More NSA Transparency Would Lead To More Privacy Invasion

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The NSA can't tell you how many Americans they've spied on because....wait for it...wait for it....it would lead to an even bigger invasion of privacy than it already is. Ummm, what?!? :rolleyes:

Robert Litt, general council for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said that determining the exact number of Americans whose data is collected would actually be a larger invasion of privacy than any that might already be happening. According to Litt, determining this number would require NSA analysts to look further into data — such as an email address — than they normally would, thus bringing up more information about that person just to determine if they were an American. He also said finding a more exact number would be quite resource intensive for the agency.
 
I'm pretty sure that "If you watch us spying on you, we're going to have to spy on you harder." is just a way of saying they will have to dig up more dirt on you to keep you in line.
 
Most of the spying is probably being done by computers looking for key words or phrases. Checking to find out who has actually been spied on probably requires some human interaction. I don't care how big the NSA is, there aren't enough employees there to do much more than look at individuals the computers pick out for them for further study.

I just wonder how many college students, professors, would-be vacationers or people that are just curious about different cultures and religions are caught up in the NSA web for 'further study'. I mean... imagine being a professor / student of middle eastern cultures at a major university for example.
 
No, you guys are a bit off. The raw data, not the meta data, is gathered and stored seperately in a repository where it sits unmolested and accessed until they have an Intel Target that justifies a search against the data. They do use the meta data in the analysis portion in order to help determine who's data to search against. But the greatest majority of the actual data is sitting undisturbed.

What the good Senator is proposing is that the NSA would have to go in and catalogue all that raw data so they can report on how many people's stuff has been collected. So in order to do this they would have to actually access all those records, most of which would never be accessed thereby actually doing more harm then good.

It would be better for all of us to simply require the NSA to destroy the data and start back over from square one under new oversight authority.

Most of the spying is probably being done by computers looking for key words or phrases.

This is how a noob spy would do it, running around chasing BS looking for needles in haystacks.

The way to do it right is the way they are doing it;

GRAB IT ALL, store it.
When you get evidence from other sources that are true terrorist targets, start checking all the meta data to find links and associations, now you can start identifying networks of individuals who may be related to the target, most will be foreign nationals but some may be US Persons. If they decide a US Person might be involved and can show a significant link, then they go in and pull the real data from the data store after they get the go ahead from the FISA Court.

That's how they do it. The way you think they are doing it is on the one hand horribly inefficient and on the other hand completely illegal and would never have been approved or deemed legal even under the Patriot Act.
 
But the greatest majority of the actual data is sitting undisturbed...What the good Senator is proposing is that the NSA would have to go in and catalogue all that raw data so they can report on how many people's stuff has been collected. So in order to do this they would have to actually access all those records, most of which would never be accessed thereby actually doing more harm then good.

They may not be able to say exactly how many Americans they have collected data on in the undisturbed/never accessed data without cataloging it, but they should be able say how many Americans they have spied on directly as a target or as someone linked to a target when they searched through the data. And they should be able to make some kind of estimate of the number of Americans they've collected data on (which we should all know by this point is everyone who has ever used the internet) by treating the accessed data as a sample of the total.
 
determining the exact number of Americans whose data is collected would actually be a larger invasion of privacy than any that might already be happening.

well, its the opinion of our retarded congressional representative from Michigan, Mike Rogers, chair of House Intelligence (!) committee, that your privacy cant be violated if you dont know that your privacy was violated........

(think about that one for a second....... he obviously didnt)


also, because your privacy cant be violated (because you dont know your privacy has been violated); therefore Mike Rogers believes that having no complaints about privacy being violated(, because we didnt know that it had happened,) is a positive indicator that the current law is working.


this guy needs to be dragged from his office and tarred and feathered in the street.
 
(BTW for those not familiar- Mike Rogers (our congressional representative) is in charge of overseeing, among other things, the Director of National Intelligence. this would be the guy who is responsible for pressing the DNI to release info about who they spy on....)


AKA- were fucked.
 
...say how many Americans they have spied on directly as a target or as someone linked to a target when they searched through the data.

This you are correct on, they should be able to know how many US Persons,( this is not synonymous with American Citizens as people who are not US Citizens can still gain US Person status), they have targeted.

