6 ms·

First US appeals court hears argument to shut down NSA database

179 points by ixtli 12y ago

blueking 12y ago
What a complete load of bullshit for the cameras. This is theater. They have absolutely no intention of ever shutting down the NSA, or restricting them, or deleting one single file in their database... the one that's so huge they had to put it in the desert. http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/sites/default/files/Greenpeace_utah_airship_flight%201137.jpg http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/sites/default/files/Greenp...
- ewoodrich 12y ago
  Many large-scale data-centers are located in desert areas with extremely reliable electricity.[1] Besides, size is irrelevant, they could achieve the same result by splitting them and placing them in smaller complexes. Might cost them a bit more, however. A random example: [1] http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/12/data-centers-desert-technology-cio-network-data-centers.html http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/12/data-centers-desert-technol... EDIT: Am I wrong?
  - phavelar 12y ago
    Stop distracting from the main issue with the data center location matter. Or are you a troll ?
    - ewoodrich 12y ago
      I've participated on this site for almost three years, now. On what I hope are a variety of topics, with no particular agenda here. My comment history is available for your perusal.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      Please don't label people that you possibly disagree with or that contribute to the discussion in a way that does not suit your agenda as 'trolls'.
- DannyBee 12y ago
  I never understand why people place all their hope and faith in courts to fix what's broken. I understand congress is broken. But it's like everyone wants courts to sit around as a council of learned elders and fix the stuff that congress won't. They then get upset when courts just rule on the laws as laws, as they are supposed to.
  - beedogs 12y ago
    The only way the NSA will ever be shut down would be as a result of the total collapse of the US federal government. While I'm steadfastly rooting for this to happen, I also fear that whatever replaces it will be much worse.
    - kordless 12y ago
      The Blockchain.
      - jordanbaucke 12y ago
        @kordless I like your work on BTC and openstack but I disagree with the premise some Blockchain technologists evangelism about using a technology driven by a majority consensus theory to create or enforce laws. A form of government that doesn't protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority concensus is a dangerous thing.
        smokeyj 12y ago
        > A form of government that doesn't protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority concensus is a dangerous thing. Are you implying this is possible without blockchain technology, but impossible with? I can't imagine what attribute of an unforgeable ledger would do that. People who believe in the mythic notion of "social contracts" should embrace blockchains with open arms. Minorities now have a concrete method to create enforceable agreements among each other. Isn't that what government should be -- an agreement amongst the people?
- jandrewrogers 12y ago
  Let's be technically accurate. They put a data center in Utah, and a matching data center in San Antonio that most people forget about, because those are nearly ideal places to locate data centers that are survivable and efficient for their purposes. That it is in desert is only somewhat related. Unlike the NSA headquarters location, the data center sites are in locales with low exposure to geological and other risks, both sites sit on major fiber aggregation points, and power is inexpensive. Frankly, it makes pragmatic sense to put them there. It isn't that different than Facebook putting a huge data center in the Oregon high desert. It may be far from civilization but from a data center economics standpoint it makes perfect sense. One of the curiosities of the western high deserts is that there are several industries where that environment is conducive to efficient and economical facilities. Data centers are one of those use cases. Criticism of use cases aside, I would hope that the government would build sensible and economically efficient data centers. If I was building a massive scale data center, I would probably locate similarly.
  - eric_bullington 12y ago
    >those are nearly ideal places to locate data centers that are survivable Yes, because we sure as hell wouldn't want all these these billions of records on random innocent U.S. citizens to die along with us in a nuclear blast, would we?
    - krapp 12y ago
      Actually, given how fragile and ephemeral (by design) most of the rest of digital media is and how much of our culture is tied up in it, no we wouldn't. It may wind up being the case that the NSA's and similar surveillance architectures become the last great archive of human thought and culture, should something horrible happen. Unless archive.org has some serious Cryptonomicon-like servers hidden deep in a cave somewhere, governments seem to be at least putting more effort into the preservation of digital knowledge than anyone else has.
- SoftwareMaven 12y ago
  The location in Utah is between the state's two largest population centers. That picture looks back into a live-ammunition range for the Army reserves and up into mountains that are pretty much owned by a mining company (so no developments), but that doesn't reflect the reality around it. The location wasn't chosen for the space (sure, it's big, but there is a lot of federal ground around the US); it was chosen because of cheap, plentiful electricity and good connectivity to the Internet. If it's any consolation, there have been efforts underway to get the water rights for the NSA's Utah DC revoked[1]. Personally, I think it is deplorable that they built a data center that will use nearly two million gallons of water a day in one of the driest places in the US. It irks me every time I look across the valley and see it. 1. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/12/utah-lawmaker-nsa-data-centre-water-supply http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/12/utah-lawmaker-n... 2. http://fox13now.com/2014/04/25/bluffdale-releases-water-bill-for-nsa-data-center/ http://fox13now.com/2014/04/25/bluffdale-releases-water-bill...
  - fizgig 12y ago
    I'm curious if the NSA data center and Google Fiber being planned for Provo, UT (of all the wasted places...) is coincidental.
    - lern_too_spel 12y ago
      Google already explained why they chose Provo. The infrastructure is already mostly in place, and they can get it cheaply. http://www.provo.org/about-us/current-issues/google-fiber http://www.provo.org/about-us/current-issues/google-fiber Others in this thread have already explained why the NSA might build a data center in Utah.
