Big Brother is Watching You

[O Really]

We're not all discussing the same issue here. If you want to take the position that data mining of phone records is inherently unconstitutional as a violation of unreasonable search and seizure or is inherently an egregious intrusion on individual privacy, you'll find plenty of company with names we'd all recognize. But if you don't start there, and address the program itself, you'll get a different list of names on your side. I don't have a problem with the data mining itself. It's not because I think "if you're innocent you have nothing to hide" it's because it isn't hidden in the first place. I still say it's no different in principle than the highway speed check or a surveillance cam at the airport.

[Stinger]

Unless Kurt Eichenwald has security clearance he is taking on faith what the government's telling him about the limits on its activities.

No, he's spending years talking to people in the business, people who know these things, building his network. That's what investigative journalists do. That's why he's won those awards. How many reporting awards do your sources claim?

And that doesn't change your false accusation. I'm reading many articles, including some of the sources you mentioned, and trying to decide who's the most informed and who's taking the most reasoned, least knee-jerk approach.

What information are your sources using? Government? For the most part, all I see is "The sky is falling" proclamations based on little information or misinformation.

Many of your sources seem shocked at these revelations. My source has known about them for years. Who's better informed?

It's not shock, it's proof.

I'll try again. They seem shocked by what should have been common knowledge. They're completely ignorant of knowledge that's been assumed, and now they're the experts?

Eichenwald writes about corporate scandals and against the Bush administration and its torture. He's a civil libertarian...

Could be, and I saw your civil libertarian and raised it with thousands of civil libertarians in disagreement.

None of whom have his background knowledge. I could also back your position with thousands of Teabaggers who appear to be using the same lack of proof and paranoia as some of the liberals writing about this.

As he points out, this is not new, and it is not news. It's been discussed in Congress and reported in the news for years.

And lied about by the government for years. It's an issue now because of the proof.

Who was dim enough not to assume that it was going on, especially when it was discussed in Congress? If you weren't certain that it was going on, then you simple weren't paying attention.

Show me where Al Gore is better informed than Kurt Eichenwald.

He's just one on the list. Now you're sounding just like the cons that try to discredit AGW by going after Gore.

At least I haven't tried the Stasi argument yet.

You put Al Gore in there as one of your experts, and now you want to cry foul?

You threw up the whole smorgasbord. I picked one. I'm not spending time going down your list. Pick whichever of your experts has the depth of knowledge the Eichenwald has.

Also, list whatever proof you have that PRISM is more than data mining. Warrantless wiretapping has been approved by the FISA court in specific instances where a threat is suspected. That's not the same as data mining.

[

[Ombudsman]

How hackers can kill you.

[O Really]

Without regard to whether Snowden is actually correct in what he says, and without regard to whether the phone call data mining is a good or bad thing to do or whether it is useful or unconstitutional, why does Snowden have an instant credibility? Let's look first at what his apparent jobs were and at what levels and locations. Then let's look at how confidentiality is reinforced in NSA and other intelligence agencies - first by having a strict "need to know" policy. Just because a person has a top secret crypto clearance does not mean they have access to everything anytime. Generally, your access is going to be limited to what you're immediately working on. So the questions I'd be interest in are (1) why are so many so quick to give 100% credence to a mid-level analyst sort; (2) assuming he knows all he claims and all he reports is accurate, how did he get access to big-picture details from his jobs; (3) who gains from his disclosures (and do they happen to speak Chinese?

[Dryer Vent]

Without regard to whether Snowden is actually correct in what he says, and without regard to whether the phone call data mining is a good or bad thing to do or whether it is useful or unconstitutional, why does Snowden have an instant credibility? Let's look first at what his apparent jobs were and at what levels and locations. Then let's look at how confidentiality is reinforced in NSA and other intelligence agencies - first by having a strict "need to know" policy. Just because a person has a top secret crypto clearance does not mean they have access to everything anytime. Generally, your access is going to be limited to what you're immediately working on. So the questions I'd be interest in are (1) why are so many so quick to give 100% credence to a mid-level analyst sort; (2) assuming he knows all he claims and all he reports is accurate, how did he get access to big-picture details from his jobs; (3) who gains from his disclosures (and do they happen to speak Chinese?

A high level guy was interviewed on CNN a few days ago, and he said that stuff Snowden is claiming he could do is totally impossible for anyone to do without a court order. I think the guy is looking for his 15 minutes of fame and should be dealt with for his shenanigans.

[rstrong]

why does Snowden have an instant credibility?

There's a flip side to that question:

In a Capitol Hill briefing the NSA has since acknowledged that it does not need a warrant to listen to domestic phone calls, and the agency can access a phone call based solely on an analyst's decision. It's been acknowledged that they've been doing with no real limits or oversight. If it's not illegal, it certainly makes one wonder why it's legal.

Meanwhile:

Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC suggests that Glenn Greenwald's coverage was "misleading" and said he was too "close to the story." Snowden was no whistleblower, and Glenn was no journalist she suggests.

Jeffrey Toobin, at the New Yorker, calls Snowden "a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison."

Another journalist, Willard Foxton, asserted that Glenn Greenwald amounted to the leader of a "creepy cult."

David Brooks of the New York Times accuses Snowden- not the Gov--of betraying everything from the Constitution to all American privacy ...

Michael Grunwald of TIME seems to suggest that that if you are against the NSA spying program you want to make America less safe.

