
US senators say there’s “no evidence” bulk metadata surveillance is useful - rosser
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/us-senators-say-theres-no-evidence-bulk-metadata-surveillance-is-useful/
======
belorn
To be clear, they say that there is no evidence that bulk meta data
surveillance is useful in _catching terrorists_.

Bulk metadata surveillance is however extremely useful in doing espionage
against diplomats, which gives the US favorable hand in negotiations.

It also extremely useful in doing industry espionage, gifting US companies
with stolen information (in return for favors? We don't know what Boeing gave
NSA in return).

Its somewhat useful to hammer down on local political activists. Who dare to
start a occupy movement, or a website dedicated to whistleblowers with NSA
sipping through every email, every phone call, and perfect information about
who meets with who?

Its possible useful in hammering down on political embarrassing entities like
megaupload, giving the US foreign office and advantage when interfering in
other countries justice systems.

People in the police and IRS is always thankful when they can do parallel
construction, which in turn gives NSA support to continue.

I have a vague memory that out of 40 cases, only one is about terrorism. That
might be wrong (or maybe it was about FRA), but if that is true, it would
explain why NSA is doing bulk meta data surveillance in the face of the
contradicted claims about its effectiveness in anti-terroism.

~~~
DanBC
How is bulk metadata useful against diplomats or for industrial espionage?

For those you prefer content and don't care so much about the metadata.

The UK has recently had debates about the collection of bulk metadata. Imagine
our surprise when GCHQ was slurping it all along. They say that they're a
secret organisation and that their collections can't be used for domestic law
enforcement, and that this debate was actually about allowing law enforcement
to collect metadata.

I would prefer GCHQ to not be slurping this data, but I don't see it as being
particularly harmful to me. But extending that out to the general law
enforcement agencies, or wider to local government officials etc, is
terrifying. GCHQ employees are reasonably well trained in secrecy and privacy
and the risk of information being misused is low[1], but we've seen plenty of
abuses of personal data by police forces (selling information to news papers,
and so on) and local councils (spying on people applying for parking permits
or for entry to certain schools) and so it's a bit scary letting them get hold
of any more data than they strictly need, especially if there's no judge
involved.

~~~
belorn
> How is bulk metadata useful against diplomats or for industrial espionage?

Because there is no meaningful distinction between metadata and data. Its a
deception when agencies claims that metadata somehow is harmlessness.

How is bulk metadata useful against diplomats? To know who they talk to, when,
and from where. Did that diplomat spend hours or minutes discussing our offer?
Did that diplomat just call back to his superiors when at the same time
pretending to not care about this information we "slipped"? Did that diplomat
just do a call at 1 am from a cheap motel known for their hookers?

How is bulk metadata useful against industrial espionage? Did they spend
minutes or hours discussing the deal we just offered them? Company A just
offered to become the remote branch in China, so why is company B calling
someone located in China? Are they looking at competing offers? Who, where and
in what capacity does Company B has research labs/production sites? Why is
that negotiator calling from that "infamous" cheap motel? Does the
wife/husband know this? And if I map out each call from the CEO, I should get
all the detailed and private HR information I need. When I asked them, they
pretend that its a company secret...

Metadata: The information you use to infer the data you don't yet have.

~~~
a3n
Metadata: The information that helps you decide to target for deeper
collection the comms of someone you were previously unaware of. Diplomat X
talks to Y a lot, so we better track Y more closely.

------
mtgx
Why are we arguing about the "usefulness" when it should be a crime against
the human right to privacy, and possibly many national laws and constitutions
through out the world?

At the very least, even without abuses (which is ridiculous to even
contemplate that there weren't/aren't any) mass surveillance can create
chilling effects on free speech, journalism, and creativity and innovation in
general, as well as to progress in a society.

How do you admit you are gay or try to convince others that being gay is okay,
in a society where the vast majority are against it, and the government has
zero tolerance for it, for example? In a society that monitors everything, it
would be very hard to turn being gay from "illegal" to "legal.

And that's just one example: women using birth control, doing abortions, being
of different faith, smoking pot, copying an image "illegitimately" from the
web and so on, can all be "illegal" at some point, in any society.

~~~
DanBC
> Why are we arguing about the "usefulness" when it should be a crime against
> the human right to privacy, and possibly many national laws and
> constitutions through out the world?

It's a pragmatic approach to preventing this stuff from happening.

The "privacy is a right!" stuff just doesn't work for some people. So, for
those people, it's handy to have other arguments. "It's expensive and doesn't
work! Let's spend that money on cops and gang-reconciliations instead!" may be
more effective.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
This 'pragmatic approach' unfortunately changes the subject from the important
one to something refutable. As such, it could be a political ploy to create
support for illegal/unconstitutional wiretapping etc.

~~~
DanBC
> unfortunately changes the subject

Supplements the discussion.

There are plenty of people, with real power, who don't care about what's legal
(and perhaps what's constitutional) because terrorists. (See also because
pedophiles).

For those people you need to let them know that their over-reaching privacy
invasions aren't just a matter of constitutional niceties (their terms, not
ours) but actually ineffective.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
...unless it isn't actually ineffective. Then they're vindicated, conversation
over. That's the ploy.

------
IvyMike
I really dislike this framing, because it's shifted the debate into an
irrelevant tangent. It doesn't really matter if it's useful or not; it's still
illegal.

Even if 1984 works that doesn't mean it's a society we want to live in.

------
ghubbard
Note that this is "three United States senators who have been at the forefront
of surveillance policy reform" who have filed an amicus brief.

Rather than a majority of US senators.

