Officials Say NSA Probed Fewer Than 300 Numbers - Broke Plots In 20 Nations

cold fjord writes "Yet more details about the controversy engulfing the NSA. From CNET: 'Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, explained how the program worked without violating individuals' civil rights. "We take the business records by a court order, and it's just phone numbers — no names, no addresses — put it in a lock box," Rogers told CBS News' "Face The Nation." "And if they get a foreign terrorist overseas that's dialing in to the United Sates, they take that phone number... they plug it into this big pile, if you will, of just phone numbers — it's like a phonebook without any names and any addresses with it — to see if there's a connection, a foreign terrorist connection to the United States." "When a number comes out of that lock box, it's just a phone number — no names, no addresses," he said. "If they think that's relevant to their counterterrorism investigation, they give that to the FBI. Then upon the FBI has to go out and meet all the legal standards to even get whose phone number that is."' From the AP: ' ... programs run by the National Security Agency thwarted potential terrorist plots in the U.S. and more than 20 other countries — and that gathered data is destroyed every five years. Last year, fewer than 300 phone numbers were checked against the database of millions of U.S. phone records ... the intelligence officials said in arguing that the programs are far less sweeping than their detractors allege.... both NSA programs are reviewed every 90 days by the secret court authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Under the program, the records, showing things like time and length of call, can only be examined for suspected connections to terrorism, they said. The ... program helped the NSA stop a 2009 al-Qaida plot to blow up New York City subways.'"

I gave up a while back..

[SuperCharlie]

For around 3 years I posted regularly that this was coming, I warned everyone I could about this. I explained why it was important. I was called tinfoil hat, I was humiliated, I was belittled and I was told I was a moron. I gave up. I dont care. Its too late and guess what.. it only takes the APPEARANCE of 51% of the sheep to keep this ball of hell chugging along. Screw every one of you who said "if youre not doing anything wrong.." and "there is no way they have that much control" and the myriad other excuses to get back to American Idol. Screw. You.

cold fjord returns...

[GameboyRMH]

...to gush loving, glowing praise over unchecked, jackbooted authority like a Twihard over (Edward/Jacob) once again.

You can't trust anything the NSA says at all. They have everything to gain by lying their asses off and nothing to lose. Assume they're intercepting and recording anything (which personally, I'm pretty sure they're doing) and don't assume that there are any limitations to their access to that info. If you buy any of the backpedaling that's been coming out in the last few days, much of it submitted to Slashdot by cold fjord...well I have a bridge you might be interested in.

Even if this article describes the access interface of some analyst at some agency...all the info is still there, your privacy was still violated.

The Zazi Lie

[Bob9113]

The ... program helped the NSA stop a 2009 al-Qaida plot to blow up New York City subways.

That is at best an extreme exaggeration of the value of the cell phone records. I'm sure his data was in the database, and was probably accessed after he was discovered, but his plot was discovered as a result of monitoring that was (or easily would have been) warranted.

Wikipedia: Operation Pathway [wikipedia.org]:

On November 9 2009 The Telegraph reported that the operation produced the tip that lead American security officials to place Najibullah Zazi under investigation. British security officials were reported to have intercepted an email from a Pakistani planner to Najibullah Zazi containing instructions on how to conduct his attack.

The Telegraph: British Spies / Zazi [telegraph.co.uk]:

The alleged plot was unmasked after an email address that was being monitored as part of the abortive Operation Pathway was suddenly reactivated.

Operation Pathway was investigating an alleged UK terrorist cell but went awry after the then Met Police counter-terrorism head Bob Quick was pictured walking into Downing Street displaying top secret documents.

Eleven Pakistani suspects were arrested immediately after the gaffe but later released without charge.

However, security staff continued to monitor the email address which eventually yielded results.

BS. LIes and more lies

[Lawrence_Bird]

program helped the NSA stop a 2009 al-Qaida plot to blow up New York City subways

No, what happened was (from Buzzfed)

Public — though not widely publicized — details of the Zazi plot cast into doubt the notion that a data mining program had much to do with the investigation. Zazi traveled to Pakistan in 2008 to train with al Qaeda. He was charged in 2009 with leading two other men in a plot to detonate suicide bombs in the New York subways.

The path to his capture, according to the public records, began in April 2009, when British authorities arrested several suspected terrorists. According to a 2010 ruling from Britain’s Special Immigration Appeals Commission, one of the suspects’ computers included email correspondence with an address in Pakistan....

Later that year, according to a transcript of Zazi’s July, 2011 trial, Zazi emailed his al Qaeda handler in Pakistan for help with the recipe for his bombs. He sent his inquiry to the same email address: [e-mail].

An FBI agent, Eric Jurgenson, testified, “I was notified, I should say. My office was in receipt of several e-mail messages, e-mail communications.” Those emails — from Zazi to the same [e-mail] — “led to the investigation,” he testified.

Another case cited by that wonderduo Feinstein and Rodgers is of Headley. who cased the Mumbai hotel. Rather that quote why the NSA program had little if anything to do with his arrest (note he was previously a prized drug enforment for the DEA), just read this [propublica.org].

Re:I'm sure it's effective

[AthanasiusKircher]

Your're right- non religious people do bad things too. They usually need to be a sociopath to do evil things.

You may want to read up on various psychological experiments that how "normal people" can easily end up doing evil things -- even if they are just put in a situation of authority [wikipedia.org] or simply told that a scientific experiment requires them to torture other people [wikipedia.org].