Snowden Strikes Again: NSA Mapping Social Connections of US Citizens 513
McGruber writes "The New York Times is reporting on yet another NSA revelation: for the last three years, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans' social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information. 'The agency can augment the communications data with material from public, commercial and other sources, including bank codes, insurance information, Facebook profiles, passenger manifests, voter registration rolls and GPS location information, as well as property records and unspecified tax data, according to the documents. They do not indicate any restrictions on the use of such "enrichment" data, and several former senior Obama administration officials said the agency drew on it for both Americans and foreigners.' In a memorandum, NSA analysts were 'told that they could trace the contacts of Americans as long as they cited a foreign intelligence justification.' 'That could include anything from ties to terrorism, weapons proliferation or international drug smuggling to spying on conversations of foreign politicians, business figures or activists. Analysts were warned to follow existing "minimization rules," which prohibit the NSA from sharing with other agencies names and other details of Americans whose communications are collected, unless they are necessary to understand foreign intelligence reports or there is evidence of a crime. The agency is required to obtain a warrant from the intelligence court to target a "U.S. person" — a citizen or legal resident — for actual eavesdropping.'"
Go Team.. (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Well, Facebook doesn't have drones (yet)
Re:Go Team.. (Score:5, Funny)
Sure it does, some people just drone on and on...
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People don't care because they're too stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately people just don't seem to care. They say "oh, that's terrible!" and that's the end of the discussion. While they may say it's terrible, they do absolutely nothing about it and just let it be and anyone that tries to do anything about it gets pushed as the enemy. The majority of American citizens voted for this behavior, and the majority of the American citizens support this behavior whether they willingly acknowledge this or not. If they don't support it then they should do something about it, even if it's just writing to their state representatives or something of the sort. Believe it or not, a lot of congress don't even believe this is going on or even know it's happening. They do whatever their advisers tell them to do and they learn about the things their advisers tell them about. Confronting them is the first step to changing the country into something better. You may not believe that congress will listen but this is politics and when people get angry they will listen.
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Re:People don't care because they're too stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
modern rebellion is only done in 2 ways. 1. stop spending 2. stop working. guns would be ineffective...
Guns, lots of guns, are one of the biggest reasons behind what is currently dissuading the government from just saying "screw it", and going full martial-law/internment camp/mass graves/brutal tyranny. Civilian guns are a strong disincentive against widespread domestic use of government armed force against the population by making it a very very costly and, like occupying/pacifying Afghanistan, likely in reality to be an impossible goal to achieve or maintain for any meaningful length of time.
One significant "tell" is that all the politicians seem to be talking about lately is regulating/restricting/banning medium and long range semi-automatic rifles that history shows are used in so very few crimes it's ridiculous, not so much handguns. Handguns are not nearly as effective against a military or para-military occupation/pacification force as are rifles.
Guns, lots of guns, would be one of the biggest reasons the government would not simply immediately imprison/kill all those organizing, promoting, and/or participating in your "stop working and stop spending" plan.
Strat
Re:People don't care because they're too stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the reason for not going "full martial-law/internment camp/mass graves/brutal tyranny" is because it serves no point.
And for the record, America did built internment camps in the 1940's for Japanese-American US citizens, has used mass graves for Native Americans during the Trail of Tears, and just recently held an entire major US city under lock down to catch 2 suspected bombers
So much for the "lots of guns" joke.
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In most of your examples, the targeted populations were divested of their firearms prior to the atrocities. In the last one, people voluntarily complied.
They voluntarily complied AT GUN POINT. Try to say no to the para-military police with ILLEGAL ASSAULT weapon in hand screaming to let them search your house.
Re:People don't care because they're too stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:People don't care because they're too stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong. Average people actually fare better at resisting military authority when violence isn't a primary aspect of their approach, because it allows everyone to participate in little ways all the time, rather than just the minority that lack dependents and don't mind being killed/imprisoned. (This is assuming the people aren't in a position where they know for a fact that they're all going to die anyway, of course; if they're fucked either way, *then* it can make sense to fight back.)
For some great examples of what to do and *not* to do if you want to successfully resist heavily-armed occupying forces, check out how different places resisted while occupied during WWII [wikipedia.org]. Areas where non-violent resistance was the foundation of their efforts often achieved a great deal, like the French Resistance [wikipedia.org] and Dutch Resistance [wikipedia.org]. The places whose resistance was based on a focus upon physical violence managed to repel invaders (at an extremely heavy cost) in some cases, but otherwise only achieved temporary liberation of limited regions before being squashed, as in these examples:
"...the first organized armed uprising in then-occupied Europe which involved 32.000 people. In quick time, most of Montenegro was liberated, except major cities where Italian forces were well fortified. On 12 August—after a major Italian offensive involving 5 divisions and 30.000 armed soldiers — the uprising collapsed as units were disintegrating, poor leadership occurred as well as collaboration. Final toll of July 13 uprising in Montenegro was 735 dead, 1120 wounded and 2070 captured Italians and 72 dead and 53 wounded Montenegrins."
"Operation Anthropoid was a resistance move during World War II to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi “Protector of Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia” and the chief of Nazi's final solution, by the Czech resistance in Prague. Over fifteen thousand Czechs were killed in reprisals, with the most infamous incidents being the complete destruction of the towns of Lidice and Leáky."
Keep in mind, we're talking about places and a time period when the vast majority of people were extremely physically fit, had intimate knowledge of their area/countryside from living there most of their lives, and were used to physical hardship -- they had *much* better chances of success via violent uprising than we Americans would have, and their few minor successes using that method could have been (and in other places were) achieved with a primarily non-violent approach.
