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I don't know how to read that definition - it contains more legal jargon. What is "received for use by an employee"? When are electronic communications "process

I don't know how to read that definition - it contains more legal jargon. What is "received for use by an employee"? When are electronic communications "processed into intelligible form"? Is a server that stores and processes data an employee? And for 100% sure PRISM received and stored mass data about American communications - both internet records and phone records. There's no debate about that. There was even (faux) legislature proposing moving the storage site from NSA hands to partner hands. These articles seem like minor quibbles, mostly to do with terminology, but not the broad implications of the program. There are so many damning slides. Like... "Of these 1,789 applications, one was withdrawn by the government The FISC did not deny any applications in whole or in part." (42) "With all querying if you discover its in the US, then it must go to the OSC quarterly report... 'but its nothing to worry about'" (99) http://hbpub.vo.llnwd.net/o16/video/olmk/holt/greenwald/NoPlaceToHide-Documents-Compressed.pdf http://hbpub.vo.llnwd.net/o16/video/olmk/holt/greenwald/NoPl... Looked quickly through the articles, not sure if I saw anything really damning - they seemed like minor quibbles. I must depart for non-tcp-mediated social obligations and consider this an incomplete reply - apologies for that. Hopefully the thread is alive later, and another poster can fill in the conversation here as it evolves. Adeiu.

csandreasen 12y ago
I don't think any of those are particular minor quibbles. To summarize: BOUNDLESSINFORMANT: Initial reporting show concrete number on just how much NSA was spying on a whole slew of European citizens. Shortly afterward, the actual intelligence agencies of those countries stepped up and said that those were not reflected NSA spying on those countries, but instead those numbers reflected communications that they themselves had gathered, mostly from areas like Afghanistan, and handed over to the NSA under intelligence sharing agreements. PRISM: Initial reporting said that the NSA had direct access to the servers of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc., and could conduct data-mining from them without any oversight. Actual story ended up being that those companies were handing over data on specific targets under court order - NSA did not have access to any of their servers. XKeyscore: Initial reporting was saying that the NSA was sucking up all communications including Americans. The author to the story that I linked to was pointing out that Marc Ambinder had previously disclosed XKeyscore in his earlier book saying that it was a system to index metadata that was already collected using other means, and there was no proof shown by Greenwald or indicated in his slides he published that it had been used to collect American's communications. The Stewart Baker article: Stewart Baker was interviewed over the phone for the "NSA spying on porn habits" article, but they subsequently left out the core of his argument in order to not undermine their own argument. I thought that spoke to Greenwald's journalistic integrity somewhat - it also puts into perspective the fact that most of the slides he's published have been heavily cropped and there's no way to independently verify the contents of those slides. The long list of mistakes article: Just pointing that there has been such a rush to report most of NSA documents that most of the initial reporting has had numerous mistakes of varying degrees of severity. In any case, enjoy your social obligations!
- xnull2guest 12y ago
  > handed over to the NSA under intelligence sharing agreements Right, there's a huge amount of intelligence sharing. That's one of the critical points. Domestic law can be skirted by International Law and International Law can be skirted by Domestic Law. Need an American's data? We can't take it off the wire, store it, process it, and inspect it (in all cases). But Canada can, or Israel can, or Australia can, or New Zealand can (etc). Need a foreigner's data that blocked by espionage laws? The country may itself be able to. Or a partner that doesn't have an agreement may be able to. > PRISM: Initial reporting said that the NSA had direct access... NSA did not have access to any of their servers Right, but this is one of those word games. First, the direct access the NSA DID have was not under the PRISM program. Reading "PRISM program did not give NSA direct access to servers" reads the same as "NSA has no direct access to servers" but it's not. The 'targetted' collection of data itself turned out not to be very 'targetted' at all. Many requests were for large swaths of data and in many cases the NSA was given direct control of the servers that stored the metadata (as with phone records) but would need to request the companies for the content itself. Metadata = surveillance. To extend the skirting laws above, the federal government is able to bypass laws on search and seizure by forcing private enterprises to do it and then requesting it as they see fit later on. Why are these companies allowed to surveil and have access to my information? I don't trust employees at Google or Apple any more than a stranger on the street or any random government employee. Actually, as there are few to nil restrictions on what corporations can do with databases of my and other communications, in some sense it's worse. Aren't we guaranteed security in our persons and our affects? If a federal government forces a private company to censor you, or to surveil you, isn't that still censorship or surveillance - regardless of whether as feds they act on, collect, mine or process that information/data at all? > XKeyscore ... no proof shown by Greenwald or indicated in his slides he published that it had been used to collect American's communications But it did show that there were mammoth amounts of American metadata present in the database (however it was collected). Doesn't seem to matter whether XKeyScore was the collector or just a repository. > The Stewart Baker article... porn There is a lot that the NSA and CIA can do to influence people, their credibility and the credibility of an idea in groups (MINERVA, etc) - look at what the USAID Cuban Twitter program nearly succeeded in doing, and what similar efforts may have had a role playing in Hong Kong (and dare I say Scotland). There is no doubt about the use of using Porn to discredit 'radicalizers' (a term used to refer to foreign and domestic targets). AFAIK there have been 0 revealed domestic cases of this, and IIRC only 7 or so foreign targets are known about (and 1 being a Westerner?) The JTRIG stuff is creepy, real and looks like something right out of a Stasi handbook. "Used to... discredit a target" "Write a blog purporting to be one of their victims" "Email/text their neighbors, colleagues, friends, etc" "Get someone to go somewhere on the internet or in the real world" "Can take 'paranoia' to a whole new level" "Stop someone from communicating [by] bombarding their phone [...], delet[ing] their online presence, block up their fax machine" "Stop someone's computer from working" "Why do an Effects Operation?" Answer 1: "Disruption v Traditional Law Enforcement" (presumably - it's effective and we can do it without the same paperwork/groundwork/courts/etc) Answer 3: "...could save time and money"

