NSA data mining

[kallipolis]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

Only partially correct. Don't forget the potential criminals caught in the hopper. You know, the one hop - two hops - three hops machine.

From http://www.justusboys.com/forum/thr...a-since-2007?p=8947660&viewfull=1#post8947660


The innocence with which this NSA endeavor is presented never ceases to amaze me; my concerns in posts 129 and 180 remain undiminished.

From the Memorandum:

It has long been a feature of the activities of intelligence services, even in democratic nations that their activities should be presented to the general public, with the pretence that they are an essential ingredient in the defence of national security with every means at their disposal justifiable to defeat any threat to that nation's sense of security...... the emergence of totalitarian practices within the security apparatus of a democratic state that George Orwell described when speaking of the growing threats from Communism in his much respected 1984.....Herr Goebbels would have been proud of the NSA's code of practice.

 

[T-Rexx]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

And this report was an internal audit report anyway. All of these are compiled into official reports and passed on to the Intelligence Committees every month.

Evidently, the normal manner in which this information is "passed on to the Intelligence Committees" is by someone leaking it to The Washington Post, where the committee members may then read about what's going on in the agencies they supervise.

Because that's what happened.

If it hadn't been for Ed Snowden, Congress still would have no idea what's going on over at the NSA.

 

[tigerfan482]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

Evidently, the normal manner in which this information is "passed on to the Intelligence Committees" is by someone leaking it to The Washington Post, where the committee members may then read about what's going on in the agencies they supervise.

Because that's what happened.

If it hadn't been for Ed Snowden, Congress still would have no idea what's going on over at the NSA.

Actually, that's not what happened. The members of said Intelligence Committees have confirmed that they receive detailed briefings every month on these programs and compliance issues. You can read the link I posted earlier for an example. Even good ole' Senators Wyden and Udall, whose frequent use of the phrase "tip of the iceberg" rivals that of newspapers during the Titanic era, must be aware of the full iceberg if they're warning about just the tips of them.

But what would be your ideal handling of this situation? Should there be a national referendum every time the intelligence community wants to do something? Should we just eliminate the intelligence community altogether and trust in the good of people around the world? Should we just have the intelligence community release details on everything they do every month to the newspapers so people can have their monthly dose of intrigue satisfied? What is your proposed solution?

Timothy McVeigh's terrorist actions in Oklahoma City killing United States citizens evidence the fact that white skinned, United States citizens can, and do commit acts of terror against their fellow Americans; precedent and evidence sufficient for the NSA to exclude none from their surveillance activities....

It's evidence of nothing except that Timothy McVeigh was a bad guy. There is no correlative link between Timothy McVeigh and the NSA. The FBI is who investigates domestic terrorists and criminal suspects. You need to read up on the US's intelligence and criminal investigative process and get a better idea of how things work. I would also recommend reading a few Sherlock Holmes stories to get an idea of what evidence is and how it needs to actually have a correlative link to what you are trying to prove.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

And this report was an internal audit report anyway. All of these are compiled into official reports and passed on to the Intelligence Committees every month.

Where's your evidence for this?

It's odd that you demand evidence for some things that US Senators involved report, but take others at face value.

 

[tigerfan482]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

Where's your evidence for this?

It's odd that you demand evidence for some things that US Senators involved report, but take others at face value.

Well I provided it earlier, but here is some again:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/poli...congress-saw-nsa-memo-post-reported-it/68429/

Over email, Kelsey Knight, communications director for Chairman Mike Rogers of Michigan, answered simply, "yes," he had seen it. She then offered more detail.

The Committee did receive the report prior to its publication in the Post. The Committee is regularly informed on NSA's use of its authorities, to include reporting on unintentional and technical errors, such as the ones detailed in the report.

http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/pub...eases?ID=9e2e8297-2968-40c9-8001-321e7a9a5079

While today’s Washington Post stated that Feinstein did not receive a copy of the 2012 audit cited by the paper until The Post asked about it, Feinstein’s full statement provided on Thursday to the paper made clear the committee receives the FISA compliance information in a more official format rather than as an internal NSA statistical report.

I also like the Feinstein statement because it showed how the Washington Post omitted her whole statement in order to make it sound like she knew nothing about these incidents in order to support their sensational story.

Additionally, while not saying it outright, Sens. Wyden and Udall also had to have been aware of these compliance incidences, as their "I told you so" statement about tips of icebergs directly indicates that they knew about these situations (and apparently a lot more per their lofty rhetoric.)

So other than Sen. Leahy, whose committee does not have oversight of the intelligence agencies and who consequently would not get the compliance reports, do YOU have any evidence of anyone on these committees saying they never received the information contained in this INTERNAL NSA memo?

 

[Corny]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

Your very example of hackers shows that you support abuse of technology as long as it supports what your position is.

What example ? Also, re: hackers:

And no, I did not say that everything that can be abused should be forbidden. I said that everything that can be abused will be abused. Thus it's idiotic to believe that databases like this won't be abused because it would be against some law.

We all know the quote about freedom and security and people sacrificing one over the other and not deserving any of it.

