NY Times reports NSA is "data mining" domestic telecommunications

December 23, 2005 10:09 PM

The New York Times (reg required) is reporting that the National Security Agency has eavesdropped on far more domestic telecommunications at the directive of President Bush than has been previously admitted. "The N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications... N.S.A. technicians, besides actually eavesdropping on specific conversations, have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might point to terrorism suspects. Some officials describe the program as a large data-mining operation."
posted by chakalakasp (243 comments total)

BTW, this article kinda freaked me out. It would seem that ol' Big Brother has finally arrived in the good ol' US of A. The paranoid types have been saying that this has been going on for years, but I always kinda took them as the paranoid types. I'm kinda astounded that anything like this could be going on in America.
posted by chakalakasp at 10:13 PM on December 23, 2005

double?
posted by slater at 10:14 PM on December 23, 2005

I've just started CC'ing the NSA whenever I send emails so they don't have to go sneaking around.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 10:15 PM on December 23, 2005

No, believe it or not, it's not a double -- that other post deals with an entirely different set of violations of the Constitution.
posted by chakalakasp at 10:15 PM on December 23, 2005

I always figured they were doing this, but it strangely blows my fucking mind that this actually is proven.
posted by my sock puppet account at 10:22 PM on December 23, 2005

I wonder if this will be the thing to finally get the majority of people to start encrypting their e-mail. Anyone know of any easy-to-use encryption plugins for Outlook? (Yes, it has to be Outlook)
posted by longdaysjourney at 10:25 PM on December 23, 2005

This simply has got to get Bush & Co. in trouble. It's just such an egregious flouting of very important laws.

And so far, they've had nothing but the incredibly weak defense, "We did it for your own good!"

Well, if it was truly for our own good, I don't see why they couldn't have gone through the proper channels and done it all legitimately. It's not as if, with the current gang in Washington, they would have run up against very stiff opposition. Unless.... Unless.... Unless....

Unless the whole program was even bigger then these recent developments reveal. Like, much much bigger. So big that if its true dimensions were revealed, even the scariest Orrin Santorum Alito would say, "Wait just a cotton-picking-minute!"

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised.

(passing the popcorn)
posted by Afroblanco at 10:28 PM on December 23, 2005

One outside expert on communications privacy who previously worked at the N.S.A. said that to exploit its technological capabilities, the American government had in the last few years been quietly encouraging the telecommunications industry to increase the amount of international traffic that is routed through American-based switches.

??!


longdaysjourney; GnuPG is a freely-available open-source implementation of PGP. A plugin for Mail on the Mac is available, I'm sure there's something similar for Outlook.
posted by odinsdream at 10:29 PM on December 23, 2005

Not to be overly cynical but pretty much everyone i know with a clue has just assumed this has been going on for a long time. I mean the Senators can act all surprised but what geek who looks at cryptome occasionally or read any of the info on Echelon that has been public for many years now honestly thought that domestic surveillance wasn't rampant?
I'm less clear on the factors that are pushing this info back into the limelight at this particular moment. Any good analysis out there on this question?
posted by well_balanced at 10:30 PM on December 23, 2005

Afroblanco : "Well, if it was truly for our own good, I don't see why they couldn't have gone through the proper channels and done it all legitimately."

Because people would freak out about whether it is for "own good", and the opposition would use it to make hay even though they understand and sympathize privately.
posted by Gyan at 10:30 PM on December 23, 2005

Bear in mind that the issue here is tapping communications passing through the U.S., by way of switching stations. If you make a call on a satellite phone from Canada to Afghanistan, and it happens to run through a ground station or switch in the U.S., then the NSA is certainly going to try to listen in. Is that a "domestic" communication?
posted by Brian James at 10:31 PM on December 23, 2005

This stuff, and echelon, is nothing compared to promis.
posted by stenseng at 10:35 PM on December 23, 2005

Thanks odinsdream. Ease-of-installation and ease-of-use are the things I'm really looking for, since otherwise I'll never be able to convince my family to use it.
posted by longdaysjourney at 10:36 PM on December 23, 2005

Although I suppose there's no point in encrypting my e-mail if Outlook has backdoors built into it. Ahhhh, paranoia, self-destroya.
posted by longdaysjourney at 10:39 PM on December 23, 2005

Because people would freak out about whether it is for "own good", and the opposition would use it to make hay even though they understand and sympathize privately.

First off, I don't know who you are referring to as the people who would be "freaking out." Are you talking about the judges who approve of the FISA warrents? Honestly, if something freaks out one of those judges, I would say that they should be allowed to freak out and object! After all, that's their job, isn't it? I mean, we keep these guys around for a reason, right?
posted by Afroblanco at 10:40 PM on December 23, 2005

Brian James, you're simply wrong - the article is clear that this does involve domestic outbound communication. The switches also happen to handle passthrough traffic, which is a bonus for the NSA - and why they were trying to encourage companies to purposefully route traffic that otherwise wouldn't be sent here through U.S. switches.
posted by odinsdream at 10:45 PM on December 23, 2005

In either case, I'd be very surprised if the segregation of outbound domestic versus passthrough could even be accomplished with the method the NSA seems to have gone with - simply plugging in to the switch and monitoring anything it touches.
posted by odinsdream at 10:47 PM on December 23, 2005

Points:

1) The 4th Amendment doesn't mean jack since this info isn't being used in criminal trials

2) There may or may not be a violation of FISA. There are plenty of loopholes in FISA, eg. if the surveiled communication is untargeted; loopholes of what is "surveillance" bolded:

(f) “Electronic surveillance” means—
(1) the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire or radio communication sent by or intended to be received by a particular, known United States person who is in the United States, if the contents are acquired by intentionally targeting that United States person, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes;

(2) the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire communication to or from a person in the United States, without the consent of any party thereto, if such acquisition occurs in the United States, but does not include the acquisition of those communications of computer trespassers that would be permissible under section 2511 (2)(i) of title 18;

(3) the intentional acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any radio communication, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes, and if both the sender and all intended recipients are located within the United States; or
(4) the installation or use of an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device in the United States for monitoring to acquire information, other than from a wire or radio communication, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes.

3) I've learned way more about the 4th amendment the past 2 days than I thought possible or necessary or healthy
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 10:49 PM on December 23, 2005

What is your argument, then? The switches are in the U.S., the sender and recipient are unknown, since it's everybody on the switch, and the content is not acquired by intentionally targeting any individual person.
posted by odinsdream at 10:54 PM on December 23, 2005

No, the switches are in the U.S., the sender and the recipient ARE known, the data content of the calls themselves are supposedly unknown (though I really highly doubt it given the trend of the information leaking out), but the calling patterns (i.e., who you called and when) are known to the NSA. And getting that information typically requires a warrant, at least in the USA.
posted by chakalakasp at 10:57 PM on December 23, 2005

This is no big surprise. I'd like to hear people's speculation as to what type of keyword combinations, etc. might be likely to trigger a post to be monitored by the NSA? There are the obvious ones, but I've got to believe there are hundreds of thousands of posts which could qualify daily if screened only for names like Osama or Al Quaeda. Perhaps there are certain words like key place names in Afghanistan or Iraq which are triggers. Or the use of names of key components of explosives... I assume that terrorists wouldn't be entirely stupid, so they might use code words to refer to various people and supplies. Perhaps Osama would be designated as "Yosemite Sam" or something like that.

What would be your list of keywords?
posted by notmtwain at 10:59 PM on December 23, 2005

This stuff, and echelon, is nothing compared to promis.

