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Whistleblower: NSA Is So Overwhelmed With Data, It's No Longer Effective (zdnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the biting-more-than-they-can-chew dept.

An anonymous reader cites ZDNet's Zack Whittaker report: William Binney, a former NSA official who spent more than three decades at the agency, said the US government's mass surveillance programs have become so engorged with data that they are no longer effective, losing vital intelligence in the fray. That, he said, can -- and has -- led to terrorist attacks succeeding. Binney said that an analyst today can run one simple query across the NSA's various databases, only to become immediately overloaded with information. With about four billion people -- around two-thirds of the world's population -- under the NSA and partner agencies' watchful eyes, according to his estimates, there is too much data being collected. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why NSA wants to dump the phone records it gathered over the past 14 years.

1 of 209 comments (clear)

  1. Don't conflate those things by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    One world government does not automatically mean global authoritarian nightmare. I get it, you are against a world government, but either stay on topic or, without conflating such a government with authoritarianism as if such a relation were a self evident fact, explain why the two should be considered related - please.

    Put simply, what the hell sort of problem do you have with some consistency in global law? Not every law, but some. Recall such a government does not mean that smaller governments, like states or provincial governments under a national government, wouldn't still exist. You can still have a backwards local flavor if you so desperately want it.

    Otherwise shut the fuck up, and stay on topic. The topic in case you need some elucidation is the surveillance done by one national government and the difficulty of it processing the data is has collected. Said topic naturally extends itself to whether or not said government should have the data, and the logistics of handling said data. It does not extend itself to the unrelated matter of a world government, unless you care to post your anti-world-government manifesto and link the two.