NSA found to be collecting details on all phone calls in the United States

[CaptainPanic]

This is not evidence that they are.

Agreed. They don't seem to listen to the actual conversation on the phone.

 

What about emails? Checking photographs (face recognition)? File transfers? Skype? Banking/financial data? All the information I see suggests that they simply grab all the data directly from those large internet companies. So, there they do read everything, and regarding Skype, they may "listen in" after all.

 

With all the data collected, they don't need to literally listen to the words I say on the phone. They already know pretty much everything. (Especially since they're also monitoring my bank account).

 

swansont, it almost sounds like you're trying to make this sound less awful then it is. But I know you're probably just correcting my small mistake. So, just a personal question: you're ok with the government checking all your online data, and your 'meta-data' of your phonecalls? But if they listen to the actual words, that would be the final straw? Because that's what it sounds like to me now.

[proximity1]

"White House Plays Down Data Program" 9 June, 2013 New York Times : http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/us/politics/officials-say-congress-was-fully-briefed-on-surveillance.html?ref=us&pagewanted=all

 

“Now that the fact of bulk collection has been declassified, we believe that more information about the scale of the collection, and specifically whether it involves the records of ‘millions of Americans,’ should be declassified as well,” they said. The list of briefings begins on May 12, 2009, with a classified hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee involving Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the head of the United States Cyber Command, and David S. Kris, assistant attorney general for national security.

On Feb. 14, 2011, all senators were offered the opportunity to discuss the broad authority under the Patriot Act with the director of national intelligence, Mr. Clapper; the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III; and General Alexander. Mr. Mueller spoke to the House Republican Conference on May 13, 2011, and to the House Democratic Caucus on May 24, 2011.

 

On Feb. 8, 2011, Senators Dianne Feinstein of California, the chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the panel, invited every senator to a briefing with Mr. Clapper and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to discuss expiring provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

 

The provisions — “one on roving authority for electronic surveillance and the other on the acquisition of business records that are relevant to investigations to protect against international terrorism or espionage” — were added to the 1978 law by the Patriot Act. But Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, draws a distinction between the holding of such briefings and the informed consent of Congress. Very few lawmakers avail themselves of such briefings, he suggested, and only the most senior leaders are kept fully abreast of intelligence activities.

 

“You can count on two hands the number of people in Congress who really know,” he said in an interview on Friday.

 

So much for this : > "..."Further, it might be helpful to recall that these programs have all been fully debated and approved by the Congress itself... More than once."

[swansont]

 

swansont, it almost sounds like you're trying to make this sound less awful then it is. But I know you're probably just correcting my small mistake. So, just a personal question: you're ok with the government checking all your online data, and your 'meta-data' of your phonecalls? But if they listen to the actual words, that would be the final straw? Because that's what it sounds like to me now.

 

One thing is I'm trying to not do what others are and sensationalize this by inflating the actions. It's pretty easy to rile people up by saying "The NSA is listening in on your calls!" but that's lying, and a pretty low form of rabble-rousing.

 

 

The thing that bothers me is I don't trust the safeguards to keep this from being more than it's supposed to be, because I can't see those safeguards.

I'm amused by congress as they run for cover from something that many of them knew about and of which they approved. I find the reaction of many people to be interesting. Where was the outrage more than a decade ago, when the Patriot act was passed? Or even before that, because it was legal 30 years ago to get this kind of data, as the link I provided earlier explained.

 

But what, exactly, is "awful" about this? That the government is doing something that it is legal to do, and we're just now becoming aware that they are actually doing it? That one's own fault for not being aware of the laws, or not insisting that our elected officials draw different boundaries on the powers we grant them. Is it just the realization that it's occurring, forcing people to think about it? Like finding out that there's a tolerance for rat hair and feces in foods, and it isn't zero, but you naively think it could be? That what we naively thought was private turns out not to be private, and never really was?

