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I think his point is, when policy is your only protection, and the policy is "ask secret court in secret for permission to look at data" then you really have no
by codeulike 13y ago
I think his point is, when policy is your only protection, and the policy is "ask secret court in secret for permission to look at data" then you really have no protection at all because there is no oversight - no way to see what is going on. At least with a technical protection (e.g declare 'they are not allowed to tap into undersea cables') you have some method of oversight, because there is some physical evidence outside of the NSA.
- brown9-2 13y agoBut isn't that declaration merely policy? I get the impression that Snowden is referring to "technical protection" as in the software/hardware systems, for instance ones that would prevent any analyst from issuing any query they like.
- codeulike 13y agoThe technical protection he refers to is 'filter at [the] ingestion points' - in other words, its a technical protection that prevents some data from reaching the NSAs data centre in the first place. Once its in the NSA's data centre, your only protection is a (weak, changeable, unaccountable) policy one. So by technical protection he's talking about preventing the data from reaching the NSA in the first place - if you can achieve that, you're much better off. edit: here we're talking about indiscriminately hoovered data, rather than 'asked for nicely and specifically via court order' data.
- brown9-2 13y agoWhat I find confusing or misleading about his differentiation between policy and technical protections is that he values the latter over the former, but it would seem that the technical protection he cites could just as easily be ratcheted in any direction if/when a new policy dictates it.