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File Says NSA Found Way To Replace Email Program (nytimes.com)
schwit1 writes: Newly disclosed documents show that the NSA had found a way to create the functional equivalent of programs that had been shut down. The shift has permitted the agency to continue analyzing social links revealed by Americans' email patterns, but without collecting the data in bulk from American telecommunications companies — and with less oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The disclosure comes as a sister program that collects Americans' phone records in bulk is set to end this month. Under a law enacted in June, known as the USA Freedom Act, the program will be replaced with a system in which the NSA can still gain access to the data to hunt for associates of terrorism suspects, but the bulk logs will stay in the hands of phone companies.
The newly disclosed information about the email records program is contained in a report by the NSA's inspector general that was obtained through a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. One passage lists four reasons the NSA decided to end the email program and purge previously collected data. Three were redacted, but the fourth was uncensored. It said that "other authorities can satisfy certain foreign intelligence requirements" that the bulk email records program "had been designed to meet."
The disclosure comes as a sister program that collects Americans' phone records in bulk is set to end this month. Under a law enacted in June, known as the USA Freedom Act, the program will be replaced with a system in which the NSA can still gain access to the data to hunt for associates of terrorism suspects, but the bulk logs will stay in the hands of phone companies.
The newly disclosed information about the email records program is contained in a report by the NSA's inspector general that was obtained through a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. One passage lists four reasons the NSA decided to end the email program and purge previously collected data. Three were redacted, but the fourth was uncensored. It said that "other authorities can satisfy certain foreign intelligence requirements" that the bulk email records program "had been designed to meet."
The "Freedom Act"
Sounds almost as good as the Patriot Act. /s
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
Is misleading.
What did they replace their email program with? Pine? Elm? Mutt? Eudora? Thunderbird? Outlook? Outlook Express? Citadel? Courier? Squirrelmail? Something else?
Wasn't that in Mars Attacks?
They figured out how to replace the programs before they were shut down. That's why the programs were shut down in the first place.......
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I found a way as well, to replace the email program, I deleted Outlook and installed Thunderbird.
These a-holes just cant be told no can they?
From your link to the Monticello
Comments: Neither this quotation nor any of its variant forms has been found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson.
If this can happen, clearly there are problems with the separation of powers (i.e. the Executive is walking all-over the Congress). Unfortunately, the Congress is either too weak to regain their Constitutional rights and powers, or it simply doesn't want to.
Too bad we cannot harness the energy output from the founding fathers turning and spinning in their graves.
You don't even need to be a government.
Snooping: It's not a crime, it's a feature
Facebook Wants To Listen In On What You're Doing
Big Brands Use Mobile Apps to Direct Offers as You Watch TV
Google looks to patent tech that listens to calls to promote ads
and people will stand in line for days to pay $99 and sign a two-year contract for this.
So what you're saying is that it's roughly an order of magnitude more efficient and secure that the way the IRS processes and stores our financial data.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
A government will do anything asked of it... It is there to serve
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Jefferson was one of the lamest founding fathers.
Jefferson did say things like:
"All men are created equal". (Plagiarized from John Locke) Jefferson, the owner of hundreds of slaves, including the mother of his children.
"Never spend your money before you have it." Of course, Jefferson died with tremendous debt.
If the NSA, CIA, FBI, etc say they need all these anti-encryption, constant surveillance, and constant monitoring to stop terrorism, then it should be their head on the block every time there's a successful terrorist attack. Because the constant message that's come through is: there's too much information to process, there's no way to filter through all the false positives without getting false negatives, and there's no way to sufficiently monitor everyone to even begin to stop all terrorist attacks. So, to accept the punishment for failure would be suicide. Hence, the real thing to write to Congress about is not to stop the surveillance. It's to call for harsh punishment, ie something like life imprisonment, for complicity when attacks succeed. Because anything less, and you have Congress, the NSA, the President, et al admitting that nothing they'll do will be enough and all these are are pointless power grabs that do more to employ more people in government than to actually succeed in their goal.
