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I think "shut down" means "move to collect via other means which are currently classified". Once the tiger has tasted human blood it is always a man-eater. The

I think "shut down" means "move to collect via other means which are currently classified". Once the tiger has tasted human blood it is always a man-eater. They have ONE and ONLY one mandate "Collect all the things". There is virtually no chance that the NSA will stop collecting this information until there is actual meaningful oversight. If DNI James Clapper can directly lie to Congress publicly and face no consequences & the CIA is able to spy on the Senators & then whitewash it - there is zero credibility left in any intelligence agency following the rules. At this point we might as well say it - we have let loose the dogs and now are at their mercy.

drcode 11y ago
What's sad is you comment sounds EXACTLY like something a conspiracy nut would say, except most of us probably agree with your sentiment 100%.
- astrocat 11y ago
  Careful now, there is a BIG difference between conspiracy types and cynics.
  - skidoo 11y ago
    "All new truths begin as heresy."
- x0x0 11y ago
  That makes me sad, but in a world where the one and only person punished for our torture program was the whistleblower, it's hard to believe the NSA even has to pretend to follow the law. And if / when they get caught, all they have to do is yell terrorists, terrorists to get a get out of jail free card.
- pnathan 11y ago
  But, he's not wrong. Collect all the things is exactly their mandate. This information is then mined to produce actionable intelligence. It's absolutely what we do in business today, but turned toward diplomatic aims. I don't see why this is a conspiracy kind of thing. We have a spy agency, that are hired to do SIGINT spying.
  - hyperbovine 11y ago
    > Collect all the things is exactly their mandate. Where is this written down? Facts matter. Especially in debates like this.
    - shlorn 11y ago
      I imagine OP is referencing the Alexander quote: "Collect it all, tag it, store it....And whatever it is you want, you go searching for it....." More info: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2013/07/15/crux-nsa-story-one-phrase-collect-it-all http://www.commondreams.org/views/2013/07/15/crux-nsa-story-...
    - gknoy 11y ago
      Their "Mission" page indicates their SIGINT mission: """ The Signals Intelligence mission collects, processes, and disseminates intelligence information from foreign signals for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes and to support military operations. """ Collecting All the Things is not in the mandate, but it's a very effective way to meet it. I'm not even sure how they'd go about collecting only mission-specific information without being able to peek at the metadata they collect on us all. I don't like it, but I don't see an alternative way to do what they are mandated to do. 0: https://www.nsa.gov/about/mission/index.shtml https://www.nsa.gov/about/mission/index.shtml
      - raquo 11y ago
        > foreign That's the keyword there. > for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes and to support military operations This is meaningless without oversight.
        swombat 11y ago
        > > foreign > That's the keyword there. Ah, but they don't know if it's a foreigner until they look at it. So might as well collect it all and figure out which ones are the foreign ones later. After all, the data's not actually "collected" until an analyst looks at it. It's a sort of Heisenberg-data - only exists when you look at it. While it's sitting in the NSA data centre, it's entirely harmless!
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago
  Snowden showed us that a lot of things that sounded exactly like paranoid conspiracy theories were 100% true. At this point I wouldn't blame someone for thinking we should maybe take another look at UFO sightings or mind control satellites or something.
  - logn 11y ago
    Regarding UFO's, I enjoyed the documentary Mirage Men: https://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70305797 https://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70305797 Quoting the top review: "This is a documentary not about UFOs but rather intelligence operations perpetrated against Americans by their government in order to cover up top secret projects and engage in social control experiments using a particular American subculture."
- colordrops 11y ago
  While I agree strongly with your sentiment, why even bother bringing up the "conspiracy nut" label? It's only ever used in an ad hominem attack, and has nothing to do with the truth. All arguments should be judged on sources and reason, regardless of how farfetched or paranoid they seem from your perspective.
- throwawayaway 11y ago
  it's not a conspiracy theory, in fact, it's probably already true. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/05/why_the_current.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/05/why_the_curre... Chris Soghoian 5/180 or 3% of FISA orders are about this bulk phone metadata program. the rest: "other programs".
  - brlewis 11y ago
    Conspiracy theories and true events are not disjoint sets. Humans do sometimes conspire.
- sillygoose 11y ago
  Maybe it's time to reconsider the term "conspiracy nut", then?
aces- 11y ago
