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Submit a Privacy Act Request with the NSA to see what info they have on you
- Alterlife 13y agoLooks like it's applicable for non-US citizens as well. However, for most people this would probably be nothing more than a great way to put yourself on the proverbial "list".
- woah 13y agoWho cares? Do you want to live in a country where this matters?
- jabbernotty 13y agoIt doesn't really seem to matter where you live, if the government of the USA decides that it doesn't like you.
- noinsight 13y agoIndeed, you can be sitting there eating dinner with your family when a remote controlled drone operated from half way across the world fires a missile at you killing you and your family instantly without any forewarning. Now that's fucked up.
- alan_cx 13y agoOr, in the UK, our police will happily accompany US officers to your door step and let them render you. I'm sure the "K" in UK is a place holder for an "S". And that "S" is for "special relationship". Oh, any actual American people aware of the UK / US "special relationship"? It a hilarious self delusion on our part.
- btilly 13y agoOn the American side there is a very special awareness of England. (We are generally ignorant enough to not understand the difference between the UK and England.) That relationship is that you're the goto example of tyranny worth rebelling against. Among politically active Republicans that I know, you're also a good source of statistics showing that implementing gun control increases the crime rate. (Never mind the fact that you changed how you collect statistics to include more crimes in your statistics, the NRA loves the fact that you implemented gun control and crime rates went up.)
- mtgx 13y agoYou're already on the list. The list that knows everything about you.
- pyre 13y agoHe's obviously talking about "the list" where a human takes a closer look at you, and actually looks at the information that they've pulled on you. Maybe they also send out a few NSLs for even more depth on you.
- willvarfar 13y agoIsn't the whole scandal that there really is only one list, and everyone is always on it?
- tlb 13y agoOne practical reason to object to the government holding private information on everybody is that such information might be vulnerable to theft. This is an example of a channel for information theft. What happens when someone submits a request for your information with your (forged) signature? That would be fraud, of course, but that doesn't mean it won't ever happen. Will they get all your texts and gmail? Maybe they check requests very thoroughly and this isn't an exploitable security hole. But it changes the equation of storing data on 3rd party services: instead of just trusting the cloud provider and his software, you also have to trust the government to never make a mistake.
- aqme28 13y agoAnd what happens if they do make a mistake? Could you imagine the effects to society if this Complete Database were leaked -- if everyone's internet record were made public? It's mind-boggling.
- schiffern 13y agoIt reminds me of this Asimov story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past [Spoiler alert!] Someone makes a cheap time viewer (able to view only the past), forgetting that "5 minutes ago" is in the past. In the end the design leaks to the public, and the characters contemplate what they've just unleashed.
- guiomie 13y agoHow does a yottabyte get leaked?
- mindcrime 13y agoI think I'm going to do this, just for shits and giggles. But I wish the site said more about what they consider a valid digital signature. I wonder if the US government has a general policy on this? TBH, I've never really bothered with digital signatures on email much, so I'm pretty clueless on the topic. shrug
- adamnemecek 13y agoI wonder whether requesting the info puts you on any sort of list.
- mindcrime 13y agoI hope so.
- jlgreco 13y agoI have heard that "digital signature" was clarified at some point as literally being a digital scan or photograph of your signature, but I am unable to find a source for that right now. YMMV
- lurchpop 13y agoAKA, "Start a dossier on me if you haven't already. If you already have one, please select me for further scrutiny." 1st amendment is so toast.
- xxusava 13y agoYup. Raise your red flags proud, people! Like me, https://twitter.com/AmericanPrismer https://twitter.com/AmericanPrismer
- ironic_ali 13y agoMy first thought.
- dromidas 13y agoYeah. I was like okay lets pull my records, it'll be interesting. Then I thought okay maybe they pull them, it gets sent through some automatic scanning process, eg "Why does this person want their information pulled? Lets put it through our automated scan-for-suspicious-behavior machine. Oh what's this? The subject was in the neighborhood at the time of an unsolved case, lets bring them in for questioning and generally disrupt their life in a horrible manner"
- speedyrev 13y agoYou should never have clicked on this comment thread. They heard your click!