FWIW, I'm not remotely pacifistic in nature, I just recognize that regardless of my impulses, history shows clearly that violence rarely wins the day when one is up against trained heavily-armed buff soldiers.
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Re:People don't care because they're too stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
And exactly what do the tens of thousands of random fire arms do for you in an attempt to foil the powers that be?
Planning on taking over the neighborhood Air Force base with a few of your friends and convincing the pilots to bomb DC? Overrun the National Guard Armory and steal some Vietnam era trucks and a few radios (oops, wrong frequency ..)
The reason that Afghanistan is so fucked up and will remain a fucked up, neo feudal society is that they are stuck in small squad infantry tactics (along with a bizarre misogynist, xenophobic religion). Yes, then can fight a asymmetric war, but clean water and power, not so much. For better or worse, the standard of living in the US and similar countries is dependent on a complicated weave of people, business and law. You can break the system, but then you've bought it. How are all the disconnected angry people with guns going to rebuild a society?
Is it really going to be better than what we have? Can you think of some, perhaps less violent ways of accomplishing something useful?
I don't think that an armed citizenry is keeping the government from doing what it wants. Remember, the powers that be don't want any drastic change - it's how they make their money. We still need to role back the intrusiveness of government in the world, but it's a slow, messy process.
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Pretty much the same way they did last time. With the local systems largely intact, use them to rebuild state and national systems. Whether that's possible or not would be a big question.
Re:People don't care because they're too stupid (Score:4, Informative)
Armed rebellion is just about the most ineffective way to deal with this situation. The best, in fact the only realistic option is for there to be more people like Snowden and for people to take what those heroes release and use it to change the system. Make encryption more effective so that the spying on everyone becomes impossible, use the information to reveal the secrets for those in power and bring them down.
The system is far from invulnerable. Politicians in particular are easily manipulated. Human beings are always the biggest weakness in any system.
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And exactly what do the tens of thousands of random fire arms do for you in an attempt to foil the powers that be?
Planning on taking over the neighborhood Air Force base with a few of your friends and convincing the pilots to bomb DC? Overrun the National Guard Armory and steal some Vietnam era trucks and a few radios (oops, wrong frequency ..)
Can you think of some, perhaps less violent ways of accomplishing something useful?
I don't think that an armed citizenry is keeping the government from doing what it wants.
I'm with ColdWetDog. Look at historical war strategies and you'll see, once again, the Jews had the right idea. Eventually someone else will come around and save the day, we just need to wait it out in 'camps' until that day comes. Unlike traditional prisons where boredom is the enemy I heard the Jews were given quite a few busy tasks to help them pass the time. Hell, they even contributed to scientific and medical research as well.
Re:People don't care because they're too stupid (Score:4, Informative)
"To summarize: I own a gun not because I expect to use it against the goverment but because I want the goverment to know that if it becomes to unjust it can't just cart me of in the middle of the night...."
You actually believe that don't you?
If they can kill and grab Osama Bin Laden deep inside a foreign nation when he was surrounded by a few armed family members and Pakistan would have put a stop to it if they had chance then your piddly little firearm by itself isn't going to do anything to protect you.
If they want to grab you then you wont even know they're coming. They'll have their gloved hand over your mouth and a gun to your head before you can even think about your weapon.
I swear Americans have bought way too much into the whole Hollywood thing. Everyone seems to think they're an action hero, a one man army that could single handedly take down the state.
The only thing protecting you is the fact that you just don't matter to them.
Re:People don't care because they're too stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
As another "tell," keep in mind that California's own Diane Feinstein is both the largest pusher of gun control and the biggest cheerleader for the NSA's spying in the Senate. It's no coincidence.
California should be ashamed.
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I just watched Enemy of the State and was amused to see them supposing this to be some republican dream. Come to find out, when your platform involves the government being responsible for absolutely everything, you tend to want a lot of intel on absolutely everything. Go figure that the most liberal state would have politicans who are incredibly liberal?
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You don't seem to understand the purpose of martial law. It is a very obsolete low tech technique used to control population movements at times where the humans with guns need to take a rest and your human informers are largely not around. It is to limit the human resources needed to surveil the population. Martial law is only instituted when the positive effects are outweighing the negative effects of angering and radicalizing the society on which it is applied. For example when a suitable justification ca
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Who voted for the bankers who are destroying the economy with total impunity?
That may have been a rhetorical question, but there's an actual, literal answer if you care to read history: Everyone who voted for Margaret Thatcher in 1979, 1983 and 1987, Reagan in 1980 and 1984, and Bush senior in 1988. The 1980s were the conservative ideological revolution when the political momentum in the English-speaking countries shifted from mixed capitalist-socialism to full on deregulated capitalism, in the name of 'streamlining' government. The 1990s and 2000s have been just variations and con
Re:People don't care because they're too stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:People don't care because they're too stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
While I am a bit cynical myself, I'd have to disagree with the statement that no-one care about all of this. Despite the mainstream media's systemic attempts to bury this story, the NSA revelations are a sledgehammer slowly pounding at the complacent foundations of the free internet. This issue is simply too huge to go away.
The NSA is literally turning into an Orwellian Ministry of Information. It has commandeered the internet, and is strong-arming American companies into doing its bidding, regardless of the effect on their or their customers rights or freedoms, and regardless of the effect on America's reputation for free speech and free enterprise.
It might be easy to ignore each individual blow of revelation, but when a big pillar crumbles, it becomes a little difficult to look away or hide the growing sense of dread. The closure of Lavabit and Silent Circle was a body blow to the notion of free speech and free enterprise on the US internet.
