6 ms·

"One big change impacting surveillance was clear: Prior to September 11, the U.S. had what could reasonably be called a “wall” separating foreign surveillance f

"One big change impacting surveillance was clear: Prior to September 11, the U.S. had what could reasonably be called a “wall” separating foreign surveillance for national security purposes done by the NSA from domestic surveillance for law enforcement purposes done by the FBI." It turns out that the above statement is not entirely correct. I was aware of this rule at the time (early 90's), and was very surprised to find that it had been routinely violated for at least a decade. Unlike Snowden, I kept this to myself because I had signed (many) NDAs with the US Government.

dylan604 6mo ago
> Unlike Snowden, I kept this to myself because I had signed (many) NDAs with the US Government. You say this like you are proud of it. Admittedly, I cannot say what I would do in that situation as I've never been in that situation, but I'd hope I'd have the fortitude to speak up on it. Having employees/contractors doing tasks that are illegal just because they came from the higher ups is no different than soldiers refusing illegal orders. Quitting would be the least of the moral options. Speaking up would be higher up the complicated options.
- anonymousiam 6mo ago
  I'm not proud of it at all. The revelation was startling to me, and I was pretty unhappy about it. It was done in the name of "stopping bad people from doing bad things", but it was still illegal (at least in the white world). Snowden had the same dilemma. He was asking the NSA lawyers about the legality of their programs, and he never got an honest answer. Quitting would not have stopped the activity, and disclosing it would have subjected me to the same treatment that Snowden got. (Years later, I heard an NSA program manager boasting that they would keep asking different government lawyers for an opinion on the legality of proposed programs until they got the answer they wanted. This was after Snowden's revelations.) Pretty much everyone in CIA has a "ends justify the means" philosophy. It's easy to fall into that trap when you learn about all the devious things our enemies are doing. Apparently EOs have been used to circumvent the constitution for quite a while.
  - dylan604 6mo ago
    Quitting would just be the first step in "I do not want to participate in this". Whistle blowing is much more complicated in that you are hoping to not just not be participating but maybe stopping it altogether. Being young and single compared to being older with dependents would absolutely make that decision harder. Violating secrecy laws to disclose illegal activity seems like something that should have a caveat to allow, but of course they don't.
    - dijit 6mo ago
      This is a moral psychological quandary: quit and hope everyone shares your moral compass. (hint: they don’t). Or work to pressure change internally, and occupy space that might have gone to a more morally flexible person if it was made vacant; but while doing so engage in supporting immoral behaviour.
      - wahnfrieden 6mo ago
        Neither work without organizing. You cannot apply any meaningful pressure from the inside as an individual worker. You also do not need to work someplace to organize it.
        dylan604 6mo ago
        If you work outside of the organization and compel someone to act on your behalf, you will be charged with that. It's how journalists have been tripped up in the past. If someone leaks to a journo, the journo is not part of the leak. If the journo asks someone to get data to be leaked to them, they've overstepped and get into trouble. That's something to not be forgotten. From the inside, talking to coworkers definitely seems risky. If they are not like minded, they could report you. It'd have been better to just have quit at that point. Because of all of that, "ethical" leaking really does seem like the only option left. It's then a matter of can the leaker live with the consequences.
    - galangalalgol 6mo ago
- bobanrocky 6mo ago
  That is an unfair insinuation - ‘that he sounds proud of it’. There are many reasons one stays quiet - like you are sole provider for a family, its beem going on for a while that you ignore/doubt its seriousness etc.
  - dylan604 6mo ago
