
House Votes to End N.S.A.’s Bulk Phone Data Collection - colinmegill
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/us/house-votes-to-end-nsas-bulk-phone-data-collection.html?module=Notification&version=BreakingNews&region=FixedTop&action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=34380121&pgtype=Homepage
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xnull6guest
Let's be clear about what the "FREEDOM Act" does. It does not make NSA Bulk
Collection of phone data illegal. What it does is rearrange the laws and
request process and more carefully enumerate and define procedures by which
the NSA may acquire and query phone records that are stored in bulk.

It also focuses primarily on phone records and one phone record program. There
are dozens of phone record programs and hundreds of different types of signals
that are collected that are not subjects of the "FREEDOM Act".

Now (like it presumably was before) the NSA will not have full takes of all
American phone records. They will force companies to keep these records for
them though, and they will continue to have the ability to query them.

It doesn't matter if nobody is watching 99.5% of CCTV footage. If CCTVs watch
every square inch of a city and record it for later possible inspection,
that's surveillance. It does not matter if human analysts do not inspect 99.5%
of the bulk data. It is still surveillance.

It was also surveillance when the KGB forced private citizens to keep tabs on
one another. It does not matter whether it is Google, Yahoo, Apple, Microsoft,
Dropbox, Facebook, and Comcast doing the surveillance on compulsion of the
Fed. All of our data and communications are being stored and processed.

It is still, categorically, surveillance.

~~~
mikerichards
I guess you have an ideological bent that considers it a shuffling of deck
chairs. At the end of the day, I would rather have private companies holding
the records than government for reasons that should be obvious.

~~~
asgard1024
> I would rather have private companies holding the records than government
> for reasons that should be obvious

They are certainly not obvious to me. With government, there is a democratic
oversight, you can (at least in theory) vote to have these records destroyed
or stop collecting them and so on.

However, when private company does it, what kind of control do you have over
them? Especially if they are 3rd party.

~~~
rev_null
Government has a monopoly on violence. Private companies do not.

~~~
dragonwriter
In the theory from which that line originates, it is definitional rather than
descriptive: under that theory, whatever has a monopoly on _legitimate_ use of
force in a territory is _called_ the State, whether or not it is the thing
that purports to be "the government" or not.

------
staunch
The fight is long from over, but everyone should be calling for Snowden's
unconditional pardon and then a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

~~~
tptacek
It is not actually true that good outcomes from Snowden's actions eliminates
all his culpability. In fact: we don't even know how culpable he is --- we
haven't seen the last Snowden disclosure yet --- so it's pretty difficult to
come to the conclusion that he should be unconditionally pardoned.

~~~
rgbrenner
Exactly right tptacek... people forget that Snowden isn't just disclosing NSA
spying. For example, he disclosed intelligence about a failed al-queda plot
that:

 _revealed that the United States intercepted messages between Ayman al-
Zawahri, who succeeded Osama bin Laden as the head of Al Qaida, and Nasser al-
Wuhayshi, the head of the Yemen-based Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula,
discussing an imminent terrorist attack_ [0]

And as a result, they may have changed communication methods.

He's had other questionable discloses as well.

0\. [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/us/qaeda-plot-leak-has-
und...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/us/qaeda-plot-leak-has-undermined-
us-intelligence.html?pagewanted=all)

~~~
jodah
You mean the journalists, who vetted and chose to publish the material,
disclosed this. As has been discussed exhaustively, Snowden didn't disclose
anything himself, opting to rely on the expertise and judgement of partner
journalists to select which items to write about. Keep in mind, many times
more items were withheld than not.

~~~
irishcoffee
I'm not sure how this is seen as a positive thing. Journalists, with, on
average, limited knowledge of infosec, holding in their possession classified
documents. Lots and lots of classified documents. I'd wager a guess that at
least a handful of these journalists were holding said documents on a system
that had its share of known vulnerabilities.

I'd be absurdly happy to be proven wrong, but there is a very high chance that
every single document snowden distributed is on sale to the highest bidder,
and has been for a while.

~~~
robotkilla
There is zero evidence that the data was stolen from these journalists and
sold to the highest bidder. Since there is zero evidence, you have to cinsider
yourself wrong for now.

~~~
irishcoffee
Ah, I am not so sure about that. [1] These are just things publicly available
on google in a 3-minute perusal of search results.

