

DNI Statement on Recent Unauthorized Disclosures of Classified Information - merinid
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.dni.gov%2Findex.php%2Fnewsroom%2Fpress-releases%2F191-press-releases-2013%2F868-dni-statement-on-recent-unauthorized-disclosures-of-classified-information

======
mindcrime
_Discussing programs like this publicly will have an impact on the behavior of
our adversaries and make it more difficult for us to understand their
intentions._

Tough. Work harder.

 _Surveillance programs like this one are consistently subject to safeguards
that are designed to strike the appropriate balance between national security
interests and civil liberties and privacy concerns_

Words, words, words, words... blah, blah, blah, Fluffy.

YOU, Mr. Clapper and your agency, are accountable to US, you know, the "We The
People" bit? And when you operate in the shadows, hidden away behind a wall of
secrecy and classified information, you are breaking the bond between "your
behavior" and "our ability to police that behavior". And that just is not
acceptable. And don't give me this bullshit about Congress performing
oversight. I trust Congress as far as I can throw it, and there's not a soul
serving there that I voted for or that I consider to represent me. And I know
a lot of other Americans feel the same way.

You spooks just need to learn to deal with the fact that we demand you operate
in daylight, not in darkness, in the open, not behind a veil... WE are your
Panopticon guards.

This is a free and open society, and we don't do shadow governments, Stasi
like special police, and all that totalitarian bullshit. You assholes got
caught doing something you shouldn't be doing, and if the people of this
country have a shred of backbone left, you're going to be held accountable for
it.

~~~
rdtsc
> Surveillance programs like this one are consistently subject to safeguards

Not sure if they realize but saying that makes it worse. It is like the thief
caught red handed stealing saying "this is a very responsible operations,
victims are carefully screened ... blah ... blah"

------
justinjlynn
>> In order to provide a more thorough understanding of the program, I have
directed that certain information related to the “business records” provision
of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act be declassified and immediately
released to the public.

This is the only part of this release I really take issue with. If you can
_immediately_ direct that the information be declassified without first taking
pause to think if it, combined with other information, could be dangerous then
_it should never have been classified in the first place_. It takes a lot of
care to properly evaluate that. If you _had_ thought about it before, and
still came to that conclusion then it shouldn't have been done in a secret
court anyway. Secret courts are for really specific things... they are limited
in supervision and accountability and aren't for stuff you'd rather not have
your citizenry, whom you are responsible to and for, asking questions about.

~~~
rdtsc
> it should never have been classified in the first place

The system is big with lots of moving cogs in it. The bigger it is the higher
the chance one of the cogs will pull a Manning. They see the idiocy and waste.
Classifying stuff that is shameful and sweeping it under the carpet works for
a while, but soon enough someone will say fuck it, this is going against the
principles of my country and my moral standards and they'll leak the shit out
of it.

From their side, it is imperative to persecute and punish whistle-blowers,
leakers as harshly as possible. In order to set examples.

------
tshile
This is the guy that, when asked by congress (I assume under oath) if the NSA
was collecting data on US citizens, he responded "No sir." That was just 3
months ago.

So... not sure what his statements are worth now...

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwiUVUJmGjs&t=6m10s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwiUVUJmGjs&t=6m10s)
(starts at 6 minutes 10 seconds)

~~~
rdtsc
I am sure he was briefed by DOJ on what words to exactly say in order to get
off on some technicality (ah but it is not "collecting" it is ...
"intercepting" LOL!).

On the other had, so he lied to Congress. What happens next? A slap on the
wrist, public shaming? The public will forget about it as soon as the next
major hurricane or tornado hits.

~~~
tshile
I don't think the public is going to forget. The media seems to have started
an all out war against the government ever since the AP/Reporter DOJ scandal -
just my opinion. I don't think the media is going to let anyone forget this
anytime soon, but we'll see. As for what happens next for lying to congress...
I assume nothing. Maybe Congress will do a 180, they're pretty good at
reversing their positions when not doing so means losing votes and their job.
I'm skeptical anyone will actually be punished for this. It's in the media's
hands. The public has no power at this point.

------
inportb
404'd. Here, have some cached content:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.dni...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.dni.gov%2Findex.php%2Fnewsroom%2Fpress-
releases%2F191-press-releases-2013%2F868-dni-statement-on-recent-unauthorized-
disclosures-of-classified-information)

<http://pastebin.com/zRgpetMe>

~~~
merinid
Why did this 404? Wow.

~~~
merinid
No longer 404ing

------
merinid
The office of the DNI just officially changed the link to:
[http://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-
releases/191-pre...](http://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-
releases/191-press-releases-2013/869-dni-statement-on-activities-authorized-
under-section-702-of-fisa)

All within minutes. Check the difference on their twitter feed:
<https://twitter.com/ODNIgov>

~~~
hga
_Much_ less info, if that's supposed to be accomplishing the same thing. In
particular, this implicit acknowledgement that they're Hoovering up a lot of
telephone connection metadata:

" _By order of the FISC, the Government is prohibited from indiscriminately
sifting through the telephony metadata acquired under the program. All
information that is acquired under this program is subject to strict, court-
imposed restrictions on review and handling. The court only allows the data to
be queried when there is a reasonable suspicion, based on specific facts, that
the particular basis for the query is associated with a foreign terrorist
organization. Only specially cleared counterterrorism personnel specifically
trained in the Court-approved procedures may even access the records._ "

Given that they aren't disposing this data, that their searches today are, at
least officially, narrow, is of little reassurance.

~~~
merinid
You can't query this much data with clustering it, indexing it, analyzing it
first somehow.

~~~
hga
Nah, check out data warehouses. This data is _really_ limited in details
(anything more than from and to telephone numbers, and start and stop times?),
and can be shoved into a data warehouse without any analysis as that word is
generally understood.

Of course it gets indexed, but that's automatic and mindless.

~~~
merinid
I see your point but I am so tempted to assume that they are not just storing
it in some flat dump but trying to extract some sort of higher order
representation of the data as they are processing it into the warehouse. You
could argue that surfacing trends is technically not "querying".

~~~
merinid
[http://www.pdl.cmu.edu/SDI/2013/slides/big_graph_nsa_rd_2013...](http://www.pdl.cmu.edu/SDI/2013/slides/big_graph_nsa_rd_2013_56002v1.pdf)

------
lawnchair_larry
You can dismiss any discussion now about collecting "metadata", as it's just a
distraction. Cat is out of the bag that they're also collecting everything,
just under a different name.

~~~
zaroth
Yeah, PRISM!

------
photorized
Great quote: "Discussing programs like this publicly will have an impact on
the behavior of our adversaries and make it more difficult for us to
understand their intentions."

~~~
roboneal
Considering the scope of the domestic monitoring, the definition of
adversaries is disturbingly close to ordinary citizens.

------
stuaxo
"Such as telephone number and length of calls .... "

and of course IMEI - ie exactly which device you were using, where you were at
the time etc..

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merinid
I cannot change the URL - can an admin do so on HN?

------
phryk
"The collection is broad in scope[…], subject to stringent restrictions."
Wait, what?

------
paulrademacher
Pronounced "deny."

