EXCLUSIVE: Ordinary Web users far outnumber foreign targets in conversations intercepted by the NSA
Source: Washington Post
A huge cache of agency-captured messages provided by Edward Snowden illustrates the extent that untargeted individuals get caught in the net of surveillance and shows the former NSA contractor had access to FISA content.
-snip-
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-nsa-intercepted-data-those-not-targeted-far-outnumber-the-foreigners-who-are/2014/07/05/8139adf8-045a-11e4-8572-4b1b969b6322_story.html
ForgoTheConsequence
(4,868 posts)Because boxes in Snowden's garage and stuff.
marmar
(77,080 posts)k/r
bluestateguy
(44,173 posts)Let's say government develops a new investigatory tool or surveillance tool to combat some problem. Next, there will be a lot of pressure, maybe from politicians, maybe from some elements of the public, or just from the bureaucracy itself to expand the use of that technology into a weapon that can be used to combat every crime, every social ill and every threat.
So now tools that we were told were for fighting terrorism are inevitably used to combat tax evaders, child pornographers, drug dealers and illegal music downloaders.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)a chilling new world. In fact, some would say a chilling NWO. And what about VPN? Millions upon millions use VPN. VPN has been in use for corps. for a couple of decades. So, apparently anyone now who does not want to spew their information in airports, hot spots, neighbors, etc. are somehow suspect potential terrorists. This is all so fucked up it sounds like a SNL skit. In fact, it sounds like incompetence.
Gee, they must have a treasure trove on DU investigating people whole like to think and not be sheep.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)I'm sure we are about to learn more and more about why our freedom is indirectly proportional to "war on terror".
Yeah, happy independence day, ah-hmmm..
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)everything but the intended catch. It's amazing, seems like just about all Americans are suspect. Also, it would seem anyone intent would not be using the internet for blasting out covert information.
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)If it seems stupid to you, perhaps it's because you misunderstand its use.
What if it's not used to fight crime and catch terrorists (which, from the amount of info it collects, would make it more difficult. That's not rational.), but instead has a less altruistic purpose: what if it's being used to monitor and influence citizens' belief systems in order to serve rational self-interests of survival and utility maximization, i.e. to win elections and propagandize the population to overcome restraints and achieve objective monetary incentives?
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)already ... just thinking of what J. Edgar Hoover did. Imagine, it he had had these tools. Thanks for your reply, you went into further detail than I had and I certainly agree with you 1000%. I don't know where all of this is going to end, but I don't think it will be good.
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)But, I'm a great deal more distrusting of the intention of such fearless leaders. It's more about control of the masses, IMO. It's absolutely going to have the opposite effect.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)24601
(3,961 posts)other bad people and should always limit their conversations to terrorism and other crimes. Then there would be no incidental collection and government analysts will be freed up from he task of minimizing the days to remove US identities.
Will you take it for action to ensure the bad dudes never call, email or discuss the innocent? If they are planning to attack a US person or facility - ask them to describe it as US person number 1 - or US Airline #1 and just provide date, time & location. That should really help the analytical challenge. Looking for a needle will be much easier if the needles are still there, but the haystacks are reduced in number and size.
Thank you for your cooperation and interest....
George II
(67,782 posts)....the government will actually put people in jail for breaking the law!! Dastardly!!!
neverforget
(9,436 posts)AND storing information that is obsolete from Americans?
reddread
(6,896 posts)whats a little rendition between friends?
some domestic diplomacy once removed?
a little song, a little dance...
defacto7
(13,485 posts)in prison for not breaking the law....
only expanded!
Human rights are so last century.
George II
(67,782 posts)LiberalLovinLug
(14,173 posts)You basically said "if you don't do anything wrong you have nothing to fear"
So what happens if one day the thing you thought was ok is now looked upon as suspicious, and you too are targeted? Perhaps participating on a "liberal" website, for example. Only at that time it is now looked upon as "normal" for the feds to scan through meta-data on a fishing trip to look for prey to fill their quotas or earn promotions, because of apologists like you in the present that schluffed it off?
And then no doubt someone like you would still be writing on message boards about not complaining about the fed cops just doing their jobs...... no matter how they collect their evidence.
George II
(67,782 posts)ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)One of the provisions of the laughably-called "PATRIOT Act" was that the FBI can issue "National Security Letters", allowing it to do searches without warrants, merely on its own say-so. Do you know which FBI field office has issued the most NSLs? It was that hotbed of international terrorism, Las Vegas. The NSLs were used in investigations of financial misconduct in casinos. I am all in favor of investigating skimming and money laundering at casinos, but don't try to pretend that it has anything to do with national security.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)I duped this in GD
. I'll delete.
P.S. My comment
So
. THIS is what the war on a WORD is all about, eh?
YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)Much like The Nazi's IBM punch cards in rounding up the Jews and other undesirables.
George II
(67,782 posts)RKP5637
(67,108 posts)to hide!" They can't get it through their thick heads it's all relative to whom is using the information. It is just such an utterly stupid lame naive remark for one to say, "well, I have nothing to to hide!"
