

How the NSA spied on Americans before the Internet - constapop
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/23/how-the-nsa-spied-on-americans-before-the-internet/

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mikegioia
This puts the history of the NSA's work into perspective, but all this really
seems to convey is that (a) the NSA has never had proper oversight and (b) the
NSA probably never will have proper oversight.

It also seems that they were caught with their tail between their legs in the
late 90s which may have been the call to arms after 9/11:

    
    
        ...the House Intelligence Committee concluded, in 1999, that it 
        was "in serious trouble." It reportedly spent the years leading 
        up to Sept. 11, 2001, without enough money or leadership to 
        process "the huge volumes of TV, fax, telephone and other 
        signals" that fiber-optic cables transmit, the L.A. Times 
        reported in 2000. 
    

I guess it was an information overload during that period in Internet history
where the NSA simply did not have the resources or capability to store
everything, hence this datacenter in Utah.

I wonder if they have anything to do with the bandwidth caps we've seen over
the last few years. It wouldn't surprise me if the USG was trying to force
people (through TelCo bandwidth caps) to not exponentially grow their
bandwidth usage, hoping to prevent the same problems from a decade ago.

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samstave
> __ _I wonder if they have anything to do with the bandwidth caps we 've seen
> over the last few years._ __

That is an amazing thought. How could we find out about this.

"We can only subcribe the surveillance system to XK/user/month -- tell the
Telcos"

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mindslight
Or they just force the telcos to hold off on upgrading their backbones until
the associated black rooms have been upgraded. Much simpler, same effect.

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gcb0
If you're on a phone/tablet and get desktop version of sites, click this for
the print page... Otherwise bad ads and dumb JavaScript on that page will rape
your device

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/wp/2013/08/23...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/wp/2013/08/23/how-the-nsa-spied-on-americans-before-the-
internet/?print=1)

~~~
jbattle
First off - thanks for the tip. Second - I'd suggest reconsidering the casual
use of the word "rape". I understand what it means in this context but think
such usage trivializes rape and in some sense normalizes it or makes it
"cute".

~~~
gcb0
i could have used 'kill your device' and it wouldn't be banalizing killing in
any way. quit the kneejerk