But you can't just subtract the US Persons who were targeted to get an estimate because the issue isn't US Citizens, it's US Persons, and that big pool does have almost everyone, everywhere, even from other countries, IN other countries, if their data passed through these systems or collection points.

The pool is big, bigger then just the Americans who use the internet here in the US. The way they filled the pool is they just tapped into the data stream and sucked it all up, and they don't know who or what they have until they get a target that justifies a search on that target and associated meta data targets who could be US Persons or who might not be a US Person. But a search of the pool requires an OK from the FISA Court as it has been, but it may require more then that soon.
 
we already live in an open air internment.. this is just more... past IS prologue...
 
[...]
What the good Senator is proposing is that the NSA would have to go in and catalogue all that raw data so they can report on how many people's stuff has been collected. So in order to do this they would have to actually access all those records, most of which would never be accessed thereby actually doing more harm then good.
[...]

this attitude about the concept of storage of personal data is, I think, where the disagreement stems from between those who support the NSA and those who think they (vastly) overreach.

so your opinion is basically that, so long as no actual human is viewing the data, its fine for the government to collect whatever they want, however they want....? for the sake of argument, lets say I agree with that.

the problem lies in the fact that the institution of the NSA is no longer trusted by a large portion of the population. they have been caught lying, cheating, stealing, spying, and then lying about it again. for years. it wont make much difference (though its a place to start if no where else) in just changing the leadership and starting over. the people no longer trust that the govt actually wont access the data "unless terrorism", like they say.

this is why the ENTIRE agency needs to be dissolved, and perhapse some time in the future, when we the people are ready to again hand our trust over to another agency in the sake of national safety, maybe they wont fuck us over next time....




(lol jk... they will)
 
Actually, carefully listening the Congessman was doing fine until the very end and then he lost himself.

It would seem that the point the Congressman was trying to get across was that if someone had been spied on, and then some group targeted them and did something too them then there should have been some indication that the only way this could have happened was if their privacy had been violated and this would have generated a complaint. I am thinking court of law, arrests, seizures, etc. Most of the time when someone takes action against you, it winds up in court criminal or civil, and people have to show their cards, they have to show where evidence came from, was it legally obtained.

Congressman are almost always lawyers first, they don't always think like we do. It's probably why we don't usually like them much, they are sleazeballs to begin with.
 
Most of the time when someone takes action against you, it winds up in court criminal or civil, and people have to show their cards, they have to show where evidence came from, was it legally obtained.

thats where I am disagreeing; you believe that an adequate safeguard against your personal privacy being violated is the prosecution at a trial having to disclose evidence to the defence (which, if the evidence comes from the NSA/FISA court, you probably DONT get to see).

I dont think that is a safeguard at all. in any way, shape or form.



also, if its your opinion that your privacy is only violated when an actual person at the NSA goes thru your data...
So in order to do this they would have to actually access all those records, most of which would never be accessed thereby actually doing more harm then good.

then it should be trival to write a script that crawls the data and returns zero personal information to the operator, yet spits out numbers like

This is how many PEOPLE we believe we have information about:...
This is how many US PERSONS we believe we have information about:...
This is how many US CITIZENS we believe we have information about:...

by your logic, no privacy would be violated (though I dont really agree with that either), and the senators; the only overseers of this secret program, would have a better idea about what the government they are in charge of is actually doing.

so far the NSA, DNI, et al have done nothing but lie to the senate.
 
they have been caught lying, cheating, stealing, spying, and then lying about it again. for years

Actually, the NSA didn't lie to us, the DNI lied to us. The DNI is not the NSA. But people keep mixing one up with the other and painting the NSA with that brush.

And they are not going to disband the NSA, these programs are an important but small part of everything they do, at best they would excise the smelly part but only if they can find another way to get the job done.

Everyone talks terrorists and focuses on terrorism, but that isn't the whole picture, not by a long shot. The NSA is the organization that watches ALL Foreign Signals and that means foreign governments, military, business, education systems, all foreign infrastructure, civil groups and organizations, Green Peace, if some Brazilian dude calls room service from his hotel room in a hotel on the French Riviera then it's the NSA's responsibility to check that call. When a Turkish Soldier, who is a clerk, sends an email request to his supply office for toilet paper it's the NSA's job to intercept the email no matter what satellites or servers that data flows through.