    That's just the way the "Unlike Snowden" part read to me. Had you read further down the thread, you'd see I had already stipulated the family part before you made your comment.
  - madaxe_again 6mo ago
    The consequences for speaking out can be very, very real, and utterly catastrophic. A good friend tried to blow the whistle on something the Cameron government was doing in the U.K., involving the judiciary, and got steamrolled for his efforts. There isn’t a whisper of the topic itself in the public domain, but his “crimes” were so bad that Cameron himself did a press conference to condemn him. His wife couldn’t take it, as these were people who’d spent their lives as loyal subjects of the system, suddenly cast out and crushed underfoot, killed herself. His kids fled the country. So - sure - it’s the “right thing to do” to speak out, but when dealing with government you have to do it with the foreknowledge that this may have mortal (or worse) consequences for you and your family. Profoundly formative experience for me, witnessing it all.
- 7thpower 6mo ago
  That is incredibly easy for you to say.
  - dylan604 6mo ago
    Almost as easy as what trite you just typed. At least I started a decent conversation. ::shrug::
- rapidaneurism 6mo ago
  It is quite different, as an employee you can be convicted for what you were ordered to do by your employer. If you do an illegal thing while following government orders you can only be convicted if your country loses a war.
timschmidt 6mo ago
People need to know about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction as well. The technique is used to shield these secret programs by laundering the information they collect through plausible evidentiary chains.
- TacticalCoder 6mo ago
  > People need to know about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction as well. The number of terrorists who have been caught because they were controlled by a police officer "because they ran a traffic light" (yeah, sure) is wild. In the EU at some point after every single terrorist attack the terrorists' names were known because they had left their passports in a car they left at the scene. (yeah, sure again). The really amazing thing is that they don't know the name of the terrorists right away: because the terrorists don't have the passport on themselves apparently. No: they all leave them in the last car they used. Probably that, by now, terrorists see past terror attacks and think: "Oh, I'm supposed to have my passport with me, but then leave in the last vehicle I'll use before killing people".
  - rrr_oh_man 6mo ago
    Can you elaborate on these points? I would love to read more.
  - nraynaud 6mo ago
    In France we had a case where the government tried to bring terrorist charges against someone, the problem is that the police couldn’t materially have seen what they wrote in their report, because their car was too far and the timing didn’t line up correctly. Eventually the policemen invoked confidentiality rules against their mobile phones so that no accurate probing could be made. The judge threw away the terrorist charges anyways, because the facts didn’t warrant it. Since the police knew exact facts without being there, there is a high suspicion they used illegal spying on the people and tried to launder the data.
    - 6mo ago
croes 6mo ago
Snowden had also signed many NDAs with the government
- Zeebrommer 6mo ago
  I don't think that needs reminding.
  - croes 6mo ago
    > Unlike Snowden, I kept this to myself because I had signed (many) NDAs with the US Government.
hackthemack 6mo ago
It is my understanding that the US Government set up a system, long, long ago, where the British would spy on Americans and then the British would supply the information to the NSA, thereby the NSA is not technically spying on American citizens. Words mean nothing. They can be interpreted how ever they need to be interpreted by those in power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
- globalnode 6mo ago
  australia and america have the same agreement. these countries may be dragons but live in fear of losing their hoard (borrowing that analogy from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47963204 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47963204)
  - bigfatkitten 6mo ago
