NSA SUCKS...

[V.T. Eric Layton]

We have always been under scrutiny.

 

Granted. But it's much easier for them to scrutinize us nowadays. Getting easier all the time. Soon they'll have all your data, including your DNA profile, stored on their databases and servers. You can run, but you can't hide.

 

http://youtu.be/17yfqxoSTFM

[Corrine]

James R. Clapper, Director of National Intelligence: DNI Statement on the Collection of Intelligence Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

 

PDF: Facts on the Collection of Intelligence Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Yuppers. And I believe EVERYTHING the government tells me these days.

 

James R. Clapper?

 

Clap on. Clap off. The Clapper!

 

http://youtu.be/cfgN5tUgjb8

 

[Corrine]

[crp]

Story by Ed Bott on ZD Net calls into question everything we've read on the Washington Post.

And it looks like the Post has changed their story without so much as an explanation.

Ed is all wet on this one, the govt has already confirmed the basic points about what the so called "PRISM" was about ,

plus no one is denying the original Guardian report on Verizon's problem. Not only that, what we have heard so far from the gov't supports the contention that Verizon is the only one leaked and that others got hit by this too.

 

Again, if this is so obviously ok to do, why the secret interpretation of a secret law in a secret court?

 

Update: too bad Ed didn't read http://www.zdnet.com/prism-heres-how-the-nsa-wiretapped-the-internet-7000016565/

Edited June 9, 2013 by crp

[ross549]

Released by the director of National Intelligence

 

Some declassified details on the program

 

Adam

[Guest LilBambi]

Update: too bad Ed didn't read http://www.zdnet.com...net-7000016565/

 

That is a great read. I read it yesterday before our show last night. It's one of the articles that is in the show notes/links too.

 

Released by the director of National Intelligence

 

Some declassified details on the program

 

Adam

 

Thanks so much for letting us know about that last night at the end of the show. I added it to the show notes/links too!

[ross549]

What I find interesting is that I've only seen two sites mention the documents posted online by the DNI......

 

 

Adam

[Webb]

[crp]

What I find interesting is that I've only seen two sites mention the documents posted online by the DNI......

 

 

Adam

sheesh, even wired is laying low , you wouldn't know from the headlines that anything was amiss.

[Corrine]

Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance | World news | guardian.co.uk

[crp]

Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance | World news | guardian.co.uk

where is the money? I didn't pick up on the fact that in the leaks no people were mentioned. but still, staying at posh hotel running up a bill - where is the money?

[ross549]

He said he made $200,000 per year and owned a house in Hawaii, so I guess he has some stashed.

[Corrine]

As far as information on citizens, what I don't understand is any value added from telephone metadata since I would expect someone who was involved in terrorist or other criminal activities would use a prepaid phone. Wouldn't they also use library computers with throw-away email addresses?

[crp]

As far as information on citizens, what I don't understand is any value added from telephone metadata since I would expect someone who was involved in terrorist or other criminal activities would use a prepaid phone. Wouldn't they also use library computers with throw-away email addresses?

I do believe you are confirming the point that this "process" was primarily for massive total data confiscation and not for going after the bad guys. note how 'they' keep on saying that no personal data is collected? well then how do they know who is talking to the bad guys that they should follow up on?

 

Don't get me wrong - i am really , really annoyed that the black helicopter conspiracy nuts will now be louder and more persistent than ever. But the fact that this 'process' was done in secrecy from the citizens being 'protected' is just beyond the pale to me.

[crp]

He said he made $200,000 per year and owned a house in Hawaii, so I guess he has some stashed.

still does not make sense. if he is totally legit he knows money is going to be an issue in the near future. rent a place, buy own groceries and make your own food. heck of a lot cheaper than staying in posh hotel with room service.

I want to believe he is legit and truely gutsy, but the money is giving me pause.

[ross549]

Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance | World news | guardian.co.uk

 

Just watched the video.... amazing stuff.