As one often says, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
christx30
(6,241 posts)"Well, you may not have commited a crime. But it says here that you cheated on your wife 2 years ago. Does she know that? And you used a racist term in an email 6 months ago to describe your boss when he chose Franklin for the promotion instead of you. Does he know you said that? Might be rough if he found out. You might just want to plead guilty to whatever and do your time."
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)christx30
(6,241 posts)"Congressman" or "Senator", and who knows what can be done with the NSA's can-do, go-get-em attitude?
reddread
(6,896 posts)AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)To let them know that you are protecting them from having all that bad stuff come out.
Next sit down then we will talk about the budget.
christx30
(6,241 posts)and their job is to spy on enemies of the United States, does that mean that the American people are enemies of the US?
And can anyone that shares their secrets with the world be a traitor? If we are the enemy in a war that was started against us with no provocation, isn't anything we do justified self defense?
Pholus
(4,062 posts)And yes, anything that keeps the money rolling to fund the companies supporting these activities would be acceptable.
OKNancy
(41,832 posts)I sure would like to know more about this:
valerief
(53,235 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)RKP5637
(67,108 posts)crap that goes on anymore. It's more and more us and them, and then the militarization of local police. It's really a WTF.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Uncle Joe
(58,355 posts)http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-nsa-intercepted-data-those-not-targeted-far-outnumber-the-foreigners-who-are/2014/07/05/8139adf8-045a-11e4-8572-4b1b969b6322_story.html
If Snowdens sample is representative, the population under scrutiny in the PRISM and Upstream programs is far larger than the government has suggested. In a June 26 transparency report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence disclosed that 89,138 people were targets of last years collection under FISA Section 702. At the 9-to-1 ratio of incidental collection in Snowdens sample, the offices figure would correspond to nearly 900,000 accounts, targeted or not, under surveillance.
(snip)
In the interview, Snowden said he did not need to circumvent those controls, because his final position as a contractor for Booz Allen at the NSAs Hawaii operations center gave him unusually broad, unescorted access to raw SIGINT [signals intelligence] under a special Dual Authorities role, a reference to Section 702 for domestic collection and Executive Order 12333 for collection overseas. Those credentials, he said, allowed him to search stored content and task new collection without prior approval of his search terms.
If I had wanted to pull a copy of a judges or a senators e-mail, all I had to do was enter that selector into XKEYSCORE, one of the NSAs main query systems, he said.
(snip)
In an ordinary FISA surveillance application, the judge grants a warrant and requires a fresh review of probable cause and the content of collected surveillance every 90 days. When renewal fails, NSA and allied analysts sometimes switch to the more lenient standards of PRISM and Upstream.
Thanks for the thread, DonViejo
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)if he knew the the President's personal email address, he could have accessed the contents. He had the keys.
Uncle Joe
(58,355 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)More than 1,000 distinct minimization terms appear in the files, attempting to mask the identities of possible, potential and probable U.S. persons, along with the names of U.S. beverage companies, universities, fast-food chains and Web-mail hosts.
Some of them border on the absurd, using titles that could apply to only one man. A minimized U.S. president-elect begins to appear in the files in early 2009, and references to the current minimized U.S. president appear 1,227 times in the following four years.
Even so, unmasked identities remain in the NSAs files, and the agencys policy is to hold on to incidentally collected U.S. content, even if it does not appear to contain foreign intelligence.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-nsa-intercepted-data-those-not-targeted-far-outnumber-the-foreigners-who-are/2014/07/05/8139adf8-045a-11e4-8572-4b1b969b6322_story.html
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)JoeyT
(6,785 posts)It's worth pointing out the original talking point for the defenders of the NSA was that they weren't spying on Americans at all. They were investigating specific targets they had enough suspicion about to get a warrant for.
The goalposts have long since rocketed out of our solar system and are floating around in deep space, never to be seen again.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)Uh
what were we talking about?
. "Hey, honey! Is American Gladiators on tonight?"
.
snot
(10,524 posts)they accessed past emails and other info from 410,000 accounts at one small company alone one of few that actually tried briefly to resist and would have monitored those accounts going forward, if the company hadn't folded in order to avoid becoming complicit: see http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/20/why-did-lavabit-shut-down-snowden-email .
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)on the backburner at the 11th hour after hyping it up for months...And it had nothing to do with any bullshit cop-outs like "last minute USG revelations" or "double-checking source accuracy"
WestCoastLib
(442 posts)I am very liberal, but I can't get too worked up over this for one reason. The internet is not a private system.
As someone who works for a technology company that takes confidentiality and security very seriously, we are trained often on how to transmit data as securely as possible and the company's bottom line depends on the ability to keep our data private.
The bottom line is any email, private message, tweet, message board post, etc. that you send over the internet is not private and it's not just "the government" that is monitoring what you do and can intercept it. An email sent to someone will go through a handful of hops before arriving at it's destination and even with encryption can be accessed at any of those points. There are people that can, will and do monitor your net activity via your IP address all the time. These people range from kids playing around to hackers in Thailand to foreign and domestic governments. With little effort and a little technical aptitude you too could learn how to do this from a simple google search if you wanted to.
The assumption that anything you are doing online is private is born out of a lack of understanding the technology. You may feel anonymous behind your keyboard, but assume that everything you are doing is out in the open, because that's closer to the reality.