 

So much for this : > "..."Further, it might be helpful to recall that these programs have all been fully debated and approved by the Congress itself... More than once."

 

"Very few lawmakers avail themselves of such briefings"

 

That's not the same thing as saying Congress wasn't informed or they did not approve. If they did not avail themselves of the briefings, it means they couldn't be bothered to know the details. I'm not giving them a pass for being less than competently diligent.

[John Cuthber]

The NSA are not listening to phone calls. In effect, they are reading your itemised phone bill. They know who you called, when and for how long.

Whether that's an evil thing or not, they seem to have arranged to do it in such a way that most people didn't realise that they were doing so.

It's not that they actually lied, they just told the fewest possible people. They announced it to congress in a briefing, knowing that "Very few lawmakers avail themselves of such briefings"

 

The question is why, if the case for doing this is strong enough to overrule the privacy concerns, did they not just explain what they wanted to do, get the public on- board, and do it clearly in plain sight?

 

Perhaps they were not sure that they could convince the man in the street that this is a good idea.

Well, if the man in the street doesn't think it's a good idea, (and the protests seem to suggest that he doesn't) but you introduce it anyway,

is that democracy?

[swansont]

The NSA are not listening to phone calls. In effect, they are reading your itemised phone bill. They know who you called, when and for how long.

Whether that's an evil thing or not, they seem to have arranged to do it in such a way that most people didn't realise that they were doing so.

It's not that they actually lied, they just told the fewest possible people. They announced it to congress in a briefing, knowing that "Very few lawmakers avail themselves of such briefings"

 

The question is why, if the case for doing this is strong enough to overrule the privacy concerns, did they not just explain what they wanted to do, get the public on- board, and do it clearly in plain sight?

 

Because if you announce it, it doesn't work as an investigative tool.

 

 

[John Cuthber]

On its own, it doesn't work as an investigative tool anyway.

They could analyse all the interactions and they would find, for example, that I regularly call about 4 people and occasionally call some others.

 

Most people's data would look more or less similar. Some people would call larger numbers, and some fewer.

 

It's only helpful if you know that one of the people is a crook, then you can see whom he talked to.

But they could always get a warrant to do that anyway.

So this lets them look at my phone usage where they couldn't do so before.

And I'm not a crook.

So, what investigation does it help?

 

Also, the crooks presumably watch CSI and they know that phone calls are not secure, so they use disposable mobile phones (or stolen or cloned ones).

So, I don't see what illegal activity they can monitor now which they couldn't before.

On the other hand, they can now monitor my activity.

 

Perhaps that's why they couldn't sell this idea to the man in the street- he's also bright enough to work out what I just worked out.

[proximity1]

One thing is I'm trying to not do what others are and sensationalize this by inflating the actions. It's pretty easy to rile people up by saying "The NSA is listening in on your calls!" but that's lying, and a pretty low form of rabble-rousing.

 

 

The thing that bothers me is I don't trust the safeguards to keep this from being more than it's supposed to be, because I can't see those safeguards.

I'm amused by congress as they run for cover from something that many of them knew about and of which they approved. I find the reaction of many people to be interesting. Where was the outrage more than a decade ago, when the Patriot act was passed? Or even before that, because it was legal 30 years ago to get this kind of data, as the link I provided earlier explained.

 

But what, exactly, is "awful" about this? That the government is doing something that it is legal to do, and we're just now becoming aware that they are actually doing it? That one's own fault for not being aware of the laws, or not insisting that our elected officials draw different boundaries on the powers we grant them. Is it just the realization that it's occurring, forcing people to think about it? Like finding out that there's a tolerance for rat hair and feces in foods, and it isn't zero, but you naively think it could be? That what we naively thought was private turns out not to be private, and never really was?

 

 

"Very few lawmakers avail themselves of such briefings"

 

That's not the same thing as saying Congress wasn't informed or they did not approve. If they did not avail themselves of the briefings, it means they couldn't be bothered to know the details. I'm not giving them a pass for being less than competently diligent.

