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Arguing that these programs are effective by revealing a few foiled terrorist plots is entirely beside the point. Obviously monitoring every communication on th

Arguing that these programs are effective by revealing a few foiled terrorist plots is entirely beside the point. Obviously monitoring every communication on the planet would help the government track down a few terrorist plots here and there. If they really want the debate to focus on the effectiveness of these programs then they should explain why they failed so spectacularly to prevent the Boston Marathon bombings, a plot carried out by two of the most careless and naive terrorists to date. Heck, even a direct warning from Russian officials fell on deaf ears. Perhaps the NSA was too busy listening to innocent people's phone calls to respond? The effectiveness isn't what's at issue here, though. The problem is the loss of privacy for innocent civilians, to which Obama and other government officials respond to with wishy-washy arguments about "tradeoffs" between security and privacy.

vermontdevil 13y ago
I would also add to the argument that the following things are also happening and will happen: 1) More money being wasted to support certain corporations (Booz etc) in return for future plum jobs by these representatives/senators or heads of these agencies. Thus the cycle continues in favor of supporting these programs rather than analyzing whether we really need it or not. 2) Abuses by contractors or employees when they have this much access and power in seeing all the private data 3) Corruption of these committees due to the feeling of being "in" where others are not. In other words, it's going to get worse.
- Loughla 13y ago
  Do you have any citations for any of these items? Or is it just time for wild speculation? I am pretty good at that: And they'll listen to who is pregnant in the future, and force us to all get implants for the babies, thereby making a super race of Americans to rule the world! lightning flash MWAHAHAHA. Please cite any proof you have.
  - GVIrish 13y ago
    Look up Thomas Drake, he was an NSA leaker who exposed a very high level of waste with the Trailblazer program as well as an incestuous relationship between contractors and those who awarded the contracts.
  - monkmartinez 13y ago
    It is well known by people who pay attention to Financial markets, that government officials from the Treasury often end up working at places like Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae and a myriad of other "private" and quasi-governmental corporations. This is often a two way street... look up; Tim Geithner, Hank Paulson and more. These are the big notable cases. Go read http://zerohedge.com http://zerohedge.com or the http://market-ticker.org http://market-ticker.org they point this stuff out all the time. There is ZERO reason to believe this doesn't happen for ALL sectors of government. So, I would say, the burden of proof would land on the shoulders of those who say that it DOES NOT happen.
  - vermontdevil 13y ago
    Look at Clapper. Where was he before going to DNI? How about McConnell? Lot of examples out there. Not hard to connect the dots if you spend less time reacting like a third grader.
  - positr0n 13y ago
    Anecdote: I interviewed at Booz Allen Hamilton when I was in school and got a bad taste in my mouth from the place. They talked about how you could work your way up but you could only get past a certain level by bringing in business. To get to partner, you need to be bringing in at least $x million a year for the company. They told us that no one is hired directly in at partner level except for a 3-star general they just hired in last month because of the connections he had.
    - declan 13y ago
      This is commonplace in other business situations as well, including law firms. Partners at many large law firms can make $1.5M a year in profits (not salaries, because they're part-owners). You need to bring in far more than that to cover your take.
      - rhizome 13y ago
        Generally, "partner" == Rolodex
  - malandrew 13y ago
    It's called a revolving door and regulatory capture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture This isn't exactly here say and speculation.
dclowd9901 13y ago
Not only that, but I can imagine the number of false positives for a collection that large would have to be off the charts. Your assessment that they missed a direct warning from a tenuous ally because they were too busy listening (chasing down) domestic leads is probably even truer than you think.
GVIrish 13y ago
I would argue that even if these programs were effective in foiling some terrorist plots, that it's still not worth it. I mean, we could probably could prevent some mass shootings if we put everyone with a history of serious mental illness in an institution for the rest of their lives but that wouldn't make it right. And perhaps the bigger risk to using the 'it prevented terorrist plots' argument is that it creates a convenient excuse for more surveillance and curtailing of rights. All that needs to happen is for a few more terorrist plots to slip through, then the argument will be, 'We need MORE power to stop these people' or, 'If you just allowed us to do this, this, and this, we could've prevented that'. Then long after a significant threat of Jihadist terrorist attack is gone, we'll still be dealing with a uber-powerful police state.
- malandrew 13y ago