A lot of people probably felt that the likes of Facebook, Google, MS, would be locked down first, with the creep moving down the chain to email providers, independent sites, and finally, in extremis, to small independent secure email service providers. Instead this has been turned on its head; the independent man, in business for himself, was the first pin to fall. The message is clear: You cannot set up a website, email service, or any other internet business in the United States without the prior and/or post-facto approval of the National Security Agency.
A dream is dying. People like yourself escape through cynicism. Others escape through denial, or fantasy. But the reality is we are living in a nightmare, surrounded by a growing sense of dread in a global spy and surveillance network that has spiralled out of all reasonable proportion and probably control.
The NSA is turning the internet into at best a panopticon, and at worst a prison for our whole society. They have slowly built a fortress of concrete, wire, and guard-towers around the free web. Edward Snowden is outside, slowly pounding on the wall, hoping some of those inside will hear enough to notice that they need to find a way to break out, to stop the construction before it's too late.
I think he's succeeding. As cynical as I am, I think that as the revelations continue, more people are starting to wake up to the reality of the nightmare that the NSA was trying to create while they slept. We need an internet that is encrypted, anonymous, and decentralised by default; And Mr. Snowden's sledgehammer may be inspiring a new generation of hackers to finally create it.
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The need to keep the 1950-90's panopticon secret is now over. The next step, decades of domestic 'lock box' data for use in open court depending on any political whim.
Re:People don't care because they're too stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
You want this to stop?
Then do something about it. The way to make a difference is in the one thing we, ("the people") can directly affect... .Voting !!
Make it an issue next November. If you make it known this is important to you, it will be important to them. Every candidate should be asked his/her position and be held accountable for following through once elected.
Keep a flame under the media, they print what they believe is interesting to their audience. If this is perceived as a persistent hot topic, it will not fade from public view.
I wonder how this would be different if Snowden had waited until 2014.......... ?
Re:People don't care because they're too stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
As for getting angry and bitching. That hasn't worked and isn't going to work. Fire and bullets work. Just ask Thomas Jefferson...
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Expecting the majority of the population to be like you is shortsighted at best.
It's not about me. It's about using your damn brain, or at the very least, learning how. Voter complacency is the main problem. They don't want to make the hard choices. They do what they can to avoid responsibility and to blame others for the troubles they suffer. The problem is in the mirror, and until people realize that, nothing will ever change, certainly not for the better.
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What oath did he break? He swore an oath to the *constitution*, not the government. He saw what he believed to be a violation; it would have been a violation of his oath to *not* try to put an end to it.
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The problem is that it does not matter who you would have voted for.
Exactly. You nailed it. Which is why I vote third party, IOW "none of the above".
news media has lost interest? (Score:5, Insightful)
For the last several Snowden disclosures, there was barely a mention on many of the major outlets such as CNN, whereas the earlier announcements made the primary CNN site headlines. Similar for NPR. As I write this, I don't see a single mention on cnn.com of this story.
It seems that the public and the media has moved on, and no longer cares. It's the "new normal" that we are all spied on all the time. The chance for outrage and change has passed. No one will be held accountable, no government officials who stood up in front of the entire country and lied will be held responsible. Much like a lot of other tech issues, it has degenerated into one of those things that causes some nerd-rage but the general public doesn't really care about.
Re:news media has lost interest? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, seeing that the U.S. media is totally in the bag for Obama, it's not too much of a surprise.
Seymour Hersh himself - a man who would know and who spent his entire life rooting out government crimes - just said in The Guardian: "There are some people - the New York Times still has investigative journalists but they do much more of carrying water for the president than I ever thought they would ... it's like you don't dare be an outsider any more." [theguardian.com]
Re:news media has lost interest? (Score:5, Interesting)
As a foreigner, I have to tell you that the US media isn't in the bag for Obama. It is, actually, in the bag of the US ruling aristocracy, whose current public figurehead is Obama. They've routinely pulled the exact same shenanigans whether the US aristocracy's public figurehead comes from either party.
In fact, I don't really know if it's even possible to claim that the US even has two political parties, because in spite of the public nitpicking between some controversial issues, which when you really look at it are really minor in the business of ruling a state, they actually don't diverge much in policy.
Until the average US citizen figures that, in spite of having to vote once every few years, their regime is far from democratic and isn't very different from totalitariam regimes such as those in place in fascist states such as China, this problem won't go away.
Re:news media has lost interest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who says the general public doesn't care about it?
Polling shows that even back in July the US public knew the NSA was lying and disapprove of what's happening by 2:1 [yougov.com].
But what can be done? "Outrage" doesn't achieve anything. It became abundantly clear the moment senior members of the military were caught lying and nothing was done, that what the public think doesn't matter. So why should the public make a fuss? Waste of energy.
CNN and the likes are just reflecting the fact that the general story is by now well known and not news. The NSA lies and is totally out of control. It does everything the most paranoid people ever imagined, and more. OK. Got it. Next story.
But make no mistake. The right people are still paying attention. Behind the scenes there's a lot going on in a lot of places. All kinds of people who previously would not have included government agencies in their threat models are now starting to do so. Change will take years, perhaps decades, and enormous amounts of technical talent is going to be wasted fighting the US government by trying to blind it with more effective encryption. Success is by no means guaranteed. But without a doubt those members of the general public who have the ability to take part in that are still paying attention.
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Wait until non-american companies exploit the current distrust and offer alternate services to american internet companies and the for the big boys too start loosing money... You'll see some changes then.
