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The root issue Snowden exposed: Clapper's Library
Last edited Sat Jul 13, 2013, 05:15 PM - Edit history (1)
Something that was said in an interview of James Clapper which has really stuck in my craw. This has bothered me for a month now and I for one want to know exactly what he means with his library metaphor and who are the librarians?
As an aside, given my understanding of librarians' support of privacy, this is some high order irony in metaphor selection.
In any event, this is the metaphor:
JAMES CLAPPER:
I understand that. But first let me say that I and everyone in the intelligence community all-- who are also citizens, who also care very deeply about our-- our privacy and civil liberties, I certainly do. So let me say that at the outset. I think a lot of what people are-- are reading and seeing in the media is a lot of hyper-- hyperbole.
A metaphor I think might be helpful for people to understand this is to think of a huge library with literally millions of volumes of books in it, an electronic library. Seventy percent of those books are on bookcases in the United States, meaning that the bulk of the of the world's infrastructure, communications infrastructure is in the United States.
There are no limitations on the customers who can use this library. Many and millions of innocent people doing min-- millions of innocent things use this library, but there are also nefarious people who use it. Terrorists, drug cartels, human traffickers, criminals also take advantage of the same technology. So the task for us in the interest of preserving security and preserving civil liberties and privacy is to be as precise as we possibly can be when we go in that library and look for the books that we need to open up and actually read.
You think of the li-- and by the way, all these books are arranged randomly. They're not arranged by subject or topic matter. And they're constantly changing. And so when we go into this library, first we have to have a library card, the people that actually do this work.
Which connotes their training and certification and recertification. So when we pull out a book, based on its essentially is-- electronic Dewey Decimal System, which is zeroes and ones, we have to be very precise about which book we're picking out. And if it's one that belongs to the-- was put in there by an American citizen or a U.S. person.
We ha-- we are under strict court supervision and have to get stricter-- and have to get permission to actually-- actually look at that. So the notion that we're trolling through everyone's emails and voyeuristically reading them, or listening to everyone's phone calls is on its face absurd. We couldn't do it even if we wanted to. And I assure you, we don't want to.
I understand that. But first let me say that I and everyone in the intelligence community all-- who are also citizens, who also care very deeply about our-- our privacy and civil liberties, I certainly do. So let me say that at the outset. I think a lot of what people are-- are reading and seeing in the media is a lot of hyper-- hyperbole.
A metaphor I think might be helpful for people to understand this is to think of a huge library with literally millions of volumes of books in it, an electronic library. Seventy percent of those books are on bookcases in the United States, meaning that the bulk of the of the world's infrastructure, communications infrastructure is in the United States.
There are no limitations on the customers who can use this library. Many and millions of innocent people doing min-- millions of innocent things use this library, but there are also nefarious people who use it. Terrorists, drug cartels, human traffickers, criminals also take advantage of the same technology. So the task for us in the interest of preserving security and preserving civil liberties and privacy is to be as precise as we possibly can be when we go in that library and look for the books that we need to open up and actually read.
You think of the li-- and by the way, all these books are arranged randomly. They're not arranged by subject or topic matter. And they're constantly changing. And so when we go into this library, first we have to have a library card, the people that actually do this work.
Which connotes their training and certification and recertification. So when we pull out a book, based on its essentially is-- electronic Dewey Decimal System, which is zeroes and ones, we have to be very precise about which book we're picking out. And if it's one that belongs to the-- was put in there by an American citizen or a U.S. person.
We ha-- we are under strict court supervision and have to get stricter-- and have to get permission to actually-- actually look at that. So the notion that we're trolling through everyone's emails and voyeuristically reading them, or listening to everyone's phone calls is on its face absurd. We couldn't do it even if we wanted to. And I assure you, we don't want to.
First let's ignore he has a fundamental misunderstanding who a customer of a library is, and rather focus on the notion that the NSA or other agency has a library containing all of the communications that pass through US infrastructure.
In the final bolded sentence, he almost said it the right way around, and then amazingly states that we put these 'books' in his 'library' rather than his first instinct that the books are filled by taking our private correspondence and storing it.
ANDREA MITCHELL:
Senator Wyden made quite a lot out of your exchange with him last March during the hearings. Can you explain what you meant when you said that there was not data collection on millions of Americans?
JAMES CLAPPER:
First-- as I said, I have great respect for Senator Wyden. I thought, though in retrospect, I was asked-- "When are you going to start-- stop beating your wife" kind of question, which is meaning not-- answerable necessarily by a simple yes or no. So I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful manner by saying no.
And again, to go back to my metaphor. What I was thinking of is looking at the Dewey Decimal numbers-- of those books in that metaphorical library-- to me, collection of U.S. persons' data would mean taking the book off the shelf and opening it up and reading it.
Senator Wyden made quite a lot out of your exchange with him last March during the hearings. Can you explain what you meant when you said that there was not data collection on millions of Americans?
JAMES CLAPPER:
First-- as I said, I have great respect for Senator Wyden. I thought, though in retrospect, I was asked-- "When are you going to start-- stop beating your wife" kind of question, which is meaning not-- answerable necessarily by a simple yes or no. So I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful manner by saying no.
And again, to go back to my metaphor. What I was thinking of is looking at the Dewey Decimal numbers-- of those books in that metaphorical library-- to me, collection of U.S. persons' data would mean taking the book off the shelf and opening it up and reading it.
Everyone got wrapped around the axle over the least untruthful comment when the real shocker to me at least is in bold.
