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Report: NSA bulk metadata collection has “no discernible impact”

fortepianissimo 13y ago
Quote: "A new paper published Monday by the New America Foundation... closely examines the 225 cases... the controversial bulk collection of American telephone metadata... appears to have played an identifiable role in initiating, at most, 1.8 percent of these cases." (That's 4 cases)
- Vivtek 13y ago
  4 cases against 4 people involved in one actual attempt by a cab driver to send $8500 home to Somalia. So allowing a figure as high as 1.8 percent is really, really generous.
fit2rule 13y ago
I believe we are watching agitprop being masterfully and skillfully applied to the positioning on this whole metadata issue, even here among the cognescenti, by the powers in charge of these meetings. This is a setup for us to all start thinking "oh, metadata doesn't really mean anything". 'It doesn't mean anything, because its obviously not useful.' So .. here's my delegitprop thought: If today, the line is "Feds are not achieving anything with metadata", then tomorrow .. or maybe a little later .. the line will become "metadata doesn't achieve anything". So we'll see. Who is asking the politicians if they actually do know what the word 'meta-' means? Because .. those who are collecting "meta-"data can facetiously use that word from multiple angles .. and these totalitarians (call them what they are, folks) are fastidious about never using words in this realm that they do not have clearly, internally at least, defined. The NSA has its own dictionary of the English language, for internal use. It is used to promote internal doctrine, and it is used externally to position. Information positioning is a refined, pure, utter science in this realm. So this NSA dictionary should be on the table in front of any Senator, doing their job, in these meetings. I highly doubt it is relevant what I think, but the only way out of this mess is a total dox'ing of the agency, and a replacement with something else ..
- pyre 13y ago
  If it has no impact then: 1) Why are we wasting money collecting and storing it? 2) Why are we wasting time looking at it? This does not muddy the waters to anyone with critical-thinking skills. Why does this invasion of my privacy need to happen if it is unable to achieve its own stated goals? Edit: My point was that people should be asking these questions, and these aren't hard questions to ask. Even just asking "if this has no impact then why are we wasting money" should be an easy question to ask for fiscal conservatives. I really don't see many people going the route of thinking, "this is ineffective, therefore we should just keep doing it because the metadata doesn't matter." I don't understand why people see me asking these questions and automatically assume that I'm attacking them and defending the NSA or something.
  - fit2rule 13y ago
    Totalitarianism. Understood?
  - marcosdumay 13y ago
    It has no impact on catching terrorists. That's the article claim. It obviously has some impact somewhere, otherwise nobody would lose time creating it.
    - pyre 13y ago
      The impact may not be much though. People have wasted much time, money and effort on endeavors based on faulty premises just because they never took the time to evaluate their situation.
      - moocowduckquack 13y ago
        At a guess, it is a measurement tool for analysing cause and effect with the aim of not being caught out by political mass movements. If you want to model a society thermodynamically, you need a lot of data. But then I have always been a fan of Asimov's Foundation.
    - 13y ago
jessaustin 13y ago
Wow. OK now we see why we had to spend billions of dollars and shred the Bill of Rights. Because a cab driver sent $8500 home to Somalia. It's all clear now. Carry on, patriots. What may annoy me even more, is that even in this article, Ars needed "balance" so much that they let some executive branch lizard blow his pompous bullshit at us without putting his name on it. That has got to stop. Anonymous speech is for citizens, not tyrants.
- rprospero 13y ago
  > Anonymous speech is for citizens, not tyrants. That's why I can't get behind the privacy movement. No one seems to be arguing that privacy is a right - it's just a privilege extended to those we like (citizens), but shouldn't necessarily be extended to those who oppose us (tyrants). Among those we don't trust, openness is necessary to avoid despotism. Among those we do trust, privacy is a fundamental freedom. The NSA agrees with your sentiment 100%. Your only disagreement is on who is the tyrant.
  - revelation 13y ago
    It's a very simple and sensible distinction. If you work for the government, you can not expect privacy in any work function. For everything else, you get the same privacy guarantees as normal citizens.
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    Touché! I can totally see the parallel you're making between 1. the political-marketing talking points that spokeslizards for the military-industrial complex regularly insert (for free!) into "news" articles and 2. intimate conversations over phone, text, email, etc. among family and friends. Wait, no I can't. Those two speech acts are in no way alike. Only the former is even claiming to be "anonymous"; as for the latter, when my brother calls me, I know it's him even though the conversation is (or should be) private. In the sentence you quote, I wasn't talking about privacy. I was referring specifically to the value that society gets from journalists' reporting of anonymous speech. When the anonymous speaker has a unique point of view that is rarely heard, anonymity is quite valuable. When instead, as is usually the case, the anonymity is that of a well-heeled lobbyist for a wealthy industry, who has his arms run up 27 other reporters' asses in addition to this one's, anonymity only serves corrupt purposes. This article is an example of that.
Vivtek 13y ago
"This capability was put in place after 9/11 for a good reason," said a senior administration official who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive deliberations. "We can't tell you exactly what those reasons are, but trust us, they're really important."
- joering2 13y ago
  Edit: and oh, we are anonymous when we say that... you know, just for our own protection... - are we going to see a day where a SWAT team raid your house for unclear reason, you are being tried under secret court that you have no influence over, and decision is made by an anonymous judge or secret jury (for their own protection, of course). Crap, I say: capital punishment for everyone, even if it was only a jaywalking! /sarcasm.
suprgeek 13y ago
"No discernible Impact" on preventing acts of terrorism. But that was never the end goal of bulk metadata collection. Terrorism was the merely the excuse to invoke those powers. The end goal is and always has been, to give the U.S Govt unfettered access to all communications of it citizens for whatever purposes it desires without having to go thru the legal process (not even the ridiculously permissive FISA court). Prediction - They will use every excuse in the book to hold onto this capability.
- lostlogin 13y ago
  >> The end goal is, and always has been, to give the U.S. govt unfettered access to all communications of its citizens<< I sort of feel like this glosses over the rest of us out here in the world. We don't have anyone to complain to that can/will do anything and are far more likely to suffer from US government actions. It's worse that we suffer this crap that US citizens do, not better as we don't get any say in it.
MaysonL 13y ago
Surveillence of Citizens Is ALWAYS Aimed at Crushing Dissent[0] [0]http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2014/01/surveillence-of-citizens-is-always-aimed-at-crushing-dissent/ http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2014/01/surveillence-of-citizen...