It was written in 1983. Be serious. I think the well-documented Jurassic limitations of the FBI's systems put paid to a lot of the fantasy hype that was fluttered around PROMIS, e.g. with a staggering 570,000 lines of computer code, PROMIS can integrate innumerable databases without requiring any reprogramming. C'mon; even WIRED had people who integrated databases for a living back then, and it just ain't that simple. The standard description You can rotate the file by case, defendant, arresting officer, judge, defense lawyer, and it's tracking all the names of all the people in all the cases. sounds much more realistic.

That said, a pretty low-tech keyword system combined with built-in language functions like similar() could do quite a bit with the raw sewage in a telco pipeline.
posted by dhartung at 11:02 PM on December 23, 2005

The only thing preventing us from being truly safe is the Constitution. We need to get rid of it. I think it has yellowcake uranium.
posted by my sock puppet account at 11:03 PM on December 23, 2005

People will feign outrage on the net for a few days, and then go back to writing on their blog about how their favorite tv show has gone to the dogs this season.
Why even pretend that anyone cares anymore?
posted by nightchrome at 11:03 PM on December 23, 2005

I wonder if every ISP is also sending everything to them that travels on its networks? Every email, every url visited, all text typed...
posted by amberglow at 11:08 PM on December 23, 2005

People will feign outrage on the net for a few days, and then go back to writing on their blog about how their favorite tv show has gone to the dogs this season.

Duuuude! They TOTALLY took Arrested Development off the air!!!!!!1!!111one!
posted by Afroblanco at 11:09 PM on December 23, 2005

Friday-night before Christmas news story, 2 weeks of holidays, this will be cold turkey. Exactly what the Whitehouse hopes. The NYT had this story before last years election. Unbelievable.
posted by stbalbach at 11:10 PM on December 23, 2005

With all of the controversy about the news that the NSA has been monitoring, since 9/11, telephone calls and email messages of Americans, some folks might now be wondering if they are being snooped on. Here's a quick and easy method to see if one's email messages are being read by someone else.
...
posted by amberglow at 11:21 PM on December 23, 2005

How NSA can grab your call legally:

1) they batch collect it domestically, not targetting you specifically
2) they tap a cable outside the US
3) they intercept a radio call with no expectation of privacy (eg a cellular phone) or one party is not in the US.

eg. if they grab all calls to/from phones in Afghanistan, they are not targetting you specifically (unless you are in Afghanistan) so this doesn't count as surveillance.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 11:23 PM on December 23, 2005

amberglow: that method is just as likely (probably more likely) to net you on some sort of watchlist as it is to actually prove anyone is spying on you. Be careful what you wish for.
posted by kjell at 11:25 PM on December 23, 2005

I'll try to clarify and summarize because I think some are confused.

Say, who is named John, call your friend Bob, then you call your friend John, then you call your friend Durka Durka to set up a suicide bombing mission for next Thursday. In the past, if the government wanted access to who you called, they went to a judge, laid out their case, and the judge either told them to stuff it or said "sure" and issued them a warrant. Once the judge said "sure", the government could go to the local telco with warrant in hand and say "Gimme everything you got on John." And they would give the government the records. And the government, who has prior evidence that you are a potential suicide bomber, sees that you are calling Durka Durka, who also is a known potential suicide bomber. The government would then go back to Mr. Judge and ask for a wiretap warrant to hear what it is that you're saying to Mr. Durka Durka. If they got the warrant, they'd tap your phone, listening in as best is possible for only conversations pertaining to blowing innocent people up.

Now, fastforward to today, what has been revealed prior, and what is revealed now. Now the governement has gone to the telecommunications companies and said "Hi, we're the government. Let us tap into your switches. We have no warrant, but trust us, it's better if you help us." So the telcos give the government unfettered access to the switches. Now, the government logs ALL calls coming in and out. The actual conversations are not recorded, but they know who called who when -- for everyone. Now, instead of going to a judge and saying "Please judge, here is our case, let us look at John's records," they just go to their captured data database and type your phone number into the search field. Armed with the knowledge that you've been calling Durka Durka, they then type his number into the search field and see who he's been calling. Then, instead of getting a warrant for a wiretap, they just go ahead and start wiretapping the both of you, and probably half the people that you talk to, to, in the hopes of catching as many in the dragnet as possible. Nobody knows about what they're doing except them and the president. There is no court oversight, or even court notification. It's all just done.

"But," you say, "this is needed! Getting warrants is too slow and terrorists are really fast bomb-builders! " Except, of course, the government already has the power to do these things FIRST and then get a SECRET warrant within 72 hours. So expedience clearly isn't why they are doing this.

Ah, but "great!", you say, that helped us catch those bombers Durka Durka and John throw their msierable butts into jail (though, in reality, many of these people have lately just been "dissapearing", held somewhere undisclosed with no access to a lawyer.) Ah, but, you see, it doesn't have to stop there. Why not see who, say, PETA is talking to? Why not look into who's giving John Kerry a ring? I mean, it's not like there is a paper trail. Why not have a listen into Harry Reid 's phone conversations every now and then to see what he's planning? Nobody would know. I'm not saying that these things are happening, but the fact that they COULD be given the current system is why the current system is very, very dangerous. It's why we HAVE judicial oversight. And the fact that expedience is not why they're doing this makes me VERY suspicious. Why do it this way unless you're purposefully attempting to avoid a papertrail? If who you are listening in on is clearly important to national security, than judicial oversight should be no obstacle at all. It's only when the person you are listening in on is clearly NOT important to national security that avoiding judicial oversight becomes important.

I have a feeling that we've only scratched the surface of something really big and bad.
posted by chakalakasp at 11:26 PM on December 23, 2005

I should also point out that, obviously, names are not the only things that can be run through filters. Want to get a list of all calls from Chicago to Afghanistan? Click. Want to get a list of all calls from Washington, D.C. to Ohio? Click. Want to get a list of all calls placed at 11:40 PM on Wednesday? Click. Want to get a list of all calls that lasted for more than 15 minutes? Click. All calls to Ohio that lasted more than 15 minutes from Harry Reid's office? Click.
posted by chakalakasp at 11:29 PM on December 23, 2005

odinsdream, your conclusion is most likely correct but not supported by the article. Based on this article, it's not at all clear that domestic outbound comms (ie, a call from a person known to be in the U.S. to a person known to be outside) are involved. I'm reading the same article you are and I just don't see it. I don't doubt it happened, but it's not there.

Even so, that's not the point of this story--you're thinking of a few days ago. Here, the issue is the NSA conducted traffic analysis on calls routed through the US, and encouraged telcos to route more traffic through their US switches.
posted by Brian James at 11:32 PM on December 23, 2005

eg. if they grab all calls to/from phones in Afghanistan, they are not targetting you specifically (unless you are in Afghanistan) so this doesn't count as surveillance.

Yes, but if you're tapping ALL conversations, then some of those conversations are bound to be innocuous. What do you do with all the information about "innocent" people?

Unless you destroy that information immediately, and only keep the information relating to the "guilty" people, I think it could be said that you are "targeting" people.
posted by Afroblanco at 11:33 PM on December 23, 2005

God. Who do you think is their source on all of this? I'm betting its the same one that got the whole ball rolling by leaking (also to the nyt) about the wiretapping. That guy has Iron balls, for sure (and I wonder what his motivation is)
posted by delmoi at 11:34 PM on December 23, 2005

chakalakasp:

It's accepted constitutional jurisprudence that pen-registers (recording phone numbers) don't need warrants.

Like I said elsewhere, sure the potential for abuse is bad. But the public disclosure of this abuse, should it occur, would be even worse to the perpetrators.

