9 ms·

"The N.S.A. took in the 151 million records despite obtaining court orders to use the system on only 42 terrorism suspects in 2016, along with a few left over f

by vuln 10y ago

"The N.S.A. took in the 151 million records despite obtaining court orders to use the system on only 42 terrorism suspects in 2016, along with a few left over from late 2015, the report said." Needle meet haystack. I wonder.how.many were actually brought up on charges?

meowface 10y ago
Not to defend the NSA on ethical grounds, but at least on practical grounds, I would personally find that many records to be a decent trade-off for 42 arrested and convicted suspects who were likely to commit violent acts at some point. As for whether that's the case, who knows.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  Also, they likely provided intelligence that led back to overseas cells and organizations, which the NSA is supposed to target but which we can't exactly prosecute. It would be a huge blindspot if we couldn't follow the network graph of an organization based abroad because they route comms through the US.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- mtempm 10y ago
  "Those who would trade their freedom for safety deserve neither freedom nor safety." "Likely to commit crimes" is not just grounds, especially under the US constitution, to remove a citizen's constitutional rights. 'What signify a few lives lost in a century? The tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants.' Just so you are aware, clever tyrants always have taken liberties from their subjects in the name of moral righteousness. The people who established the concept of unalienable constitutional rights here in America were accustomed to the idea that a few lives lost lost in the process of was unavoidable.
  - sbov 10y ago
    > "Those who would trade their freedom for safety deserve neither freedom nor safety." Please stop (mis)qouting this. It means almost the exact opposite of the point people tend to try to make with it. http://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous-liberty-safety-quote-lost-its-context-in-21st-century http://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous...
    - 8note 10y ago
      If I'm reading this right, the context still says that one should not give up their rights in exchange for safety. If it was strictly pro defense, he would've taken the money and given up on governance. Having tax authority is essential for the government, and it shouldn't give it up for the sake of temporary defence money; privacy is essential to citizens, and shouldn't be given up for temporary protection from terrorists. Prescriptivist linguistics is pretty silly though -- words mean what people use them fo
      - mtempm 10y ago
        The above cited manipulation in the NPR article on Franklin's quote is frustrating. I used to listen to NPR 10 years ago, but today I tend to tune out[1]. Yes Franklin said a quote in a context, it does not mean he did not mean what he said. The quote is about giving up essential liberties to purchase temporary safety deserve neither. That's virtually the exact quote. If he wanted to say something that wasnt about giving up liberties for safety then he could have said that, instead, but he didnt do that. 1-stories glorifying transgender 9-year-olds is the type of thing that is now somehow standard on NPR: www.npr.org/2017/03/03/518206326/transgender-boy-finds-his-bros-and-himself-at-camp
  - meowface 10y ago
    I don't want the NSA accessing data like this without a warrant, but their job needs to get done somehow and by someone. Ideally with a lot more oversight, but calls to outright disband the organization are shortsighted. I'm also thinking long-long term. Terrorism isn't a seriously considerable risk to an individual American, but what about in 50 or 100 years? What if in the distant future, terrorist groups or weird death cults like Aum Shinrikyo are able to more easily develop or obtain biological or chemical weapons that can dissipate into a large urban area quickly? What if multiple attacks like that start to occur? We need to have some kind of counter to that. In terms of pure risk vs. reward trade-off, the current state of affairs isn't really worth it, but it's not hard to envision a future world where terrorism is truly a constant and valid fear in a first world country. That future hypothetical doesn't justify anything NSA does right now, no, but I think it (along with various threats from competing superpowers) does justify the need for some implementation of a security agency and intelligence community in every modern country. Also, you're kind of mixing up different quotes that aren't really related to the specific issue.
- Preemo 10y ago