Then there's Richard Cohen at the Washington Post, who as Gawker points out, almost seems to be arguing that a journalist's job is to keep government secrets not actually report on them.

[...]

Senators have called Snowden a "traitor," the authorities claim they're going to treat his case as espionage. Rep. Peter King outrageously called for the prosecution of Glenn Greenwald for exercising his basic First Amendment rights.

With Snowden standing up for the public's right to know, and the gist of what he's said confirmed, why did he have instant non-credibility?

[Stinger]

...And that doesn't change your false accusation.

What false accusation? You do choose who to believe, just as I do.

Let me try again. Your false accusation that I was picking people who were part of the problem or government dupes. That's not what I did, and you can't back up your false accusation. All you can do is play spin games. You can't prove that Eichenwald is any sort of dupe. He's more informed about the NSA's activities than any of your sources.

I could say that you're choosing your own anti-government, reactionary sources who are taking on faith that anything the government does is bad. Is that a fair description?

Examples please.

Tell you what. You post whichever ones you have that aren't treating this as some shocking revelation. Post the ones who have been investigating the NSA for years and have already known and written about this.

...and now they're the experts?

On civil liberties, yes it's a pretty good list.

Nice try. We weren't talking about civil liberties. We were talking about the NSA's program and whether or not they would be watching this forum because of the revolutionary things that go on here. That's how this conversation started.

Really? He's more expert on civil liberties than the ACLU? Do tell.

Wow, you really missed that. All the articles and all the time I spent explaining about his years of investigation into the NSA, and you wrongly assume I'm talking about civil liberties.

I could also back your stand with thousands of Teabaggers who appear to be using the same lack of proof and paranoia.

Just as I could back yours with decades of government abuses. As has been shown, both libs and cons changed their opinions in huge numbers depending on who is POTUS. Mine have never changed.

Who was dim enough not to assume that it was going on, especially when it was discussed in Congress? I don't trust the opinions of anyone that dim.

I'm unaware of any of my list assuming that it was not going on. The issue has been that the government you now trust lied about it for at least 8 years, no one had proof, and SCOTUS refused to consider the issue until, perhaps, now.

Show where the government has lied about PRISM for the last 8 years. All you showed was Clapper's lie a couple of months ago.

The PRISM "program" isn't a program -- it's a computer system that does the work of Section 702 of FISA. It was discussed in Congress when it was adopted in 2008, and it was discussed again when it was re-authorized in December 2012.

As Eichenwald says: "Any supposed expert who feigns surprise here is, once again, either uninformed or hyping."

I'll go with the uninformed.

At least I haven't tried the Stasi argument yet.

It's a fair example of extreme government monitoring of its own citizens.

Not when you examine what our government is actually doing. Bill Clinton uses the example of sending a letter. The contents are secure, but police have access to your return address and the address of whom you send the letter to. That's what's happening now. To compare that to what the Stasi did is a misinformed analogy or simply another version of "the first to cry 'Hitler'" argument.

You put Al Gore in there as one of your experts, and now you want to cry foul?

When you choose to ignore the rest, yes.

You put him in there. If you're going to complain about challenging you experts, don't put him in there.

By the way, Al's boss, Bill, seems to have a much better grasp of what's actually going on, and he's okay with FISA. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-JdjIxjeUs

You threw up the whole smorgasbord. I picked one. I'm not spending time going down your list. Pick whichever of your experts has the depth of knowledge the Eichenwald has.

Senator Bernie Sanders, Free Press, ACLU, New York Times, Center for Media and Democracy, Defending Dissent.

Sorry, none of those have the depth of knowledge that Eichenwald does when it comes to communications monitoring in the U.S.

Also, list whatever proof you have that PRISM is more than data mining. Warrantless wiretapping has been approved by the FISA court in specific instances where a threat is suspected. That's not the same as data mining.

Again, PRISM is also about the monitoring of electronic communications for content, not just phone wiretapping.

I said post your proof. PRISM is the computer system designed to examine the data mined. They get phone records. What number called what number, when and where. They get email records: what email address emailed what email address, when and where ... AND the subject line. They get text records. What number texted what number, where and when. They don't do content.

Even ThinkProgress, which should be one of your sources, gets it right:

While the full scope of the NSA’s surveillance is still unknown, we do know that the agency generated a massive database of phone records — i.e., which telephone numbers are dialing which numbers — and that a similar database of email data may exist. In the 1979 case Smith v. Maryland the Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment does not prevent law enforcement from capturing phone records similar to the ones being gathered by the NSA.

What makes the NSA’s surveillance different, however, is its sheer scope. It is unlikely that anyone in 1979 anticipated a world where the government could collect a database of every single phone call made over a large geographic area, or that they envisioned computers capable of analyzing the data in the way that the NSA now can.

Phone data, not content. Email data, not content. The only difference between what the NSA does now and what it has legally been able to do since 1979 is the scope of the data.

The scope of the data is also the very thing that proves they're not going to be snooping around here because of all of our revolutionary activity.

Post your proof that NSA monitors all electronic communication inside the U.S. for content.

[Stinger]

why does Snowden have an instant credibility?

There's a flip side to that question:

In a Capitol Hill briefing the NSA has since acknowledged that it does not need a warrant to listen to domestic phone calls, and the agency can access a phone call based solely on an analyst's decision.

The same congressman's spokesman later said, "I am pleased that the administration has reiterated that, as I have always believed, the NSA cannot listen to the content of Americans' phone calls without a specific warrant."

