7 ms·

No Morsel Too Minuscule for All-Consuming N.S.A.

97 points by 001sky 13y ago

a3n 13y ago
> “Sigint professionals must hold the moral high ground, even as terrorists or dictators seek to exploit our freedoms,” the plan declares. “Some of our adversaries will say or do anything to advance their cause; we will not.” Torture-cough-cough. Accept women and children as collateral killings in drone strikes-cough-cough. Violate our own Constitution-cough-cough. Anything? Maybe not. Enough to be close enough. It's easy to do anything when God is on your side.
- conover 13y ago
  True believers are scary -- on any side.
asparagui 13y ago
quote: “There’s no question that from a capability standpoint we probably dwarf everybody on the planet, just about, with perhaps the exception of Russia and China,” Russia and China are the usual bugbears for the DoD. Over there, they spend roughly ~140 billion combined to the the DoD's ~750. What are the odds the ratio is similar with spying as well?
- sitkack 13y ago
  The game is up if your enemy doesn't exist. Remember MS propping up Apple?
- philwelch 13y ago
  Russia and China have political systems that can bear orders of magnitude more casualties than ours. China could probably lose 10,000 soldiers in a war and face less political upheaval than the US would face losing 1,000 soldiers.
spodek 13y ago
If our elected officials don't reign in the NSA and its peers while they can, they will find themselves the ones being governed. The NSA is supposed to spy only on foreigners, not on domestic targets. It seems to have transformed foreign and domestic to mean outside and inside the NSA. Without accountability elected officials, why would they stop? Our would-be leaders aren't leading. They are being led by their agencies, who are developing more and more power. It would seem the task falls on us to lead our elected officials if we hope to avoid a point of no return of NSA usurping power if we haven't already. Americans have led its leaders to desired outcomes before -- civil rights, for example -- but results took generations and many jobs remain unfinished. Let's hope we have the fortitude on this one.
- twoodfin 13y ago
  Did you read the article? The entire thing is about all the "whistleblowing" Snowden did on how amazingly good our foreign SIGINT is. Codenames of programs and names of targets in Afghanistan included.
  - a3n 13y ago
    > Another former insider worries less about foreign leaders’ sensitivities than the potential danger the sprawling agency poses at home. William E. Binney, a former senior N.S.A. official who has become an outspoken critic, says he has no problem with spying on foreign targets like Brazil’s president or the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. “That’s pretty much what every government does,” he said. “It’s the foundation of diplomacy.” But Mr. Binney said that without new leadership, new laws and top-to-bottom reform, the agency will represent a threat of “turnkey totalitarianism” — the capability to turn its awesome power, now directed mainly against other countries, on the American public. > “I think it’s already starting to happen,” he said. “That’s what we have to stop.”
    - twoodfin 13y ago
      What's your point? Are you arguing this wasn't an article about foreign SIGINT just because of one sentence we've read a thousand other times? There's not a single instance of domestic surveillance in this story, yet immediately the same shopworn comments about the NSA having "transformed foreign and domestic to mean outside and inside the NSA" start hitting hn. There's nothing in the article to support that claim.
revelation 13y ago
The Guardian should not have given that data to the NYT. Can you count the number of important revelations they just casually released here? Just because it fit into their writing style of "making no definite statements, ever"? It's essentially a raw data dump transmogrified into the annoying, inefficient writing of last centuries journalism. Give us the facts, give us the information, not your pointless hunches about "suspected terrorists".
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
csandreasen 13y ago
Bravo to the New York Times for putting out an article on the NSA that doesn't fall into the hype trap that Glenn Greenwald/The Guardian/Washington Post/etc. have all fallen into. All we've had up until now are documents showing how the NSA is collecting information and theorizing that the same technology is being used to collect on everyone. The only thing that does is stir up hype, fear and distrust of the government. This is the kind of information that the public needs to ask informed questions on the NSA's activities, like: Is the collection actually valuable to national security? Is it of diplomatic value? Does that value outweigh the diplomatic costs when the collection is revealed? What are the financial costs of the collection? Are those costs worth it? What about all of the collection that is never analyzed? What aspects of the NSA's collection/funding/bureaucratic processes need to be changed to best fit the public interest?
- csandreasen 13y ago
  I'll try to clarify since I'm being downmodded... I've argued for some time that how the NSA is collecting is not nearly as important as who and why. The initial disclosure about the cell phone metadata was a legitimate call for concern - I agree with everyone on that. The cause for concern there wasn't how they were gathering the data, it was that they were collecting on US citizens and we didn't know why. They left those questions to be answered by the administration, who has published a good deal of detail on the Section 215 collection program[1]. If their explanation is innacurate, then the ball is back in the media's court to pull evidence showing so from that collection of 50,000 documents that Snowden gave them. Meanwhile, Congress is continuing to debate this collection now. My issue is with most of the other reporting. Most of the other leaks so far have revealed how - PRISM, XKeyScore, the Google/Yahoo collection, etc. What the media outlets have failed to do is show evidence linking this back to collection against ordinary citizens. Articles that would be more accurately titled something like "The NSA collects vast amounts of data using X" instead are presented as "The NSA collects vast amounts of Americans' data using X". They conflate collection authorities and present it as fact to the audience. For example, the NSA is permitted by law (under certain interpretations - the EFF is looking to challenge this in court) to collect American cell phone metadata under Section 215, but is expressly forbidden from collecting American data under FAA 702 authorities. Leaked slides show that the PRISM program is their mechanism for collecting FAA 702 data. Any article claiming that the NSA is collecting such-and-such data against Americans but then goes on to cite PRISM as evidence is conflating the evidence. The how matters to the people being targeted. The who and why matters to everyone regardless of targeting. If there is evidence linking these other programs back to collection against ordinary citizens, we need to know. If we are being targeted, we need to know the how to protect ourselves. What we've been getting, though, is descriptions of collection programs with "they're probably using this to collect on everyone!" sprinkled into the description. If these programs are only used to target legitimate foreign intelligence targets, then what have we ordinary citizens gained by knowing how? In revealing this, what have those being targeted learned and how does that affect national security, diplomacy, etc.? If you read through the whole 7 pages of this article, they talk a good deal about who is being targeted and why; discuss the successes and failures, hint at what intelligence has had valuable impact and what hasn't; talk about the immense funding and bureaucratic stumbling blocks that has led to an excess of collection that has never been and may never be analyzed; etc., and do so in a manner that the administration says will not affect ongoing operations. I stand by my statement that this is important information that the public needs in order to ask informed questions to their elected representatives. I would ask why it took this many months to surface, and why it didn't come from The Guardian or the Washington Post, who have had this information for much longer. If you disagree with me, I invite you to state your reasons why and continue with the conversation rather than downvote. [1] https://www.eff.org/document/administration-white-paper-section-215-patriot-act https://www.eff.org/document/administration-white-paper-sect...
ihatehandles 13y ago
Brings us back again to: "Were we foolish for expecting any privacy at all online?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6668273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6668273