PS - I don't think this is a strawman in comparison to, say, the war on poverty or the war on drugs: those are complete failures for other, but related reasons. The whole point of this war on terrorism, though, devolves into a complete surveillance state which should, in theory, stop all terrorist attacks. Since we know the theory won't pan out before we start, disregarding all the dystopian horror that can occur from the tyranny of it, then we have every reason to call for the same extreme when it comes to responsibility. There's no need to call upon "what ifs" when the intrinsic nature of "we know everything" means "we let the terrorist attack occur explicitly". Anything less and you have pathetic hand-wringing: to blame Google, the ACLU, etc as if they remotely have the power to stop the NSA, CIA, etc in a meaningful way; I'm sure they'd have blamed the same groups during the Cold War if the USSR had managed a nuclear strike in the US and it'd be as meaningless given the scope of the federal government's authority, implicit or exploit, has always been to usurp just about any law in the name of "national security".
Ah, yes, the ad hominem when you disagree with the message. Classy.
So if a human has any failings we should ignore any insights they happen to have. Not that your ad hominem is all that good anyway. You fail to demonstrate that he was plagiarizing John Locke (and be sure to know what plagiarism actually is before trying to do so).
Lets be clear: I'm not defending Thomas Jefferson. I'm just calling out one of the lamest attempts to discredit someone.
This quote was never used by Jefferson. It's too bad you didn't read the webpage before you linked it.
Asked by who? If I report you as a Communist or ISIS sympathizer, will you cheerfully accept the monitoring and eavesdropping, that's sure to follow?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
> Jefferson was one of the lamest founding fathers.
Of course not, he was the coolest. Maybe Franklin was a genius, but Jefferson would be a pop star these days.
> Jefferson did say things like: "All men are created equal". (Plagiarized from John Locke)
You cannot seriously mean that. Things go way earlier than Locke. And also, did you know ideas don't belong to those who say them?
> Jefferson, the owner of hundreds of slaves, including the mother of his children.
Owning slaves was a trend in those times. If a man (or woman) decides to have a child with a slave, that pretty much means a sense of equality not present in those who consider slaves as "inferiors". Mixing races is the faster way to end racism.
> "Never spend your money before you have it." Of course, Jefferson died with tremendous debt.
How do you think he learned about overspending?
Asked by who?
Exactly my point... Quid pro quo...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
It's not ad-homenim. Invoking the name of a famous person along with quotes or advice by them is attempting to use their position of fame and their reputation to lend weight to the advice. If the source of "insight" is untrustworthy or hypocritical, the worthiness of the advice is suspect.
Ideally, the advice should still be considered. One should not immediately reject it *solely* on a tarnished reputation of the source, but the quality of the source certainly should be a factor if the source's reputation is any weight.
Am I the only one who is glad this is tracked? You know Facebook and Google do this for marketing. Isn't security a more noble goal?
Jefferson was one of the lamest founding fathers.
--Wikipedia
Yeah, Jefferson was an incredible hypocrite. He's also one of the major reasons the U.S. Constitution has the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights, in turn, has done far more to promote liberty in the U.S. and the world at large than any other single thing in history. So, yes, I'll drink to the old bastard.
To paraphrase Jefferson: "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to listen to your every word and track your every move."
Whether Jefferson said it or not, it's also important to note that, no matter how much power you foolishly cede to the government, you still don't get everything you want. To me, at least, it's not really clear that you get much of anything in exchange.
Given their track record, it seems likely the NSA replaced one horribly overreaching program with another. But as far as I can tell, there's little or no evidence (yet) to tell us this new program is equally invasive of Americans' privacy - in fact, that report didn't seem to contain any details at all. While I am very skeptical of this, there is always the possibility they could find a way to accomplish this in a more targeted manner we would not find onerous.
Of course, the basic problem is - telling us what they're doing, in that case, would likely make such a new program worthless. And it's pointless for them to say "just trust us", since they thoroughly burned that bridge to the ground over the past twenty or so years. Not to mention that we can't trust Congress or the President to effectively oversee such a program and protect our constitutional rights, since they also have a demonstrated history of thoroughly abrogating their responsibility on that subject.