Clapper denied that an analyst could simply decide to listen to a domestic call.

He could be lying. The police officer has the ability to gun down 15 innocent bystanders because he is armed with a Glock. That doesn't mean he does it.

It's been acknowledged that they've been doing with no real limits or oversight. If it's not illegal, it certainly makes one wonder why it's legal.

Are you saying that they've been listening to domestic phone calls with no real limits or oversight? Where has that been acknowledged?[/color]

[Stinger]

Without regard to whether Snowden is actually correct in what he says, and without regard to whether the phone call data mining is a good or bad thing to do or whether it is useful or unconstitutional, why does Snowden have an instant credibility? Let's look first at what his apparent jobs were and at what levels and locations. Then let's look at how confidentiality is reinforced in NSA and other intelligence agencies - first by having a strict "need to know" policy. Just because a person has a top secret crypto clearance does not mean they have access to everything anytime. Generally, your access is going to be limited to what you're immediately working on. So the questions I'd be interest in are (1) why are so many so quick to give 100% credence to a mid-level analyst sort; (2) assuming he knows all he claims and all he reports is accurate, how did he get access to big-picture details from his jobs; (3) who gains from his disclosures (and do they happen to speak Chinese?

Bill Clinton thinks that some of Snowden's allegations are off base.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-JdjIxjeUs

I'd say Bill probably has a better grasp of the situation than most who are writing about it.

[rstrong]

The same congressman's spokesman later said, "I am pleased that the administration has reiterated that, as I have always believed, the NSA cannot listen to the content of Americans' phone calls without a specific warrant."

a) They get that warrant all but automatically. According to congressional reporting, the FISA court received 1,789 applications for authority to conduct electronic surveillance in 2012, but not one application was denied.

(If that 1,789 number seems small it's because FISA stats don't include the bulk of such surveillance, carried out under the 2008 amendments. You know, where the NSA was caught illegally bulk-wiretapping Americans, and so the law was amended to retroactively make it legal.)

b) They don't need the warrant if you've been communication with foreign nationals. Like myself for example. (You're welcome.) Received any Nigerian or Russian or Chinese spam lately? You honestly think they won't use that if they need to?

c) I remember a news story from the 1980s about a Canadian who ran a news and magazine clipping service for the CIA. The CIA did this in-house for the rest of the world, but legally they couldn't do it for US news sources. But it was OK for a Canadian to do it, and for the CIA to "subscribe." (They were his sole customer.)

The NSA is allowed to freely spy on, for example, Canadian and Brits outside of the US. No oversight or warrants needed. You can expect Britain or Canada to return the favor. And you can expect each to share.

The "Five Eyes" alliance between the intelligence agencies of the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK effectively permits those governments to circumvent the prohibition against gathering data on their own citizens by sharing information across the Five Eyes intelligence community. The UK for example can spy on Americans and make that information available to the US government on the massive shared spy cloud.

Clapper denied that an analyst could simply decide to listen to a domestic call.

He could be lying.

A week ago I would have believed him over Snowden. Not this week, after the Capital Hill hearings and other revelations.

The police officer has the ability to gun down 15 innocent bystanders because he is armed with a Glock. That doesn't mean he does it.

Your car needs a supply of oxygen before you can start it. The NSA needs warrants before they can listen in. The evidence shows that they need not concern themselves over the availability of those warrants any more than you need concern yourself about the availability of oxygen for your car.

Are you saying that they've been listening to domestic phone calls with no real limits or oversight? Where has that been acknowledged?

According to congressional reporting, the FISA court received 1,789 applications for authority to conduct electronic surveillance in 2012, but not one application was denied. The "oversight" process is a farce.

(Again, if that 1,789 number seems small it's because FISA stats don't include the bulk of such surveillance, carried out under the 2008 amendments.)

[Stinger]

Let me try again. Your false accusation that I was picking people who were part of the problem or government dupes. That's not what I did, and you can't back up your false accusation.

I posted:

...You're choosing your own knowledgeable people, all of whom are either part of the problem or are taking on faith what the government's telling them.

Unless Kurt Eichenwald has security clearance he is taking on faith what the government's telling him about the limits on its activities.

What false accusation? You do choose who to believe, just as I do.

Whether he is right or wrong, there's nothing "false" about what I said.

Yes. You stated I was choosing people who are part of the problem or people taking on faith what the goverement tells them. I'm doing neither. That's what makes it a false accusation. It's not rocket science.

I read all sorts of articles and choose the ones who seem most rational and well informed. I avoid the ones who seem reactionary and poorly informed.

All you can do is play spin games.

Det.Thorn, is that you?

You can't prove that Eichenwald is any sort of dupe. He's more informed about the NSA's activities than any of your sources.

More than a Senator, and more informed about civil liberties than the ACLU?

Yes, more than a senator. Eichenwald has spent over seven years investigating and writing about these issues. I think Bernie Sanders may be the best senator going, but I don't grant him omniscience just because I agree or disagree with him.

I guess you keep putting ACLU and civil liberties in to give some strength to your case. Civil liberties wasn't part of the discussion here. We were discussing whether or not the NSA was mining data or listening/looking in.

I could say that you're choosing your own anti-government, reactionary sources who are taking on faith that anything the government does is bad. Is that a fair description?

You'd be wrong except, perhaps, for Defending Dissent.

I'm no more wrong than your statement that I'm choosing my own people who work for the government or are duped by the government. You're choosing your own people you agree with, regardless of how well informed they are.