97 points by 001sky 13y ago

a3n 13y ago

> “Sigint professionals must hold the moral high ground, even as terrorists or dictators seek to exploit our freedoms,” the plan declares. “Some of our adversaries will say or do anything to advance their cause; we will not.” Torture-cough-cough. Accept women and children as collateral killings in drone strikes-cough-cough. Violate our own Constitution-cough-cough. Anything? Maybe not. Enough to be close enough. It's easy to do anything when God is on your side.

conover 13y ago
True believers are scary -- on any side.

asparagui 13y ago

quote: “There’s no question that from a capability standpoint we probably dwarf everybody on the planet, just about, with perhaps the exception of Russia and China,” Russia and China are the usual bugbears for the DoD. Over there, they spend roughly ~140 billion combined to the the DoD's ~750. What are the odds the ratio is similar with spying as well?

sitkack 13y ago
The game is up if your enemy doesn't exist. Remember MS propping up Apple?
philwelch 13y ago
Russia and China have political systems that can bear orders of magnitude more casualties than ours. China could probably lose 10,000 soldiers in a war and face less political upheaval than the US would face losing 1,000 soldiers.

spodek 13y ago

If our elected officials don't reign in the NSA and its peers while they can, they will find themselves the ones being governed. The NSA is supposed to spy only on foreigners, not on domestic targets. It seems to have transformed foreign and domestic to mean outside and inside the NSA. Without accountability elected officials, why would they stop? Our would-be leaders aren't leading. They are being led by their agencies, who are developing more and more power. It would seem the task falls on us to lead our elected officials if we hope to avoid a point of no return of NSA usurping power if we haven't already. Americans have led its leaders to desired outcomes before -- civil rights, for example -- but results took generations and many jobs remain unfinished. Let's hope we have the fortitude on this one.