    - SoftwareMaven 12y ago
      Provo was looking to get out of the fiber infrastructure they owned after a failed attempted at state-wide fiber left them holding the ball. Utah has a very strong tech sector, of which Provo is one of the hubs. It basically gave them a nearly free entry into the Utah market, a market that tends to be much more business friendly than, say, the Bay Area. I fail to see how it could be anything other than coincidence (with the possible exception of good connectivity to the rest if the world).
- phavelar 12y ago
  Yes, it's all BS after all they need to maintain the illusion of democracy...
  - twoodfin 12y ago
    Democracy means rule by the people. Any evidence that this stuff makes the top 5 issues for any significant chunk of voters?
    - Karunamon 12y ago
      This bears repeating. To people with knowledge, this is a huge issue. How many people actually have that knowledge?
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - junto 12y ago
        I think it is worse than this. The vast majority of people know about it but simply don't care. Jennifer Lawrence's private photos are much more important to the proleriat. The irony of this has simply passed them all by.
      - Andrew_Quentin 12y ago
        People don't matter. The vast majority of people are uneducated idiots who never decided one thing or another. The educated masses matter, those with knowledge as you call them, who have decided the trajectory of history at every turning point.
        deciplex 12y ago
        The US is, historically speaking and also when compared to many contemporary societies, very highly educated. If what you say is true, that even in the US most people are 'uneducated idiots' who never decide anything (or rather, for the sake of argument, should never decide anything, which I think is what you were getting at - correct me if I'm wrong), then it's a pretty compelling argument that democracy can never work. I happen to disagree. Americans are not 'uneducated idiots' but rather the target of perhaps the most sophisticated, ubiquitous, and persistant propaganda effort ever seen in human history. When you consider the stakes involved (massive military, very large economy) it is not such a surprise. As for what to do about that, I propose going to the source: reduce the size of the military, and reduce the size of the economy (by splitting it into several pieces).
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
vegasbrianc 12y ago
When the NSA claims the the Database is deleted. How are we really to know anyway?
- spacefight 12y ago
  You don't. That beast is not accountable, and as long as it exists.
- deciplex 12y ago
  You have to dismantle the NSA, and kick everyone involved with this stuff out of public service forever. Then you have to have independent, and very public audits of the process and the results. Then, you can be about 90% sure.
freakonom 12y ago
This is a Free Speech Cage [1] with suits. Straight from the history books, it's one of the last phases of the plan that goes like this: 1) leverage an extraordinary event to scare everyone into supporting emergency measures 2) perpetuate fear and argument on all sides to distract, divide, and conquer public opinion, raising the possibility that these emergency powers might be (necessary|good|here to stay) 3) put on the suits and officially vent dissent to devnull (you are here) 4) everyone gives up and you can peel off the emergency sticker, pointing to your new law as precedent and tradition to uphold [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone
- dan_bk 12y ago
  Your forgot 5) PROFIT ! Because that is what this is all about (excessive wealth == power).
  - loceng 12y ago
    Profit may be a strong driver however safety and security are equal if not paramount, while not negating privacy of the innocent while preventing abuse.
- disjointrevelry 12y ago
  The main goal would eventually be to require by law that all communications become privy to the government agencies, and outlawing any non-identifiable communications. This way they'll be able to maintain some argument of 'democracy', while being able to identify any threats to their usurpation by democratic means.
- alexjeffrey 12y ago
  I know I'm going to get called on Godwin's law and/or hyperbole for this one, but this is the exact route Hitler took (using the Reichstag fire) to escalate his authority from Chancellor to Fuhrer. [edit] to clarify, the reason I made this comment is to note a case where this strategy has been used in history, as mentioned by the parent post. Not to compare Obama/Bush to Hitler.
ep103 12y ago
What's amazing is that the arguments they're using are already out of date. The argument that these records are only being used for anti-terrorism purposes was shot down by the revelation of the NSA's "google-like interface" a week or so ago. It'd be great if someone could get that message to the lawyer.
- lern_too_spel 12y ago
  How does an interface negate how it's claimed to be used? If the FBI has a Google-like interface on their database of felons, how would that mean it's not used for law enforcement?
  - xnull 12y ago
    The interface doesn't. However for posterity it's clear that the NSA is not about terrorism: * The Inspector General Report on the Boston Bombings and the US's failure to discover them do not talk about the NSA (except to mention it in passing just two times). "We focused our review on the entities that were the most likely to have had information about Tamerlan Tsarnaev prior to the bombings – the FBI, the CIA, DHS, and NCTC, which maintains the U.S. government’s database of classified identifying and substantive derogatory information on known or suspected terrorists." * The NSA's mission statement itself is "The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Information Assurance (IA) products and services, and enables Computer Network Operations (CNO) in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances." * The NSA's actions regarding the Natanz nuclear processing facility, capturing data from German officials during the Eurozone crisis, of off shore oil drilling bids from Brazilian PETROBOL, programs such as HACIENTA that specifically target countries, blatant references to political and financial targets, etc * Programs such as QUEEN, ORCHESTRA, MINERVA, BIRDSONG/BADGER/GATEWAY/SLIPSTREAM, JTRIG, literature and research on social contagions and PsyOps (related to recent recent USAID Cuban Twitter project and Lincoln Group) Together these tell us that the NSA is an arm of us finance, espionage, sabotage and influence/propoganda targeting political upheaval in target nations.

