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It's useful when discussing this topic to break the word "spy" down into more discrete terms to understand exactly what we are discussing. I found this article

It's useful when discussing this topic to break the word "spy" down into more discrete terms to understand exactly what we are discussing. I found this article to be useful in differentiating the various terms: On its face, the document suggests that the U.S. government regularly collects and stores all domestic telephone records. I use the caveat because there are several ways to interpret it, assuming it is real. (It looks real.) A few definitions: to "collect" means to gather and store; to "analyze" means that a computer or human actually does something with the records; to "intercept" means that a computer or human actually listens to or records calls. ... The NSA, under the FISA Amendments Act, is able to analyze metadata, like incoming and outgoing call records, so long as the Attorney General certifies that a particular set of information is useful for reasons of national security. Then, the NSA asks the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to order that a company comply. As that bill was being ironed out, this step was requested by private companies because they wanted protection from lawsuits in case innocents — or millions of innocents — found that the NSA had gathered their call information. My own understanding is that the NSA routinely collects millions of domestic-to-domestic phone records. It does not do anything with them unless there is a need to search through them for lawful purposes. That is, an analyst at the NSA cannot legally simply perform random searches through the stored data. He or she needs to have a reason, usually some intelligence tip. That would allow him or her to segregate the part of the data that's necessary to analyze, and proceed from there. In a way, it makes sense for the NSA to collect all telephone records because it can't know in advance what sections or slices it might need in the future. It does not follow that simply because the NSA collects data that it is legal for the NSA to use the data for foreign intelligence or counter-terrorism analysis. http://theweek.com/article/index/245228/the-fbi-collects-all-telephone-records http://theweek.com/article/index/245228/the-fbi-collects-all... This is written specifically about the telephone call metadata, but being able to differentiate exactly what is collected about Internet traffic would also aid this discussion. Unfortunately this would only be possible if the government was more transparent about what is being collected.