 

RE: "But what, exactly, is "awful" about this?"

 

here, let the NSA specialist and agency employee who is behind the disclosure, explain that to you(video interview link):

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-interview-video

 

RE: "I find the reaction of many people to be interesting." What people are these?

 

RE: "Where was the outrage more than a decade ago, when the Patriot act was passed? Or even before that, because it was legal 30 years ago to get this kind of data, as the link I provided earlier explained."

 

My outrage, protests, and arguments, for example, were written over years of participation in various internet discussion fora, thousands of posts over dozens of topics, more or less directly related to intelligence agency policies and abuses, but also concerning other related matters--official misinformation campaigns, cover-ups, etc., without regard for the position or party membership of those involved. Much of this was at the internet blog, "MyLeftWing.com" but also at its spin-offs, and at sites such as the (now defunct) chatrooms which the NYTimes ran from 2001 through the onset of the Bush Iraq war of 2003 and for a while after.

 

RE: "That's not the same thing as saying Congress wasn't informed or they did not approve."

 

No, this, which, if you even read, you ignored: ' “You can count on two hands the number of people in Congress who really know,” he said in an interview on Friday. '

[swansont]

No, this, which, if you even read, you ignored: ' “You can count on two hands the number of people in Congress who really know,” he said in an interview on Friday. '

 

Not at all. I addressed this in my previous post: If they did not know, it was their choice to be uninformed. I don't give them a pass for not competently doing the proper diligence in performing their duties.

[CaptainPanic]

One thing is I'm trying to not do what others are and sensationalize this by inflating the actions. It's pretty easy to rile people up by saying "The NSA is listening in on your calls!" but that's lying, and a pretty low form of rabble-rousing.

Yeah, I think you and me are not playing the same game here on the politics forum. You're more focussed on facts, while I definitely allow bit of sensationalism. I'm just trying to play the game of politics. I may not be good at it, but we're not doing science here where we are all on the same side. This is politics, and we're also talking about my interests.

But what, exactly, is "awful" about this? That the government is doing something that it is legal to do, and we're just now becoming aware that they are actually doing it? That one's own fault for not being aware of the laws, or not insisting that our elected officials draw different boundaries on the powers we grant them. Is it just the realization that it's occurring, forcing people to think about it? Like finding out that there's a tolerance for rat hair and feces in foods, and it isn't zero, but you naively think it could be? That what we naively thought was private turns out not to be private, and never really was?

The reason everybody is acting now is that everybody is simply riding the wave. This is the moment if you try to achieve something. I am just supporting anyone who wishes to achieve change, and improve privacy.

 

I am quite aware that this is supposed to be legal in the USA (not that anyone ever asked my opinion as a Dutchman, but they're still checking my data too). I just think that the law should change, so that it becomes illegal. I am not suggesting anyone is doing anything against the law. But looking at the responses from all the politicians, they seem to realize that when mommy said they can have "some cookies" she definitely did not mean 200 million cookies.

[swansont]

I am just supporting anyone who wishes to achieve change, and improve privacy.

 

 

I don't think privacy is being compromised if they are acting as advertised. Metadata by itself doesn't identify who called whom. (The details of this is discussed in a new thread)

[overtone]

 

I don't think privacy is being compromised if they are acting as advertised.

At what point in this data compiling and data mining would you find privacy being compromised?

 

Let's establish this in advance of the new information that will be probably be coming our way, which if the past is any guide will not quite match the "advertising" to date.

 

I think if a generation ago any President had installed a universal surveillance program of everybody's telephones and been found out after concealing its existence for years,

 

a justification of it as necessary to prevent terrorism from antiwar protestors or abortion clinic bombers or racial supremicists (the terrorists of the time, killing many), along with an unsupported and unverifiable claim of not recording "substance" but merely compiling a record of who you called and when along with "other data" unspecified,

 

would not have saved his ass, regardless of Party or other affiliation.