 

Adam

[Corrine]

I do believe you are confirming the point that this "process" was primarily for massive total data confiscation and not for going after the bad guys. note how 'they' keep on saying that no personal data is collected? well then how do they know who is talking to the bad guys that they should follow up on?

 

Let's say the metadata from cell phone carriers includes the calling and receiving phone numbers, the time of day and length of the call, and the location of the two parties. With the originating and receiving phone numbers, additional information can be obtained. So, let's say a person whose family immigrated from another country stays in contact with family members in the home country via telephone. If it is a large family, they may even all gather at one person's home to talk with family. Because there are regular calls of a fairly lengthy duration, they could be of interest.

[crp]

Let's say the metadata from cell phone carriers includes the calling and receiving phone numbers, the time of day and length of the call, and the location of the two parties. With the originating and receiving phone numbers, additional information can be obtained. So, let's say a person whose family immigrated from another country stays in contact with family members in the home country via telephone. If it is a large family, they may even all gather at one person's home to talk with family. Because there are regular calls of a fairly lengthy duration, they could be of interest.

Fine, so go to an open court and request a warrant for the metadata of the phone calls to/from the suspect's number.

not this b.s which they are doing now.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Newspaper Reveals Source For NSA Surveillance Stories

 

I believe Mr. Snowden should probably be seeking legal advice about now.

 

Also, lots of good recent posts about this at Lauren Weinstein's blog:

Inside PRISM: Why the Government Hates Encryption

[Guest LilBambi]

WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH METADATA? - NewYorker

 

 

Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from liberal Northern California and the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, assured the public earlier today that the government’s secret snooping into the phone records of Americans was perfectly fine, because the information it obtained was only “meta,” meaning it excluded the actual content of the phone conversations, providing merely records, from a Verizon subsidiary, of who called whom when and from where. In addition, she said in a prepared statement, the “names of subscribers” were not included automatically in the metadata (though the numbers, surely, could be used to identify them). “Our courts have consistently recognized that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in this type of metadata information and thus no search warrant is required to obtain it,” she said, adding that “any subsequent effort to obtain the content of an American’s communications would require a specific order from the FISA court.”

...

 

The answer, according to the mathematician and former Sun Microsystems engineer Susan Landau, whom I interviewed while reporting on the plight of the former N.S.A. whistleblower Thomas Drake and who is also the author of “Surveillance or Security?,” is that it’s worse than many might think.

 

“The public doesn’t understand,” she told me, speaking about so-called metadata. “It’s much more intrusive than content.” She explained that the government can learn immense amounts of proprietary information by studying “who you call, and who they call. If you can track that, you know exactly what is happening—you don’t need the content.”

 

For example, she said, in the world of business, a pattern of phone calls from key executives can reveal impending corporate takeovers. Personal phone calls can also reveal sensitive medical information: “You can see a call to a gynecologist, and then a call to an oncologist, and then a call to close family members.” And information from cell-phone towers can reveal the caller’s location. Metadata, she pointed out, can be so revelatory about whom reporters talk to in order to get sensitive stories that it can make more traditional tools in leak investigations, like search warrants and subpoenas, look quaint. “You can see the sources,” she said. When the F.B.I. obtains such records from news agencies, the Attorney General is required to sign off on each invasion of privacy. When the N.S.A. sweeps up millions of records a minute, it’s unclear if any such brakes are applied.

 

Metadata, Landau noted, can also reveal sensitive political information, showing, for instance, if opposition leaders are meeting, who is involved, where they gather, and for how long. Such data can reveal, too, who is romantically involved with whom, by tracking the locations of cell phones at night.

[Guest LilBambi]

More from EFF: Why Metadata Matters

 

In response to the recent news reports about the National Security Agency's surveillance program, President Barack Obama said today, "When it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your telephone calls." Instead, the government was just "sifting through this so-called metadata." The Director of National Intelligence James Clapper made a similar comment last night: "The program does not allow the Government to listen in on anyone’s phone calls. The information acquired does not include the content of any communications or the identity of any subscriber."

