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"Communications from US phone numbers, the documents suggest, were removed (or “minimized”) from the database – but those of other countries, including the UK,

by pvnick 13y ago

"Communications from US phone numbers, the documents suggest, were removed (or “minimized”) from the database – but those of other countries, including the UK, were retained." I'm interested in knowing the specifics on this. US data goes into a database and is then proactively removed? Minimization procedures [1] allow the nsa to keep US data up to 5 years to determine where it's coming from. It's also kept if "they contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity." So until the documents show otherwise, I assume that most of my text messages from the past 5 years are in an nsa database, and all messages that my friends sent to buy weed are there, perhaps being used to parallel construct criminal cases [2]. And at the very least, all of it would be visible to the systems administrators... [1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/20/fisa-court-nsa-without-warrant http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/20/fisa-court-nsa-... [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intelligence-laundering https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intel...

grkvlt 13y ago
Your weed-buying friends are quite safe from the full power of the NSA and 'parallel construction' being brought to bear on them and their petty crimes. I can't really understand why anyone would even _think_ that would be the case? In fact, I just don't understand the problem people have with the 'parallel construction' of evidence. By its very nature, if the original evidence existed, and new alternative sources can be found, these it must be believed that they point to the fact a crime has been committed. In which case it should be prosecuted, and the criminals brought to justice. Or are people suggesting that if the NSA finds evidence of a crime, that crime can no longer be prosecuted even using alternative, non-NSA sourced evidence? That we should just wait until investigators stumble across the crime by accident, and allow many criminals to avoid prosecution? My feeling is that if a valid and uncontested, un-tainted evidence trail exists, showing that a crime has been committed, then morally there is no problem. We are not talking about the use of torture to obtain the original evidence, for example, rather it is a side effect of the intelligence gathering process. This sort of cross-pollination between intelligence agencies and law enforcement has always been present, and the source of the original 'tip off' was generally inadmissible due to classification or to protect sources. This is not even a new idea. Law enforcement has to deal with 'tainted' and inadmissible evidence all the time, from protected sources, conversations overheard in bars and so on... Sometimes the evidence has even been allowable at the time it was collected, but circumstances change later. Anyway, in these situations it is standard practice to try and obtain different, non-tainted and admissible evidence pointing to the same outcome. We now have a new word for this, in 'parallel construction' but the outcome is no different.
- jasomill 13y ago
  The problem I have with parallel construction is that it rewards potentially illegal behavior on the part of law enforcement and prosecuting attorneys in a manner that's difficult to police. "Parallel construction" doesn't just mean "look for other evidence of the same crime", it involves keeping the existence of the original, inadmissible evidence secret from the defense and the court, then constructing a chain of events that plausibly would have lead to incriminating evidence without knowledge gained from the illegal search. Among other things, this secrecy deprives the defense a reasonable opportunity to argue the inadmissibility of the new evidence on the grounds of it being the fruit of the original, illegal search. Note that I say "argue" — there are right ways and wrong ways for law enforcement and prosecutors to "work around" tainted evidence, but if the existence of tainted evidence gathered in secret is routinely hidden from defendants and courts, it becomes very hard to hold anyone accountable for going about things the wrong way.
bandushrew 13y ago
I would think you are right. My guess would be that the unspoken phrase there is: the documents suggest, were removed (or “minimized”) from the database, ACCORDING TO APPROPRIATE LAWS (ie, within 5 years or...etc etc)
mortov 13y ago
I would assume much longer. I have a recollection [i.e. I cannot build a google query to find a reference right now] of some poor schmuck working with a tribute band who asked him to send a text message of the lyrics to "Machine Gun" (a Jimi Hendrixs song). Something along the lines of 'please send us machine gun'. He promptly replied with the words and a few hours later was on the wrong end of an armed response team storming his house asking where the machine gun was. At the time the only explanation he could think of was his messages were being intercepted but this was denied and the official explanation was he had supposedly sent the reply text to the wrong person who called the police. His phone logs showed he sent the reply text to the correct number but the police just dismissed this with no explanation. Now we have a more plausable explanation. This has apparently been going on for a long time. [Edit, for clarity, this was in the UK.]
- grkvlt 13y ago
  Surely the official version makes perfect sense? How many similar messages, that at first glance seem suspicious, are ant each day? If GCHQ was trolling for these automatically and forwarding them all to the local police, they would be overwhelmed. It seems much more likely that the reply went to the wrong destination, and a public spirited recipient panicked and notified the police. No need to invoke the panopticon here...
- berberous 13y ago
  Found it (first result for "machine gun lyrics mistaken sms police"): http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/03/text_punk/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/03/text_punk/ "Devine, who plays in a Clash tribute band in his spare time, had sent a message containing lyrics from The Clash's Tommy Gun to his lead singer who had forgotten the words to the song. According to The Sun, the message read: "How about this for Tommy Gun? OK - SO LET'S AGREE ABOUT THE PRICE AND MAKE IT ONE JET AIRLINER AND TEN PRISONERS" The arrest has prompted speculation about how the message was intercepted. Police maintain that Devine's message went astray. They say he actually sent it to a woman in Bristol by mistake and it was she who alerted police to the content. However, The Sun also quotes Chris Dobson, a terrorism expert, as saying that the interception clearly shows that GCHQ is monitoring all vocal and textual mobile phone traffic."
csandreasen 13y ago
Probably not. The article says 200 million a day (in 2011), which seems like a huge amount, but the volume of text messages in the US alone was 2.3 trillion in 2011 [1] (I'm using US numbers since I don't know where you're from). If you operate under the assumption that they're only collecting Americans' text messages, that means they would be collecting 3% of text messages if I did my math correctly. I'm assuming the global text messaging numbers are significantly higher. [1] http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/topics/wireless/us-text-message-volume-declined-by-5-last-year-29212/attachment/ctia-us-text-messaging-volume-2008-2012-may2013/ http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/topics/wireless/us-text-me... [EDIT: corrected my math - thank you kuusisto]
- kuusisto 13y ago
  I think you mean 3% instead of .03%. Still.
alan_cx 13y ago
To go back to blackmail arguments elsewhere... I hope people see from this that if the OP or any of his friends decides to enter politics, they are compromised. They have strong reason to believe the NSA has dirt on them, and that if they speak out about the NSA in a way the NSA feels threatened, there is information that could be leaked to discredit them. So, will they risk all the good they might be able to do elsewhere to tackle the NSA? And this is merely the compromising information the OP remembers... and wants to tell HN about, or considers compromising. Once the likes of Fox News twist things up, even the genuinely innocent can be spun as vile and evil. Sure, buying a bit of weed might not be as devastating as other things, but there its the point, there is the mechanism of control. And none of it involves or requires NSA goons inviting one to a parking lot at 2am for a quiet word.