We know what happened with the Total Informational Awareness blowup in the early 2000's, the NSA will claim to stop tracking and tagging and collecting everything while continuing to do it behind our backs. They'll outsource the surveillance to overseas partners and exploit every loophole until there are none left in which case they will just do it with impunity. Until every last man woman and child is tracked and tagged by the NSA like cattle, or until society moves to routing all telecommunications over Tor, with as much of that encrypted as physically possible, nothing is going to change. "Oversight" be damned.
xnull2guest 11y ago
This very thing is in the FREEDOM Act text. They move collections to private holders (this is what they originally claimed was the case anyway). The surveillance hasn't stopped. There's simply a different legal process for getting records now (now - if the bill passes).
lvs 11y ago
The 215 business is all red herring, honestly. The FISA 702 program continues unabated. Phone communication is obsolete, and they're not kicking and screaming that much when there is no serious challenge to 702 authority.
- jdp23 11y ago
  I agree about FISA; and Marcy Wheeler has some great stuff to say about Richard Burr's alternate bill and internet collection. [1] However I wouldn't say that 215 is a red herring -- it'll be a significant victory if it sunsets, for reasons Jennifer Granick describes at [2]. [1] https://www.emptywheel.net/2015/05/23/mitch-mcconnell-and-richard-burrs-authoritarian-power-grab-fails/ https://www.emptywheel.net/2015/05/23/mitch-mcconnell-and-ri... [2] http://justsecurity.org/23149/rand-paul-wyden-surveillance-reform/ http://justsecurity.org/23149/rand-paul-wyden-surveillance-r...
SCAQTony 11y ago
I have to agree, I suspect the NSA is looking at this as a temporary exile and will resume the program when an "executive order" reinstates it.
mirimir 11y ago
From Bamford's books, I get that the NSA does not consider itself to be bound by the Constitution, US law, etc. As a military organization, it is subject only to the authority of the President. And I gather that it fudges on even that, through a Byzantine maze of need-to-know restrictions. So yes, there are no rules.
- tsotha 11y ago
  I'm not sure where you're getting this. The NSA is not a military organization. And all organs of the executive branch are bound by law and the Constitution. They may get away with illegal behavior for a time, but that doesn't mean it isn't illegal.
  - venomsnake 11y ago
    The difference between theory in practice is greater in practice than in theory. NSA does not view itself bound by the US constitution (or the whole executive branch as a whole) and view it as a nuisance that must be at best circumvented to do their perceived job. (To the NSA guy reading this comment - have a nice day, it is tedious)
    - tsotha 11y ago
      How the agency views itself is irrelevant. Congress knows what they're doing and has always known. What you're seeing right now is the system working.
      - gpvos 11y ago
        So why would they enact a law like this?
        tsotha 11y ago
        Because there was public support for it when it was enacted.
      - 11y ago
pdkl95 11y ago
There is historical precedent: remember back in 2004 when congress shut down Poindexter's "Total Information Awareness" program, and we never had to worry about domestic surveillance ever again? Rebranding has been the tactic of choice ever since Blackwater decided that PR was expensive and it would be cheaper to simply rebrand themselves as "Xe" (now "Academi" - they ruined the "Xe" brand, too).
- steve19 11y ago
  This tactic goes back, I am sure, millennia. Blackwater was a private company. They did briefly rebrand as Xe. A ridiculous name that sounds even more scary than blackwater. Academi may as well be a new organization.i don't consider it a successor to blackwater, even if it is in a legal sense. a company purchased blackwater for their extensive training facilities (possibly the most best in the world at the time). The blackwater IP left a long time ago. the true spiritual successor is Prince's UAE private contractor company. according to Wikipedia it is called Reflex Responses, but Wikipedia is generally shit with this kind of information. * * Wikipedia has to cite sources, the only publicly available sources are mainstream media, written by clueless journalists who barley understand the subject matter. for example the Wikipedia article mentions Prince recruited from Executive Outcomes, 12 years after they ceased trading. He may have recruited from EO's alleged spiritual successor, but he definitely did not recruit from a company that no longer existed.
  - pdkl95 11y ago
    Blackwater as a starting point is only a rough estimate. Rebranding has, of course, existed ever since ancient humans figured out that using an alias was useful. My point is that it is not that it is a new tactic; I'm suggesting that it has been a tactic of choice, preferred over others such as using propaganda to deny problematic accusations (traditionally popular in Russia), or claiming bad things are good for patriotic reasons.
mike_hearn 11y ago
Yes. As just one example more and more calls of importance have moved to VoIP and/or become video calls. I rate the chances of the NSA deciding that these are not "phone calls" for the purposes of the expiry at 100% likely. That's assuming they can't simply stop collecting call metadata, but then keep collecting tower signalling metadata or something like that, thus allowing them to tell themselves that's not what Congress cared about ..... and then extract call metadata on demand from it. It's obvious that the NSA cannot be controlled by anything at this point. The DoJ would need to jail Clapper to get their attention and that won't happen short of some ridiculous sex-related personal scandal.

