4 ms·

Bad headline to IMO a much bigger story. Aaron’s metadata was swept up in, apparently, an NSL grab of a massive trove of email headers from the University of Pi

by zaroth 8y ago

Bad headline to IMO a much bigger story. Aaron’s metadata was swept up in, apparently, an NSL grab of a massive trove of email headers from the University of Pittsburg. A case ostensibly linked to “Al Qaeda” allowed the FBI claim they had a basis to request a massive dump of email metadata from the University of Pittsburg IT department. We don’t know exactly how much data was collected, just that Aaron’s email happens to be on Page 27 of an Appendix. All this metadata is stored indefinitely and is accessible in the course of any unrelated investigation. The legal standard the FBI has to meet to be able to NSL this information from a target is described as “a hunch”.

tomschlick 8y ago
Pittsburgh
diafygi 8y ago
National Security Letters (NSLs) are the things that every time they have been challenged in court the FBI drops the request, right? Since they don't want to test the constitutionality of them? Seems like the University of Pittsburgh didn't call up the EFF and instead capitulated to a likely unconstitutional request. https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters
- skywhopper 8y ago
  In 2007 I don't think it was nearly as clear that challenging them was an option. But I'm also sure that similar things go on all the time and we just don't learn about it.
skywhopper 8y ago
The irony of the email header collection is that since this batch of headers is associated with an "al Qaeda" investigation, then since the content of the emails is unknown, suddenly anyone who shows up in the headers appears suspect, especially out of context in a future datamine. Even though presumably hundreds or thousands of email addresses were in this same dump, and maybe one was of interest to the FBI at the time, but they cast the net as widely as they're allowed.
- pasbesoin 8y ago
  And this is where the rules/regulations become important for how many degrees of separation -- how many "hops"; see also the 'Kevin Bacon rule' -- they are permitted to pursue based upon the original source data. If you believe that they actually adhere to them. As someone else described (I don't know), this particular collection started with "a hunch"... If we don't know what our government and its agencies are actually doing -- to a reasonable degree, as it were -- we cannot exercise oversight and we cease to be a democracy (in the form of a republic, or otherwise).
- mtgx 8y ago
  It's called "making the haystack bigger" in relation to finding the needle in the haystack. In other words mass surveillance increases the noise rather than the signal, which we've always know it does. The government just doesn't care because in the end mass surveillance allows it to target anyone at will without real judicial oversight for each person being investigated.

by zaroth 8y ago

tomschlick 8y ago

Pittsburgh

diafygi 8y ago

National Security Letters (NSLs) are the things that every time they have been challenged in court the FBI drops the request, right? Since they don't want to test the constitutionality of them? Seems like the University of Pittsburgh didn't call up the EFF and instead capitulated to a likely unconstitutional request. https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters

skywhopper 8y ago
In 2007 I don't think it was nearly as clear that challenging them was an option. But I'm also sure that similar things go on all the time and we just don't learn about it.

skywhopper 8y ago

The irony of the email header collection is that since this batch of headers is associated with an "al Qaeda" investigation, then since the content of the emails is unknown, suddenly anyone who shows up in the headers appears suspect, especially out of context in a future datamine. Even though presumably hundreds or thousands of email addresses were in this same dump, and maybe one was of interest to the FBI at the time, but they cast the net as widely as they're allowed.

pasbesoin 8y ago
And this is where the rules/regulations become important for how many degrees of separation -- how many "hops"; see also the 'Kevin Bacon rule' -- they are permitted to pursue based upon the original source data. If you believe that they actually adhere to them. As someone else described (I don't know), this particular collection started with "a hunch"... If we don't know what our government and its agencies are actually doing -- to a reasonable degree, as it were -- we cannot exercise oversight and we cease to be a democracy (in the form of a republic, or otherwise).
mtgx 8y ago
It's called "making the haystack bigger" in relation to finding the needle in the haystack. In other words mass surveillance increases the noise rather than the signal, which we've always know it does. The government just doesn't care because in the end mass surveillance allows it to target anyone at will without real judicial oversight for each person being investigated.