twoodfin 13y ago
Did you read the article? The entire thing is about all the "whistleblowing" Snowden did on how amazingly good our foreign SIGINT is. Codenames of programs and names of targets in Afghanistan included.
- a3n 13y ago
  > Another former insider worries less about foreign leaders’ sensitivities than the potential danger the sprawling agency poses at home. William E. Binney, a former senior N.S.A. official who has become an outspoken critic, says he has no problem with spying on foreign targets like Brazil’s president or the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. “That’s pretty much what every government does,” he said. “It’s the foundation of diplomacy.” But Mr. Binney said that without new leadership, new laws and top-to-bottom reform, the agency will represent a threat of “turnkey totalitarianism” — the capability to turn its awesome power, now directed mainly against other countries, on the American public. > “I think it’s already starting to happen,” he said. “That’s what we have to stop.”
  - twoodfin 13y ago
    What's your point? Are you arguing this wasn't an article about foreign SIGINT just because of one sentence we've read a thousand other times? There's not a single instance of domestic surveillance in this story, yet immediately the same shopworn comments about the NSA having "transformed foreign and domestic to mean outside and inside the NSA" start hitting hn. There's nothing in the article to support that claim.

revelation 13y ago

The Guardian should not have given that data to the NYT. Can you count the number of important revelations they just casually released here? Just because it fit into their writing style of "making no definite statements, ever"? It's essentially a raw data dump transmogrified into the annoying, inefficient writing of last centuries journalism. Give us the facts, give us the information, not your pointless hunches about "suspected terrorists".

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

csandreasen 13y ago

Bravo to the New York Times for putting out an article on the NSA that doesn't fall into the hype trap that Glenn Greenwald/The Guardian/Washington Post/etc. have all fallen into. All we've had up until now are documents showing how the NSA is collecting information and theorizing that the same technology is being used to collect on everyone. The only thing that does is stir up hype, fear and distrust of the government. This is the kind of information that the public needs to ask informed questions on the NSA's activities, like: Is the collection actually valuable to national security? Is it of diplomatic value? Does that value outweigh the diplomatic costs when the collection is revealed? What are the financial costs of the collection? Are those costs worth it? What about all of the collection that is never analyzed? What aspects of the NSA's collection/funding/bureaucratic processes need to be changed to best fit the public interest?

csandreasen 13y ago
I'll try to clarify since I'm being downmodded... I've argued for some time that how the NSA is collecting is not nearly as important as who and why. The initial disclosure about the cell phone metadata was a legitimate call for concern - I agree with everyone on that. The cause for concern there wasn't how they were gathering the data, it was that they were collecting on US citizens and we didn't know why. They left those questions to be answered by the administration, who has published a good deal of detail on the Section 215 collection program[1]. If their explanation is innacurate, then the ball is back in the media's court to pull evidence showing so from that collection of 50,000 documents that Snowden gave them. Meanwhile, Congress is continuing to debate this collection now. My issue is with most of the other reporting. Most of the other leaks so far have revealed how - PRISM, XKeyScore, the Google/Yahoo collection, etc. What the media outlets have failed to do is show evidence linking this back to collection against ordinary citizens. Articles that would be more accurately titled something like "The NSA collects vast amounts of data using X" instead are presented as "The NSA collects vast amounts of Americans' data using X". They conflate collection authorities and present it as fact to the audience. For example, the NSA is permitted by law (under certain interpretations - the EFF is looking to challenge this in court) to collect American cell phone metadata under Section 215, but is expressly forbidden from collecting American data under FAA 702 authorities. Leaked slides show that the PRISM program is their mechanism for collecting FAA 702 data. Any article claiming that the NSA is collecting such-and-such data against Americans but then goes on to cite PRISM as evidence is conflating the evidence. The how matters to the people being targeted. The who and why matters to everyone regardless of targeting. If there is evidence linking these other programs back to collection against ordinary citizens, we need to know. If we are being targeted, we need to know the how to protect ourselves. What we've been getting, though, is descriptions of collection programs with "they're probably using this to collect on everyone!" sprinkled into the description. If these programs are only used to target legitimate foreign intelligence targets, then what have we ordinary citizens gained by knowing how? In revealing this, what have those being targeted learned and how does that affect national security, diplomacy, etc.? If you read through the whole 7 pages of this article, they talk a good deal about who is being targeted and why; discuss the successes and failures, hint at what intelligence has had valuable impact and what hasn't; talk about the immense funding and bureaucratic stumbling blocks that has led to an excess of collection that has never been and may never be analyzed; etc., and do so in a manner that the administration says will not affect ongoing operations. I stand by my statement that this is important information that the public needs in order to ask informed questions to their elected representatives. I would ask why it took this many months to surface, and why it didn't come from The Guardian or the Washington Post, who have had this information for much longer. If you disagree with me, I invite you to state your reasons why and continue with the conversation rather than downvote. [1] https://www.eff.org/document/administration-white-paper-section-215-patriot-act https://www.eff.org/document/administration-white-paper-sect...

ihatehandles 13y ago

Brings us back again to: "Were we foolish for expecting any privacy at all online?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6668273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6668273