
Declassified Documents Prove NSA Is Tapping the Internet - engtech
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/08/nsa-tapping-internet/
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jnbiche
Two things are bothering me immensely:

1\. Each time something increasingly worse about the NSA surveillance gets
revealed, or confirmed, Sens. Wyden and Udall release a statement saying
something like: "This is only the tip of the iceberg: if Americans only knew
how bad it was, they'd be very angry." They're on the Senate Intelligence
Committee, and so are in a position to know at least more than their
colleagues, and much more than their employers (the American people). This is
extremely disconcerting. What we know and now see confirmed officially about
the surveillance is pretty stunning. Exactly how bad is this? Is all of
congress tapped? All the governors? Snowden hinted at this. What the fuck is
going on in my country?

2\. So, if it's so bad, why won't the honorable Sens. Udall and Wyden take a
stand and reveal the wrongdoings on the Senate floor? As I understand the law,
they cannot be charged for anything revealed on the Senate floor. And even if
there were a way to charge them, I'd like to think it would be political
suicide for any president to try.

These two gentleman swore an oath to the U.S. constitution. Why won't they
uphold it? They are in a unique position to do so. The fact that they keep
making these ominous statements is starting to seem more like a cover-your-ass
strategy than an honest attempt to stop the illegal activities.

~~~
ihsw
> Is all of congress tapped? All the governors? Snowden hinted at this. What
> the fuck is going on in my country?

I'm going to assume the worst, which would be that the NSA is used as a tool
of blackmail by nefarious parties whom the NSA relies on. Key House and Senate
members put in a good word for the NSA and then they get some "free"
information on their opponents, at which point they convince their opponents
to "trade" wins with the opposing party's leadership.

Those in on the game get to continue their political career because the party
leaderships are coordinating wins between each-other through bipartisan-
orchestrated gerrymandering, and "suicide" elections where elected officials
intentionally lose their elections in order to boost the profile of their
friendly opponents.

Those whom are bucking the chain of command are ostracised and relegated to
the fringes (eg: the Pauls).

~~~
gasull
They are blackmailing and targeting anyone that is in the way to their goal of
total surveillance.

This hasn't gotten enough attention:

US targets lie-detector coaches following Edward Snowden affair

[http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1297622/us-targets-
li...](http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1297622/us-targets-lie-detector-
coaches-following-edward-snowden-affair)

~~~
ihsw
That's hilariously bad. Polygraph examinations are awful, they're little else
than measurements of how people deal with stress and there's no difference
between "passing" the examination and "beating" it.

Personally I think it's appalling that they're still regarded as "lie
detectors."

------
einhverfr
Where this is going is a clear showdown on a large number of levels. I wish I
could be optimistic about this being resolved decisively for the good guys but
I think most likely we are likely to see a codification of the same stalemate.

The NSA has created a large market for services like Silent Circle and this
means that a larger number of wiretaps and the like are likely to "go dark" as
a result of encryption. We need fully open source and federated versions of
things like Silent Circle has and those will come about.

But this will lead to new battles about encryption and government access to
encryption. As the people start realizing that everything is tapped by
default, they will start protecting themselves.

Wiretaps were tolerated when we could trust in processes that would guarantee
that they would not be abused. Now that we know that this trust has been
broken there is no way to go back.

We will see two battles in the near future. The first will be a battle over
the size and scope of the surveillance state. I fear the NSA will win that one
hands down.

But the second is over government access to encryption backdoors. We have more
reason to be optimistic here.

Things are shaping up to create a huge showdown. I, for one, am relatively
afraid of the consequences even if we win the second battle.

~~~
hobs
Yeah, I think many of the same things.

How are we supposed to challenge a secret program that even the overseers say
they are overreaching, and yet wont acknowledge it exists, or that anyone has
any right to sue because they cant prove the secret program targeted them.

Its a complete farce as far as I can tell, and the dog and pony show will
eventually calm and then we will basically be in the same position as we ever
were.

