
Journalists Need To Start Asking About Storage, Not Access - prostoalex
http://uncrunched.com/2013/06/17/journalists-need-to-start-asking-about-storage-not-access/
======
espeed
I remember during the Boston bombing investigation, Tim Clemente, a former FBI
counter-terrorism agent, told Erin Burnett on CNN that they could go back and
get access to the content of the calls between the deceased bomber and his
wife, Katherine Russell.

After some Googling, I found a partial transcript of the CNN interview...

"Almost immediately Erin Burnett, the host of CNN's Outfront, wanted to know
how the government knew. Aren't phone calls supposed to be private? She
interviewed Tim Clemente, a former FBI counter-terrorism agent on May 1,
asking:"

    
    
      Is there any way … they [the federal investigators] can
      try to get the phone companies to give that up … It’s not
      a voice mail. It's just a conversation. There’s no way
      they can actually find out what [was said on the call],
      right, unless she tells them?
    
      Clemente:  There is a way. We certainly have ways in
      national security investigations to find out exactly what
      was said in that conversation. It's not necessarily
      something that the FBI is going to want to present in
      court, but it may help lead the investigation … we 
      certainly can find that out.
    
      Burnett: So they can actually get that? … that is  
      incredible.
    
      Clemente: Welcome to America. All of that stuff is being 
      captured as we speak, whether we know it or like it, or 
      not. 
    

Source:
[http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/15340-boston...](http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/15340-boston-
bombing-investigation-reveals-government-surveillance-of-phone-calls)

When I initially saw this on CNN, my first thought was, do they also have
access to all photos and videos that are taken and transmitted online?

And if so, couldn't they stitch together a multi-angle montage from all the
photos and videos taken at the scene of the Boston bombing (like
[http://photosynth.net](http://photosynth.net)), rather than asking everyone
to manually scour through their personal footage?

UPDATE:

CNN Interview Clip
([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPHZrVPt4-U](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPHZrVPt4-U))

CNN Follow-Up Interview
([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt9kRLrmrjc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt9kRLrmrjc))

~~~
a3n
I am assuming that if something is technically possible, they're doing it. So,
they're tracking telecom metadata and storing content because they can.

In fact I believe that the only reason our physical mail was mostly not read
had nothing to do with the 4th Amendment, and everything to do with that it
was logistically impossible and still have a working postal service, and
difficult to keep secret.

With modern mail sorting machinery, I'm sure there is metadata being collected
on physical mail.

~~~
meowface
>So, they're tracking telecom metadata and storing content because they can.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but to theoretically record every single phone
conversation in America would require unbelievable amounts of data storage,
would it not? Even if it's stored in a highly compressed format.

The metadata I can believe, but I find it kind of unlikely they have the means
to store the contents of every call.

~~~
Jebbers
Petabytes/day, certainly.

~~~
greyman
According to this article ([https://sumanrs.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/youtube-
yearly-cost...](https://sumanrs.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/youtube-yearly-costs-
for-storagenetworking-estimate/)), about 76 petabytes is stored to Youtube per
year. (calculated from the released info, that "one hour of video is uploaded
to YouTube every second."). So Petabytes/day is probably doable for them.

------
bobwaycott
Exactly this.

As I've commented elsewhere, words matter. They matter _a lot_. Especially
when discussing the critical issues at play in this situation. Almost zero
media outlets are asking the _right_ questions. Instead, they all appear to be
asking questions that specifically serve the talking points that were leaked a
few days ago.

Perhaps media outlets and their journalists should start treating political
actors the way prosecutors treat defendents--ask the right questions, vary
them, alter the wording, etc., in an effort to suss out the truth and leave as
little wiggle room for interpretation as one possibly can.

When shit like this hits the fan, the press _must_ stop treating politicians
with kid gloves, only levying inquiries that serve the established talking
points. Go on the offensive. Ask something that hasn't already been sound-
bited and parroted by everyone involved. Ask the right goddamned questions.

A few things worth asking:

1\. Is the government storing, parsing, analyzing, transcribing, recording,
translating, or any other type of data-gathering and/or analysis actions on
the private communications of any persons who are not covered by a standing
warrant. Be specific about the words chosen in the question. Even better: ask
the question repeatedly, substituting each word in place of the prior one
asked.

2\. If so, what is the legal reasoning and constitutional authority by which
the Congress has legislated such actions?

3\. If so, what is the legal reasoning and constitutional authority by which
the Executive is interpretating Congressional legislation to permit these
programs to exist?

4\. If not, what is the legal reasoning and constitutional authority that
proscribes such programs from existing?

5\. Carefully and completely delineate how Americans are to understand their
Fourth Amendment rights in light of these programs. What does the government
believe to be their papers in 2013? What level of security and privacy can
Americans reasonably expect to have, against which intelligence programs will
not and do not transgress?

