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NSA Reveals More Than a Decade of Improper Surveillance
An anonymous reader writes: On Christmas Eve, the NSA quietly dropped 12 years worth of internal reports on surveillance that may have broken laws, including reports that were illegally withheld and the subject of a FOIA lawsuit in 2009. "The heavily-redacted reports include examples of data on Americans being e-mailed to unauthorized recipients, stored in unsecured computers and retained after it was supposed to be destroyed, according to the documents. ... In a 2012 case, for example, an NSA analyst 'searched her spouse’s personal telephone directory without his knowledge to obtain names and telephone numbers for targeting,' according to one report (PDF). The analyst 'has been advised to cease her activities,' it said. Other unauthorized cases were a matter of human error, not intentional misconduct. Last year, an analyst 'mistakenly requested' surveillance 'of his own personal identifier instead of the selector associated with a foreign intelligence target,' according to another report." Here's there list of reports going back to 2001.
This is gonna make cold fjord's head explode. He'll have to work overtime in this thread doing his damage control shilling.
They're spying on themselves and they STILL don't seem to think they've lost control?
Well at least they're being thorough...
There's been a lot of complaints about the NSA but you must admit this is one of the best, most *redacted* news we've heard in recent years. It's proof that the system works. When Obama promised *redacted* we thought he wouldn't actually follow through but here we have many reports allowing us, as good citizens, to make better voting choices.
The NSA is a good start but let's keep the pressure on. Agencies like *redacted* need a good housecleaning as well.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
This has got to be some of the laziest trolling ever.
Authoritarians have infiltrated both the Republican and Democratic parties, emphasizing different aspects to allow them to feign a tug-of-war. To try and blame a single party is to ignore the underlying problem.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Anyone? Hello?
Like any organization public or private they will do whatever they can get away with, and in this case they can get away with anything. The checks and balances don't work anymore because elected officials themselves just ignore them and on election day all we have to vote for are more people just like them.
Firstly this is the tip of the iceberg, secondly what happens when NSA staff and their agents run for public office? General Alexander looked like he was going for a presidential run when he did his tour promoting himself just before retirement. He could have been President and had access to a lot of surveillance data on competing candidates and opponents. (Note, the CTO of the NSA does consultancy for General Alexanders company, and this is an insane conflict of interest that has not been addressed, he continues to have links to his former work colleges despite retiring! Their loyalty to him should not trump their legal duty to the democracy).
Even lower level NSA staff and their allies will move into politics a more subtle shift but one that over time will turn USA into a dictatorship. If you want to see what that looks like, take a look at Russia and ex-KGB man Putin. He became President, and used his KGB links to ensure he stays that way.
There's a damn good reason why we don't spy on our own. Ity undermines your democracy, and its why agencies like GCHQ are supposed to protect the privacy of Brits, not spy on Brits and hand that data to a foreign power.
I see UKIP is having a lot of their telephone calls leaked, the most damning ones taken out of context, handy that. How many calls were listened to by GCHQ/NSA, recorded, and filtered to find the ones with political advantage? How many calls did you GCHQ, intercept on behalf of a foreign power that are now being used to undermine the UK political system? You f*ing traitors.
Humans are egotistical, oppressive, homicidal maniacs so whats new. Everybody talking about NSA spying but what about Federal and State civil forfeiture laws where our government(especially the local and state police) pretty much steals(money, electronics, automobiles, homes) outright from the citizens without being charged of any crime especially on the highways, 4th amendment pretty much gone. Civil and supreme court always sides with law enforcement and you pretty much piss away thousands of dollars more on lawyers and achieve nothing.
We are no better than the rest of the world or any fascist states before and after. USA like so many other countries have always oppressed their citizens from race to gender and it's always gonna be this way. It does not matter what bullshit ideology(Law, religion,atheism) you believe in because in the end humans are humans and none of that ideology which is really "wolf in sheep's" clothing will change Human nature.
This reminds a Christmas eve confession of a 13 year old boy. Admit small mistakes, hoping that no one will notice that the boy not only is a bastard, but was not even baptized.
Got bad news for you - this is the norm.
You don't spend gobs of money and time running for office if you don't want to tell people what to do.
You may tell yourself that telling them what to do is "for their own good", but it's really about the rush you get when large numbers of people do what you say.