I will definitely be voting against those that support this buffoonery, but I
don't know that most will.

~~~
einhverfr
What's worse, the NSA can pass on what the DEA will claim are anonymous tips
that lead to evidence that lead to searches, etc. We become a society of "find
me the man and I'll show you the crime" but with a stronger illusion to the
rule of law than Stalin was able to muster.

~~~
LoganCale
They are already doing this. The NSA gives the DEA information, which the DEA
then hides from everyone, including judges, and uses it to build a parallel
case against the people the NSA spied on.

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-
intel...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intelligence-
laundering)

~~~
einhverfr
Just for the record, I chose that example because I was aware of the fact it
was happening.

The scary thing though is that this means that people the NSA doesn't like can
find themselves at the center of whatever scrutiny _they_ think is most
appropriate.

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gasull
This also proves that General Alexander lied to the public. Unsurprising, but
worth saying it.

Did Obama denied PRISM too or did he just let others deny it? If the former,
isn't this a reason for impeachment?

------
mcphilip
Cue praise from the majority of the main stream media that only tens of
thousands of communications are improperly monitored since there are roughly
150 billion emails sent per day (globally). The surveillance program will be
declared a stunning success and most people will agree since they are
impressed by small percentages. The error rate being so low will imply, to
most people, that the NSA is painstakingly concerned with only monitoring
pertinent communications.

Out of curiosity, what is a good argument against this perspective that
Average Joe can grok?

~~~
morpher
Why are you less impressed by small percentages than by numbers that are large
only in the absence of a reference scale? It's generally not possible to
design flawless systems, and failure rate a much more meaningful number.

~~~
mcphilip
I was looking for intelligent discussion about why even a small percentage
failure rate is worth being alarmed at and how this can be communicated to
Average Joe effectively. Instead, I get this inane straw man reply.

Obviously a very small failure rate is impressive in the abstract. We're not
talking about the abstract here, we're talking about foundational concerns
about whether there can be an expectation of privacy in any online
communication.

~~~
throwawaykf02
No. As long as people keep using the same online communications to plan
inflicting harm on society as society does to exchange pictures of grandkids
and recipes, those communications will keep being monitored, and thus we can
have no expectation of privacy. Liberties have always been compromised for the
sake of security, Benjamin Frankliin quotes notwithstanding.

But! Taking these numbers at face value, the low error rate tells us that,
yes, we _can_ have privacy with pretty high probability. As with all things in
life, it is not guaranteed, but these are much better chances than what we can
expect in other aspects of life. I mean, tens of thousands erroneously picked
up over many months out of the _billions_ of emails exchanged daily? Why,
you're more likely to die in a terrorist attack than be snooped on [1]!

[1] No, I haven't run the numbers, just saying so for dramatic effect :-P

~~~
lukifer
Where does it end? If the surveillance state effectively trumps terror, why
not murders, rapes and child porn? If those, then why not embezzlement and tax
fraud? If those, then why not speeding tickets and MP3 torrenting? And through
it all, who watches the watchers (and who watches the watcher-watchers)? If
this is all so effective, why have due process at all?

You'll never convince me that any jihadist has the capacity to inflict harm on
society more than a government with unchecked power to know all secrets.
Knowledge is power, and complete knowledge corrupts completely.

~~~
throwawaykf02
You went wrong the moment you used the term "surveillance state". Before, we
had no numbers, so that phrase might have been justified. But now we do: The
declassified court document seems to say there were about a dozen million
"transactions" collected over a year. Hundreds of billions of emails are sent
_everyday_. A very small fraction of a percent is snooped on. Is that a
"surveillance state"? At what level of watchfulness does a society go from
"vigilant" to "surveillance state"? There is no such measure, and the term is
bandied about to generate an emotional response.