drcode 11y ago

What's sad is you comment sounds EXACTLY like something a conspiracy nut would say, except most of us probably agree with your sentiment 100%.

astrocat 11y ago
Careful now, there is a BIG difference between conspiracy types and cynics.
- skidoo 11y ago
  "All new truths begin as heresy."
x0x0 11y ago
That makes me sad, but in a world where the one and only person punished for our torture program was the whistleblower, it's hard to believe the NSA even has to pretend to follow the law. And if / when they get caught, all they have to do is yell terrorists, terrorists to get a get out of jail free card.
pnathan 11y ago
But, he's not wrong. Collect all the things is exactly their mandate. This information is then mined to produce actionable intelligence. It's absolutely what we do in business today, but turned toward diplomatic aims. I don't see why this is a conspiracy kind of thing. We have a spy agency, that are hired to do SIGINT spying.
- hyperbovine 11y ago
  > Collect all the things is exactly their mandate. Where is this written down? Facts matter. Especially in debates like this.
  - shlorn 11y ago
    I imagine OP is referencing the Alexander quote: "Collect it all, tag it, store it....And whatever it is you want, you go searching for it....." More info: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2013/07/15/crux-nsa-story-one-phrase-collect-it-all http://www.commondreams.org/views/2013/07/15/crux-nsa-story-...
  - gknoy 11y ago
    Their "Mission" page indicates their SIGINT mission: """ The Signals Intelligence mission collects, processes, and disseminates intelligence information from foreign signals for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes and to support military operations. """ Collecting All the Things is not in the mandate, but it's a very effective way to meet it. I'm not even sure how they'd go about collecting only mission-specific information without being able to peek at the metadata they collect on us all. I don't like it, but I don't see an alternative way to do what they are mandated to do. 0: https://www.nsa.gov/about/mission/index.shtml https://www.nsa.gov/about/mission/index.shtml
    - raquo 11y ago
      > foreign That's the keyword there. > for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes and to support military operations This is meaningless without oversight.
      - swombat 11y ago
        > > foreign > That's the keyword there. Ah, but they don't know if it's a foreigner until they look at it. So might as well collect it all and figure out which ones are the foreign ones later. After all, the data's not actually "collected" until an analyst looks at it. It's a sort of Heisenberg-data - only exists when you look at it. While it's sitting in the NSA data centre, it's entirely harmless!
PhasmaFelis 11y ago
Snowden showed us that a lot of things that sounded exactly like paranoid conspiracy theories were 100% true. At this point I wouldn't blame someone for thinking we should maybe take another look at UFO sightings or mind control satellites or something.
- logn 11y ago
  Regarding UFO's, I enjoyed the documentary Mirage Men: https://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70305797 https://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70305797 Quoting the top review: "This is a documentary not about UFOs but rather intelligence operations perpetrated against Americans by their government in order to cover up top secret projects and engage in social control experiments using a particular American subculture."
colordrops 11y ago
While I agree strongly with your sentiment, why even bother bringing up the "conspiracy nut" label? It's only ever used in an ad hominem attack, and has nothing to do with the truth. All arguments should be judged on sources and reason, regardless of how farfetched or paranoid they seem from your perspective.
throwawayaway 11y ago
it's not a conspiracy theory, in fact, it's probably already true. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/05/why_the_current.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/05/why_the_curre... Chris Soghoian 5/180 or 3% of FISA orders are about this bulk phone metadata program. the rest: "other programs".
- brlewis 11y ago
  Conspiracy theories and true events are not disjoint sets. Humans do sometimes conspire.
sillygoose 11y ago
Maybe it's time to reconsider the term "conspiracy nut", then?

aces- 11y ago

We know what happened with the Total Informational Awareness blowup in the early 2000's, the NSA will claim to stop tracking and tagging and collecting everything while continuing to do it behind our backs. They'll outsource the surveillance to overseas partners and exploit every loophole until there are none left in which case they will just do it with impunity. Until every last man woman and child is tracked and tagged by the NSA like cattle, or until society moves to routing all telecommunications over Tor, with as much of that encrypted as physically possible, nothing is going to change. "Oversight" be damned.