~~~
anonyHN
The title describes both possibilities. They could have added 'some' or
'three' to clarify. But then again FWIW they did not write 'all'.

------
faster
Here's a(nother) case where the actual title of the article doesn't reflect
what the article itself says. In the article, it says the senators say they
"have seen no evidence", not that no evidence exists.

Obviously hyperbolic titles get more clicks.

~~~
tomelders
Just like weapons inspectors saw no evidence of WMD's in Iraq. That obviously
doesn't mean there are no WMD's in Iraq.

Or just like cosmologists have seen no evidence of God, that doesn't mean god
doesn't exist.

Engage brain before opening mouth.

~~~
DanBC
The three examples are different.

God may exist, we cannot say. Cosmologists are not looking for God, and so the
fact they have not discovered God means little. WMD don't exist in Iraq
because it was a lie ginned up to allow us to go to war. It doesn't matter
what weapons inspectors find - the point wasn't WMD but the reaction to the
inspections programme.

A secret collection of mass meta-data collection being examined by people
without security clearance is unlikely to find any benefit because no-one is
going to tell them what happens with the data. "We see no evidence of benefit"
could mean "there is no benefit, and thus we haven't seen any evidence" or it
could mean "there is plenty of benefit, but that's all secret, and no-one will
tell us about it, and thus we've seen no evidence of benefit".

> Engage brain before opening mouth.

That makes you sound like a bit of a dick. Just saying.

~~~
Taranli_Maren
> A secret collection of mass meta-data collection being examined by people
> without security clearance is unlikely to find any benefit because no-one is
> going to tell them what happens with the data. "We see no evidence of
> benefit" could mean "there is no benefit, and thus we haven't seen any
> evidence" or it could mean "there is plenty of benefit, but that's all
> secret, and no-one will tell us about it, and thus we've seen no evidence of
> benefit".

I'm sure you are aware but Sen. Wyden is on the Select Committee on
Intelligence. He is hardly a random guy with no security clearance. If he
hasn't seen any evidence that the bulk surveillance has any benefit, then the
NSA is withholding critical information from the people that are supposed to
be performing oversight over them.

------
monkeydink
My understanding is that the NSA captures "data" (i.e., content) (e.g., voice
conversations, fax contents, messages, e-mail content, etc.) and not simply
metadata. I doubt the "data" is very useful in catching terrorists either. But
it's political/social/economic value is inestimable.

~~~
glitchdout
Indeed, you are right.

NSA is currently tapping Skype, both _chat_ and _video_. [1]

There's also some evidence that the NSA is collecting every domestic
communication, word for word. [2] (Full transcript [3])

[1]: [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/nsa-taps-skype-
ch...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/nsa-taps-skype-chats-newly-
published-snowden-leaks-confirm/)

[2]: [http://youtu.be/az-YWMNWQuU?t=2m6s](http://youtu.be/az-YWMNWQuU?t=2m6s)

[3]: [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/government_programs/july-
dec1...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/government_programs/july-
dec13/whistleblowers_08-01.html)

------
yaeger
Well, if they haven't seen evidence that metadata surveillance is useful, they
clearly haven't searched for it. Cause if you don't search for it, you won't
find it and therefore you can say with confidence "We haven't seen any
evidence..."

For anyone wanting to see such evidence can go here:
[http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-data-
retention](http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-data-retention)

This is a 6 month representation of cell phone metadata overlayed with this
politicians public information like tweets or other stuff freely available on
the internet.

~~~
anonyHN
Exactly how is your example useful or pertinent to fighting
terrorism/terrorist acts? The politician in your example is a public figure.
Unless you considered Osama Bin Laden (and other terrorists) public figures
and have access to their " Twitter feeds, blog entries and websites, all of
which is all freely available on the internet. " Your comment doesn't make
much sense... Or maybe I'm missing the point (which is likely/possible).

~~~
yaeger
You are missing the point.

The twitter overlay was just an added point to illustrate that the politician
was really at these places. Otherwise one could start with "yeah, well the
meta data could come from anybody. Who's to say that all this data really
belonged to him?"