179 points by ixtli 12y ago

What a complete load of bullshit for the cameras. This is theater. They have absolutely no intention of ever shutting down the NSA, or restricting them, or deleting one single file in their database... the one that's so huge they had to put it in the desert. http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/sites/default/files/Greenpeace_utah_airship_flight%201137.jpg http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/sites/default/files/Greenp...

ewoodrich 12y ago
Many large-scale data-centers are located in desert areas with extremely reliable electricity.[1] Besides, size is irrelevant, they could achieve the same result by splitting them and placing them in smaller complexes. Might cost them a bit more, however. A random example: [1] http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/12/data-centers-desert-technology-cio-network-data-centers.html http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/12/data-centers-desert-technol... EDIT: Am I wrong?
- phavelar 12y ago
  Stop distracting from the main issue with the data center location matter. Or are you a troll ?
  - ewoodrich 12y ago
    I've participated on this site for almost three years, now. On what I hope are a variety of topics, with no particular agenda here. My comment history is available for your perusal.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Please don't label people that you possibly disagree with or that contribute to the discussion in a way that does not suit your agenda as 'trolls'.
DannyBee 12y ago
I never understand why people place all their hope and faith in courts to fix what's broken. I understand congress is broken. But it's like everyone wants courts to sit around as a council of learned elders and fix the stuff that congress won't. They then get upset when courts just rule on the laws as laws, as they are supposed to.
- beedogs 12y ago
  The only way the NSA will ever be shut down would be as a result of the total collapse of the US federal government. While I'm steadfastly rooting for this to happen, I also fear that whatever replaces it will be much worse.
  - kordless 12y ago
    The Blockchain.
    - jordanbaucke 12y ago
      @kordless I like your work on BTC and openstack but I disagree with the premise some Blockchain technologists evangelism about using a technology driven by a majority consensus theory to create or enforce laws. A form of government that doesn't protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority concensus is a dangerous thing.
      - smokeyj 12y ago
        > A form of government that doesn't protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority concensus is a dangerous thing. Are you implying this is possible without blockchain technology, but impossible with? I can't imagine what attribute of an unforgeable ledger would do that. People who believe in the mythic notion of "social contracts" should embrace blockchains with open arms. Minorities now have a concrete method to create enforceable agreements among each other. Isn't that what government should be -- an agreement amongst the people?
jandrewrogers 12y ago
Let's be technically accurate. They put a data center in Utah, and a matching data center in San Antonio that most people forget about, because those are nearly ideal places to locate data centers that are survivable and efficient for their purposes. That it is in desert is only somewhat related. Unlike the NSA headquarters location, the data center sites are in locales with low exposure to geological and other risks, both sites sit on major fiber aggregation points, and power is inexpensive. Frankly, it makes pragmatic sense to put them there. It isn't that different than Facebook putting a huge data center in the Oregon high desert. It may be far from civilization but from a data center economics standpoint it makes perfect sense. One of the curiosities of the western high deserts is that there are several industries where that environment is conducive to efficient and economical facilities. Data centers are one of those use cases. Criticism of use cases aside, I would hope that the government would build sensible and economically efficient data centers. If I was building a massive scale data center, I would probably locate similarly.
- eric_bullington 12y ago
  >those are nearly ideal places to locate data centers that are survivable Yes, because we sure as hell wouldn't want all these these billions of records on random innocent U.S. citizens to die along with us in a nuclear blast, would we?
  - krapp 12y ago