Quote: "A new paper published Monday by the New America Foundation... closely examines the 225 cases... the controversial bulk collection of American telephone metadata... appears to have played an identifiable role in initiating, at most, 1.8 percent of these cases." (That's 4 cases)

Vivtek 13y ago
4 cases against 4 people involved in one actual attempt by a cab driver to send $8500 home to Somalia. So allowing a figure as high as 1.8 percent is really, really generous.

fit2rule 13y ago

I believe we are watching agitprop being masterfully and skillfully applied to the positioning on this whole metadata issue, even here among the cognescenti, by the powers in charge of these meetings. This is a setup for us to all start thinking "oh, metadata doesn't really mean anything". 'It doesn't mean anything, because its obviously not useful.' So .. here's my delegitprop thought: If today, the line is "Feds are not achieving anything with metadata", then tomorrow .. or maybe a little later .. the line will become "metadata doesn't achieve anything". So we'll see. Who is asking the politicians if they actually do know what the word 'meta-' means? Because .. those who are collecting "meta-"data can facetiously use that word from multiple angles .. and these totalitarians (call them what they are, folks) are fastidious about never using words in this realm that they do not have clearly, internally at least, defined. The NSA has its own dictionary of the English language, for internal use. It is used to promote internal doctrine, and it is used externally to position. Information positioning is a refined, pure, utter science in this realm. So this NSA dictionary should be on the table in front of any Senator, doing their job, in these meetings. I highly doubt it is relevant what I think, but the only way out of this mess is a total dox'ing of the agency, and a replacement with something else ..