This is similar to the WMD case in Iraq. It would have been better for the admin to drop some sarin shells somewhere, or something. But the disclosure that they had done this, should it come out, would be an impeachable offense even WITH a republican majority (since anyone who failed to vote to impeach/convict would be thrown out of office next election day).
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 11:34 PM on December 23, 2005

afro:

the FISA definition of what is surveillance:

"the acquisition ... of the contents of any ... communication sent by or ... received by a particular, known United States person who is in the United States, if the contents are acquired by intentionally targeting that United States person"

If they're tapping all phones in Afghanistan, and you call over there, you weren't the intentional target, and if all they got is your phone number, you are not a particular, known US person. You could be anybody until they look up that phone number.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 11:39 PM on December 23, 2005

It was written in 1983. Be serious.

Okay, let me rephrase that - this stuff is nothing compared to the promis derived and inspired software that's been developed over the last twenty years.
posted by stenseng at 11:40 PM on December 23, 2005

I caught my boss reading my email at work on his computer. There was nothing bad in the email, it was a typical communicate from one co-worker to another about a project. I know full well that employers have the right to do that and he has the access. However, it still made me feel guilty, and made me a little less trusting of him.

Now amplify that by a billion for the goverment even if they're legitimately doing the right thing. A trillion times amplified of not.

WTF, land of the free?
posted by [insert clever name here] at 11:45 PM on December 23, 2005

What do you do with all the information about "innocent" people?

If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?

Actually, there is some case for a "chilling effect" of freedom of speech should we be subjected to a regime that is surveilling all calls like that. But if the surveilled calls are in fact all overseas calls, then there is much less chilling (more distance == lesser reasonable expectation of privacy) to a much smaller group (people communicating overseas).

Thing is, nobody may have standing to sue about this "chilling effect". The courts need present controversy, not potential controversies.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 11:45 PM on December 23, 2005

1) The 4th Amendment doesn't mean jack since this info isn't being used in criminal trials

Heywood: go fuck yourself. Seriously. The 4th amendment doesn’t say "the people have the right to be secure against searches where the results can be used in a legitimate criminal trial, as opposed to simply being kidnapped and being secretly held at a military instillation indefinitely, which is totaly not a big deal anway, because they'll have an ocean view cage!"

The 4th amendment limits what the government can do. Personally, I'd rather that evidence gathered illegally could be used in court, with the cavet that the people who gathered it also be charged with the crimes they committed getting it (like breaking and entering, for example).

If bush gets away with this, good for him I guess. I always like seeing criminals get away with it! But that's what he is, make no god damn mistake.

And seriously. I'd rather live in a free society with a 9/11 scale attack every decade then live in a 1984 style dictatorship. People die all the time, but only a few of those dead ever had the chance to live as free people. Why the hell should I worry about god damn terrorists. I live in IOWA for gods sake!

I am so damn sick of all these cowards in their god-damn whaaaaaambulance driving us right to totalitarian dictatorship!
_{yes I'm drunk, why do you ask?}
posted by delmoi at 11:50 PM on December 23, 2005

Isn't it interesting how these really terrible, damaging stories always break about two days before Christmas or some other major holiday?.
posted by Malor at 11:51 PM on December 23, 2005

One of my biggest problems with these data-mining efforts is that I don't think that they destroy data of known innocents. I think they keep it all. That means that everybody is a target, and not just "the bad guys."
posted by Afroblanco at 11:52 PM on December 23, 2005

How NSA can grab your call legally:

What do you mean? According to the bush admin, they can "grab" you at any time for any reason, as long as they think you're a 'terrorist'. Of course, "grab" means "kidnap and torture, without telling anyone."

What a wonderful country we live in.
posted by delmoi at 11:52 PM on December 23, 2005

The 4th amendment limits what the government can do

Good point. Surely either the judiciary or Congress can get the Executive to stop ignoring 4th Amendment protections on search & seizure. Or we can vote in a new Executive in 2009.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 11:57 PM on December 23, 2005

chakalakasp: my apologies for the double call-out. My head's been spinning from all these wiretap stories...
posted by slater at 12:05 AM on December 24, 2005

I remember this old TechWorld article about the hardware used by Echelon (probably way out of date now):

"The systems are a combination of SSD with DSP ASICs." ASICs are application-specific integrated circuits - chips dedicated to a specific purpose.

TMS has a TM-44 DSP chip which has 8 GFLOPS of processing power... A SAM-650 product is called a 192 GFLOPS DSP supercomputer by TMS. It is just 3U high and has 24 DSP chips and is positioned as a back-end number cruncher controlled by any standard server - a similar architecture to that used by Cray supercomputers. There are vast streams of information coming from recorded telephone conversations. The ability to have the DSPs work in parallel speeds up analysis enormously. Spinning hard drives can't feed the DSPs fast enough, nor are they quick enough for subsequent software analysis of the data. Consequently TMS uses its solid state technology to provide a buffer up to 32GB that keeps the DSPs operating at full speed.

A cluster of five SAM-650's provides a terra flop of processing power; one trillion floating point operations per second.

Recorded signals are fed into the TMS SAM systems where the DSPs filter out the noise to produce much clearer signals that software can work on to detect individual voices, perform voice recognition, and listen out for keywords, such as, for example, "Semtex". Decryption of encrypted calls is also a likely activity."

And here is the obligatory Slashdot thread on the above article.
posted by Meridian at 12:07 AM on December 24, 2005

Please allow me a moment of outrage here.

Do you guys believe what is going on?

Look at the things that our country has started to represent : torture, surveillance, and leaders that are above the law.

Where the hell are we going?!

AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!

Sorry. I feel a little better now. Still, AAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!
posted by Afroblanco at 12:11 AM on December 24, 2005

The United States Department of Defense's Information Awareness Office and their original mission of Total Information Awareness is like something straight out of 1984.
posted by Meridian at 12:19 AM on December 24, 2005

Evidently Poindexter's TIA never really went away, did it.
posted by clevershark at 12:20 AM on December 24, 2005

and why are we in this handbasket?
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 12:21 AM on December 24, 2005

clevershark, you're right, it just got renamed and expanded. Here's some info from the above link:

"The IAO has the stated mission to gather as much information as possible about everyone, in a centralized location, for easy perusal by the United States government, including (though not limited to) Internet activity, credit card purchase histories, airline ticket purchases, car rentals, medical records, educational transcripts, driver's licenses, utility bills, tax returns, and any other available data. In essence, the IAO’s goal is to develop the capacity to recreate a life history of thoughts and movements for any individual on the planet on demand, which some deem necessary to counter the threat of terrorism. Critics claim the very existence of the IAO completely disregards the concept of individual privacy and liberties. They see the organization as far too invasive and prone to abuse."
posted by Meridian at 12:22 AM on December 24, 2005

Malor, yeah I said the same thing above, the timing of the news on the Friday evening before Christmas is no accident.
posted by stbalbach at 12:46 AM on December 24, 2005

This was their actual logo. The Latin text "scientia est potentia" means "knowledge is power".


posted by Meridian at 12:48 AM on December 24, 2005

Yeah, that logo is pretty over-the-top.

However, I figure that if you use symbolism that nutjob conspiracy theorists tend to latch on to, you all attract so many nutjobs that their voices will totally drown out those of the reasonable objectors. Then you can just point at your opposition and say, "Look, what a bunch of loonies!"

