
Is the NSA outsourcing its domestic spying to Israel? - yanivf
http://geektime.com/2013/06/09/is-the-nsa-outsourcing-its-domestic-spying-to-israel/
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ikonst
It is outsourcing domestic spying to an Israeli company (yes, a private
enterprise) that produces "lawful interception" software (which it undoubtfuly
sells to other customers too). Saying "Israel" is helping NSA spy on its
citizens is akin to saying "the United States" gets people hooked on
Farmville.

~~~
superuser2
Or that "China" hacks American businesses.

~~~
Tangaroa
So you are taking the position that Unit 61398 of the 2nd Bureau of the
People’s Liberation Army (PLA) General Staff Department’s (GSD) 3rd Department
has no relation to the state of China. Please elucidate.

[http://intelreport.mandiant.com/](http://intelreport.mandiant.com/)

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recuter
I'm going to invoke Betteridge's law of headlines here.

"One theory that’s been gaining traction as of late, on how the NSA got around
those pesky little things called laws, is that they outsourced the project to
Israel."

So basically a random conspiracy theory clickbait. Also the reference to 8200
here really shows the author has no fogey idea.

In short, Israeli intelligence out of necessity doesn't focus on PRISM like
data-mining approaches.

~~~
nir
Well said. Also, tip to US journos (and Israeli Business-Insider-wannabe
bloggers): 8200 _used_ to be a small and highly selective unit. These days
it's the biggest unit of any kind in the IDF.

The fact an Israeli company has people who served there is meaningless, it
reflects nothing on what the company does nor the quality of its people.

~~~
ethanazir
Conspiracy theory presumes a secret: not a fog of misinformation to counter
the known and open facts.

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mtgx
Carry on citizen. You have nothing to worry about. Yes, the government is
collecting all the possible data they can on you, but it's okay. You can trust
them to never use it against you if you ever speak against or embarrass the
government, or any other future governments.

~~~
ethanazir
All your government are belong to us. (HN gave me -7 for this statement. But
some pts just come back.)

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myth_drannon
Narus is an Israeli company ? Headquarters in California but also offices in
India. Half of the management is Indian the other half American. I would say
if an NSA really outsources to Narus it would be to India not Israel.

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contingencies
Hate to repeat myself here, but they forgot to mention AMDOCS, another Israeli
firm who run 'outsourced billing' for loads of major telecommunications
companies globally. What do you need for billing? Metadata on everything.

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bjourne
Back in the day, many European countries had registers of known communist and
socialist sympathizers. They where used to keep communists out of government
and union jobs. Those in the registers had a harder time getting promoted, was
fired for spurious reasons and so on. The other effect it had is that people
became frightened to voice their support of communists lest they also be
placed in the register and having their careers ruined.

It is not far-fetched to think that broad intelligence gathering will be used
in the exact same way today. Communism may not be the big boogieman it once
way, but there are still ideologies and causes that can get you branded as
undesirable. For example, by being drug liberal.

I think it's naive to think that the information they are collecting will go
unused. There aren't enough terrorist threats in there to act upon, so they
will focus on the secondary threats which is people with the wrong opinions.

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AviSchneider
They could be watching us read this right now!

~~~
moranit
this is not a very good news for our future

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moranit
Israel is the best!

~~~
Ihmahr
At oppression!

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ethanazir
The Mormons don't go on missions to Arab countries, so the Utah spy site is of
limited use. But many Israelis on the other hand do speak Arabic; its a
secondary language there; so they are naturally a place to outsource
electronic surveillance of Arab speaking countries.

~~~
snotrockets
Not so many: there are indeed ~1.4*10^6 arabic speakers in Israel, but most
are Palestinian-Israeli, barred from getting any security clearence by the
Israeli military.

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b0rsuk
When they say "Israel", they actually mean "Jews". Exploit the prejudice
without appearing antisemitic.

~~~
Vivtek
That's stupid. When they say "Israel", they mean "that nominally democratic
ally of ours who survives on our military aid and who is well-known for
technical savvy and outsourcing to whom would neatly circumvent our
inconvenient laws forbidding the wholesale surveillance of our citizens." Not
"Jews". We have more Jews than they do anyway.

~~~
nir
US military aid is about %1 of Israel's budget, so factually it can't be said
to "survive" on it (BTW it's required to spend nearly all of it buying from US
suppliers).

As for "nominally democratic" I'll ignore it in order to not bring the already
devastated level of discourse here yet lower.

But, back the point, do you seriously believe the NSA will outsource its most
sensitive operations to another country? HN is now moving from r/politics to
r/conspiracy.

~~~
Vivtek
I didn't mean financial survival. To listen to any apologist of our Middle
East policy, it's utterly vital for Israeli survival to have the threat of
American nuclear reprisal at their beck and call.

Perhaps "military assistance" would have been a better term.

As to "nominally democratic", they're governed by a bunch of repressive thugs
who don't listen to their own people - slightly better than the United States
in that respect. Or do you really think their Palestinian policy is
democratically derived?

And yes. I think the military-industrial complex will do anything to win, and
the Israelis are known to be non-stupid. They could do worse.

As to the level of discourse, I thought my response was better than JEW JEW
JEW ANTISEMITISM, but your mileage may vary.

~~~
nir
I agree the parent comment's insinuation of antisemitism was nonsense.

>it's utterly vital for Israeli survival to have the threat of American
nuclear reprisal at their beck and call

(1) Why exactly do you think Israel has US support at their beck and call? I
can tell you Israelis definitely don't think so. (2) Why does Israel need it,
when - following the collapse of the USSR which was the main lifeline of other
Mideast forces - it now has the most powerful military in the region? and (3)
Israel has its own nukes since the '60s.

American support for Israel started only in the early '70s, after Israel
proved itself a useful asset by winning the Six Day War, without any US
support and as counterbalance for the USSR support of Arab nations. Israel is
one of very few nations in the world (certainly the western world) which the
US _didn 't_ have to send its military to protect at some point.

~~~
Vivtek
Now _this_ is the kind of comment I come to HNN for.

(1) From the point of view of a liberal American, it seems a given. To have
_any_ negative opinion of Israeli politics in the States marks you as Not The
In Crowd.

(2) I dunno - all I know is that American politicians represent the situation
in this way. I know a few Israelis, but we've never talked politics and I've
never been to Israel, sadly. So I'm woefully ignorant.

(3) We're never supposed to talk about that, are we? Only Evil Rogue Nations
violate nuclear treaties they didn't sign, after all.

On your final paragraph - now I'm going to have to go read some things.

~~~
nir
(1) Well, Chomsky is doing alright.. And I wouldn't say The Nation or the New
Yorker have any qualms about criticizing Israel (and they shouldn't).

(2) I agree, the situation is represented in the US in very simplistic terms,
by both sides.

(3) IMHO Israel, along with Pakistan and India, took the only respectable
option by not signing that treaty. When my wife was doing her MA she'd often
tell me how her professors mentioned various UN human rights treaties the US
didn't sign and which many dictatorships did sign. It amazed me how her ivy
league teachers didn't realize the signature of most nations is meaningless,
as they have no intention of committing to it.

