Jane Mayer: Why Metadata Matters

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/298-185/17817-why-metadata-matters

Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from liberal Northern California and the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, assured the public earlier today that the government's secret snooping into the phone records of Americans was perfectly fine, because the information it obtained was only "meta," meaning it excluded the actual content of the phone conversations, providing merely records, from a Verizon subsidiary, of who called whom when and from where. In addition, she said in a prepared statement, the "names of subscribers" were not included automatically in the metadata (though the numbers, surely, could be used to identify them). "Our courts have consistently recognized that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in this type of metadata information and thus no search warrant is required to obtain it," she said, adding that "any subsequent effort to obtain the content of an American's communications would require a specific order from the FISA court."

She said she understands privacy - "that's why this is carefully done" - and noted that eleven special federal judges, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret, had authorized the vast intelligence collection. A White House official made the same points to reporters, saying, "The order reprinted overnight does not allow the government to listen in on anyone's telephone calls" and was subject to "a robust legal regime." The gist of the defense was that, in contrast to what took place under the Bush Administration, this form of secret domestic surveillance was legitimate because Congress had authorized it, and the judicial branch had ratified it, and the actual words spoken by one American to another were still private. So how bad could it be?

The answer, according to the mathematician and former Sun Microsystems engineer Susan Landau, whom I interviewed while reporting on the plight of the former N.S.A. whistleblower Thomas Drake and who is also the author of "Surveillance or Security?," is that it's worse than many might think.

"The public doesn't understand," she told me, speaking about so-called metadata. "It's much more intrusive than content." She explained that the government can learn immense amounts of proprietary information by studying "who you call, and who they call. If you can track that, you know exactly what is happening - you don't need the content."

[Summer Hathaway]

1. What

a crock.

[Hissyspit]

3. Well, you certainly have convinced me!

Last edited Sat Jun 8, 2013, 04:04 AM - Edit history (2)

[defacto7]

2. It is NOT that simplistic.

True.. the public doesn't know much at all about how anything related to metadata, the Internet or technology in general works, but this explanation of metadata is way off. It's certainly is what security firms want the world to think. I have zip trust in security firm hyperbole. Oh, don't get me started. It's a vast world of cons versus the suckers.

[starroute]

4. Here's a handy equivalence

Suppose you were having an affair. Would you want your spouse to know who you called, how often, for how long, and at what hours of the day or night?

If they did find out, would the content even matter?

[Egalitarian Thug]

5. Susan is an expert and understands the reality of this.

I've tried a couple of times to generally explain this here, to no avail. Too many of us are stuck with ignorance and pride, and so ignore reality in preference to contemplating the implications of where we are going.

[Iliyah]

6. GOPers at their best

and their believers.

[JDPriestly]

7. From my phone records, anyone could tell my political

affiliation (Democratic), my family ties, my religion, what organizations I belong to, what libraries I borrow books from, and from my e-mail addresses that I am a Democrat, that I like gardening and knitting, that I love my family -- so much.

OK. Now I confessed to everything so nobody needs to collect my phone and e-mail records. Please leave me alone. I've already told you my meta-secrets. Anything else you want to know?

How long I've been married? Wouldn't take much to figure that out? My former addresses? My fingerprints? I've provided all those in the past. Just check my name in your records? Oh, and my scores on standardized tests of various kinds? If you know my phone number and my e-mail address, you can figure out my name and find all that information including my score on the government exam I took for a job many years ago.

OK. There you have an example of the kind of information that could be discovered about you from your records. Now do you see why you don't want the government keeping these extensive records on you? Not unless you have to give them this information for employment.

[99th_Monkey]

8. God forbid that anyone would ever dial a "wrong number" both literally

and figuratively as well.

Bittle? Buttle? Ooopsie, killed the wrong person with a drone because, "hey? .. this person "called"
AQ Headquarters, presto! ... we have "proof" that he must be a terrorist.

This is some sick shit we're getting into here.

[Electric Monk]

9. k&r

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. No, no! It's absolutily harmless..that's why they kept the gathering of it secret.

And, are pursuing the whistleblower who let us know about it.