Either that, or Cheney really is one of the Illuminati, and he's trying to immanetize the eschaton.
posted by Afroblanco at 1:07 AM on December 24, 2005

That logo looks like the Illuminati intelligently designing earth!
posted by zaelic at 1:13 AM on December 24, 2005

re: keywords they are looking for -- couldn't we start a movement to jam this intrusion (I'm Canadian, but I doubt there is any distinction for these purposes) by loading every email and every telephone call and every post we make, all day, every day, with a bombshell sarin osama usama bin badboys ricin nitro sidewinder oppenheimer abdul! abdul! falafel poppies allah inshallah yemeni boxcutter blood uranium polonium anthrax buboes gaza fly united ricin ricin jihad fallout mohammed koran gitmo nader fever fahrenheit pentagon mecca chomsky umlaut baghdad biggles bangbang oops sniper kill kill fresh kills yucca axis beards burning bush sudan stealth digging digging ammo thorax deflagration detonation desecration atta atta wiretapper secret b52 kamikaze throbbing vioxx laser firefox bertha sandstorms taliban pakistan galloway capital bullseye nasty nasty nasty akbar camelbag rendezvous prague evildoers boom splat bing bang bong faisal kong chittagong frenchfries canuckisterrorist tan cardcarrying ungodly fusillade tnt woundedknee john kerry dworkin ortega ortega fallujah revenge yellowcake pretzel hubristan few key words, kind of like decoy chaff?
posted by Rumple at 1:29 AM on December 24, 2005

He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sakes.
posted by ColdChef at 1:39 AM on December 24, 2005

I wonder if this will be the thing to finally get the majority of people to start encrypting their e-mail.

heh
posted by ryoshu at 2:01 AM on December 24, 2005

Rumple: See that's the thing--I don't believe that the "key words" are necessarily about foreign terrorist-related concepts. I think that "nader" and "chomsky" and "biodiesel" are things that are going to set off the alarms.

Call me paranoid, but I'm almost at the point where I don't know if I can trust my own government.
posted by leftcoastbob at 2:47 AM on December 24, 2005

Way up, someone questioned why the New York Times sat on this story for a year and a half while the 2004 election came and went. It bears repeating. It's like the Times has Watergate envy and it's just dying to take down a President. They'd rather shoot for impeachment.

That said, this doesn't seem all that different from the COINTELPRO stuff that was going on in the sixties and seventies. Is the issue that this is the NSA and not the FBI? It doesn't matter much to me which government agency is spying on me, and I guess I just assumed they never stopped.

Regardless, it sure wasn't COINTELPRO that brought down Nixon.
posted by ScottMorris at 2:48 AM on December 24, 2005

As Pogo put it during the days of the House Unamerican Activities Committee, "Sometimes you have to destroy the forest to save the trees."

He was being ironic. The NSA isn't.
posted by Jatayu das at 2:58 AM on December 24, 2005

1) The 4th Amendment doesn't mean jack since this info isn't being used in criminal trials

Are you seriously making the argument that the police can stop me on the street, search me, search my car, drive me home, search my house, tap my phone, and take all my stuff, as long as they don't charge me with a crime?

(Of course, I suppose being charged with a crime isn't necessary anymore as a prelude to throwing me in prison to rot for the rest of my life if they want to, so why not?)
posted by EarBucket at 3:08 AM on December 24, 2005

So yeah, how 'bout that last episode of 'Joey'...
posted by nightchrome at 4:05 AM on December 24, 2005

"I'M MAD AS HELL and I'm not gonna take it anymore"
posted by fullerine at 4:18 AM on December 24, 2005

This was their actual logo. The Latin text "scientia est potentia" means "knowledge is power".

Yeah, that logo is pretty over-the-top.


As if that isn't over-the-top enough, they commissioned a mass-produced three-dimensional die cut lenticular version (think winking Jesus) through some friends of mine. I've got one of the samples.
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:14 AM on December 24, 2005

A lot of wrong thinking, confusion, missed facts could be cleared up here if one took the time to read http://www.salon.com/books/review/2001/04/25/nsa/ the second book by the guy who is up ON nsa past and present.
As forencryption etc.= forget it. They have this covered too.
posted by Postroad at 5:39 AM on December 24, 2005

Set up a honey pot to trap the NSA.
posted by caddis at 5:48 AM on December 24, 2005

never mind, amberglow has got it covered up thread
posted by caddis at 5:51 AM on December 24, 2005

caddis, don't worry: Metafilter already is that honey pot!
posted by ParisParamus at 6:14 AM on December 24, 2005

Thank you President Bush for protecting us.
posted by ParisParamus at 6:15 AM on December 24, 2005

WARNING! ParisParamus has entered the discussion. Do not engage, repeat: DO NOT ENGAGE. Keep to a safe distance. That is all.
posted by kaemaril at 6:44 AM on December 24, 2005

Heywood, et al.,

According to FISA (specifically Section 1802), the law states:

(a)(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that—

...(B) there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party;...

So, it doesn't matter if a US citizen is targeted, known or whatever. The clear wording of the law says that if there is ANY SUBSTANTIAL LIKELIHOOD that the wiretap will acquire contents of any communication of a US citizen, then it is NOT permissible under FISA.

If Bush authorized warrantless wiretaps that had any substantial likelihood of aquiring US citizen communications, then he broke the law.

Whether the law is constitutional is another matter. But the FISA is pretty clear in what it doesn't allow, here.
posted by darkstar at 7:22 AM on December 24, 2005

chakalakasp :than judicial oversight should be no obstacle at all

But it is ! Pesky activist judges can't really do what they want so ,in revenge, they apply the law as they deem fit.
Except that even the most corrupted judge decision can be further scrutinized , appealed and overthrown IF the systems records and let's the public almost-real-time access the records of what the judge said, what law was applied , when and how. So even if some terrorist judge does the bidding of terrorists, recording his judgment and the method he used will nail him to responsability.

Who will nail NSA or similar agencies when they fail tapping into Abdil Abdal Abdul because they were too busy nailing
phone sex "offenders" or maybe looking for some dirt to use against somebody ? No one, no oversight.

I bet somebody will further construct this with the logical infinite loop argument "who's going to control the controller ? " in an attempt to justify no oversight over NSA ..somebody else will play the "must be secret enemy is listening" psychosis card.

Heywood: But the disclosure that they had done this, should it come out, would be an impeachable offense even WITH a republican majority (since anyone who failed to vote to impeach/convict would be thrown out of office next election day).

Excuse my ignorance but , thrown out by who exactly ? People ? Many bought into the terrorist scare at the speed of light..certainly 9/11 did help substantiate the scare so that apologists will say "we told you" the day after any little bomb goes off..which is likely, imho, to cancel the effects of any disclosure on government wrongdoing,

That happens because the scare of death is stronger and more relevant to many then the scare of living in a police state. To reinforce the threat, constat speaking of terrorist makes one recall that terrorism exists, keeping the person depressed in scary thougts, conveniently away from toughts on other significant and more pressing issues.

I guess the lever will be, again, emotional and ideological. Terrorist have won a battle by suggesting police state over the land of freedom ; strong powers all over the country, starting from current government (that includes many dems) including private interest would like to further profit from the situation by demolishing what's left of social state, by socializing cost and privatizing profits...aka you're free to get the shaft and I'm free to get the good, but not vice versa.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety (Benjamin Franklin).
posted by elpapacito at 7:48 AM on December 24, 2005

I wonder what constitutes a police state in the modern world? If this isn't a police state, what is? Instead of wondering if family members or your neighbor are members of the apparatus of oppression, instead you look at your telephone and computer with apprehension and suspicion. The Orwellian nightmare is impersonal which has left a majority of ill-prepared to identify it as such.

In a twist of irony, members of the Nixon administration (John Dean and others) have called the Bush administration scary because it was more secretive than Nixon's White House and the FISA Court was established as a response to Nixon's spying on Americans (war protestors, political enemies, etc.) and Bush went around that.

Hmm. Does this qualify as a high crime or misdemeanor?

