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NSA speaks out on Snowden, spying [video]

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Re: NSA speaks out on Snowden, spying [video]

#61

Post by res0nat0r »

rosser wrote: post #58
res0nat0r wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it perfectly acceptable to lie during an open session hearing about top secret programs if those doing the questioning are doing it to be politically motivated, ie to embarrass the President. If your hearing is actually looking for the truth and not looking to out top secret programs because you have an ideological reason against that, then fine do it in a closed door hearing, where I would think something lik…

...ie to embrace the President. Yeah, because Wyden's motivation in asking the questions he asked was totally to buddy up to Obama.

Oops typo. That was supposed to be embarrass. Fixed.

Re: NSA speaks out on Snowden, spying [video]

#62

Post by kbenson »

res0nat0r wrote: post #48
jgg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit didn't invent the word "shill." I understood the article just fine! Did you? I don't care what his job is - he still lied! The internal logic of that piece is, "if he didn't deny it, people would think it was true!" The NSA was doing it anyway, so that makes fuck-all difference, now doesn't it?

I find it perfectly acceptable to lie during an open session hearing about top secret programs if those doing the questioning are doing it to be politically motivated, ie to embarrass the President. If your hearing is actually looking for the truth and not looking to out top secret programs because you have an ideological reason against that, then fine do it in a closed door hearing, where I would think something lik…

We are then going down the rabbit hole of who gets to decide when it's appropriate to lie, and when not. IMHO, the only appropriate action to take in a case like this is to stop the open hearing as soon as possible, or refuse to answer any questions on the grounds that answering some and not others could be used to determine top secret information. At least then the public can decide whether they feel that is acceptable and lawmakers can decide what that means for them.

Instead, what we had was an official lie while under oath for political expediency.

Re: NSA speaks out on Snowden, spying [video]

#63

Post by anaphor »

mpyne wrote: post #49
george88b wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't an average, reasonable person in today's age consider an email or digital file to be a modern version of a "paper" or a cell phone to be a modern "effect"?

Well that already is that the case, but that would only prevent the government from searching the cell phone or computer itself (which is why you don't hear of NSA hacking into Americans' computers), not from intercepting communications made by the cell phone or computer once it leaves the home.

Can the NSA open everyone's mail, make a copy of it, and put the original letters back without that being "collection" of the letters?

Re: NSA speaks out on Snowden, spying [video]

#64

Post by tn13 »

LOL. NSA is spying on all H1B employees, foreign students and rest of the world. If they have that capability I am not sure how exactly they would filter out US persons.

Secondly, these people have the history of lying to Congress itself. I am not sure if they give any shit about media and general public.

As a non-american one thing is absolutely clear to me. Given two equal services always choose a non-american one.

Re: NSA speaks out on Snowden, spying [video]

#65

Post by e12e »

pekk wrote: post #17
e12e wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To further fan the embers of your fear, please enjoy: [edit: title of link "Logo of New NRO Spy Satellite: An Octopus Engulfing the World with the Words “Nothing is Beyond Our Reach” Underneath"] http://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/new-u-s-spy-satellite-... and: ["Top 10 Most Sinister PSYOPS Mission Patches"] http://vigilantcitizen.com/vigilantreport/top-10-most-sinist... I find it interesting (and sad) how the las…

The thread about that patch discussed how typical it is to have crazy over-the-top patches, it's not new at all

I wasn't aware there was a tread on the satellite patch on hn, but seeing how it was featured on Ars Technica, I'm not surprised:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6880117

The second link is based on a book from 2007 that used FOIA requests to be able to study the patches, so part of the point is that it's nothing new...

Anyway, I don't fall into the camp that takes the patches very seriously -- in general, anything a covert organization/project projects about itself is bound to be either propaganda or misinformation.

Re: NSA speaks out on Snowden, spying [video]

#66

Post by vinceguidry »

rdtsc wrote: post #53
ihsw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would got to a protest to DC, but hmm, facial recognition The GPS radio/cellular radio are used to find and pinpoint protester identities, at least momentarily. It is an eventuality that local police departments get such devices for $30K, but right now they cost an order of magnitude higher and it's not quite plug-and-play.

Taking the battery out of the phone should work. Anyone tested or tried a Faraday cage case for a phone? Would a nice copper mesh case work? Also in DC it is not illegal to wear a mask. In Virginia it is a felony, though (not an Onion article): http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+18.2-422

The good folks at ScotteVest will sell you one.

http://www.scottevest.com/v3_store/SHSK.shtml

Re: NSA speaks out on Snowden, spying [video]

#67

Post by Bahamut »

jdonaldson wrote: post #52
Bahamut wrote: post #44

FWIW, some of the revelations in the NSA video isn't particularly new - you can get a sense of how the NSA operates by visiting Palantir's website (they create custom software for agencies like the NSA). I highly suspect that the video reveals that software in action for forming links with phone metadata. Contrary to a lot of what has been said on HN, a lot of what the NSA does is good for the US. It would appear Gen…

It's pretty faint praise if you have to argue that a lot of what does is good. It's like listening to someone in an abusive relationship. They have willfully violated privacy expectations of individuals and corporations, and they seem to have enjoyed doing it (the slide deck showing how they sniff google data comes to mind). They do have a big job to do, but "protecting the US as an entity" is not a risk to the exten…

On the contrary, it is the risk I imply/have stated. I don't work in intelligence, but I am an infantry Marine reservist - some of the tactics briefed to us on how foreign governments and terrorists try to compromise opsec might surprise many, including using Facebook to try to determine troop movements. Our enemies are also sophisticated.