Tell you what. You post whichever ones you have that aren't treating this as some shocking revelation. Post the ones who have been investigating the NSA for years and have already known and written about this.

Logical fallacy, I can't prove a negative. I've listed the groups and individuals I agree with, it's incumbent on you to back up your assertion that they are "treating this as some shocking revelation," as I asked. The fact that there was at least one lawsuit that SCOTUS refused to hear proves the opposite.

Nice try. I wasn't asking you to prove a negative. I was asking you to list whichever one of your sources that exhibits a lengthy, historic knowledge of this program, someone who has written about it a month or more ago, not someone who heard the leak last week and fired off a column without a basic knowledge of the program.

Can't find one?

The person who filed the lawsuit is one of your sources?

...Nice try. We weren't talking about civil liberties. We were talking about the NSA's program and whether or not they would be watching this forum because of the revolutionary things that go on here. That's how this conversation started.

...and you wrongly assume I'm talking about civil liberties.

You did open that door:

...He's a civil libertarian...

Can't close it now. Plus, discussing what the NSA is doing absent discussing civil liberties makes no sense at all.

You opened Al Gore and the Stasi but ran away from those. I mentioned that he was a civil libertarian. He might also be a Presbyterian. That doesn't change the original discussion. I can't close it because it never was opened.

I understand that's a lot stronger than your original argument, but it's still not the original argument.

...Show where the government has lied about PRISM for the last 8 years. All you showed was Clapper's lie a couple of months ago.

C'mon now, he wouldn't have said that if the government had been telling the truth for 7 years and 10 months.

That makes no sense. Go back 7 years and 10 months and find where someone lied. If the first statement was two months ago, it can't have been 8 years ago ... unless you're in the Tardis.

...Not when you examine what our government is actually doing.

What it says it's doing, the same government that allowed Snowden to do what he did.

...Sorry, none of those have the depth of knowledge that Eichenwald does when it comes to communications monitoring in the U.S.

Really? One journalist knows more than a Senator, entire civil liberties groups, the victims of government abuses, and the New York Times? Do tell.

Already been there. Bernie's not omniscient. Point out which person in your civil liberties groups have been investigating this issue for years, interviewing NSA employees and others, and writing a book about the topic. Find out how long the New York Times reporter has been investigating this issue. Post the New York Times article that says the NSA is listening and looking iinto communications within the U.S.

...I said post your proof. PRISM is the computer system designed to examine the data mined. They get phone records. What number called what number, when and where. They get email records: what email address emailed what email address, when and where ... AND the subject line. They get text records. What number texted what number, where and when. They don't do content.

Your only proof is what the government tells you it's doing. In contrast, I've already posted:

I believe you're thinking of the Verizion, etc. phone snooping, PRISM is all about content and who posted what.

That's a description of the supposed limits to the phone snooping. About PRISM it says: "...the intelligence analysts search PRISM data using terms intended to identify suspicious communications..."

Can't search terms unless you have access to all content..

Bullshit. You've already posted your assumption. You assume they use content. It's explained in the article how you search the data WITHOUT examining content. You apparently have no idea of the scale of information that they deal with on a single day.

Regardless, the article explains, and I posted earlier, how they search data without examining content.

Even ThinkProgress, which should be one of your sources, gets it right:

While the full scope of the NSA’s surveillance is still unknown, we do know that the agency generated a massive database of phone records — i.e., which telephone numbers are dialing which numbers — and that a similar database of email data may exist. In the 1979 case Smith v. Maryland the Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment does not prevent law enforcement from capturing phone records similar to the ones being gathered by the NSA.

What makes the NSA’s surveillance different, however, is its sheer scope. It is unlikely that anyone in 1979 anticipated a world where the government could collect a database of every single phone call made over a large geographic area, or that they envisioned computers capable of analyzing the data in the way that the NSA now can.

Phone data, not content. Email data, not content. The only difference between what the NSA does now and what it has legally been able to do since 1979 is the scope of the data.

You cut off the rest of the paragraph:

...Some recent Supreme Court cases do suggest that the justices are willing to more robustly apply the Fourth Amendment when the government takes advantage of new technologies — GPS tracking devices, for example, are treated differently than merely assigning an officer to tail a suspect — so there is some remote possibility the Court could revisit Smith, at least in the context of the kinds of expansive databases at issue with the NSA programs...

So? That still doesn't change the fact that ThinkProgress is informed enough to know that the program mines data. Phone data, not content. Email data and subject line, not content.

The rest of it doesn't matter.

Then, there's ThinkProgress' current homepage article:

How Edward Snowden’s New Leaks Are Distracting From The Conversation He Wanted

Two weeks ago, the first leaks regarding the National Security Agency’s troubling spying programs’ became public, leading to calls for increased scrutiny in how these actions affect the American public. In the intervening weeks, however, the focus has shifted away from the potential violation of civil liberties...

That only increased with the disclosure of further programs from the agency — with codenames like PRISM and BLARNEY — that allow access to the content of information sent across some of the Internet’s most popular platforms.

Get that, the content mining that you keep denying does exist. Opps. [/color]

That's funny. ThinkProgress's sources for that piece, the Guardian and the Washington Post, both describe PRISM and BLARNEY as data collection not content monitoring. Looks like the writer might have misstated things. Sloppy journalism. Opps, indeed.


