need to give then an inch.
They could collect a ton of real life meta data that way!
Pretty much any cop.
Well, the 0.1% are still in power, aren't they? They are nervous about the intentions of the 99.9% and need an agency to keep an eye on them. They don't want a repeat of 1789 all over again.
They aren't actually breaking the law now with metadata collection. The courts have ruled on that. You might wish they were, but they aren't.
If they're searching the communications (or "papers") of American citizens ...
That's the point, metadata collection is not supposed to include the content of conversations. The metadata collected is not considered the citizen's data, it is being considered the phone company's data. What two phone numbers were connected and for how many seconds. That is all the metadata is **supposed** to be.
That said, I am not claiming that two phone numbers and a time duration are all that has been collected without warrants.
You should have typed "...their every action"
- Your Friends at the NSA
He got a well-deserved heckling at BlackHat this summer: http://www.businessinsider.com/keith-alexander-gets-heckled-at-black-hat-2013-7
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
The fact that you are mailing letters to your co-conspirators is not protected,
Not sure I follow.
Let me put the text here "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Not seeing 'only except data we can sorta see anyway'. Which is metadata.
Note the words "secure" and "search". The addressee on the envelope is in plain sight. It is not considered secure nor is a search required to discover it. Basically the idea in that this routing information has been made public. This is what the courts have determined. This idea got extended to email, the routing information, to and from fields, have been made public. Now the content of the email, that is supposed to be like the content of the envelope, private until a warrant is obtained.
For phones the two numbers connected are considered public routing information and the conversation itself the private contents.
I am not a lawyer and the above is just a casual paraphrasing.
Oh, you were talking bollocks, were you?
So sorry.
There's no legitimate reason for them to study me
There is no constitutional prohibition against investigating you. Looking at you is how probably cause for a warrant is found. Certain things you say and do are considered public information, in "plain sight". My understanding is that routing information that you shared with a 3rd party falls into this plain sight. Routing information being the addresses on an envelope, the to/from fields of an email, the two phone numbers in a telephone call, ... The content of the envelope, the email, the phone call, that's a different story and where a warrant becomes necessary.
Every foiled plot I've heard about at any depth (not mainstream media) has been some kind of entrapment scheme setup by the FBI. Some of which I don't oppose, because it is good that the bomb dealers you do find are likely undercover agents but they've often been going too far in the ones cited as great successes. We have morons who lock themselves out of their faulty car bombs or can't set their crotch bomb off or can't even blow off their own leg with the tiny amount of explosive in their shoe that continue slip past Big Brother.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
You do via detective work, numbnuts.
Regular police have required a court order before they can legally invade someone's privacy for ages and they've been managing just fine.
Stop being lazy and start being smart.
You cannot have complete security and freedom. You may want your cake and to eat it to, but it is impossible. Since providing complete security is impossible all by itself, I choose freedom. I believe the only reasonable compromise is that the government can monitor Americans only with a court order. There is no need to spy on grandma, and it is a waste of resources with no tangible benefit anyways.
It's ridiculous that you're presenting this as a dichotomy. It's false. Why were there so few attacks on the US prior to 9/11 and so few afterwards despite the rash of changes to how we collected information on all Americans?
From what I can tell, security is orthogonal to privacy. Security is doing proper detective work, targeted information collection, and
No one is saying that we should throw away the logs and make everything anonymous (well, not very many people). What is at issue is that these logs are being mined on a continual basis which leads to the amazingly depressing leaks exposed by Snowden and the unbelievable ex-girlfriend snooping that even low-level analysts have power to do.
That. Should. Not. Be happening on a daily basis against large groups of innocent Americans. That's at issue here. Contrary to the concocted reality posed in The Dark Knight, the authorities do NOT need a real-time panopticon in order to find and defeat the Jokers of the world. That's fantasy. Otherwise, we'd be praising all this data gathering as our quality of life improved due to the sudden lack of car bombings and terrorist attacks since this information gathering policy was set in place. No, quality of life due to reduced violence and terrorism has been unchanged (or taken a turn for the worse depending on whom you ask) - it's not simply not a result of
What is more likely is that more threats to the political and business status quo have been found and rooted out. Threats in this context == valid non-violent protest groups, anti-corporate saboteurs and non-malicious hackers.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
...you need to start with the haystack.