 

What they are trying to say is that disclosure of metadata—the details about phone calls, without the actual voice—isn't a big deal, not something for Americans to get upset about if the government knows. Let's take a closer look at what they are saying:

• They know you rang a phone sex service at 2:24 am and spoke for 18 minutes. But they don't know what you talked about.
  
• They know you called the suicide prevention hotline from the Golden Gate Bridge. But the topic of the call remains a secret.
  
• They know you spoke with an HIV testing service, then your doctor, then your health insurance company in the same hour. But they don't know what was discussed.
  
• They know you received a call from the local NRA office while it was having a campaign against gun legislation, and then called your senators and congressional representatives immediately after. But the content of those calls remains safe from government intrusion.
  
• They know you called a gynecologist, spoke for a half hour, and then called the local Planned Parenthood's number later that day. But nobody knows what you spoke about.
  

Sorry, your phone records—oops, "so-called metadata"—can reveal a lot more about the content of your calls than the government is implying. Metadata provides enough context to know some of the most intimate details of your lives. And the government has given no assurances that this data will never be correlated with other easily obtained data. They may start out with just a phone number, but areverse telephone directory is not hard to find. Given the public positions the government has taken onlocation information, it would be no surprise if they include location information demands in Section 215 orders for metadata.

 

If the President really welcomes a robust debate on the government's surveillance power, it needs to start being honest about the invasiveness of collecting your metadata.

[Guest LilBambi]

From the Lauren Weinstein's blog article Eric posted,

 

What they forget -- or more likely are conveniently ignoring -- is that we Americans are a historically rather strange breed when it comes to an innate distrust of government. Frequently these concerns go completely overboard, but when government actually does play into the hands of the conspiracy theorists it does nobody any good at all. (On the other hand, we continue to have evidence that our government is so leaky that keeping a really big secret for long is an intense challenge.)

 

If you really want to incur the ire of most honest Americans, treat them all like they're criminal or terrorist suspects.

[Guest LilBambi]

Article from Daniel Ellsberg - The Guardian:

 

Edward Snowden: saving us from the United Stasi of America

 

"In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material -- and that includes the Pentagon Papers, for which I was responsible 40 years ago. Snowden's whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back what has amounted to an "executive coup" against the US constitution."

[lewmur]

... up Verizon's phone records for U.S. citizens.

 

Way to go Big V. You suck your customers dry and then betray them to Big Bro.

 

"Business ethics"... what a contradiction in terms that's become over the last few decades.

I don't think that the NSA program, as authorized by Congress, is any great evil. The real problem, IMO, is that too many low level people in the program have the ABILITY to far exceed their authority. IRS agents don't have the *authority* to attack individuals for personal or political reasons, but it has become obvious that they do it anyway.

 

While the NSA *collects* and preserves a tremdous amount of *computer* data, it is *supposedly* necessary to get a judge to approve the "mining" of data on any indiduals. But what the "leaker" is claiming is that, while they don't have the authority, low level indiduals do have the *ability* to target anyone they desire. And that IS scary.

[crp]

WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH METADATA? - NewYorker

 

 

[/color]

Note that Sen Feinstein did not make her meta data of her phone calls the past 3 months available. Nor has any other defender of this overreaching, immoral policy.

[Guest LilBambi]

How would she really know?

[lewmur]

Note that Sen Feinstein did not make her meta data of her phone calls the past 3 months available. Nor has any other defender of this overreaching, immoral policy.

The "meta data" of your phone calls hasn't been made available either. There is a big difference between collecting and storing data and making that data "available". The ONLY question this "leaker" has raised that makes any difference is his claim that people like himself have the ability to make UNAUTHORIZED inquiries about anyone they want. That is a question about the security of the system and not about the intended purpose. And if he furnishes information on how to violate the system's security, or any information he has obtained thereby, then he a traitor and not a whistle blower.

[Guest LilBambi]

I think we are done here. Topic now locked.