Re:news media has lost interest? (Score:5, Insightful)
The media does what they're told. Do you think that the NSA has the ability to force Google ($292B), Apple ($438B) and Microsoft ($277B) but they don't have any control over turner broadcasting ($60B) or NPR who is partially funded by the government?
All they have to do is monitor a couple of CEOs internet connections and wait for them to look up something embarrassing. Tada! The NSA controls the news.
Re:news media has lost interest? (Score:4, Interesting)
it is hard to bluff when they can see your cards (Score:5, Insightful)
If the CEOs were really interested in reporting on this they could make their own news with a sting operation. Plan to do a few "embarrassing" searches, document them ahead of time with a few high profile lawyers then do them. When the NSA acts, you reveal it all on your news programs.
If you are under surveillance and they know everything you do, everyone you talk to, and everything you say it might be a little difficult to surprise them.
Re:news media has lost interest? (Score:5, Insightful)
As I write this, I don't see a single mention on cnn.com of this story.
As if CNN is the only news outlet.
In our opinion: Make the NSA accountable [deseretnews.com]
NSA maps some Americans' social connections, says report [cnet.com]
N.S.A. Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens [nytimes.com]
I first heard about it on Good Morning America this morning. It was an AP story. [go.com] Getting your news from a single source isn't very smart.
Re:news media has lost interest? (Score:5, Informative)
Interestingly, major European news outlets aren't running with this either. At least not the ones I checked (BBC in the UK, N24 in Germany, YLE in Finland).
Though that may be more due to the copy & paste culture of major news outlets these days.
However, Russia Today and Japan Times are frontpaging this story just as you would expect.
Paranoia is dwarfed by the truth (Score:2, Interesting)
After the first few leaks by snowden, we thought "holy shit". but then we got some rebuttals by the nsa/us govt in general, and then more snowden leaks showing that in fact the rebuttals were false statements, etc. even the most paranoid among us were wrong. the scope is still bigger than non-schizophrenics thought possible. Remember a year or 2 ago when there was a claim that the NSA/USGovt had backdoored a widely used crypto? the response was "this guy is either a liar or crazy. how credible is he?" even
Facebook 2.0 (Score:4, Insightful)
Looks like Facebook could have competition.
If only the US Govenment would put a nice web interface on the front end.
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Well they have put a nice web interface on the front end, but its only for NSA internal use :P
Great! Can we have a copy? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it would be useful for the American citizenry to have a copy of this data so that we can know exactly who the NSA employees are, who they know, what they're doing, and where they are at all times. Also the heads of JP Morgan, Citibank, Halliburton, etc, and all the shadowy 1% who are implementing this police state.
Oh, it's only for informational purposes, you know. Not like we would act on any of that information.
Seriously, do these people think these tools can't be turned on them? Americans have grown pretty fat and lazy but we are still a relatively heavily armed people, and you can't exactly go around ordering F-15s to drop napalm on suburban Cleveland. That is, the troubles the US Army has had suppressing IEDs and small arms fire in Afghanistan and Iraq multiply exponentially when you're turning your artillery on the friends and families of the very people you count on to manufacture your ammo, grow your food, and ship it to your butt.
So go ahead, totalitarian fantasists, keep turning the weaponry and spying machinery on the very people you count on to make your activities possible. See how that turns out. ***Spoilers ahead*** It ends with you swinging for lampposts or torn limb from limb by angry mobs.
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I've seen this reasoning many times before and it seems a bit strange to me. The idea that American army members and police officers wouldn't follow orders and harm their fellow countrymen.
Civil wars happen, people on both sides believe they are doing the right thing. There's many historical examples of people turning against their own countrymen both oppressing and slaughtering each other. If the government descends into some kind of nightmarish entity (which some argue has already happened) it doesn't s
Re:Great! Can we have a copy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama isn't the one who started all this - he is just the one who is refusing to stop it. There's lots of blame to go around here, no need to pile it all on one person.
Re:Great! Can we have a copy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama isn't the one who started all this - he is just the one who is refusing to stop it. There's lots of blame to go around here, no need to pile it all on one person.
I think there's a lot of value in piling it all on the person who is currently in the best position to do something about it, but isn't. Accurate allocation of blame is a job for historians.
Because they're the servants, not the masters (Score:5, Insightful)
These programs didn't start under Obama. Echelon has been going for decades. Cheney and Bush had the Total Information Awareness program. So the reason I don't blame Obama exclusively is because both Republicans and Democrats are doing it at the command of the same masters, the corporations and the .01% who run them. It's out in the open now--much of this spying that Snowden has revealed was industrial espionage. Focusing ire on the party(ies) in charge in DC is a dodge, a convenient lightening rod for the powers-that-be to draw the popular anger that has historically hung people like them from trees and beheaded them. Every once in a while you throw one of your cannon fodd...er, Congressmen and Presidents to the wolves, Joe Sixpack grunts with clueless satisfaction, cracks open another beer, and puts the game back on; and you can get back to the business of robbing his pension fund blind under the cover of law.
To stop being part of the problem and part of the solution, we all have to stop pretending that the political process makes any difference or that there's such a thing as the rule of law; they have been entirely subverted and the American people will have to get about the messy business of re-asserting popular sovereignity and bringing the criminals and sociopaths who brought this about to justice. It sucks and I don't want to have to do it either, but it's our duty to our children to not condemn them to live in slavery.
Been around since at least 1999 (Score:2)
The ability to link records of named associates was standard in law enforcement records management and case analysis tools. After 9/11/2001, an initiative was strted where those records were then shared using data sharing systems. In some cases, directed graphs could be constructed showing the relationships. Cops collected info regarding criminal incidents and ALL parties were in the names database.
