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William Binney: NSA Records and Stores 80% of All US Audio Calls
stephendavion sends a report at The Guardian about remarks from whistleblower William Binney, who left the NSA after its move toward overreaching surveillance following the September 11th attacks. Binney says, "At least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the U.S. The NSA lies about what it stores." He added, "The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control, but I’m a little optimistic with some recent Supreme Court decisions, such as law enforcement mostly now needing a warrant before searching a smartphone." One of Binney's biggest concerns about government-led surveillance is its lack of oversight: "The FISA court has only the government’s point of view. There are no other views for the judges to consider. There have been at least 15-20 trillion constitutional violations for U.S. domestic audiences and you can double that globally."
Seeing as this would be petabytes of data every month, it should be easy enough to find out if the NSA is purchasing enough storage to accomplish something like this. Where's the proof of that?
SHOCKED!
I saw Mr. Binney speak at the HOPE conference in 2012. I remember a conversation with my parents where I relayed what I learned from him to them, and they thought I was buying into some conspiracy. When Snowden broke into the news, they asked me how I had known so far ahead of time.
I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion about Binney's whistle-blowing in the wake of the Snowden revelations. He has been sounding the alarm for many years now.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
If you're wondering why it's only 80% instead of 100%, it's because he's talking about all calls made everywhere. He says that 80% of the fiber in the world runs through the US, so 80% of the calls in the world are recorded. In other words, the NSA is recording all calls that go through the country.
Incidentally, didn't Obama announce some changes he was going to make to fix the NSA? Have any of those been implemented?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Right after 9/11, in the heat to Get Those Guys and their network, the NSA went into vast recoding depositories to track back conversations, actual recorded calls. They admitted it and it kind of blew by in the moment.
Am I the only one who remembers this?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Duh.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
We should elect a Constitutional scholar to be President so he can change this for us.
Step 1. Collect all audio
Step 2. Convert speech to text
Step 3. ???
Step 4. Profit
The IT guy and geek in me gets all excited thinking about all of the cool technology that they are leveraging.
The civil libertarian in me shudders knowing how easily they are able to contextualize and analyze the communications with the intent of subverting public discourse.
The cynical part of me is starting to believe that the average American really does not care because they are so conditioned that they have zero desire to enjoy any sort of true freedom. As long as they have access to shopping malls, housing and alcohol / caffeine / prescription drugs, they will be content.
If the NSA can track people's movements, track who comes into contact with them, or just flat out records their phone calls, how many of our local/state/federal politicians, policy makers, law enforcement members, bureaucrats, bankers, CEOs, etc., could be blackmailed based on such information?
Next question. Who controls the NSA?
People expected a Constitutional scholar to follow and protect the Constitution. Instead, what we ended up with was someone who was very well wise to how to work out all the loopholes. Yes, I know you were joking, and I enjoyed it, I'm just pointing out the rather sad state of affairs.
Realistically, I'm not sure things would be much better if we had a different president. Even Ron Paul, who would assuredly do his damnedest to actually set things right, would be one man against an army of criminal, power-hungry scum. Still, I'd rather take a man that tries over a man that supports this evil.
How come everyone forgets that Atta and his buddies did not trust cellphones as far back as 911. Now I am sure they are even more paranoid about their use.
You're just wrong. In fact, we now have proof (Snowden revelations) that things carried on at the NSA pretty much exactly like he said it would. I think you also underestimate how much compression can be applied to telephone conversations. They are, after all, mostly "dead air". In addition, speech is very predictable. The phone companies take advantage of this to fit many conversations over lines of surprisingly modest bandwidth. Since the NSA is directly connected at the backbone (their secret ATT closets are well documented), they don't even have to do the compression themselves. They can just log the packets.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
So what if the NSA stores your data? Who cares if it's "Constitutional"? The Constitution is just a piece of paper and doesn't mean a damned fucking thing because even if some uppity people over at the ACLU or EFF make a case out if it, it will be discarded under the veil of "National Security" Face it, the USA is a Police State. AND YOU WONT DO A FUCKING THING ABOUT IT BECAUSE YOU ARE A WEAK POWERLESS WAGE SLAVE WHO VALUES YOUR SUV, JOB AND GADGETS OVER "LIBERTY" and look to someone else to fix the things you don't like. So I don't see why anyone should care -- because no one cares and nothing will be done. Perhaps these articles get posted because people like bitching about how powerless and helpless they choose to be in their pathetic existence as peons of the wealthy elite whose interests the NSA serves.
