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NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

reuters.com

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Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#351

Post by lern_too_spel »

lesss365 wrote: post #347
lern_too_spel wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you suggesting that therefore he does not know the answer? No, I'm asserting that any statements by Clapper can't show the NSA lying about anything any more than statements by Trump can show the NSA lying about anything because neither is part of the NSA. > The question posed in the linked video clip is "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions of Americans?". And the vi…

Clapper was Director of National Intelligence, head of all American intelligence agencies. He may not have been in the NSA, but he definitely had the responsibility of oversight.

So does Trump, who lies more often and more egregiously. That doesn't change the fact that the NSA did not lie about its data collection practices.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#352

Post by stale2002 »

wybiral wrote: post #275
stale2002 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK then. And you believe that there are literally 500 million phones going to suspected terrorists in the US? Also, I'd like to point out that the fisa courts do not limit anything. They are a rubber stamp, that never rejects anything.

As I understand it, to quote the article: > 534 million records of phone calls and text messages But we don't know how that breaks down to "phones" as you say. I don't even like to use my phone but I bet if you count my texts and calls in a year it would be in the 1000s of records. No I don't believe that there are "500 million phones going to suspected terrorists in the US" but there may be 500 messages from individ…

Ah, so what you are saying is that with only 2000 Fisa requests they were able to get ALL that data?

I guess if you just make 1 fisa request that says "give me everything" then that's good enough, right?

At least with those other companies I have a choice to use them or not. If I don't like Google I can use duck duck go, or something else.

The government doesn't give me a choice of whether I am spied on or not.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#353

Post by JoeAltmaier »

ernon wrote: post #292
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know; that's about 3 calls per person per year in the US. I don't think I make any more voice calls than that. Times is a-changin'.

WhatsApp says they do 100M voice calls a day. Times is a-changin', but people still be a-talkin'. https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000625/WhatsApp-Calling-100-mill...

Is NSA collecting WhatsApp calls? I thought the NSA collected regular POTS calls.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#354

Post by gknoy »

garyfirestorm wrote: post #129
gknoy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NSA [is] just as responsible for dropping the ball on domestic terrorism every other week Domestic terrorism isn't the NSA's purview. Their job is signals intelligence against the rest of the world.

Ummmmm. How do they achieve that by tapping 500 million local calls? Let me guess, the locals call rest of the world.

Their claim is that it's in order to listen to the conversations where a foreign person of interest is the other party. :)

Don't get me wrong, I don't like the surveillance either, but domestic terrorism isn't their job. Sure, if they notice something, they will pass it along, but it's not what they are looking for (I believe). If there's been a proverbial ball dropped, it's probably more accurate to blame the FBI than the NSA.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#355

Post by eric_h »

chatmasta wrote: post #11
samstave wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nation needs a “tax sit-in” - everyone ridicules this, but wtf do people think the boston tea party was about. If you want governments to listen without armed rebellion, the only thing one can do is refuse taxes. They know that this is the inly othe tool you have - and thats why taxes are woven into the fabric of the economy such that its automatically taken without you having any control over them. Its also why…

The problem is w2 employees (i.e. most of the workforce) get their taxes taken out of their paychecks automatically. It would be nearly impossible to withhold those taxes from the government. Interestingly, the more independent contractors in a population, the easier it would be to stage a tax sit-in.

> The problem is w2 employees (i.e. most of the workforce) get their taxes taken out of their paychecks automatically

That's not a requirement, though. You can opt to have no taxes withheld and just pay what you owe in April. Of course, if you then don't pay your taxes, the IRS will find you.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#356

Post by amrx101 »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #336
stickdogg wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Russians and Chinese manipulate the American public every day all day. Not to mention the Americans and Western Europeans with money and influence whose interests align with theirs. How do you think we ended up with president chump?

And likewise, the Americans do their best to manipulate the public of dozens of other countries, daily. The shocking thing to Americans is they thought they were too powerful to ever be on the receiving end.

This. After WW2 US has been doing adventures through illegal interventions in Asia and Latin America all with disastrous consequences. This is just Karma payback.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#358

Post by _khau »

Bizarro wrote: post #294
stickdogg wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Russians and Chinese manipulate the American public every day all day. Not to mention the Americans and Western Europeans with money and influence whose interests align with theirs. How do you think we ended up with president chump?

How do you think we ended up with president chump? No. The alternative is a crook.

And Trump isn't a crook? lol

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#359

Post by giardini »

willstrafach wrote: post #326
giardini wrote: post #212

Is there a chance, nay, is there not certainty, that some individual or group of persons in the NSA could or does, by selectively monitoring, personally gain tremendous wealth or influence? E.g., if I were an NSA employee and used my access to follow the phone calls of, say, the officers of Goldman-Sachs? What information, of financial value, could I possibly gain? What possibilities for gain await a a rogue organize…

If you tried that, you would get a screen informing you that searching US Persons is forbidden. As it sounds intentional in your scenario, you would then be fired and be subject to further action.

willstrafach says: "if you tried that, you would get a screen informing you that searching US Persons is forbidden. As it sounds intentional in your scenario, you would then be fired and be subject to further action."

Nonsense!

Firstly if the bad guys had the assistance of a systems administrator, they could modify privilege levels to suit their needs. No warnings would be issued and no forbidden access would be noted or logged.

But more importantly, you speak as if there were only one way to "selectively monitor" or that, to monitor, one must use the programmed pathways into a system! But any decent system has realtime monitoring software, database patching tools and editors, realtime modification tools and in-house ad-hoc reporting software that is neither logged nor monitored. Furthermore, all systems have backups and backups can be stolen or copied. The backed up data can be restored and examined on systems other than the one from which it was collected.

Snowden accessed "secure" data w/o timely detection. IIRC he also claimed that, had he the desire, he could have listened in on White House phone conversations w/o detection.

This is all w/o the addition of rogue software/hardware or outside help. Were that available, the possible range of techniques would be much greater. You lack imagination.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#360

Post by blitmap »

stickdogg wrote: post #295
blitmap wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree that the negatives of dragnet surveillance disproportionately harms society - much greater than the net-positives. I just don't feel like we have enough transparency to correctly scale that bar graph.

How much more transparency do you desire? Personally I don't need any chart or measuring stick to show me what's dangerous.

I fully believe dragnet surveillance is dangerous. My point is, I can't just say "Dragnet surveillance is dangerous." A well-formed argument has citations and metrics and something to show relative scale. The people pushing for dragnet surveillance (those people in positions of authority) feel like they're keeping us safe and doing what needs to be done - and that we just don't understand. We need to KNOW exactly how much surveillance harms us - we cannot argue with blanket statements.
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