Etc.

~~~
kaoD
So you're suggesting journalists to do their job? Nonsense!

Recently in Spain a comedian surfaced as a journalist, "El Follonero" (free
translation: The Trouble-Maker).

It all began as a TV comedy programme about the spanish elections, where El
Follonero (actually Jordi Évole, he's no longer El Follonero) asked
uncomfortable questions. It eventually became a full programme, not much about
comedy but with lots investigative journalism and uncomfortable interviews.

A comedian saving journalism.

Meanwhile, traditional media is just parroting the official views of the
established power.

~~~
dredmorbius
The US has this as well

Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and the Onion.

Sadly, they're some of the best journalism happening in the country at
present, though I'll give a hat tip to Glenn Greenwald (though he's not in the
country), Democracy Now, and a very few others.

And, sadly, jester as truth teller is an ancient tradition.

Much of the political (national) and business press have long since sold out
their morals and credibility for the golden ticket of "access". I include PBS
and NPR on this bill of indictment.

~~~
kaoD
He's actually not like Colbert or The Onion.

We also have lots of comedians doing that kind of political satire, but most
of them just scratch the surface and comedy often blurs the real issues.

Jordi Évole is no longer a comedian, though he started his career as one. Now
he does serious interviews and, even if comedy is still present (he's just
funny and charismatic), his programme is actual journalism and not just
satirical interviews and puns.

I think what gives him the edge over traditional journalism is how he
approaches interviews. He looks like the average Joe and is not very
knowledgeable, but he asks the questions that matter. Being very charismatic
and polite, their interviewees feel confident with him, which he uses to his
advantage (lots of slips from interviewees).

He also questions like a lawyer would, asking again and again until he gets an
acceptable answer instead of the common PR crap that politicians are used to
vomit.

~~~
dredmorbius
The comedians I names are among the better known, and are just given as
current examples. There are others, including those who spoof the news (the
Yes Men for example), or who would critique it (George Carlin, Lenny Bruce).

The more general point is that humor can sweeten the bitter pill of truth.

------
SCdF
>If you’re not a “U.S. person,” there are few restrictions on what the U.S.
government can do to monitor you. If you are a U.S. person then…

So as someone who doesn't live in the states, this has been the biggest
takeaway from all this. It doesn't matter that my country is allied and
friends with the US, it doesn't matter that we're not at war, the US is not
and has no intention of being my friend.

My current feelings then, is that I and everyone else who isn't a US citizen
really need to get our data out of there, because regardless of where this
debate is going, our "alien" data will never get any respect.

~~~
XorNot
You might want to consider why your nation is considered a US ally. Because it
sure isn't just because the US takes their word for it.

Intelligence agencies promote international stability, because they mean that
at the high-level strata of world organization, its still possible to have a
very informed opinion of the disposition, intentions and important issues of
one's neighbours. A world where we don't know these things is less stable -
you can't have trade negotiations publicly if you don't have a good idea of
what can and can't be asked for, you can't "trust" anyone unless you can be
reasonably sure they're not planning to stab you in the back or funding
insurgencies, or if they're dealing with significant internal power struggles.

And frankly, the US doesn't know _you_. It also doesn't care about you. It's
not a person, its a massive nation of millions, much like your own is. The
fact you're allies at a high-level means precisely zilch for what your
personal intentions are towards the US.

~~~
andrewcooke
so why not give _us_ copies of all _your_ data. then we can trust you too.

makes sense to me.

~~~
XorNot
Fundamental problem: if you _give_ me something, then I only know it's what
you were willing to give. It tells me nothing of your intentions or agenda
other then what I know you'll tell me.

This is why intelligence organizations exist. Because information you acquire
yourself, through your own processes, is trustworthy. Information gifted is
not.

------
gbog
To add more water to this article: for anyone reading books, papers or
recordings dating before the very last years it is obvious that public
morality is changing, rapidly and a lot.

A simple qualification of an human group (think women, Chinese, Jews, kids)
was just a good joke yesterday and is now an offense. Contrary to what we may
believe, our times are not more free than before on many topics, and many
books (eg. Trois filles de leur mère) or movies (eg. Going Places/Les
Valseuses, but even 007) could not be created today.

So keeping indefinite records is very dangerous for this reason too: you may
believe your behavior is proper today but who knows what public morality will
look like tomorrow?

(Just as a thought experiment: maybe watching horror movie will be considered
a completely crazy thing to do and horror movie watcher will be asked to cure
themselve in special detox centers. I, for one, have never understood what
kind of pleasure one can get from watching an horror movie.)

(Thought experiment 2: In 20 years the animal defense movement become
prominent and crazy, gets over the top, becomes the governement, and start
legally killing human who showed disrespect for pets in their past life,
checking the "logs". As a reaction a bunch of less crazy humans pull them out
and instigate a defensive law against "over-loving animal", and then any
blogger who's sent a caturday pic is suspitious forever.)

(Ok, that's imagination, but some recent event did show reality can be worse
than imagination.)

edit: fixed a few words

------
michaelfeathers
It's worse than that. Sometime last week I noticed that people giving
testimony were using the word 'collect' in a very non-traditional way. They
were using it to describe the process of accessing already collected (normal
English usage) data.

Doubtless, lawyers were behind this gross mutation of language. Far worse than
Bill Clinton's "it depends upon what the meaning of 'is' is."