  It's arguable that it would be a reasonable trade-off; how ever there's no evidence any or all of these 42 suspects were ever arrested, let alone convicted. As you said: who knows.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  > 42 arrested and convicted suspects I may be mistaken, but I don't believe the article said anything about convictions. The 42 "terrorism suspects" had their call records etc. sent to the NSA under court order. There isn't even mention of a trial. Was there due process? Was they considered innocent after reading the call record data? We don't know anything other than the NSA claims some people were "terrorist suspects", the FISA court granted a warrant, and phone records were collected. > who were likely to commit violent acts at some point That's an unwarranted assumption. All we know is some people were labeled a "terrorist suspect". Even if the investigation was for a violent act, they are suspects; no guilt has been established. A larger problem is your assumption that "terrorism" implies "likely to commit violent acts". That hasn't been true for some time. Drug trafficking[1] and the Occupy protests[2] were both "terrorism" according to the FBI. The term "terrorism" was diluted down to meaning "crime some people find frightening". The TLAs tend to use it now mostly for funding/budget purposes, as yet another "think of children!". [1] https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/international-drug-trafficking-and-terrorism https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/internation... [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/23/fbi-occupy-wall-street_n_2355883.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/23/fbi-occupy-wall-str...
  - olivermarks 10y ago
    "The U.S. government has prosecuted 796 people for terrorism since the 9/11 attacks. Most of them never even got close to committing an act of violence." https://trial-and-terror.theintercept.com/ https://trial-and-terror.theintercept.com/
    - cryptarch 10y ago
      Imagine they would've each killed 50 citizens on average. I think that's a very high estimate. I think 5/terrorist would be high, but lets pad the estimates. That's 40.000 deaths since 9/11. Was it worth it? Was that worth harming your culture, making your country more hostile to vistors and citizens alike, while spending (very roughly) $660.000.000.000[0] on "counter-terrorism"? Couldn't that money have been used more effectively, for instance on cancer research or programs to reduce obesity? 40k deaths over 16 years is nothing. It's how many Americans kill themselves in a year, while orders of magnitude more Americans die of heart failure, diabetes and cancer. And that's a very high estimate of the additional deaths-by-terrorist that might have potentially been prevented, maybe. [0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/11/u-s-spends-over-16-billion-annually-on-counter-terrorism/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/11/u-s-spends-o...
- deelowe 10y ago
  > who were likely to commit violent acts at some point Wow. Given what happened with MLK and others at the time, why are we so willing to trust these groups with such power? The court system exists for a reason.
  - mattnewton 10y ago
    Because we are afraid of terrorists.
    - deelowe 10y ago
      * Looks at email from representative asking if we should step up bombing in Syria. Yet we keep creating them.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  I've actually defended the NSA a lot as it seems incredibly naive to leave that information sitting on the table so no sane government would do so given the probability that their enemies could grab similar information. But isn't your trade-off kinda weird? Not that it's bad to catch 40 terrorists, but how many terrorists generate 3 million different phone calls in a year even in their extended network?
jjguy 10y ago
The counterpoint is 151M records represents .0000041% of global call records in 2016. (Based on an estimate of 10B calls per day worldwide)
- Retric 10y ago
  US is only 4.4 percent of the global population and they don't need permission to spy on non Americans.
  - meowface 10y ago
    In a world where hostile countries, some of them superpowers, also don't need permission to spy on non-citizens, what other option is there?
    - desdiv 10y ago
      Maybe we shouldn't compare ourselves to authoritarian shitholes. Maybe we should compare ourselves to a country where a Constitution applies and unreasonable searches and seizures doesn't happen. Maybe we can strive to be better rather than race to the bottom.
      - anigbrowl 10y ago
        Well we should certainly distinguish ourselves by our behavior, eg not imprisoning people without trial or [autocratic stuff]. On the other hand, passively vacuuming up information doesn't actively harm people. Just for context, I assume all my calls are logged and have been for years, not just in this country. I don't feel bad about this, both because I can understand why securocrats would be curious about me, and out of a basic optimism that this won't be actionable unless there is a security incentive - ie I assume who I talk to an the phone won't be shared with Dept. of Parking Tickets or other civil authorities.
        reactor4 10y ago
        oh but it does actively harm through self-censorship and more directly to those who gets in the crosshairs a posteriori because of their activism, dissension or business activities. Regarding your second paragraph, parallel construction comes to mind.

by vuln 10y ago

meowface 10y ago

Not to defend the NSA on ethical grounds, but at least on practical grounds, I would personally find that many records to be a decent trade-off for 42 arrested and convicted suspects who were likely to commit violent acts at some point. As for whether that's the case, who knows.

