Opinions on the NSA

[BCEagle91]

<br>

<p>Since when has Wikipedia been considered a reliable source for anything? </p>

<br>

<p>There’s a pretty good definition of ad hominem in there.</p>

[calmom]

<p>Microsoft statement:

[quote]
This afternoon, the FBI and DOJ have given us permission to publish some additional data, and we are publishing it straight away. However, we continue to believe that what we are permitted to publish continues to fall short of what is needed to help the community understand and debate these issues.</p>

<p>Here is what the data shows: For the six months ended December 31, 2012, Microsoft received between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 consumer accounts from U.S. governmental entities (including local, state and federal). This only impacts a tiny fraction of Microsoft’s global customer base.</p>

<p>We are permitted to publish data on national security orders received (including, if any, FISA Orders and FISA Directives), but only if aggregated with law enforcement requests from all other U.S. local, state and federal law enforcement agencies; only for the six-month period of July 1, 2012 thru December 31, 2012; only if the totals are presented in bands of 1,000; and all Microsoft consumer services had to be reported together.<a href=“emphasis%20in%20original”>/quote</a></p>

<p>[Microsoft?s</a> U.S. law enforcement and national security requests for last half of 2012 - Microsoft on the Issues - Site Home - TechNet Blogs](<a href=“Archived MSDN and TechNet Blogs | Microsoft Learn”>Archived MSDN and TechNet Blogs | Microsoft Learn)</p>

[LasMa]

<p>

The burden of proof is to show an instance where NSA violates the law.

</p>

<p>When a powerful, secretive government agency is poking around in my business without probable cause to believe I’ve committed a crime – the burden is on them to show why they are violating my constitutional right not to be subjected to unreasonable search.</p>

[calmom]

<p>The point is that there is absolutely no evidence or indication that a powerful, government agency has poked around in your business. </p>

<p>And really- as a legal matter – the burden is on YOU to show that anyone has ever violated your rights in any way. If you want to sue in civil court, you would have the burden of proof by a preponderance of evidence. Plus you would also have to show how you were damaged. Good luck with that.</p>

[soccerguy315]

<p>

When a powerful, secretive government agency is poking around in my business without probable cause to believe I’ve committed a crime – the burden is on them to show why they are violating my constitutional right not to be subjected to unreasonable search.

</p>

<p>give me a break. The government is not “poking around” in your business.</p>

[soccerguy315]

<p>

Don’t make a statement that you can’t back up.

</p>

<p>back at you.</p>

<p>

False. Your statement is only true if government employees and contractors observe all laws. We know that this isn’t the case.

</p>

<p>you act like renegade NSA employees are listening to Americans ask their husband/wife about their day instead of trying to keep the country safe. That’s a little tinfoil hat-ish even for me.</p>

<p>There has been no proof that laws have been violated.</p>

<p>

Google voice has this really hand transcription service that converts voice to text. It’s really amazing. You should give it a try.

</p>

<p>why would I want to do that?</p>

[soccerguy315]

<p>

Spoke to the person yesterday whose relative worked for the NSA. International calls were computer monitored for targeted words. Like it or not. Not sure how they would know who is/isnt a US citizen, but non us citizens were fair game for further monitoring. There was also something about suspicion of someone not being a US citizen with 51% probability, but I forget the details. But US citizens calls were electronically monitored too.

</p>

<p>sounds like a legitimate source… right up there with CURVEBALL. Looks like your “NSA source” is sharing the latest newspaper articles (which as we know, are full of incorrect information on this topic).</p>

[zoosermom]

<p>"This. I think people tend to get more fearful when they’re talking about secretive organizations like the CIA and the NSA. The NSA is an organization bound by US law, comprised of US citizens also bound by US law. "</p>

<p>In light of recent instances of inappropriate conduct by the IRS based on unfavored status, as well as abuse of the press, I can’t imagine where this level of trust comes from. Free citizens should always be skeptical of government, and we all know that of something can be done, someone will do it.</p>

[cartera45]

<p>

the burden is on them to show why they are violating my constitutional right not to be subjected to unreasonable search.

