Officials: NSA's PRISM Targets Email Addresses, Not Keywords

wiredmikey writes "The US government's PRISM Internet spying program exposed by Edward Snowden targets suspect email addresses and phone numbers but does not search for keywords like terrorism, officials said Wednesday. Top lawyers of the country's intelligence apparatus including the NSA and FBI participated Wednesday in a public hearing on the controversial US data-mining operations that intercept emails and other Internet communications including on social media networks like Facebook, Google or Skype. 'We figure out what we want and we get that specifically, that's why it's targeted collection rather than bulk collection,' Robert Litt, general counsel at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told the hearing. Under authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the NSA asks Internet service providers to hand over messages sent from or received by certain accounts such as terrorist@google.com, the Justice Department's Brad Wiegmann said, using a hypothetical example."

Comments

So the question is, is this true?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is this like Clapper said: we only call it "collected" when we look at it. It's not collected yet when we save it in our datacenter with everything else.

Re:So the question is, is this true?

[pitchpipe]

Fuck you.

Our worst fears about what the NSA was/is doing to privacy and our constitution have been realized and you are trying to trivialize it. Just because you're tired of hearing about it and want to move on to the next thing doesn't mean the rest of us don't feel that this is one of the most important things that has happened in our government during our lives. We need to focus on this shit like crazed lunatics if we are going to clean it up.

So again, fuck you.

Re:So the question is, is this true?

[MobSwatter]

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Re:So the question is, is this true?

[MobSwatter]

Look, the NSA is a department within our government, they are told what to do and held accountable if they do not do it. It is a management problem, unfortunately this seemingly corporate imposed martial law is a product of corporate lobbying. Admission of all of this is only the first step in solving the problem.

Why should I believe anything officials say

[kruach aum]

to the public, when the Snowden documents show they've been lying for years.

Re:Why should I believe anything officials say

[swillden]

to the public, when the Snowden documents show they've been lying for years.

Not to argue your fundamental point, but AFAICT they haven't been lying for years they've been saying nothing for years. They have lied recently, though, and internally they've been using carefully-crafted definitions to interpret the law in ways that allowed them to convince themselves they were obeying it. So, in essence they've been fooling themselves for year, but not actually lying to the public because they haven't been saying anything to the public.

Re:Why should I believe anything officials say

[SuricouRaven]

I would guess that what they really mean is PRISM captures and stores everything, but their agents are under orders only to look at specified email addresses. Probably with an audit trail if they go beyond this.

keywords like terrorism

[laurent420]

>but does not search for keywords like terrorism

Mail from Bob:
>Hey Alice, wanna go do some terroism next monday?
I can't I'm busy, how about we terrorism on tuesday?
Take care,
Alice

Re:Well fancy that!

[SternisheFan]

We should expect more bombshells from Patriot Snowden soon...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

NSA is sooooo unlucky !

[Taco Cowboy]

Snowden is the gift that keeps on giving... if you want to turn rational people into a stupid mob

Making the people stupid is what every government in the world is busy doing, including the government of the United States of America.

And NSA, being a part of the government of the United States of America, knows that the more stupid the Americans are, the more easier their job will become.

But NSA is soooooooooooo unlucky, for there are _still_ a portion of the Americans who prefer to use their brains, yes, the ones in between their ears, rather than believe in everything that came down from the White House and the Congress.

With Snowden's revelation, at the very least, we have proofs that our government, the government of the United States of America, has turned rogue.

Our Constitution, the Constitution of the United States of America, have been violated.

Our rights, as defined by the Bill of Rights, have been purposely ignored.

And luckily for America, we, whom still manage to keep our rationality (unlike those who soak in everything Obama / Feinstein said) know that we not only have the right, but it is *OUR DUTY" as Citizens of the United States of America, to stand up against this goddamn rogue regime.

Nowadays perjury to congress is no more crime !

[Taco Cowboy]

As has been portrayed to all of us, lying to the congress, even under oath, is not a crime, as long as you can proof that you are part of the spook network, and/or in charge of the "security" of the nation.

We have become a country where the laws no longer apply to certain *special privileged* people.

So they are just incompetent?

[hawguy]

Are we really supposed to believe that they put in a system that can scan emails at major email providers and even scan emails on the fly at internet exchange points, yet they didn't design the system to allow keyword scanning?

If they are really targeting specific email addresses, then why do they need the system at all? Just get warrants and get the data from the user's ISP.

Parallel construction

[nsaspook]

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

Does anyone believe this?

[dave562]

The NSA has taps on the backbone, and they want us to believe that they are only searching for specific email addresses? Give me a break. Email addresses are way too easy to setup and discard. Any spy / terrorist with any modicum of trade craft training is going to go through email addresses like a fat girl goes through ice cream.

If people are really using email to coordinate attacks against the United States, then by all means go after them. But please, stop treating us like we are stupid. Do not piss on my leg and tell me it is raining. The NSA got caught, at least man up to it. What is the line the cops use? "Just tell me the truth, and I will get the DA to take it easy on you." ???

Keywords

[wonkey_monkey]

Hey Steve,

You wanna go out this weekend and do some terrorism?

Jeff

Dubious

[wcrowe]

If all they are collecting are email addresses and phone numbers, why do they need such a ginormous new data center in Utah?