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You're correct - if it's not useful to the investigation of the person who called Comcast, why would they look at everyone who has called Comcast? Common sense

You're correct - if it's not useful to the investigation of the person who called Comcast, why would they look at everyone who has called Comcast? Common sense says that they would not look at that data. If the response is "well they're power hungry, they'll look at whatever they want" then the discussion about the number of hops used is irrelevant since a power-hungry and abusive organization would find no value in limits on this sort of thing in the first place.

rayiner 13y ago
You're 100% right and don't deserve the downvotes. If the rebuttal is that they're power-hungry and abusive, the discussion about the number of hops is utterly pointless.
- unclebucknasty 13y ago
  Actually, it's the opposite. The discussion about the number of hops is the result of their attempts to thwart oversight. They are misrepresenting what they are doing, so as to avoid constraints. In other words, they are power-hungry and abusive.
Terretta 13y ago
On the contrary, common sense--as most of us understand it--has nothing to do with this. The rationale is to gather all data that's potentially useful at some unknown point in the future, and hang on to it for that unknown eventuality. Case in point: all the license plate surveillance stories that came out today. (Not sure why today, this has been well understood for a couple years now.) Every single government official and LEO talked to about this data say that gathering and keeping the data indefinitely on 260 million plates, in order to apprehend just 136 individuals, is good practice. If that's your definition of common sense, I want nothing to do with it. And the point of this "hops" story isn't whether they're looking at everyone now, it's whether your data is being automatically gathered and stored today to construct who knows what perspectives about you in the future. And at 3 hops of potentially useful data, odds are yes.
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  >Every single government official and LEO talked to about this data say that gathering and keeping the data indefinitely on 260 million plates, in order to apprehend just 136 individuals, is good practice. >If that's your definition of common sense, I want nothing to do with it. I would think this is a perfectly acceptable reason from the point of the NSA, or as someone who would like as much data available as possible to debug a problem. If I could log every event on every cloud instance I've ever launched negligibly this would be something I obviously would want to do as it would help tracking down issues immensely (assuming that I'm not drowning from data overload).
  - shirkey 13y ago
    Debugging of your source code is not equal to a pervasive surveillance state intruding on individual privacy, unless you are to assume (incorrectly) that we are all owned by the state and have no independent rights apart from the state.
    - res0nat0r 13y ago
      In the eyes of the law, debugging my source code and tracking every place your car drives on public roads (non intrusively without attaching a GPS device) are exactly the same: legal.
      - DennisP 13y ago
        But previous articles posted to HN have had arguments by law professors that at least some of what the NSA is doing is actually illegal, even aside from questions of constitutionality.
glesica 13y ago
The power hungry and abusive still like to give their actions a veil of legitimacy. Abusive behavior might be impossible to stop entirely, but that is absolutely not a justification for making it legal.
- brown9-2 13y ago
  But if the discussion of hops is just a veil then that means it has no bearing to what they are actually doing behind the veil.
  - unclebucknasty 13y ago
    I don't understand this argument. The discussion of hops is a veil in the sense that it allows them to feign compliance to oversight and limitations. But, in reality, they are doing exactly what they represent, except without limitations. So, there is direct bearing. And, the concern is that by fudging the limits, it's gone from a limited program that gives at least a nod to 4tb Amendment protections to one that is virtually unlimited.

rayiner 13y ago

You're 100% right and don't deserve the downvotes. If the rebuttal is that they're power-hungry and abusive, the discussion about the number of hops is utterly pointless.

unclebucknasty 13y ago
Actually, it's the opposite. The discussion about the number of hops is the result of their attempts to thwart oversight. They are misrepresenting what they are doing, so as to avoid constraints. In other words, they are power-hungry and abusive.

Terretta 13y ago

On the contrary, common sense--as most of us understand it--has nothing to do with this. The rationale is to gather all data that's potentially useful at some unknown point in the future, and hang on to it for that unknown eventuality. Case in point: all the license plate surveillance stories that came out today. (Not sure why today, this has been well understood for a couple years now.) Every single government official and LEO talked to about this data say that gathering and keeping the data indefinitely on 260 million plates, in order to apprehend just 136 individuals, is good practice. If that's your definition of common sense, I want nothing to do with it. And the point of this "hops" story isn't whether they're looking at everyone now, it's whether your data is being automatically gathered and stored today to construct who knows what perspectives about you in the future. And at 3 hops of potentially useful data, odds are yes.

res0nat0r 13y ago
>Every single government official and LEO talked to about this data say that gathering and keeping the data indefinitely on 260 million plates, in order to apprehend just 136 individuals, is good practice. >If that's your definition of common sense, I want nothing to do with it. I would think this is a perfectly acceptable reason from the point of the NSA, or as someone who would like as much data available as possible to debug a problem. If I could log every event on every cloud instance I've ever launched negligibly this would be something I obviously would want to do as it would help tracking down issues immensely (assuming that I'm not drowning from data overload).
- shirkey 13y ago
  Debugging of your source code is not equal to a pervasive surveillance state intruding on individual privacy, unless you are to assume (incorrectly) that we are all owned by the state and have no independent rights apart from the state.
  - res0nat0r 13y ago
    In the eyes of the law, debugging my source code and tracking every place your car drives on public roads (non intrusively without attaching a GPS device) are exactly the same: legal.
    - DennisP 13y ago
      But previous articles posted to HN have had arguments by law professors that at least some of what the NSA is doing is actually illegal, even aside from questions of constitutionality.

glesica 13y ago

The power hungry and abusive still like to give their actions a veil of legitimacy. Abusive behavior might be impossible to stop entirely, but that is absolutely not a justification for making it legal.

brown9-2 13y ago
But if the discussion of hops is just a veil then that means it has no bearing to what they are actually doing behind the veil.
- unclebucknasty 13y ago
  I don't understand this argument. The discussion of hops is a veil in the sense that it allows them to feign compliance to oversight and limitations. But, in reality, they are doing exactly what they represent, except without limitations. So, there is direct bearing. And, the concern is that by fudging the limits, it's gone from a limited program that gives at least a nod to 4tb Amendment protections to one that is virtually unlimited.