Then, there are the links from that ThinkProgress article:

Did The Director Of National Intelligence Mislead Congress? One Senator Seems To Think So[/color]

...The exchange referenced in the statement occurred during a hearing in March, when Wyden specifically asked for clarification about an earlier comment from NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander which claimed the agency did not collect dossiers about American citizens. Wyden, noting he wasn’t entirely sure what dossier meant in this context, pointedly inquired, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Clapper responded, “No.”...

Yep, the lies predated Clapper's lie.[/color]

That Scary Looking NSA Map Does Not Tell The Full Story Of Government Snooping On U.S. Citizens

...other evidence suggests data about U.S. citizens is being collected by the spy agency.

The Guardian report details a tool called Boundless Informant that allows an at a glance understanding of the amount of metadata being siphoned from “computer and telephone networks” across the globe via signal intelligence (SIGINT) infrastructure. This presumably would include metadata about telephone calls, text messages, and internet traffic such as information about the source of a message, the time stamp and duration, and general geographic location — but intelligence on the content of the communications...

Despite rhetoric from the government suggesting that metadata collection isn’t as invasive as collecting the contents of communications, it can be used to track movements over time, and infer a detailed picture of relationships and other aspects of an individual’s life by mapping out patterns of communications.

That's funny again. Their source, the Guardian, says of Boundless Informant:

The focus of the internal NSA tool is on counting and categorizing the records of communications, known as metadata, rather than the content of an email or instant message.

Guardian

I'm fine with ThinkProgress as a source. Are you still?

I was until you caught them in so many misquotes of sources. Are you still?

The scope of the data is also the very thing that proves they're not going to be snooping around here because of all of our revolutionary activity.

That sentence makes no sense to me. Please elaborate.

You were claiming that they might be monitoring this forum because of things we have written, as if they had the time and inclination and ability to monitor such things. If you understood the volume -- the petabytes -- of information they churn daily, you wouldn't be worried at all. It's pretty much impossible.

Post your proof that NSA monitors all electronic communication inside the U.S. for content.

I've never posted "all" but the Wiki article we both quoted, the NSA's own power point and your source, ThinkProgress, all agree that content is being monitored.

You'll have to come up with something reliable. So far, your best shot was a couple of articles in ThinkProgress where content was mentioned in the article . . . but not in the original source. I've provided an expert, Bill Clinton, the Washington Post, the Guardian, ... I'll even throw in the New York Times -- "The surreptitious collection of "metadata" — every bit of information about every phone call except the word-by-word content of conversations." NYT, all calling it data collection, not content monitoring. Your insistence that it is is kind of like the Birthers ignoring the birth announcements and birth certificates while claiming all their items are the only evidence that matters.

[Stinger]

The same congressman's spokesman later said, "I am pleased that the administration has reiterated that, as I have always believed, the NSA cannot listen to the content of Americans' phone calls without a specific warrant."

a) They get that warrant all but automatically. According to congressional reporting, the FISA court received 1,789 applications for authority to conduct electronic surveillance in 2012, but not one application was denied.

Those warrants were to conduct electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes. Nothing there about spying on Americans.

As far as the rubber stamp issue, these aren't prosecuting attorneys trying to make a case with no evidence. The court requires a high level or prior review and assessment by AG and NSA director.

(If that 1,789 number seems small it's because FISA stats don't include the bulk of such surveillance, carried out under the 2008 amendments. You know, where the NSA was caught illegally bulk-wiretapping Americans, and so the law was amended to retroactively make it legal.)

b) They don't need the warrant if you've been communication with foreign nationals. Like myself for example. (You're welcome.) Received any Nigerian or Russian or Chinese spam lately? You honestly think they won't use that if they need to?

They only monitor that communication. They don't get to monitor you endlessly because of a Nigerian scam.

Clapper denied that an analyst could simply decide to listen to a domestic call.

He could be lying.

A week ago I would have believed him over Snowden. Not this week, after the Capital Hill hearings and other revelations.

The police officer has the ability to gun down 15 innocent bystanders because he is armed with a Glock. That doesn't mean he does it.

Your car needs a supply of oxygen before you can start it. The NSA needs warrants before they can listen in. The evidence shows that they need not concern themselves over the availability of those warrants any more than you need concern yourself about the availability of oxygen for your car.

The FISA court actually ruled warrantless wiretapping legal in a specific court case where a threat was involved. I don't believe that they're monitoring American citizens' communication willy nilly, absent warrants. There's certainly no proof of it. For one thing, they have much bigger fish to fry. For another, they're already bogged down with the volume of information they're dealing with. Why make it worse?

Are you saying that they've been listening to domestic phone calls with no real limits or oversight? Where has that been acknowledged?

According to congressional reporting, the FISA court received 1,789 applications for authority to conduct electronic surveillance in 2012, but not one application was denied. The "oversight" process is a farce.

(Again, if that 1,789 number seems small it's because FISA stats don't include the bulk of such surveillance, carried out under the 2008 amendments.)

Those are applications. It doesn't say they are to listen in on domestic phone calls. Those warrants could be the warrants to acquire data records.

[Stinger]

This might sound scary, but ask yourself this: Has anything happened in the past six years that has made you think “damn, I feel so oppressed by the US government’s data collection measures”?

[O Really]

They monitor as much as they want for as long as they want for any reason. There are no effective controls.

