XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

[halik]

Or the IRS. Or the DEA. Or the some other non-terrorism related three letter department.

This. IRS going through my emails to make sure i didn't misreport any tax income...

 

[fskimospy]

There is a pretty huge logical flaw in Greenwald's argument. The ability to do something does not mean that it IS being done. The police always have the ABILITY to search you, what stops them (in theory, haha) is our system of law. It also obscures the real thing we should be focusing on.

I'm happy that the NSA has this capability, and honestly it's utterly unsurprising. The problem is that there seems to be no external oversight of how they are using that capability. To me that's the scary part.

 

[poofyhairguy]

This. IRS going through my emails to make sure i didn't misreport any tax income...

Or eventually the state going through to make sure you didn't not report a sales tax on an online purchase.

Or your health insurance company or medicare going through your emails and penalizing you if you admit to smoking cigarettes when you drink.

Or you try to get a government job, any you can't because you emailed someone a weed joke a few years ago.



The problem with the database is so many of us enjoy the freedom to make minor suboptimal or selfish decisions. Soon as the data is collected, the justification to use it for these reasons becomes too tempting.

At that point what is personal freedom?

 

[Jaskalas]

Hell, it may get to the point where you have to hand deliver a letter to ensure it isn't stored somewhere.

Next piece of legislation for "national security" will ensure that it is illegal to avoid the system. No encryption, no hand letters.

Look to China for how our government runs and operates.

 

[Jaskalas]

There is a pretty huge logical flaw in Greenwald's argument. The ability to do something does not mean that it IS being done. The police always have the ABILITY to search you, what stops them (in theory, haha) is our system of law. It also obscures the real thing we should be focusing on.

I'm happy that the NSA has this capability, and honestly it's utterly unsurprising. The problem is that there seems to be no external oversight of how they are using that capability. To me that's the scary part.

No - let's burn it to the ground. You can have oversight over the ashes.

So long as it exists it is a threat to Civil Liberties.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

There is a pretty huge logical flaw in Greenwald's argument. The ability to do something does not mean that it IS being done. The police always have the ABILITY to search you, what stops them (in theory, haha) is our system of law. It also obscures the real thing we should be focusing on.

The police have never had the ability to know virtually everything you do. Our Constitution guarantees that Jose Padilla would not be treated as he was. He was.

I'm happy that the NSA has this capability, and honestly it's utterly unsurprising. The problem is that there seems to be no external oversight of how they are using that capability. To me that's the scary part.

The ability to do these things are historically recent. That there is a system of law and even oversight does not mean there will not be abuse, especially when the oversight itself is not subject to public scrutiny due the the nature of the program. It comes down to "trust us", and "us" will be the government, not some apolitical non government affiliated entity. There is no basis for trust.

One could make the same argument that you use for any level of invasiveness, up to and including any truly Orwellian means. As long as it's monitored by some oversight your constant surveillance is just fine. Perhaps that's not what you meant, but effectively that is what you said.

Where do you say "this is too much'?

 

[Savatar]

There should not be an expectation of privacy when you are sending emails in plain-text anyway, by precedent it is akin to a post-card that every single "mail-man"/router along the way can see... that someone might take a photograph of all the postcards and store it is perfectly legal, just technically infeasible. That this is done with email, then, should come as no surprise... because now it is technically feasible and provides a very real benefit to society. It helps prevent tragedies from happening, and provides useful information in helping to understand what happened after the fact. I think that a lot of people are getting unjustifiably bent out of shape about it... screaming "big brother" and making it out to be something malevolent or overbearing, which it does not seem to be.

 

[fskimospy]

The police have never had the ability to know virtually everything you do. Our Constitution guarantees that Jose Padilla would not be treated as he was. He was.

I agree that it was a horrific miscarriage of justice.

Regardless, the police have long had the ability to know virtually everything you do. The shift to the anonymity of the internet was the exception to that, not the rule.

The ability to do these things are historically recent. That there is a system of law and even oversight does not mean there will not be abuse, especially when the oversight itself is not subject to public scrutiny due the the nature of the program. It comes down to "trust us", and "us" will be the government, not some apolitical non government affiliated entity. There is no basis for trust.

By that logic we can't have any secret things ever.