    > australia and america have the same agreement This has no basis whatsoever in Australian law. Procuring someone else to do it on your behalf is still an offence under s 7(1) of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth). TELECOMMUNICATIONS (INTERCEPTION AND ACCESS) ACT 1979 - SECT 7 Telecommunications not to be intercepted (1) A person shall not: (a) intercept; (b) authorize, suffer or permit another person to intercept; or (c) do any act or thing that will enable him or her or another person to intercept; a communication passing over a telecommunications system.
    - Atreiden 6mo ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
      - bigfatkitten 6mo ago
        How about we refer to a primary source instead. https://www.nsa.gov/Helpful-Links/NSA-FOIA/Declassification-Transparency-Initiatives/Historical-Releases/UKUSA/smdpage14704/3/ https://www.nsa.gov/Helpful-Links/NSA-FOIA/Declassification-... Which provision of the treaty purports to enable this conduct?
Onavo 6mo ago
[flagged]
nxobject 6mo ago
My little piece... it seems like we're litigating your past below, which doesn't seem to be helpful. What's done is done; what is each of us going to do, now?
- rkagerer 6mo ago
  Unrelated but genuine question: When did it become vogue to use the word "litigate" in a casual context like you just did, outside of any legal proceedings or the like? Why prefer it over, for example, "debate"? (I first observed it watching a broadcast of JD Vance, but have encountered others effect the same usage since then).
  - nxobject 6mo ago
    Huh, good question. It's actually a very, very old use – the OED gives examples going all the way back to 1740, apparently (see entry 2b. below.) https://www.oed.com/dictionary/litigate_v?tab=meaning_and_use https://www.oed.com/dictionary/litigate_v?tab=meaning_and_us...
jijji 6mo ago
in 2002 I worked at an AT&T major datacenter and watched the NSA install all the black boxes in every rack, complete with a black curtain and armed guards while they did the project (St Louis). Before that it was still going on, it just wasnt so embedded like they did in 2002.
- IG_Semmelweiss 5mo ago
  You are overdue to speak with Cindy Cohn, then
UpsilonAlpha 6mo ago
You don't sign NDAs with the government, you sign a lifetime obligation [1] where the penalty is treason. I doubt you did or saw any such things. 1. https://media.defense.gov/2021/Oct/18/2002875198/-1/-1/0/NSACSS_POLICY_1-30_20210202.PDF https://media.defense.gov/2021/Oct/18/2002875198/-1/-1/0/NSA...
- contingencies 6mo ago
  If you are not a direct government employee you maybe sign an NDA.
- sandworm101 6mo ago
  The existance and general operation of no such agency and echalon were common knowledge. I remember reading about them in Tom Clancy novels. Fantasy, but also widely understood reality. One doesnt need to have a clearance to count satalite dishes at like pine gap and realize what is happening.
- anonymousiam 6mo ago
  I don't feel any compelling need to convince you. During my career I signed dozens of NDAs. They were all either umbrella or caveat specific. All of them cited Title 18 referencing punishments (including death) for violations of the NDA, and all of them were related to either Title 10 or Title 50 activities. Without being too specific, what I observed was the use of NSA assets to surveil grow operations within the US. It was explained to me that it began with Ronald Reagan's War On Drugs. I've seen much worse since then while supporting Waived / Unacknowledged programs. Present classification requirements dictate that those be reviewed for declassification after 40 years, but they will never see the light of day because all documentation is destroyed at the end of the program and not archived anywhere.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - Barbing 6mo ago
    This got me wondering how often a person in your position sticks all their contemporaneous notes in a place where the inheritors of their estate would find them. But perhaps encrypted and somehow time-locked to ensure the forty-year minimum standard is kept. Since obviously national security is going to be the number one, but after that the law’s the law. Oh maybe people assign law firms to disclose this stuff but that’s a decently sized tax to pay when you’ve done nothing wrong. Hey thanks for sharing what you could
flashdesk 6mo ago
[flagged]

