
NSA's Surveillance Powers Extend Far Beyond Counterterrorism - sethbannon
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/nsas-surveillance-powers-extend-far-beyond-terrorism-despite-governments
======
justinschuh
Here's NSA's own statement on their SIGINT mission:

"The National Security Agency is responsible for providing foreign Signals
Intelligence (SIGINT) to our nation's policy-makers and military forces.
SIGINT plays a vital role in our national security by providing America's
leaders with critical information they need to defend our country, save lives,
and advance U.S. goals and alliances globally."

[http://www.nsa.gov/sigint/](http://www.nsa.gov/sigint/)

Now, it's not an accident that "policy-makers" comes first in that sentence.
The truth is that the vast majority of productized intelligence is used solely
to inform policy-makers in a capacity that will never lead to any form of
military or clandestine intervention. Yes, operational uses certainly do
exist, but they are not the norm.

Unfortunately, you won't find a government spokesman or politician coming out
and admitting that in most cases, because it's a complicated and nuanced
position. Instead of having that conversation (and risking both ignorant and
informed criticism) they take the cynical approach of framing it as something
that's hard to argue with. For many decades it was defending against the
communists, and since 2001 it's been protection against terrorism.

So, articles like this one are the unavoidable result of avoiding a difficult
conversation. That's why the public at large (and even many supposed experts)
have entirely the wrong idea about why nations collect foreign intelligence.

~~~
unclebucknasty
> _Unfortunately, you won 't find a government spokesman or politician coming
> out and admitting that in most cases..._

IMO these overstatements of threat are far less benign than that. I believe
they know that the _true_ scope and scale of their _secret_ surveillance
activities can _only_ be justified using extreme scare tactics, such as the
threat of terrorism. I believe this is true even if the American public was in
full understanding of whatever nuanced policy benefits _actually_ resulted for
the citizenry as a whole.

That is, the problem may well be that the benefits do not accrue to the
general populace, but to a much narrower set of vested interests. So, if
Americans knew fully and exactly who benefited and to what degree, they may
find that said benefits for the general populace do not justify the NSA's
"attack" on the general populace.

So, this is not about avoiding a nuanced conversation. It's that the the
measures themselves have been turned against the U.S. citizenry such that the
benefits of the resulting policy decisions do not outweigh the affront to
privacy and Constitutional rights. If these affronts cannot be justified even
while they are turning their powers _against_ the very people who are supposed
to be the beneficiaries, then we must naturally ask the question "then whose
interests are really being served here?"

That is the real conversation that they wish to avoid.

Further evidence of the dissonance is revealed when you consider the NSA
SIGINT mission statement you provided. It's a very generic statement that
wouldn't cause concern given what we _knew and expected_ of the NSA's actual
activities (i.e. prior to the Snowden leaks). It's only when you realize the
fuller scale of NSA activity and its targeting of the broader U.S. population
that this statement seems woefully inadequate to justify the attendant
activities.

~~~
mpyne
> It's only when you realize the fuller scale of NSA activity and its
> targeting of the broader U.S. population that this statement seems woefully
> inadequate to justify the attendant activities.

I've not even seen evidence that NSA is actually _targeting_ the greater
American population though. The issue is that NSA has expanded the scope of
what they look at, and made it easier for their analysts to get away with
assuming someone is not an "USPER". That obviously carries a greater risk of
lumping Americans into that net where they wouldn't have before, but no one
(not even Snowden, AFAICS) has been able to demonstrate the NSA is actually
trying to deliberately target Americans with any of this.

~~~
unclebucknasty
Well, I think here the word _targeting_ is a matter of semantics. I mean, if
you know that you are engaged in programs that will necessarily sweep in vast
amounts of data from the American population, then you are not _not targeting_
them. I think this is what's unsettled those who are unsettled.

So, we can call it the "dissolution of presumed protections" instead of
targeting, but for this discussion, I don't believe that it matters. That is,
by any name, to the extent that Americans feel that the NSA has transgressed
against its own citizens, the NSA's justification has been terrorism.

EDIT: To be clear, I believe there is considerable compelling evidence that
Americans are routinely targeted through various programs. I just don't think
it's necessary to have that debate in the context of this discussion.

~~~
mpyne
I think you're right about it being semantics. In fact I think that would
explain a lot of the reaction on all sides.