xnull2guest 11y ago

This very thing is in the FREEDOM Act text. They move collections to private holders (this is what they originally claimed was the case anyway). The surveillance hasn't stopped. There's simply a different legal process for getting records now (now - if the bill passes).

lvs 11y ago

The 215 business is all red herring, honestly. The FISA 702 program continues unabated. Phone communication is obsolete, and they're not kicking and screaming that much when there is no serious challenge to 702 authority.

jdp23 11y ago
I agree about FISA; and Marcy Wheeler has some great stuff to say about Richard Burr's alternate bill and internet collection. [1] However I wouldn't say that 215 is a red herring -- it'll be a significant victory if it sunsets, for reasons Jennifer Granick describes at [2]. [1] https://www.emptywheel.net/2015/05/23/mitch-mcconnell-and-richard-burrs-authoritarian-power-grab-fails/ https://www.emptywheel.net/2015/05/23/mitch-mcconnell-and-ri... [2] http://justsecurity.org/23149/rand-paul-wyden-surveillance-reform/ http://justsecurity.org/23149/rand-paul-wyden-surveillance-r...

SCAQTony 11y ago

I have to agree, I suspect the NSA is looking at this as a temporary exile and will resume the program when an "executive order" reinstates it.

mirimir 11y ago

From Bamford's books, I get that the NSA does not consider itself to be bound by the Constitution, US law, etc. As a military organization, it is subject only to the authority of the President. And I gather that it fudges on even that, through a Byzantine maze of need-to-know restrictions. So yes, there are no rules.

tsotha 11y ago
I'm not sure where you're getting this. The NSA is not a military organization. And all organs of the executive branch are bound by law and the Constitution. They may get away with illegal behavior for a time, but that doesn't mean it isn't illegal.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  The difference between theory in practice is greater in practice than in theory. NSA does not view itself bound by the US constitution (or the whole executive branch as a whole) and view it as a nuisance that must be at best circumvented to do their perceived job. (To the NSA guy reading this comment - have a nice day, it is tedious)
  - tsotha 11y ago
    How the agency views itself is irrelevant. Congress knows what they're doing and has always known. What you're seeing right now is the system working.
    - gpvos 11y ago
      So why would they enact a law like this?
      - tsotha 11y ago
        Because there was public support for it when it was enacted.
    - 11y ago

pdkl95 11y ago

There is historical precedent: remember back in 2004 when congress shut down Poindexter's "Total Information Awareness" program, and we never had to worry about domestic surveillance ever again? Rebranding has been the tactic of choice ever since Blackwater decided that PR was expensive and it would be cheaper to simply rebrand themselves as "Xe" (now "Academi" - they ruined the "Xe" brand, too).

steve19 11y ago
This tactic goes back, I am sure, millennia. Blackwater was a private company. They did briefly rebrand as Xe. A ridiculous name that sounds even more scary than blackwater. Academi may as well be a new organization.i don't consider it a successor to blackwater, even if it is in a legal sense. a company purchased blackwater for their extensive training facilities (possibly the most best in the world at the time). The blackwater IP left a long time ago. the true spiritual successor is Prince's UAE private contractor company. according to Wikipedia it is called Reflex Responses, but Wikipedia is generally shit with this kind of information. * * Wikipedia has to cite sources, the only publicly available sources are mainstream media, written by clueless journalists who barley understand the subject matter. for example the Wikipedia article mentions Prince recruited from Executive Outcomes, 12 years after they ceased trading. He may have recruited from EO's alleged spiritual successor, but he definitely did not recruit from a company that no longer existed.
- pdkl95 11y ago
  Blackwater as a starting point is only a rough estimate. Rebranding has, of course, existed ever since ancient humans figured out that using an alias was useful. My point is that it is not that it is a new tactic; I'm suggesting that it has been a tactic of choice, preferred over others such as using propaganda to deny problematic accusations (traditionally popular in Russia), or claiming bad things are good for patriotic reasons.

mike_hearn 11y ago

Yes. As just one example more and more calls of importance have moved to VoIP and/or become video calls. I rate the chances of the NSA deciding that these are not "phone calls" for the purposes of the expiry at 100% likely. That's assuming they can't simply stop collecting call metadata, but then keep collecting tower signalling metadata or something like that, thus allowing them to tell themselves that's not what Congress cared about ..... and then extract call metadata on demand from it. It's obvious that the NSA cannot be controlled by anything at this point. The DoJ would need to jail Clapper to get their attention and that won't happen short of some ridiculous sex-related personal scandal.