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NSA Chief Denies Domestic Spying Story (2012)

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Re: NSA Chief Denies Domestic Spying Story (2012)

#31

Post by seoguru »

brown9-2 wrote: post #5

Yes. Does the NSA routinely intercept American citizens’ emails? No. Does the NSA intercept Americans’ cell phone conversations? No. It's worth noting that "intercept" has a very specific meaning here, which the Congressman asking the question nor the reporter may not have realized. From http://theweek.com/article/index/245228/the-fbi-collects-all... A few definitions: to "collect" means to gather and store; to "anal…

2 former NSA employees say that the NSA does collect massive amounts of emails from US citizens: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcgR057wgoQ

Lookup: "William Binney" former NSA official. he says the NSA intercepts most American email communications.

Re: NSA Chief Denies Domestic Spying Story (2012)

#32

Post by pyre »

navyrain wrote: post #17

It seems pretty clear that the NSA engages in bulk collection of databases which _might_ someday contain something interesting, and only considers it "interception" when they query their own DBs. These creative redefinitions of seemingly benign terms are at the root of the problem.

It's possible to lie without directly lying here:

- "Verizon intercepts the calls, we only collect them"

- "Verison only gives us call meta data (who called whom? when? how long?)."

- "We don't intercept the emails, Google just gives us all of the emails sitting on their servers."

... etc

Re: NSA Chief Denies Domestic Spying Story (2012)

#34

Post by jongraehl »

pyre wrote: post #32
navyrain wrote: post #17

It seems pretty clear that the NSA engages in bulk collection of databases which _might_ someday contain something interesting, and only considers it "interception" when they query their own DBs. These creative redefinitions of seemingly benign terms are at the root of the problem.

It's possible to lie without directly lying here: - "Verizon intercepts the calls, we only collect them" - "Verison only gives us call meta data (who called whom? when? how long?)." - "We don't intercept the emails, Google just gives us all of the emails sitting on their servers." ... etc

"we don't - our contractors do"

"we don't - our interception devices do"

:(

Re: NSA Chief Denies Domestic Spying Story (2012)

#36

Post by cobrabyte »

lsiebert wrote: post #3

He was asked about the interception of the email content, but most of the information we have suggests that the NSA is receiving information about email and phone metadata. Also the questions focus on what the NSA is intercepting, not what they are being given /demanding under a NSL. Also it's unclear what processing by computers may be done of such material. If you have a computer doing threat assessment of all emai…

Or, perhaps, the individual asking the questions phrased them in a manner that would set the public at ease. The words seemed to have been deliberately chosen to cover the government's ass if/when the truth comes out.

see: "It depends on what the definition of 'is' is."

Re: NSA Chief Denies Domestic Spying Story (2012)

#39

Post by criley »

rosser wrote: post #8

I wish I were only snarking when I wonder whether there's a double-top-secret exemption to the laws about perjuring one's self before Congress, which is, itself, secret. It just wouldn't do to have the laws that allow people to lie to Congress about secret stuff be public knowledge, after all...

It's probably simple: "Is this hearing of the same security level as the information being requested? No? It's public with the press writing about it? Deny. Deny. Deny."

The fact that the article posts a VIDEO of the hearing further strengthens my idea that they'll never admit to CLASSIFIED projects during public hearings.

Re: NSA Chief Denies Domestic Spying Story (2012)

#40

Post by larrys »

navyrain wrote: post #17

It seems pretty clear that the NSA engages in bulk collection of databases which _might_ someday contain something interesting, and only considers it "interception" when they query their own DBs. These creative redefinitions of seemingly benign terms are at the root of the problem.

"It seems pretty clear that the NSA engages in bulk collection of databases which _might_ someday contain something interesting, and only considers it "interception" when they query their own DBs."

Interesting. Along those lines then if you were to make a clone of someone's hard drive but you actually didn't boot or access any of the information on the hard drive I wonder what law that may or may not break? You seem to be guilty of cloning a hard drive which may not be the same as stealing anything in particular that is covered by the way a law is written.

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