Ziomislaw 13y ago
is the 'reason' even verified? is that not just a pretty way of saying "they can't browse through the data, unless they have a reason - any reason will do - feel secure:) "
- Jauny 13y ago
  "so long as the Attorney General certifies that a particular set of information is useful for reasons of national security. Then, the NSA asks the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to order that a company comply." I would assume it would be pretty hard to go through those steps with "any reason", no? I like thinking most people are somewhat honest, and I wouldn't see anyone from Intel. use a 'favor credit' with an AG for some random telephone data. Am I being too innocent? :)
nitrogen 13y ago
Is not knowing "what [they] might need in the future" really sufficient justification to just give them everything?
- saraid216 13y ago
  That's how a web crawler works, though, right?
  - pionar 13y ago
    But phone calls are not supposed to be public, and web crawlers only access items which are public, so your argument isn't valid.
    - saraid216 13y ago
      > web crawlers only [supposed to] access items which are public [whether or not their author realized it] Fixed that for you.
    - anigbrowl 13y ago
      But phone calls are not supposed to be public You'd think that, but you'd be wrong. Since Smith v. Maryland (1979) the standard has been that you don't have an expectation of privacy in the records of the calls you make (as opposed to the content of those calls), on the grounds that you necessarily share that information with the phone company. This is analogous to not having any expectation of privacy on the street, eg which friends you choose to visit or which places you go that could be observed by third parties, or the lack of privacy in who mail letters to, which information is shared with the post office. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland) Now in 2006 Congress decided that consumers should have such privacy after all, and amended the telecommunications act of 1934 to make it illegal for phone companies to sell or share subscribers' call data, but that law contains a broad exception for law enforcement and intelligence gathering activity. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-109hr4709enr/pdf/BILLS-109hr4709enr.pdf http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-109hr4709enr/pdf/BILLS-10... Here's a good (non-jargon) summary of the arguments on both sides from late last year: http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/10/03/50935.htm http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/10/03/50935.htm From the legal standpoint, it's important to bear this context in mind, rather than assuming the current situation is the result of massive overreach by this administration, or the government since 9-11. The fact is that the NSA of today sits atop foundations dating from from the Cold War By chance I picked up a 70s spy novel at a thrift store the other day, and it's all about Soviet sleeper agents hidden in the US and activated by coded messages in telephone calls - the heroes are in a race against time to pinpoint the origin of the calls and interrupt the planned sequence of events. I happened to notice the book because I remembered being scared of the movie trailer as a kid since it seemed to suggest that calling the wrong number could result in a violent death (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qg0w8qbBQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qg0w8qbBQo). So in the book the author was clearly worried about the openness of US society providing America's enemies with the tools of its own destruction - not unlike today's anxieties over cyber-warfare - and there's an implicit argument that high speed communications infrastructure is too powerful a force multiplier not to be under government supervision. Agree or not, it presented a surprisingly prescient understanding of asymmetrical warfare, to the point of seeming like domestic propaganda. I mention this not to justify current NRA data collection, but to offer some historical context for how the law came to be the way it is. Too often, privacy discussions on HN are pendant on mythical notions of privacy being considered sacred until very recently. Historically (and going back all the way to the country's founding) the scope of the 4th amendment has been a lot narrower than people imagine and courts have generally not given much weight to the idea of a right to privacy. The notion that the Constitution provides a right to privacy wasn't articulated by the Supreme Court until 1965, in Griswold v. Connecticut (a case about birth control that paved the way for Roe v. Wade). See http://faculty.ncwc.edu/mstevens/410/410lect16.htm http://faculty.ncwc.edu/mstevens/410/410lect16.htm for a good overview. Griswold is still considered bad law by a lot of legal scholars, who think that any right to privacy needs to be added to the Constitution by amendment rather than extrapolated by judicial imagination.
bascule 13y ago
We know exactly what's being collected: all the Internet traffic they can get their hands on. They have installed beam splitters on Internet backbones at facilities around the country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A And are funneling all of the traffic to a datacenter in Utah with "yottabyte" scale capacity, with the goal of having enough capacity to archive the data for 100 years: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1 http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/al... The NSA whistleblower who disclosed the project to the public was the person who wrote the backend of the system, which was originally designed for foreign data collection only. The NSA later repurposed the system for domestic data collection too. The goal, according to him, is to build models of every single person in the country, model the social graph, and be able to classify people as potential threats.
- ArbitraryCrow 13y ago
  The goal, according to him, is to build models of every single person in the country, model the social graph, and be able to classify people as potential threats. Another example of government waste and redundancy. We already have Facebook for this!
- homosaur 13y ago
  Before it's crime, it's pre-crime.
  - EFruit 13y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_%28TV_series%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_%28TV_series... More detail of the theoretical system: http://personofinterest.wikia.com/wiki/The_Machine http://personofinterest.wikia.com/wiki/The_Machine
- jauer 13y ago
  The mythos of Room 641A is troubling as it relies on the idea that spying at 10 or 20 such sites across a handful of providers actually sees enough internet traffic to build a useful picture of US internet activities. AT&T is just one of ~15 Tier 1 providers, never mind large number of tier 2 providers that carry the majority of internet traffic. There would need to be 1-10 such rooms in every NFL city and metro area in the US to do that owing to peering (public & private) and regional traffic. IMO that's simply too big of a undertaking to happen in secrecy. Far more likely that it happened to be a handy place to watch traffic from transpacific cables or non-US IP traffic from non-US Tier 1. Actually, going by 10-20 sites I'd put my money on spying on non-US Tier 1 provider traffic.

Ziomislaw 13y ago

is the 'reason' even verified? is that not just a pretty way of saying "they can't browse through the data, unless they have a reason - any reason will do - feel secure:) "

Jauny 13y ago
"so long as the Attorney General certifies that a particular set of information is useful for reasons of national security. Then, the NSA asks the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to order that a company comply." I would assume it would be pretty hard to go through those steps with "any reason", no? I like thinking most people are somewhat honest, and I wouldn't see anyone from Intel. use a 'favor credit' with an AG for some random telephone data. Am I being too innocent? :)

nitrogen 13y ago

Is not knowing "what [they] might need in the future" really sufficient justification to just give them everything?

