
NSA Response to XKEYSCORE allegations - md224
http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/press_room/2013/30_July_2013.shtml
======
brymaster
Remember also that the NSA has several programs split up to hide and deny what
they do:

Bruce Schneier: "The agency has been playing all sorts of games with names,
dividing their efforts up and using many different code names in an attempt to
disguise what they’re doing. It allows them to deny that a specific program is
doing something, while conveniently omitting the fact that another program is
doing the thing and the two programs are talking to each other."

[http://blog.ted.com/2013/07/17/security-experts-on-the-
nsas-...](http://blog.ted.com/2013/07/17/security-experts-on-the-nsas-real-
problems/)

[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/07/more_nsa_coden...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/07/more_nsa_codena.html)

------
pvnick
I find it fascinating that they are essentially corroborating everything
Greenwald and Snowden have said, except just being nitpicky on tone and scope.
Especially this:

"One feature is the system's ability to limit what an analyst can do with a
tool, based on the source of the collection and each analyst's defined
responsibilities. Not every analyst can perform every function, and no analyst
can operate freely."

I seem to remember almost those exact words coming from the first Snowden
interview:

"Any analyst at any time can target anyone, any selector, anywhere. Where
those communications will be picked up depends on the range of the sensor
networks and the authorities that analyst is empowered with. Not all analysts
have the ability to target everything. But I sitting at my desk certainly had
the authorities to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a Federal
judge to even the President if I had a personal e-mail."

~~~
micah94
I'm going to file these paragraphs away, so the next time I need to bullshit
someone, I'll have some great examples. Not only do they hire the best
mathematicians and scientists, but I'm sure there's an English major or two.

~~~
vasilipupkin
"no analyst can operate freely" would contradict Snowden's assertion that he
personally could target anyone

~~~
tlrobinson
As a system administrator Snowden presumably had lower-level access to the
systems than analysts.

~~~
walesmd
Incorrect (former NSA system administrator here). We're "read on" to special
compartments beyond the scope of our need to know due to the nature of our
work. It would be quite difficult for me to correct an issue if I was unable
to see and/or duplicate that issue.

------
jstalin
I don't give a shit how much training these people get, the very fact that a
gigantic database of potentially all Internet traffic exists is itself a
threat to freedom, open society, and the rule of law.

~~~
lern_too_spel
The point at the beginning of the press release is that gigantic database
doesn't exist. According to the government, they only collect data that has
been authorized by a court, which includes large scale metadata collection
like call logs or email headers passing through international cable landing
sites in the US (collection that stopped in 2011 according to the leaked
documents) together with full data with realtime monitoring from certain US-
based internet companies for specific users under a surveillance court order.

Access to that data is severely restricted and audited according to this
document.

~~~
jstalin
I've got a bridge to sell you. Interested?

~~~
lern_too_spel
You're making yet another extraordinary claim without any proof.

~~~
lukifer
I would say that specific statements by multiple whistleblowers constitutes
evidence, if not proof.

~~~
blueprint
It doesn't matter anyway, the burden is not on citizens to prove that the
government is spying on them, the burden is on the government to prove to the
citizens that it's no longer lying to the society.

------
joshfraser
Forgive us for not trusting you when a few weeks ago you denied under oath
that this capability even existed. We may have a short memory as a country,
but not that short!

~~~
harshreality
I think you'll find that most people in the USA still do not have any real
concern about the NSA/Snowden/XKEYSCORE/etc. situation, other than perhaps
amusement that a "traitor" who leaked classified information and is agitating
for more freedom is now holed up in _Moscow_ of all places.