[/quote][/quote]
OK, let's say that's true. How do you envision that working? First, who is "they"? Top Management? Low level analysts acting on their own? Literally everybody in NSA and their contractors? What do you suppose they do "want"? How are "targets" selected? In your opinion, do you think it's a bunch of techno-cowboys roaming through the wilds of data and picking their own people to create a case out of thin air? Sort of an electronic version of planting a gun or bag of grass? What in your own opinion do you think "they" really are doing?

Easy answer is to say, "well we don't know the criteria or targets because it's all secret." Sure, but you can do better. What do you think "they're" up to? For real.

[Stinger]

:?: :?: :?: I posted an accurate description of the people "who seem most rational and well informed" to you. I NEVER posted that the description was WHY you chose them. It's not rocket science, you're being too defensive.

If so, I apologize, but the accusation is still false. Eichenwald is an investigative reporter and writer. He doesn't take what the government says on faith. People who take what the government says on faith listen to Clapper and go, "Okay, it's not so bad."

That's not what Eichenwald does. He goes out an investigates. He goes to his sources and finds new ones. He does the anonymity thing so they'll talk to him. That's not taking what the government says on faith.

As well, it seems that ThinkProgress (at least the writer who can keep what his or her sources said straight), the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Washington Post all back up that we're talking about data mining, not content intercept.

I guess you keep putting ACLU and civil liberties in to give some strength to your case. Civil liberties wasn't part of the discussion here. We were discussing whether or not the NSA was mining data or listening/looking in.

Civil liberties has been part of this thread since Wneglia wrote the title, you cited Eichenwald as being "a civil libertarian", and if it weren't for the ideal and legal reality of civil liberties, no one would care about the NSA's shenanigans. You're kind of being silly now.

No, the discussion we're having was specifically about your comment implying that the NSA might be monitoring our forum because it noted the content of our thread.:

That means that PRISM may have noted any of our posts here about drugs and the drug war. Knock, knock . . .

To which I responded:

Next to impossible. PRISM collects records from internet companies, not content. The most they should be able to tell is who posted when, not who posted what.

Trying to change the argument to civil rights is what's silly.

...I was asking you to list whichever one of your sources that exhibits a lengthy, historic knowledge of this program, someone who has written about it a month or more ago, not someone who heard the leak last week and fired off a column without a basic knowledge of the program.

Oh, all of them.

About the NSA surveillance PRISM program? Give me a couple of cites.

You opened Al Gore and the Stasi but ran away from those.

I put Al Gore on a long list, one that I started way earlier in this thread before he was added. Like a TPer denying AGW, you chose him as your whipping boy.

I embraced and defended the use of "Stasi", every time. Why are you making things up now?

And I pointed out that the Stasi analogy was a failure because we're talking about data mining -- not what the Stasi did.

Also, you shouldn't list a source and then complain if he gets shot down.

I mentioned that he was a civil libertarian. He might also be a Presbyterian. That doesn't change the original discussion. I can't close it because it never was opened.

You're not making sense at all now. You cited it as a credential and I trumped it with thousands more civil libertarians.

It makes perfect sense when you consider the discussion was never about civil liberties -- it was about data mining vs. content intercept and analysis.

You complain because you listed a source as some sort of proof and I questioned him. Then you try to change an aside that has little relevance to the discussion into a main point.

...Go back 7 years and 10 months and find where someone lied. If the first statement was two months ago, it can't have been 8 years ago ... unless you're in the Tardis.

As we all know the revelations date to 2006 and before. We've just never known the full truth of the scope until now nor had the proof, it was all deceit. And, Snowden's deed is brand new. Government never ever ever admits the full truth immediately when the curtain is partially removed.

Clapper lied in March, 2013.

...Point out which person in your civil liberties groups have been investigating this issue for years, interviewing NSA employees and others, and writing a book about the topic. Find out how long the New York Times reporter has been investigating this issue. Post the New York Times article that says the NSA is listening and looking iinto communications within the U.S.

They've published a bunch. Organizations with decades of expertise almost always trump an individual. Sure, the individual is occasionally correct, but you lose an objective credentials argument.

...I said post your proof...

You're only proof is your faith in what the government tells you and what it told one guy. Plus, I cited your own source, ThinkProgress, the NSA's own admissions and the power point you chose to not include in this quote.

There you go getting confused again. The government didn't tell Eichenwald anything.

I only cited the one source in that one post. There are many others ... including ThinkProgress, NYT, WaPo, the Guardian, etc.

Bullshit. You've already posted your assumption. You assume they use content. It's explained in the article how you search the data WITHOUT examining content. You apparently have no idea of the scale of information that they deal with on a single day.

Regardless, the article explains, and I posted earlier, how they search data without examining content.

Can't search terms unless you have access to content.

For about the fourth time, yes, you can. Your assumption is noted, but it's still an assumption.

I posted part of it and pointed out that the explanation was in the article, but I guess I'll have to post it.

What was the purpose of bringing in so much information? As a moment’s thought would make clear, this wasn’t about inspecting random people’s individual activities. Instead, the National Security Agency puts the information through a larger process known as “knowledge discovery in database”—or K.D.D.—which cleans, selects, integrates, and analyzes the data. It is also run against a large set of what are known as “dirty numbers”—telephones linked to terrorists either through American signals intelligence or information provided by foreign services. Even the Libyans under Qaddafi turned over huge stacks of dirty numbers to us.

So, on its simplest level, the program—part of a broader enterprise codenamed Stellar Wind, which includes the now infamous warrantless-wiretapping initiative—allows the government to detect when someone in the United States calls a dirty number. (For those who love irony, one of the first phones found to have placed a call to a dirty number was located in the West Wing of the Bush White House; investigators determined it was a fluke, although it did raise questions about the integrity of such inquiries.)