One could make the same argument that you use for any level of invasiveness, up to and including any truly Orwellian means. As long as it's monitored by some oversight your constant surveillance is just fine. Perhaps that's not what you meant, but effectively that is what you said.

Where do you say "this is too much'?

You realize our system of government has always allowed for any level of invasiveness we want, right? Like, from the day of the ratification of the Constitution. Any level of invasiveness is always allowed so long as that invasion is subject to a warrant. (also known as: oversight)

 

[mshan]

If there is no absolutely meticulous logging of every attempt to query data base, and tight controls to access terminals to query system, what is to keep friend of some bozo who got job at Booz Allen from having friend (Wall Street, FBI, other) from saying can you do me a favor and do this query for me... (apparently only legal justification needed according to FISA court is NSA analyst type in he or she suspected that target could be a foreigner).

And again, this monstrosity did such a good job of preventing, or even detecting, the Boston bombing.

 

[BoberFett]

CNN Opinion: NSA secrets kill our trust.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/31/opinion/schneier-nsa-trust/index.html?hpt=hp_t4

It pleases me to see so many people speak out against this. This is why I have to say Snowden is a hero. He has forced this issue into the light again.

As the author of this piece reminds us, the government is CONSTANTLY lying to us.

I truly have no trust in what it says now. How can I trust a habitual liar? That makes me a fool. I have no trust in any corporations I deal with. I assume that HTTPS makes me pretty secure from the average hacker, but the government? It's right into all my shit, right up in my asshole deep, and it will only get worse.

Not only is the government--with the blessing of federal courts (one step away from SCOTUS telling us to take in the rear now regarding court orders and cell phones)--lying to us, but corporations are. And hilariously, I can't even blame them as they are legally compelled now to lie about what they are doing. It is a huge fucking sham in the name of the make believe enemy (terrorism) that kills so few people it hasn't ever made it anywhere close to a top 10 list of deaths in the US, even in 2001. All this money and time spent on tomfoolery.

:thumbsup:

 

[Jaskalas]

By that logic we can't have any secret things ever.

Secrets are for war. The Government should have no secrets in dealing with the American people.

Also, someone promised the American people the most transparent administration in history.

 

[BoberFett]

I'm happy that the NSA has this capability, and honestly it's utterly unsurprising. The problem is that there seems to be no external oversight of how they are using that capability. To me that's the scary part.

Haha, and fools like this guy call us "libertopians".

"I think it's great the government can spy on me, as long as they pinky promise not to abuse it."

Talk about a utopian nitwit...

 

[fskimospy]

Secrets are for war. The Government should have no secrets in dealing with the American people.

Also, someone promised the American people the most transparent administration in history.

So Obama should have come out and told the American people that he was raiding Osama bin Laden's compound before he did it and just hoped that Osama wasn't watching CNN?

This is a ridiculous and unsupportable idea.

 

[fskimospy]

Haha, and fools like this guy call us "libertopians".

"I think it's great the government can spy on me, as long as they pinky promise not to abuse it."

Talk about a utopian nitwit...

They can spy on people so long as there is impartial oversight. That's the basis for basically all law enforcement in modern democracies. What do you think warrants are?

I don't call you a libertopian, at least not as far as I can remember. I mostly just make fun of you for your impotent, foaming rage. And to be clear, this isn't just shit talking on the internet as I find your rage filled flailing genuinely amusing.

 

[Kadarin]

Given that the information and ability to do this now exist, it will be abused. At some point, LEO will gain access, and you can bet that if a populist political threat arises to the corporatist/statist Powers That Be behind the Obama administration, this program will be used to neutralize that threat.

We will start to see the word "terrorist" get redefined as "political enemy".

 

[Genx87]

I'd say the opposite. Political enemies become terrorists.

 

[z1ggy]

They can spy on people so long as there is impartial oversight. That's the basis for basically all law enforcement in modern democracies. What do you think warrants are?

I don't call you a libertopian, at least not as far as I can remember. I mostly just make fun of you for your impotent, foaming rage. And to be clear, this isn't just shit talking on the internet as I find your rage filled flailing genuinely amusing.

The problem was, and still is, they aren't getting warrants. And even if it's some "secret" warrant...The fact all they need to do is go to a "secret" panel of judges to access all the data they are mining from ALL OF US, is insane.