I hope I don't have to point out how the metadata alone is useful in tracking
suspected terrorists. You have GPS, SMS, timestaped phonecalls etc. Anybody
who gets to request this metadata from a cell phone provider for Person X can
track that person across the country. You might as well wear a Lo-Jack that is
directly connected to the authorities. Same result, it would just be a little
easier for them to access that information. Now, they still have to request
and actually receive the meta data from a customer of the cell service. Unless
of course NSA and company already have complete system access and the request
to receive the meta data is just a formality.

~~~
anonyHN
Again you seem to be assuming that most terrorists are using known devices and
numbers. While that may have been useful to track the Boston Marathon guys who
were rank amateurs (and for the record, it didn't help then). It likely
wouldn't be of any use at all for tracking someone important and/or practiced
at these sorts of things.

Collecting all of the data from all of the citizens in the US, or any country
for that matter, is in fact counterproductive, as it creates a great deal of
background noise, drowning out the useful data on the subject of interest
(also it is illegal to conduct surveillance of US citizens without a
warrant... Not to mention all US citizens without a warrant.) I don't think
many people would agree that tracking everyone in the US is useful for
tracking 'terrorists'. Unless you are talking about collecting data on every
citizen to stop future crime that has not happened yet. If that is the plan,
that sort of surveillance might be useful, if say ordinary citizen 9834202
decided to commit a crime at an undetermined future date.

------
ajays
Finally, some Democrats with balls.

For all the "tea party" rhetoric that comes from Republicans, I've yet to see
1 Republican step up and put his reputation on the line. Where are Rand Paul
and Ted Cruz? How do they reconcile the NSA's actions with their so-called
beliefs?

~~~
dllthomas
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/18/rand-paul-
nsa_n_377...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/18/rand-paul-
nsa_n_3775821.html)

------
manuelflara
Then why do they store/track it?

~~~
csandreasen
Speed is the most likely reason. Think about it from the flip side of the
argument. Their argument rests on the assumption that if a known terrorist is
in contact with a US person and there is reason to believe that US person is
in the US for nefarious purposes, then they may already be moving to attack
somewhere and the NSA needs his call records ahead of time. They want to know
what other foreigners is he in contact with, are they known terrorists, are
the people in the US that he's talking to also talking with each other (which
could indicate a terrorist cell), etc. Answer these questions, package up the
information and shoot it over to the FBI for follow-up investigation.

If they didn't have the records ahead of time, the NSA or the FBI would have
to get a warrant, submit the warrant to all N of the major phone providers,
wait for however long it takes them to process it, get responses from N-1
providers that the phone number doesn't belong to them. They then have to
analyze the data, then repeat the process for the second layer, etc. What
would be done in a few minutes if they already had the data now might take a
few weeks. If you believe that an attack is likely, you may not have a week to
identify the initial contact, two weeks to identify the cell he's working in,
etc.

All of this rests on the assumption that analyzing phone metadata is good way
to get leads for an investigation on international terrorism. Are there better
ways to get leads? Can the information still be useful if gathered through a
traditional warrant process? If not, is it worth the privacy tradeoff to foil
X number of cases over the course of a decade, and are there good ways to
handle the information in order to mitigate privacy concerns?

~~~
itsameta4
There are emergency/after-the-fact warrants for just those occasions.

------
bayesianhorse
Evidence in politics? Good one.

------
thenerdfiles
I don't feel like explaining this shit to non-technical people anymore.

But I'm supposed to be grateful that I have a job.

~~~
thenerdfiles
How many of you are actually engaging non-technical people on this topic?

How do they receive (a) the problem itself and (b) you in describing the
problem (given that it goes without saying that you so too have the
tools/know-how to undetake your own packet sniffing party)?

Seriously? How does this become a larger political issue unless and until we
start talking to people who severely are undereducated on the topic?

~~~
XorNot
Because most of the time the problem is just people knowing. It's like what
happens if you _ask_ your neighbors in advance about specific features on your
new house - suddenly everybody has an opinion about why you shouldn't do it.

Whereas if you just presented the plans, chances are they wouldn't comment at
all.

------
fetbaffe
The only effective way to capture terrorists is to do profiling, however thats
is considered to be politically incorrect, therefore we have this nonsense
instead.

~~~
Amadou
_The only effective way to capture terrorists is to do profiling, however
thats is considered to be politically incorrect,_

Whenever someone complains about profiling being politically incorrect, that's
a euphemism for racial profiling.

To which I say:

Jihad Jane:
[http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/02/01/pennsylvania.terror.case...](http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/02/01/pennsylvania.terror.case/)

Daniel Patrick Boyd:
[http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1913602,0...](http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1913602,00.html)

The White Widow: [http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/pictures-white-
widow...](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/pictures-white-widow-
samantha-lewthwaites-2477940)

And that's just crazies who call themselves 'muslims.'

In the US white nationalists typically murder a couple of people each year,
and don't forget Anders Breivik
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik)

~~~
camus2
Breivik did not kill anybody in the USA. As for muslims extremists and al
qaida folks, it's easy to profile them, they are all muslims...

~~~
Amadou
_As for muslims extremists and al qaida folks, it 's easy to profile them,
they are all muslims._

Which is completely useless since 99.99% of muslims aren't "al qaida folks."

~~~
dllthomas
This is not the reason it is completely useless.

------
kghose
Don't forget, these are the same jokers who are cutting funding for science
trying to say it's not useful. Just FYI.

~~~
rst
When have Udall, Wyden, or Heinrich said anything like that? Those are the
Senators who filed the brief. They're all Democrats; every anti-science
proclamation from the Senate I've seen (and I have seen quite a few) has come
from a Republican.