by pvnick 13y ago

grkvlt 13y ago

Your weed-buying friends are quite safe from the full power of the NSA and 'parallel construction' being brought to bear on them and their petty crimes. I can't really understand why anyone would even _think_ that would be the case? In fact, I just don't understand the problem people have with the 'parallel construction' of evidence. By its very nature, if the original evidence existed, and new alternative sources can be found, these it must be believed that they point to the fact a crime has been committed. In which case it should be prosecuted, and the criminals brought to justice. Or are people suggesting that if the NSA finds evidence of a crime, that crime can no longer be prosecuted even using alternative, non-NSA sourced evidence? That we should just wait until investigators stumble across the crime by accident, and allow many criminals to avoid prosecution? My feeling is that if a valid and uncontested, un-tainted evidence trail exists, showing that a crime has been committed, then morally there is no problem. We are not talking about the use of torture to obtain the original evidence, for example, rather it is a side effect of the intelligence gathering process. This sort of cross-pollination between intelligence agencies and law enforcement has always been present, and the source of the original 'tip off' was generally inadmissible due to classification or to protect sources. This is not even a new idea. Law enforcement has to deal with 'tainted' and inadmissible evidence all the time, from protected sources, conversations overheard in bars and so on... Sometimes the evidence has even been allowable at the time it was collected, but circumstances change later. Anyway, in these situations it is standard practice to try and obtain different, non-tainted and admissible evidence pointing to the same outcome. We now have a new word for this, in 'parallel construction' but the outcome is no different.