- ccarter84 13y agoBoingBoing points to Muckrock (http://boingboing.net/2013/06/11/howto-foia-the-nsa.html http://boingboing.net/2013/06/11/howto-foia-the-nsa.html) But it seems like Muckrock has done this sort of thing before, and the take-away I am getting is: ----make sure to request fee estimates before completion of request ---- $1,200 bucks for records of parking complaints @ NSA HQ! - get outta here. https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/nsa-parking-complaints-254/ https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/nsa...
- driverdan 13y agoFOIA and Privacy Act requests are completely different.
- bobcall 13y agoHow do we know that they would not be collecting even more info on us by making such a request?
- lucb1e 13y agoThis will just become another record in the database of course. But is it worth it to have a record of your signature to (possibly?) obtain (some of) the data they collected on you? That's what you have to decide.
- amirmc 13y agoIf you've ever sent the signature to anyone by email then they've arguably got a copy already.
- lucb1e 13y agoI haven't, but you're right
- freehunter 13y agoIf you've ever paid taxes, gotten a state ID/drivers license, signed up for selective service (as a male), or any number of other routine, upstanding citizen activities, the government already has your signature.
- jayferd 13y ago"By electronic e-mail" groan
- lisper 13y agoThey require a "digital signature" for email requests, but say nothing about the format, nor any requirements for the signing key. You'd think that the NSA, of all organizations, would not put such technological naivete on public display.
- danellis 13y agoThe entire absence of information about that almost makes me wonder whether they expect you to sign a piece of paper, scan it, and attach the image.
- logn 13y agoYou can use the Sha-2 hash of the last 1000 URLs in your browser history. The NSA will then hash the same on its side. If the two match, they know it's you.
- Achshar 13y agolol, it reads like some serious advice until you think about it.
- ddalex 13y agolol, it sounds as a joke until you realize it could work
- balabaster 13y agoHahahaha that almost took me a second... nice! :D
- balabaster 13y agoThe only one problem is that you can clear or modify your browser history - whereas the NSA keeps everything. So that makes things a little more difficult :P
- alan_cx 13y agoWhat is and how do I provide a digital signature? How would the average person know that?
- personlurking 13y agoWhy would anyone believe the info they offer up? Meaning how can you prove what you don't know (ie, if they actually have more info than they let up) and why would any of this stuff about 'we want transparency now' lead to the NSA actually showing their cards? It's silly to expect an agency based on secrecy to not be secretive. So what does one do in the face of all this? I simply don't know, aside from starting from scratch.
- Fuxy 13y agoIt would be fun to flood them with requests though. They apparently have a lot of free time available spying on every woman and child.
- mjolk 13y agoYes, "fun," because it's absolutely hilarious to flood your government with busy work as a valid protest. Stop being a petty child and realize that the only effect that this would have is either a stoppage of serving requests or an uptick in hiring for the department.
- Fuxy 13y agoGot any better ideas? I don't see any positive progress in the privacy department so pretty much whatever we're doing isn't working. Might as well sit back and make it as difficult as possible for them to do their job. Hell maybe the extra workers could stimulate the economy and help pay back the debt to China :)
- mjolk 13y agoSure, donate to the EFF. Write to your senator. Try to keep it in the medias' eye. And I know you were "kidding" about the "debt to China" part, but the economy doesn't work that way.
- itsallbs 13y agoI like how they ask you to send your SSN via e-mail. I mean, electronic e-mail.
- morisy 13y agoThe NSA is exempt from disclosing investigative files on individuals, even if they have information on you. Here is a typical rejection letter if you want to see: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/aaron-swartz-nsa-2485/#684502-glomar-response https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/aar...
- artmageddon 13y agoIt's just anecdotal evidence, but I can personally confirm this. I submitted a FOIA request to see what various departments had on me. Perhaps I should be thankful that I'm not interesting enough for them to have compiled any information on me, because all of them came back with a generic letter stating that they didn't have anything for me. The exception in this case was with the NSA, in which case they stated that they weren't going to divulge anything, much like the letter in the URL above.
- driverdan 13y agoYour example is not a Privacy Act request, it's a standard FOIA request. Asking for your own personal information is different than asking for information about someone else.