saraid216 13y ago
That's how a web crawler works, though, right?
- pionar 13y ago
  But phone calls are not supposed to be public, and web crawlers only access items which are public, so your argument isn't valid.
  - saraid216 13y ago
    > web crawlers only [supposed to] access items which are public [whether or not their author realized it] Fixed that for you.
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    But phone calls are not supposed to be public You'd think that, but you'd be wrong. Since Smith v. Maryland (1979) the standard has been that you don't have an expectation of privacy in the records of the calls you make (as opposed to the content of those calls), on the grounds that you necessarily share that information with the phone company. This is analogous to not having any expectation of privacy on the street, eg which friends you choose to visit or which places you go that could be observed by third parties, or the lack of privacy in who mail letters to, which information is shared with the post office. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland) Now in 2006 Congress decided that consumers should have such privacy after all, and amended the telecommunications act of 1934 to make it illegal for phone companies to sell or share subscribers' call data, but that law contains a broad exception for law enforcement and intelligence gathering activity. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-109hr4709enr/pdf/BILLS-109hr4709enr.pdf http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-109hr4709enr/pdf/BILLS-10... Here's a good (non-jargon) summary of the arguments on both sides from late last year: http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/10/03/50935.htm http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/10/03/50935.htm From the legal standpoint, it's important to bear this context in mind, rather than assuming the current situation is the result of massive overreach by this administration, or the government since 9-11. The fact is that the NSA of today sits atop foundations dating from from the Cold War By chance I picked up a 70s spy novel at a thrift store the other day, and it's all about Soviet sleeper agents hidden in the US and activated by coded messages in telephone calls - the heroes are in a race against time to pinpoint the origin of the calls and interrupt the planned sequence of events. I happened to notice the book because I remembered being scared of the movie trailer as a kid since it seemed to suggest that calling the wrong number could result in a violent death (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qg0w8qbBQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qg0w8qbBQo). So in the book the author was clearly worried about the openness of US society providing America's enemies with the tools of its own destruction - not unlike today's anxieties over cyber-warfare - and there's an implicit argument that high speed communications infrastructure is too powerful a force multiplier not to be under government supervision. Agree or not, it presented a surprisingly prescient understanding of asymmetrical warfare, to the point of seeming like domestic propaganda. I mention this not to justify current NRA data collection, but to offer some historical context for how the law came to be the way it is. Too often, privacy discussions on HN are pendant on mythical notions of privacy being considered sacred until very recently. Historically (and going back all the way to the country's founding) the scope of the 4th amendment has been a lot narrower than people imagine and courts have generally not given much weight to the idea of a right to privacy. The notion that the Constitution provides a right to privacy wasn't articulated by the Supreme Court until 1965, in Griswold v. Connecticut (a case about birth control that paved the way for Roe v. Wade). See http://faculty.ncwc.edu/mstevens/410/410lect16.htm http://faculty.ncwc.edu/mstevens/410/410lect16.htm for a good overview. Griswold is still considered bad law by a lot of legal scholars, who think that any right to privacy needs to be added to the Constitution by amendment rather than extrapolated by judicial imagination.

bascule 13y ago

We know exactly what's being collected: all the Internet traffic they can get their hands on. They have installed beam splitters on Internet backbones at facilities around the country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A And are funneling all of the traffic to a datacenter in Utah with "yottabyte" scale capacity, with the goal of having enough capacity to archive the data for 100 years: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1 http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/al... The NSA whistleblower who disclosed the project to the public was the person who wrote the backend of the system, which was originally designed for foreign data collection only. The NSA later repurposed the system for domestic data collection too. The goal, according to him, is to build models of every single person in the country, model the social graph, and be able to classify people as potential threats.

ArbitraryCrow 13y ago
The goal, according to him, is to build models of every single person in the country, model the social graph, and be able to classify people as potential threats. Another example of government waste and redundancy. We already have Facebook for this!
homosaur 13y ago
Before it's crime, it's pre-crime.
- EFruit 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_%28TV_series%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_%28TV_series... More detail of the theoretical system: http://personofinterest.wikia.com/wiki/The_Machine http://personofinterest.wikia.com/wiki/The_Machine
jauer 13y ago
The mythos of Room 641A is troubling as it relies on the idea that spying at 10 or 20 such sites across a handful of providers actually sees enough internet traffic to build a useful picture of US internet activities. AT&T is just one of ~15 Tier 1 providers, never mind large number of tier 2 providers that carry the majority of internet traffic. There would need to be 1-10 such rooms in every NFL city and metro area in the US to do that owing to peering (public & private) and regional traffic. IMO that's simply too big of a undertaking to happen in secrecy. Far more likely that it happened to be a handy place to watch traffic from transpacific cables or non-US IP traffic from non-US Tier 1. Actually, going by 10-20 sites I'd put my money on spying on non-US Tier 1 provider traffic.