The Congessman was making a point that first and foremost, the techniques we use must be effective, the expectation of success must be there first. Then we must come up with procedures that allow the use of the techniques while protecting US Person's privacy. Despite all the released documents that suggest, or show capabilities, no one has yet shown any evidence that the NSA has in fact violated anyone's privacy as an organization, as a goal, just stepped all over someone. There have been cases of individual abuse and these were dealt with in differing ways but in all but one instance the end result was the individuals lost their jobs and their access to classified information and were turned over to the Department of justice for possible prosecution. The DoJ did not prosecute any of these people and no one is saying why and I am not sure if anyone is even asking.

One issue we have is that our current digital communications systems function in ways that just mix everything together in pieces as the data is transmitted along data lines. Come up with a way to keep the benefits of the current systems while establishing "point to point" communications and then things change for the better.

But while so many of you are convinced the NSA is being bad boys, the Countries Leadership is not, people that know more about how things work are not, and although some Congressman will use this issue politically to get elected, it doesn't mean they will actually DO anything to change it.
 
and the senators; the only overseers of this secret program

This is so far from the truth as to be laughable. Senators do not sit on the FISA Court and a simple google search shows all the different organizations and agencies that have oversight of NSA activities, the list is long.

And the NSA has NOT lied, not even once. The DNI did, he is not the NSA, and now everyone claims it's been over and over again for years.

Look, stop over-blowing your claims and people can start to take you seriously. Keep making ignorant claims and you won't get anyone to listen to your concerns.
 
then it should be trival to write a script that crawls the data

A trivial script?
So the script is going to check every file in the pool, then crossmatch it to find the associated meta data, check the meta data to determine the physical source, if possible, of the data. And then check other systems to determine who the source of the communication was and again for who the target or recipient/recipients was. Those emailed jocks to a person's entire address list to people you don't even know are going to play hell with this simple script. Then when you know who the people are this simple script is going to query several databases to determine if the individuals are US Persons.

If writing such a script is a simple thing, then wow, your in the wrong business if your writing scripts for peanuts.
 
we already had agencies that did sigint before the NSA. and I didnt mean disband as in completely remove our intelligence capability; only majorly reduce a lot of what the NSA has been recently embroiled in (which is probably a significant percentage of its operating capacity, yes)

The DNI is not the NSA.
yes, the NSA reports to the DNI, and he is in charge of it



the NSA didn't lie to us
i guess the organization "the NSA" didnt, but only because its an agency not a person who can lie. the people in charge of and working for the agency lied. to congress (watch him do it) (aka- he knowingly committed a felony on national television, and he keeps his job).

One issue we have is that our current digital communications systems function in ways that just mix everything together in pieces as the data is transmitted along data lines. Come up with a way to keep the benefits of the current systems while establishing "point to point" communications and then things change for the better.

sounds like it came from a senator who couldnt tell a switch from a hub. besides, that's not the point of the argument- the question is whether or not the government should need probable cause to make it their job to collect my personal information, or whether they are free to backdoor and circumvent safeguards I PUT IN PLACE to protect my own information on the logic that "x-percent of the population is bad, and we will eventually catch them doing something..."

that is not a power I, as a citizen, am willing to grant the government (not to mention the fact that they have proven that they dont deserve it and cant adequately interperate the constitution on their own)

But while so many of you are convinced the NSA is being bad boys, the Countries Leadership is not
the countries leadership are made up of, by your own words, sleazeballs. among many other descriptions I can think of......

why are you shilling for the govt?
 
If writing such a script is a simple thing, then wow, your in the wrong business if your writing scripts for peanuts.

simple is a relative term. perhaps you yourself couldnt, maybe even I couldnt... however if it is within your power to log aggregate internet traffic on the scale that they do, its trivial to do this. obviously with knowing as little as we do about how it works, I cant tell you specifically how to go about it.

And the NSA has NOT lied, not even once.

I was actually wrong, I forgot they (the director of the NSA) actually did lie...

they dont even have the ability to collect, let alone do they... nope. definately not!


Look, stop over-blowing your claims and people can start to take you seriously. Keep making ignorant claims and you won't get anyone to listen to your concerns.

you and I are the only ones conversing, dont imply what others think about my seriousness. personally attacking me as ignorant shows that you are the shill I thought you were.
 
and the senators; the only overseers of this secret program
This is so far from the truth as to be laughable.

ok, to clarify-

the senate intelligence comittee, and the congress in general, are the only single means the citizens have of exerting control over these secret agencies and their operations. this is why lying before congress is such a serious crime;

what if your boss at work had no idea what you did all day; when he asked you about it directly, you lied to him; he only found out what you did all day when some of the people who work for you leaked what you had been working on (reading the email of everyone else in the office).

and he still couldnt fire you.

yea, congressional representation is working just fine.
 