"See no evil, hear no evil."
posted by Mijo Bijo at 8:21 AM on December 24, 2005

Man, this is a lot more convenient than asking the British secret service to eavesdrop on US calls.
posted by Nelson at 8:26 AM on December 24, 2005

Geez, the alcoholic, failed-businessman who rose to the presidency through a combination of scare tactics, divisive politicking, judicial coup, and (perhaps) electronic ballot stuffing, whose initial victor took place in the State where his brother is governor and whose Secretary of State was the Bush state campaign co-chairperson, whose presidency has been marked by a failure to act on intelligence that the US was going to be attackede by terrorists, whose response to that attack was to launch an unrelated, inept war that has included torturing prisoners, whose vice president was president of the very company that gets the biggest contracts for cleaning up all these disasters, who could barely be roused to respond to the destruction via flooding of an American city, and who has led this country into the deppest debt in the history of the world is also illegally spying on US citizens and has repeatedly lied about the fact?

It's just so hard to believe.

Sorry about the run-on sentence.
posted by maxsparber at 8:40 AM on December 24, 2005

Oh, by the way, merry Christmas/
posted by maxsparber at 8:41 AM on December 24, 2005

"Hmm. Does this qualify as a high crime or misdemeanor?"

No, it's a completely Constitutional use of executive powers in the realm of national security. And if you don't believe me, I invite you to commence suit in federal court--the courts are closed on Monday, but they open at 8:30am on Tuesday.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:42 AM on December 24, 2005

Justice Roberts and future Justice Alito look forward to it!
posted by ParisParamus at 8:43 AM on December 24, 2005

Sorry about the run-on sentence.

The last 5 years has been a horrid run-on sentence that's been in need of a period.
posted by Mijo Bijo at 8:44 AM on December 24, 2005

There you go, Paris ruling what is Constitutional or not :) Merry Xmas and Happy New Year !
posted by elpapacito at 8:45 AM on December 24, 2005

And Happy Chanukah--may be Greeks be defeated again and again.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:50 AM on December 24, 2005

There you go, Paris ruling what is Constitutional or not.

Please don't entertain the troll. When you hear his footsteps, just let him continue to his cave, don't invite him in for dinner.
posted by Mijo Bijo at 8:51 AM on December 24, 2005

Troll á la Metafilter: anyone you don't agree with who is clever and tenacious enough to take on your bullshit.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:56 AM on December 24, 2005

ParisParamus - I think that referring to you as a troll in this context is well-justified.

You come to the thread, and throw out some divisive remarks without backing up your statements with anything substantive whatsoever.

How about this - instead of kicking us in the shins and running away, why don't you try to counter some of that arguments that have already been laid down in this thread?
posted by Afroblanco at 9:04 AM on December 24, 2005

darkstar:

The clear wording of the law says that if there is ANY SUBSTANTIAL LIKELIHOOD that the wiretap will acquire contents of any communication of a US citizen, then it is NOT permissible under FISA.

But look at what surveillance is defined as. If the collection is not surveillance, it is not covered by the provisions you cite.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 9:33 AM on December 24, 2005

PP: here's some examples of your trolling in this thread:


caddis, don't worry: Metafilter already is that honey pot!

Thank you President Bush for protecting us.

HTH. HAND. Funny how it's left to me to actually present a rational defense of the administration's actions, as opposed to continual stream of smoke and taunts that you offer us here.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 9:37 AM on December 24, 2005

No, those are funny. Grow up. And lighten up.
posted by ParisParamus at 9:41 AM on December 24, 2005

Every time I think the Bush administration couldn't possibly get any worse...

I'm actually nostalgic for the days when he was only a threat to voting rights, fair elections, ANWR, Social Security and Medicaid; back when he'd just taken office. Boy, those were the good old days.
posted by Soliloquy at 9:47 AM on December 24, 2005

But look at what surveillance is defined as. If the collection is not surveillance, it is not covered by the provisions you cite.

What is the collection then? Sounds like semantics to me.
posted by Mijo Bijo at 9:51 AM on December 24, 2005

PP: outside of the taunts and "jests", you have made one point in this thread:

"It's a completely Constitutional use of executive powers in the realm of national security".

However, this is just a bald assertion with no supporting basis. It is perfectly worthless, which is entirely par for the course with you. Come on, kick up your game here.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 9:52 AM on December 24, 2005

No, those are funny. Grow up. And lighten up.

You must be the Andy Kauffman of Metafilter.
posted by Mijo Bijo at 9:54 AM on December 24, 2005

Mijo: In the other NSA thread I posted what FISA defines as surveillance.

Basically:

1) Collecting communications without targetting a specific, known US person

2) tapping a cable outside the US

3) snooping a radio call when one party is outside the US

is defined as NOT surveillance for the purposes of FISA.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 9:54 AM on December 24, 2005

Sounds like semantics to me

:) The Law is 90% semantics and 10% wishful thinking.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 10:06 AM on December 24, 2005

Heywood: The FISA court has only rejected four requests in its history of nearly 20,000 applications. It is very apparrent that what was going on violated the standards for FISA. It's the only logical reason to go around it.

I think Bush, so far, has underestimated the American people's loathing of this behavior and the "I was protecting you" argument has grown very thin. I agree that there are some situations that arise as president that may warrant you to cast aside the rules (ever so briefly), but a strong pattern has emerged. This isn't an isolated case of "this is a very bad guy, and the normal means wouldn't have worked." This is a systematic shitting upon the constitution and the rule of law.
posted by Mijo Bijo at 10:17 AM on December 24, 2005

andy kaufmann was fucking funny.
posted by quonsar at 10:26 AM on December 24, 2005

But look at what surveillance is defined as. If the collection is not surveillance, it is not covered by the provisions you cite.

Okay - you honestly might have a point here, in that the semantics could concievably be on your side. However, any judge that actually reviewed this would clearly not be on your side. When your argument rests on semantics, it's generally seen as sleazy and unfair.

Because, according to you, it would be illegal for the government to tap my phone without a warrant (or FISA approval after-the-fact). Yet, it would be perfectly legal to tap the switch through which my call passes on its way to china, along with the millions of other calls that switch handles. There is no good way to segregate those calls before monitoring them.

You see, I did make a call to china, and that call did have to pass through a switch at our borders. Do you understand what I'm saying here? My call data is most likely stored at NSA right now because it passed through a border switch. And you think that's fine, because of semantics?

All that aside - can you provide any indication that there is any oversight at all in this operation? If not, why is that okay? Do you understand why our laws require oversight? Why it's useful at all?
posted by odinsdream at 10:30 AM on December 24, 2005

I disagree that batch surveillance violates FISA, but I guess that will come out. The admin really isn't contesting this point about FISA, but the mention of TIA in what's-his-faces secret letter to Cheney indicates to me that that what's been going on.

The admin wants to keep appearances up that its wiretaps are simple affairs of tapping into single conversations, and thus applicable to FISA regulation, not the wholesale collection of /everyones/ messages, which apparently isn't even covered under FISA.

If I were running the NSA surveillance, I'd sweep everything up and analyze it later, getting warrants to listen to older convos as required.

This is how we won the war in WW2 -- we recorded enemy messages, then worked back as best we could, often old messages went unreadable for months, then we got a break and were able to read them.

The potential for abuse is immense, but the benefit to anti-terrorist work is also immense.

Funny thing is that FISA *does* protect domestic convos rather well. It's only people communication overseas that have a privacy issue.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 10:37 AM on December 24, 2005

This whole thread could be monitored right now, because somebody is loading this page from outside the U.S.
posted by Mijo Bijo at 10:37 AM on December 24, 2005

"It's a completely Constitutional use of executive powers in the realm of national security"

you're asking me to prove a negative. If no court has ruled on the activity in question, it's not illegal.
posted by ParisParamus at 10:41 AM on December 24, 2005

Even Barron's is calling for an investigation and then either changing the laws or impeachment.--...Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment.