Perhaps some parts of the NSA's programs will eventually be forbidden by the
courts, but even then the vast majority of Americans won't care one way or the
other. They want cat videos. They don't care if the NSA is monitoring their
facebook chats. They think they're innocent of anything and everything. They
don't understand the potential consequences, under this government or under
some future government that gets to enforce even more laws even more
aggressively.

~~~
D9u
I'm an American, and I am greatly concerned that our government has
overstepped its mandate as well as abrogated the public trust by perpetrating
this travesty.

I never considered Snowden to be a "traitor," I consider him to have made a
great sacrifice in order to bring this situation to light, especially since
the past revelations flew right under the radar, so to speak, regarding the
AT&T revelations years ago.

Sure I like cat videos, and other inane content, but I also am abhorred by
dragnet surveillance.

I completely understand the possible consequences of such surveillance, and am
dismayed when people cite "Godwin's Law" whenever I draw parallels between the
current spy atrocities and those of the Stasi.

I fully realize that our next president could have even fewer reservations
than Obama about furthering this draconian system as well as ramping up the
encroaching police state we see here today.

Thus I refuse to cease talking about this issue, as I want people to be aware
of just how slippery this slope actually is.

------
graycat
Fine, great, terrific, sounds good, like we can trust the NSA.

Reading this about all the protections, now that we know at least some of what
Snowden did, we're talking high comedy.

While all those internal checks, balances, controls, ethics, assurances, etc.
sound good, they are all too easily just self serving BS.

We need to keep our eyes on the point, the main point, the crucial point which
is: If they grab data on US citizens without a proper warrant, then lots of US
citizens will conclude that the NSA is in violation of the Fourth Amendment,
with all the NSA assurances irrelevant. Stop. Period. Guilty. Done.

I as one US citizen greatly prefer the Fourth Amendment to any contributions
to my safety that might be provided by the NSA and however proper the NSA
makes their activities sound. Did I mention I like the Fourth Amendment?

------
tmuir
The problem with every explanation from any intelligence agency ever is that
they are extremely motivated to keep everyone else uninformed. To that end,
they have demonstrated their willingness to disinform everyone, including
congress. Once faced with damning evidence that they lied, they conveniently
redefined a universally understood verb, and said that they _had_ to mislead
us. They also want us to know that they thought this whole incident was
"cute".

If you can lie to congress, and suffer no meaningful consequences, how can any
reasonable person have any meaningful level of confidence in the accuracy of
any statement that you have ever made or will ever make?

------
unclebucknasty
> _all of our analytic tools are aimed at information we collect pursuant to
> lawful authority_

The use of the word "lawful" is slick and misleading. They "own" a rubber
stamp court that never says no and re-interprets laws to their liking.

So, virtually whatever they want to do is "lawful" by definition.

~~~
quantumpotato_
Can't upvote this enough. They reprogram their language at their whim. #define
lawful ..

------
bdamm
> This training not only covers the mechanics of the tool but also each
> analyst's ethical and legal obligations.

Which means, of course, that analysts can operate outside of their ethical and
legal obligations. And to me, that is the foundation of the issue. Who pays
what analyst in DC to dig up dirt?

And to the statement that access is audited... how many analysts were fired
for overstepping their ethical obligations? Is that information collected or
released?

~~~
charonn0
An audit is meaningless when conducted by the very organization being audited.

~~~
carey
Who should do this kind of audit? The GAO is part of the legislative branch,
not the executive branch, but presumably they wouldn't have enough
"clearance".

~~~
charonn0
That's the problem, and that's why these programs should be terminated. An un-
auditable spy agency answerable only to the President is manifestly
unconstitutional, dangerous, and wrong.

~~~
VladRussian2
>An un-auditable spy agency answerable only to the President

i somehow think that its answerability to the President is overrated.
Presidents come and go, the machine continues humming :)

------
haven
Under the NSA's definition of 'foreign', a 51% likeliness of foreignness (a
coin flip plus 1%), they only target foreigners. Use tor, there is the 1%.
Speak a language other than English, gosh that must be worth 10%.

This goes on word after word. The NSA statements are blatantly false. They can
only even pretend it is true by twisting words so far they no longer resemble
their actual meaning.

------
D9u

         Allegations of widespread, unchecked analyst access to NSA collection data are simply not true. Access to XKEYSCORE, as well as all of NSA's analytic tools, is limited to only those personnel who require access for their assigned tasks. Those personnel must complete appropriate training prior to being granted such access -training which must be repeated on a regular basis.
    

I call bullshit!

If what the professional liar's agency says is true, how do they explain an
admitted low level analyst, working for a non governmental 3rd party
corporation, gaining access to the alleged trove of NSA secrets claimed by
Snowden?

------
frou_dh
Presumably statements about what is and isn't being "collected" are based on a
twisted and non-intuitive definition of the word.

