4 ms·

US admits NSA illegally collected thousands of emails

32 points by frank_boyd 13y ago

amirmc 13y ago
"The court, whose rulings are normally kept secret, said the NSA may have violated US law for collecting as many as 56,000 emails on an annual basis between 2008 and 2011. But intelligence officials speaking to reporters anonymously say the scooping of emails was unintentional, blaming it on a technological problem." Aside from the whole mass-spying thing, that it took years to uncover and deal with such a major (& illegal) problem doesn't say much for their technical prowess. How much stuff is going wrong right now that they haven't found yet?
- spullara 13y ago
  You mean like Google collecting all the Wifi packets they saw with their street view vehicles? http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2010/05/17/google-admits-street-view-wifi-sniffing/1 http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2010/05/17/google-admits-s... I'm not really defending it but it does seem like big, smart, technical organizations make blindingly bad mistakes.
  - frank_boyd 13y ago
    That was not a mistake. Things like these need features that need to be developed and budgets that need to be approved. Somebody did that. But that's for another discussion.
    - spullara 13y ago
      I'm don't think you work for a company that develops software at scale. An individual did that, yes, but did Google as an organization decide to do it explicitly? Probably not.
- trevelyan 13y ago
  What struck me reading this passage is that the NSA defines "collect" as manually searching for materials that have already been stored in a massive database. If we read the report in this light, it suggests that either the FISA court has explicitly ruled that such mass storage is illegal and the NSA is thus engaged in willful violation of its judicial oversight, OR "collect" really means "search" and this is evidence of mass deceit of Congress and the American people by James Clapper and other NSA officials who have testified to the contrary before Congress.
frank_boyd 13y ago
> [...] illegally gathered up to 56,000 personal emails [...] Let's not be fooled, it's not about "a couple" of emails. It's the whole surveillance apparatus that is the real issue. > Government officials said that the court rulings had been declassified to show that eavesdropping programmes at fault had been found and fixed, highlighting its oversight measures. It's very likely that they'll resort to throwing us a few bones, counting on us to go back to sleep again after that. EDIT: Post was taken off the front page(s).
dalek_cannes 13y ago
Here's an odd question: For a country whose founding principles say "ALL human beings are endowed with inalienable rights...", why is the outcry only over collecting domestic communications? Do the rights not apply to foreigners?
- gonvaled 13y ago
  Because we are not complete human beings! I mean, you don't assume that a non-american has the same human dignity as an american, do you? Foreigners are all terrorists anyway ...

32 points by frank_boyd 13y ago

"The court, whose rulings are normally kept secret, said the NSA may have violated US law for collecting as many as 56,000 emails on an annual basis between 2008 and 2011. But intelligence officials speaking to reporters anonymously say the scooping of emails was unintentional, blaming it on a technological problem." Aside from the whole mass-spying thing, that it took years to uncover and deal with such a major (& illegal) problem doesn't say much for their technical prowess. How much stuff is going wrong right now that they haven't found yet?

spullara 13y ago
You mean like Google collecting all the Wifi packets they saw with their street view vehicles? http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2010/05/17/google-admits-street-view-wifi-sniffing/1 http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2010/05/17/google-admits-s... I'm not really defending it but it does seem like big, smart, technical organizations make blindingly bad mistakes.
- frank_boyd 13y ago
  That was not a mistake. Things like these need features that need to be developed and budgets that need to be approved. Somebody did that. But that's for another discussion.
  - spullara 13y ago
    I'm don't think you work for a company that develops software at scale. An individual did that, yes, but did Google as an organization decide to do it explicitly? Probably not.
trevelyan 13y ago
What struck me reading this passage is that the NSA defines "collect" as manually searching for materials that have already been stored in a massive database. If we read the report in this light, it suggests that either the FISA court has explicitly ruled that such mass storage is illegal and the NSA is thus engaged in willful violation of its judicial oversight, OR "collect" really means "search" and this is evidence of mass deceit of Congress and the American people by James Clapper and other NSA officials who have testified to the contrary before Congress.

frank_boyd 13y ago

> [...] illegally gathered up to 56,000 personal emails [...] Let's not be fooled, it's not about "a couple" of emails. It's the whole surveillance apparatus that is the real issue. > Government officials said that the court rulings had been declassified to show that eavesdropping programmes at fault had been found and fixed, highlighting its oversight measures. It's very likely that they'll resort to throwing us a few bones, counting on us to go back to sleep again after that. EDIT: Post was taken off the front page(s).

dalek_cannes 13y ago

Here's an odd question: For a country whose founding principles say "ALL human beings are endowed with inalienable rights...", why is the outcry only over collecting domestic communications? Do the rights not apply to foreigners?

gonvaled 13y ago
Because we are not complete human beings! I mean, you don't assume that a non-american has the same human dignity as an american, do you? Foreigners are all terrorists anyway ...