

I asked the NSA for its file on me, and here's what I got back - beshrkayali
http://www.dailydot.com/politics/foia-request-nsa-prism-metadata-kevin-collier/

======
jacquesm
The important thing to remember here is that the NSA was once started with
noble goals in mind but it has since changed into an attack dog without much
of a leash to hold it back. The NSA still has a useful function and indeed
they'll compromise part of that function if their technical capabilities
become too well known.

But to stonewall the general public on legitimate requests like these will
cause people to use their fantasy as to what those capabilities really are,
and that will likely overshoot reality. In that case any information the NSA
is likely interested in will go underground so far that they won't be able to
get at it in time to prevent damage.

On the other hand if they come clean and it will turn out to be (much) worse
than people expected (and there is a good chance of this) then they will
likely be reigned in diminishing their capability.

So they are damned either way.

Stonewalling is likely an indication that there is much more hidden than we
know about today, otherwise coming clean would actually make them look better.

The best thing for the NSA would be for this whole thing to go away,
organizations like that only work when they can do so in comparative secrecy.
As soon as the spotlight is aimed at them some of their effectiveness (and in
the case of the NSA likely quite a bit of it) will evaporate.

Those pesky foreign media and their relentless releases. Funny how the
Guardian is the best place to get information about a United States
institution, how Russian dissidents would move to the US and how a US
whistleblower is now living in Russia.

It seems our (the general public) best chance in getting some progress in
these matters is to play out nation states against each other.

I have no idea where this is all going but I could do with less surveillance
in the name of (the war on) terror and a more constructive approach to
geopolitical affairs to replace the 'might makes right' policy that we have
today.

~~~
icantthinkofone
You forget what most people forget. It was the NSA (USA) that was attacked
first. This is in response to that.

~~~
mkr-hn
They don't hate us for our freedoms. We need to keep that bit of propaganda
from propagating, otherwise we're doomed to repeat the last 50 years.

~~~
samstave
What I always ask: what freedoms? I can't think of really any activity I am
not paying for. One can't even escape having any single piece of land without
havig to annually pay a license to the government to keep it.

So when we are told others hate our freedoms, I want to know specifically
which ones those are.

If they say "religion" I don't count that as one as I am not religious. If
they say "speech" I'd like to point to "free speech zones" and other direct
limitations.

I can't think of anything that is truly 100% free.

~~~
mercurial
You have plenty of areas where you're not free to be irreligious. Or where
criticising the regime will land you in jail. That said, the"hating our
freedoms" line is definitely bull. People actually say that?

~~~
mkr-hn
It was one of the main talking points after 9/11.

------
bazillion
Going to go ahead and be the voice of reason and state that:

1\. The NSA does not keep a "file" on you. Domestic matters are the FBI's
territory. The NSA is tasked with strictly foreign surveillance. If
information is contained in databases that correspond to your communiques, it
is not catalogued as "Kevin Collier", because that would be a direct FISA
violation and trigger administrative removal of the data along with reporting
about how the violation occurred.

2\. I can almost say with complete confidence that our national security
resources aren't being used to target white suburban bloggers.

3\. By flooding NSA public relations with these useless requests, you're
blocking potentially real requests from being processed. If you really cared
about getting actual information about programs, you would back EFF, etc.
efforts.

~~~
uptown
Ask Laura Poitras if the NSA has a file on her. Read the article. It's worth
the 20 minutes:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-
sno...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-
snowden.html?ref=magazine)

~~~
bazillion
It's still illegal to collect on her...she's a US citizen with no ties to
terrorism.

~~~
delinka
And with all the abuses admitted to by the executive branch of the federal
government over the decades, do you honestly think that it being illegal
actually prevents them from doing it?

~~~
bazillion
Yes. That's basically like saying that you're culpable for a crime because the
person who lived in your house before you committed a crime. The people who
were in office and committed illegal acts decades ago are not the same people
in office right now. Everyone should be judged based on their own actions --
the government is not some borg mind slowly creeping towards its dictatorial
dreams, but a collection of individuals with different moralities. My guess is
that if you look close enough, you're not going to find all these crazy
conspiracies floating about actually be true, because people are much too lazy
to be putting that much effort into a government job.

~~~
delinka
1) It's not only elected officials who've abused their power. Employees of the
FBI are not elected by citizens and the citizens have little power to change
the makeup of the organization. See [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/03...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR2008031302277.html)

2) Institutional culture plays a large part in abuses that continue through
administrations and even changes in departmental leadership. Institutional
culture doesn't simply change because the head of the beast is re-appointed.
(And even in the case of the current elected head of the Executive, many
things have not changed though changes were promised, but that's a slight
digression.)

You talk about people with different moralities, and then mention that "people
are much too lazy to be putting that much effort into a government job." I
read that as regardless of people's personal opinions, they're too lazy to
challenge the status quo and would rather keep their heads down and receive
their paychecks. Without whistleblower protections, that's exactly the
environment that's fostered.