I'm not sure what the solution is, unfortunately.
#DeleteChrome
Find me a person who is not a hypocrite, and I'll show you a scoundrel.
Being a hypocrite merely means you have standards, and want to be better than you currently are.
Have you ever looked back at some code you've written, and said, "I should have done better on that code?" Now if you tell other people to not make the same mistake you did, suddenly you are a hypocrite. If "hypocrite" is the worst thing anyone can ever call you, then you've done a good job.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Frustrated NSA Now Forced To Rely On Mass Surveillance Programs That Haven’t Come To Light Yet
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Owning slaves was a trend in those times. If a man (or woman) decides to have a child with a slave, that pretty much means a sense of equality not present in those who consider slaves as "inferiors". Mixing races is the faster way to end racism.
Bullshit, the abolitionist movement was a trend that started a hundred years before Jefferson died. In his will he freed the children of his slave lover; but the asshole didn't free them while he was still alive--Jefferson had his own children as slaves. And because he died in debt, the slaves he freed didn't get freed anyway!
Go ahead NSA, try to read my email
1) I only receive spam
2) I rarely send any email anyways, preferring full end-to-end encrypted IM over email
3) When I do I put my actual message in an encrypted attachment, having privately communicated the key offline, and then use TLS over TOR
4) Suck eggs
At the altar of sacrosanct police and military spending you'll find the most anti-welfare-state, anti-public-infrastructure activists imaginable. And notice that its *private* services that always seem to be on the cutting edge of expanding surveillance in this country.
Police states form when the political class feels that police and military are the first and last resort to peace and prosperity. And they may resort to impoverishing the public to keep those police and soldiers well staffed and well fed.
It isn't illegal for Britain or Canada or Australia to collect email from Americans so the NSA just outsource the illegal collection.
little sister will take his place. And she's a bitch.
Unlike governments, corporations have no power to imprison or execute you. And no one's forcing you to use any of the services you list, whereas you can't opt-out of goverment surveillence.
They will always figure out HOW to collect something useful.
Record everything, maybe move it outside the country first, maybe 'incidentally', etc.
Historically, that's what they do.
The question is guaranteeing there is a suitable limit on WHAT can be done with the information.
Flood the information into a vault with extremely limited outflows.
It comes out ONLY for extreme national security + terror prevention.
Forbidden fruit for anything else.
No mission creep to lessor, seeming worthy options.
No wink wink nod nod outlet paths.
No parallel construction.
Strict recording of EVERYTHING that comes out.
We can try to trust but verify that this is what happens, but ultimately,
we have to trust that the NSA can operate in Boy Scout mode inside the vault.
This is a near impossible task. (See Snowden)
Dirty tricks are necessary to get the information.
The pull from other parts of the govt for info for political and other law enforcement would be extreme.
I'd like to think that there is an element inside the NSA that can do this,
but if they fail, we potentially no longer have the balance of power necessary for a democracy.
Preventing this single point of failure temptation is the reason to keep the information piecemeal in the service providers.
The Google's of the world already do this in amazing abundance.
The question is if it is sufficiently useful there to do the WHAT we need to do.
You are probably not quite aware of the structure of the US government, but the NSA, FBI, etc., are part of the Executive branch of the USA.
How about jail time for violations of constitution scaled based on number of people affected?
First, Jefferson did NOT say the original quote. Someone correctly pointed that out.
Second, Jefferson was an incredible hypocrite and coward. How else do you point that out other than stating the facts?
I should add that.
Curious. Posting something accurate about rebutting a false quote gets marked as "Troll". I see that /. hasn't changed much.
I do recall reading that John Addams and Benjamin Franklin were more than a little surprised at how much the Declaration of Independence read too much like Locke's works. However, back in the 1700s all of the trendy people in the Colonies were espousing what John Locke said.