I'm no logician, but I know that false positives and false negatives are lower when irrelevant information is not included. Given that each instance of 'suspicion' requires human resources to judge validity, and to determine the next course of action, it's pretty clear quality is key. Human resources are also much less than the data gathering capabilites the NSA has. If General Alexander can't understand that then he's not only a perjurer but an megalomaniacal idiot as well.
IMHO the threat to the US from 'terrorists' is so miniscule that I dismiss it entirely. I worry more about the erosions of my civil rights and the costs of endless 'wars' on tactics, drugs, crime, etc. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are pretty clear about our rights and specifically provide protections against what the NSA engages in. We're also not limited to them alone they just happen to be the principles upon which the US was founded. I'm of the opinion that what's good enough for us is good enough for everyone else in thye world too. That means that the US should treat everyone on an equal footing in regards to basic human rights.
Perhaps General Alexander should be reminded of the oath he took when he entered the military. It's probably too late to reverse course now though huh?
Nobody should really question WHAT you did. It's how you did it.
Blanket doing it to everyone, in foreign countries even, interfering with people who are of no interest but yet still collecting far more than just metadata, storing that data indefinitely for no good reason, doing it all without any sort of oversight, controls or court orders, and then acting nonchalant when it's pointed out that, technically, you've broke just about every law going including those designed FOR YOU to stop terrorism - that's what people are complaining about.
Not that you can link Joe to Fred using their phone records.
This is yet another straw on what should be a dead camel with a broken spine. Gen. Alexander needs to be fired (and possibly put on trial), while the public and their representatives in Congress debate whether an organization like the NSA is wanted or needed. (My answer is not just no, but Hell, No.)
He can't do it with that dragnet, either. All this NSA dragnet shit was in place for YEARS at the time of the Boston Marathon bombing, and it wasn't worth shit.
But let's say it prevented 100+ Boston Marathon-esque bombings, because the government stopped it before it got too far. Would it be an acceptable risk then?
No. Millions have fought and died for our freedoms. I would not be willing to give them up for a couple of thousands civilians who tragically died. And in following your hyperbole to the end - if we were having 100+ similar bombings a year we would be drone striking the ever loving fuck out of whatever country we remotely thought was behind them. I'm not saying rollover and take it, I am saying don't let them wipe their asses with the constitution and tell us it's okay because their shit smells like roses.
First, I want our rights protected. I am not advocating for this guy or any other to violate our rights.
That said, the point he's making is that if he doesn't do that he can't actually track the communication. The NSA is not the FBI. They don't need a court order to track the communication of a terrorist. They're enemies. Just as the army doesn't need a court order to shoot a guy. They just need marching orders.
So here is the NSA with their mission of tracking spies, terrorists, and various other enemies of the American people. Many of our enemies are clever and will disguise or hide their communications. How do you sift through it all to find what you want?
Seriously... anyone have a solution here?
How does the NSA do its job... and lets face that we do need something LIKE the NSA. Whether you like them or not... if we destroyed them we'd have to make something like them all over again.
So how do we do it?
I don't think I have the ideas either.
I think the best we might be able to do is set some rules for the NSA's conduct that guard our rights. Then establish some kind of internal affairs system that audits the NSA at intervals and prosecutes them if violations are found. Such a group would have to be independent of the President. Possibly under the judiciary or congress.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Russia gave us a clear head's up about the Boston Marathon bombers. The older brother may have actually been involved in a previous murder.
Where was the CIA, NSA, FBI, Police? Behind their computers, reading grandma's e-mail, and tapping her phone.
And enhance!
Context for those who don't get it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMIHNiR3CP8
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
You have it wrong. The 4th amendment protects your data, not your metadata.
If the NSA knows who is engaging in unpopular speech, that acts as a chilling effect. Thus, the NSA is infringing our first amendment rights to free expression.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Q:"NSA Head Asks How To Spy Without Collecting Metadata?"
This is like asking "How can we commit our stabby murders without using your kitchen knives to stab you with?"
Answer: /*DON'T*/ Spy on US, and /*DON'T*/ use OUR metadata.
We don't care if this makes your job difficult, because I don't even see the point of your job existing, imbecile.
If your job requires constant violations of the constitution, or even one violation ever, it shouldnt exist in the first place.
profile anyone who wears a klan hood, or ss uniform, or anything else that says "i in whole or in part endorse an ideology which includes hate and violence, which has in the past driven people to act out extreme acts of violence", or personally says something similar with their own words. then get a warrant and tap their phone. tap the phones of their associates based on those calls, etc.
