US Spy Chief Reverses Course, Will Not Say How Many Americans Caught in NSA Surveillance (zdnet.com)

Zack Whittaker, writing for ZDNet: US Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats has refused to say how many Americans have been caught up in the government's surveillance programs, reversing a confirmation pledge he made earlier this year. Coats said at a hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on the reauthorization of a key foreign surveillance law that it is "infeasible" to provide an estimate of how many Americans' communications have been collected by the National Security Agency. It's a key question that has been raised by senior lawmakers on several occasions of both the Obama and Trump administrations.

Comments

Easy answer

[fustakrakich]

All of them, and a shitload of people outside the border too.

Re: Easy answer

[Aighearach]

Off Grid Guy.

Many of the people in prison.

Amish people.

Deaf people who still only use the old TTY system.

A few of the homeless.

Re: Easy answer

[Reverend Green]

I dunno about of grid guy. That kinda person is rare and interesting enough they might get some physical surveillance. If not an agent to check in on them from time to time, at least periodic drone flyoversâ.

The Amish are completely peaceful and harmless. But they do represent a virtuous traditional âculture that's quite nearly the polar opposite of degenerate financialists.

And they're land-rich. Really nice land. A whole lot of nice land. Land never touched by toxic pesticides and synthetic fertilizersâ.

I'm sure there must be at least a few filthy capitalists - with old boy network connections to the security state - salivating over that land. And plotting ways to disposess the gentle Amish who have proven themselves such good stewards of God's creation.

Re:Easy answer

[BlueStrat]

Yes, you got it. That's why they can't stop anything. They collect everything thus when something blows up they can figure it all out. But they can't stop it because it's too much info to parse adequately.

The only use the current design of the US electronic surveillance infrastructure is truly suited for is spying on the domestic population. It is a poor tool for anything else.

I find it tragically-hilarious to watch all these corrupt TLA officials and Congresscritters trying to dance around those facts while performing these Kabuki-theater "investigations" in an attempt to deflect public outrage.

Strat

Re: Impeachment

[Reverend Green]

Dude - it's too late to impeach Obama - he's already out.

Re:Impeachment

[Anonymous Coward]

Outsider looking in, ever consider that the following can all be true?

1) The russians worked their asses off to see trump elected

2) the trump campaign wasn't actively colluding with them

3) trumps actions given the situation are reason enough to despise him and potentially look to impeachment?

just saying, at this point the actuality of collusion isn't necessary to prove the fellow unfit to be president.

Surprised. Not.

[Anonymous Coward]

In related news, Webster's dictionary has just updated its entry for "Transparency" to, "see Opaque..."

Re:Answer

[gl4ss]

it's infeasible because they're trying to collect everything from everyone.

but sometimes they get twice from the same guy, so they can't say how many americans they are targeting - because they tried to do the number at it came up as 100 million more than there are americans. it is infeasible to come up with an exact number which is why he was asked for an estimate but he refuses to even take a guess(estimate).

like, come on, everyone knows it's bullshit. he refuses to give even a ballpark estimate because that estimate would be "everyone".

like .. surely he could be asked... "do you think it is under 1 million?" "do you think it is more than 50 million?". followed by.. "just who the fuck do you survey, everyone??".

Re:genie is out of the bottle

[93 Escort Wagon]

The only person safe from all this is someone who is completely off the grid and living in a cave somewhere.

Except my cave is wired with 10G Ethernet.

IE: All of them

[grasshoppa]

It's infeasible not because it's technically challenging or anything. No, it's because they don't want to deal with the PR fall out.

Not that anyone would care.

Re: Answer

[Reverend Green]

Nice non sequitur!

I don't know of anyone who thinks the Russian FSB & friends are somehow better than the American alphabet soup agencies. But pretty much everyone thinks the American agencies should not be conducting mass surveillance on their own people.

Easy question to answer

[stooo]

>> how many Americans have been caught up in the government's surveillance programs
The answer is 320 million.

"infeasible" to provide an estimate of how many..

[The123king]

A round-about away of saying "All of them"

The explanation was entirely reasonable

[DrXym]

I listened to the hearings and the explanation given was entirely reasonable. To wit, if you're recording a communication between two foreign suspects and they mention someone else's name(s), then how do you know if that person is an American citizen or not? It might be simple to check or it might require time consuming and highly intrusive checks to find out. Is the John Smith they mentioned a US citizen? How many John Smith's personal records are you going to trawl through to find a guy who isn't even central to your investigation. What about suspect's schoolfriend Abu who is mentioned to be married now? Are you going to bust into some Pakistani school to find out if any Abu's have emigrated to America and subsequently married? Even though again it's not relevant to the investigation.

If you can't know in the majority of cases if a person is a US citizen without a disproportionate and arguably even more intrusive investigation, and in some cases never know, then what's the purpose of the question again?

It would be better to ask how many names are immediately identifiable as US citizens or whose name have accidentally been exposed contrary to the rules governing FISA.

Re:The explanation was entirely reasonable

[drinkypoo]

The feds intercept and scan literally every email and phone call which goes through an exchange (of the appropriate sort) of any size. So no, it's not reasonable, and the answer is "everyone, and anyone we haven't got yet, we will".

Re:Impeachment

[willy_me]

How about something more likely.

1) Russia scored when hacking. Part luck and part hard work.

2) Wanting to get the most out of their hack, the Russians dangle knowledge of the hack in front of the Trump team. "Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours."

3) The Trump team jumps on the opportunity. Notice how Trump pushed through a policy for the Republican party that no weapons should be given to Ukraine? That was back scratching.

4) Release of the Hillary emails was perfectly timed and Trump gets elected.

5) Since then, the Trump / Russia relationship has soured. But Putin is still able to remind Trump that he has proof of Trump lying. Remember the White House visit just a couple of days after Comey was fired? That looks bad and Trump knows it. But since it was requested by Putin, he has to follow through. This is Putin yanking Trumps chain - a subtle reminder of the damage Putin could inflict upon Trump.