csandreasen 12y ago

I don't think any of those are particular minor quibbles. To summarize: BOUNDLESSINFORMANT: Initial reporting show concrete number on just how much NSA was spying on a whole slew of European citizens. Shortly afterward, the actual intelligence agencies of those countries stepped up and said that those were not reflected NSA spying on those countries, but instead those numbers reflected communications that they themselves had gathered, mostly from areas like Afghanistan, and handed over to the NSA under intelligence sharing agreements. PRISM: Initial reporting said that the NSA had direct access to the servers of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc., and could conduct data-mining from them without any oversight. Actual story ended up being that those companies were handing over data on specific targets under court order - NSA did not have access to any of their servers. XKeyscore: Initial reporting was saying that the NSA was sucking up all communications including Americans. The author to the story that I linked to was pointing out that Marc Ambinder had previously disclosed XKeyscore in his earlier book saying that it was a system to index metadata that was already collected using other means, and there was no proof shown by Greenwald or indicated in his slides he published that it had been used to collect American's communications. The Stewart Baker article: Stewart Baker was interviewed over the phone for the "NSA spying on porn habits" article, but they subsequently left out the core of his argument in order to not undermine their own argument. I thought that spoke to Greenwald's journalistic integrity somewhat - it also puts into perspective the fact that most of the slides he's published have been heavily cropped and there's no way to independently verify the contents of those slides. The long list of mistakes article: Just pointing that there has been such a rush to report most of NSA documents that most of the initial reporting has had numerous mistakes of varying degrees of severity. In any case, enjoy your social obligations!

xnull2guest 12y ago
> handed over to the NSA under intelligence sharing agreements Right, there's a huge amount of intelligence sharing. That's one of the critical points. Domestic law can be skirted by International Law and International Law can be skirted by Domestic Law. Need an American's data? We can't take it off the wire, store it, process it, and inspect it (in all cases). But Canada can, or Israel can, or Australia can, or New Zealand can (etc). Need a foreigner's data that blocked by espionage laws? The country may itself be able to. Or a partner that doesn't have an agreement may be able to. > PRISM: Initial reporting said that the NSA had direct access... NSA did not have access to any of their servers Right, but this is one of those word games. First, the direct access the NSA DID have was not under the PRISM program. Reading "PRISM program did not give NSA direct access to servers" reads the same as "NSA has no direct access to servers" but it's not. The 'targetted' collection of data itself turned out not to be very 'targetted' at all. Many requests were for large swaths of data and in many cases the NSA was given direct control of the servers that stored the metadata (as with phone records) but would need to request the companies for the content itself. Metadata = surveillance. To extend the skirting laws above, the federal government is able to bypass laws on search and seizure by forcing private enterprises to do it and then requesting it as they see fit later on. Why are these companies allowed to surveil and have access to my information? I don't trust employees at Google or Apple any more than a stranger on the street or any random government employee. Actually, as there are few to nil restrictions on what corporations can do with databases of my and other communications, in some sense it's worse. Aren't we guaranteed security in our persons and our affects? If a federal government forces a private company to censor you, or to surveil you, isn't that still censorship or surveillance - regardless of whether as feds they act on, collect, mine or process that information/data at all? > XKeyscore ... no proof shown by Greenwald or indicated in his slides he published that it had been used to collect American's communications But it did show that there were mammoth amounts of American metadata present in the database (however it was collected). Doesn't seem to matter whether XKeyScore was the collector or just a repository. > The Stewart Baker article... porn There is a lot that the NSA and CIA can do to influence people, their credibility and the credibility of an idea in groups (MINERVA, etc) - look at what the USAID Cuban Twitter program nearly succeeded in doing, and what similar efforts may have had a role playing in Hong Kong (and dare I say Scotland). There is no doubt about the use of using Porn to discredit 'radicalizers' (a term used to refer to foreign and domestic targets). AFAIK there have been 0 revealed domestic cases of this, and IIRC only 7 or so foreign targets are known about (and 1 being a Westerner?) The JTRIG stuff is creepy, real and looks like something right out of a Stasi handbook. "Used to... discredit a target" "Write a blog purporting to be one of their victims" "Email/text their neighbors, colleagues, friends, etc" "Get someone to go somewhere on the internet or in the real world" "Can take 'paranoia' to a whole new level" "Stop someone from communicating [by] bombarding their phone [...], delet[ing] their online presence, block up their fax machine" "Stop someone's computer from working" "Why do an Effects Operation?" Answer 1: "Disruption v Traditional Law Enforcement" (presumably - it's effective and we can do it without the same paperwork/groundwork/courts/etc) Answer 3: "...could save time and money"