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Does anyone know how these companies, et al., actually differentiate US Citizens from Non-US Citizens? I don't remember clicking the "I'm a US Citizen box" on a

Does anyone know how these companies, et al., actually differentiate US Citizens from Non-US Citizens? I don't remember clicking the "I'm a US Citizen box" on any website.

DannyBee 13y ago
This is likely the root of the issue, which is that they probably capture all communications, but when they have a foreign target, that is when they actually "look" at the stuff they captured, trying to find stuff "related" to that foreign target. The NSA at least was supposedly run as a very tight ship (I have no idea now, i have no friends who have worked there recently), so I'm sure they theoretically have really detailed redaction and other procedures meant to keep personal or private info of americans from appearing in reports, but that is not exactly comforting.
- Ziomislaw 13y ago
  I do not think any decent human being has friends THERE.
jmadsen 13y ago
That's what I've been wondering: - if they aren't targeting specific persons, how do they know what country the person is from & if they (the govt) are violating the law? - if I'm American living in another country, am I safer from or more likely to be tracked (terrorism aside) Am I being picked up "freely" as someone from outside the country? - many, many, many similar questions I'm sure you are also asking I realize these seem rather naive questions, but my first thought on reading Obama's response was, "How can you possibly know what country the person is a citizen of?" Considering that that was a major part of his defense - "Don't worry, it's only those foreign people we're looking at"- I really think that needs to be a bigger part of the whole discussion. I think it is quite obviously more bullshit.
- DannyBee 13y ago
  It is unlikely bullshit. They are likely not indiscriminate in targeting. It's just likely post-hoc targeting. That's the question you really want to ask: "So do you capture all the data, and then only look at the data for foreign people, or do you only capture data for foreign people?" At one point, with watchwords/etc, it was clearly the latter. I think they've moved to the former.
chad_oliver 13y ago
I have heard (no guarantees) that they collect information on everyone, and analyse it later as it is needed. They only investigate this information if and as if relates to a foreign suspect. Doesn't seem like there's any way to abuse this .....
joering2 13y ago
> Does anyone know how these companies, et al., actually differentiate US Citizens from Non-US Citizens? I don't remember clicking the "I'm a US Citizen box" on any website. I think you were just trolling but if not then one of hundreds possible ways to find that: 1. get a hold of your your email (or name and then facebook / gmail snoop) 2. your email leads to your paypal account 3. your paypal account leads to your dob and ssn, bank accounts 4. your banks accounts hold information whether you are citizen or not; - OR - 4. your ssn codification tells whether by the time obtaining the number you were citizen or not PayPal, Facebook and Palantr has the same co-owner, P. Thiel. But seriously I don't think they discriminate. Last thing they look at is whether you are citizen or not. Your IPs (all the one you ever used while login to any website you have an account with) can quickly tell them whether you are on US soil or not. Most likely as long as you are here, you are consider us citizen, whether lawfully or not but you "operate" on US soil so the same rules apply to you. Good example would be if you are in US as a tourist -- you still need to obey US laws and regulations.
- denis1 13y ago
  Doesn't this mean that they are spying on you without actually knowing if you are a US citizen? By your logic, only after step 4 they actually know if you are a citizen, but they have collected a lot of data about you in steps 1-3.
- corresation 13y ago
  I think you were just trolling, but the GP was asking a very pertinent, reasonable question specifically about companies like Facebook, Google, etc, and how they differentiate. Your reply -- ostensibly about what an organization like the FBI might do to identify someone -- is not relevant to their question at all, making it all the more bizarre that you decided to question whether they were "trolling" (apologies to all others, but that is a growing peeve of mine -- this noisy declaration of things people say as trolling). Google knows a lot about someone, but they have no idea what citizenship I hold. They can guess, of course, but that isn't a lawful way to discriminate.
grey-area 13y ago
Does anyone know how these companies, et al., actually differentiate US Citizens from Non-US Citizens? I don't remember clicking the "I'm a US Citizen box" on any website. According to the whistleblower, they don't in any meaningful sense. They collect all the data they can, and then currently only use bits of it, when they feel that is justified. His point about checking the US president's email in the video was that all they need is one email from a foreigner in order to tie anyone in the US to an investigation, and look through all their records.
- einhverfr 13y ago
  In addition I am in the process of composing a letter to my elected representatives. One thing I am noting is that the published standards are quite a bit more lax on this than the data, permitting the NSA to quite heavily over-select for Americans. A 51% confidence that your target is not American when looking at a service where 15% of the users are American, or one where only 29% of the users of the users are Americans is a meaningless standard. Now the only hope right now is that companies push back but the question is how much given that they were not willing to push back enough to break silence.