In other words, there is no "infiltrate", there is only "that's the whole point of politics"....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Oh, I think I can name at least one, similarly redacted and everything, wouldn't want to reveal US involvement...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Did you catch it?
That’s rightwomen can abuse your data, too!
It’s not just pimple faced teenagers who are out to hack youit could be your ex-wife!
Less than 100 comments on this /. posting so far, and the signal-to-noise ratio is as low as ever..
The older I get, the more cynical, apparently. In my opinion, this is just the NSA throwing the U.S. populace a bone for Christmas. Is this redacted stuff they tossed us for real? Yes. Is it just the tiniest ice crystal from the tip of the Titantic-sinking-class iceberg? Hell, yes it is. They wouldn't dare show us the really bad stuff, which is probably closer to what The Machine (and more to the point, the other machine, 'Samaritan') from the TV show Person of Interest collects on everyone on a moment-by-moment basis, and they'd rather lose an eye than show us the really incriminating stuff; this is just meant as a distraction.
We're headed for a Federal meltdown, I think. No worries, it won't be some shooting war like you'd see in the movies, where a small but determined underground army rises up to topple the corrupt, rotting-from-within government, it'll be a slow burn, with lots of talking, and papers shuffled around, and finally, at the very end, something involving men with guns, and it probably won't happen in what's left of my lifetime, but I think it's going to happen. Call it reform, to put an appropriately pretty and benign word to it. But when it finally happens, nothing will be the same ever again, and Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and all the rest will turn over in their graves. Of course there's a still a small spark within me that believes that the system those men put in place so long ago will self-correct and prevent everything from completely falling apart. We'll see, I guess.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
"Don't do that or we'll make frowny faces at you. And also, what did you find out?"
the high and mighty keep doing evil shit until they start landing on the bottom bunk under Bubba in an overcrowded jail.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Really? I found it to be an accurate assessment of one of the major problems with the US; both Democrats and Republicans are more interested in expanding the power of the Federal Government than in holding government accountable for abuses.
Democrats hate the thought of anyone determining their own fate and Republicans want to prevent anyone from enjoying the same advantages they do. Both Parties have become useless to the majority and only serve specific, rabidly vocal special interest groups.
Good thing i've never mistakenly typed a muscle-memory data item like my email address or something into a web form because it was confusing. And the fact that 'personal identifier' is used probably means they typed their own user id into some field and hit enter. Even after reading more instances from the links, it is quite obvious that this item is chosen for the summary because it sounds terrible.
Take out all of the actual human mistakes, the date errors that snowballed from human mistakes, and the mistakes made by humans in judgement (where not malicious) and I think you'll see a pattern of _HUMAN ERROR_ in the intelligence process that is run by HUMANS.
Haphazardly (so note, these numbers don't actually mean anything) I would guess that for every 1 truly malicious abuse (and let's use a really wide-ranged net for defining malicious even to include grumpy people) there are 9999 mistakes that are reported and handled internally. The fact that they admit these small mistakes and include them in reports that go up to congress (albeit internally) is a good measure that intel is not being done by dr. evil.
No one wants 1984, not even the people who work at these places because they are people too.
Just the relatively civilized ones such as the western European nations and Japan. Most countries would laugh at the concept of a FOIA request and then imprison and/or kill anyone who suggested it.
Insightful.
It's probably a form of the same sociopathy/psychopathy which is prevalent amongst big-company CEOs that motivates people to seek out positions where they can tell others what to do.
Sure, there's a need for bosses in some cases, but deliberately seeking that out, where the objective is to be able to order people around rather than accomplish a specific goal, has to be some kind of mental illness or atavistic throwback.
I'm really sick of your type. We have a more democrat supermajority that didn't do a damn thing to fix this yet you go back 14 years to troll the GOP (most of which are not even in congress anymore.)
The oversight committees are still at work - as the stories about their failing in their job and Alexander's perjury before one of them suggests. So what are you suggesting - or are you just being gratuitously partisan?
I don't know that it's a mental illness per se, but it definitely shares characteristics with narcissistic personality disorder.
That said, as far as modern psychology goes, it's kind of like Apple's app store - there's a diagnosis for everyone.
You've got it right! BO has been president for six of those ten years and done absolutely and positively nothing about it but the OP still blames the GOP. What happened to "the most transparent administration in history?" Typical liberal hypocrisy.