In addition, as part of K.D.D., an algorithm was applied to the broader data set in efforts to detect patterns of behavior fitting models that had been previously established as being indicative of the activities of a terrorist cell. In regards to protecting individual privacy, the standards are strict. As I described it in the book:

The NSA would have no authority to pull up, say, some American’s email account out of curiosity. Anyone violating this ban could potentially be committing a crime, just as an unauthorized IRS employee sneaking a peek at an individual tax return could be cited for wrongdoing. But the stricture was largely theoretical; sifting through the metadata to isolate an (arbitrary) individual’s records would be an almost impossible—and pointless—undertaking.

So? That still doesn't change the fact that ThinkProgress is informed enough to know that the program mines data. Phone data, not content. Email data and subject line, not content.

The rest of it doesn't matter.

It does since my quotes of your own source say the opposite.

...That's funny. ThinkProgress's sources for that piece, the Guardian and the Washington Post, both describe PRISM and BLARNEY as data collection not content monitoring. Looks like the writer might have misstated things. Sloppy journalism. Opps, indeed.

I quoted what the Guardian said backing up my position in that one article, and your own page 3 WP link begins with:

...Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who had classified knowledge of the program as members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, were unable to speak of it when they warned in a Dec. 27, 2012, floor debate that the FISA Amendments Act had what both of them called a “back-door search loophole” for the content of innocent Americans who were swept up in a search for someone else.

Opps.

“As it is written, there is nothing to prohibit the intelligence community from searching through a pile of communications, which may have been incidentally or accidentally been collected without a warrant, to deliberately search for the phone calls or e-mails of specific Americans,” Udall said.

Thanks for proving my point. You've gone from saying that they might be snooping our forum because of comments about the drug war -- which is pretty ludicrous considering the sheer volume of information they get on a daily basis -- to saying that they might get someone's communication accidentally and look at it. For what purpose, I don't know? Voyeurism? Idle curiosity?

They're saying that it would be from some unintended glitch that there MIGHT be the possibility of someone checking the communications of a random American. It does not say that the program searches the communications of random or targeted Americans.

And, if you're searching for terrorists and end up with some flotsam and jetsam, WHY WOULD YOU bother to go searching through irrelevant.

Wyden repeatedly asked the NSA to estimate the number of Americans whose communications had been incidentally collected, and the agency’s director, Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, insisted there was no way to find out.

Look at that, more of the lies that you strangely think began 2 months ago.

...From inside a company’s data stream the NSA is capable of pulling out anything it likes...

But you're so sure that they aren't. Why? What in our national security and domestic law enforcement history leads you to that conclusion?

Analysts who use the system from a Web portal at Fort Meade, Md., key in “selectors,” or search terms, that are designed to produce at least 51 percent confidence in a target’s “foreignness.” That is not a very stringent test. Training materials obtained by The Post instruct new analysts to make quarterly reports of any accidental collection of U.S. content, but add that “it’s nothing to worry about.”

So, flip of the coin confidence, lack of stringency, and no worries about accidents. All that from the page you linked, I wonder what pages 1, 2 and 4 say?

That's funny again. Their source, the Guardian, says of Boundless Informant:

The focus of the internal NSA tool is on counting and categorizing the records of communications, known as metadata, rather than the content of an email or instant message.

Guardian

"focus" is a weasel word there. No one has claimed that they don't mostly do what they say they do. I quoted what the Guardian said backing up my position, and it's published lots, lots more on the issue.

It's pretty specific when you're talking about computers.

...You were claiming that they might be monitoring this forum because of things we have written, as if they had the time and inclination and ability to monitor such things. If you understood the volume -- the petabytes -- of information they churn daily, you wouldn't be worried at all. It's pretty much impossible.

That was a joke, the issue is that they can mess with any massive number of people they choose to. I'm sure I'm involved in comms more subject to scrutiny than this forum. That said, this forum could be easily used to discredit any of us should we trod on the wrong toes.

You're talking about the National Security Agency. They're attempting to find terrorists. They're data mining petabytes a day, and you're worried because of some emails to some 99% groups or something?

You'll have to come up with something reliable.

I'm at a loss as to what would be more acceptably reliable to you than the NSA power point, your own source, ThinkProgress, your own WP link, and members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who, btw, also trump your single journalist.

The NSA PowerPoint doesn't show content intercept.

So far, your best shot was a couple of articles in ThinkProgress

Your source until it didn't say what you wanted it to say.

Now that was completely dishonest.

So far, your best shot was a couple of articles in ThinkProgress where content was mentioned in the article . . . but not in the original source.

Your best source was a couple of articles where the writer sloppily (intentionally") erroneously claimed the opposite of what his or her sources said.

The article I quoted in ThinkProgress didn't have such sloppy (dishonest?) journalism. There is a difference.

If you want to hold articles up as proof when the writer got his basic facts from his source wrong, go right ahead.

where content was mentioned in the article . . . but not in the original source. I've provided an expert, Bill Clinton,

As out of the loop for as long as Al Gore.

Bill Clinton was and is much more in the loop than Al Gore. You do know who his wife is, don't you?

the Washington Post,

Backed me up.

Wow. It backed me up. You should have read the link. It said data mining, not content collection. The ThinkProgress writer should have read it, too.

the Guardian, ...

