

NSA Contracts Israeli Company for Wiretapping  - kumarski
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/04/shady-companies-nsa/

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stephengillie
_According to a former Verizon employee briefed on the program, Verint, owned
by Comverse Technology, taps the communication lines at Verizon, which I first
reported in my book The Shadow Factory in 2008. Verint did not return a call
seeking comment, while Verizon said it does not comment on such matters.

At AT&T the wiretapping rooms are powered by software and hardware from Narus,
now owned by Boeing, a discovery made by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein in
2004. Narus did not return a call seeking comment._

Pardon my ignorance, but why is the connection to Israel bad?

~~~
kumarski
Not sure there is a bad connection.

The fact that we're outsourcing our invasion of privacy to a foreign
corporation is already hard to digest for many people.

~~~
otoburb
Please keep in mind even if (in this case) Verint's solution (software and
hardware) may be tapping/intercepting data, whether they are allowed to view
the data is a different matter.

In most of those cases, 3rd party solutions are deployed (install, configured,
integrated) and supported by the vendors, but they typically don't have direct
access to the intercepted data.

Of course, that's not to say that these 3rd parties couldn't get access to
intercepted data if they really wanted to. But I want to point out that
carrier policies (usually) dictate a strict separation of concerns
specifically designed to protect privacy so that such data only available to
carrier security teams and law enforcement personnel.

~~~
joewee
...right because Intelligence Agencies have no experience at building complex
back doors into products...yeah, that never happens...

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mrschwabe
Also note that Google has a secret working relationship with the NSA so
thoeretically your search data is also being 'outsourced' to Israel.

[http://www.pcworld.com/article/217550/google_comes_under_fir...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/217550/google_comes_under_fire_for_secret_relationship_with_nsa.html)

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mtgx
Is this so they can say _they_ did it, not us?

~~~
mindslight
Bingo. The NSA, really the USG writ large, only 'respects' the constitution to
politically cover their asses and to claim they're bound by some sort of rules
(no matter how broken those rules actually are). By now, it should be
sparkling clear that these organizations have no respect for the ideals that
the constitution attempted to enshrine, namely personal freedom and a
government subservient to the people, and they should be continually called
out as the illegitimate charlatans they are. I can't claim to have a specific
way of ousting these parasites, but I can assert that any such way doesn't
involve constitutional fundamentalism, D/R consent voting, incremental
hopechange, believing authoritarian propaganda, narrowing the blame to a few
'bad apples', flag waving, or pushing the reality of the situation to the back
of your conscience.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
That's not entirely fair. It's not like every single person in these huge
institutions is craven unprincipled authoritarian.

But there are clear cultural problems, and a broader political failure that
enables these flaws to escape accountability.

I wish I had an easy answer, but sadly, I think the way things will go is that
they'll get worse before they get better, and the process of change will not
be easy. In the meantime, a great many largely innocent people are going to
get ground up in the gears of the system our society is building.

~~~
mindslight
The specifics of the individuals and their beliefs don't matter, the ultimate
behavior of the institutions is corrupt. Talking about culture and notions of
accountability is missing the forest for the trees - any resulting reforms
will simply be received as 'what hoops do we have to jump through now?'. The
only way to stop the NSA from performing surveillance on everybody is to
completely remove their on-books funding and then dismantle the remaining
criminal organization.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
I'm sorry, but that just doesn't match reality.

I wish we lived in a world where we could put down our stick and trust
everyone else to do likewise, but I do not believe that is the case.

The problem we have right now is ensuring the stick is used morally. That is
an inherently cultural concept. There is no easy answer, unless you believe
you are entitled to the same autocratic oppression of those you criticize.