It is important to be clear that an impeachment case, if it comes to that, would not be about wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into law. ...
posted by amberglow at 10:42 AM on December 24, 2005

This is how we won the war in WW2 -- we recorded enemy messages, then worked back as best we could, often old messages went unreadable for months, then we got a break and were able to read them.

Inside America? Your argument is flawed, nobody is debating the legitimacy of collecting and surveilling foreign communications. During the John Bolton nomination hearings an issue was raised about his requesting the identities of American citizens that popped up during legitimate intelligence gathering in foreign countries.

As an American citizen, if I were to be in a foreign country and talk to somebody (intentionally or randomly) who is under surveillance by the U.S., any report handed to somebody in the administration would identify me as "American Citizen". My name and any photo of my face would be blurred, because I am protected from unwarranted surveillance from my own government. They can request my identity (and most of the time it will be revealed after a review of the request).
posted by Mijo Bijo at 10:46 AM on December 24, 2005

If no court has ruled on the activity in question, it's not illegal.
You're wrong. The FISA Act is crystal clear, and Ashcroft went to court to get it changed and he was rebuffed--the administration knew it was illegal all along.--...
On May 17, 2002, the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court ruled that portions of guidelines issued by Attorney General John Ashcroft on intelligence sharing violated federal law. The court said the policy established by Ashcroft, who cited the Patriot Act for his authority, shortcut the Constitution and FISA by replacing existing surveillance requirements used for criminal prosecution with the more lax FISA requirements.

In its ruling, the court cited the constitutional right to privacy of U.S. citizens, saying Ashcroft's policy "was not reasonably designed or 'consistent with the need of the United States to obtain, produce, or disseminate foreign intelligence information'" as mandated by FISA. Prior to the Patriot Act, FISA had been interpreted by attorneys general and the FISA Court as having mandated a "wall" between the criminal and intelligence sides of an investigation. In this ruling, the FISA Court felt that the new procedures issued by the attorney general had illegally dismantled that wall.

The FISA Court also said the powers given to criminal investigators by Ashcroft might allow the government to illegally use intelligence information in criminal cases. ...
posted by amberglow at 10:46 AM on December 24, 2005

Look, was it better when the secret government funded itself by dealing cocaine, in the Reagan/Contra days?

Look at the published prices of stocks just before big deals or earnings are announced -- they spike up.

Someone knows what's coming and profits.

Surely it's better to fund the secret government programs by skimming profits off business transactions before they're announced to the public, than by transporting cocaine, eh?

Every free market has freebooters. We elect ours. So?

Heck, they could probably fund the whole business just by re-stealing already stolen money by intercepting and redirecting wire transfers. The government's already paid off the insured account holders, so it's basically free money!

Just speculating, mkind you.
posted by hank at 10:53 AM on December 24, 2005

I'm beginning to become quite curious as to what actions the Administration could take that would finally push everyone over the edge.

From what I'm reading on MeFi, there's literally nothing the government can do that would force some of our metacitizens to turn against the government.

For a collection of pretty smart folk, it's a little alarming that that is possible.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:53 AM on December 24, 2005

This is how we won the war in WW2 -- we recorded enemy messages, then worked back as best we could, often old messages went unreadable for months, then we got a break and were able to read them.

That's a different matter. In WW2, we were recording only known enemy messages. In this case, we're collecting everyone's messages.

The admin wants to keep appearances up that its wiretaps are simple affairs of tapping into single conversations, and thus applicable to FISA regulation, not the wholesale collection of /everyones/ messages, which apparently isn't even covered under FISA.

So, correct me if I'm wrong - you're saying that the government is trying to prove that they didn't violate FISA, because they don't want people to know that they were engaged in an activity that is completely beyond the scope of FISA?

If that is the case, then you're saying that this whole thing is more of a PR disaster for the Bushies then anything else, correct?
posted by Afroblanco at 10:56 AM on December 24, 2005

If no court has ruled on the activity in question, it's not illegal.

True, that's what allows some people to whip out their cock and splooge all all over Metafilter every day.
posted by afx114 at 11:19 AM on December 24, 2005

There's four issues here (or more):

1) The collection of foreign communications by NSA, including US citizen's convos therein

it is unclear to what extent our convos are being recorded, but FISA apparently doesn't really cover much in this area.

2) The "sharing" of these foreign communications outside NSA, with eg. the DoJ.

this is apparently what Ashcroft was trying to get expanded.

3) Our rights as free citizens not to have our convos recorded as protected by the 1st, 4th, and 9th amendments

this is a judicial and political issue

4) What specific authorities the Executive is using to spy on Americans

After 9/11 the Congress gave war powers to the administration. Inherent in these powers is the authority to aggressively collect intelligence on foreign powers and agents thereof. Even prior to 9/11, this being a dangerous world, the adminstration has some authorities as the seat of Executive power to preserve the public's safety to engage in foreign intelligence collection.

The issue of where Congress's Constitutional authorities begins and the Executives' Constiutional authorities ends is the interesting part, but so far I haven't seen an argument that the NSA collection is violating any statutory restriction on the Executive's powers.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 11:21 AM on December 24, 2005

then you're saying that this whole thing is more of a PR disaster for the Bushies then anything else, correct?

like TIA was, yes. Bush is apparently very, very mad that this leaked out. Plus there's the delicious possibility that abuses of some nature have occurred. That would torpedo the Republicans in 2006 like Nixon's abuses torpedoed them in 1974.

Though since I'm just a guy on the internets -- I could be totally wrong about eg. FISA not covering batch wiretaps of calls to Afghanistan. But I don't think I am, I think there were technical reasons why the language in FISA is so "semantically" legalistic.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 11:26 AM on December 24, 2005

"You're wrong. The FISA Act is crystal clear, and "


OK. I look forward the return of Democrat control to Congress in 2006 and to the Presidency in 2008. I also look forward to Howard Dick...um I mean Dean leading the way...
posted by ParisParamus at 11:29 AM on December 24, 2005

Isn't there an old saying about being careful not to become that which you hate?

The USA looks more and more like the old Soviet Russia every day. Spying on one's old citizens? That's right out of the commie regime playbook.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:35 AM on December 24, 2005

3) Our rights as free citizens not to have our convos recorded as protected by the 1st, 4th, and 9th amendments

this is a judicial and political issue

God you're dense. That's the whole fucking issue right there. It isn't some goddamn sideshow we're just talking about for the hell of it - it's the entire basis for being concerned.

Back up your "war powers" assertion, my friend. If the president has war powers, I suppose that's only during a time of war, right? Well, what war are we fighting right now? And, since you're so good with semantics, I'm going to ask that you find an actual government document (hint: Declaration of War) that indicates who we are at war with, who declared war on whom, and when. That should be easy, right? You know, since these supposed "war powers" apparently give the president carte blanch, it would be pretty useful to actually know whether we're at war first.

There is no authority to do what they're doing. If FISA doesn't apply, then normal rules do - you use FISA if what you're doing isn't already covered by normal rules - like if you want to start a tap right now and get approval later. Just because FISA doesn't cover this stuff, doesn't mean it's "whee...we can do whatever we want!" No.. it means you fall back on the old rules - where you can do even less stuff.

