via The Atlantic Wire.
As an aside during testimony on Capitol Hill today, a National Security Agency representative rather casually indicated that the government looks at data from a universe of far, far more people than previously indicated.I don't know why this isn't getting more airplay.
Chris Inglis, the agency's deputy director, was one of several government representatives—including from the FBI and the office of the Director of National Intelligence—testifying before the House Judiciary Committee this morning. Most of the testimony largely echoed previous testimony by the agencies on the topic of the government's surveillance, including a retread of the same offered examples for how the Patriot Act and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had stopped terror events.
But Inglis' statement was new. Analysts look "two or three hops" from terror suspects when evaluating terror activity, Inglis revealed. Previously, the limit of how surveillance was extended had been describedas two hops. This meant that if the NSA were following a phone metadata or web trail from a terror suspect, it could also look at the calls from the people that suspect has spoken with—one hop. And then, the calls that second person had also spoken with—two hops. Terror suspect to person two to person three. Two hops. And now: A third hop.
Think of it this way. Let's say the government suspects you are a terrorist and it has access to your Facebook account. If you're an American citizen, it can't do that currently (with certain exceptions)—but for the sake of argument. So all of your friends, that's one hop. Your friends' friends, whether you know them or not—two hops. Your friends' friends' friends, whoever they happen to be, are that third hop. That's a massive group of people that the NSA apparently considers fair game.
The US government has basically said that its spying on the entire population and no one is upset.
Quite honestly this should scare the fuck out of everyone. Oh and spare me the talking point that "I'm not a criminal so I don't mind"....that's nonsense. Its weak and it smacks of fear.
People just don't give a shit, they're comfortable, or they buy the whole necessary for safety line. If you try to make an argument about principle half the people look at you like you're the unibomber. Hmmm no one else commenting on this one..... I probably should take a hint.....
ReplyDeletefuture generations will curse us all and wonder how we could allow things to go so wrong. it doesn't matter on what end of the political spectrum you live in either. this should be universal. people don't realize it but at this very moment the US government has a more effective spying network (on its citizens) than anything the Soviet Union was able to come up with. people talk about stuff being frightening for silly stuff but this actually is...and no one is paying attention.
DeleteI think there is a bit of a disconnect in this general area. A decent number of us in the tech world have known that the NSA has had access to domestic communications for quite a while. And in the cases that they don't, they've been able to piggy back off of foreign intelligence entities to get it. I and many others have always assumed that whatever is publicly available winds up in a NSA computer at some point or another. Cell phones pre-digital were incredibly easy for the NSA or foreign entities to snarf and only became marginally harder afterwards. The US government has had the capabilities to snap onto deep underwater comms cables for quite some time. If they can snap onto those, they assuredly can snap onto major comms lines, almost all of which actually cross or run on government owned or regulated land.
DeleteThe reality, is the governments access to this data isn't even close to a new thing. The only thing that has changed is we've made it slightly easier and slightly cheaper for them. And honestly, their ability to sift through the data hasn't fundamentally changed either. The NSA has long been on the forefront of custom and innovative computers to search through data. Computer microprocessors all have instructions in them that greatly speed up searching and largely have them at the request of the NSA (though they are used regularly to speed up our own searches on our own computers).
So realistically, we've always had better sigint even on our own people than the USSR has ever had. USSR was always better with humint than the US and we were always better at sigint. But the US has always made it perfectly legal and easy for US citizens to bypass the sigint if we wanted to: encryption.
So this isn't really anything new, its been going on since WWII. It just that people are reacting now which is quite funny because people are also putting significantly more out there in the public for all to see than they ever had in the past.
Home of the brave , LOL more like home of the cowardly.
ReplyDeleteSoviets were small time deal compared to East German Stasi which did fraction of what NSA does now days.
Time to think hard about conscripting people for military service and you might end a couple of problems at once ,more likely than not that would stop US from going to war all the time just to keep defense industry in the money and people might grow some guts not just beer belies
the security industry is growing faster than our military and the defense companies are adjusting to that reality.