Given the pathetically few cases of terrorists being intercepted and the billions spent, people don't want to be spied on at all. It's not worth the loss of privacy and freedom. It's not worth the outrageous expense. It's not paying off.
We want the whole of the NSA fired.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
"We have to clearly define again what the responsibilities of the government are"
"We have to tell the government they aren't responsible for preventing every single bad thing in the world. That is the only way we can revoke their right to do whatever it takes to attempt to achieve that impossible goal."
1) get a warrant
2) [REDACTED]
He has lied to the congress, under oath.
He has violated the Constitutions of the United States of America.
If you or I do that, we would find ourselves behind bars.
Why is that guy not incarcerated yet ?
WHY ???
The real problem is that there is no longer a Democrat or Republican party, except in title. Playing lip service is as close as it gets, but both are passing policies that move us further and further into tyranny (not even socialism). Whether that comes about as Fascism, Authoritarianism, Oligarchy, etc.. makes no difference to the populace. It only makes a difference to the few that pull the strings in that form of Government.
Anyone that claims Obama is a savior ignores his actual track record. Syria, Libya, Somalia, Iran, et al show that he is not for world peace. TPP shows he does not give a shit about US Citizens welfare (not the check, the term). His extensions to DHS, TSA, and the NSA shows that he does not care about rights domestically. His pursuit of journalists critical of his policies shows he does not care about truth or honesty. His appointments of corporate heads and lobbyists to cabinet posts shows that nothing will change in the right direction.
We could make a very similar list about Bush, or Clinton, or Bush, or Reagan, or Carter, etc.. going a long way back.
The way out is to remove money from politics and get middle class Americans in these positions. That is the hard part, because a vast amount of people believe what media tells them and believes that they should be lorded over by people the media presents as "perfect". Long road, but we have to make the jump to it sooner or later, and later gets pretty bloody.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
without fucking them."
Seriously - for the entire history of this country, we've had laws that say, "first you suspect someone of committing, or conspiring to commit a crime, THEN you spy on them." What's not to understand?
Everyone knows the NSA is a spying agency, you pay to feel secure that some agency is spying on terrorist or rival countries for you, isn't it a bit unfair to throw stones at the guy now, he is just doing his job. It is not as if he shall have to magically "come up with information", dirty things needs to get done to get the information needed, don't act like you didn't know the purpose of the NSA and don't act as if it is a surprise that americans had to be spied on, because you don't know where the enemy lies, most people would probably have just played dumb and ignorant if NSA's secret haven't been unveilled due to recent events, so why such rage now? Dismantle the organization if you fear for your privacy that much, then don't complain after attacks, maybe there are much better ways at being offensive or defensive without having to actually "spy" on people, why complain but still keep a big spy agency running? Spying to a kid's term is actually "stealing of information because of incompetency". Why simply not try to be better instead of having to infiltrate. Live and let live. Because if there is going to be some attacks on your civilization, then there probably will be, spying might help in knowing or preventing? by why not build better defense or frameworks to capture patterns of incoming attacks, the concepts of "spy" is an outdated model when we have so much processing power that can be used to anticipate attacks based on patterns in public informations.
The constitution doesn't work. Specifically because there is no penalty for the legislators and judges who violate its terms -- and their oaths. This has led directly to such legislative absurdisms as "intrastate" effectively becoming "interstate", the implementation of ex post facto laws where punishments are increased retroactively, the almost complete subversion of the 2nd and 4th amendments (among others), and the usurpation of article three powers by the judiciary.
Without completely honorable legislators and judges (and that's not going to happen, power attracts the dishonest like crap attracts flies), the only constitution that will work is one that has the teeth to keep the greedy and power-mad in line. Until or unless we can get to such a constitution, things are going to continue to go downhill just as rapidly. Or in other words, you're wasting your time.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
JFC. I don't give the south end of a northbound horse what happens in Pakistan. Further, we have NO AUTHORITY to interfere with, or monitor, what happens in Pakistan, any more than the Pakistanis have authority to interfere with or monitor what happens here. But when something happens here, that's when our various apparatus should swing into action.
No, the laws of the invaded country apply there, and one hopes they hang the malefactor when they catch them.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
(1) the NSA must be able to detect, identify, and trace people who are involved in threats to state security or criminal acts on basis of their communications
(2) one of the main (and indispensible) tools in such work is social network analysis, i.e. who talks to whom and how often. If people communicate a lot, or if they communicate little but highly significantly then they form a social network and are probably working together
(3a) you don't have the ability to detect and identify social networks on basis of communication unless you have the ability to collect metadata from anyone (i.e. you install technical means to tap everything)
(3b) it's impossible to reliably detect and identify social networks on basis of communication alone without actually using those taps to collect all metadata from everyone.