 

Yet W was never even threatened with impeachment, was re-elected. Obama likewise - although threatened far more than W, for much less in the way of malfeasance, he is not facing serious consequences for merely this.

 

So clearly, in my view, we have advanced quite a bit in our tolerance for governmental oversight and monitoring. But there must still be a limit, one would assume. So let's speculate - when we get more of the story, we will learn more of what the actual situation has been: what potential features of the more complete picture would be enough to push the outrage button and bring out the tar and feather brigades? Where will Americans draw the line?

[hypervalent_iodine]

All swansont did was remind readers that the programs started under Bush, not under Obama. It may be detrimental to your preferred narrative, but at no point was anyone being "required to take someone else's view of things." Pointing out facts is not silencing dissent as you are here now trying to imply.

 

Further, it might be helpful to recall that these programs have all been fully debated and approved by the Congress itself... More than once. This is another fact that perhaps hurts your preferred narrative, but does not prevent you from sharing it. You're fully allowed to be as myopic and ignorant as you'd like, so let's be clear on that.

 

!

Moderator Note

iNow,

 

You have been repeatedly warned (and even suspended) against making posts that insult other members. We have been fairly lenient on you in the past, but do not presume that your status here as an older member who usually makes good posts will grant you immunity from being banned if you keep this up.

[CaptainPanic]

I don't think privacy is being compromised if they are acting as advertised. Metadata by itself doesn't identify who called whom. (The details of this is discussed in a new thread)

 

Right, so the little discussion between you and me that we've had in this thread has ended in a difference of political opinion. You think this has not yet crossed the line that you've drawn for yourself while I think it has gone much too far already (even if they "act as advertised"). I think that may explain the style of posting too.

[swansont]

Something relevant, I think, about why privacy matters and why we don't trust the government to behave — because it so often shows that it doesn't

http://kottke.org/13/06/you-commit-three-felonies-a-day

[Phi for All]

The Joe Nacchio story is very appropriate here. He was headquartered here in Denver, and I remember well the campaign against him. The spin going on then made me nauseous. Every story in the local papers made it seem like he bilked investors, and they even fined him and then gave the money back to investor "victims". And the only real crime there was the FBI announcing the bogus investigation for insider trading, which sent Qwest stocks tumbling.

 

It's doubtful Nacchio was completely clean, but he wasn't the one who made the stocks drop. The government selected his case to prosecute, among all the other questionable insider-trading cases.

[iNow]

We've voluntarily shared our data with private companies for a rather long time already at this point. We've signed contracts with cell phone carriers and with internet providers that essentially surrender our rights to privacy and seclusion. It boggles my mind that people have become so apoplectic and mouth frothy when it was merely confirmed that the government was looking at this voluntarily shared information.

 

Electronic communication IS different than other forms of communication. It's NOT like speaking through a can with a string attached, and it's NOT like using graphite or ink to scribe something on pulpified dead trees. No, we're sending electronic outputs through the sky to the nearest tower. The kid at the house next door can pick up my cell phone calls with a decent police scanner or a slightly modified radio. The pimply dude who admins the server at the local ISP can login with his master admin credentials and read my emails, or my tweets, or my posts, or my text messages. The fella sitting at the table behind me at the coffee shop can read my facebook wall and see my username to SFN, and all of this has been true since we began doing more than whispering in each other's ears in crowded rooms.

 

Of fracking course the government can look at this data, too. If you felt otherwise, you were either ignorant or delusional. I'm not saying it's right or it's wrong, I'm saying that these are the facts on the ground and have been for quite some time.

 

As I said in my initial post, the issue we as a culture need to discuss is how we regulate what happens with that data, and how it's used and who gets to see it an when. It is FAR too late IMO to assume we can prevent people from collecting it in the first place.