~~~
brown9-2
They use the word "collect" in that way because surveillance laws use the word
"collect" in a very specific way, and making distinctions between "collect"
and "analyze" and "intercept" is important to delineate exactly what actions
people are talking about:

 _A few definitions: to "collect" means to gather and store; to "analyze"
means that a computer or human actually does something with the records; to
"intercept" means that a computer or human actually listens to or records
calls._

[http://theweek.com/article/index/245228/the-fbi-collects-
all...](http://theweek.com/article/index/245228/the-fbi-collects-all-
telephone-records)

------
contingencies
Storage. How do you define it? Apparently, any way you like, even in
international agreements.

Here's an example from the European Union agreement to pass traveller
information to Australia (they have separate agreements for the United States
and Canada):

 _the airline PNR data are temporarily retained, but not stored_

On the face of it, it would seem that when you mix this with probabalistically
presumed intelligence agency interception, it means 'stored'. Can we please
have a journalist cover something related to this at some stage, anywhere,
ever? Thanks.

Full FOIA response @
[http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/information_on_pnr_agreem...](http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/information_on_pnr_agreements#incoming-1120)
(PS. Great site, recommended some time ago by Wikileaks. Use it!)

Current summary (please help expand from above) @
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_name_record#Internat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_name_record#International_PNR_Sharing_Agreements)
... also please help expand
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_name_record#Internat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_name_record#International_PNR_Sharing_Agreements)

------
codeulike
Cross reference with something from the Snowden Q+A yesterday:

 _US Persons do enjoy limited policy protections (and again, it 's important
to understand that policy protection is no protection - policy is a one-way
ratchet that only loosens) and one very weak technical protection - a near-
the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of
date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the "widest allowable
aperture," and can be stripped out at any time. Even with the filter, US comms
get ingested, and even more so as soon as they leave the border. Your
protected communications shouldn't stop being protected communications just
because of the IP they're tagged with._

This implies they hoover all data direct from fibre, but with a 'front-end
filter' that restricts what is hoovered based on IP address or some other
(vague, often inaccurate) marker.

source: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-
snowden-n...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-nsa-
files-whistleblower)

~~~
brown9-2
The existence of underseas cable taps has long been an open secret, you can
find articles dating back to at least 2001 about it ([http://cryptome.org/nsa-
fibertap.htm](http://cryptome.org/nsa-fibertap.htm)).

I think Snowden's distinction between "policy protection" and "technical
protection" is ultimately meaningless and naive - technical protections can be
changed at any point just as a policy can be. All checks on government power
are "policy protections", whether that policy is set by the Constitution or
law or just regulation.

~~~
codeulike
I think his point is, when policy is your only protection, and the policy is
"ask secret court in secret for permission to look at data" then you really
have no protection at all because there is no oversight - no way to see what
is going on. At least with a technical protection (e.g declare 'they are not
allowed to tap into undersea cables') you have some method of oversight,
because there is some physical evidence outside of the NSA.

~~~
brown9-2
But isn't that declaration merely policy? I get the impression that Snowden is
referring to "technical protection" as in the software/hardware systems, for
instance ones that would prevent any analyst from issuing any query they like.

~~~
codeulike
The technical protection he refers to is 'filter at [the] ingestion points' \-
in other words, its a technical protection that prevents some data from
reaching the NSAs data centre in the first place. Once its in the NSA's data
centre, your only protection is a (weak, changeable, unaccountable) policy
one. So by technical protection he's talking about _preventing the data from
reaching the NSA in the first place_ \- if you can achieve that, you're much
better off.

edit: here we're talking about indiscriminately hoovered data, rather than
'asked for nicely and specifically via court order' data.

~~~
brown9-2
What I find confusing or misleading about his differentiation between policy
and technical protections is that he values the latter over the former, but it
would seem that the technical protection he cites could just as easily be
ratcheted in any direction if/when a new policy dictates it.

------
coldcode
I'm more concerned that any stored data about me and you can and likely will
be lost or traded or simply stolen and used for any purpose a criminal
organization or corporation can invent. Data that sits somewhere can be taken
at any time. Imagine all of your personal/financial data and even connections
winding up in the hands of someone with a nefarious intent. You don't know it,
you can't sue anyone, you can't defend yourself, you are likely ruined.

~~~
specialist
Massive surveillance, whether for marketing or "national security", definitely
eases identity theft.

I'm also troubled that people are accessing, consuming, using data about me
without my knowledge or consent. I would like to know if someone cares that
I'm meditating with the Buddhists monks or really love collecting Beannie
Babies.

------
spitx
President Obama on the NSA when interviewed on the Charlie Rose Show

Source:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlThTTJgKYo&t=26m40s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlThTTJgKYo&t=26m40s)

(Link takes you to about the 26th minute mark where the issue is mooted)

[http://www.charlierose.com/](http://www.charlierose.com/)

(Unwieldy video player)

