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Whistleblower: NSA Targeted Journalists, Snooped on All U.S. Communications

53 points by markup 18y ago

markup 18y ago
Could someone with edit permissions fix the link removing the # at the end (and delete this comment)? Thanks
daniel-cussen 18y ago
Boot stamping on human face etc.
bprater 18y ago
I suspect this is the beginning of many things we will learn now that the Bush administration is out of office.
- Dilpil 18y ago
  Can as many things possibly come out after bush than came out during bush?
justindz 18y ago
People in the know kept all of their phone calls to 2 minutes and 1 second, minimum. I'm hoping that was a purely hypothetical example, or else the signal to noise ratio must have been absurd.
anamax 18y ago
Does anyone believe that they're really going to stop? How about that that it didn't start during the Clinton administration (if the capability existed)?
- anamax 18y ago
  I forgot that the Kennedy administration was especially fond of govt surveillance. I'd be surprised if Nixon wasn't. Is there any reason to believe that a govt won't do surveillance that it has the capability to do?
DanielBMarkham 18y ago
Tice said the NSA analyzed metadata to determine which communication would be collected. The analysis of metadata -- signals intelligence -- is NOT covered under the consitution. Likewise node analysis or lots of other forms of mathematical intelligence gathering. If the NSA can string seven communications nodes together to hone in on an accurate communications channel for terrorists to their sponsors/members/operatives, then they are doing their job. This critical work should not be lumped in with everything else. Now the actual recording of calls and data of communications, as opposed to metadata -- that's another animal entirely. Instead of grandstanding (and I'm a liberarian, so it's really hard not to grandstand on this one), we should try to take the concept of foreign intelligence into the world of IM, SMS, E-mail, and all the other new forms of data which live all over the world (including on U.S. servers) I'm not making apologies for NSA. I'm simply pointing out that they are charged with doing an important job. They might be screwing it up, but that doesn't make the job go away. The last thing we want is another 1970s where Congress so crippled the intelligence agencies based on previous bad behavior that we were mostly blind in terms on HUMINT up until 9-11. Politicians and media outlets have a tendency to try to make audiences as emotional as possible -- which is exactly not what we want to do with something as important as this.
- bprater 18y ago
  Here's what I know and it seems pretty obvious: if a subversive is looking to move information between him and his cohorts, they will make it nearly impossible for the NSA or any other national organization to either: 1) locate messages or if they do, 2) break them. (Sorry, but unless the government has figured out a mathematical backdoor to standard RSA-style encryption, any nefarious organization can just add a few more bits to their encryption to stay ahead of the code-breakers and their hardware.) I'm going to assume that real subversives are going to go to extreme lengths to ensure their communications aren't compromised. The government isn't stupid, they know this. So who the heck are they listening to? It leaves us with communications by folks who want to use their 1st amendment rights to talk about anything under the American sun, and will most often do it in clear-text as it passes through routing equipment. The parsing and archiving of this type of information -- is what is truly scary: "See this note you wrote to someone else in 2005 talking about 'overthrowing rabid monkeys', well you wrote it, so off to the dungeons you go! Muhaha!"
jeremyw 18y ago
It would be nice if these articles (especially in net-savvy Wired) included computability and physical access arguments defining the current limits of practical internet surveillance, scoping a bit the unbounded oh-my-god-they're-reading-everything. Distributed growth beats centralized (observer) growth, no matter how many cooperative agents (AT&T, etc). i.e. what's the current sampling ceiling?
jderick 18y ago
This needs to stop.

53 points by markup 18y ago

markup 18y ago

Could someone with edit permissions fix the link removing the # at the end (and delete this comment)? Thanks

daniel-cussen 18y ago

Boot stamping on human face etc.

bprater 18y ago

I suspect this is the beginning of many things we will learn now that the Bush administration is out of office.

Dilpil 18y ago
Can as many things possibly come out after bush than came out during bush?

justindz 18y ago

People in the know kept all of their phone calls to 2 minutes and 1 second, minimum. I'm hoping that was a purely hypothetical example, or else the signal to noise ratio must have been absurd.

anamax 18y ago

Does anyone believe that they're really going to stop? How about that that it didn't start during the Clinton administration (if the capability existed)?

anamax 18y ago
I forgot that the Kennedy administration was especially fond of govt surveillance. I'd be surprised if Nixon wasn't. Is there any reason to believe that a govt won't do surveillance that it has the capability to do?

DanielBMarkham 18y ago

Tice said the NSA analyzed metadata to determine which communication would be collected. The analysis of metadata -- signals intelligence -- is NOT covered under the consitution. Likewise node analysis or lots of other forms of mathematical intelligence gathering. If the NSA can string seven communications nodes together to hone in on an accurate communications channel for terrorists to their sponsors/members/operatives, then they are doing their job. This critical work should not be lumped in with everything else. Now the actual recording of calls and data of communications, as opposed to metadata -- that's another animal entirely. Instead of grandstanding (and I'm a liberarian, so it's really hard not to grandstand on this one), we should try to take the concept of foreign intelligence into the world of IM, SMS, E-mail, and all the other new forms of data which live all over the world (including on U.S. servers) I'm not making apologies for NSA. I'm simply pointing out that they are charged with doing an important job. They might be screwing it up, but that doesn't make the job go away. The last thing we want is another 1970s where Congress so crippled the intelligence agencies based on previous bad behavior that we were mostly blind in terms on HUMINT up until 9-11. Politicians and media outlets have a tendency to try to make audiences as emotional as possible -- which is exactly not what we want to do with something as important as this.

bprater 18y ago
Here's what I know and it seems pretty obvious: if a subversive is looking to move information between him and his cohorts, they will make it nearly impossible for the NSA or any other national organization to either: 1) locate messages or if they do, 2) break them. (Sorry, but unless the government has figured out a mathematical backdoor to standard RSA-style encryption, any nefarious organization can just add a few more bits to their encryption to stay ahead of the code-breakers and their hardware.) I'm going to assume that real subversives are going to go to extreme lengths to ensure their communications aren't compromised. The government isn't stupid, they know this. So who the heck are they listening to? It leaves us with communications by folks who want to use their 1st amendment rights to talk about anything under the American sun, and will most often do it in clear-text as it passes through routing equipment. The parsing and archiving of this type of information -- is what is truly scary: "See this note you wrote to someone else in 2005 talking about 'overthrowing rabid monkeys', well you wrote it, so off to the dungeons you go! Muhaha!"

jeremyw 18y ago

It would be nice if these articles (especially in net-savvy Wired) included computability and physical access arguments defining the current limits of practical internet surveillance, scoping a bit the unbounded oh-my-god-they're-reading-everything. Distributed growth beats centralized (observer) growth, no matter how many cooperative agents (AT&T, etc). i.e. what's the current sampling ceiling?

jderick 18y ago

This needs to stop.