Paragraph 15 [0]

[1] [http://politix.topix.com/story/6798-who-stole-computer-
from-...](http://politix.topix.com/story/6798-who-stole-computer-from-glenn-
greenwalds-home)

[0][http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/world/asia/china-said-
to-h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/world/asia/china-said-to-have-made-
call-to-let-leaker-depart.html?hp&_r=0)

~~~
robotkilla
Even still, no claims by any government agency or any other source have been
laid that the data in question was stolen from Greenwald or his team.
Believing that the data was stolen and sold is mere conjecture.

~~~
irishcoffee
I guess you didn't read the links.

> Two Western intelligence experts, who worked for major government spy
> agencies, said they believed that the Chinese government had managed to
> drain the contents of the four laptops that Mr. Snowden said he brought to
> Hong Kong, and that he said were with him during his stay at a Hong Kong
> hotel.

I believe that qualifies as a "claim by a government agency"

~~~
robotkilla
actually, i did read it (you seem to assume a lot of things). speculation by
two ex-intelligence experts hardly confirms that the data was stolen.
Believing the assumptions of two experts is no better than believing your own
assumptions.

------
bsimpson
Cool. They're stopping that one spy program everybody knows about.

How many more do you think there are that are even more egregious but they
don't have public pressure to end because nobody realizes they exist?

~~~
Nadya
There's also the possibility this is all a Limited Hangout - COINTEL Tactic

Ignore video - read description.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wApOHk92Ds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wApOHk92Ds)

I only bring this up as it is within the realm of possibility. Especially with
the massive media narrative surrounding the entire thing. Although it seems a
_little_ too conspiracy theory for people to sink their teeth into the
possibility.

The sheer amount of spying operations makes me think its sincere on Snowden's
part. If it were truly a limited hangout operation, why would they release so
many programs? Why not only 1 or 2? What would they be trying to distract the
general population from? What could their agenda be behind doing this at all?

The closest "agenda" they could be trying to push is the "necessary backdoors
to circumvent encryption then we wouldn't need all these spy tools for mass
surveillance" pitch that kinda flopped for obvious reasons.

E:

To clarify there can be other reasons for a limited hangout. For example, to
test the water of the governments control over the population. How many people
have you seen that hold the opinion Snowden is an American Traitor who should
be killed?

That is a red flag to me that there are Americans who trust the government
enough to forego their own privacy for promised security, even when the
security has failed to be delivered. This is good testing grounds to see "how
far the government can push things" to keep control over the population.
Knowledge is power - and the government is collecting it en masse on its
people.

We've learned enough from history that brutal dictatorships end in downfall of
the leaders. What about a complacent "ownership" where the 99% slave away for
the 1% in rather blissful happiness of their situation? It's not all bad, they
make a decent living after all, why would they ruin it with a revolt? If I
were part of the 1%, that would be my goal. Keep the 99% happy and make my
life an easy one where I can do anything I like.

All speculation and philosophical thinking to spark discussion of course.

~~~
ikeboy
At the very beginning I thought Snowden was a plant, mostly because he claimed
to have hundreds of thousands of docs but was releasing very few, but as time
went on and more kept on being leaked I realized it couldn't be.

~~~
Nadya
The American population tends to forget about incidents mere months after they
happen. Small releases over time was how Snowden made sure that people did not
forget about it. I believe he even stated that was why he handed over the
documents in large groups, but not all at once.

I do not think he is a plant. * _Puts on my conspiracy hat_ * But maybe that's
what they want me to think?

------
ccvannorman
Is it just me, or did anyone else have to double-check to see that this was an
ANTI-spying bill and not a PRO-spying bill? I wish bills were required to have
descriptive names.

TL;DR: It's a good one, but EFF and others feel it doesn't go nearly far
enough to curb spying.

~~~
danboarder
> "TL;DR: It's a good one, but EFF and others feel it doesn't go nearly far
> enough to curb spying."

Actually, it's NOT a good one. To quote Rep. Justin Amash on USA Freedom:
“H.R. 2048 actually expands the statutory basis for the large-scale collection
of most data“

* [http://tumblr.fightforthefuture.org/post/118897240668/justin...](http://tumblr.fightforthefuture.org/post/118897240668/justin-amash-on-usa-freedom-h-r-2048-actually)

~~~
jMyles
Amash is emerging to play a Ron Paul esque role of which both Paul's
supporters and detractors made incredible use:

He's the only one who is strangely saying something different than the rest.