Most of the spying is probably being done by computers looking for key words or phrases. Checking to find out who has actually been spied on probably requires some human interaction. I don't care how big the NSA is, there aren't enough employees there to do much more than look at individuals the computers pick out for them for further study.

I just wonder how many college students, professors, would-be vacationers or people that are just curious about different cultures and religions are caught up in the NSA web for 'further study'. I mean... imagine being a professor / student of middle eastern cultures at a major university for example.

I had a professor who once suggested going to some sites with information regarding a certain serial killer would result in you getting "flagged". At a later class he suggested purchasing the Turner Diaries so you could read what inspires "terrorists", now that is something which I think might actually "flag" you.
 
I had a professor who once suggested going to some sites with information regarding a certain serial killer would result in you getting "flagged". At a later class he suggested purchasing the Turner Diaries so you could read what inspires "terrorists", now that is something which I think might actually "flag" you.

It's like Icpiper said though, you'd end up with a list that grew thousands of names per day and after a few years you'd have millions of people in it. It wouldn't serve any practical purpose to do that as they couldn't possibly watch that many people. The NSA only has ~35k employees.
 
It's like Icpiper said though, you'd end up with a list that grew thousands of names per day and after a few years you'd have millions of people in it. It wouldn't serve any practical purpose to do that as they couldn't possibly watch that many people. The NSA only has ~35k employees.

No problem, I'm sure EMC and Oracle have a solution for that.
 
I'm going to go take a lot of upskirt photos and videos of people in their homes. It's cool, though, because I'm not going to watch it... It's for future research and historical purposes. Maybe down the line, someone will want to look back and see something...

Can't say who or how many people I'm video taping. Because if I did that, I'd have to watch the tapes...

Do I believe anything they say about the NSA? Not really. They've been asked point blank, under oath, and have lied. Numerous times. Yea, national security is some of it. Others, nope. Not until they were proven to be lying did they change course. So, the trust between the people and the agency is almost zero. And getting worse.
 
yes, the NSA reports to the DNI, and he is in charge of it

No, the DNI's relationship with the NSA is no different then theSecDef's is with the US Army and if Chuck Hagel lies before Congress it doesn't mean the Army lied to Congress even if good ol' Chuck is lying about something the Army is doing.

we already had agencies that did sigint before the NSA.
There is no surviving agency today that performed SIGINT Activities prior to the birth of the NSA except the Military Services themselves. The NSA was created to gather together it's predecessors under a common umbrella and they were absorbed or disbanded. The NSA performs directive oversight of all DoD SIGINT Collection as well so we have a single point of Intelligence Oversight for subordinate SIGINT activities. ie... when the Army or the Air Force conduct SIGINT Operations they do so under NSA guidance.
 
i guess the organization "the NSA" didnt, but only because its an agency not a person who can lie. the people in charge of and working for the agency lied. to congress (watch him do it) (aka- he knowingly committed a felony on national television, and he keeps his job).
As I said, George Clapper is not the CIA, he is the DNI. See above analogy.
 
the countries leadership are made up of, by your own words, sleazeballs. among many other descriptions I can think of......

why are you shilling for the govt?

I'm NOT, I just am not so free to lay fault where it does not belong. There are over 30,000 NSA employees. If one is a jerk I call him a jerk, I don't lay the stinky mess at all their feet. If a TSA employee screws over some old man at the Security Check Point, I want to know that agent's name, not scream senseless BS at the world about the entire organization. And if the law is wrong, change the law, don't try and disband the entire legal system.

Stop being a myopic fool and I'll stop beating you up over it.
 
I should pause here.

As I get a little worked up. I am nobody's shill, I am not out to protect them. If there is something going on that's wrong I want fingers pointing in the right direction.

I also want to apologize to ghost6303. It's not fair to call him ignorant of things that I have experience with and he has no opportunity to see. I should not call him foolish for voicing his concerns even if I feel they are misdirected.

I'm going to go take my meds now, the padded walls are closing in again :D
 
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