
FBI quietly changes its privacy rules for accessing NSA data on Americans - spiralpolitik
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/08/fbi-changes-privacy-rules-accessing-nsa-prism-data
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chatmasta
What good is a set of "rules" (not even laws) if they are deliberated and
enforced behind closed doors? Why should the FBI even bother following these
"rules" if nobody is transparently ensuring that they do?

Also, I did not realize just how intricately NSA data is shared with the FBI
(and who knows how many other agencies). From the article, it sounds like any
FBI analyst can run an arbitrary query on the "to" and "from" fields of email
addresses, at any time, as many times as desired. So effectively the FBI has
one giant inbox with Americans' communications in it?

That inbox _will_ get hacked. It's only a matter of time. If thousands of
federal bureaucrats have access to it, I would be very surprised if foreign
intelligence agencies do not already have access to it in some capacity.

Scary stuff. People should continue to assume all systems are compromised and
email is public information.

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jessaustin
_That inbox_ will _get hacked._

It probably has been hacked already. NSA respects FBI OpSec so little that
this interface is already used to funnel disinformation to counterintelligence
adversaries. That the lives of random citizens are randomly fucked up is a
mere side benefit.

~~~
privong
> NSA respects FBI OpSec so little that this interface is already used to
> funnel disinformation to counterintelligence adversaries.

I have never heard this before. Do you happen to have a citation for this? I
would like to read more about it.

~~~
jessaustin
This counterintel program wouldn't work very well if there were a published
citation of it. b^)

~~~
cbd1984
So how do you know about it?

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matt_wulfeck
I hate secret courts. Everything about a secret court/FISA is offensive to
democracy and the longevity of a free society. I strongly believe we will be
ashamed of ourselves in the future for allowing them for so long in our
country.

~~~
mordocai
We won't have the right to be ashamed about it. At least, not to communicate
the feeling.

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marshray
This end of even the pretense of due process, 4th amendment, and Posse
Comitatus is one of the most important shifts in American domestic policy in
my lifetime.

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alfiedotwtf
How long until the NSA quietly changes its privacy rules against domestic-only
surveillance?

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x5n1
No rule changes needed. Did your packets travel outside of the US ever. Well
hey now...

~~~
arca_vorago
No no, your packets don't have to leave the US. They just have to be going to
the same server as the guy from Germany. Social graph contact node exploration
is what they do for fun and profit, 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon and all that.

Whats more, if you really get down to the technicalities, they have taps at
all the major fiber nodes domestically, collect that information, but
supposedly it's not collection in NSA terminology unless they look at it after
they collect, which is just the most back-asswards way of arbitrarily defining
terms as I can think.

So in reality, all your packets, even the encrypted ones, belong to them.
Become a high target node on the graph for any reason, and expect your data to
have a "7 year storage" tag, so they can focus your data and walk the cat back
later.

Yes, the surveillance state is real, and it sets up what William Binney calls
the "turn-key totalitarian state". FOSS and encryption will save the computer
literate, but the masses are in for rude surprises.

~~~
cplease
Both you and that which you reply to are incorrect. Deliberate surveillance of
domestic communications of any persons or international communications of U.S.
persons without judicial approval is unlawful. Nonpublic information regarding
U.S. persons incidentally captured in foreign surveillance must be minimized.

Surveillance state may be real, and we all know what has actually been going
on (to include massive interception and storage of so-called metadata of
domestic U.S. communication on a vast scale), but that doesn't change the fact
that U.S. surveillance of foreigners located in the U.S., or of communications
of U.S. persons that take international paths, is flat-out illegal without
judicial approval.

What is really needed (barring a codified policy change by the legislature and
executive), is some meaningful restraint from the Supreme Court on government
intrusion into so-called metadata collection. We've come a long way since the
pen register.

~~~
alfiedotwtf
> is flat-out illegal without judicial approval

That was my original point... how long until domestic spying is no longer
illegal

~~~
cplease
That was your point, but the replies by x5n1 and arca_vorago to which
rebutting, misrepresented the status quo as legally permitting surveillance of
U.S. persons transiting international boundaries. It does not.

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awqrre
Does the NSA have American citizen's data because other countries share it
with them? I thought that they were forbidden from having this type of data...

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mirimir
Maybe I'm just paranoid and cynical, and it's hard not to see this as mere
posturing.

~~~
stray
The FBI already has some information -- that they got from NSA -- that they
_desperately_ want to use.

But they _can 't_ use it yet because they lack a credible cover story to use
for "parallel construction" (look it up).

They tried to use Apple to get their little parallel construction cover story
-- and now they're just changing the rules so they don't even have to use
parallel construction any more.

Interesting times.

~~~
furyofantares
Do you have reason to believe this to be true rather than simply being
plausible?

~~~
adventured
During the big Snowden leak time frame, it came out that the DEA had been
conspiring with other agencies, using the NSA data, to perform parallel
construction illegally.

So we already know it's going on within the US Government. Is the FBI using
it? Whatever the line is between plausible and damn certain, that's perhaps
where this falls.

------
boomin
sdf