Not from this disclosure specifically, but ever since 2001, I've learned one important thing: we've underestimated what has actually been done. Remember those stories years ago about secret data centre taps that were tied into major fibre/international cable telecommunications hubs in places like San Francisco? Imagine what *could* be done with that! Imagine if that is one example of what is tapped at every ingress/egress communications point in a country. That was way back in 2006. No, no, that's paranoia. And there are legal protections that would prevent it.
All implemented. Everything. The sky's the limit. Billions and billions of dollars to do it? Here's the cash. Even the legal protections have been circumvented by using ridiculous legal tricks such as collecting everything. As long as nobody looks at it or no citizens are specifically "targetted", that is somehow fine and not mass surveillance? It's not a "search"? It's like going into every house in the country and passively photographing and recording everything there, but as long as nobody looks at that vast database unless there's some token cause, it's not a "search". It's like some kind of bizarro quantum mechanical legal theory where unless it is observed, the collected data exists in a legal limbo that doesn't make it a search until actively searched.
No, it is mass surveillance. And no matter how much you trust the people doing it, the results of that search are just sitting there waiting to be abused.
I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion about Binney's whistle-blowing in the wake of the Snowden revelations. He has been sounding the alarm for many years now.
Because the media is incompetent. The days of investigative journalism like Woodward and Bernstein are loooong gone.
There's no money in it.
You know where the money is? Look at Fox News. Their content is where the money is - political punditry.
Fluff.
MSNBC, CNN, and everyone else is also to blame. Fox News at least - or Rupert anyway - had the balls to say it upfront.
I watched 60 Minutes the other week, and just shook my head at how they turned to shit. CBS used to be the best.
The people - you people included - just want to watch "news" that reinforces what they believe - not the facts. Sure, facts are shown but put in a way to match the World view of the audience.
I have been posted before there is simply no way the NSA could have use for even the most conservative estimates for there storage capacity in that Utah data center unless they are or were planning to keep the content.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
People keep praising Ron Paul yet everything I have ever seen on his actual policies scare me more than Cheney working with Obama to create what laws should be enforced.
Paul recent budget had a net increase in spending and a net reduction in income.
You can't be a fiscal conservative and not decrease spending
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
The NSA and the mil intel agencies all run off the non-published "black" budget, which you're not told about.
And you wonder why we're in debt ... it's not welfare checks, it's the stuff you're not allowed to know about that we do each and every day.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Nah. Not HERE, in the land of the Free, with Rule of Law!
But?
We were right all the time. Unfettered by doctrine, dogma of allegiances, wary of our own cognitive bias, we saw what we saw.
Bitter vindication.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I'm pretty sure the loopholes were worked out for him by the previous administration. It's a good thing too, because he never would have been able to get the bills authorizing this bullshit through Congress.
Try attacking it the other way.
If they AREN'T recording everything then why such big data centers? Metadata on every US call for the year would fit on a few dozen HDs max probably much less.
Raw data takes very little space with no media components involved. We ran 10 years worth of billing info on one 14MB drive platter in the 80-90's.
your choice as a citizen voter is, there's really only two teams on the field, no matter your third-party dreams. next best hope is to knock the next weakest player off the field.
AND "NOT VOTING" - IS SURRENDER.
If you limit yourself to the two main parties, you have surrendered even more. You are legitimizing the system as a whole by casting your vote, and you are legitimizing the actions of the major parties by giving it to one of them. Vote for a third party or don't vote at all. By reinforcing the idea that you should only go D or R, you are part of the problem.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
The problem with this is the tragedy of the commons. It would be like letting your kids decide how to spend the household budget. You'd go to 14 movies each weekend, and eat Happy Meals every night, and nobody would pay the mortgage.
If the average voter can't figure out how to vote for somebody other than the guy with the biggest campaign fund, how is giving them a line-item veto over the budget going to help?
Oh, and keep in mind who pays all the taxes. Funding for the pesky SEC, who needs that? ERISA and OSHA - how quaint! Let's go ahead and spend the national budget on more corporate bailouts!