Finally, in my opinion, all this is moot. We should _necessarily_ question
those in authority, we should _necessarily_ limit the power given to those in
government, and we should _necessarily_ suspect those in power to have
anything other than _our_ _own_ best interests in mind.

~~~
bazillion
>1) It's not only elected officials who've abused their power. Employees of
the FBI are not elected by citizens and the citizens have little power to
change the makeup of the organization. See [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/03...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/03..).

I agree. It's an elitist culture of special agent assholes and "everyone
else". Trust me, I don't like the FBI. But, people within the organization
also have very little power to change it -- they're extremely reticent to any
kind of change regardless of efficiency gains. It took months of planning for
them to even consider using an excel macro I wrote that could save millions of
dollars per year.

>2) Institutional culture plays a large part in abuses that continue through
administrations and even changes in departmental leadership. Institutional
culture doesn't simply change because the head of the beast is re-appointed.
(And even in the case of the current elected head of the Executive, many
things have not changed though changes were promised, but that's a slight
digression.) You talk about people with different moralities, and then mention
that "people are much too lazy to be putting that much effort into a
government job." I read that as regardless of people's personal opinions,
they're too lazy to challenge the status quo and would rather keep their heads
down and receive their paychecks. Without whistleblower protections, that's
exactly the environment that's fostered.

I agree, whistleblower protections would be a massively positive change in how
governance works in the US, and would make people accountable for decisions
which have significant impact on national policy, security, and economy. That
being said, I don't see either Manning or Snowden as whistleblowers.

>Finally, in my opinion, all this is moot. We should necessarily question
those in authority, we should necessarily limit the power given to those in
government, and we should necessarily suspect those in power to have anything
other than our own best interests in mind.

Definitely. I'm personally hoping that this stuff spawns a legitimate third
party as a true representative of what this generation's ideals are heading
towards. The smart money, though, is on incumbents commandeering the messages
and subverting them a la Tea Party.

~~~
timeuser
First, thank you for continuing to participate in this discussion. I think you
are bringing some different perspective and make some good points.

> I agree, whistleblower protections would be a massively positive change in
> how governance works in the US, and would make people accountable for
> decisions which have significant impact on national policy, security, and
> economy. That being said, I don't see either Manning or Snowden as
> whistleblowers.

What do you think disqualifies them as whistleblowers? Manning seems
disqualified on some level because his leaks were large, not specific, without
a specific goal, and possibly not even motivated by the content of what he
leaked. Snowden's leaks seem more specific and motivated by a desire to blow
the whistle on specific practices he sees as illegal or immoral. Daniel
Ellsberg's leaks were rather large and non-specific in many ways but he is
widely regarded as a whistleblower. What is the qualification or
disqualification?

~~~
bazillion
Thanks for that.

I don't see them as whistleblowers, because their actions stand in contrast to
Ellsberg. For one, neither of them tried to go to a higher authority to report
wrongdoing -- that is the very first thing that a potential whistleblower must
do, is handle things at the lowest level possible and allow the situation to
rectify itself before taking matters into their own hands. When that fails,
then you escalate to higher authorities. Secondly, Ellsberg surrendered
himself to the court system willingly, knowing full well that he could face
life imprisonment. Manning was caught and brought to justice after having
bragged on an AOL chat to someone about his "hacking", while Snowden fled the
country taking with him a trove of classified documents which could be in the
hands of other countries, weakening any argument (to me) that he had the US's
best intentions at heart. My argument about Snowden is that he knows so little
about the programs he supposedly leaked -- I watched his interview and was
astonished at the blatant lies in it (see my other post on
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5885846](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5885846)),
not to mention him saying that he could wiretap any american (or even the
president!) at any time. True whistleblowers are caught in the middle of
something that they have solid knowledge of, but are unable to change the
course of, so they go to the public in order for the public to do the course
correction.

------
nshepperd
> "Were we to provide positive or negative responses to requests such as
> yours, our adversaries' compilation of the information provided would
> reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national
> security."

Not surprising. They're obviously trying to prevent the situation where Mr
Terrorist or Ms Spy makes a FOIA request for their file and—because the NSA
has been handing out files containing _non-compromising_ evidence to anyone
who asks—the NSA has to either:

\- Lie, and say they don't have a file (probably not plausible, and maybe
illegal under FOIA)

\- Construct a fake file (expensive, and similarly might be illegal)

\- Hand over the true file, revealing what they know about the bad guys

\- Refuse to hand over the file, revealing that they know something
incriminating, and that it's time for Ms Spy to disappear for a while

In information theory, and therefore espionage, you can't unask a question.

------
fetbaffe
My Ghostery browser addon reports that blog has 18 trackers. I guess tracking
is a one way street then.

~~~
cheald
There is a gulf of a difference between a private business tracking its users
and customers for business purposes, which you may opt out of by not dealing
with said business, and your government tracking its citizens for criminal
purposes, which you don't have the option of electing out of.

~~~
fetbaffe
Where have you been the past few weeks? The US government uses private
business to track people.

