
NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds - glhaynes
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-broke-privacy-rules-thousands-of-times-per-year-audit-finds/2013/08/15/3310e554-05ca-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html
======
zeteo
>James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has acknowledged
that the court found the NSA in breach of the Fourth Amendment, which
prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, but the Obama administration has
fought a Freedom of Information lawsuit that seeks the opinion.

Are you fucking kidding me? Let's take this incident to the most die-hard
scaremonger out there and ask them how the hell is it in the interest of
national security to hide it when government institutions are found guilty of
breaching the Constitution?

~~~
codex
Wrong. Overreaction. The DoJ plans to make the ruling available, but wants to
redact it to remove classified information:

[https://www.eff.org/document/doj-status-report-re-
releasing-...](https://www.eff.org/document/doj-status-report-re-releasing-
fisa-court-opinion)

Don't let my facts interrupt your rant, though.

~~~
zeteo
BS. The document you link to indicates quite clearly that they had no
intention of making it anything less than "top secret" after it was found
unconstitutional:

>in response to the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, the
government has declassified certain information concerning intelligence
collection pursuant to Section 702

>[the government] further provides notice [...] that it has determined it will
release to Plaintiff a redacted version of the [FISC] opinion previously
withheld [but requests a delay]

It's only because the EFF requested it (after Snowden's disclosures) and
fought for it in court that the finding of unconstitutionality will now be
made public. Or rather, whatever parts the government decides to let go of.

~~~
codex
Yes, all of the FISA rulings are secret by default, but redacting a ruling to
remove classified information is not the same as fighting a FOIA request.

~~~
aspensmonster
drivebyacct2 is hellbanned but I see no reason why this particular comment of
his should be censored:

>That distinction would mean more if it didn't literally come on the heals of
them explicitly trying to suppress the entire court decision.

~~~
beedogs
Not sure why but it looks like this comment 45 days ago is what did it:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5982741](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5982741)

No idea why that merits a hellban if that's the reason why.

------
LoganCale
> In one instance, the NSA decided that it need not report the unintended
> surveillance of Americans. A notable example in 2008 was the interception of
> a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error
> confused U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt

Considering their track record with honesty, why should we believe this was an
accident?

~~~
dictum
Suppose you're a Foreign Terrorist. If you're planning an attack on the US,
can you do it entirely from your country? At some point you have to contact
some people in the US to carry out the attacks. But oh, the Americans you
hired are very wily, and they know that, to be relatively anonymous and have
their shenanigans hidden, they have to call from different phones, send emails
from different accounts, use different identities, encrypt everything...

Mr. American Terrorist Contractor can't have all his communications tied to a
single identity that could be reassembled with Big Data. So he tries to keep
very few traces of his activity, and confuse snoops with false leads and dead
ends.

Mr. American Terrorist Contractor called from many phones, used many
addresses, etc. The dragnet to catch him must be large. It will include some
innocent Americans. Tens who called a phone he called that same day. Hundreds
who went to the same deli as he went last Friday. Add more situations, area
codes, phone call graphs and quickly you have most Americans.

That's by design, though: you can't have surveillance that's capable of
catching domestic terrorists without surveilling innocent citizens, and you
can't try to end terrorism with surveillance without spying on the people who
will actually perform the terrorist acts in your land.

EDIT: As it currently stands, the NSA is supposed to help end terrorism by
spying on all foreigners. What I'm arguing is that surveillance of non-
citizens always leads to surveillance of citizens. Some Americans are
uncomfortable with the US government spying on American citizens, but
comfortable with the USG spying on foreigners. They may be less comforted when
they realize how, if the real intent of the surveillance is to prevent
terrorism, only spying on foreigners won't help much.

~~~
Derbasti
Its a good thing that all terrorists are foreigners. (or rather, all
foreigners are potential terrorists).

Clearly, no US citizen could ever be a terrorist.

</sarcasm>

How does reasoning like that ever make sense? I just can't accept that
EVERYONE working for the NSA is a moron. Thus, there must be other motives.
Think about that.