"AND MOREOVER, Our Will and Pleasure is, and by these Presents, for Us, Our Heirs and Successors, WE DO GIVE and grant unto the said Governor and Company, and their Successors, free Liberty and Licence, in case they conceive it necessary, to send either Ships of War, Men or Ammunition, unto any their Plantations, Forts, Factories, or Places of Trade aforesaid, for the Security and Defence of the same, and to choose Commanders and Officers over them, and to give them Power and Authority, by Commission under their Common Seal or otherwise, to continue or make Peace or War with any Prince or People whatsoever, that are not Christians, in any Places where the said Company shall have any Plantations, Forts or Factories, or adjacent thereunto, as shall be most for the Advantage and Benefit of the said Governor and Company, and of their Trade; and also to right and recompense themselves upon the Goods, Estates or People of those Parts, by whom the said Governor and Company shall sustain any Injury, Loss, or Damage, or upon any other People whatsoever that shall any Way, contrary to the Intent of these Presents, interrupt, wrong or injure them in their said Trade, within the said Places, Territories, and Limits, granted by this Charter. And that it shall and may be lawful to and for the said Governor and Company, and their Successors, from time to time, and at all Times from henceforth, to erect and build such Castles, Fortifications, Forts, Garrisons, Colonies or Plantations, Towns or Villages, in any Parts or Places within the Limits and Bounds granted before in these Presents, unto the said Governor and Company, as they in their Discretion shall think fit and requisite, and for the Supply of such as shall be needful and convenient, to keep and be in the same, to send out of this Kingdom, to the said Castles, Forts, Fortifications, Garrisons, Colonies, Plantations, Towns or Villages, all Kinds of Cloathing, Provision of Victuals, Ammunition, and Implements, necessary for such Purpose, paying the Duties and Customs for the same, as also to transport and carry over such Number of Men being willing thereunto, or not prohibited, as they shall think fit, and also to govern them in such legal and reasonable Manner as the said Governor and Company shall think best, and to inflict Punishment for Misdemeanors, or impose such Fines upon them for Breach of their Orders, as in these Presents are formerly expressed."
I'd think twice about posting a bad review of the HBC if I lived in Canada. There is also the apocryphal story about every HBC store having two elk and two beavers hidden in the basement ready to pay the pelt tax included in their charter....
Curious. Posting something accurate about rebutting a false quote gets marked as "Troll".
It's possible to be entirely accurate and a troll at the same time. Think about it.
In this case, your argument that "Jefferson was one of the lamest founding fathers" isn't very convincing. His architecture was some of the best, his writing was excellent, and a lot of his ideas were interesting (none of us is entirely original....I'm not sure I've ever had an entirely original idea myself).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Someone needs to sponsor a virginity act. That way everyone gets laid.
It's not ad-homenim. Invoking the name of a famous person along with quotes or advice by them is attempting to use their position of fame and their reputation to lend weight to the advice.
So because they committed the fallacy of "appeal to authority", you committing the fallacy of "arguing ad hominem", thus compounding rather than pointing out the original fallacy, isn't actually a fallacy, it's magically delicious instead?
Unlike governments, corporations have no power to imprison or execute you./p>
You have obviously never met a corporate "fixer". Pray you never do; they tend to be actual psychopaths.
> Bullshit
Ha, sure:
"As President, on March 2, 1807, Jefferson signed the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves and it took effect in 1808, which was the earliest allowed under the Constitution. In 1820 he privately supported the Missouri Compromise, believing it would help to end slavery.[40][42] He left the anti-slavery struggle to younger men after that.[43]" (Wikipedia, "Abolitionism")
Why have you such a low opinion of this man? Know that culture takes centuries to change and he, with all probability, knew slavery was wrong. And isn't the case that any father will want to retain his children nearby? Alas, this is not always possible, but I wonder two things:
1. Being children of the master, were they considered 100% slaves?
2. Would they be safe away from their father? Who would care about they are? Even blondes were considered negroes despite having white ancestry...
Of course, it's probable that there were more fierce abolitionists; but I stand by what I said, mix "races" and it becomes hard to have prejudice when your own family has varied roots.