This information helped LE crack many cases as it provided a computerized way to link all those rec
Re:Been around since at least 1999 (Score:5, Insightful)
Difference in scale. The LE database tracks known criminals and those associated with a crime. The NSA database just tracks *everyone* on the grounds that they may possibly be a suspect at some point in the future.
Re:Been around since at least 1999 (Score:4, Interesting)
And there's historical precedent for this: The Amsterdam city archive had detailed information about all its citizens, including "religion". When the Netherlands were occupied by the Nazis in 1940, the new government had a new query they wanted to run on this database.
OK it was manual card search in that time, but still... not many Jews in Amsterdam survived, thanks to a previous government's careful information gathering on its own people (only for beneficial reasons, but that doesn't matter to the people who will have their claws on that dataset in 20 years time).
Once the tool exists, once the mechanism is in place, it would be a waste of government money to shut it down and destroy the data, wouldn't it?
This is what you get (Score:4, Insightful)
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Isn't this more the result from not fearing the government? The amicable facade is impenetrable, and surrogate victims plenty.
No Surprise (Score:5, Informative)
If you look at the roots of all of this it goes back to the 1979 Supreme Court Ruling in Smith vs. Maryland [wikipedia.org] where:
“A person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties’’
The case centered around the installation of a pen register, which records phone numbers dialed in the phone company office. As all of the current press indicates the NSA and other Federal Agencies and Administrations to justify scooping up all of information they can. In 1979 it was difficult to trace phone calls because most of the local COs were analog and getting this kind of data meant installing devices, requiring court orders, anybody remember rotary dial? The 1979 ruling has therefore been applied now in our current era where this information is "at hand." Using this we can now see why the large Data Center in Utah is being built to collect the billions of Call Detail Records and other Internet IP data that the NSA can gobble up. Strangely enough the safeguards that protect a US citizen fall down suddenly if you have contact with a foreign country. Let's see, going on vacation to Europe this year? You're sucked into the system. Have friends or family members overseas? You're sucked into the system. Compound that over zealous approach to collection and the fact that they can save the data for up to 10 years for historical analysis and you have a huge storage problem. Now if you add it Network Graph Analysis, you'll be sucked in if your friends or family members have contacts with people in other countries. That means effectively everybody in US is on a graph somewhere and it's being used to create fake evidence chains against your fellow citizens. [disinfo.com] I'm not advocating crime or terrorism in any way but there has to be oversight of law enforcement in this nation, with the NSA scoping up everything they can you have a police state where evidence can be created out of thin air and you can't challenge it's authenticity.
The ramifications of this are staggering and I for one have been in touch with my congressman and written to both my Senators to voice my opposition to it but the only way to fix this is to end the two party stranglehold of our government that has allowed this to happen behind closed doors. The FISA court needs to be abolished and the NSA systems need to be dismantled. That won't happen when you have elected officials who don't fear the electorate and the only way that will change is to force our government to enact:
Use this to reflect on privacy as a whole! (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep in mind that Facebook and countless other sites are already admittedly collecting the same (and more) information and behavior associations, oftentimes with as little publicly-released details, accountability, and oversight, and then using it actively and aggressively to manipulate every single person (American or otherwise) into altering their financial behaviors, public perceptions, political persuasions, social interactions, and much more.
This is obviously not the same as a government agency per se, but it is useful to reflect on the differences and (more so) the similarities between what is specifically unsettling about a government and a large corporation having this information. Throughout this series of revelations, I've found it useful to contemplate any concern that I feel regarding my government possessing this degree of intimate information in the context of the Facebooks, Googles, and LinkedIns of the world. They are (to a far wider degree) actively targeting you (and everyone you know) directly and collecting and using all of the same associations with no need for suspicion of terrorism, illegal associations, FISA courts, or any real oversight. They sell this information in troves to the highest bidder with loose terms and are willingly or unwillingly subject to their members' respective governments' information request laws. They and their associates and clients are applying that information actively to change you.
While I can't stress enough that the gravity of one's government's actions should not be grouped with likeminded corporations, I do worry that Internet corporations are collecting more information with less oversight and accountability and using it in far more objectionable ways against a far wider audience! It's a different kind of threat, but in many ways I fear them far more than the government.
I (personally) hope that the outcome of this series of revelations is a global reflection on privacy and information sharing and not just a narrow-minded focus on a particular agency's actions.
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Somehow I'm less upset that Amazon thinks I'm a 'Hello Kitty' addict because, last year I bought some USB sticks embedded in the stupid animal to keep people from stealing them (sort of worked). Now, every time I log in, I get greeted with the stupid feline despite the fact that I have purchased many other things in the interim.
If that's the level of integration and coordination that Amazon has, if Experion still thinks I started working for Boeing when I was ten years old (confusing my father with me, com
Plain View Doctrine and the web... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am an old geek and one with both a long background in sec matters and a law degree (though I'm pleased to say I don't actually use the later). None of this should be surprising or, in most ways, particularly annoying. A great deal of 'this' falls under a rational extension of the Plain View Doctrine (e.g. if you place your pot plant in your front bay window facing the sidewalk, you can not reasonably expect a foot patrol cop to avert his eyes...or complain when there is a knock on your door). I and others have long said that what you do online is 'public' (unless you are using encryption and/or various various methods to make yourself anonymous)...unencrypted email, social networks, etc...all pass as data streams that can be 'seen' by any server they pass through. Unless you are encrypting your datastream, you simply can't reasonably expect people (governments, especially) to avert their eyes from the waves of data washing over them.