    Actually, given how fragile and ephemeral (by design) most of the rest of digital media is and how much of our culture is tied up in it, no we wouldn't. It may wind up being the case that the NSA's and similar surveillance architectures become the last great archive of human thought and culture, should something horrible happen. Unless archive.org has some serious Cryptonomicon-like servers hidden deep in a cave somewhere, governments seem to be at least putting more effort into the preservation of digital knowledge than anyone else has.
SoftwareMaven 12y ago
The location in Utah is between the state's two largest population centers. That picture looks back into a live-ammunition range for the Army reserves and up into mountains that are pretty much owned by a mining company (so no developments), but that doesn't reflect the reality around it. The location wasn't chosen for the space (sure, it's big, but there is a lot of federal ground around the US); it was chosen because of cheap, plentiful electricity and good connectivity to the Internet. If it's any consolation, there have been efforts underway to get the water rights for the NSA's Utah DC revoked[1]. Personally, I think it is deplorable that they built a data center that will use nearly two million gallons of water a day in one of the driest places in the US. It irks me every time I look across the valley and see it. 1. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/12/utah-lawmaker-nsa-data-centre-water-supply http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/12/utah-lawmaker-n... 2. http://fox13now.com/2014/04/25/bluffdale-releases-water-bill-for-nsa-data-center/ http://fox13now.com/2014/04/25/bluffdale-releases-water-bill...
- fizgig 12y ago
  I'm curious if the NSA data center and Google Fiber being planned for Provo, UT (of all the wasted places...) is coincidental.
  - lern_too_spel 12y ago
    Google already explained why they chose Provo. The infrastructure is already mostly in place, and they can get it cheaply. http://www.provo.org/about-us/current-issues/google-fiber http://www.provo.org/about-us/current-issues/google-fiber Others in this thread have already explained why the NSA might build a data center in Utah.
  - SoftwareMaven 12y ago
    Provo was looking to get out of the fiber infrastructure they owned after a failed attempted at state-wide fiber left them holding the ball. Utah has a very strong tech sector, of which Provo is one of the hubs. It basically gave them a nearly free entry into the Utah market, a market that tends to be much more business friendly than, say, the Bay Area. I fail to see how it could be anything other than coincidence (with the possible exception of good connectivity to the rest if the world).
phavelar 12y ago
Yes, it's all BS after all they need to maintain the illusion of democracy...
- twoodfin 12y ago
  Democracy means rule by the people. Any evidence that this stuff makes the top 5 issues for any significant chunk of voters?
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    This bears repeating. To people with knowledge, this is a huge issue. How many people actually have that knowledge?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - junto 12y ago
      I think it is worse than this. The vast majority of people know about it but simply don't care. Jennifer Lawrence's private photos are much more important to the proleriat. The irony of this has simply passed them all by.
    - Andrew_Quentin 12y ago
      People don't matter. The vast majority of people are uneducated idiots who never decided one thing or another. The educated masses matter, those with knowledge as you call them, who have decided the trajectory of history at every turning point.
      - deciplex 12y ago
        The US is, historically speaking and also when compared to many contemporary societies, very highly educated. If what you say is true, that even in the US most people are 'uneducated idiots' who never decide anything (or rather, for the sake of argument, should never decide anything, which I think is what you were getting at - correct me if I'm wrong), then it's a pretty compelling argument that democracy can never work. I happen to disagree. Americans are not 'uneducated idiots' but rather the target of perhaps the most sophisticated, ubiquitous, and persistant propaganda effort ever seen in human history. When you consider the stakes involved (massive military, very large economy) it is not such a surprise. As for what to do about that, I propose going to the source: reduce the size of the military, and reduce the size of the economy (by splitting it into several pieces).