E.g. when we allow the FBI to wiretap people pursuant to a lawfully-issued
warrant, that's in reality done with the understanding that the FBI had the
_technical_ capability to execute that wiretap, warrant or not. The warrant
isn't technically required anymore, it's only a procedural safeguard. But most
people do not necessarily spend a lot of time thinking about how the FBI could
be listening to all of their phone calls, since they know that they are not
actually being targeted in practice.

So it is on what is truly a global Internet. The IP packets don't go flying
around with "I'm an American" bits set, so in the end the only real safeguard
if you're going to try to mine data of national interest from the Internet is
procedural. At best technical safeguards could be used within the NSA's
various data warehouses after collection has occurred, but there's no way to
get around the fact that American and non-American data is intermingled
everywhere on the Internet.

Is this a satisfactory state of affairs? Nope! If you're a privacy advocate
you might say that the response is to simply stop collecting intelligence at
all and accept all the consequences that follow from that. If you're kind of
in the middle you might want to add more oversight, transparency and other
safeguards to retain the ability to gain intelligence (not just for counter-
terrorism, but for everything the nation needs it for), while not risking mass
abuse of civil liberties by differenting definitions of "targeting".

But the sea change was not the NSA deciding to spy on Americans, it was
Americans deciding to join the rest of the world on a global network, a
problem the NSA didn't previously have to really sort through. I won't say I
agree with all the inventive ways they've found to try to collect
intelligence, but nor do I think that there is some directed effort by NSA to
violate American civil liberties as a goal in and of itself.

You're right that "terrorism!" has been their go-to reasoning in the public
eye, but to be fair that is one of the big things the people are large are
concerned with and, to parrot the top comment on this thread, the full truth
about diplomatic cloak-and-dagger games is rather nuanced.

~~~
unclebucknasty
No. This is not what I meant at all. Your post seems almost comically
apologetic. For instance:

> _the sea change was not the NSA deciding to spy on Americans, it was
> Americans deciding to join the rest of the world on a global network_

What? That's spit-take worthy. So, it's not that the NSA is doing anything to
Americans. It's that the NSA was just minding its business and silly Americans
got in the NSA's way?

That's pretty funny on its face. Of course, it's also wrong. America created
the Internet. We didn't just join in what the world was doing. But, it
wouldn't absolve the NSA of its responsibility in any case.

Look, these programs are designed to sweep in American's info and store it
indefinitely. Period. Worse, they do not have the appropriate protective
safeguards or oversight. There's no qualifying clause in the Fourth Amendment
that reads, "unless it's really, really hard".

> _nor do I think that there is some directed effort by NSA to violate
> American civil liberties as a goal in and of itself_

Of course not. Neither is throwing detainees in Gitmo an effort to violate
people's civil liberties as a goal in and of itself; and nor is torture for
that matter. What earthly difference does it make? I don't even understand
that argument. Are you saying that the government can do what it wants as long
as it doesn't have an _end goal_ of violating civil liberties?

~~~
mpyne
> America created the Internet. We didn't just join in what the world was
> doing.

While pedantically true, you should really read 'The Cuckoo's Egg'. And
research into this CERN scientist named Tim Berners-Lee. The Internet has had
an international development behind it since it was still split into
NSFNET/ARPANET/MILNET/etc. But NSA wasn't there, and in fact couldn't have
cared less, because the nascent Internet wasn't where their adversaries were
at.

> Are you saying that the government can do what it wants as long as it
> doesn't have an end goal of violating civil liberties?

The end goal of an action is definitely part and parcel of the morality of
that action. It's inseparable. E.g. the government could go around shooting
people for being black and that would be unmistakeably horrifying. The
government could also give the same weapons to the police for self-protection
purposes only and we'd (mostly) consider that acceptable, as long as those
weapons were only discharged for self-defense, defense of property (e.g. nuc
weapons), etc.

Also, your Gitmo example demonstrates much the opposite point. Prisons aren't
inherently evil because they are used for an evil purpose at Gitmo. Call me
weird, but I kind of prefer that serial killers are locked away myself.