There are huge, important privacy/security issues in play...but getting wound around the axel in a dogmatic response of "OMG, the [insert favorite agency here] is aggregating openly flowing datastreams" is a waste of time and effort and decreases the signal to noise ratio as to the substantive issues in play.
Also and more broadly, read Brin's Transparent Society. Still the best foundational work on this subject area...
Re:Plain View Doctrine and the web... (Score:4, Insightful)
There are huge, important privacy/security issues in play...but getting wound around the axel in a dogmatic response of "OMG, the [insert favorite agency here] is aggregating openly flowing datastreams" is a waste of time and effort and decreases the signal to noise ratio as to the substantive issues in play.
Quantitative differences matter: one person investigating another is NOT the same as an organization investigating a person, and NOT the same as Orwellian governmental agency with unlimited budget, unlimited political and legal power, and worldwide reach investigating everyone.
Plainly Not Scottish Comparison (Score:3)
What are you
Eben Moglen warned about "a robust social graph". (Score:5, Insightful)
"I was talking to a senior government official of this government about that outcome and he said well you know we've come to realize that we need a robust social graph of the United States. That's how we're going to connect new information to old information. I said let's just talk about the constitutional implications of this for a moment. You're talking about taking us from the society we have always known, which we quaintly refer to as a free society, to a society in which the United States government keeps a list of everybody every American knows." —Eben Moglen, "Innovation Under Austerity" [softwarefreedom.org]
Eben Moglen gave a talk where he warned us about a conversation he had with an American government official who wanted a "robust social graph" [digitalcitizen.info] of Americans. And again at Moglen's re:publica talk [youtube.com] as Nicole Brydson reminds us [brooklyntheborough.com]. Of course, I'd prefer to point to a copy of this talk in a format friendly to free software, but I don't know of one.
Moglen reminds us in his talks about how right Richard Stallman (RMS) is, and how we need to do the work of sharing what RMS teaches to others. RMS was right (as per usual) we need software freedom more than ever [slashdot.org]. Social action based on an ethical grounding (not mere technical convenience or speedy development) is exactly what this situation calls for. I hope everyone will take the time to read or listen to Moglen's insightful talks and take them seriously. They're deeply engrossing and filled with interesting history, so much so that they reward repeated listening and social action.
10-26-2013 Rally Against Surveillance (Score:5, Informative)
October 26th, 2013
Re:yay (Score:5, Insightful)
More importantly the more that leaks the more it confirms the craziest ideas the most paranoid have had for years, even a few years ago when there was an allegation of the nsa/similar inserting a backdoor in some commonly used crypto. the debate in the media was "how credible is the guy saying this?" rather than "look at the code, it is available". but crypto is hard, its super strong math, super good coding knowledge is needed to see how much of the math is being used to obfuscate too. i have been thinking for years they know too much, but its beyond my wildest dreams. for the first wave of documents, then the rebuttals, then disproof of the rebuttals via further documents...we can all safely assume they know more than even our most paranoid believe (other than schizophrenics, who think peoples eyes are cameras).
Re:yay (Score:5, Funny)
The NSA has logged your opposition to this idea, and they wish to notify you that this is going on your permanent record.
Re:yay (Score:5, Funny)
The NSA has logged your opposition to this idea, and they wish to notify you that this is going on your permanent record.
The NSA has also noted that Kevin Bacon is now a Person of Interest.
Re:yay (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait a minute, thanks to Google, people's eyes soon WILL be the NSA's cameras.
Re: yay (Score:2)
Funny about that, isn't it?
Re:yay (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait a minute, thanks to Google, people's eyes soon WILL be the NSA's cameras.
The weakest link in any security protocol is the human being and this should not be trusted, the strongest link is devoid of human interaction and that should not be tolerated.
If you have a computer, ipod, ipad, cellphone, digital camera; you already work (without pay) for the NSA.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you haven't read the craziest paranoid conspiracy theories.
I don't think it confirms lizard men or shit like that.
it just confirms that hey, you have a spy organization with a per capita budget larger than STASI and THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR IT.
and peoples eyes are cameras... accessing the recorded memories by unauthorized personnel is a bit hard right now though.
Re: (Score:2)
The US gov got the plain text, video and sound from US brands over years, why would they not expect the same from *any* of the brands next gen products too?
What has changed? The brands are still selling products, the US laws are different now? The brands legal departments are still tame, offering nice PR reports on aspects of better backhaul encryption and numbers of requests by domestic police court orders.
The other shoe is about to drop... (Score:4, Interesting)
The other shoe is about to drop in the form of "Why didn't you save my little girl from that pedophile?"
People are realizing that the government corruption (ordinary type), violent gangs, racketteering gangs, people cheating on taxes with overseas accounts, drug runners, drug gangs and novice terrorists were all KNOWN ABOUT THE WHOLE TIME.
Recent uptick in the oddball "trading child porn" people has got to be them releasing data on the most heinous cases.
At some point, someone is going to articulate all the ways our own government was complicit and knowningly allowing all kinds of crime to go on, some of which with real heart breaking stories for the victims.
Those folks better fucking worry real hard about another Snoweden releasing the personal information of the guys who know, or should have known about all of it. They had better clean up a lot of fucking crime real fucking fast or we'll be hearing stories of "yet another government 'office worker' dragged to death behind some redneck's truck" because the file showed the now dead pile of meat knew about 15 pedophile cases.