------
aravenel
The NSA keeps saying that no one is abusing this program. That's completely
beside the point--the point is that this program shouldn't exist at all.

~~~
alan_cx
Yeah, the program it's self is the abuse.

------
prawn
I like how the slogan at the bottom of the page looks like one of those "How
useful did you find this article?" questionnaires on Microsoft's site:

[http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_images/slogan.jpg](http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_images/slogan.jpg)

"Four stars! Would trust again!"

------
jhermsmeyer
My favorite slide from Greenwald's article was the justification field from
the Search Email Addresses Query [1].

It's a one line field. With an addition one line field for "Additional
Justification".

This press release is actually expansive by comparison to their typical
justifications.

[1] -
[https://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.hipchat.com/17859/77014/djo...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.hipchat.com/17859/77014/djowrd2zqz1nkzx/upload.png)

------
brianpgordon
> Not every analyst can perform every function, and no analyst can operate
> freely. Every search by an NSA analyst is fully auditable, to ensure that
> they are proper and within the law.

Didn't Snowden specifically deny that this is true?

~~~
mpyne
No, Snowden even mentioned that the audit rate was rather low. 2% or 8% or
something like that, and elsewhere in this thread someone pasted a direct
quote of his that analysts are indeed not given full permissions to do
anything.

But the NSA is saying that all analysts don't have full powers; that doesn't
mean that the permissions they _do_ have are not still overly broad, or that
programs like these don't need much more transparency.

You can't so much as send a nuclear ship to sea without their engineering
department being audited (almost literally) up the ass to verify they won't
break the reactor, so there's surely more that Congress and DoD can do to
ensure proper oversight of the NSA.

------
3327
Lies, lies and lies... The sad thing is everything they have already done CAN
be and could have been done by respecting laws. Its just easier to break them
when you are nearly untouchable.

------
timscott
What caught my attention was the use of "analytic tools" as a euphemism for
"surveillance tools." One could dismiss it as corporate-speak or techie-speak,
but it rings in my head more like newspeak, and you know the purpose of that.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak)

------
cma
Over 300 terrorists!

~~~
tjaerv
As of 2008: "For example, as of 2008, there were over 300 terrorists captured
using intelligence generated from XKEYSCORE."

Anyone have an idea why they'd give a 5-year-old figure? One would hope that
the figure as of 2013 should be more impressive?

~~~
harshreality
"...captured using intelligence generated from..." is another of those trick
phrases.

It doesn't clearly imply that without the program they wouldn't have captured
those terrorists.

It doesn't clearly imply that any reduction in scope of xkeyscore would have
let some of those 300 terrorists escape capture.

All it means for sure is that data from xkeyscore is part of the picture they
looked at of those 300 terrorists leading up to their captures.

I wonder how many bona fide terrorists the government captured from 2001-2008.

~~~
bostik
> "...captured using intelligence generated from..." is another of those trick
> phrases. > It doesn't clearly imply that without the program they wouldn't
> have captured those terrorists.

Those are excellent points, and I wish they were raised more often. I'd like
to add one more: How many of those captured were terrorists only thanks to
your own government setting them up for the task first? In other words, how
much of this was the result of "manufactured terrorism", ála FBI? (ref:
[http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/terror-
factory-f...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/terror-factory-fbi-
trevor-aaronson-book) and the earlier article linked from the story.)

After all, the actors in those programs still needed to communicate. Judging
by the two articles the subjects weren't particularly bright either, so they
probably would not have known how to protect their communications. Thus they
were bound to generate material that would be scooped up the NSA programs. The
fact that the plots were not only known in advance, but planned by your own
government officials simply ensured that they would know with perfect accuracy
where to look and what to look for.

A naked figure of "300 terrorists captured" is therefore meaningless, just
like you said. Without a futher breakdown, the figure just feels like
marketing.

As an odd side note - this makes manufactured terrorism look a bit like
astroturfing. A scary thought.

------
mrcharles
OH WELL THEN. Everything's fine. Carry on!

 _eyeroll_

~~~
general_failure
Seriously, I thought there was like mass surveillance and all that stuff going
on. But it's all clear now. This is about national security. And oh, thing
about the kids!

------
quantumpotato_
Vimium shortcut: "HA". I'm amused, yet terrified, at their response.

------
northwest
NSA, short for:

Nope, not Saying Anything.

~~~
ISL
That's the NNSA. They're in the important business of nuclear stockpile
management.

------
Buzaga
"Moxie Marlinspike ‏@moxie 8h

Gen Alexander says that we shouldn't worry about NSA collection because
analysts have taken a pledge. Also, they took a class."

~~~
rozap
Pledge, oath, bullshit. I believe Clapper was under oath when he lied to Wyden
about this stuff in the first place.