The notion of "I didn't collect it if I didn't read it" is classic ministry of truth doublespeak.
col·lect
/kəˈlekt/
Verb
Bring or gather together (things, typically when scattered or widespread).
Synonyms
verb. gather - assemble - accumulate - amass - muster - pick
col·lec·tion
/kəˈlekSHən/
Noun
The action or process of collecting someone or something.
Synonyms
gathering - assemblage - accumulation
This must be dismantled. The question is how do we accomplish that?
37 replies
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Therefore it is not protected under the 4th amendment according to the Courts.
I think it's up to Obama and people like Wyden, Udall.
I could swear to god i think obama does care about things that encroach on people civil liberties, i think supporting people in congress who support implementing laws that give citizens more protection could be the answer. I think obama *wants* to change things and given the chance he would. i don't think he'll *fight* for the issue, but the patriot act comes back up in what, 3 years? Can it be modified then? i mean, heck, if obama had some big ones he *could* just veto it, right? That would be the single easiest solution That would just be f'g hot. lol. 
.
i think it takes...
public pressure via momentum of the issue
- i think that will happen with more information being released, not just gg and his crazy shit, but whatever information Yahoo is able to get from the gov't
support to the congress persons who believe there should be changes made.
- those person would have to be identified. personally i'm willng to put whatever my yearly donations to political issues all to supporting the repeal of the most egregious parts of fisa and the patriot act. I already donated to Wyden and ACLU.
i'm so frustrated by people like wyden, etc's hands being so tied. he and 26 other senators demanded information. Does anyone know where that ended? i don't know. but when i searched i didn't find it but i found this...
Sorry it's the guardian, obviously they have an agenda, but i am pretty sure Wyden wouldn't mind the article, so here ya go:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/12/senator-ron-wyden-white-house-data-collection
One of the leading civil liberties supporters in the US Senate has said the Obama administration is considering scaling back its bulk collection of Americans' phone records.
Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and a member of the Senate intelligence committee, told the New York Times that he believed the administration was increasingly concerned about the privacy implications raised by a surveillance effort it has performed for four and a half years, after National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed it to the Guardian.
"I have a feeling that the administration is getting concerned about the bulk phone records collection, and that they are thinking about whether to move administratively to stop it," Wyden told the Times.
Aides to Wyden said on Friday that the statement was based on public comments from executive branch officials and the senator's prior experience with the termination of a bulk email collection program in 2011, something the Guardian recently reported. The administration has given Wyden no additional assurances of changes to the phone records collection, the aides said.
but then again, and this is so frustrating:
A test of the administration's intentions about the future of the phone records collection is fast approaching. An order by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (Fisa) court compelling Verizon to provide the NSA with records of customers' phone calls expires on 19 July. The secret surveillance court orders have been renewed every 90 days for years.
Yet it is unclear if the public will know whether the bulk collection will continue as it is, be modified, or be cancelled. Fisa court orders are not public documents.
The good news being that secret orders operate under renewal, the bad news is, as it is now we won't know if they stop. So i think that's a pretty big issue, esp since people who reveal said secrets, well, are criminally charged.
In matters of war and commerce, one piece of information can be all the difference between making a killing and getting fleeced.
Here's a blast from the future readers may want to add to Gen. Clapper's bookshelf:
ECHELON Today: The Evolution of an NSA Black Program
Tom Burghardt
FRIDAY, JULY 12, 2013
EXCERPT...
By 1946, the permanent war economy which later came to be known as the Military-Industrial Complex, a semi-command economy directed by corporate executives, based on military, but also on emerging high-tech industries bolstered by taxpayer-based government investments, was already firmly entrenched and formed the political-economic base on which the so-called "American Century" was constructed.
While resource extraction and export market domination remained the primary goal of successive US administrations (best summarized by the slogan, "the business of government is business"
, advances in technology in general and telecommunications in particular, meant that the system's overlords required an intelligence apparatus that was always "on" as it "captured" the flood of electronic signals coursing across the planet.
The secret British and US agencies responsible for cracking German, Japanese and Russian codes during the war found themselves in a quandary. Should they declare victory and go home or train their sights on the new (old) adversary--their former ally, the Soviet Union--but also on home grown and indigenous communist and socialist movements more generally?
In opting for the latter, the UK-US wartime partnership evolved into a broad agreement to share signals and communications intelligence (SIGINT and COMINT), a set-up which persists today.
In 1946, Britain and the United States signed the United Kingdom-United States of America Agreement (UKUSA), a multilateral treaty to share signals intelligence amongst the two nations and Britain's Commonwealth partners, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Known as the "Five Eyes" agreement, the treaty was such a closely-guarded secret that Australia's Prime Minister was kept in the dark until 1973!
SNIP...
Amid serious charges that "Five Eyes" were illegally seizing industrial and trade secrets from "3rd party" European partners such as France and Germany, detailed in the European Parliament's 2001 ECHELON report, it should be clear by now that since its launch in 1968 when satellite communications became a practical reality, ECHELON has evolved into a global surveillance complex under US control.
CONTINUED...
http://antifascist-calling.blogspot.ca/2013/07/echelon-today-evolution-of-nsa-black.html
Information. It's what Brazillionaires crave.
Speaking of which...that term you used, "Sticks to my craw." I heard it used the other night watching a cowboy movie, "Open Range." Robert Duvall's character, the Old Cowboy, says it to his right hand man, played by Kevin Costner. I think the movie's five stars. While it's not today's standard Hollywood shoot-em-up, the film tells an excellent story. If it's a metaphor, the townsfolk mean We the People are gonna win.