I quoted what the Guardian said backing up my position.

Wow. It backed me up. You should have read the link. It said data mining, not content collection. The ThinkProgress writer should have read it, too.


I'll even throw in the New York Times -- "The surreptitious collection of "metadata" — every bit of information about every phone call except the word-by-word content of conversations."

Misquote! The sentence actually ends with " — fundamentally alters the relationship between individuals and their government." I'm insulted that after all this time you thought you get such deception past me.

What a foolish nit to try to pick ... especially since you just deceptively edited my quote.

There was no attempt at deception. Read the sentence:

The surreptitious collection of “metadata” — every bit of information about every phone call except the word-by-word content of conversations — fundamentally alters the relationship between individuals and their government.

That last part doesn't magically change the first part. The first part still reads "every bit of information about every phone call except the word-by-word content of conversations."

I'm surprised that you think the last little bit somehow changes the first part, and that you imagined it to be somehow deceptive.

NYT, all calling it data collection, not content monitoring.

Thank you, thank you.

For continuing to point out that we're talking about data collection, not content monitoring? No problem.

Your insistence that it is is kind of like the Birthers ignoring the birth announcements and birth certificates while claiming all their items are the only evidence that matters.

You've gotten to be more like the birfers, you just really want to believe and yet your own evidence keeps contradicting you.

You'll have to point out where my evidence contradicts me. Every source I've quoted keeps saying data mining, not content monitoring or collection.

[/quote]

[O Really]

You'll have to point out where my evidence contradicts me. Every source I've quoted keeps saying data mining, not content monitoring or collection.

Back quite a few pages ago, Vrede staked out the position from which he argues. He said (paraphrased, hopefully correctly) that the fact people know the government is collecting data affects the way they act and thus infringes their freedom. From that position, the distinction between data mining and content monitoring would have no effect.

[Stinger]

You'll have to point out where my evidence contradicts me. Every source I've quoted keeps saying data mining, not content monitoring or collection.

Back quite a few pages ago, Vrede staked out the position from which he argues. He said (paraphrased, hopefully correctly) that the fact people know the government is collecting data affects the way they act and thus infringes their freedom. From that position, the distinction between data mining and content monitoring would have no effect.

The discussion Vrede and I were having was whether or not PRISM was data mining or content collecting. That's all.

[O Really]

You'll have to point out where my evidence contradicts me. Every source I've quoted keeps saying data mining, not content monitoring or collection.

Back quite a few pages ago, Vrede staked out the position from which he argues. He said (paraphrased, hopefully correctly) that the fact people know the government is collecting data affects the way they act and thus infringes their freedom. From that position, the distinction between data mining and content monitoring would have no effect.

The discussion Vrede and I were having was whether or not PRISM was data mining or content collecting. That's all.

Understood. I'm just saying that although he certainly understands the difference, he probably doesn't care which it is, he's still against it. If that view is incorrect, I'm sure he'll feel free to correct me.

[O Really]

The expression "if you haven't done anything wrong (or don't have anything to hide) then you don't have anything to worry about" has been tossed around with rightful derision, but when looked at in context, there is some validity to it. Let's start with when it's absolutely wrong - if you're a suspect in a crime, or are arrested, or accused, then being innocent certainly shouldn't reduce your worry level. People do get wrongfully accused, wrongfully tried, and too frequently wrongly convicted.

However, if you haven't done anything wrong, your chances of being wrongfully accused are actually pretty small. If your tax return is squeaky clean, your chances of an audit are slim, and if you've got your proper documentation, your chances of surviving an audit unscathed if you did one are very good.

There are people who get into a speed trap in some one-horse yayhoo town (Waldo, you know who you are) and get a ticket for going 47 50 yards past the "45mph" sign. And there are some people who get accused of 75 when they're pretty sure they were not going that fast. But those people get an opportunity to defend, and - even in Waldo - those actually going within the speed limit have a very slim chance of getting a ticket.

Point being, tax audits, speed checks, bag searches at the stadium, metal detectors at the airport, etc. have a real and worthwhile purpose. There may be occasions where an innocent person is falsely accused - either through error or malintent - but the overwhelming majority of those getting dinged for back taxes and penalties really didn't report correctly; the overwhelming majority of those getting speeding tickets really were speeding. I think the phone data collection is a good tool. I don't think that a small risk of some abuse outside of authority or intent is reason to shut it down. I don't think the fact that Verizon keeps records of my calls and gives them to NSA affects my personal freedom in the least, although clearly it is a part of the greater issue of overall loss of what we used to consider "privacy."

To think that those in the NSA can't tell the difference in a suspicious pattern and a call to a service center in India or a discussion with rstrong in Canada is really in contradiction to their thought that NSA is all-powerful and knows when we last shat.

[O Really]

It all depends on how gov't defines "wrong" at a given time. Would we, a nation that tortured as policy within the decade, trust the NSA's power with a Tricky Dick Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, Alberto Gonzalez or Dick Cheney?

Think about this: What happens if a hacker breaks into the government’s database?...

Probably not as much as if s/he breaks into American Express, Big Bank, Big Insurance, or anywhere else with more identity-specific data and access to financial records.

Funny you should mention Tricky Dick. Given my personal knowledge of NSA back during his reign, I'm pretty sure he didn't use NSA in working on his "enemies" list. He was more of an IRS guy. But I don't recall hearing anybody wanting to shut down IRS just because Tricky Dick misused his authority.