dylan604 6mo ago

> Unlike Snowden, I kept this to myself because I had signed (many) NDAs with the US Government. You say this like you are proud of it. Admittedly, I cannot say what I would do in that situation as I've never been in that situation, but I'd hope I'd have the fortitude to speak up on it. Having employees/contractors doing tasks that are illegal just because they came from the higher ups is no different than soldiers refusing illegal orders. Quitting would be the least of the moral options. Speaking up would be higher up the complicated options.

anonymousiam 6mo ago
I'm not proud of it at all. The revelation was startling to me, and I was pretty unhappy about it. It was done in the name of "stopping bad people from doing bad things", but it was still illegal (at least in the white world). Snowden had the same dilemma. He was asking the NSA lawyers about the legality of their programs, and he never got an honest answer. Quitting would not have stopped the activity, and disclosing it would have subjected me to the same treatment that Snowden got. (Years later, I heard an NSA program manager boasting that they would keep asking different government lawyers for an opinion on the legality of proposed programs until they got the answer they wanted. This was after Snowden's revelations.) Pretty much everyone in CIA has a "ends justify the means" philosophy. It's easy to fall into that trap when you learn about all the devious things our enemies are doing. Apparently EOs have been used to circumvent the constitution for quite a while.
- dylan604 6mo ago
  Quitting would just be the first step in "I do not want to participate in this". Whistle blowing is much more complicated in that you are hoping to not just not be participating but maybe stopping it altogether. Being young and single compared to being older with dependents would absolutely make that decision harder. Violating secrecy laws to disclose illegal activity seems like something that should have a caveat to allow, but of course they don't.
  - dijit 6mo ago
    This is a moral psychological quandary: quit and hope everyone shares your moral compass. (hint: they don’t). Or work to pressure change internally, and occupy space that might have gone to a more morally flexible person if it was made vacant; but while doing so engage in supporting immoral behaviour.
    - wahnfrieden 6mo ago
      Neither work without organizing. You cannot apply any meaningful pressure from the inside as an individual worker. You also do not need to work someplace to organize it.
      - dylan604 6mo ago
        If you work outside of the organization and compel someone to act on your behalf, you will be charged with that. It's how journalists have been tripped up in the past. If someone leaks to a journo, the journo is not part of the leak. If the journo asks someone to get data to be leaked to them, they've overstepped and get into trouble. That's something to not be forgotten. From the inside, talking to coworkers definitely seems risky. If they are not like minded, they could report you. It'd have been better to just have quit at that point. Because of all of that, "ethical" leaking really does seem like the only option left. It's then a matter of can the leaker live with the consequences.
  - galangalalgol 6mo ago
bobanrocky 6mo ago
That is an unfair insinuation - ‘that he sounds proud of it’. There are many reasons one stays quiet - like you are sole provider for a family, its beem going on for a while that you ignore/doubt its seriousness etc.
- dylan604 6mo ago
  That's just the way the "Unlike Snowden" part read to me. Had you read further down the thread, you'd see I had already stipulated the family part before you made your comment.
- madaxe_again 6mo ago
  The consequences for speaking out can be very, very real, and utterly catastrophic. A good friend tried to blow the whistle on something the Cameron government was doing in the U.K., involving the judiciary, and got steamrolled for his efforts. There isn’t a whisper of the topic itself in the public domain, but his “crimes” were so bad that Cameron himself did a press conference to condemn him. His wife couldn’t take it, as these were people who’d spent their lives as loyal subjects of the system, suddenly cast out and crushed underfoot, killed herself. His kids fled the country. So - sure - it’s the “right thing to do” to speak out, but when dealing with government you have to do it with the foreknowledge that this may have mortal (or worse) consequences for you and your family. Profoundly formative experience for me, witnessing it all.
7thpower 6mo ago
That is incredibly easy for you to say.
- dylan604 6mo ago
  Almost as easy as what trite you just typed. At least I started a decent conversation. ::shrug::
rapidaneurism 6mo ago
It is quite different, as an employee you can be convicted for what you were ordered to do by your employer. If you do an illegal thing while following government orders you can only be convicted if your country loses a war.

timschmidt 6mo ago

People need to know about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction as well. The technique is used to shield these secret programs by laundering the information they collect through plausible evidentiary chains.

TacticalCoder 6mo ago
> People need to know about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction as well. The number of terrorists who have been caught because they were controlled by a police officer "because they ran a traffic light" (yeah, sure) is wild. In the EU at some point after every single terrorist attack the terrorists' names were known because they had left their passports in a car they left at the scene. (yeah, sure again). The really amazing thing is that they don't know the name of the terrorists right away: because the terrorists don't have the passport on themselves apparently. No: they all leave them in the last car they used. Probably that, by now, terrorists see past terror attacks and think: "Oh, I'm supposed to have my passport with me, but then leave in the last vehicle I'll use before killing people".
- rrr_oh_man 6mo ago
  Can you elaborate on these points? I would love to read more.
- nraynaud 6mo ago
  In France we had a case where the government tried to bring terrorist charges against someone, the problem is that the police couldn’t materially have seen what they wrote in their report, because their car was too far and the timing didn’t line up correctly. Eventually the policemen invoked confidentiality rules against their mobile phones so that no accurate probing could be made. The judge threw away the terrorist charges anyways, because the facts didn’t warrant it. Since the police knew exact facts without being there, there is a high suspicion they used illegal spying on the people and tried to launder the data.
  - 6mo ago

croes 6mo ago

Snowden had also signed many NDAs with the government

Zeebrommer 6mo ago
I don't think that needs reminding.
- croes 6mo ago
  > Unlike Snowden, I kept this to myself because I had signed (many) NDAs with the US Government.

