
Disputed NSA Phone Program Is Shut Down, Aide Says - tysone
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/us/politics/nsa-phone-records-program-shut-down.html
======
Jerry2
One program is shutting down (according to who knows whom) but that doesn't
mean that other programs are doing the exact same thing. NY Times is again
acting as a limited hangout [0] for various spy agencies.

One of the things we learned from Congressional hearings (from James Clapper
and others) and from whistleblowers like William Binney and Snowden is that
these intelligence agencies change the meaning of words. Things like
"collection" and "analysis" don't mean what you think they mean. When they say
"we don't collect X" that just means they don't collect X under the program
they're testifying about. If there are other programs, they won't tell you
about those or will only testify in secret. Sometimes they outright lie about
things too as we found out from Clapper's testimony.

Anyway, don't believe a word they say. This data is way too valuable to be
abandoned. If not the NSA, someone else will be collecting it, analyzing it
and disseminating it through some database within the IC.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout)

~~~
nilskidoo
They're shutting it down in the same way they shut down terrorists.

~~~
huffmsa
Not sure about the down boats here. The program caught and/or stopped
precisely 0 (ZERO) terrorists. It also failed to harvest any data regarding
"Muh Russians".

It and many other NSA projects are about as effective as the TSA.

~~~
naasking
I also believe the number is very low, but let's be fair: it's not clear that
they would publish any terrorists they did catch, because then that reveals
how they were caught, which terrorists can then use to adapt their tactics.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
They have to give the politicians something to brag about so funding doesn't
go down.

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superkuh
An anonymous "aide" says so? This statement is worth absolutely nothing like
every other anonymously sorced comment from government officials that the NYT
scrawls.

~~~
anarazel
The aide is actually not anonymous if you follow the story a bit. If you
follow the links in the story you can easily figure it out.

I think it's good to not expose career staffers to the full public public
wrath without need. Making it more painful for staffers to talk to the public
will just get you less of that, nothing else.

~~~
superkuh
I suppose that's a bit better but I was kind of objecting to the NYT and other
large papers habit of sourcing these anonymous comments from government
officials. This is not a one-off thing. It's their status quo.

~~~
anarazel
It just seems like it has nothing to do with the article. Upon rereading they
even have his name in there:

    
    
        Mr. Murry, who is an adviser for Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, raised doubts over the weekend about whether that debate will be necessary. His remarks came during a podcast for the national security website Lawfare.

~~~
superkuh
It did. But they changed the article (for the better!). It's too bad that
Newsdiffs no longer works.

[http://newsdiffs.org/article-
history/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww....](http://newsdiffs.org/article-
history/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2019%2F03%2F04%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fnsa-
phone-records-program-shut-down.html)

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KorematsuFred
Credibility Score: Gas Stations Sushi 0.24 NSA : 0.01

~~~
mediawatch05
The Chinese government is doing all this and more. So is Iran, No Ko, Russia,
to the greatest extent they can.

Credibility score:

US government agencies: 0.52

UK, Aus, Canada govts: 0.6

Chinese government: 0.01

~~~
KorematsuFred
The question is does USA see Russia, China, Iran as its peers and want to be
in their league or not.

It is okay to be a despotic regime as long as you also face the risks that
come along with it. USA does not face such risks and hence it can not be okay
to compare it with say Russia.

I am reminded of the following (obviously fictional) story where Ronald Regan
and Gorbachev wondered who had the most loyal soldiers. Ronald Regan asked one
of his bodyguard to shoot himself to show his loyalty. The bodyguard laughed
and asked Regan to fuck off. Gorbachev asked the same of his bodyguard who
promptly shot himself to death. Regan was very surprised and asked Gorbachev
as to how come his bodyguard was so loyal. Gorbachev said, he was protecting
his family by killing himself.

I do not think China, Russia or Saudi Barbaria are worthwhile bechmarks for
USA. Those countries have achieved little and will continue to achieve little.

------
mehrdadn
Any reason to believe there aren't other programs doing similar things?

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Death by a thousand cuts.

Building a haystack to search for needles isn't free. If it's not delivering
enough needles then people are going to be under pressure to end the program.
I think a lot of people in government have smartened up to the fact that these
things can be just as easily used against them if they fall out of favor and
that having this sort of ongoing data collection could become liability if the
wrong kind of people are in charge. The kinds of things Muller has chosen to
prosecute certainly makes a lot of people in Washington nervous about their
skeletons in the closet so there's less political tolerance of these kinds of
programs than there once was. Snowden's leaks and greater public knowledge of
these programs have reduced public support. It frees up resources to go after
Russian trolls (or whatever), hunting terrorists is so 2005. There really is
no way you can justify a program like this in 2019 (or so we hope), they've
been proven ineffective and unpopular.