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
Also, they likely provided intelligence that led back to overseas cells and organizations, which the NSA is supposed to target but which we can't exactly prosecute. It would be a huge blindspot if we couldn't follow the network graph of an organization based abroad because they route comms through the US.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
mtempm 10y ago
"Those who would trade their freedom for safety deserve neither freedom nor safety." "Likely to commit crimes" is not just grounds, especially under the US constitution, to remove a citizen's constitutional rights. 'What signify a few lives lost in a century? The tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants.' Just so you are aware, clever tyrants always have taken liberties from their subjects in the name of moral righteousness. The people who established the concept of unalienable constitutional rights here in America were accustomed to the idea that a few lives lost lost in the process of was unavoidable.
- sbov 10y ago
  > "Those who would trade their freedom for safety deserve neither freedom nor safety." Please stop (mis)qouting this. It means almost the exact opposite of the point people tend to try to make with it. http://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous-liberty-safety-quote-lost-its-context-in-21st-century http://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous...
  - 8note 10y ago
    If I'm reading this right, the context still says that one should not give up their rights in exchange for safety. If it was strictly pro defense, he would've taken the money and given up on governance. Having tax authority is essential for the government, and it shouldn't give it up for the sake of temporary defence money; privacy is essential to citizens, and shouldn't be given up for temporary protection from terrorists. Prescriptivist linguistics is pretty silly though -- words mean what people use them fo
    - mtempm 10y ago
      The above cited manipulation in the NPR article on Franklin's quote is frustrating. I used to listen to NPR 10 years ago, but today I tend to tune out[1]. Yes Franklin said a quote in a context, it does not mean he did not mean what he said. The quote is about giving up essential liberties to purchase temporary safety deserve neither. That's virtually the exact quote. If he wanted to say something that wasnt about giving up liberties for safety then he could have said that, instead, but he didnt do that. 1-stories glorifying transgender 9-year-olds is the type of thing that is now somehow standard on NPR: www.npr.org/2017/03/03/518206326/transgender-boy-finds-his-bros-and-himself-at-camp
- meowface 10y ago
  I don't want the NSA accessing data like this without a warrant, but their job needs to get done somehow and by someone. Ideally with a lot more oversight, but calls to outright disband the organization are shortsighted. I'm also thinking long-long term. Terrorism isn't a seriously considerable risk to an individual American, but what about in 50 or 100 years? What if in the distant future, terrorist groups or weird death cults like Aum Shinrikyo are able to more easily develop or obtain biological or chemical weapons that can dissipate into a large urban area quickly? What if multiple attacks like that start to occur? We need to have some kind of counter to that. In terms of pure risk vs. reward trade-off, the current state of affairs isn't really worth it, but it's not hard to envision a future world where terrorism is truly a constant and valid fear in a first world country. That future hypothetical doesn't justify anything NSA does right now, no, but I think it (along with various threats from competing superpowers) does justify the need for some implementation of a security agency and intelligence community in every modern country. Also, you're kind of mixing up different quotes that aren't really related to the specific issue.
Preemo 10y ago
It's arguable that it would be a reasonable trade-off; how ever there's no evidence any or all of these 42 suspects were ever arrested, let alone convicted. As you said: who knows.
pdkl95 10y ago
> 42 arrested and convicted suspects I may be mistaken, but I don't believe the article said anything about convictions. The 42 "terrorism suspects" had their call records etc. sent to the NSA under court order. There isn't even mention of a trial. Was there due process? Was they considered innocent after reading the call record data? We don't know anything other than the NSA claims some people were "terrorist suspects", the FISA court granted a warrant, and phone records were collected. > who were likely to commit violent acts at some point That's an unwarranted assumption. All we know is some people were labeled a "terrorist suspect". Even if the investigation was for a violent act, they are suspects; no guilt has been established. A larger problem is your assumption that "terrorism" implies "likely to commit violent acts". That hasn't been true for some time. Drug trafficking[1] and the Occupy protests[2] were both "terrorism" according to the FBI. The term "terrorism" was diluted down to meaning "crime some people find frightening". The TLAs tend to use it now mostly for funding/budget purposes, as yet another "think of children!". [1] https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/international-drug-trafficking-and-terrorism https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/internation... [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/23/fbi-occupy-wall-street_n_2355883.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/23/fbi-occupy-wall-str...
- olivermarks 10y ago
  "The U.S. government has prosecuted 796 people for terrorism since the 9/11 attacks. Most of them never even got close to committing an act of violence." https://trial-and-terror.theintercept.com/ https://trial-and-terror.theintercept.com/
  - cryptarch 10y ago
    Imagine they would've each killed 50 citizens on average. I think that's a very high estimate. I think 5/terrorist would be high, but lets pad the estimates. That's 40.000 deaths since 9/11. Was it worth it? Was that worth harming your culture, making your country more hostile to vistors and citizens alike, while spending (very roughly) $660.000.000.000[0] on "counter-terrorism"? Couldn't that money have been used more effectively, for instance on cancer research or programs to reduce obesity? 40k deaths over 16 years is nothing. It's how many Americans kill themselves in a year, while orders of magnitude more Americans die of heart failure, diabetes and cancer. And that's a very high estimate of the additional deaths-by-terrorist that might have potentially been prevented, maybe. [0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/11/u-s-spends-over-16-billion-annually-on-counter-terrorism/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/11/u-s-spends-o...
deelowe 10y ago
> who were likely to commit violent acts at some point Wow. Given what happened with MLK and others at the time, why are we so willing to trust these groups with such power? The court system exists for a reason.
- mattnewton 10y ago
  Because we are afraid of terrorists.
  - deelowe 10y ago
    * Looks at email from representative asking if we should step up bombing in Syria. Yet we keep creating them.
anigbrowl 10y ago
I've actually defended the NSA a lot as it seems incredibly naive to leave that information sitting on the table so no sane government would do so given the probability that their enemies could grab similar information. But isn't your trade-off kinda weird? Not that it's bad to catch 40 terrorists, but how many terrorists generate 3 million different phone calls in a year even in their extended network?

