
William Binney: 80% of audio calls are recorded and stored in the US - cryptoz
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/11/the-ultimate-goal-of-the-nsa-is-total-population-control/
======
eli
_" At least 80% of fibre-optic cables globally go via the US. This is no
accident and allows the US to view all communication coming in. At least 80%
of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the US. The
NSA lies about what it stores."_

I think he meant that the NSA had access to the 80% of calls that are routed
through the US, not the the NSA is recording and storing literally every
single one of them. I think he was misquoted or misspoke.

William Binney hasn't worked for the NSA since 2001. Were they recording all
calls back then? Did someone still there leak new information to him?

~~~
Shivetya
the techy in me is greatly impressed that can do this.

the libertarian in me is greatly annoyed they can do this.

~~~
thenmar
Please don't politicize civil liberties. If progressives and libertarians can
come together on anything, it's this.

~~~
hnriot
“All cats are libertarians. Completely dependent on others but fully convinced
of their own independence.”

~~~
aridiculous
Good joke, but sort of backfires!

Aren't cats notoriously good at surviving in the wild? Both feral and domestic
cats (if they have to).

~~~
wavefunction
Not around here. Cats are great meals for coyotes, foxes, birds of prey, feral
hogs... The list goes on and on. But don't tell a cat that and burst their
bubble!

------
r0h1n
We're staring at the gradual but deliberate end of privacy and its scary. The
large majority of the world's population either doesn't know or care how
significant or dangerous this trend is, and those few who do will find their
way into surveillance databases because they act "suspiciously" by encrypting
their communications and guarding their privacy.

I don't see a powerful enough counterforce against this insidious trend
anywhere around the world. "Inspired" by the US, other countries are joining a
competitive surveillance race stoked by private corporations selling
everything from GSM monitoring to big data.

</rant>

~~~
opendais
More or less, yes. However, the danger is really only to people outside the
safe herd majority who might draw the wrong sort of attention. So I don't see
it being a huge danger.

However, I don't think it'll ever devolve to the point where mass arrests or
anything truly draconian takes place. There isn't any need in Democracy. You
need to only control 51% of the engaged voters [e.g. the people who actually
vote] and at least in the US the two party system controls that quite
effectively.

I'm worried about this because it will lead to people getting stepped on and
crushed between the massive gears of the "State Security" apparatus.

~~~
mandalar12
Problem is the next governments will inherit the surveillance system. Who says
they won't be fascists and/or turn the country into dictatorship ? When this
happens, we might see these mass arrests. A lot can change in only a few
decades.

~~~
opendais
I've seen that argument before but honestly...

What would stop them from building it themselves if they were elected?

Nothing, really.

~~~
maxxxxx
It's much easier and faster to use existing infrastructure than having to
build a new one.

~~~
opendais
Obviously. However, speed isn't relevant since you can't erase your
fingerprints of your entire life on the internet.

> You can use this argument when you can wipe out all copies of a nude woman
> whose ex posted her to imgur or something. Until then, you are just 100%
> wrong because you know you can't do what you claim.

That is really what it boils down to. You can't erase all of the evidence on
the internet, so you are screwed anyway.

I think the most amusing part of this is the fact I basically agree with the
comment I responded to except to the severity and scope of the danger.

Vulnerable people will get screwed. Most people won't.

------
tokenadult
The story in the _Guardian_ by Antony Loewenstein certainly reports that
William Binney's personal opinion as a former employee of NSA is that NSA is
gathering up and recording whatever it can and that NSA has a "totalitarian
mentality." That is a very important issue, if true, but it is at least
debatable that NSA is really that thorough in its actual practices and really
that generally blatant in disregarding the civil rights of Americans or even
of people in other countries. For one thing, Binney also points to NSA
intelligence failures in the same article, and if NSA is missing major
activities of other countries (the Russian intervention in Ukraine) and
nonstate terrorist groups (the "Islamic State" capture of much territory in
Iraq), then surely NSA doesn't have the time and resources to analyze all of
the data it gathers, and maybe it is not gathering as much data as some people
claim.

