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Only two hops allowed, court order required each time, only 30 intelligence employees permitted access to the database, and only 300 searches a year - that soun

Only two hops allowed, court order required each time, only 30 intelligence employees permitted access to the database, and only 300 searches a year - that sounds almost reasonable. It seems to me that the only thing left to make this totally clean is to take the database out of the hands of Government, put it in the hands of a private clearing house, and then require a ( necessarily confidential) court order to search the database. Just like any other court order. That would take the NSA out of the "Collecting American Phone Records" business. Under a process known as "contact chaining," analysts examine the numbers that had been in contact with the "dirty number" and then the numbers in contact with those. Until this year the circle had sometimes been expanded to a "third hop" — a process that could include analysis of millions of American phone calls. Obama in January restricted it to two hops, and required a court order each time the database is searched. Only 30 intelligence employees are permitted to access the database, officials have said, and it is done about 300 times a year.

jobu 12y ago
"then require a ( necessarily confidential) court order to search the database" This is where I have the biggest problem with our current government antics. They should be required to disclose all warrants and phone searches within 5 years by default. If there is an ongoing investigation then a second court order could keep it sealed for longer. Without transparency there is too much wiggle room for bad behavior: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/27/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog-idUSBRE98Q14G20130927 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/27/us-usa-surveillanc...
cryoshon 12y ago
You are forgetting one critical fact: the NSA's language is entirely different from the language that you and I agree upon and understand. If they are saying "only 30 intelligence employees are permitted access to the database, and only 300 searches a year", they could really mean "only 30 employees (and a multitude of contractors and military personnel) are permitted access to the database (of which they can make a copy of all remotely relevant information and then distribute to whoever), and only 300 searches a year (under our atomically narrow Byzantine definition of "searches" which completely misrepresents the real number of database queries)". Additionally, people are really placing way too much faith in the warrant/court approval system. These courts are in the pockets of the people requesting authorization for searches; after all, the people with real information (power) can twist the arm of any judge to suit their needs. We need to clean house from the bottom up and rebuild a system which does not permit for human corruption or human error.

jobu 12y ago

"then require a ( necessarily confidential) court order to search the database" This is where I have the biggest problem with our current government antics. They should be required to disclose all warrants and phone searches within 5 years by default. If there is an ongoing investigation then a second court order could keep it sealed for longer. Without transparency there is too much wiggle room for bad behavior: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/27/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog-idUSBRE98Q14G20130927 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/27/us-usa-surveillanc...

cryoshon 12y ago

You are forgetting one critical fact: the NSA's language is entirely different from the language that you and I agree upon and understand. If they are saying "only 30 intelligence employees are permitted access to the database, and only 300 searches a year", they could really mean "only 30 employees (and a multitude of contractors and military personnel) are permitted access to the database (of which they can make a copy of all remotely relevant information and then distribute to whoever), and only 300 searches a year (under our atomically narrow Byzantine definition of "searches" which completely misrepresents the real number of database queries)". Additionally, people are really placing way too much faith in the warrant/court approval system. These courts are in the pockets of the people requesting authorization for searches; after all, the people with real information (power) can twist the arm of any judge to suit their needs. We need to clean house from the bottom up and rebuild a system which does not permit for human corruption or human error.