It's just not as simple as you have stated so far. I'm not making an absolute claim that the NSA did not violate privacy or such - I was primarily pointing out some of the complexities involved here that privacy advocates tend to forget, especially when considering the history of foreign intelligence gathering, where privacy is not guaranteed by any nation because such a guarantee cannot be backed.

Re: NSA speaks out on Snowden, spying [video]

#68

Post by mpyne »

anaphor wrote: post #63
mpyne wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that already is that the case, but that would only prevent the government from searching the cell phone or computer itself (which is why you don't hear of NSA hacking into Americans' computers), not from intercepting communications made by the cell phone or computer once it leaves the home.

Can the NSA open everyone's mail, make a copy of it, and put the original letters back without that being "collection" of the letters?

Well it would be the USPS, not the NSA, and the USPS does indeed scan today every single mail item they process for "metadata" about the contents of the envelope [1] (note how the linked article reinforces my point about Fourth Amendment protection).

Either way if the failure of the Fourth Amendment to be protective enough is that bad then the solution is either to pass a law adding the needed protection (what Congress did for landline wiretaps) or to wait for an activist judge to quote James Madison in a ruling that expands the permit of the Fourth Amendment (e.g. the ruling today).

But simply wishing that the Fourth Amendment says something other than what it does, doesn't turn the Fourth Amendment into what you wish.

[1] http://gizmodo.com/5994922/how-the-post-office-sniffs-out-an...

Re: NSA speaks out on Snowden, spying [video]

#69

Post by mpyne »

olefoo wrote: post #56
grugq wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is incredibly simple politics. He is in place to continue to soak up the bad publicity from the Snowden event. Once the bad publicity stops, he will step down. There is no point, politically, of taking him out right now. His replacement will end up tarnished with the bad PR as he starts his gig. http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince00.htm The NSA is unable to do a thorough damage assessment -- they don't know how…

You are most likely correct. It seems as though the Intelligence Community is being forced back to 'siloing' since the pooled resource approach seems to be so vulnerable to singleton conscience-ridden whistleblowers. In a way this plays right into Assange's analysis of the cognitive structure of rule by conspiracy in that an organization can know things, but cannot both discuss them internally and keep them secret at…

> In effect an attack that requires internal barriers to communication to prevent; is also an attack on the organizations overall cognitive ability.

It is indeed. That was one of the issues noted by the 9/11 Commission formed by Congress, was that the institutional silos prevented the right people from acting on the available intelligence leading up to the 9/11 attack.

Of course NSA had hardly decompartmentalized; Snowden was able to sysadmin himself through many of the compartments, which is a hard enough problem to solve, but that may mean NSA might look and decide they don't need to retract from other IC agencies.

Re: NSA speaks out on Snowden, spying [video]

#70

Post by mpyne »

rlu wrote: post #35
tmuir wrote: post #7

This was public relations, plain and simple. Paint Snowden like a weirdo, ask softball question after softball question, give vague hints about the scary threats that deem this all necessary, and blindly trust the answers of the guy in charge of the entire operation, as if he had no incentive whatsoever to mislead anyone. Then wrap it all up with "Just how did we get this access that no other news agency could?" Gee,…

What annoyed me is that, as with anything, the devil is in the details. And the questions failed to clarify on details. A few examples (all quotes paraphrased): 1. "we only listen to conversations of non americans" -----Ok, so what happens when an American has a conversation with a non American? Do you tap it at all? Do you get both sides of conversation? Only one side? 2. "you can only look at a protected phone numb…

> What is a US person? US Citizen? Person living in the US? This also contradicts so much of what I thought I knew about PRISM that I'm baffled that no clarification was asked for.

Uh, these details were actually all hashed out in the media within the couple of weeks after PRISM was initially revealed.

USPER == Anyone in the physical borders of the United States, whether a citizen or an alien.

Likewise it is true even when PRISM was described that a USPER couldn't be accessed without an Article III warrant. The big question was whether this was a technical safeguard or a "analyst follows policy" safeguard. But even for non-USPER PRISM still required at least an NSL (which the receiving company could escalate to the FISC if they felt the NSL was illegal).

If this all surprises you about PRISM then I'd humbly suggest that you've been getting fed so much misinformation that you should possibly consider using alternate sources instead of sitting back in an echo chamber. ;)

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