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Is raise awareness and keep things in the independent press. Nobody from the Government has gone to jail for any of these abuses, and this should infuriate people. Our TV based media is not harping on this, they harp on everything but holding the Government accountable for their actions. If you really want to make change you have to get people awake to the severity of the problems, normal media channels work for the same team as our Government.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I am sick of your type. I worked on pat act back in 2004-6. I have posts that griped about you fucking neo-cons that destroy america and never take responsibility for your fucking actions, or the bozos that voted in.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I am a registered libertarian. While I have issues with O, the fact is, that this was put into place back in 2002 through later timeframe, and the neo-cons of that time removed real oversight of the work.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That still doesn't answer the question of why "the most transparent administration in history" allowed this to go on for six years.
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Two of the top results from google search "Congression oversight NSA"
"Obama says NSA has plenty of congressional oversight."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
"The Obama administration, the intelligence agencies and their allies in Congress had made an all-out push to quash the amendment after it unexpectedly made it past the House rules committee late on Monday"
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
I'm sure you'll say some BS like "I never said that the other side was better" but the fact is, you ignored the democrats and neo-libs in your post altogether.
All but 1 democrat voted for the increase power granted by the Patriot Act and the only reason any of it expires and requires renewal is because a Texas Republican added sunsets to the bill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
what does that have to do with what CONgress and W did back in 2004?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
and what does any of this have to do with the fact that CONgress/W basically removed the oversight from NSA back in 2004?
Absolutely fucking NOTHING.
Since that time, CONgress has not done their job of oversight, by asking very thin questions and KNOWING that lies were being told.
It is for that reason that Udal and others have been HINTIng that issues were afoot. In fact, Udall had hinted at this before Snowden turned both whistle blower and traitor.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You are holding on to something that both parties pushed and blaming only one party.
In addition, you are holding on to old shit that should have been corrected by now.
I can say that Clinton and the democrats gave us the DMCA but that doesn't excuse Bush or Obama or the congresses during their times for keeping it.
In fact, Bush was fairly transparent about where he stood on the NSA. Obama and the of liberals flat out lie on it and you give them cover when you keep going back so far (when 6 out of 10 of those years had a Democrat president.)
And being cute with caps doesn't help your case. It just looks juvenile. I'm sure you also type Faux News feeling clever.
BO and the Democrats have had six years to change the policy and return proper congressional oversight and done nothing. Yes, the GOP was responsible for creating the situation, but the Democrats have nobody but themselves to blame for letting it continue.
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Well, lets see. Udall has been trying to bring it to the forefront for some time. That speak volumes, in my book, esp. since the neo-cons (not the tea*) have worked hard to prevent him from bringing up anything.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Must ... blame ... Bush ...
Being liberal and wanting a bigger central government are mutually exclusive. I would suggest they aren't really liberal.
"Sure, there's a need for bosses in some cases, but deliberately seeking that out, where the objective is to be able to order people around rather than accomplish a specific goal, has to be some kind of mental illness or atavistic throwback."
I read in a sci-fi story from the fifties that to defeat this problem of control freaks, everyone who was to gain position above others had to take various tests designed to weed out all those unwanted social/psycho tendencies (hundreds from a list) and not allow those individuals to be in charge of anyone ever. It even had a scenario of what happens when one bad individual slips through such a system. It was a good story.
How many cases have followed through conviction off the back of this illegal surveillance? In other words, how many convictions should now be considered "unsafe", to borrow an English legal term? Following this, how many cases of technically unlawful incarceration must now be subjected to judicial review, potentially retrial minus the tainted surveillance evidence, and who's got the ledger for the compensation claims for illegal imprisonment, inury in custody (including mental anguish), judicial misdirection? oh this is gonna be a very pretty picture going into 2015...
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
a more actually centralized -smaller- government for usa would be nice.
why? no 3+ agencies with ability and rights to wiretap everything any of the tens of thousands of agents feel like typing into the identifier box.
I mean, surely this is proof of that there is no actual oversight, no warrants needed, just type whatever the fuck you want into the box.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Because the part that changed is a very small part of the structure of government. When there's a mess dating back to Edgar Hoover it's not going to be cleaned up by a single administration no matter who is in charge. I wrote something similar here when Baby Bush got in, but he didn't even attempt to touch the Clinton era mess since it would have cut into his vacation time.