Fuck bush for being "mad" that this leaked out. How about making a real goddamn intelligence agency with humans on the ground working to actually uncover real networks, rather than going on fishing expeditions to literally invent the networks out of thin air. Welcome to the cold war - this is the exact same thing that Wolfowitz' buddies did back then - there was no good evidence that there was a soviet threat - so instead of accepting that, they concluded that the lack of evidence was actually evidence that it was really there, just hidden really good.

This is what these kinds of cast-net operations generate - the ability to back up your unfounded suspicions with statistical noise presented as fact. We are going in completely the wrong direction. Terrorist threat my ass, it's made up, and you bought it, fool.
posted by odinsdream at 11:41 AM on December 24, 2005

The Barron's article:

"The most important presidential responsibility under Article II is that he must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." That includes following the requirements of laws that limit executive power."

As I tried to point out earlier, the Constitution is the supreme authority, not Congress, so Congress cannot abrogate any Constitutional authorities of the Executive (they can try, but our Judiciary will nullify these laws as unconstitutional).
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 11:42 AM on December 24, 2005

But look at what surveillance is defined as. If the collection is not surveillance, it is not covered by the provisions you cite.

This is an important point. You (or in this case the NSA) can get alot of information by just monitoring where communications go. If the NSA isn't listening in on the information then they are not violating FISA. It's a loophole.

Plus there's the delicious possibility that abuses of some nature have occurred.

Ask Bill Richardson. He has a few choice words for John Bolton and NSA intercepts.
posted by ryoshu at 11:50 AM on December 24, 2005

this is just a bald assertion with no supporting basis

PP is bald? I knew it!
posted by srboisvert at 11:54 AM on December 24, 2005

Rumple: see the NSA Line Eater from the good old days of the Internet.
posted by mrbill at 11:55 AM on December 24, 2005

It isn't some goddamn sideshow we're just talking about for the hell of it - it's the entire basis for being concerned.

I agree, but there are other charges, eg. that this surveillance is or is not contrary to FISA statutes, that can be talked about intelligently.

Back up your "war powers" assertion, my friend. If the president has war powers, I suppose that's only during a time of war, right? Well, what war are we fighting right now?

We are fighting two legally distinct wars right now, one against the people who attacked us on 9/11 and one against Iraqi regime.

And, since you're so good with semantics, I'm going to ask that you find an actual government document (hint: Declaration of War) that indicates who we are at war with, who declared war on whom, and when. That should be easy, right? You know, since these supposed "war powers" apparently give the president carte blanch, it would be pretty useful to actually know whether we're at war first.

That would be the two separate War Powers authorization acts passed by Congress in 2001, and 2002.

There is no authority to do what they're doing. If FISA doesn't apply, then normal rules do

In the interests of precision, what are "normal rules"?

Fuck bush for being "mad" that this leaked out. How about making a real goddamn intelligence agency with humans on the ground working to actually uncover real networks, rather than going on fishing expeditions to literally invent the networks out of thin air.

As Seinfeld's Newman said, "He who controls the mail, controls Information!". Information war is an important dimension to the modern battlefield. Our enemies rely on electronic communications to make their plans. We have the power to find that information, by eg. tapping every call into Afghanistan.

There's a constitutional doctrine of balancing interests -- we have an interest in privacy BUT we also have an interest in not getting blowed up, or having our soldiers in Afghanistan die needlessly.

It's not the collection itself that is injurious to our freedoms -- it is the potential for abuse that is troubling.

Welcome to the cold war - this is the exact same thing that Wolfowitz' buddies did back then - there was no good evidence that there was a soviet threat - so instead of accepting that, they concluded that the lack of evidence was actually evidence that it was really there, just hidden really good.

well, the soviet threat was existential in the sense of undermining the neoliberal capitalist order. We're seeing echoes of this now with Venezuela and Bolivia.

This is what these kinds of cast-net operations generate - the ability to back up your unfounded suspicions with statistical noise presented as fact. We are going in completely the wrong direction. Terrorist threat my ass, it's made up, and you bought it, fool.

I really don't think this attitude is going to win many elections.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 11:56 AM on December 24, 2005

well, the soviet threat was existential in the sense of undermining the neoliberal capitalist order. We're seeing echoes of this now with Venezuela and Bolivia.

I want to apologise for interacting with you. I was under the impression that you were at least slightly logical. Clearly, you're out of your mind.
posted by odinsdream at 11:59 AM on December 24, 2005

This is what these kinds of cast-net operations generate - the ability to back up your unfounded suspicions with statistical noise presented as fact.

It also represents a horribly ineffective security countermeasure. In any such system ever demonstrated, the number of false positives typically outweigh the number of "correct" positives by a margin of at least 100,000 to one. With such a failure rate, the system is worse then useless - it's harmful. You're going to spend a ridiculous amount of resources chasing down false leads, violating the civil rights of many innocents in the process. Even worse, when you're accustomed to such a high failure rate, the "Crying Wolf" effect sets in, and people will start to ignore the "threats" detected by this system, thinking that "they're just another one of many false positives."
posted by Afroblanco at 12:11 PM on December 24, 2005

This brief article from early 2001 shows what the NSA was (allegedly) doing prior to Bush taking office.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 12:24 PM on December 24, 2005

Afro: saving data to disk is no "ridiculous amount of resources". Well it is, but the NSA has an even more ridiculous amount of resources available to it.

heh, it wouldn't surprise me that this is a DoD takedown of the NSA. Rumsfeld's buddies want to get in on this action... TIA was a DARPA project, not NSA-affiliated.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 12:28 PM on December 24, 2005

afro: I posted this elsewhere, but this is how the NSA's effort could pay off:

1) Record every call to/from Pakistan

2) Bust into a safehouse in Pakistan, find a phone

3) Pull up the calls made to/from this phone

4) Get search warrants for US person's communications involved, probable cause being having called a phone that was found in a safehouse.

No statutory violations here, AFAIK... Point 1 has constitutional fears of possible abuse, but the SCOTUS cannot adjudicate on possible harms, only actual harms. Congress can further outlaw this, should it choose to do so, and I don't think the Executive would have a strong enough case to argue to the SCOTUS that it had a constitutional prerogative to record americans convos without a warrant.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 12:35 PM on December 24, 2005

Where the hell are we going?!

No no no my friend, we're already here.

This isn't potential future abuse of power, it's actual, already-occurring abuse of power.
posted by beth at 12:39 PM on December 24, 2005

Hey Heywood. Please post an e-mail address!
posted by ParisParamus at 12:43 PM on December 24, 2005

Yes, we're already in hell, and/or the Soviet Union. How utterly detached from reality.
posted by ParisParamus at 12:44 PM on December 24, 2005

We are fighting two legally distinct wars right now, one against the people who attacked us on 9/11 and one against Iraqi regime.

don't forget christmas!
posted by quonsar at 12:47 PM on December 24, 2005

Thanks mrbill. I like how they say it would ahve been cheaper and more effective to hire 50 high school students to do the job. If only they would now hire 50 elementary school students to review their ethics and constitutional law.

A thunderbird extension that auto-generated spy words and/or generated a bunch of apparent crypto, and attached to each email would be sweet. The NSA methods absolutely have to be vulnerable to mass warculture jamming.
posted by Rumple at 12:51 PM on December 24, 2005

Afro: saving data to disk is no "ridiculous amount of resources". Well it is, but the NSA has an even more ridiculous amount of resources available to it.

I'm not talking about the feasibility of saving the information. I'm talking about the feasibility of acting based on that information. If you cannot act based on the information, then the information is worthless then, no?
posted by Afroblanco at 1:29 PM on December 24, 2005

afro: I posted this elsewhere, but this is how the NSA's effort could pay off:

This is, of course, assuming that we can find the safehouses to begin with. If we knew how to find the safehouses, then we wouldn't need these cast-net operations, would we? We could just track all calls to this safehouse, period. This would be far different from "tracking all calls made to Pakistan," and would be far more legal.