</p>

<p>Not sure it is even a search or your property and then you have to deal with “unreasonable.”</p>

[soccerguy315]

<p>

Two senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee questioned the remarks about the monitoring program preventing lots of attacks. Don’t SIC members have access to this information? They are willing to take information privately too. There’s going to be a closed door session on this - perhaps SIC members will get more details.

</p>

<p>yes, the SSCI (sometimes called “Sissy”), Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, can get intel briefings. What information they can get depends on to what extent the information is classified and what control markings it has. SSCI would almost certainly be cleared into a program like this.</p>

<p>As an example of something they probably wouldn’t be cleared into: OPERATION NEPTUNE SPEAR (the bin Laden mission). You can read up on classification issues on the internet, but basically, there is:</p>

<p>CONFIDENTIAL
SECRET
TOP SECRET</p>

<p>and then there is SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) and you have to have “need to know” to be able to access each compartment (and from there, any further sub-compartments). If something is TOP SECRET//HOGWASH then in order to read the document, you have to be “read-in” (aka have acknowledged ‘need to know’, sign papers, etc) to the HOGWASH compartment.</p>

<p>[also, I did see the latest Cnet article, which I don’t think actually really says anything new, and I think I have addressed that with #79]</p>

[calmom]

<p>

sounds like a legitimate source… right up there with CURVEBALL. Looks like your “NSA source” is sharing the latest newspaper articles (which as we know, are full of incorrect information on this topic).

No, someone one the internet knows someone else who has a relative who works for the NSA, has top security clearance, and shares details of everything he knows with all of his relatives. Because you know, that’s what all NSA people do: blab to everyone about their work. </p>

<p>There’s a good detailed article here that breaks out the various programs and sorts out what does what:</p>

<p>[PRISM</a> Isn?t Data Mining and Other Falsehoods in the N.S.A. ?Scandal? | Vanity Fair](<a href=“http://www.vanityfair.com/online/eichenwald/2013/06/prism-isnt-data-mining-NSA-scandal]PRISM”>PRISM Isn’t Data Mining and Other Falsehoods in the N.S.A. “Scandal” | Vanity Fair)</p>

[BCEagle91]

<br>

<p>back at you.</p>

<br>

<p>If you find a statement that you don’t think that I can back up, please quote it. I’m pretty careful about not making such statements.</p>

<br>

<p>you act like renegade NSA employees are listening to Americans ask
their husband/wife about their day instead of trying to keep the
country safe. That’s a little tinfoil hat-ish even for me.</p>

<p>There has been no proof that laws have been violated.</p>

<br>

<p>It looks like that is up to your interpretation of the law:</p>

<p>“If the NSA wants “to listen to the phone,” an analyst’s decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. “I was rather startled,” said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee. Not only does this disclosure shed more light on how the NSA’s formidable eavesdropping apparatus works domestically, it also suggests the Justice Department has secretly interpreted federal surveillance law to permit thousands of low-ranking analysts to eavesdrop on phone calls.”</p>

<p>[NSA</a> admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants | Politics and Law - CNET News](<a href=“http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-admits-listening-to-u.s-phone-calls-without-warrants/]NSA”>CNET: Product reviews, advice, how-tos and the latest news)</p>

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<p>why would I want to do that? </p>

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<p>You described the difficulty in monitoring large numbers of voice calls. Automated transcription makes that a lot easier.</p>

[hayden]

<p>

In light of recent instances of inappropriate conduct by the IRS based on unfavored status,

</p>

<p>I’m not convinced we know enough yet about the IRS issue to make that judgment. I get suspicious when the head of the committee, Issa, releases parts of the transcripts of testimony but refuses to release all the testimony, while the other side of the aisle wants to release the full testimony.</p>

[cartera45]

<p>

I’m not convinced we know enough yet about the IRS issue to make that judgment

</p>

<p>I agree. Not much evidence of anything at this point.</p>

[razorsharp]

<p>

The government is not “poking around” in your business.

