These criminals are sorry they broke the law, promise not to do it again. I'm all warm and fuzzy.
N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets
21–30 of 132 posts
Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets
#22How would we even know? No one can even go down in there. Congressional oversight is done by them coming up to Congress and saying "Nope, we're not breaking any laws. Not wittingly."
Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets
#23We can't sensibly discuss this story here unless we know which definition of "collect" is being used in the story. Normal definition: collect. For example: "Even collected all the data going to and from Bob's house by putting a splitter on the cable." NSA's definition: not that, as cited in various stories sourced by the Snowden leaks from the Guardian. I won't attempt to define exactly how the NSA defines "collect"…
their definition (via secret interpretation of USSID 18, according to Bill Binney[1]) is roughly that it's only collected if they actually go back and look at it at some point down the line. your web browsing history (or whatever) sitting on a hard drive in utah doesn't fall under this definition until they look at it.
Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets
#24Things that I do not for one second believe: this. Maybe this one particular program, under one particular name, sure. But overall? I just don't see it. I am not saying this cynically, I just don't. Data collection is too easy, database queries too simple.
I came here to say this, and I am glad there are about 50 other comments saying the same thing: We don't believe any of this. They are all liars. Don't trust liars.
Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets
#25A fundamental conflict keeps coming up:
1) Security agencies are much more effective if they collect data before they know it's important. If they wait until Jane Doe blows up a building to start collecting intelligence on her, much of the evidence and other valuable information will be long gone.
2) Spying on innocent people violates their privacy, their legal rights, and is a tool for oppression. Warrants are required for a good reason.
One somewhat obvious solution is to store the data in escrow, available only with a warrant. Nobody would trust a private company with all that data (I hope, though I some countries require ISPs and other service providers to maintain some history), so who can we trust? I wonder if the courts are an answer. On one hand, it is not their role to provide investigative tools to the prosecution and could even violate their independence and neutrality. On the other, there would be little question about whether law enforcement had a valid warrant or whether the courts would respect by their own authority to issue warrants (and on the third hand, rather than the courts cleaning up the corruption, the corruption could spread to the courts too).
Does anyone know if there's a precedent?
Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets
#26Things that I do not for one second believe: this. Maybe this one particular program, under one particular name, sure. But overall? I just don't see it. I am not saying this cynically, I just don't. Data collection is too easy, database queries too simple.
I came here to say this, and I am glad there are about 50 other comments saying the same thing: We don't believe any of this. They are all liars. Don't trust liars.
The US is more and more reminding me of the old soviet line: "we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us". In this case, the NSA says things that everyone knows is not true, and the mainstream media prints it with complete seriousness, while I can't imagine they believe it is true.
It's pretty scary what the future holds for us if you stop and think.
Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets
#27We can't sensibly discuss this story here unless we know which definition of "collect" is being used in the story. Normal definition: collect. For example: "Even collected all the data going to and from Bob's house by putting a splitter on the cable." NSA's definition: not that, as cited in various stories sourced by the Snowden leaks from the Guardian. I won't attempt to define exactly how the NSA defines "collect"…
The Times really did a crap job of explaining that.
The headline is so unequivocal but a close reading of the article implies the opposite is true.
Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets
#28We can't sensibly discuss this story here unless we know which definition of "collect" is being used in the story. Normal definition: collect. For example: "Even collected all the data going to and from Bob's house by putting a splitter on the cable." NSA's definition: not that, as cited in various stories sourced by the Snowden leaks from the Guardian. I won't attempt to define exactly how the NSA defines "collect"…
their definition (via secret interpretation of USSID 18, according to Bill Binney[1]) is roughly that it's only collected if they actually go back and look at it at some point down the line. your web browsing history (or whatever) sitting on a hard drive in utah doesn't fall under this definition until they look at it. [1] https://youtu.be/r9-3K3rkPRE
And we have no idea if their idiosyncratic definition has changed since then.
Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets
#29Can we get an inside contractor to leak proof of such? Because, you know, trust or the lack thereof.
Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets
#30Even then - the data of rest of the world is still sucked up wherever possible.
Signed, A non-US citizen of this world