Several comments posted before I read all those comments and read the fine
article write about NSA blackmailing politicians. I don't believe NSA
blackmail can or will happen in general, for reasons I have mentioned before
here on HN. One of the most common kinds of comments here on Hacker News about
issues like this is a comment that ASSUMES that if government leaders are
under pervasive surveillance they are all afraid of blackmail. But I don't
believe that, because some government leaders and some political candidates
are essentially shameless. Even after they are caught (by old-fashioned
journalism, or by a jilted lover or some unrelated criminal investigation)
doing something unsavory, they are still willing to run for office, and SOME
ARE REELECTED. United States Senator David Vitter was reelected in 2010 even
after a scandal involving behavior that I would consider shameful,[1] and the
antics of former DC mayor Marion Barry[2] are probably still notorious enough
that they don't need further discussion here. In short, I call baloney on the
idea that NSA can keep politicians on its leash simply by knowing their
secrets. Some politicians have PUBLIC lives full of dirt, and still get
elected and influence policy anyway.

The other reason I don't believe this HN hivemind theory of politics is that I
by no means assume that everyone in politics lacks personal integrity. Some
politicians, I am quite sure, could have all their secrets revealed only to
have voters think "Why is that person such a straight-arrow? Why not have some
fun once in a while?" The simple fact is that there is value system diversity
in the United States electorate, and there is personal conduct probity
variance among United States politicians, and there isn't any universal way to
unduly influence politicians merely through even the most diligent efforts to
discover personal secrets. If politicians think that NSA is going too far (as
evidently several politicians from more than one party do think), then they
will receive plenty of support from the general public to rein in the
surveillance. (Obligatory disclaimer: Yes, I am a lawyer, who as a judicial
clerk for my state's Supreme Court used to review case files on attorney
misconduct, and, yes, some of my law school classmates are elected officials,
including one member of Congress. I am absolutely certain that there are
enough politicians ready to mobilize to roll back NSA surveillance programs if
they really think the programs are excessive in their scope.)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Vitter#D.C._Madam_scanda...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Vitter#D.C._Madam_scandal)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Barry#1990_arrest_.26_d...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Barry#1990_arrest_.26_drug_conviction)

~~~
MisterWebz
That is an incredibly weak argument.

First of all, whether they are shameless or not doesn't really matter. If
sexually explicit pictures of a politician end up on the internet, his
reputation takes damage. It's beyond his control. Plenty of politicians are
willing to go to great lengths to avoid this. So what does it matter if he's
shameless or not?

Second of all, politicians and other powerful people might have something to
hide that isn't just embarrassing but is also illegal. It's certainly not
beyond the capabilities of the NSA to target powerful people that oppose the
NSA while ignoring those that support them.

For example, in the news you might read about a CEO that gets convicted of
insider trading. Nothing to worry about, right? Well, what if the NSA
purposefully targeted him because they don't like whatever it is he's doing?
Using parallel construction, it wouldn't even have links to the NSA.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Weiner_sexting_scandal...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Weiner_sexting_scandals)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio)

~~~
tptacek
Nacchio was convicted of running a pump-and-dump insider trading scam that
netted him ~$100MM at the expense of common public shareholders. If there's an
award for "most obnoxious implication of NSA's wrongdoing", it should go to
the attempted rehabilitation of people like Nacchio.

Here's the indictment. It's quite straightforward.

[http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site36/2007/0307...](http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site36/2007/0307/20070307_030947_nacchio_indictment.pdf)

Here's the cliff notes:

"No later than December 4, 2000, through and including September 10, 2001,
NACCHIO was aware of material, non-public information about Qwest’s business,
including, but not limited to" [litany of distressing concerns about Qwest's
bottom line which ultimately proved dispositive in valuing Qwest].

