Slashdot Mirror
Declassified Report From 2009 Questions Effectiveness of NSA Spying
schwit1 writes: With debate gearing up over the coming expiration of the Patriot Act surveillance law, the Obama administration on Saturday unveiled a 6-year-old report examining the once-secret program code-named Stellarwind, which collected information on Americans' calls and emails. The report was from the inspectors general of various intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
They found that while many senior intelligence officials believe the program filled a gap by increasing access to international communications, others including FBI agents, CIA analysts and managers "had difficulty evaluating the precise contribution of the [the surveillance system] to counterterrorism efforts because it was most often viewed as one source among many available analytic and intelligence-gathering tools in these efforts."
"The report said that the secrecy surrounding the program made it less useful. Very few working-level C.I.A. analysts were told about it. ... Another part of the newly disclosed report provides an explanation for a change in F.B.I. rules during the Bush administration. Previously, F.B.I. agents had only two types of cases: "preliminary" and "full" investigations. But the Bush administration created a third, lower-level type called an "assessment." This development, it turns out, was a result of Stellarwind.
They found that while many senior intelligence officials believe the program filled a gap by increasing access to international communications, others including FBI agents, CIA analysts and managers "had difficulty evaluating the precise contribution of the [the surveillance system] to counterterrorism efforts because it was most often viewed as one source among many available analytic and intelligence-gathering tools in these efforts."
"The report said that the secrecy surrounding the program made it less useful. Very few working-level C.I.A. analysts were told about it. ... Another part of the newly disclosed report provides an explanation for a change in F.B.I. rules during the Bush administration. Previously, F.B.I. agents had only two types of cases: "preliminary" and "full" investigations. But the Bush administration created a third, lower-level type called an "assessment." This development, it turns out, was a result of Stellarwind.
How much did that report cost? I could have given it to them in 2 words, for free:
Q: "Is unconstitutional warrantless spying effective?"
A: "Fuck no."
1) Tell us that it is not effective; thus we need not worry about loss of privacy; thus we might we well let them continue ?
2) It is not effective because they have not got enough money for XXX; so: please Mr congress critter - vote them some more money
3) It is not effective; you need not worry about encrypting your communications; hopefully enough idiots will believe that!
Pick one of the above or come out with more suggestions.
I vote for marking Snowden as a journalist and for the US to admit that the whole fiasco was an institutionalized attack on democracy from over enthusiastic patriots.
And if they keep going with what they are doing, they are playing terrorists hands, because what is the core goal of terrorists?
Spread terror, spread fear. And now we have no means to protect our communication and data while we know the NSA is spying our all every move, we are more afraid then ever.
http://video.pbs.org/video/236... The recent Frontline documentary "American Terrorist" (which investigates American-born David Coleman Headley and his involvement in the Mumbai assault and the thwarted attack on a Danish newspaper) seemed to reach a similar conclusion. It was originally touted as an NSA bulk data collection success story by high level officials, but they had to backpedal as the truth emerged.
The conclusion seems to be that while they are able to collect a vast amount of information, they are unable to process and analyze all of the information gathered and connect it to individuals that warrant investigation. And Headley was extremely messy in many situations (e.g. directly contacting wanted terrorist leaders) where others certainly are not--so messy that my confidence in the NSA's abilities has diminished (this is assuming bulk data collection is a good thing to begin with, and I don't think it is). The data collected mainly became useful *after* an incident rather than being used to thwart an attack.
Perhaps things have changed by now as this is an investigation of something that happened several years ago, but I highly recommend the documentary.
There is simply no way human beings can sort through that much data. That means relying on gadgets and software to do the sorting for the humans. Anyone who manages big data can tell you how corrupt most data sets really are. Names spelled different ways, bits of information incorrectly transcribed, copy errors, format errors, import errors are all low probability events but, when you're dealing with billions of records, there are a lot of them. Just in general, gadget security doesn't work.
In nearly every terrorist event that's happened in the U.S., the FBI had tips from alert citizens. That was true for 9/11 and almost all of them in between. The FBI even interviewed the Boston Marathon bombers. HUMINT works.
Funny that the FBI screw ups don't get more media attention. In nearly every case they didn't effectively use the information they had, so how is more information going to make things better?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The summary seems to indicate that the value of "Stellarwind" wasn't clear because it was one of many sources and few had access to it, not that all NSA spying was seen as ineffective.
The NSA does so much spying that it seems like it would be hard to ever calculate the marginal value of each additional unit of spying. Probably more so because of the fragmentary and unreliable nature of clandestine information and the need to develop multiple sources to achieve any kind of confidence about a particular conclusion or piece of information.
The latter bit is probably what leads to never-ending development of new data sources and methods, especially as each new spying method becomes less and less specific and requires more and more analysis to tease out information. Call metadata doesn't tell you what was discussed or necessarily who was called. You need parallel data from some other source to tell you who is associated with those numbers, where they were, etc.
Usually when it comes to the whole security show spiel, there's little, if any, relevant information going public. Especially when it shows that the whole crap is just a big, useless black hole for pork barrel money. How often and how long have we been asking for anything that shows the whole TSA annoyance has anything coming close to resembling having a positive effect on security?
But suddenly we get such a report without even asking for it? C'mon. What crony didn't pay his kickback in time so his project has to be axed?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They want to further the spying agenda, outlaw encryption and p2p technology because spying needs centralised servers (e.g. skype had to move to a centralized model), and want more funding. Gimme money money money. Ha, and they want to leer over your naked teen photos every time she crosses the border with her mobilel. And the code of your bank accounts and your emails too.
just like the DEA. Nothing is going to stop it now....
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
We have seen too many incidents of outrageous police conduct lately and it surely indicates that a lot more outrageous police conduct takes place. Maybe it is high time for the public to invest in a lot more hidden cams designed not just to catch criminals but bad cops as well. The single most vital thing we could do as a society is to allow voice recording almost everywhere. bribes and corruption flourish when laws exist making it illegal to record conversations. If we simply had access to every single conversation that our people in congress have we would have a much better nation. The same is true inside businesses. A great deal of evil goes on in businesses. How useful would it have been to be able to recover conversations going on in the tobacco companies back in the 1950s? Millions of lives could have been saved in that one example alone. In the end the public really doesn't want justice.