 

If you want to remain private, buy everything in cash or using sex for goods bartering and live in the mountains somewhere. Anything more modern than that and you will be subject to surveillance.

 

Am I wrong? You can disagree with the principle of this matter all day and each night, but is there anything I've shared that is not an objective assessment of our current state?

 

Oh yeah, and it started under Bush. That's what we call a "fact." I know a lot of people dislike those nasty things, but fortunately reality doesn't care about your personal feelings or ideology.

[CaptainPanic]

We've voluntarily shared our data with private companies for a rather long time already at this point. We've signed contracts with cell phone carriers and with internet providers that essentially surrender our rights to privacy and seclusion. It boggles my mind that people have become so apoplectic and mouth frothy when it was merely confirmed that the government was looking at this voluntarily shared information.

 

Electronic communication IS different than other forms of communication. It's NOT like speaking through a can with a string attached, and it's NOT like using graphite or ink to scribe something on pulpified dead trees. No, we're sending electronic outputs through the sky to the nearest tower. The kid at the house next door can pick up my cell phone calls with a decent police scanner or a slightly modified radio. The pimply dude who admins the server at the local ISP can login with his master admin credentials and read my emails, or my tweets, or my posts, or my text messages. The fella sitting at the table behind me at the coffee shop can read my facebook wall and see my username to SFN, and all of this has been true since we began doing more than whispering in each other's ears in crowded rooms.

 

Of fracking course the government can look at this data, too. If you felt otherwise, you were either ignorant or delusional. I'm not saying it's right or it's wrong, I'm saying that these are the facts on the ground and have been for quite some time.

This discussion is not about technological possibilities, and it is not about the legality of it either. The discussion is whether we want this.

 

A person can also stand in front of your house, and stare through your window. Technically possible, and perhaps even legal. But I guess you'd be pretty upset after a few minutes.

As I said in my initial post, the issue we as a culture need to discuss is how we regulate what happens with that data, and how it's used and who gets to see it an when. It is FAR too late IMO to assume we can prevent people from collecting it in the first place.

Why? In the EU, there is a proposal regarding the right to be forgotten. If it passes, it essentially means you can ask for some data to be removed and permanently deleted.

 

It's relatively easy to make the data-collection illegal. You'd hope that government agencies at least follow the letter of the law in a democratic country. And whether corporations then comply with such a law is another question. I guess if the fine would be big enough, they will. It's all economics in the end.

If you want to remain private, buy everything in cash or using sex for goods bartering and live in the mountains somewhere. Anything more modern than that and you will be subject to surveillance.

 

Am I wrong? You can disagree with the principle of this matter all day and each night, but is there anything I've shared that is not an objective assessment of our current state?

 

Oh yeah, and it started under Bush. That's what we call a "fact." I know a lot of people dislike those nasty things, but fortunately reality doesn't care about your personal feelings or ideology.

Privacy is not the same thing as remaining completely private. Privacy is more about being in control of who you share some information with. Methods that used to be private are now being invaded. And some object and hope that regulations can turn that around.

[proximity1]

from The (U.K.) Guardian newspaper's related articles:

 

 

Q & A with Edward Snowden:

 

Q: Why did you decide to become a whistleblower?

 

A: "The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.

 

"I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things … I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under."

...

Q: Is it possible to put security in place to protect against state surveillance?

 

A:"You are not even aware of what is possible. The extent of their capabilities is horrifying. We can plant bugs in machines. Once you go on the network, I can identify your machine. You will never be safe whatever protections you put in place."

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why

 

Note: "without targeting" does not mean without identification of the person(s) concerned, otherwise, the import of his comment would be nil.

 

Over the next three years, he learned just how all-consuming the NSA's surveillance activities were, claiming "they are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them".

 

He described how he once viewed the internet as "the most important invention in all of human history". As an adolescent, he spent days at a time "speaking to people with all sorts of views that I would never have encountered on my own".