~~~
czr80
The FBI is meant to deal with domestic terrorism. The NSA's remit is foreign
signals intelligence.

------
ColinCochrane
> _“You can look at it as a percentage of our total activity that occurs each
> day,” he said. “You look at a number in absolute terms that looks big, and
> when you look at it in relative terms, it looks a little different.”_

I wonder if he realized what that implies.

~~~
001sky
_Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or
foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are
restricted by law and executive order._

Aren't criminal counts per action? not per-percentage? WTF.

~~~
cheald
I like this defense.

"Your honor, I only stole 0.00000512% of this bank's money. I should get off
with time served."

"Your honor, I was only distributing 0.00000125% of the city's weed. I should
get off with time served."

"Your honor, I only murdered 0.000000004695% of the population of the US. You
look at a number in absolute terms that looks big, and when you look at it in
relative terms, it looks a little different."

~~~
rhizome
It's not even, "time served," but "a promotion." Perish the thought that a
prosecution would even be a possibility.

------
0003
NSA statements to The Post: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/nsa-st...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-
statements-to-the-
post/2013/08/15/f40dd2c4-05d6-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html)

Be sure to read the bottom. Hilarious.

------
msg
This is the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

We were not paranoid enough. I was not paranoid enough. You were not paranoid
enough. Reality outstripped our imaginations. How are we going to recalibrate
our expectations? What's next?

~~~
lukifer
Here's my answer: predictive Bayesian algorithms, run across the data-set of
all human behavior, and algorithmically generated dossiers and smear campaigns
for every human on the planet. All available for sale, for favors and
influence if not for money.

...that is, assuming these aren't being done already.

~~~
j_baker
A part of me wishes all these dossiers would become public. If everyone's
skeletons were out of the closet, we wouldn't care about skeletons so much.

~~~
adventured
I think most people would proceed to focus on everybody else's skeletons in a
shallow judgmental fashion and continue to ignore their own flaws exactly as
they do today. The net effect would be to put our rotting culture's worst
aspects on steroids.

What would occur is mass ostracizing and general social chaos from imploded
relationships (friends, lovers, family). There would be shocking and boring
skeletons, it would become a giant cultural witch hunt, pleasure would be
taken in socially mocking and assaulting people with the most outrageous or
abnormal skeletons. We live in a bankrupt culture that worships tabloids,
gossip and low value entertainment (low value everything in fact, including
food, just so long as it distracts for a moment). I see no reason to think
people would suddenly change the way they go about the world: the averages for
what is considered scandalous behavior would simply shift and there would be a
new unlimited supply of people to be socially assaulted. Why just look at my
boring skeletons compared to that guy! My scandal is nowhere near as bad as
hers!

~~~
bashinator
C.f. congress has a <20% approval rating, but everybody likes _their own_
congresscritter.

------
rosser
The NSA appears to have mastered the concept of exploiting Outrage Fatigue.

~~~
LoganCale
I was outrage fatigued before Snowden did his leak. I'm not tired anymore.

~~~
samstave
Second revolutionary-wind

------
malandrew

        "The most serious incidents included a violation of a 
        court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 
        3,000 Americans and green-card holders."
    

If these were willful acts that wouldn't pass an ethics committee, I sure hope
people went to jail over this instead of getting an administrative slap on the
wrist. We need to have moral hazard for those at the top pyramid. We've let
bankers get away with crimes, I would hope that we aren't doing the same with
these people as well. However I doubt anyone ever gets prosecuted for these
violations.

    
    
        In another case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, 
        which has authority over some NSA operations, did not learn about 
        a new collection method until it had been in operation for many 
        months. The court ruled it unconstitutional.
    

Wow. Just wow. You'd imagine that they wouldn't be able to implement any
system before it has been deemed Constitutional and authorized by Congress. If
there is any question, then they shouldn't even begin to seriously research
and implement a new technique without first getting Congressional approval.