  By their measure we should wiretap everyone in government to prevent graft, corruption, revolving doors and regulatory capture.
rtpg 13y ago
It's always a tradeoff between privacy and security. The rules behind the use of the metadata are pretty stringent. For example: Metadata is JUST number + duration. Not localtion, cell phone tower... targetting cannot be done on citizens or permanent citizens, or people in the US. Permanent citizen in Madrid is safe. No "reverse" targetting(targetting foreigner but really interested in US nat'l) if citizen/perm. res accidentally targeted, info not used, FISA court signalled, house intel + judiciary signalled. If targeted person is initially out of US, but venture in, targeting stops IMMEDIATELY. Info accidentally gotten (for example, lag when stopping of the targetting mentioned previously), ineligible info is purged. All ineligible info is purged. All targeting is reviewed beforehand , both by DNI and judiciary. All targets are audited Plus this was used on less than 300 numbers. 20 people in the world have access to the info. The justification procedures are stringent. This hearing restored some confidence in checks and balances. And a good point by Deputy AG Cole: This is for foreign surveillance ONLY. There used to be no oversight for foreign surveillance. Now there is through FISA Court and this second court order with all these rules in it. Also, NSA can't listen to the calls without fixed warrant, and the brothers were in the US at the time of planning their thing, so out of NSA jurisdiction anyways.
- codeulike 13y ago
  Whats your source for those quotes? Is that from the hearing happening now?
  - dthunt 13y ago
    This stuff sometime around like minute 45 or thereabouts. I'm frustrated by them asking the wrong questions to the wrong people. They should be asking FBI about listening to Americans' phone calls. They're not dong it, in the bits I've heard, yet. Edit: FBI did chime in on reading emails in real-time, indicating FISA court as the means for doing so, but nothing else I heard. (~1:28?) Edit2: Grunt. I clearly don't understand what's going on here. (~1:42). I'm just going to shut up for another couple days and see what the Guardian releases in response.
    - 13y ago
badclient 13y ago
Heck, even a direct warning from Russian officials fell on deaf ears. You're also the kind of person that would be up in arms when the FBI takes someone into custody because Russia says he's trouble.
- nym 13y ago
  You missed the point.
austenallred 13y ago
You could summarize the entire hearing in one sentence. "The 4th amendment doesn't apply under the Patriot Act."
- chris_mahan 13y ago
  In theory, the 4th Amendment trumps the Patriot Act. In practice, it doesn't.
knowaveragejoe 13y ago
Well, to be fair, the boston bombers' carelessness and naiveté might have been what helped them pull it off.
mpyne 13y ago
AFAIK the NSA was not informed, the FBI was. They investigated and concluded that there was no firm evidence of intent, case closed. Due process at work in our police state, strange. Also, a student with a naturalized American brother who travels to visit family and speak with radical Islamists at his old home is not the kind of thing that either collecting phone call information or using Facebook Open Graph^W^W^W Prism is going to work well against. There are other types of terroristic threats, Prism/phone watch lists will work better against those. If anything Maj. Nidal Hasan would almost be a better example, except that the NSA system worked perfectly... it was only in the follow-up investigation that it was decided that Hasan was just making innocent probes, so it was the investigation that failed and not the NSA system. Arguing that monitoring every communication on the planet makes no sense... even with contractor augments there are not enough U.S. citizens to monitor all world communications, and the pool of available analysts quickly drops when you consider security clearance issues, training required, pay available, the qualifications needed, etc. So no, it doesn't follow that you could perfectly foil terrorist plots even with interception and monitoring of worldwide communications, so the fact that NSA is as successful as they are can't be waved away by saying "anyone could do it". They can't monitor everyone even with their Utah data center, so apparently they've been doing a good job at focusing their resources at the mission at hand. Any either way there's always a tradeoff. You wouldn't accept a 9/11 in your country every day to ensure absolute privacy as soon there would be no one left to be private from, so let's not act like the priority value is ∞. The staggering success of Twitter, Facebook and Google reveal how much people truly value their privacy. Even the Constitution is in on the act, as both warrants and "reasonable searches" are explicitly mentioned as limits to Fourth Amendment rights, and people don't seem to freak out about those. So while people may have different answers about where they fall on privacy <==> security (where a given program has a tradeoff between the two), don't act like the extreme choice is the only one; even the Framers didn't think that.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  You know what? The fact that a person uses Facebook, Google, etc. is in no way a declaration from that person that they do not value their privacy, especially privacy from the government. The 4th amendment makes participation in those things possible.