jjguy 10y ago

The counterpoint is 151M records represents .0000041% of global call records in 2016. (Based on an estimate of 10B calls per day worldwide)

Retric 10y ago
US is only 4.4 percent of the global population and they don't need permission to spy on non Americans.
- meowface 10y ago
  In a world where hostile countries, some of them superpowers, also don't need permission to spy on non-citizens, what other option is there?
  - desdiv 10y ago
    Maybe we shouldn't compare ourselves to authoritarian shitholes. Maybe we should compare ourselves to a country where a Constitution applies and unreasonable searches and seizures doesn't happen. Maybe we can strive to be better rather than race to the bottom.
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      Well we should certainly distinguish ourselves by our behavior, eg not imprisoning people without trial or [autocratic stuff]. On the other hand, passively vacuuming up information doesn't actively harm people. Just for context, I assume all my calls are logged and have been for years, not just in this country. I don't feel bad about this, both because I can understand why securocrats would be curious about me, and out of a basic optimism that this won't be actionable unless there is a security incentive - ie I assume who I talk to an the phone won't be shared with Dept. of Parking Tickets or other civil authorities.
      - reactor4 10y ago
        oh but it does actively harm through self-censorship and more directly to those who gets in the crosshairs a posteriori because of their activism, dissension or business activities. Regarding your second paragraph, parallel construction comes to mind.