</p>

<p>Probably not the US government, but the chinese government is definitely poking around if you have an intellectual property of significant value to them.</p>

[BCEagle91]

<p>I’d be surprised if we weren’t doing some corporate espionage too. If we have this great capability to hack and record, then why wouldn’t we do it to the benefit of our big corporations?</p>

[calmom]

<p>BCEagle – please note that the headline of the article you cited has been “changed” to “better match the story”. It looks like this statement didn’t quite match up with the first report:

James Owens, a spokesman for Nadler, provided a statement on Sunday morning, a day after this article was published, saying: “I am pleased that the administration has reiterated that, as I have always believed, the NSA cannot listen to the content of Americans’ phone calls without a specific warrant.” Owens said he couldn’t comment on what assurances from the Obama administration Nadler was referring to, and said Nadler was unavailable for an interview. (CNET had contacted Nadler for comment on Friday.)

</p>

<p>See: [NSA</a> spying flap extends to contents of U.S. phone calls | Politics and Law - CNET News](<a href=“http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-spying-flap-extends-to-contents-of-u.s-phone-calls/]NSA”>CNET: Product reviews, advice, how-tos and the latest news)</p>

<p>I think that unfortunately, the most dismaying part of all this is the sorry state of journalism these days – it seems that the media outlets simply run with a story ahead of any sort of fact checking or confirmation, with the idea that they’ll just go ahead and edit the story online if they have to. </p>

<p>So now you have an article that apparently said one thing whenever BCEagle first read it… and another thing entirely now. Obviously not BCEagle’s fault – when I was first reading the article I was quite puzzled and wondered whether BCEagle had read the whole article before linking to it, but when I got to the end paragraph about the “changes” – I realized that the article that he was citing no longer existed, but instead had been replaced with the one that I was reading. Which of course may morph into something entirely different tomorrow.</p>

[razorsharp]

<p>

then why wouldn’t we do it to the benefit of our big corporations?

</p>

<p>Because it would be illegal for the US govt to hack private chinese companies to take their intellectual property and give it to American companies. The chinese don’t think the reverse is a problem.</p>

[BCEagle91]

<br>

<p>Because it would be illegal</p>

<br>

<p>So what?</p>

[BCEagle91]

<br>

<p>please note that the headline of the article you cited has been
“changed” to “better match the story”. It looks like this statement
didn’t quite match up with the first report:</p>

<br>

<p>The comments attributed to Nadler weren’t retracted. A second
statement was put out by Nadler’s spokesman. As your quote stated,
Nadler was unavailable for comment.</p>

<p>The NSA won’t comment either.</p>

<br>

<p>I think that unfortunately, the most dismaying part of all this is
the sorry state of journalism these days – it seems that the media
outlets simply run with a story ahead of any sort of fact checking
or confirmation, with the idea that they’ll just go ahead and edit
the story online if they have to.</p>

<br>

<p>I don’t see a problem with CNET’s reporting. They reported from
Nadler’s comments. When they had other information, they reported
that. They posted what they posted earlier and then posted the
update. Nothing wrong with that.</p>

<br>

<p>So now you have an article that apparently said one thing whenever
BCEagle first read it… and another thing entirely now. Obviously
not BCEagle’s fault – when I was first reading the article I was
quite puzzled and wondered whether BCEagle had read the whole
article before linking to it, but when I got to the end paragraph
about the “changes” – I realized that the article that he was
citing no longer existed, but instead had been replaced with the one
that I was reading. Which of course may morph into something
entirely different tomorrow.</p>

<br>

<p>We can watch a TV show and then post on it and then it can be updated
by later information. We don’t have change bars on tv shows. The CNET
article at least describes the changes made and the timeline.</p>