vermontdevil 13y ago

I would also add to the argument that the following things are also happening and will happen: 1) More money being wasted to support certain corporations (Booz etc) in return for future plum jobs by these representatives/senators or heads of these agencies. Thus the cycle continues in favor of supporting these programs rather than analyzing whether we really need it or not. 2) Abuses by contractors or employees when they have this much access and power in seeing all the private data 3) Corruption of these committees due to the feeling of being "in" where others are not. In other words, it's going to get worse.

Loughla 13y ago
Do you have any citations for any of these items? Or is it just time for wild speculation? I am pretty good at that: And they'll listen to who is pregnant in the future, and force us to all get implants for the babies, thereby making a super race of Americans to rule the world! lightning flash MWAHAHAHA. Please cite any proof you have.
- GVIrish 13y ago
  Look up Thomas Drake, he was an NSA leaker who exposed a very high level of waste with the Trailblazer program as well as an incestuous relationship between contractors and those who awarded the contracts.
- monkmartinez 13y ago
  It is well known by people who pay attention to Financial markets, that government officials from the Treasury often end up working at places like Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae and a myriad of other "private" and quasi-governmental corporations. This is often a two way street... look up; Tim Geithner, Hank Paulson and more. These are the big notable cases. Go read http://zerohedge.com http://zerohedge.com or the http://market-ticker.org http://market-ticker.org they point this stuff out all the time. There is ZERO reason to believe this doesn't happen for ALL sectors of government. So, I would say, the burden of proof would land on the shoulders of those who say that it DOES NOT happen.
- vermontdevil 13y ago
  Look at Clapper. Where was he before going to DNI? How about McConnell? Lot of examples out there. Not hard to connect the dots if you spend less time reacting like a third grader.
- positr0n 13y ago
  Anecdote: I interviewed at Booz Allen Hamilton when I was in school and got a bad taste in my mouth from the place. They talked about how you could work your way up but you could only get past a certain level by bringing in business. To get to partner, you need to be bringing in at least $x million a year for the company. They told us that no one is hired directly in at partner level except for a 3-star general they just hired in last month because of the connections he had.
  - declan 13y ago
    This is commonplace in other business situations as well, including law firms. Partners at many large law firms can make $1.5M a year in profits (not salaries, because they're part-owners). You need to bring in far more than that to cover your take.
    - rhizome 13y ago
      Generally, "partner" == Rolodex
- malandrew 13y ago
  It's called a revolving door and regulatory capture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture This isn't exactly here say and speculation.

dclowd9901 13y ago

Not only that, but I can imagine the number of false positives for a collection that large would have to be off the charts. Your assessment that they missed a direct warning from a tenuous ally because they were too busy listening (chasing down) domestic leads is probably even truer than you think.

GVIrish 13y ago

I would argue that even if these programs were effective in foiling some terrorist plots, that it's still not worth it. I mean, we could probably could prevent some mass shootings if we put everyone with a history of serious mental illness in an institution for the rest of their lives but that wouldn't make it right. And perhaps the bigger risk to using the 'it prevented terorrist plots' argument is that it creates a convenient excuse for more surveillance and curtailing of rights. All that needs to happen is for a few more terorrist plots to slip through, then the argument will be, 'We need MORE power to stop these people' or, 'If you just allowed us to do this, this, and this, we could've prevented that'. Then long after a significant threat of Jihadist terrorist attack is gone, we'll still be dealing with a uber-powerful police state.

malandrew 13y ago
By their measure we should wiretap everyone in government to prevent graft, corruption, revolving doors and regulatory capture.

