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NSA's Novel Claim: Our Systems Are Too Complex To Obey the Law

Posted by timothy on from the complex-simple-same-thing dept.

Reader Bruce66423 (1678196) points out skeptical-sounding coverage at the Washington Post of the NSA's claim that it can't hold onto information it collects about users' online activity long enough for it to be useful as evidence in lawsuits about the very practice of that collection. From the article: 'The agency is facing a slew of lawsuits over its surveillance programs, many launched after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked information on the agency's efforts last year. One suit that pre-dates the Snowden leaks, Jewel v. NSA, challenges the constitutionality of programs that the suit allege collect information about Americans' telephone and Internet activities. In a hearing Friday, U.S. District for the Northern District of California Judge Jeffrey S. White reversed an emergency order he had issued earlier the same week barring the government from destroying data that the Electronic Frontier Foundation had asked be preserved for that case. The data is collected under Section 702 of the Amendments Act to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But the NSA argued that holding onto the data would be too burdensome. "A requirement to preserve all data acquired under section 702 presents significant operational problems, only one of which is that the NSA may have to shut down all systems and databases that contain Section 702 information," wrote NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett in a court filing submitted to the court. The complexity of the NSA systems meant preservation efforts might not work, he argued, but would have "an immediate, specific, and harmful impact on the national security of the United States.' Adds Bruce66423: "This of course implies that they have no backup system — or at least that the backup are not held for long."

10 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. Fine ... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you can't have your data available to demonstrate what you're doing it lawful, and you are going to delete it, then only reasonable conclusion is what you are doing cannot be proven lawful.

    Therefore, the program is not lawful, and you need to stop.

    Problem solved.

    This amounts to "your honor, we collect so damned much information we couldn't possibly hold onto it long enough to be subject to legal oversight. Trust us."

    What crap.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:Fine ... by oodaloop · · Score: 5, Informative

      I imagine the problem is that these databases only hold collected data for a short period of time, say 30 or 90 days. The data scraped is massive, so it is constantly deleting old data to make way for more. IAA Intelligence Analyst, and I know of some imagery databases, for example, that only hold the last 30 days of imagery. If you forced them to hold all of it for years, it would mean increasing server space by orders of magnitude.

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    2. Re:Fine ... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Informative

      So, basically, your saying that they should just expect everybody to simply trust that what they're doing is entirely legal? Because the logistics of actually proving this is so difficult they can't do it?

      I say horseshit to that.

      We know the data they scrape is massive. What we don't know is that they're complying with the law in order to do it.

      And I fail to see why the benefit of the doubt should be given in this case.

      Sorry, but it's "trust, but verify", and if you can't verify, you can't bloody well trust. The whole point of these lawsuits is that they likely go beyond the scope of their legal mandate. Saying you couldn't possibly be bothered to hold onto the evidence the court has demanded is just too damned bad.

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      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:Fine ... by JWW · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I totally get that their systems very likely need to purge inconsequential data to remain effective. However, if the court forced a private company to retain data under a court order, it wouldn't care one wit about whether that was feasible within the system or not. If the private company did not comply, their officers would be held in contempt.

      The NSA should not get special treatment in this case.

  2. Are they arguing Occam's Razor? by timrod · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So wait, the NSA's argument as to why their program is legal.. is that they're too incompetent to design a system that can follow the law. Shouldn't this be grounds to fire everyone at the NSA for incompetence, if this is the argument they're using?

  3. Can't hold data, or can't tell the truth? by alphatel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "This of course implies that they have no backup system — or at least that the backup are not held for long."

    It implies nothing other than the NSA continues to lie whenever an order to turnover data is presented.

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  4. The Boy Who Cried Wolf by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Everything concerning the NSA has "an immediate, specific, and harmful impact on the national security of the United States."

    Releasing any information has "an immediate, specific, and harmful impact on the national security of the United States."
    Saving any information has "an immediate, specific, and harmful impact on the national security of the United States."
    Any whistle blowers have "an immediate, specific, and harmful impact on the national security of the United States."
    Disagreeing with any official has "an immediate, specific, and harmful impact on the national security of the United States."
    Giving out the legal reasoning behing their operations has "an immediate, specific, and harmful impact on the national security of the United States."

    Why have more people not clued in that the NSA is "an immediate, specific, and harmful impact on the national security of the United States."

    they have damaged the reputation of their agencies simply by believing that none of their secrets would get out. My mom always told me that once more than one person knows something it is no longer a secret and will not be kept that way.

  5. Lies. by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The NSA, The CIA, the FBI and the Justice department have already been caught in BOLD FACED LIES in regards to their activities on dozens of occasions. The Presidents (both Obama and Bush) have gone on National Television and lied directly to the American people regarding this programs over and over and over again. Several NSA directors have gone in front of congress and lied while under oath. They were then called back and admitted that they're lied. You cannot trust anything they say at all. The only solution to this is to shut down the agency. They are willing to violate the law, the constitution, court order and even the will of the president. No regulatory reform or court order will be effective against an agency that thinks its charter is more important than obeying the law or will of the people. They fundamentally believe that your physical safety is more important than our individual rights. That is totalitarianism. It is not a belief that is compatible with democracy.

  6. Re:Too Big to Be Indicted... by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This argument has a bit of a different feel to it though.

    Up till now for a decade the agencies just invoke "we're scary and secretive, we don't need to follow your puny little laws because of National Security but we need a billion dollars in next year's budget to build more systems to hold data forever and ever".

    And you can bet they cherry pick their data so that they have ten years worth of people's email and Slashdot posts, but suddenly when a lawsuit comes along, suddenly that data vanishes. But then it becomes vital to an investigation! "Oh look, we found it again!"

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  7. Re:Too Big to Be Indicted... by TubeSteak · · Score: 5, Informative

    Unlike politicians, who impose themselves even upon those, who voted against them, banks have no power over you if you don't use them. You don't have to convince other people to stop using banks â" just stop doing it yourself and you'll be free from them...

    Uhhhh... The global recession puts the lie to your notion that not doing business with banks means I'm free of their ill effects.

    Nobody forces people into the debt. They take it voluntarily and are genuinely happy, when their applications are approved. Without banks, you'd have to save money for 10 years before buying a house. With banks, you can move-in right away and pay off in 15 years. Loans are a service, that banks provide to willing customers.

    During the mortgage bubble, banks were doing several things
    1. Forging a higher stated income onto loan documents so they could lend more money
    2. Giving loans to people that they knew would not be able to afford it (NINA/NINJA loans)
    3. Offering minorities ARM loans or loans with much higher interest rates than they would offer to white borrowers with the same credit score.

    Blaming the borrower ignores the mountains of evidence showing wildly illegal, fraudulent, and outright deceptive behavior by the loan industry.
    If you don't know this stuff, you must be willfully ignoring the facts as they've been reported.
    Even Fox News has been reporting on it.

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