Re: (Score:3)
Calm down, Snow Flake. To capture the kind of information you think is available isn't going to be ferreted out by algorithms. It would require humans looking at the data, understanding the connections, making inferences. There aren't enough people on the planet to do that much less employed by NSA.
Re: (Score:2)
This isn't validation of crazy paranoia.
no, it's just that what a few knew and a bunch more of us suspected is now in the media. for what it's worth; you shouldn't expect much intelligent debate in the media anyway. however, now there's no valid excuse anymore for not wanting to know. that could be a good thing. it could also be bad because generalized opposiion could bring the elites to drop the masquerade and go full psycho.
you know that Microsoft researches several years ago published about the exact crypto weakness people now are surprised about?
source?
Re:yay (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't validation of crazy paranoia.
You're right. To be more precise, it's a validation that what many (most?) people thought was crazy paranoia, isn't, and wasn't. It's scary when people previously dismissed as tin foil hatters turned out to have been right. Other than the exact wording though, which I don't think matters that much since his intent was clear, the GP's point stands.
What surprises me is not that this is being done, but the massive scale on which it's being done. It's no secret that, for example, the FBI bugged the rooms and tapped the phones of MLK. It's revolting that that was done to someone who wasn't even the slightest threat to the United States (in fact I'd argue that he was, amongst other things, a true patriot for wanting to enforce the Constitution). But he was a high profile person, as were many of the others who were bugged. This is different though - it's everyone! That is a characteristic of a police state. Many people say "police state" is overused, but here it's appropriate. This is the kind of crap that the KGB and the Stasi did. During the Cold War we rightly considered the United States superior because it didn't do that. Even after the revelations by the Church Committee about the extensive bugging, it was still only a few high profile people. We didn't have an army of spooks looking up everyone's butt. Now we do, and the fact that it's in electronic form makes it worse, not better. Sometimes I miss the Cold War, because at least it gave us countries that we had to credibly claim we were better than. Now they don't give a damn.
Re: (Score:3)
I suspect that, for the last several months, many tin-foil-hatters have been feeling happier than they had in years.
I know a couple of them, and those guys have certainly been insufferably smug recently...
Re: (Score:3)
Don't worry, that smugness will wear off quickly when they realize that even though they were right the American public won't care enough to even be bothered to be outraged. I'm willing to bet that even most people who post their outrage here on Slashdot haven't signed any petitions or written any letters to representatives.
Re:yay (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the kind of crap that the KGB and the Stasi did. During the Cold War we rightly considered the United States superior because it didn't do that.
Indeed. Now, consider you fought for your country because of said superiority. Consider you took on the mantle of duty because you believed your country wasn't like the oppressive KGB and Stasi. Wouldn't it bring into question what you unquestionably fought for? Wouldn't it undermine the very honor bestowed upon you? Wouldn't it cheapen the sacrifice of any who fought "for our freedom" and were wounded or killed?
The NSA is dangerously harmful to the USA. It must be rooted out because it weakens us far more than it could ever hope to strengthen us. Trust in your neighbor and fellow man has been under attack by these intelligence agencies since the 50's, to better foist upon us their tools of oppression by way of fear-mongering. The common man is afraid to say things aloud or online, and thinks twice before exercising their "freedoms". If the threat is so great as to grant them such powers, then why isn't their message: Better arm yourselves to the teeth because your fellow man is dangerous. That isn't their message, that would be ridiculous and also empower citizens to defend themselves...
Is this surveillance state and national fear worth fighting for? Is that worth "freeing" another people so they may be subject to the same oppression after as before we have fought to free them? It takes bravery to fight against apparently overwhelming odds, and soldiers do this not because they will win, but because they believe in the ideals of our nation, core among them is freedom -- They do what they think is ultimately right and trust their government to direct them in the goal of honor; Even if the foot soldier's actions seem dishonorable they trust their government to have a clearer view of the big picture. Now we glimpse the big picture painted in secret, and what is revealed looks exactly like what we've been fighting against. This must not stand.
It is a disgusting thought to entertain, but there could be reasons such internal national conflict is desired by the elitists [youtube.com] who will most certainly escape any conflict unscathed...
If it takes only bravery to fight against such systematic oppression making our land less free then how could it ever stand in the home of the brave? We must end paranoia of our fellow citizen's actions -- For we are great enough to thwart any who threaten us on our soil. We have the upper hand, we are so many and the terrorists so few that automobiles or fast food alone harms us more in a year than than they ever have in all of history. [cdc.gov] We are so great that we need not even be armed or even paranoid against the terrorists, even foiling their plots mid-air with bare hands once they've been discovered. Those that attack our citizens are pathetically feeble against us.
What of the power of the citizen in relation to our own government? In this regard the government has the upper hand. We trust them to have awesome weapons and machines of war far greater than we the people could have ever dreamed of when those words were first penned. Thus, the paranoia and fear of our government's actions against us must be ended, not by ignorance, but by ensuring there is nothing to be paranoid about. We trust our soldiers to fight for us, not against us because they will be ultimately accountable for their actions; If they fight against us then we would not have them as soldiers. Likewise, if their actions show they are against us then we must not trust our intelligence agencies to spy for us. They have betrayed our trust, and we must hold them accountable. Otherwise our honorable fight for nothing, we have no honor to bestow, and we are servants to bullies instead.
Re:yay (Score:5, Funny)
I'm trying to respond to your post with the proper gravity, but having a bit of a hard time.
Re: (Score:3)
Slashdot has many European and non-US posters that by their own declaration are far to the left of the US in their politics and views.
First, I'm going to just assume you forgot to type "other" before non-US, though the slip is a telling one if you're into Freud :-)
Otherwise, your statement is true enough, and I suppose I fit the description -- for reasonable values of "far".