~~~
cheald
Surely you're not suggesting that the government's secret tracking weapon is
Google Analytics. The tracking that the government is doing is not going to be
visible to or blockable by end users. But hey, if it makes you feel safe, use
ghostery and clear your cookies every hour. There's no way they can track you
then!

Illicit tracking by the government is a definite problem. I think that even in
these times, you have to have your tinfoil hat on a little too tight to think
that advertising cookies are the bogeyman here.

~~~
fetbaffe
Did I say it was the only tracking method they use? Of course the US
government also uses non-blocking techniques like wire tapping, snooping,
hacking etc.

However, today Google has all the information about users that the US
government can use as a good complement to an already vast spying
organization.

Google has information about your emails, friends, search queries, page you
visit, documents and files you store, clips you watch, medical records etc.

Are you telling me that the US government is _not_ interested in this
information and the reports of NSA plugging its system into private businesses
was just a hoax?

Is the secret FISA hearings just tin foil bait?

------
arbuge
<quote>The NSA has admitted, separately, that it employs a practice called
"contact chaining." That means that if one of their targets calls someone, who
in turn calls someone else, who in turn calls you, agency's checking you
out.</quote>

Ah. So when you get an appointment reminder from your dentist, you might just
have been chained with a suspect who called that same dentist earlier. Or
maybe your girl/boy-friend works at Domino's on the side and called you from
there, and it so happens a suspect is one of their customers.... congrats, NSA
file for you.

------
tptacek
If you follow the link the author set on the NSA asking "My NSA" to stop
offering semi-automated filings, it's clear that the NSA isn't trying to
coerce or intimidate, but rather is simply pointing out that the service
doesn't actually work, because it generates noncompliant filings that NSA is
prevented by law from even acknowledging.

That's one hop away, on a link this author _chose_ for the story, and yet I'm
left wondering whether the author even read it.

------
toble
I assumed from the title that it would be something other than a boilerplate,
or at least a follow up, but it's just a commentary on said boilerplate.

------
twiceaday
tldr: "nothing"

Why am I not surprised?

~~~
laxatives
Seriously, what a gimmick of a title. The whole article had no new information
and his tone sounded like speculation and complaint that he didn't get some
sort of special treatment.

------
pivnicek
The important question regarding this whole mess is where are the equivalent
of the Swiss banks for data?

~~~
dredmorbius
The EFF publishes a Surveillance Self-Defense resource I'd strongly recommend.
The tools page: [https://ssd.eff.org/tech](https://ssd.eff.org/tech)

Essentially: encryption, self-hosting, small-scale hosting (the NSA have
scaling problems with vendors, though don't expect that to last), privacy
tools including browser privacy (privoxy), tor, VPNs, the FreedomBox, and
others.

------
smoyer
I haven't heard of any of these requests being accepted ... Does anyone have a
reference to one?

~~~
laxatives
I saw a website that that was devoted to writing up a request, you just
entered in your name, address, etc. and it would write up a formal request for
you. They said they had a few hits, but at an extremely low success rate
(maybe a dozen responses, after thousands or tens of thousands of requests) --
although the successful responses were self-reported, so they may or may not
be legit. It was on hacker news a few months ago, but I can't seem to find it.

------
unicorn_1123
Isn't it be nice that the webpage contains a virus:
"[http://cdn0.dailydot.com/resources/20130808180232/js/dd-
lazy...](http://cdn0.dailydot.com/resources/20130808180232/js/dd-
lazyload.js.gz") wurde ein Virus oder unerwünschtes Programm
'HTML/Infected.WebPage.Gen2' [virus] gefunden.

~~~
fetbaffe
What antivirus software are you running? May I guess its Avira Antivirus based
on the German you posted?

Windows Defender in Windows 8 says nothing about it.

~~~
D9u
No AV on my FreeBSD setup, but this site says the questionable item is clean:

[http://sitecheck.sucuri.net/results/cdn0.dailydot.com/resour...](http://sitecheck.sucuri.net/results/cdn0.dailydot.com/resources/20130808180232/js/dd-
lazyload.js.gz)

------
bobbo3
Secret spy agency keeps secrets secret.

What's the story here?

------
northwest
> "Were we to provide positive or negative responses to requests such as
> yours, our adversaries' compilation of the information provided would
> reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national
> security."

You just can't be more full of sh#t.

~~~
alan_cx
Oh, give it a week or so, and Im sure they will surpass that.

------
pearjuice
Please stop polluting the front page with Snowden and NSA related stuff unless
it adds something new. This is just a fluff article which helps you read along
an automated government response. At least link directly to the scribd
document next time.

~~~
bkor
Hackers News works on basis of votes. The submitter added a link to something
that the person thought was interesting. 69 other people agree. Thus there is
no pollution, you're just do not want to see it. That's different.