~~~
mycall
Conversely, their vacuum everything approach could have landed them additional
evidence against Russian hackers.

~~~
jessaustin
It would be nice if NSA did something about ransomware, but I'm not holding my
breath... they seem to have other priorities.

------
huffmsa
The lack of trust in these comments is heartening.

"Shutting down this program" != "No longer collecting and analyzing this data"

NYT continues it's path to full mouthpiece for MiniTruth.

~~~
JetSpiegel
It was MiniTru. Off to Room 101 with you.

------
14
Does anyone actually believe this? Call me skeptical, but would they not just
shut down "this" program them redesign it, adjust it a little, call it
something different and act as if they were completely honest with the people
and continue on doing exactly the same thing under a different name?

~~~
dylan604
“Black briar is a program that we thought showed a lot of promise, but didn’t
pan out so we’re shutting it down. This next project Treadstone is something
we think really has some legs...”

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posterboy
... because everything runs over IP now and old "phone" interconnects aren't
used nyway. Jinxed!

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gscott
The NSA doesn't need to collect anything:

"AT&T’s Project Atmosphere was unveiled Tuesday by the Daily Beast to be
secretly selling customer data to law enforcement agencies for the purpose of
investigating everything from murder to medical fraud."

[https://www.newsweek.com/att-spying-program-worse-snowden-
re...](https://www.newsweek.com/att-spying-program-worse-snowden-
revelations-513812)

Letter to the SEC from AT&T (linked below)

"Hemisphere is a government program, its design and scope are determined by
governmental authorities, and AT&T has a legal compliance program in place in
response to authorized intelligence and law enforcement efforts."

[https://www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/cf-
noaction/14a-8/2017...](https://www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/cf-
noaction/14a-8/2017/ewencampen013017-14a8.pdf)

\-------------

[https://reason.com/blog/2013/09/02/report-dea-has-been-
secre...](https://reason.com/blog/2013/09/02/report-dea-has-been-secretly-
snooping-on)

[https://www.fastcompany.com/40590766/atts-long-
partnership-w...](https://www.fastcompany.com/40590766/atts-long-partnership-
with-nsa-is-just-another-swamp-romance)

[https://www.cnet.com/news/dea-supplied-with-access-to-
vast-d...](https://www.cnet.com/news/dea-supplied-with-access-to-vast-
database-of-at-t-phone-records/)

[https://www.aol.com/article/finance/2016/10/25/atandt-
report...](https://www.aol.com/article/finance/2016/10/25/atandt-reportedly-
has-a-secret-program-that-helps-law-enforcement/21591852/)

[https://www.cnbc.com/2013/11/07/cia-said-to-pay-att-for-
call...](https://www.cnbc.com/2013/11/07/cia-said-to-pay-att-for-call-
data.html)

[https://www.aclu.org/other/hepting-v-att-challenging-
corpora...](https://www.aclu.org/other/hepting-v-att-challenging-corporate-
collusion-nsa)

[https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/10/27/u-s-taxpayers-
pay-a...](https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/10/27/u-s-taxpayers-pay-att-
millions-of-dollars-a-year-for-the-privilege-of-spying-on-them/)

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marcrosoft
If you say so...

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skookumchuck
Consider the ever-widening of demands for papers and records of Trump
associates in an effort to find something, anything, to get him on, or at
least discourage anyone from working in the White House, and isolate Trump.

It's an example of the government using its investigative powers for political
purposes. I recall when Nixon tried to sic the IRS on his enemies.