 

But he believed that the value of the internet, along with basic privacy, is being rapidly destroyed by ubiquitous surveillance. "I don't see myself as a hero," he said, "because what I'm doing is self-interested: I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity."

 

Once he reached the conclusion that the NSA's surveillance net would soon be irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose to act. "What they're doing" poses
"an existential threat to democracy", he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance

Metadata implies the linking of all sorts of sensitive tranactions--everything bought with a credit card, including the hour and minute, the date, the place, the amount spent and, the items themselves. What about a person, including his identity, cannot be gleaned easily from such records?

 

That's "only" your credit card data--which, of course, is a unique number, attached to the cardholder alone. But, there's more. There are also your medical records, your banking records, your school data, and all your travel movements. Do you have a cell-phone? Then your every movement is tracked and logged in the phone system's metadata, with of course, all your call connections and the related data.

 

With such a file, I could tell you whatever anyone wanted to know about another person--everything about him or her. Present, past and future intentions. The idea that a program designed with the intent to find and identify potential terrorist suspects does not include the ready ability to indentify individuals wherever and whenever desires asks us to flush our common sense down the toilet.

Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Epic.org

 

(News) EPIC Seeks Legal Justification for NSA Domestic Surveillance Program:

 

 

Dear Senators and Representatives:

We write to you today to urge you to begin oversight hearings on the legality of orders issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court compelling Verizon to turn over millions of records of American telephone customers to the National SecurityAgency concerning communications solely within the United States. In our view, the Foreign IntelligenceSurveillance Court simply lacks the legal authority to authorize this program of domestic surveillance.

June 7, 2013

On April 25, 2013, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ("FISC") ordered Verizon Business Network Services, Inc. to:

[P]roduce to the National Security Administration (NSA) upon service of this Order, and continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this Order, unless otherwise ordered by the Court, an electronic copy of the following tangible thing:

all call detail records or" telephony metadata" created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.

. . . Telephony metadata includes comprehensive communications routing information, including but not limited to session identifying information (e.g.,originating and terminating telephone number, International Mobile Subscriber Identity

(IMSI) number, International Mobile station Equipment Identity (IMEI) number, etc.), trunk identifier, telephone calling card numbers, and time and duration of call. (emphasis added)

4

According to the Chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, this

same order to Verizon has been renewed for the past seven years.

While details are still emerging, it seems likely that the NSA has targeted other telecommunications companies with similar

orders. On Thursday, the Obama administration defended the surveillanceof Verizon communications while withholding its secret legal authority to do so.

Link : http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/fisa/

Edited June 12, 2013 by proximity1

[Bill Angel]

We've voluntarily shared our data with private companies for a rather long time already at this point. We've signed contracts with cell phone carriers and with internet providers that essentially surrender our rights to privacy and seclusion. It boggles my mind that people have become so apoplectic and mouth frothy when it was merely confirmed that the government was looking at this voluntarily shared information.

 

Electronic communication IS different than other forms of communication. It's NOT like speaking through a can with a string attached, and it's NOT like using graphite or ink to scribe something on pulpified dead trees. No, we're sending electronic outputs through the sky to the nearest tower. The kid at the house next door can pick up my cell phone calls with a decent police scanner or a slightly modified radio. The pimply dude who admins the server at the local ISP can login with his master admin credentials and read my emails, or my tweets, or my posts, or my text messages. The fella sitting at the table behind me at the coffee shop can read my facebook wall and see my username to SFN, and all of this has been true since we began doing more than whispering in each other's ears in crowded rooms.

 

Of fracking course the government can look at this data, too. If you felt otherwise, you were either ignorant or delusional. I'm not saying it's right or it's wrong, I'm saying that these are the facts on the ground and have been for quite some time.

 

As I said in my initial post, the issue we as a culture need to discuss is how we regulate what happens with that data, and how it's used and who gets to see it an when. It is FAR too late IMO to assume we can prevent people from collecting it in the first place.