jasomill 13y ago
The problem I have with parallel construction is that it rewards potentially illegal behavior on the part of law enforcement and prosecuting attorneys in a manner that's difficult to police. "Parallel construction" doesn't just mean "look for other evidence of the same crime", it involves keeping the existence of the original, inadmissible evidence secret from the defense and the court, then constructing a chain of events that plausibly would have lead to incriminating evidence without knowledge gained from the illegal search. Among other things, this secrecy deprives the defense a reasonable opportunity to argue the inadmissibility of the new evidence on the grounds of it being the fruit of the original, illegal search. Note that I say "argue" — there are right ways and wrong ways for law enforcement and prosecutors to "work around" tainted evidence, but if the existence of tainted evidence gathered in secret is routinely hidden from defendants and courts, it becomes very hard to hold anyone accountable for going about things the wrong way.

bandushrew 13y ago

I would think you are right. My guess would be that the unspoken phrase there is: the documents suggest, were removed (or “minimized”) from the database, ACCORDING TO APPROPRIATE LAWS (ie, within 5 years or...etc etc)

mortov 13y ago

I would assume much longer. I have a recollection [i.e. I cannot build a google query to find a reference right now] of some poor schmuck working with a tribute band who asked him to send a text message of the lyrics to "Machine Gun" (a Jimi Hendrixs song). Something along the lines of 'please send us machine gun'. He promptly replied with the words and a few hours later was on the wrong end of an armed response team storming his house asking where the machine gun was. At the time the only explanation he could think of was his messages were being intercepted but this was denied and the official explanation was he had supposedly sent the reply text to the wrong person who called the police. His phone logs showed he sent the reply text to the correct number but the police just dismissed this with no explanation. Now we have a more plausable explanation. This has apparently been going on for a long time. [Edit, for clarity, this was in the UK.]

grkvlt 13y ago
Surely the official version makes perfect sense? How many similar messages, that at first glance seem suspicious, are ant each day? If GCHQ was trolling for these automatically and forwarding them all to the local police, they would be overwhelmed. It seems much more likely that the reply went to the wrong destination, and a public spirited recipient panicked and notified the police. No need to invoke the panopticon here...
berberous 13y ago
Found it (first result for "machine gun lyrics mistaken sms police"): http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/03/text_punk/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/03/text_punk/ "Devine, who plays in a Clash tribute band in his spare time, had sent a message containing lyrics from The Clash's Tommy Gun to his lead singer who had forgotten the words to the song. According to The Sun, the message read: "How about this for Tommy Gun? OK - SO LET'S AGREE ABOUT THE PRICE AND MAKE IT ONE JET AIRLINER AND TEN PRISONERS" The arrest has prompted speculation about how the message was intercepted. Police maintain that Devine's message went astray. They say he actually sent it to a woman in Bristol by mistake and it was she who alerted police to the content. However, The Sun also quotes Chris Dobson, a terrorism expert, as saying that the interception clearly shows that GCHQ is monitoring all vocal and textual mobile phone traffic."

csandreasen 13y ago

Probably not. The article says 200 million a day (in 2011), which seems like a huge amount, but the volume of text messages in the US alone was 2.3 trillion in 2011 [1] (I'm using US numbers since I don't know where you're from). If you operate under the assumption that they're only collecting Americans' text messages, that means they would be collecting 3% of text messages if I did my math correctly. I'm assuming the global text messaging numbers are significantly higher. [1] http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/topics/wireless/us-text-message-volume-declined-by-5-last-year-29212/attachment/ctia-us-text-messaging-volume-2008-2012-may2013/ http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/topics/wireless/us-text-me... [EDIT: corrected my math - thank you kuusisto]

kuusisto 13y ago
I think you mean 3% instead of .03%. Still.

alan_cx 13y ago

To go back to blackmail arguments elsewhere... I hope people see from this that if the OP or any of his friends decides to enter politics, they are compromised. They have strong reason to believe the NSA has dirt on them, and that if they speak out about the NSA in a way the NSA feels threatened, there is information that could be leaked to discredit them. So, will they risk all the good they might be able to do elsewhere to tackle the NSA? And this is merely the compromising information the OP remembers... and wants to tell HN about, or considers compromising. Once the likes of Fox News twist things up, even the genuinely innocent can be spun as vile and evil. Sure, buying a bit of weed might not be as devastating as other things, but there its the point, there is the mechanism of control. And none of it involves or requires NSA goons inviting one to a parking lot at 2am for a quiet word.