Yes but none of them actually had time to read it did they?
Even the name was a very low trick, since it implied that anyone rejecting it was not a patriot. In the political climate of the time voting against it looked like a career ending move, and career is what seatwarmers on both sides saw as important above all else.
I mostly agree with you, but I don't see how giving information to American journalists could be considered treason. The rest of the world did not hear it direct from Snowden. We've been manipulated into thinking he's a traitor when he was really the enemy of powerful bureaucrats instead of the USA.
Which does not matter. Patriot act is not the issue, nor the problem. Nearly all aspects of pat act were and continue, to be needed.
the real issue is that the congressional oversight committee of 2002-6 PURPOSELY allowed us to create systems that did NOT have safety controls in place. Had we done the correct system, it would have had controls to prevent a number of abuses.
Now, not only has snowden told enemies how to evade us, but we have the same sets of neo-cons that allowed the abuse in the first place screaming bloody about this. Worse, a number of u idiots have called for the NSA, a relatively powerless entity( no ability to arrest, etc), to be disbanded and then for the tech. To be handed over to FBI and CIA. If u neo-cons ever get that, not just america, but world will be in deep trouble.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
And once you accept such a premise - that everyone who disagrees with you is acting in bad faith - how could you possibly behave any differently than the NSA did? After all, you are surrounded by Fifth Columns trying to subvert the nation for whatever reason. What else can you do but keep them under surveillance in hopes of catching them in the act?
This is what's really wrong with American political process: treating political opponents as enemies. Democracy works because everyone gets to make their case without having to resort to violence. Democracy is efficient because every viewpoint gets represented and thus considered. But there's also the temptation to simply hurl mud on one's opponents rather than argue one's policies on their merits, and for whatever reason that's the road US has taken. It's a flaw that needs to be corrected.
So both parties listen to the voters, otherwise being rabidly vocal would have no effect. So rather than complain that they can't read your mind, why don't you learn from these special interest groups and start your own? Because "Party X only listens to me if I speak" is not exactly a damning judgement, at least not on the party.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
First off, as I said elsewhere, this is not about pat act.
Secondly, I am not sure that O or even the regular dems outside of the security committees knew about this.
Third, Udall had been trying to bring it up without breaking his oath. He more than hinted at it for a LONG time.
Fourth, being a dick does not help your case. It simply makes you like Juvenile. And Faux News is just that. Faux.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Nope.
He took a loyalty oath. When he gave up information about abuses of spying on Americans, he was a whistle blower. He should have stopped there.
Instead, he went on to give information about spying on AQ, North Korea, China, Russia along with spying on friendlies as well. THat was treason pure and simple.
I am no longer connected to that world. However, I find it hard to believe that AQ , ISIS, etc have not made massive changes to avoid all of the issues that Snowden released.
As such, he has made this world a much deadlier place. In fact, I would not be surprised to find out that part of why Russia is invading Ukraine in the way that they are and pushing things is because we no longer know what they are thinking and how putin is reacting to various deals.
I am all for whistle blowers. These are ppl that report ILLEGAL actions, or abuses of powers against citizens (that may actually border on the edge of legality).
But telling other nations our capabilities to spy on them, all of which was what the NSA was set up for, is out and out treason.
When most other nation's citizens do this, they execute them. But all will lock them up for this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
where is the ACLU while these kids are being gunned down by WHITE cops?
that's right, nowhere to be fucking seen!
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
depends where you are.
In England, in 1999, Tony Blair did a double whammy: he abolished the death penalty for treason.
Then he blatantly committed treason.
(he abolished hereditary Peers (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1999/34/section/1), removing the final check on despotic rule by lawless Commoners and imagining the dilution of style and the death of the Monarch, which is pretty much a violation of the Treason Felony Act 1848).
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
And once you accept such a premise - that everyone who disagrees with you is acting in bad faith - how could you possibly behave any differently than the NSA did?
Because I'm against mass surveillance. And we have evidence of their bad faith: The current situation. I do not suggest we violate anyone's rights, since I view freedom as most important, so that makes me instantly better than what the NSA is doing.
What else can you do but keep them under surveillance in hopes of catching them in the act?