PS: The word "race" does not apply to humans. We're all of a single race.
Or they will just continue to run around the laws and misread their intent. For instance, think about the situation of them running a fiber loop from the major internet backbones that exist near oceans at this point 4 miles off land then back to the nap -- they have effectively created a physical loophole that allows them to gather all traffic with 0 restrictions at the cost of the cable, installations and a few ms of delay...
Liberals demand a government big enough to listen to your every word and track your every move in order to make sure you don't have any undeclared untaxed income. Conservatives demand a government big enough to listen to your every word and track your every move in order to make sure you don't have any unauthorized sex or smoke any unauthorized plants.
Good luck voting for another option.
"Unlike governments, corporations have no power to imprison or execute you."
Yet.
A program by any other name would smell the same.
Yes, simply by not bothering with things like having a phone or a place to live, you too can opt out of corporate tyranny. Of course, that opts you out of government interference as well for all practical purposes (especially if you go live in the woods), so I suppose they're about the same. Except that there is at least a Constitution and concepts of due process that occasionally save you from the government. There's no such protection from corporate tyranny.
Sure, but they're supposed to be answerable to the president, but they keep him under their control. Then the executive branch is supposed to be checked and balanced by the legislative and judicial branches. The legislative is too busy whipping dead horses to deal with this and the judicial has abdicated.
Surely, you've had an original idea.
"Pink and purple garbanzo beans fester in my scrotum, not entirely unlike fuchsia."
You can have that one, for free even.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I think I've read it before.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I imagine that might have been me. 'Tis a long story but that's what blurted out of me while in a museum, while tripping, and surrounded by a tour group. The lady friend that was with me turned and said, "My brain has been removed by a skyhook." We were good until she turned around and saw a giant lobster hanging on the wall and started going "meep meep meep!" (Which, at the time, indicated great excitement.) We were not technically asked to leave, even then, but we knew we'd overstayed our welcome so we meandered off on our own.
It was, however, an original thought and a gift to you. You can have it, do with it what you will, or even discard it. I'd suggest not keeping it, it's contagious.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Why thank you sir.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Reminds me of the more absurd part of PotC 3. You reign in Davy Jones, but you don't have the courage (or sociopathic tendencies) to fire on pirates? Uh, yea, way to spin that Disney Corporation.
"hypocrite - a person who indulges in the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform"
Yea, no. A bigot who says they're not racist but refuses to hire blacks isn't one who "want[s] to be better than [they] currently are". They're just a liar who wants to look good as if they had some sort of high moral standards they follow without having to follow through and suffer the possibly negative consequences (as they perceive them) of following through. Which isn't to say it's always a conscious act, but it's still there.
One, how you code isn't a moral standard or belief (although I can see it possibly being an ethical one in a far stretch). Two, ignoring that, releasing your past mistakes and working to correct them is not being a hypocrite. Seeing those past mistakes, saying others shouldn't commit the same mistake, and THEN proceeding to make the same mistake makes you either a hypocrite or an idiot. You see, you can't twist it as if all past events are synonymous. Some are grouped together by whether a person has changed related to those events and stands by them or would do them again versus all those events in the past one doesn't think about or having any real connection to. There's also the risk of equivocation, which is basically what you're doing.
There's a lot of other worse things to call Jefferson, like rapist, slave owner, generally an asshole for supporting the whole 3/5ths compromise, sexist, etc. Still, hypocrite is in the list too.
Which one? Thunderbird? Kmail? Evolution?
Perhaps they found a way to replace their email programme.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
"has done far more to promote liberty in the U.S. and the world at large than any other single thing in history."
Except of course, the Magna Carta.
What they are saying is they are collecting 'meta-data' rather than the contents of email. (something they have been doing for a decade at least).
Since this is a grey-area legally, they can't legitimately use the content of the emails in court for conviction. They toss the content, and use the metadata to prove 'guilt by association'.
This is ugly, unethical, immoral, anti-American, unconstitutional, and just plain despicable. But you know, TERROR!!! so it's okay.