Note the date.

Now, look at this table of Nacchio's stock sales:

[http://oi60.tinypic.com/2n1tgr6.jpg](http://oi60.tinypic.com/2n1tgr6.jpg)

Nacchio claims to have believed that secret national security government
contracts were going to rescue Qwest from their financial problems (note the
implicit concession that Qwest had problems from which its financials needed
to be rescued). One tie-in between Nacchio and NSA is the notion that by
refusing requests from NSA, Nacchio lost those contracts. _Stipulate that this
is true_ ; it's a plausible complaint. Nacchio _still took the money and ran_.

~~~
nitrogen
Of course an indictment is going to make the indicted sound like scum. It's
not exactly an unbiased document.

The pertinent questions in the Nacchio case are P(insider trading), P(getting
caught), and P(getting caught | rejected NSA).

~~~
tptacek
I don't see any pertinent question other than P(insider trading), which sure
looks a lot like '1'.

~~~
nitrogen
P(insider trading | telecom CEO) is what I meant. Iff Nacchio was singled out
for illegal but commonplace behavior, then it matters less to me what he did
and more why he was the only one prosecuted. But if every insider trade has
equal likelihood of getting caught, regardless of refusing NSA taps, then
Nacchio is far less interesting.

~~~
tptacek
I don't know if _every_ inside trader has an equal likelihood of being caught,
but Nacchio's case appears to have been particularly brazen. The facts I
presented aren't disputed: he sold over one hundred million dollars of stock
in a time period where the future of his company was very much in doubt,
taking advantage of information his company didn't share with common
investors.

------
PeterisP
The land of the free and the home of the brave. Indeed.

~~~
diminoten
Hey, you make jokes but where did the Guardian relocate when the UK was
preventing them from publishing leak-related stories?

~~~
happyscrappy
The UK never claimed to be the land of the free. They willingly accept people
doing jail time for offensive tweets and a host of other absurdities.

------
dbpokorny
If this is legal, is legality meaningless?

~~~
AlyssaRowan
There are not a lot of things they are _not_ allowed to intercept, and it is
very unclear (and classified!) what their interpretation of those rules are.

And then they break them sometimes anyway.

Same with GCHQ, really.

------
spacefight
Between at least 80% and 100% lies the possibility, that this figure is even
closer to 100% than anyone would love to admit...

------
lotsofmangos
_" Thank you for using the Influencing Machine. This call may be recorded for
training purposes."_

------
drcode
“The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control”

Scary shit...

~~~
narrator
So that they can do what, exactly? Once they get total population control what
kind of stuff will they be able to do that they couldn't do before?

~~~
JabavuAdams
Make the world a better, safer place, as seen through the lens of the U.S.
elite.

------
_pmf_
Why is this economically insane bullshit on HN? Who is assumes to pay for
this?

------
JohnnyBuffalo
But here's the rub - who still uses audio calls? Its a point of deminishing
intelligence. That's like saying that 80% of all 8-tracks are now in 1970 cars
(as a statement in 2014). Its just not relevant.

~~~
MichaelGG
Uh, essentially everyone? I have a small VoIP company and we were handling
around a billion calls a week. You have a really terrible selection bias if
you think people aren't using audio calls. In fact, audio calls are on the
RISE because of easy and cheap international calling. We have clients that
have customers that literally leave their phones open to their families 8
hours a day. Just on and walking around the house.

------
lifeisstillgood
There have been at least 15-20 trillion constitutional violations

It is an amusing, even throwaway line, but it has a horrific message - the US
administration is happy to sail so close to the line of totalitarianism that
it will _possibly_ violate the constitution a trillion times. In the UK we jus
found out similar legislation is unconstitutional and we are hurriedly writing
another law to get round it. _sigh_

What happens when a country that really cares about it's constitution has to
rush an amendment through or face civil rights violations from _everyone_?