At his young age, it's possible to imagine Amash breaking Paul's record for
casting the largest number of sole nays.

~~~
NolF
He also goes through the hassle of explaining his votes. Which is nice to see
and understand his thought process.

------
DanielBMarkham
Being a libertarian, I don't want to do all the knee-jerk stuff on here in
response, but for context we must remember that bulk data collection was never
authorized in the first place.

So it very well may be that metadata collection ends under the Patriot Act and
continues under some sealed executive order from the G.W. Bush years.

If watching DC over the last decade or so has taught me anything, it's to be
very careful noticing the difference between what things appear to be and what
they actually are.

ADD: Just to be clear "Congress votes (and the president signs) a law to
outlaw bulk data collection" is one headline. "The House of Representatives
fails to authorize some forms of bulk collection by no longer continuing
certain provisions" is another. The House is not voting to end anything.

Mr. Headline Writer Person: please do not confuse these two completely
different scenarios.

------
MCRed
Wake me when the president signs a bill into law that ends the Patriot Act,
once and for all.

To be honest, we should have standards and secret courts and "national
security" letters are the very thing that the constitution was designed to
stop. (the fourth amendment and the like were meant to put an end to the
equivalent of that era.)

Signing or voting for any continuation of the Patriot Act should be considered
an unforgivable act by anyone who values freedom.

~~~
wanderingstan
> (the fourth amendment and the like were meant to put an end to the
> equivalent of that era.)

Do you know off hand the name of those era's equivalents? Just some search
terms to get me going would be appreciated. I'd like to learn more about the
historical precedent.

~~~
joshstrange
I haven't finished reading it yet but this appears to be a good read with
sources
[https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/generalwarrantsmemo.p...](https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/generalwarrantsmemo.pdf)

It's linked to from this page which also may help
[http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/07/nsa-spying-is-
exactly...](http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/07/nsa-spying-is-exactly-the-
kind-of-thing-which-caused-the-revolutionary-war-against-king-george.html)

------
fysac
I'm so confused. What about this?

[https://www.usafreedom.fail/](https://www.usafreedom.fail/)

~~~
drawkbox
Oh I see what they did. Patriot Act section 215 was up in June 1, 2015. So
they did this "USA Freedom Act" a month before to extend that to 2019.
[https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr2048/text/ih#li...](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr2048/text/ih#link=VII_705_a_~T1&nearest=H3970213DCD8B4A7C9D2AC368B1ADFDCA)

"Section 102(b)(1) of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of
2005 (50 U.S.C. 1805 note) is amended by striking June 1, 2015 and inserting
December 15, 2019."

So no need to fight that Patriot Act fight for another 4 years.

It is definitely time to switch to SB, HB and numbers for bills and no
propagandistic naming of bills for sure so they can't get this fast track
mentality. They are also pushing through TPP with strong-arming while
presenting this false NSA good news as a top story.

~~~
nickbauman
> It is definitely time to switch to SB, HB and numbers for bills and no
> propagandistic naming of bills

I think this is what should happen.

------
Zigurd
Good. Domestic spying means less and slower social progress, because the
leading edge of social progress will be seen as dangerous and programs like
what NSA have been running will be used to crush it in the early stages of
development. There is a real cost to living in a panopticon.

~~~
shard972
This re-enforces the spying apparatus by giving them rules they otherwise made
up for themselves. This bill doesn't give you any privacy.

------
pvnick
Is the Freedom act even relevant at the moment? Since a district court ruled
that the bulk collection is already illegal under the current law and Rand
Paul and Ron Wyden are threatening to filibuster the renewal of the expiring
Patriot Act, it seems that civil rights hawks currently have the upper hand,
or at least an advantageous bargaining position. Why pass another law that
could be skewed to give the intelligence agencies more loopholes?

~~~
tanderson92
The district court decision is anything but established precedent.

~~~
magicalist
Not sure why you both wrote "district court". It was the Second Circuit:
[http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/NSA_ca2_20150507.pdf](http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/NSA_ca2_20150507.pdf)

------
simoncion
I'm not 100% sure, but I think that a legislative end to the program moots any
currently running judicial challenges to it. So, if Congress shuts the program
down, the Supreme Court will never get to weigh in on the constitutionality of
the whole thing.