(4) therefore having reliable detection capabilities and not hoovering everyone's metadata are mutually exclusive.
(5) So unless you allow the NSA unrestricted collection of metadata (including that of all Americans), you prevent the NSA from doing its job
You can agree or disagree with him here (and you're invited to do so) but you either refute this line of reasoning or you accept that you are preventing the NSA from doing its job.
And unless you can refute this reasoning, you end up deciding whether or not to give up certain liberties (i.e. online privacy) in order to gain security. The point being that you will run an additional risk unless you give up those liberties.
Now that's a decision the voters can and should make I think. After all, they're the real stakeholders, not the organizations.
Well, I need to go on vacation at least 6 times a year, otherwise I simply cannot function as a human being. For that I go out and steal from and rob people for whatever money I need as I cannot think of another way to gather the needed ammount. If you know how I can get what I think I need in any other way than please tell me.
Oh, one small sidenote: If any of those methods you suggest mean that I will need to put more effort into gathering that money either your idea isn't anything worth to speak of, or you need to reimburse me for that extra effort.
Bottom line: You need to make certain that whatever you suggest will enable me to simply continue what I was doing, including growing to seven vacations a year.
As for me simply stopping stealing from people and being content with just one (or maybe two) vacations a year ? No way, I already said need those vactations to keep functioning.
As for that money ? If you really think that its yours to keep you should keep it at home, and not bringing it to public places or leave it behind in someone elses hands (like with banks, creditcard companies, etc.). In such cases you have no reason to expect that others cannot simply take it off your hands, now do you ?
</sarcasm off>
Exactly!
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
Here's an idea: stop bombing other countries and maybe they'll stop wanting to commit acts of terrorism against citizens of the US?
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
Simple: this isn't your job if you must wholesale violate the constitution and effectively destroy everything it means to be an American!!
It's like a thief asking how he can make a living without stealing! Simply: you have no right to that job morally, legally or ethically.
A wiretap warrant used to permit the cops to look into what you are doing after the warrant is issued.
In this brave new world, before the warrant is issued is fair game as well.
It seems reasonable that the founding fathers never consider this.
Which says we don't know if they would have considered this reasonable or not.
Note that this is a separate question from the balance of power from an all knowing govt.
(The likelyhood that this could have prevented them from founding the nation makes this more knowable.)
A statue of limitations is a well known concept in our laws.
It would seem that this brave new world should include this concept.
Which should limit the time the NSA can keep their dragnet information.
One year seems a good limit for these extraordinary means.
(My guess is that there is a statistical diminishing return for old stuff anyway.)
I guess you can stop killing in other countries and increasing enermies.
It's good for the economy too.
Quite simply, the answer is targetted and proportionate intelligence gathering followed up, or initiated by human intelligence gathering. Also much stricter oversight on 'sting' operations to make sure they are not being used to shimmy office bods up the career ladder. In brief get your pussy asses out from under your desks and do some real work. It really isn't
as hard as you think to connect the dots if you do the job you are paid for rather than taking the lazy way out. Let's see you be the heroes you are capable of being!
Good, old fashioned detective work and getting a warrant after there is probable cause to wiretap US citizens?
... the NSA director is right about what he needs to do his job.
Wired has an article about the threats the NSA has to worry about:(sarcasm) http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/10/insider-threat/
Here's an article about our potential terrorist veterans: (sarcasm) http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/16/napolitano-stands-rightwing-extremism/?page=all
Here's a list by paranoids: (sarcasm) http://thetruthwins.com/archives/patriots-and-christians-have-been-repeatedly-labeled-as-potential-terrorists-since-obama-became-president
Every rule has more than one consequence.
Fair point, however it is no different than watching who comes and goes from a printing house, or who owns a printer and regularly sends out large bundles of packages via courier to the village down the way and then everyone in that village starts talking about the imposition of having British soldiers stationed.
Rebellion is not a safe life, whether freeing your country from the monarchy, or the world from blasphemous western heathens, or guarding your porn collection from your mother.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
We ask them not to spy on us and they turn it around and ask us how to spy on us so we don't consider it as spying? Are they stupid or what?
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.