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

vegasbrianc 12y ago

When the NSA claims the the Database is deleted. How are we really to know anyway?

spacefight 12y ago
You don't. That beast is not accountable, and as long as it exists.
deciplex 12y ago
You have to dismantle the NSA, and kick everyone involved with this stuff out of public service forever. Then you have to have independent, and very public audits of the process and the results. Then, you can be about 90% sure.

freakonom 12y ago

This is a Free Speech Cage [1] with suits. Straight from the history books, it's one of the last phases of the plan that goes like this: 1) leverage an extraordinary event to scare everyone into supporting emergency measures 2) perpetuate fear and argument on all sides to distract, divide, and conquer public opinion, raising the possibility that these emergency powers might be (necessary|good|here to stay) 3) put on the suits and officially vent dissent to devnull (you are here) 4) everyone gives up and you can peel off the emergency sticker, pointing to your new law as precedent and tradition to uphold [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone

dan_bk 12y ago
Your forgot 5) PROFIT ! Because that is what this is all about (excessive wealth == power).
- loceng 12y ago
  Profit may be a strong driver however safety and security are equal if not paramount, while not negating privacy of the innocent while preventing abuse.
disjointrevelry 12y ago
The main goal would eventually be to require by law that all communications become privy to the government agencies, and outlawing any non-identifiable communications. This way they'll be able to maintain some argument of 'democracy', while being able to identify any threats to their usurpation by democratic means.
alexjeffrey 12y ago
I know I'm going to get called on Godwin's law and/or hyperbole for this one, but this is the exact route Hitler took (using the Reichstag fire) to escalate his authority from Chancellor to Fuhrer. [edit] to clarify, the reason I made this comment is to note a case where this strategy has been used in history, as mentioned by the parent post. Not to compare Obama/Bush to Hitler.

ep103 12y ago

What's amazing is that the arguments they're using are already out of date. The argument that these records are only being used for anti-terrorism purposes was shot down by the revelation of the NSA's "google-like interface" a week or so ago. It'd be great if someone could get that message to the lawyer.

lern_too_spel 12y ago
How does an interface negate how it's claimed to be used? If the FBI has a Google-like interface on their database of felons, how would that mean it's not used for law enforcement?
- xnull 12y ago
  The interface doesn't. However for posterity it's clear that the NSA is not about terrorism: * The Inspector General Report on the Boston Bombings and the US's failure to discover them do not talk about the NSA (except to mention it in passing just two times). "We focused our review on the entities that were the most likely to have had information about Tamerlan Tsarnaev prior to the bombings – the FBI, the CIA, DHS, and NCTC, which maintains the U.S. government’s database of classified identifying and substantive derogatory information on known or suspected terrorists." * The NSA's mission statement itself is "The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Information Assurance (IA) products and services, and enables Computer Network Operations (CNO) in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances." * The NSA's actions regarding the Natanz nuclear processing facility, capturing data from German officials during the Eurozone crisis, of off shore oil drilling bids from Brazilian PETROBOL, programs such as HACIENTA that specifically target countries, blatant references to political and financial targets, etc * Programs such as QUEEN, ORCHESTRA, MINERVA, BIRDSONG/BADGER/GATEWAY/SLIPSTREAM, JTRIG, literature and research on social contagions and PsyOps (related to recent recent USAID Cuban Twitter project and Lincoln Group) Together these tell us that the NSA is an arm of us finance, espionage, sabotage and influence/propoganda targeting political upheaval in target nations.