I get my share of mod points. I try to use them to highlight interesting points when they are well argued, sometimes even ones I disagree with. I only down mod the most obvious trolls, i.e., the blatantly racist/homophobe crowd.
But you seem to be suggesting, if I read
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You'll have to excuse us, didn't you see the guy we elected's smile? Didn't you hear him recite someone else's speeches. He's so likable, he can do whatever he wants.
Re:So Obama lied again (Score:5, Insightful)
He said Americans were not being spied upon by the NSA.
that's because they're weasel wording with the definition of spying... in their mind spying just a little bit to know if there's dirt that's useful to spy a little more isn't actually spying.
"but it's ok since we don't share it with other agencies unless there's a crime!" is such fucking stasi bullshit.
Living Overseas? (Score:5, Informative)
Upon arriving in the USA very recently my wife was flagged going through the mettle detector at IAD (she was carrying our 3 month old daughter so the TSA told her they had to do some extra checks since she had a baby in a sling, dafuq?). She spent the next 45 minutes getting checked, rechecked, patted down (enhanced pat down; under the waistband, hand up the legs until it meets "resistance", hands swiping breasts, etc.), having her carry-on bags checked and rechecked for bomb residue, all in the name of "You were carrying a baby in a sling".
I'm trying to be as honest and non-paranoid as possible in all of this. But these leaks from Snowden really do give rise to questions about how large my NSA profile has grown, simply because I live overseas.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
my wife was flagged going through the mettle detector
Mettle detector - a device for checking the ability of someone to cope in a situation.
Metal detector - a device for detecting metals.
Be paranoid, you have been flagged for not consulting a dictionary.
Re:Living Overseas? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mettle detector - a device for checking the ability of someone to cope in a situation.
Metal detector - a device for detecting metals.
What the TSA does is clearly dual-purpose.
Re: (Score:3)
He didn't say that he had met these people; said his wife had.
People at any rung of a bureaucracy are enjoined to represent official policy - it's part of the job description, to carry out policy. Excusing them by virtue of incompetence is not an excuse. If there's been an erroneous conclusion, I'd say it's yours.
"The day before, they could have intercepted some "baby in a sling" attack scenario and had orders to check those more thoroughly."
Right. As much as TSA loves to blow their horn, you think such
Re:So Obama lied again (Score:5, Informative)
Now, that's nice. Let's assume for a moment that's true - that's not saying anything about automatic collection of data, about computer analysis of such data, about how long data can be kept etc. "No-one is listening to your calls" is a complete red herring. It would be better if their methodology were based on purely human-conducted surveillance. That kind of work is expensive, and therefore must have a limited scope. What is apparently being built now is much worse than having some person listening to people's calls.
Everything we're being told is going on now just reeks of the Total Information Awareness programs which were, to some extent, supposedly discontinued. The goal seems to be the same - make it cheap enough to have total surveillance capability of everything anyone does. You can't do that with humans, but if you manage to build a computer system broad and smart enough, you can do a whole lot more. Humans aren't being phased out of the process because they present a larger risk to the population being monitored - they're just too expensive.
Fortunately, automated intel data analysis is still a very tough problem, but it seems clear a lot of work is being done to "improve" things in that field. That's not good news, it's bad news. Less human involvement in this context means less legal oversight and greater overall capabilities. You can't jail a computer system.
Re: (Score:3)
"automated intel data analysis is still a very tough problem"
Well, they surely are looking into AMD and ARM proposals too.
Re: (Score:3)
Which would be why it was mentioned this past week that at least 12 NSA types were spying on their girlfriends over the last decade, eh?
Re: So Obama lied again (Score:2)
It isn't spying if the data and records are an almogmation of publicly available data or data which can be bought from corporations.
Listening in on phone conversations or opening your mail is spying. Why do you think the closed phone booth went away starting in the 1970's? They allowed conversations to be considered private. If you are using a public phone today, you side of the conversation is public. If the volume is loud enough, so is the other side. This was started in a crack down against organize
Re: So Obama lied again (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure it is. At least some of that information comes from the telephone metadata which isn't for sale.
If one person did this to another person, it would be stalking and would result in restraining orders and eventually a conviction. It looks like the NSA is up for about 300 million counts of stalking now. Assuming only one week of community service for each conviction, we should be looking forward to very clean roadways for the rest of our lives.
Re:So Obama lied again (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, to be fair, his surrogates do most of the direct lying for him, he mainly deals in platitudes and equivocations.
Re:So Obama lied again (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
The implication was "Obama bad, Republicans good." Which to my mind is nonsense, I don't think it would matter who was in the white house, the NSA would still be spying on us with the POTUS' blessings.
Re: (Score:2)
Look back to virtually every speech he made during his first campaign about Bush's foreign policy, and then he gets in office and resumes virtually every single aspect of it. The guy is a duplicitous snake.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes.
It will surprise us when somebody actually does something about it.
Re: (Score:2)
The good news is now know your know calls are been transcribed by more than one country.
Re:Even More Reason to... (Score:5, Interesting)
Burner phones are getting hard. You can buy a phone second-hand for cash easily enough, but getting it on the cell network is trickier - even prepaid SIMs usually require a bank card for initial activation. It's a result of deliberate government pressure to eliminate untraceable cellphones - not for reasons of terrorism, but to make identifying drug traffickers and sellers easier.
Re:Even More Reason to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you been paying attention at all? It is for neither purpose. It is about power; getting it, keeping it, and using it to control the citizenry.