I don't know... pay attention to how they fucking vote?
This is what's really wrong with American political process: treating political opponents as enemies.
They're trying to infringe upon the constitution and our fundamental liberties; they *are* enemies. How could anyone who desires to live in a free country not treat these authoritarian scumbags as enemies?
So both parties listen to the voters, otherwise being rabidly vocal would have no effect.
That makes no sense. They might not be listening to the majority of voters, and since we're stuck with an awful two party system where most people only pay attention to silly hot button issues and are stupid enough to believe in voting for 'the lesser of two evils', you end up with voters voting for people who might have quite a few policies that they disagree with.
What?
Yes but none of them actually had time to read it did they?
A nonsensical excuse. The one democrat who voted against it realized it contained freedom-violating provisions, so there's no excuse for voting for it. Even at the time, it was known to be an awful bill.
In the political climate of the time voting against it looked like a career ending move
And...? They have a duty to defend the constitution, even if that means ending their careers. There are still so many people in both parties saying we should sacrifice our liberties for security. Their true colors were especially revealed on 9/11; they took advantage of the situation to push their authoritarian agenda. It was not an accident, and nor was it because they didn't read it.
Which does not matter. Patriot act is not the issue, nor the problem. Nearly all aspects of pat act were and continue, to be needed.
Now, not only has snowden told enemies how to evade us
What the shit? Well, thanks for revealing your true colors, you authoritarian, partisan hack.
Worse, a number of u idiots have called for the NSA, a relatively powerless entity( no ability to arrest, etc), to be disbanded and then for the tech. To be handed over to FBI and CIA.
"u"? Seriously? He just left.
Anyway, all of those organizations are corrupt to the core.
He took a loyalty oath.
His oath to an evil organization does not matter. He has a more important oath to be a good human being.
When he gave up information about abuses of spying on Americans
Because Americans are the only ones that matter? Ethics don't matter? You sound like the very neocon scumbags you criticize.
all of which was what the NSA was set up for
If the NSA's mission was to spy on allies and innocent people all over the world just because the information may prove useful, then the NSA's mission was unethical.
Judging by how you refer to various presidents, I'm sure you would have thought different if the parties were reversed. For the record, I think that the GOP should be ashamed of itself for letting this happen in the first place.
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Ferguson has non-partisan elections, as do many smaller municipalities in Missouri. (St. Louis City has de facto single-party elections, though there have been sightings of Republicans, and even an occasional Libertarian or Green, from time to time. On the ballot, that is. Not in City Hall.) No parties on the Ferguson ballot.
Here's the vote count for the most recent mayoral election: http://www.stlouisco.com/porta.... Note the lack of party labels.
Guess this means Ferguson is already as good as it gets, eh?
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
For an old example, some would argue say that revealing Oliver North's personal embezzlement of the Contra fund for airconditioning, a car etc, would be treason, because that obvious crime was tangled up in a pile of very sensitive state secrets, such as North supplying weapons to Hezbolla less than a year after they blew up more than one hundred US marines.
So I don't know what he could have revealed without opening a can of worms leading to other things but still be deniable and ignore - instead he revealed far too much to deny. It looks to me like he had a variety of bad choices and picked one.
That is a bit of a stretch since that situation has been building up for more than a decade.
Which means a failure of those who didn't bother to do their duty as citizens and go out to vote to choose the type of people who would defend the constitution, even if that means ending their careers. When choosing those who gets to run a country becomes a game for only the politically obsessed and nobody else bothers to take part it's an expected outcome.
I don't know why you thought I was defending them instead of just describing what happened when I wrote "none of them actually had time to read it did they?". The patriot act farce/tragedy was a low weasel act where the name, an atmosphere of urgency and a deliberate withholding of content got it through. A group of true statesmen or women would refuse to let such a trick work but they were in short supply. Given the environment the sort of people that would rather leave than support something have left long ago.
You appear to make the assumption that everyone who is not for you is against you. I am not in the USA so do not support either party, but Baby Bush was a world class failure even when he bothered to turn up for work. Both Johnson and Ford are roasting in hell IMHO.
Some of the problems date back to before JFK and have been allowed to fester.
Which means a failure of those who didn't bother to do their duty as citizens and go out to vote to choose the type of people who would defend the constitution, even if that means ending their careers.
I would still blame both.