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NSA Drowns In Useless Data, Impeding Work, Former Employee Claims

Posted by samzenpus on from the we're-putting-new-coversheets-on-all-the-TPS-reports-before-they-go-out-now dept.

An anonymous reader writes in with this story of confusion at the NSA due to the flood of data they harvest. "Some of the documents released by Mr. Snowden detail concerns inside the NSA about drowning in information. An internal briefing document in 2012 about foreign cellphone-location tracking by the agency said the efforts were 'outpacing our ability to ingest, process and store' data. In March 2013, some NSA analysts asked for permission to collect less data through a program called Muscular because the 'relatively small intelligence value it contains does not justify the sheer volume of collection,' another document shows. In response to questions about Mr. Binney's claims, an NSA spokeswoman says the agency is 'not collecting everything, but we do need the tools to collect intelligence on foreign adversaries who wish to do harm to the nation and its allies.'"

2 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Re: It's not actually a problem. by Hangtime · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's because "data management practitioners" spend their time practicing data management. I bet if you asked the "data analysts" about it, they'd say most of the important work dealing with data is in the analysis, but they still need to waste 20% of their time on data preparation and integration.

    Actually the number we quote is analysts spend 60 - 80% of their time manually prepping their data for analysis if they don't have a solution in place. Its a BIG problem. Just because you can ingest everything in the world doesn't mean you should.

  2. Two words: Binney. Thin Thread by WOOFYGOOFY · · Score: 3, Informative

    Thin Thread

    http://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-whistleblower-william-binney-was-right-2013-6

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinThread

    http://www.whistleblower.org/program-areas/homeland-security-a-human-rights/surveillance/nsa-whistleblowers-bill-binney-a-j-kirk-wiebe

    Binney.

    http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/backissues/2013/06/takes-the-nsas-surveillance-programs.html

    http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/exclusive_national_security_agency_whistleblower_william

    http://publicintelligence.net/binney-nsa-declaration/

    Reinstate him as DNI.