 

If you want to remain private, buy everything in cash or using sex for goods bartering and live in the mountains somewhere. Anything more modern than that and you will be subject to surveillance.

 

Am I wrong? You can disagree with the principle of this matter all day and each night, but is there anything I've shared that is not an objective assessment of our current state?

 

Oh yeah, and it started under Bush. That's what we call a "fact." I know a lot of people dislike those nasty things, but fortunately reality doesn't care about your personal feelings or ideology.

 

You mentioned "The pimply dude who admins the server at the local ISP can login with his master admin credentials and read my emails, or my tweets, or my

posts, or my text messages...." Thirty years ago I worked as a contractor for the National Security Agency, doing system admin work at their headquarters at Ft Meade Maryland. I had "master admin credentials" and could, along with the other members in the admin group, access everything stored on NSA's computers. This situation WAS a source of concern and discussion at the Agency, but the Agency's section chief for computer support, to whom the contractors reported, defended the practice on the grounds that the system admin personnel needed such access to do their jobs effectively. We all had Top Secret clearances, and the philosophy was that you should select people for these jobs that you could trust, and then empower them with the tools and access that they needed to get the job done. So this fellow Edward Snowden could be viewed from one perspective as forcing an issue public that has been of concern to NSA for at least 30 years.

[proximity1]

I'm truly astounded that so many really smart people can so utterly miss a point.

 

When Edward Snowden, after years of experience as a contract employee working as an IT systems-administrator with the C.I.A. and N.S.A. at various stations around the world, decided after many, many months of consideration, that his work and that of others like him in the intelligence agencies was a direct and serious "existential threat to democracy" he undertook a course of action to reveal the nature and operational details of that threat and, in doing that, he forsook his $100K+ job, career, home, girlfriend--along with his entire family in the U.S.--and placed a few belongings in a suitcase and left--with the bombshell of data he'd carefully chosen to make clear not what the government "might do one day" if it ran amok, but what, from his direct first-hand experiences, it was doing and long had been doing. ETA: He knows that, if he's lucky, he'll live the rest of his life as a fugitive--unless one day there comes about a government in the U.S. with something that even remotely approaches Snowden's standing in moral character, in which case, it may recognize and thank him for his courage rather than relentlessly hunt him down for arrest, trial, conviction and imprisonment. Maybe, if he's lucky, he can find a place where he'll be granted effective asylum and refuge from the U.S. arrest warrants. Even so, he knows he'll never again be able to live without a nagging concern about his safety and his settled living conditions. Until such time, he's going to have to run, hide, and live from hour to hour.

 

Who here, reading and commenting in these threads has even 1/100th of the strength that Snowden acted upon--sacrfificing virtually everything, for reasons of conscience and knowing that, at best, a minority of his fellow countrymen would understand and approve of his acts?

 

Snowden wasn't and isn't a fool. He gave up a life of much better than average comfort out of a conscientious set of morally-founded principles: the direct and present reduction of his country's most basic freedoms to so much expendable garbage. He took his actions after long hesitation, inner and conflicted debate, and after arriving at last at a moment of crystal clarity in his own mind concerning the absolute necessity that someone do something and his very reluctant recognition that experience forced on him: there was no one else who was going to do for him what his conscience compelled him to see had to be done.

 

Whatever concern N.S.A.'s thousands of direct or contract employees may have had over the past "thirty years", none of them, not one, ever got so far in his or her moral maturity to see and understand what Snowden saw and understood, and then to act on that. Instead, if and when their consciences troubled them, all these thousands of others did, for years, whatever they needed to do to silence, again and again, perhaps, their troubled consciences. But they must not have been as deeply troubled as Snowden, because they did silence their consciences.

 

He found that he could not. That's to his credit.