DeleteI was against the Patriot act from the very beginning, I think that was a big turning point but too late now on that one, I can just say : "told you so...."
ReplyDeleteTo a more general point, the US population, in general, has grown more and more apathetic, not withstanding tea party or occupy movement. Contrary to popular or media notions, these are very small movements with very highly motivated people that can take advantage of a political system like US primaries. Small groups can get their politician nominated but then gets trashed in the generals as we have seen especially in the Senate. They can generate a lot of noise using the internet but their numbers are quite small compared to the size of the US population. This hides the fact that voting is really not that important for the majority of Americans...
I know I am stereotyping but when I talk to the "average" American citizen, most seem to ignore what happens outside their small world. Snowden affair pretty much is already out of the news, Zimmerman trial is still on going news. I would think in the bigger scope of things or affairs of this country , Snowden leaks can touch all of us compared to Zimmerman trial and consequences...I am not even going into the real important news like Kim Kardashian or Honey Boo Boo,OMG!!!!....Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Europe economy on the brink,China growing military strength....."cricket sounds".
We are a very small minority that care about military affairs, weapon systems, foreign affairs and bother posting on sites like yours or others but the truth is, there's not a lot of us. I talk to my friends about some of the stuff I post and a lot of them look at me like some kind of freak, I am sure I am not the only one that gets that: "wow, you know a lot about the military or what's happening in the world! Just don't talk to me about it for too long....I find it boring."
Another problem, US military has usually "won" the recent wars and touched few people since it's a voluntary system. I would also add the dangerous attitude that has seeped into most Americans and even a few "experts": "we are Americans!we always have the best stuff! China? They copy only crap! All their stuff is garbage!" This, I promise, we come to bite us in the ass one day...There is no 11th commandment that states the USA will always have superior equipment.
Finally, I post satellite pictures on Virtual Globetrotting of military installations as a hobby, I have told few friends as they think now I am some kind of spy.."sigh". WTF?!?
you're right of course.
Deletei'm really disappointed in gun guys on that Zimmerman case. it is being used as a distraction by the White House and no one seems to be able to see it.
they were in serious trouble. people were finally waking up to the spy scandal, benghazi, irs and snowden....but the Zimmerman trial came along and what should really be a minor (well not really a man died but you get the point) issue suddenly became national.
i mean seriously! people should be rioting over government spying! over the IRS scandal! over benghazi! but instead, we have a relatively common murder trial sucking all the air out of the room.
we're fucked and we deserve it.
The only thing the patriot act did was open up the information for law enforcement. The NSA had long since had its hand in the cookie jar. But historically, the NSA hasn't really cared. If they found a red flag, they would put out a notice to various other agencies that they might want to look at someone but they would never let the info out.
DeleteSo the problem with the Patriot act wasn't so much that it allowed government access to materials (the government already had access) but that it allowed the whole of government access in a very transparent way. This in turned freed up many agencies within the government to use that information openly.
In the old days, the only ones that were going to see it was the NSA. And if it didn't directly relate to something they were going to work on, they didn't care. They could intercept anything from murder for hire to spousal cheating, but they sure as hell weren't going to act on it. It wasn't their place, it wasn't their job, and the reality is they weren't suppose to know anyways, so they are just going to let it fall off the stack. The NSA historically was even cagey with giving information to other classified and covert US entities.
And how anyone could be up in arms wrt a given or even current pres wrt domestic spying, I'll never understand. Domestic spying has been going on for decades. It was heavily funded and endorsed by both political parties from Reagan to JFK. The crown jewel that the US got out of WWII was a giant lead over everyone else in sigint, and we more than ran with it.
As far as the IRS scandal, yes there is a scandal but it isn't not what was reported. The scandal is that any of the organizations qualified for 501.c4 status regardless of being on the right or left. By both the spirit and letter of the law, almost none of the 501.c4 approved organizations in the last 8 years are qualified as 501.c4 organizations as their primary purpose is political in their actions, in their leadership, and in their funding.