So yes, intent matters. I mean, I agree with you that neither the safeguards
nor oversight needed for NSA programs are currently in place, but what if
those safeguards and oversight _were_ put into place? Would you be OK with
some of those programs then?

~~~
unclebucknasty
> _But NSA wasn 't there, and in fact couldn't have cared less, because the
> nascent Internet wasn't where their adversaries were at._

Yeah, so that pretty much completely undermines your previous point. And
again, it's laughable to say that the NSA was just minding its business when a
bunch of Americans suddenly got in their way.

> _The end goal of an action is definitely part and parcel of the morality of
> that action. It 's inseparable._

You're committing a flagrant logical fallacy here and with your subsequent
examples. Intent may help to determine the morality of a thing, but the
absense of intent does not necessitate that something is morally appropriate.
That is, of course they are _completely separable_.

> _Also, your Gitmo example demonstrates much the opposite point._

It really doesn't. See previous comment regarding intent. Also, you completely
miss the point and you seem to be confusing yourself. Your previous assertion
was that the NSA's not setting out to violate detainee rights as an end goal
absolves them (or matters at all) to some extent. If you agree that "prisons
are [or even could be] used for an evil purpose at Gitmo", as you say, then
you have conceded my point. That is, whether they intended for Gitmo to
violate detainee civil rights as the end goal, the evil that now exists is
unacceptable and there are people who are responsible for it. No one is
talking about the rightness of prison as a concept or whether serial killers
should be incarcerated. That's just strange.

In general, you seem to just throw out a bunch of pedantic or semantic
arguments as red herrings and strawmen. You are missing the fundamental points
that started this thread.

> _Would you be OK with some of those programs then?_

See what I mean? I think my feelings on the matter are pretty clear.

------
bediger4000
I'd say we will know the NSA's data is getting used when some up-and-coming
political figures get sent back down due to revelations about weird porno
habits, or other internet-related pecadilloes.

Or maybe when we notice an entire generation does not have any representative
leaders in national US politics. Only old farts, whose predilections were
exercized pre-Intenet, remain. Hmmm.....

~~~
CamperBob2
Already happened, although it wasn't the NSA in particular. Look at
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Spitzer_prostitution_scan...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Spitzer_prostitution_scandal)
. Gee, I feel safer already.

~~~
alexeisadeski3
A world without Spitzer is in fact safer...

~~~
CamperBob2
Well, yeah, but still. The ends don't justify the means.

------
webreac
Terrorism and paedophilia are the usual scapegoats to justify unacceptable
policies.

~~~
betterunix
You forgot drugs, witchcraft, etc. Whatever the uneducated masses are
irrationally afraid of will be used by those in power to justify their abuses.

------
smokeyj
If I could spy on anyone, I'd game the market, subvert the rule of law, and
declare all my competitors terrorists. That is the American way.

------
ffrryuu
Industrial espionage + attacking political opponents + labeling whistleblower
as crazy and commit them to the hospital.

~~~
selimthegrim
Sounds sufficiently Soviet to me.

~~~
ffrryuu
We hate them because they remind us of ourselves.

------
bane
Of course it does, Counterterrorism is one of many missions it must undertake.
It's not like the NSA was set up during the Cold War when terrorism was barely
a policy making blip on anybody's radar or anything.

In other words, Spy Agency does Spying, news at 11.

------
einehexe
This is a classic strawman that the EFF sets up to easily knock down. No one
in their right mind thinks that the sole purpose of the NSA is terrorism. All
American interests are to be looked after. The NSA unilaterily disarming would
be a dream come true to many, mostly those who would like to see the West
decline.

~~~
sinak
From my conversations with friends and family, I think _many_ people think
that the NSA's sole purpose is to fight terrorism. That thinking has been
reinforced by the NSA and the administration repeatedly claiming that NSA
surveillance is justified because it prevents terrorist attacks. If not the
"sole" purpose, in the least they think it's the NSA's "main" purpose.

But the main point of the article is that the Obama administration justifies
surveillance by saying it's critical to preventing terrorism, but that
surveillance is being used for many many purposes beyond just
counterterrorism, making it a poor case.

~~~
mpyne
> But the main point of the article is that the Obama administration justifies
> surveillance by saying it's critical to preventing terrorism, but that
> surveillance is being used for many many purposes beyond just
> counterterrorism, making it a poor case.

Being useful for one major thing doesn't mean that a tool is not also useful
for other things. You can in fact point out as many other minor things as you
wish, but that doesn't invalidate (by itself) the usefulness for the major
task. So I don't see EFF's point here.

In fact that was the point I was about to make before screening the comments:
"Of course NSA's powers extend beyond simple counterterrorism, who is claiming
otherwise? Did they not read even a synopsis of the relevant law?"