hackthemack 6mo ago

It is my understanding that the US Government set up a system, long, long ago, where the British would spy on Americans and then the British would supply the information to the NSA, thereby the NSA is not technically spying on American citizens. Words mean nothing. They can be interpreted how ever they need to be interpreted by those in power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

globalnode 6mo ago
australia and america have the same agreement. these countries may be dragons but live in fear of losing their hoard (borrowing that analogy from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47963204 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47963204)
- bigfatkitten 6mo ago
  > australia and america have the same agreement This has no basis whatsoever in Australian law. Procuring someone else to do it on your behalf is still an offence under s 7(1) of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth). TELECOMMUNICATIONS (INTERCEPTION AND ACCESS) ACT 1979 - SECT 7 Telecommunications not to be intercepted (1) A person shall not: (a) intercept; (b) authorize, suffer or permit another person to intercept; or (c) do any act or thing that will enable him or her or another person to intercept; a communication passing over a telecommunications system.
  - Atreiden 6mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
    - bigfatkitten 6mo ago
      How about we refer to a primary source instead. https://www.nsa.gov/Helpful-Links/NSA-FOIA/Declassification-Transparency-Initiatives/Historical-Releases/UKUSA/smdpage14704/3/ https://www.nsa.gov/Helpful-Links/NSA-FOIA/Declassification-... Which provision of the treaty purports to enable this conduct?

Onavo 6mo ago

[flagged]

nxobject 6mo ago

My little piece... it seems like we're litigating your past below, which doesn't seem to be helpful. What's done is done; what is each of us going to do, now?

rkagerer 6mo ago
Unrelated but genuine question: When did it become vogue to use the word "litigate" in a casual context like you just did, outside of any legal proceedings or the like? Why prefer it over, for example, "debate"? (I first observed it watching a broadcast of JD Vance, but have encountered others effect the same usage since then).
- nxobject 6mo ago
  Huh, good question. It's actually a very, very old use – the OED gives examples going all the way back to 1740, apparently (see entry 2b. below.) https://www.oed.com/dictionary/litigate_v?tab=meaning_and_use https://www.oed.com/dictionary/litigate_v?tab=meaning_and_us...

jijji 6mo ago

in 2002 I worked at an AT&T major datacenter and watched the NSA install all the black boxes in every rack, complete with a black curtain and armed guards while they did the project (St Louis). Before that it was still going on, it just wasnt so embedded like they did in 2002.

IG_Semmelweiss 5mo ago
You are overdue to speak with Cindy Cohn, then

UpsilonAlpha 6mo ago

You don't sign NDAs with the government, you sign a lifetime obligation [1] where the penalty is treason. I doubt you did or saw any such things. 1. https://media.defense.gov/2021/Oct/18/2002875198/-1/-1/0/NSACSS_POLICY_1-30_20210202.PDF https://media.defense.gov/2021/Oct/18/2002875198/-1/-1/0/NSA...

contingencies 6mo ago
If you are not a direct government employee you maybe sign an NDA.
sandworm101 6mo ago
The existance and general operation of no such agency and echalon were common knowledge. I remember reading about them in Tom Clancy novels. Fantasy, but also widely understood reality. One doesnt need to have a clearance to count satalite dishes at like pine gap and realize what is happening.
anonymousiam 6mo ago
I don't feel any compelling need to convince you. During my career I signed dozens of NDAs. They were all either umbrella or caveat specific. All of them cited Title 18 referencing punishments (including death) for violations of the NDA, and all of them were related to either Title 10 or Title 50 activities. Without being too specific, what I observed was the use of NSA assets to surveil grow operations within the US. It was explained to me that it began with Ronald Reagan's War On Drugs. I've seen much worse since then while supporting Waived / Unacknowledged programs. Present classification requirements dictate that those be reviewed for declassification after 40 years, but they will never see the light of day because all documentation is destroyed at the end of the program and not archived anywhere.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- Barbing 6mo ago
  This got me wondering how often a person in your position sticks all their contemporaneous notes in a place where the inheritors of their estate would find them. But perhaps encrypted and somehow time-locked to ensure the forty-year minimum standard is kept. Since obviously national security is going to be the number one, but after that the law’s the law. Oh maybe people assign law firms to disclose this stuff but that’s a decently sized tax to pay when you’ve done nothing wrong. Hey thanks for sharing what you could

flashdesk 6mo ago

[flagged]