We will never ever know (until it's too late) that our data was collected. And besides, actual court ordered warrants, and what is actually going on aren't comparable. The police say they think your cell phone records will help them arrest/prosecute you, then they go ask a judge if it's legal for them to do so. What's happening is the NSA is collecting almost all of our communications, THEN they go open them up with permission from some secret court.

Oh and btw, if you encrypt data, even simple things like AIM chats, you get put on a list as being possibly related to domestic terror.

 

[Jaskalas]

Oh and btw, if you encrypt data, even simple things like AIM chats, you get put on a list as being possibly related to domestic terror.

I like the idea of us all encrypting our data.

 

[fskimospy]

The problem was, and still is, they aren't getting warrants. And even if it's some "secret" warrant...The fact all they need to do is go to a "secret" panel of judges to access all the data they are mining from ALL OF US, is insane.

We will never ever know (until it's too late) that our data was collected. And besides, actual court ordered warrants, and what is actually going on aren't comparable. The police say they think your cell phone records will help them arrest/prosecute you, then they go ask a judge if it's legal for them to do so. What's happening is the NSA is collecting almost all of our communications, THEN they go open them up with permission from some secret court.

Oh and btw, if you encrypt data, even simple things like AIM chats, you get put on a list as being possibly related to domestic terror.

I generally agree with you, my first post noted that my problem is with the lack of oversight, although I have no problem with the judicial proceedings being secret. It would be insane if they weren't. As it works right now there is nowhere even remotely close to effective oversight being performed on these activities, and it's a huge problem. (not to mention a violation of the 4th amendment in my opinion)

When it comes to time sensitive data it absolutely makes sense to collect first and then require judicial approval to use, btw.

 

[fskimospy]

I like the idea of us all encrypting our data.

It is unlikely that you would use encryption that the NSA could not crack.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I generally agree with you, my first post noted that my problem is with the lack of oversight, although I have no problem with the judicial proceedings being secret. It would be insane if they weren't. As it works right now there is nowhere even remotely close to effective oversight being performed on these activities, and it's a huge problem. (not to mention a violation of the 4th amendment in my opinion)

When it comes to time sensitive data it absolutely makes sense to collect first and then require judicial approval to use, btw.

My beef is that the "judicial approval" is overreaching.

I mean, what ONE investigation requires the collecting of the records of EVERY Verizon phone call in the last couple of months?

None, they are just grabbing as much as they can.

 

[mshan]

"Michele Catalano was looking for information online about pressure cookers.

Her husband, in the same time frame, was Googling backpacks.

Wednesday morning, six men from a joint terrorism task force showed up at their house to see if they were terrorists.

Which begs the question: How'd the government know what they were Googling?"

http://news.yahoo.com/google-pressure-cookers-backpacks-visit-feds-140900667.html

 

[BoberFett]

My beef is that the "judicial approval" is overreaching.

I mean, what ONE investigation requires the collecting of the records of EVERY Verizon phone call in the last couple of months?

None, they are just grabbing as much as they can.

Fall in line consumer. Uberfuhrer Eskimospy has declared that this is good. Do not question authority.

 

[z1ggy]

http://news.yahoo.com/google-pressure-cookers-backpacks-visit-feds-140900667.html

Man we are so close to a police state, it's not even funny.

I wonder if people get profiled by the NSA, too, by what they search and get on different lists such as likelihood to committ crimes, ability to gain security clearance, etc.

But boy.. I do feel much safer now.

 

[mshan]

From Doppel's CNN link above:

"NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander has claimed that the NSA's massive surveillance and data mining programs have helped stop more than 50 terrorist plots, 10 inside the U.S. Do you believe him? I think it depends on your definition of "helped." We're not told whether these programs were instrumental in foiling the plots or whether they just happened to be of minor help because the data was there. It also depends on your definition of "terrorist plots." An examination (PDF) of plots that that FBI claims to have foiled since 9/11 reveals that would-be terrorists have commonly been delusional, and most have been egged on by FBI undercover agents or informants.

Left alone, few were likely to have accomplished much of anything."


http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/31/opinion/schneier-nsa-trust/index.html?hpt=hp_t4

I remember reading quite a while ago that real terrorists stopped using the internet in the late 1990's when they realized governments could track them.

This monstrosity (and Trailblazer, instead of simple, cheap Thin Thread) was always intended to target the general population, as it sounds like Snowden was referring to with his "architecture of repression" comment.