You'll never be convinced because you are, presumptively, ensconced in the
safe, protective shell of a (western?) country that does not experience
terrorist attacks on a regular basis. The terrorist threat is real. People die
everyday in terror attacks. The "power-mad" government scenario? Lets just say
in all this noise I've seen very few instances of actual abuse of power, if
any.

~~~
lukifer
People die every day in car accidents too. Safety is mostly an illusion. (I'll
admit that not having children probably makes my sanguine attitude easier.)

I don't care what the percentage is. The right to snoop arbitrarily is too
much power, and if we accept it _will_ be abused, it will get worse, and it
will be very hard to undo. Safety is not worth the permanent eradication of
human dignity and liberty. I'd rather die than live like a chickenshit.

~~~
throwawaykf02
"People die everyday in car accidents and safety is an illusion, so let's stop
wearing seatbelts. Safety is not worth the indignity of driving around trussed
up like a turkey."

BTW, the government and the courts agree that warrantless snooping is
dangerous, which is why there are checks and balances in place. The recent
leaks raised doubts that those were not effective. But if the numbers in the
declassified documents are accurate, it's nowhere nearly as bad as people here
are imagining.

~~~
lukifer
But we can't really know, can we? The trust is completely eroded. Fool me
once...

Put simply, databases change the equation. Never in human history has it been
possible to store and mine such a massive quantity of data in perpetuity. If
the infrastructure exists to capture and process that much data, included via
algorithm rather than by human, that represents such a radical shift in power
that its abuse is inevitable, regardless of whatever restraints may or may not
exist today. What happens if the next Snowden is a profiteer? What happens if
China finds a backdoor, and can suddenly tap _all data_ on every American
citizen.

Capturing and storing all data is really really fucking dangerous, no matter
who's doing it or why. (I'm not thrilled about Google or Facebook either, but
at least it's voluntary, and they never throw anyone into a cage.)

> People die everyday in car accidents and safety is an illusion, so let's
> stop wearing seatbelts.

I think a better analogy would be a seatbelt that you can't take off, "for
your own good". And if you're trapped by your seatbelt in a crashed and
burning car, well, too bad, we meant well!

------
SCAQTony
We should shove our NSA rejection letters (mine was signed LOL) in their faces
and make them give us our box loads of data along with out analytics scores.

------
bengrunfeld
As a new immigrant to the USA, I am simply appalled at the infringement of
privacy that is being carried out by the NSA and the government. In Australia,
we learned that the 1st amendment protected the Freedom of Speech of every
American. How can you have Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press when
every private communication of citizens and reporters alike are being
scrutinized by secret agencies in the government??

~~~
throwawaykf02
Hasn't "Freedom of Speech" always been about _public_ speech? You alluded to
it yourself when you said "freedom or the press". I don't see what invasion of
privacy has to do with freedom of speech as the constitution means it.

~~~
snowwrestler
And this is the crux of the matter. Technology today allows intrusions into
our privacy that do not harm our ability to speak publicly.

In the 1700s, the only way for the government to read your papers was to take
them away from you--harming your use of them.

Today they can extract the entire contents without disturbing your use at all.
Reading and restriction have been separated.

It's a new situation and there will be big fights as the law catches up. This
is not historically unprecedented though; technology has frequently caused
disruptions in the law. That's how copyright came about, for instance--the
printing press meant that original content was no longer protected by the need
to hire 100 monks to make a copy.

~~~
bengrunfeld
I completely disagree. Please see my response below, and failing that, search
Wikipedia for "Freedom of Speech", and then search the page (Cmd + F) for
"privacy".

~~~
snowwrestler
We don't disagree, I think you are reacting to my post without actually
reading it.

I'm not advocating that what's happening is ok. I'm talking about the physical
act of speech, not the cultural or psychological aspects. I agree with you on
those.

It's just that in the 1700s, if you were working on a newsletter or pamphlet
(like, say, a Federalist Paper), your draft would be on paper in your home. If
the government wanted to read it, they had to come to your home and seize it,
in which case you don't have it anymore. Your speech is directly prevented in
a physical way.

Today, your draft might be stored a server that is owned and operated by a 3rd
party. The government does not need to come to your home to read it. In fact
you would have no clue that it was accessed at all. You could go on with your
life and publish as though the access never happened.

Am I saying this is OK or right? No. It just is.