Does anyone know how these companies, et al., actually differentiate US Citizens from Non-US Citizens? I don't remember clicking the "I'm a US Citizen box" on any website.

DannyBee 13y ago

This is likely the root of the issue, which is that they probably capture all communications, but when they have a foreign target, that is when they actually "look" at the stuff they captured, trying to find stuff "related" to that foreign target. The NSA at least was supposedly run as a very tight ship (I have no idea now, i have no friends who have worked there recently), so I'm sure they theoretically have really detailed redaction and other procedures meant to keep personal or private info of americans from appearing in reports, but that is not exactly comforting.

Ziomislaw 13y ago
I do not think any decent human being has friends THERE.

jmadsen 13y ago

That's what I've been wondering: - if they aren't targeting specific persons, how do they know what country the person is from & if they (the govt) are violating the law? - if I'm American living in another country, am I safer from or more likely to be tracked (terrorism aside) Am I being picked up "freely" as someone from outside the country? - many, many, many similar questions I'm sure you are also asking I realize these seem rather naive questions, but my first thought on reading Obama's response was, "How can you possibly know what country the person is a citizen of?" Considering that that was a major part of his defense - "Don't worry, it's only those foreign people we're looking at"- I really think that needs to be a bigger part of the whole discussion. I think it is quite obviously more bullshit.

DannyBee 13y ago
It is unlikely bullshit. They are likely not indiscriminate in targeting. It's just likely post-hoc targeting. That's the question you really want to ask: "So do you capture all the data, and then only look at the data for foreign people, or do you only capture data for foreign people?" At one point, with watchwords/etc, it was clearly the latter. I think they've moved to the former.

chad_oliver 13y ago

I have heard (no guarantees) that they collect information on everyone, and analyse it later as it is needed. They only investigate this information if and as if relates to a foreign suspect. Doesn't seem like there's any way to abuse this .....

joering2 13y ago

> Does anyone know how these companies, et al., actually differentiate US Citizens from Non-US Citizens? I don't remember clicking the "I'm a US Citizen box" on any website. I think you were just trolling but if not then one of hundreds possible ways to find that: 1. get a hold of your your email (or name and then facebook / gmail snoop) 2. your email leads to your paypal account 3. your paypal account leads to your dob and ssn, bank accounts 4. your banks accounts hold information whether you are citizen or not; - OR - 4. your ssn codification tells whether by the time obtaining the number you were citizen or not PayPal, Facebook and Palantr has the same co-owner, P. Thiel. But seriously I don't think they discriminate. Last thing they look at is whether you are citizen or not. Your IPs (all the one you ever used while login to any website you have an account with) can quickly tell them whether you are on US soil or not. Most likely as long as you are here, you are consider us citizen, whether lawfully or not but you "operate" on US soil so the same rules apply to you. Good example would be if you are in US as a tourist -- you still need to obey US laws and regulations.

denis1 13y ago
Doesn't this mean that they are spying on you without actually knowing if you are a US citizen? By your logic, only after step 4 they actually know if you are a citizen, but they have collected a lot of data about you in steps 1-3.
corresation 13y ago
I think you were just trolling, but the GP was asking a very pertinent, reasonable question specifically about companies like Facebook, Google, etc, and how they differentiate. Your reply -- ostensibly about what an organization like the FBI might do to identify someone -- is not relevant to their question at all, making it all the more bizarre that you decided to question whether they were "trolling" (apologies to all others, but that is a growing peeve of mine -- this noisy declaration of things people say as trolling). Google knows a lot about someone, but they have no idea what citizenship I hold. They can guess, of course, but that isn't a lawful way to discriminate.

grey-area 13y ago

Does anyone know how these companies, et al., actually differentiate US Citizens from Non-US Citizens? I don't remember clicking the "I'm a US Citizen box" on any website. According to the whistleblower, they don't in any meaningful sense. They collect all the data they can, and then currently only use bits of it, when they feel that is justified. His point about checking the US president's email in the video was that all they need is one email from a foreigner in order to tie anyone in the US to an investigation, and look through all their records.

einhverfr 13y ago
In addition I am in the process of composing a letter to my elected representatives. One thing I am noting is that the published standards are quite a bit more lax on this than the data, permitting the NSA to quite heavily over-select for Americans. A 51% confidence that your target is not American when looking at a service where 15% of the users are American, or one where only 29% of the users of the users are Americans is a meaningless standard. Now the only hope right now is that companies push back but the question is how much given that they were not willing to push back enough to break silence.