If I'm not wrong about _that_ , I would _much_ rather let the damn thing run
for a few more years and have the Supremes kill it for good.

~~~
tsotha
The risk, of course, is they might rule it's legal.

~~~
simoncion
It seems that that risk is small:
[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/senate-intelligence-
ch...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/senate-intelligence-chair-
constituents-i-dont-care-what-you-think) (Paragraph four is most relevant, but
'graphs one through three also make good reading.)

Moreover, recent court cases at all levels make it clear that the Judicial
system is pretty sick of surveillance methods that rely on _creative_
interpretations of law.

If the Supremes don't get a chance to weigh in and stake this behavior through
the heart, Congress will soon dismantle some or all of it, only piece the
programs back together over the next few years[0].

[0] Much as Ma Bell pieced itself back together (sans Bell Labs) after the
breakup.

~~~
tsotha
You're most likely correct in that they would rule it illegal, though I don't
think we should underestimate the court's ability to produce convoluted
decisions to support the _status quo_. See _Gonzales v Raich_.

~~~
simoncion
Agreed.

I think it's totally worth the risk.

------
swombat
Or not: [https://www.usafreedom.fail/](https://www.usafreedom.fail/)

------
timtas
Such sophistry from The Paper of Record. Honest headlines might be:

House Declines to Let The Patriot Act Expire as Planned

or House Votes to Extend the Patriot Act...Again

or House Votes to Extend the Patriot Act, Attempts to Curtail Worse Excesses

Here's a hint, NYT. When Milton Friedman said "Nothing is so permanent as a
temporary government program," he was being critical not descriptive.

------
higherpurpose
So the Senate will pass...this bill?

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/op-ed-why-the-
eff...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/op-ed-why-the-eff-is-
pulling-its-support-for-the-usa-freedom-act/)

~~~
joshstrange
See the EEF's response [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/landslide-vote-
house-o...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/landslide-vote-house-
overwhelmingly-passes-usa-freedom-act-without-amendments)

------
jaredhansen
_... And in related news, NSA internal leadership votes to continue bulk data
collection anyway._

Call me overly cynical, but I suspect that the legislative branch lost
meaningful influence on the executive in this area some time ago.

~~~
jessaustin
Hell, the executive _and_ the chain of command _both_ would have a hard time
forcing the hand of a recalcitrant NSA: " _Joint Chief Smith, we 're happy to
discuss your objections to our policy, but first we'd like to review some
saved communications we have that document some of_ your _conduct. On page 2,
we cover your first year at West Point..._ "

------
niels_olson
> A compromise of some form must be reached before June 1, when the provision
> of the Patriot Act that allows the N.S.A. dragnet expires.

Actually, it would seem the best outcome would be to prolong things past the
1st...

------
JumpCrisscross
What happens to records already collected?

------
eonw
well its about time.

but i am sure they will come up with another clever name for it and just keep
on doing it.

------
shmerl
Great, but what about bulk collection of Internet traffic which is even more
critical?

~~~
phy6
And should we expect a rise in the VOIP industry to get around these proposed
changes?

------
felixfurtak
so... only phone data collection then. what about everything else?

------
redchili
Is Obama going to veto this? If he does that would be out of character and
alarming. At the same time, he has never really shunned the NSA at all.

------
guelo
It gives me some hope for this country that this issue doesn't fall along the
normal party line divisions.

~~~
peteretep
I suspect this is always the case when both sides feel equally vulnerable to
an issue.

------
wsloth514
Is it me or is this a misleading title?

------
sneak
Great, so now all the people who make phone calls in the US will be safe from
metadata collection of their contact graph...

...unless they make them on a smartphone OS from a PRISM partner vendor like
Google or Apple.

Or call someone outside of the country that only holds 4% of humans.

Or make the call on Skype or Facebook.

Or send an email.

It's progress, I guess. But is it meaningful progress?

~~~
tptacek
There is zero evidence establishing that a source appearing in PRISM implies
that their smartphone OS is backdoored.

~~~
jsmthrowaway
Snowden said directly, twice, and it meshes with my own speculation from
having worked at two of the implicated companies, that PRISM is the NSA-side
codename for an efficient warrant process and nothing more.

~~~
sneak
Calling them warrants when they are issued by the FISA rubberstamp court (or
are NSLs) is quite a stretch.