rtpg 13y ago

It's always a tradeoff between privacy and security. The rules behind the use of the metadata are pretty stringent. For example: Metadata is JUST number + duration. Not localtion, cell phone tower... targetting cannot be done on citizens or permanent citizens, or people in the US. Permanent citizen in Madrid is safe. No "reverse" targetting(targetting foreigner but really interested in US nat'l) if citizen/perm. res accidentally targeted, info not used, FISA court signalled, house intel + judiciary signalled. If targeted person is initially out of US, but venture in, targeting stops IMMEDIATELY. Info accidentally gotten (for example, lag when stopping of the targetting mentioned previously), ineligible info is purged. All ineligible info is purged. All targeting is reviewed beforehand , both by DNI and judiciary. All targets are audited Plus this was used on less than 300 numbers. 20 people in the world have access to the info. The justification procedures are stringent. This hearing restored some confidence in checks and balances. And a good point by Deputy AG Cole: This is for foreign surveillance ONLY. There used to be no oversight for foreign surveillance. Now there is through FISA Court and this second court order with all these rules in it. Also, NSA can't listen to the calls without fixed warrant, and the brothers were in the US at the time of planning their thing, so out of NSA jurisdiction anyways.

codeulike 13y ago
Whats your source for those quotes? Is that from the hearing happening now?
- dthunt 13y ago
  This stuff sometime around like minute 45 or thereabouts. I'm frustrated by them asking the wrong questions to the wrong people. They should be asking FBI about listening to Americans' phone calls. They're not dong it, in the bits I've heard, yet. Edit: FBI did chime in on reading emails in real-time, indicating FISA court as the means for doing so, but nothing else I heard. (~1:28?) Edit2: Grunt. I clearly don't understand what's going on here. (~1:42). I'm just going to shut up for another couple days and see what the Guardian releases in response.
  - 13y ago

badclient 13y ago

Heck, even a direct warning from Russian officials fell on deaf ears. You're also the kind of person that would be up in arms when the FBI takes someone into custody because Russia says he's trouble.

nym 13y ago
You missed the point.

austenallred 13y ago

You could summarize the entire hearing in one sentence. "The 4th amendment doesn't apply under the Patriot Act."

chris_mahan 13y ago
In theory, the 4th Amendment trumps the Patriot Act. In practice, it doesn't.

knowaveragejoe 13y ago

Well, to be fair, the boston bombers' carelessness and naiveté might have been what helped them pull it off.

mpyne 13y ago

AFAIK the NSA was not informed, the FBI was. They investigated and concluded that there was no firm evidence of intent, case closed. Due process at work in our police state, strange. Also, a student with a naturalized American brother who travels to visit family and speak with radical Islamists at his old home is not the kind of thing that either collecting phone call information or using Facebook Open Graph^W^W^W Prism is going to work well against. There are other types of terroristic threats, Prism/phone watch lists will work better against those. If anything Maj. Nidal Hasan would almost be a better example, except that the NSA system worked perfectly... it was only in the follow-up investigation that it was decided that Hasan was just making innocent probes, so it was the investigation that failed and not the NSA system. Arguing that monitoring every communication on the planet makes no sense... even with contractor augments there are not enough U.S. citizens to monitor all world communications, and the pool of available analysts quickly drops when you consider security clearance issues, training required, pay available, the qualifications needed, etc. So no, it doesn't follow that you could perfectly foil terrorist plots even with interception and monitoring of worldwide communications, so the fact that NSA is as successful as they are can't be waved away by saying "anyone could do it". They can't monitor everyone even with their Utah data center, so apparently they've been doing a good job at focusing their resources at the mission at hand. Any either way there's always a tradeoff. You wouldn't accept a 9/11 in your country every day to ensure absolute privacy as soon there would be no one left to be private from, so let's not act like the priority value is ∞. The staggering success of Twitter, Facebook and Google reveal how much people truly value their privacy. Even the Constitution is in on the act, as both warrants and "reasonable searches" are explicitly mentioned as limits to Fourth Amendment rights, and people don't seem to freak out about those. So while people may have different answers about where they fall on privacy <==> security (where a given program has a tradeoff between the two), don't act like the extreme choice is the only one; even the Framers didn't think that.

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
You know what? The fact that a person uses Facebook, Google, etc. is in no way a declaration from that person that they do not value their privacy, especially privacy from the government. The 4th amendment makes participation in those things possible.