5 ms·

Didn't mass surveillance exist, in one form or another, prior to 9/11?

by antsar 11y ago

rhino369 11y ago
That probably depends on what you define as mass surveillance. But even today 99.9% of Americans aren't really surveilled in the conventional sense. FISA courts only issue ~3,000 wiretapping, data download requests a year.
- jakeogh 11y ago
  Some are general warrants so the number becomes meaningless.
- lallysingh 11y ago
  But in the actual sense, data on american's communications is captured* for the vast majority of americans. * People like to play games with definitions. Captured: Data goes into a device owned and operated by an american intelligence agency.
  - rhino369 11y ago
    I think the biggest actual capture is buffering. I suspect the NSA is buffering almost all communication in the USA (or maybe just international cable communications, but I'd bet all). But it's not actively used or analyzed unless something comes up. And after a few days it's deleted. If you end up shooting up a Eagles of Death Metal show in Paris, they can rewind your recent communications. Whether that is mass surveillance is pretty questionable IMO. It's a sort of a "if a tree falls in the wood and nobody hears, does it make a sound" territory. It's really no different than the Post Office having your mail. They could rip it open, but their mere possession isn't surveillance. I think where you have a better argument is the meta data mass collection. They physically got that information. It's on their servers forever. And here is where the surveillance part comes in--they actually run analysis on it. They claim they only stay within "two hops" of known suspects, but that's probably BS and you get into a "6 degree of Keven Bacon" situation where two hops probably gets nearly everyone. So I think that meta data program is the only program I've heard about from the Snowden leaks that is actually a mass surveillance of the American people. But there is a counter argument. It's mass surveillance of information that isn't actually private, thus, it's not a intrusion of your privacy. They are only looking at data that your telephone company has on you. In fact, baring any sort of data privacy law, that information is Verizon's and they can do what they want with it. Including hand it over to the government. And in practice, American companies keep that sort of meta data and use it for commercial purposes all the time. Hell, google doesn't even have to triangulate towers, they just use the GPS the customer paid for to track them to within 10 feet.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  The last report I saw on FISA warrants said they were for targeting criteria rather than individuals. So, one warrant is like a blank check for certain parameters and analysis across all their collection schemes. That's more significant than 3,000 warrants from a regular court for individuals or companies.
mc32 11y ago
Not to the same extent as today, if we believe Snowden, tech advances quite a bit in 15 years. Plus they had not ramped up Arabic translators since before then it wasn't a priority.

Didn't mass surveillance exist, in one form or another, prior to 9/11?

by antsar 11y ago

Didn't mass surveillance exist, in one form or another, prior to 9/11?

That probably depends on what you define as mass surveillance. But even today 99.9% of Americans aren't really surveilled in the conventional sense. FISA courts only issue ~3,000 wiretapping, data download requests a year.

jakeogh 11y ago
Some are general warrants so the number becomes meaningless.
lallysingh 11y ago
But in the actual sense, data on american's communications is captured* for the vast majority of americans. * People like to play games with definitions. Captured: Data goes into a device owned and operated by an american intelligence agency.
- rhino369 11y ago
  I think the biggest actual capture is buffering. I suspect the NSA is buffering almost all communication in the USA (or maybe just international cable communications, but I'd bet all). But it's not actively used or analyzed unless something comes up. And after a few days it's deleted. If you end up shooting up a Eagles of Death Metal show in Paris, they can rewind your recent communications. Whether that is mass surveillance is pretty questionable IMO. It's a sort of a "if a tree falls in the wood and nobody hears, does it make a sound" territory. It's really no different than the Post Office having your mail. They could rip it open, but their mere possession isn't surveillance. I think where you have a better argument is the meta data mass collection. They physically got that information. It's on their servers forever. And here is where the surveillance part comes in--they actually run analysis on it. They claim they only stay within "two hops" of known suspects, but that's probably BS and you get into a "6 degree of Keven Bacon" situation where two hops probably gets nearly everyone. So I think that meta data program is the only program I've heard about from the Snowden leaks that is actually a mass surveillance of the American people. But there is a counter argument. It's mass surveillance of information that isn't actually private, thus, it's not a intrusion of your privacy. They are only looking at data that your telephone company has on you. In fact, baring any sort of data privacy law, that information is Verizon's and they can do what they want with it. Including hand it over to the government. And in practice, American companies keep that sort of meta data and use it for commercial purposes all the time. Hell, google doesn't even have to triangulate towers, they just use the GPS the customer paid for to track them to within 10 feet.
nickpsecurity 11y ago
The last report I saw on FISA warrants said they were for targeting criteria rather than individuals. So, one warrant is like a blank check for certain parameters and analysis across all their collection schemes. That's more significant than 3,000 warrants from a regular court for individuals or companies.

mc32 11y ago

Not to the same extent as today, if we believe Snowden, tech advances quite a bit in 15 years. Plus they had not ramped up Arabic translators since before then it wasn't a priority.