~~~
davidw
> We need to have moral hazard for those at the top pyramid

Actually, "moral hazard" means:

> moral hazard is a situation where a party will have a tendency to take risks
> because the costs that could incur will not be felt by the party taking the
> risk. In other words, it is a tendency to be more willing to take a risk,
> knowing that the potential costs or burdens of taking such risk will be
> borne, in whole or in part, by others.

We probably want less of that.

(
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard)
)

~~~
malandrew
oops. thanks for the correction.

------
arh68
> _the agency’s internal definition of “data” does not cover “metadata”_

If I download terabytes of Wikipedia XML dumps, could I argue to my ISP I
never actually downloaded any "data"?

------
uptown
via @AntDerosa:

"To be clear, that was only an audit spanning 12 months, May 2011 to May 2012.
There may have been more violations by NSA before and after.

Also, this audit only covers NSA’s Fort Meade headquarters and other
facilities in the Washington area."

~~~
ianterrell
From the article:

> _Three government officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to
> discuss classified matters, said the number would be substantially higher if
> it included other NSA operating units and regional collection centers._

------
northwest
Let's not get side-tracked. This article is "just" about a some details.

The real issue that must be resolved and is still not being addressed is:

As long as these NSA activities are not dismantled and the People do not have
transparency over what the NSA/government does, everyone of us can still be
"eliminated" by the push of a few buttons and democracy therefor no longer
exists.

Even if its decline happens slowly and behind our backs
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog)).

------
jonlucc
>current operations rely on technology that cannot quickly determine whether a
foreign mobile phone has entered the United States

If only this kind of communication could have a known location, like say, its
origin tower. Maybe I completely misunderstand the phone protocols, but I
thought origin tower was hard to miss.

------
qwertzlcoatl
Here you can find the classified slides in full :
[http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/nsa-report-
on...](http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/nsa-report-on-privacy-
violations-in-the-first-quarter-of-2012/395/#)

------
splrb
The NSA has gone rogue. This can't possibly have anything to do with our
safety.

------
beedogs
note to mkessy: your account appears to be hellbanned.

~~~
nxn
Same is true for drivebyacct2

------
NicoJuicy
If Obama is serious about not violating civilian rights. He should just fire
the NSA boss WITHOUT giving him any other job opportunities or compensation!

But be honest, he's never going to do that... Obama is just as involved as the
chief of NSA.

------
mathiasben
New program code word -DISHFIRE - google results bring up interesting open
positions.

------
jfoutz
While 2500 may seem like a large number, it's actually a very tiny error rate
given the millions of gigs of data obtained from server mirroring and phone
tracking.

------
jister
....and most people don't care with what the NSA is doing so let's move on
with this NSA thingy and submit more interesting technology news so that we
all can be happy, no?

~~~
D9u
No!

To allow these abrogations of our civil rights to go unpunished equates to
tacit approval, and I, for one, absolutely refuse to let this matter rest
until the violations cease and those responsible are duly punished to the full
extent of the law.

Secret courts handing down secret rulings regarding secret police is not
something one would expect of a nation which claims "moral high ground" when
justifying their breach of the public trust on multiple fronts.

Some of us swore an Oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United
States, and we take our vows with deadly seriousness.

I'll see myself rot in some prison before I allow this situation to be
shuffled off the collective radar.

~~~
davidw
> I, for one, absolutely refuse to let this matter rest

So what are you _doing_ about it?

> I allow this situation to be shuffled off the collective radar.

Voting up articles about the issue on a niche news site is not "doing
something".

~~~
D9u
Implying that I haven't been firing off letters to my elected representatives
is an erroneous assumption on your part.

Keeping this issue alive and at the forefront of the collective mindset _is_
doing something.

~~~
davidw
> Implying that I haven't been firing off letters to my elected
> representatives is an erroneous assumption on your part.

I didn't assume that, I asked.

> Keeping this issue alive and at the forefront of the collective mindset is
> doing something.

Not really. Everyone here knows about the issue and has an opinion about it
already. I would really hope that, like you, most of us have acted on it (I
called mine rather than writing), but it's a pretty small group, all things
considered, and basically an echo chamber for issues like this. To really _do
something_ , people need to "get out of the building", to borrow a phrase.