(and by legal, I mean in the traditionalist sense, not the weird, semantic sense that you've been floating in this debate)
posted by Afroblanco at 1:36 PM on December 24, 2005

"We could just track all calls to this safehouse, period. This would be far different from "tracking all calls made to Pakistan," and would be far more legal."

Both are legal; one is just less intrusive.
posted by ParisParamus at 1:37 PM on December 24, 2005

The Constitution doesn't guarantee you absolute privacy. It guarantees you a level of privacy against which "compelling state interests" are balanced.
posted by ParisParamus at 1:40 PM on December 24, 2005

I'm talking about the feasibility of acting based on that information. If you cannot act based on the information, then the information is worthless then, no?

And I gave you a credible case above as to how the information is actionable.

There's no analysis cost for having the big database. The database is just a time machine, enabling the analysts to surveil convos in the past should they desire.

And I would expect the ability to automatically suss out connection networks (A called B, B called C, C called A) would be very useful. We brought AQ to trial in early 2001 with this technology:

Just before the Aug. 7 embassy bombings, a suicide bomber, Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-Owhali, contacted an Al Qaeda number in Yemen from a safe house in Nairobi. Owhali called that same number the next day from a hospital clinic and would make a series of phone calls from Nairobi to Yemen.

The indictment clearly links bin Laden's satellite telephone calls to the East Africa bombings in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam.

On Aug. 11, two days after the bombings were completed, bin Laden's satellite number phone was used to contact network operatives in Yemen, at a number frequently called by perpetrators of the bombing from their safe house in Nairobi.

What pulled all this information together?

A system called ECHELON is said to be mainly responsible, according to U.S. government officials who requested anonymity.

link
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 1:40 PM on December 24, 2005

I now clear to me why the republican talking points are aligning on this idea of data-mining, why they refer to the FISA court as being not 'agile' enough: They want to simultaneously tap millions of people.

They best part about their argument is the claim that they are only 'looking for trends' or 'skimming the surface' of the data.

That argument is a cleverly disguised, implicit, assertion that their capabilities are restrained by the volume of data. That they cannot, or will not, view the whole picture. They leave out, that, because they have direct access to major routers on the backbones, they can view any data they choose with perfect resolution. They are limited only by what algorithms they employ, and the hardware they are willing to pay for. Meridian touched on the type of hardware it takes to do this crap, and *just* on the front end of the data vacuum. But lets face it, they have no real limit on that side of things. They can buy supercomputers 'till the cows come home.

People need to understand that the NSA may only be 'skimming the surface' of a deep pool of data now; But, every year, the ability for Echelon to probe deeper into that pool of data will increase. Every year, the system will have a better view of the gestalt. It will also have an intimate view of the individual, the singular. (of course it might be a parameterized form of the gestalt, crude and explicit). This system can do both at the same moment, take in the whole of the traffic flow, and scrutinize each datum, endlessly. People need to know that this is a rapidly evolving situation; Our capabilities, with regards to technology, are not pegged down in any rational sense.
posted by kuatto at 1:49 PM on December 24, 2005

It's now...
posted by kuatto at 1:53 PM on December 24, 2005

If we knew how to find the safehouses, then we wouldn't need these cast-net operations, would we? We could just track all calls to this safehouse, period.

there is a forensic nature to this investigation that you are missing. Your guys-on-the-ground find a guy somewhere in Pakistan. He has a computer in his room. Wouldn't it be great to see all the messages this guy sent to/from this computer, and to whom, even if he takes great care to wipe the hard-drive regularly? Call the echelon guys. They've got the info. One of his AQ friends has a phone. Wouldn't it be great to listen to all the calls he's made with this phone? Call the echelon guys. They've got the calls on tape. And so it goes.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 2:00 PM on December 24, 2005

You know, as much as I oppose wholesale surveillance simply on principal, my main objections are this :

1) The crudity of their algorithms, and the likelihood that they will turn up so many false positives that the system will be useless and harmful
2) That, once they analyze the information, they will not only keep information related to "guilty" parties, but the innocent ones as well

and, most importantly,

3) The potential for abuse.

It's well documented that the reason for FISA in the first place was as a response to the abuses of the Nixon administration. The Bushies want new abilities? Fine. Let them go through the proper channels and not break the law. By bypassing the current system of safeguards and using slippery, specious reasoning in an attempt to explain their actions and wriggle out of the consequences, they draw a lot of suspicion to themselves, which, in this case, I think is completely warranted.
posted by Afroblanco at 2:04 PM on December 24, 2005

there is a forensic nature to this investigation that you are missing.

Still, I'd like to think that the person on the American end of the connection is still innocent until proven guilty, or at very least, unmonitored until that person falls under "reasonable suspicion."

As fine-grained, granular, and semantic as you want to get with the letter of the law, it comes down to this very basic principal - should we be able to monitor people who have ostensibly done nothing wrong?

I don't buy the "wartime powers" argument, nor do I buy any line of reasoning to the effect of "because Osama is such a bad man!" I've never bought into the idea of a "War on Terrorism," nor do I buy into any of the other various "Wars" our country wages on various social phenomenon (drugs, poverty, etc.) The concept of a never-ending "War" against an ambiguous, conceptually-defined entity is an extremely slippery slope, and straight out of 1984. This is stuff I learned in HIGHSCHOOL, forchrissakes! Unfortunately, Americans' tacit acceptance of the "War on Drugs" laid the groundwork for much of what we're seeing today vis a vis civil liberties and "The War on Terrorism."

I say we put an end to this dangerous semantic garbage for once and for all.

A "War" is fought between nations. Countries. They have borders. And armies. And diplomats.

Terrorists are criminals. They may be international criminals. They may be part of an immense underground network. They may even have a consistant ideology. I don't care. They're criminals and murderers, plain and simple.

The rule of law should not change simply because we are dealing with a different sort of criminal.
posted by Afroblanco at 2:18 PM on December 24, 2005

Still, I'd like to think that the person on the American end of the connection is still innocent until proven guilty, or at very least, unmonitored until that person falls under "reasonable suspicion."

But don't you see? Nobody is without suspicion under this system. Everyone's activity is recorded "just in case" it needs to be reviewed in the future.

The point is not that this can be done, or even that it might be useful. I could make up lots of methods that would absolutely prevent certain kinds of attacks from ever happening - but my methods would require an enormous abuse of civil liberties and basic constitutional principles. We don't live in that kind of world - where safety is more important than freedom. I certainly don't want to. A handful of people in this thread clearly do. Unfortunately for them, there is no such thing as perpetual safety, that's a utopia that can never be obtained. These people will end up living in a world with less rights, but the same amount of daily fear. Good for you.

As for "war powers" somehow implying we're at war - nice Catch-22. When does the president get to execute war powers? When we're at war. When are we at war? When the president says so, by executing war powers. Yeah, nice game you've got there. In reality, war is defined by a Declaration of War, not by speeches.
posted by odinsdream at 2:32 PM on December 24, 2005

AQ has perpetrated some serious acts of war, like bombing our embassies in Africa and other things.

Criminal threats deserve criminal prosecutions, but AQ is something more than a criminal enterprise.

While I share some of the paranoia, I also think that our institutions can handle the responsibility in the end. cf. the Church Committee's report disclosing to the public the FBI's abuses.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 2:39 PM on December 24, 2005

AQ is something more than a criminal enterprise.

And this, I believe, is our fundamental difference in opinion.
posted by Afroblanco at 2:41 PM on December 24, 2005