pyre 13y ago
If it has no impact then: 1) Why are we wasting money collecting and storing it? 2) Why are we wasting time looking at it? This does not muddy the waters to anyone with critical-thinking skills. Why does this invasion of my privacy need to happen if it is unable to achieve its own stated goals? Edit: My point was that people should be asking these questions, and these aren't hard questions to ask. Even just asking "if this has no impact then why are we wasting money" should be an easy question to ask for fiscal conservatives. I really don't see many people going the route of thinking, "this is ineffective, therefore we should just keep doing it because the metadata doesn't matter." I don't understand why people see me asking these questions and automatically assume that I'm attacking them and defending the NSA or something.
- fit2rule 13y ago
  Totalitarianism. Understood?
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  It has no impact on catching terrorists. That's the article claim. It obviously has some impact somewhere, otherwise nobody would lose time creating it.
  - pyre 13y ago
    The impact may not be much though. People have wasted much time, money and effort on endeavors based on faulty premises just because they never took the time to evaluate their situation.
    - moocowduckquack 13y ago
      At a guess, it is a measurement tool for analysing cause and effect with the aim of not being caught out by political mass movements. If you want to model a society thermodynamically, you need a lot of data. But then I have always been a fan of Asimov's Foundation.
  - 13y ago

jessaustin 13y ago

Wow. OK now we see why we had to spend billions of dollars and shred the Bill of Rights. Because a cab driver sent $8500 home to Somalia. It's all clear now. Carry on, patriots. What may annoy me even more, is that even in this article, Ars needed "balance" so much that they let some executive branch lizard blow his pompous bullshit at us without putting his name on it. That has got to stop. Anonymous speech is for citizens, not tyrants.

rprospero 13y ago
> Anonymous speech is for citizens, not tyrants. That's why I can't get behind the privacy movement. No one seems to be arguing that privacy is a right - it's just a privilege extended to those we like (citizens), but shouldn't necessarily be extended to those who oppose us (tyrants). Among those we don't trust, openness is necessary to avoid despotism. Among those we do trust, privacy is a fundamental freedom. The NSA agrees with your sentiment 100%. Your only disagreement is on who is the tyrant.
- revelation 13y ago
  It's a very simple and sensible distinction. If you work for the government, you can not expect privacy in any work function. For everything else, you get the same privacy guarantees as normal citizens.
- jessaustin 13y ago
  Touché! I can totally see the parallel you're making between 1. the political-marketing talking points that spokeslizards for the military-industrial complex regularly insert (for free!) into "news" articles and 2. intimate conversations over phone, text, email, etc. among family and friends. Wait, no I can't. Those two speech acts are in no way alike. Only the former is even claiming to be "anonymous"; as for the latter, when my brother calls me, I know it's him even though the conversation is (or should be) private. In the sentence you quote, I wasn't talking about privacy. I was referring specifically to the value that society gets from journalists' reporting of anonymous speech. When the anonymous speaker has a unique point of view that is rarely heard, anonymity is quite valuable. When instead, as is usually the case, the anonymity is that of a well-heeled lobbyist for a wealthy industry, who has his arms run up 27 other reporters' asses in addition to this one's, anonymity only serves corrupt purposes. This article is an example of that.

Vivtek 13y ago

"This capability was put in place after 9/11 for a good reason," said a senior administration official who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive deliberations. "We can't tell you exactly what those reasons are, but trust us, they're really important."

joering2 13y ago
Edit: and oh, we are anonymous when we say that... you know, just for our own protection... - are we going to see a day where a SWAT team raid your house for unclear reason, you are being tried under secret court that you have no influence over, and decision is made by an anonymous judge or secret jury (for their own protection, of course). Crap, I say: capital punishment for everyone, even if it was only a jaywalking! /sarcasm.

suprgeek 13y ago

"No discernible Impact" on preventing acts of terrorism. But that was never the end goal of bulk metadata collection. Terrorism was the merely the excuse to invoke those powers. The end goal is and always has been, to give the U.S Govt unfettered access to all communications of it citizens for whatever purposes it desires without having to go thru the legal process (not even the ridiculously permissive FISA court). Prediction - They will use every excuse in the book to hold onto this capability.

lostlogin 13y ago
>> The end goal is, and always has been, to give the U.S. govt unfettered access to all communications of its citizens<< I sort of feel like this glosses over the rest of us out here in the world. We don't have anyone to complain to that can/will do anything and are far more likely to suffer from US government actions. It's worse that we suffer this crap that US citizens do, not better as we don't get any say in it.

MaysonL 13y ago

Surveillence of Citizens Is ALWAYS Aimed at Crushing Dissent[0] [0]http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2014/01/surveillence-of-citizens-is-always-aimed-at-crushing-dissent/ http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2014/01/surveillence-of-citizen...