Benghazi is a travesty but a travesty that both sides of the political aisle fully participated in via both action and inaction.
i don't care about political party. they're both corrupt. i am disappointed because although i didn't believe hope and change, i did see a need to get beyond Bush's ineptitude.
Deleteinstead we got more of the same. the only saving grace is that McCain is suffering from dementia from all outside appearances and would have been worse, and Romney didn't show that he could inspire which is one half of the leadership puzzle
Wasn't there something about them checking out people who go to prepper type websites or those searching for long term food storage.
ReplyDeleteyep. prepper sites, gun sites, military sites, all that and more. its wild because it looks like they're actually beginning to roll out the "if your neighbor or coworker is suspicious --report him" trash straight from Nazi Germany.
Deletedon't worry Tony. you're on the list. they're searching your mail, e-mails, phone calls and probably tracking your purchases. so yeah, no worries, you're not left out!
If thats the case I guess a terrorist guarded the POTUS during his first inauguration. Heck any Mormon is on the list as well. Hey maybe the Mormons may have a case against the gov for profiling what their religion sees as good practice.
DeleteJust so we down go down the conspiracy rabbit hole, they check out any groups or organizations that aren't the mainstream. Preppers and gun enthusiasts aren't special snow flakes. The liberal leaning organizations and groups have been getting the same treatment forever. The FBI and CIA are well known for looking into anti-war/peace activists, ecology groups, etc.
DeleteIf you aren't the mainstream of the mainstream groups, then it is likely at some point the FBI or CIA investigated you or is still watching you. This is nothing new and has been going on at least as far back as the 50s.
And it is very different from Nazi Germany or the USSR, both of which relied heavily on humint practices like the whole neighbor thing. The US has primarily relied on sigint. Its much more hands off and much less off putting than the humint path. Now whether they are doing it is a good thing or a bad thing is for each person to decide, but that should be done in the full light of sunshine that this has been going on for a very very very long time.
Don't be one of those people that gets all bent out of shape just because the groups you are associated with now gets the treatment. Esp if you were fine with it when the groups you didn't like got it well before you and still get it.
Me, I'm kinda meh about the whole thing. If you care, and you want something private, then encrypt it. If not, assume you are shouting it from the roof tops. The roof tops is by far the current social trend worldwide however. Oh and if you do use encryption, expect more scrutiny (and not just from our government).
wait. don't believe that HUMINT isn't going on. the "see something, say something" campaign....the word that federal workers are being instructed to monitor fellow workers for suspicious behavior, purchases, talk, group affiliation etc....
Deletemy opinion is that HUMINT is being rolled out slowly but that we're definitley headed in that direction.
I figured a LONG time ago I was fu#ked if ever a US gvt goes hardcore NAZI or Communist so I stopped worrying! Let's see: I post on a whole bunch of military/political sites, love satire, have a couple of college degrees, I paint and play music, love to travel, own a business and I have Jewish friends which pretty much me Jewish or close enough.
ReplyDeleteI think I have all the bases covered to send me anytime they want to a concentration camp....
Democracy USA? Gulag check,secret trials check,use of torture check, assasination program check ,widespread use of wiretaps check, huge intelligence aparatus check , martial law at a whim check ,police brutality check ,huge incarcerated population check, death sentence check, politicians for life check ,building a wall on the border check
ReplyDeleteYou might think that you live in a free state but facts say otherwise.
i won't argue the point but ask instead this question.
Deletewho on this planet does? a tribesman in Africa or the Amazon? that might be it. every developed country has variations on the theme of what you're seeing here.
modern man has built himself a gilded cage.
That is true to an extent but US has taken it so far that many dictatorships can only dream off. Is voting for bad and worst(in gerrymandered districts as close as you get to rigged elections) every 4 years is all that distinguishes democracy from totalitarian state.
DeleteIf you would have proposed these things in the US 80-90s you would be called crazy.
The irony is not that US is turning bad it that US continues to play righteous card all the time while it has less and less to show for itself.