 

ETA:

Editorial
New York Times editors: "Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy"
THE EDITORIAL BOARD Published: June 11, 2013 359 Comments
"A new Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll found that a majority of Americans are untroubled by revelations about the National Security Agency’s dragnet collection of the phone records of millions of citizens, without any individual suspicion and regardlessof any connection to a counterterrorism investigation." .... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/opinion/surveillance-a-threat-to-democracy.html?hp

Edited June 12, 2013 by proximity1

[overtone]

 

Of fracking course the government can look at this data, too. If you felt otherwise, you were either ignorant or delusional

The question has never been capability. The government has been able, physically, to read my mail since mail was invented. If I found that my government actually has been opening my mail and compiling "metadata" from it in a permanent file I am not allowed to see, in secret, without a warrant, without informing me or anyone I write to, I'm going to get angry about it.

 

And I think that's reasonable.

[swansont]

The Verizon metadata court order is the main and original topic of discussion. This is a subset, and probably a small subset, of NSA activity, and is certainly a subset of NSA activity that bothered Snowden and prompted him to act.

Snowden's name wasn't even mentioned in the thread until just the last couple of posts.

The question has never been capability. The government has been able, physically, to read my mail since mail was invented. If I found that my government actually has been opening my mail and compiling "metadata" from it in a permanent file I am not allowed to see, in secret, without a warrant, without informing me or anyone I write to, I'm going to get angry about it.

And I think that's reasonable.

 

Metadata for snailmail would be things like the recipient's name and address, the return address and postmark, envelope size & weight. It does not require opening the envelope. It's also not concealed, which is why the government is allowed to record it, and has been doing so for a long time.

[overtone]

Metadata for snailmail would be things like the recipient's name and

address, the return address and postmark, envelope size & weight. It

does not require opening the envelope.

It would also be the language used, vocabulary frequencies, handwriting description, list of topics, length of letter, writing instrument, etc.

 

Note - recipient's name? That would be of course metadata for phone calls, as well. But one would expect more competence than mere name recognition - bad guys use aliases.

 

Much of that can be obtained by various high tech instruments without opening the envelope, but of course there's nothing wrong with opening the envelope as long as only metadata is recorded - right? I mean, you dropped the thing in a box for strangers to handle, so you have no expectation of privacy.

 

And yet I do, sorry. I want the architects of this offense to civil liberty and freedom of life to lose their jobs, the politicians who allowed it to be retired at the earliest opportunity, the mess cleaned up and the databased erased and a return to government by servants, rather than overseers, of the public good.

 

And I have wanted that for more than a decade now, since we first learned of this operation and were first lied to about it.

Edited June 12, 2013 by overtone

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

An interesting perspective from Moxie Marlinspike:

 

We Should All Have Something To Hide

 

In short, he suggests that if law enforcement were 100% effective through pervasive surveillance, social change would be impossible. Civil rights leaders would have been jailed and nobody would ever argue for same-sex relationships, because nobody would ever have had one. Homosexuals would have been jailed immediately. A democracy is supposed to grant us the freedom to experiment with new ideas.

 

Additionally, the sheer number of laws on the books means that surveillance will likely reveal evidence of crimes committed by everyone, at which point law enforcement becomes arbitrary.

[swansont]

It would also be the language used, vocabulary frequencies, handwriting description, list of topics, length of letter, writing instrument, etc.

 

No, it wouldn't because you'd have to read the letter to determine that. That would be like a phone wiretap — it requires a warrant, dependent on probable cause.

 

Note - recipient's name? That would be of course metadata for phone calls, as well. But one would expect more competence than mere name recognition - bad guys use aliases.

 

Much of that can be obtained by various high tech instruments without opening the envelope, but of course there's nothing wrong with opening the envelope as long as only metadata is recorded - right? I mean, you dropped the thing in a box for strangers to handle, so you have no expectation of privacy.

 

No. I can't tell if you're being flippant or not, but a sealed envelope carries with it the expectation of privacy, analogous to phone privacy conditions. No need to be sorry. If someone is reading your mail without a warrant, your rights have been violated.