Now even your president came up with this gem.

"We oppose the pursuit of martial law, which denies those rights to citizens under the principle that security trumps individual freedom or that might makes right."

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/15/3564479/text-of-president-obama-remarks.html

He is quickly becoming a bigger joke than Mr. Bush jun. ....

 

[palbert]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

Glimmerglass technology used by NSA and GCHQ?

Glimmerglass Intercepts Global Data Traffic for Intelligence Agencies

Glimmerglass, a northern California company that sells optical fiber technology, offers government agencies a software product called “CyberSweep” to intercept signals on undersea cables. The company says their technology can analyze Gmail and Yahoo! Mail as well as social media like Facebook and Twitter to discover “actionable intelligence.”
....
The Glimmerglass brochures can be downloaded here: http://www.wikileaks.org/spyfiles/docs/glimmerglass/55_glimmerglass-cybersweep.html and http://www.wikileaks.org/spyfiles/d...transparent-signal-access-and-monitoring.html

http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15862

Another fascinating - and long - discussion of operational details.

 

[palbert]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

Apparently the Feds have yet to determine what materials Snowden took. This breathes life to Glenn Greenwald's statement that the revelations will continue. Some think the intrusion at the Guardian and the detention of David Miranda were ham-fisted attempts to get some idea of what information was out there.

More than two months after documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden first began appearing in the news media, the National Security Agency still doesn’t know the full extent of what he took, according to intelligence community sources, and is “overwhelmed” trying to assess the damage.

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_...oesnt-know-what-snowden-took-sources-say?lite (by Michael Isikoff)

 

[tigerfan482]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

What example ? Also, re: hackers:

And no, I did not say that everything that can be abused should be forbidden. I said that everything that can be abused will be abused. Thus it's idiotic to believe that databases like this won't be abused because it would be against some law.

We all know the quote about freedom and security and people sacrificing one over the other and not deserving any of it.

Now even your president came up with this gem.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/15/3564479/text-of-president-obama-remarks.html

He is quickly becoming a bigger joke than Mr. Bush jun. ....

You invoked the hackers fight and used the NSA's activities as a reason for their activities. That sounds like an example to me.

I'm now a bit confused about you bringing up the idea of anything that can be abused will be abused in this thread unless you are advocating that the possibility of abuse is reason for the termination of these programs. Anything in the world has the potential of being abused. The merits of whatever it is you are referencing being abused has to be judged against the benefit provided over the actual abuse that has occurred. I could argue (and many would agree with me) that guns have the potential to be abused and there are scores of documented cases of abuse of guns. The question becomes is the utility of having guns outweighed by the documented abuse of guns? I think the same principle applies here. We've been told of 50 terrorist acts that have been stopped due to, at least in some part, of one of these capabilities. Limited documentation of some of these plots has been provided. Has the documented abuse (of which none of us have seen any evidence) provided enough to outweigh the benefits that the system has provided?

You bring up the freedom/security quote that we are all familiar with, but it works both ways. If you sacrifice too much freedom, you deserve neither freedom nor security, but if you sacrifice too much security in the name of freedom, the same thinking applies. It is indeed a balancing act that, while not as extreme as many make it out to be, still requires one to be slightly reduced for the other if you desire to have an effective measure of either. The difference in opinion among the population is where that line is drawn.

And I wouldn't call President Obama a joke. While addressing martial law specifically, which is an extreme violation of personal freedom for an extreme measure of security, he was acknowledging that the two can go hand in hand without having to resort to the extreme ends of the spectrum. However, the totality of the statement has to be considered, in which he was specifically attributing the loss of personal freedoms in the name of security to martial law specifically, as that is what the definition of martial law necessarily implies.

Glimmerglass technology used by NSA and GCHQ?



http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15862

Another fascinating - and long - discussion of operational details.

Indeed, it's good to see that private corporations are able to innovate ways of helping the government achieve their results. The NSA has a mission of gathering foreign intelligence for the government. It is a well known fact that things like Google, Facebook, and Yahoo are used worldwide. The fact that a company developed a way of allowing this information to be received is indicative of the idea that the government is not the only entity that has these capabilities. The claim on their website that they serve a global customer base as indicates that activities such as this aren't limited to just the US.

Apparently the Feds have yet to determine what materials Snowden took. This breathes life to Glenn Greenwald's statement that the revelations will continue. Some think the intrusion at the Guardian and the detention of David Miranda were ham-fisted attempts to get some idea of what information was out there.



http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_...oesnt-know-what-snowden-took-sources-say?lite (by Michael Isikoff)

A good testament to how much information Snowden took. If he wanted to start a debate or had concerns about privacy violations, he could have taken the information needed to start such a conversation. However, it appears that he took so much data (started collecting it in 2012 when he worked for Dell and then moved to Booz-Allen to get access to more), that they are having a hard time even cataloging what he took. We are also seeing now where this information is being used outside of the debate starting process, with Greenwald divulging information not about alleged spying on US citizens, but foreign intelligence activities completely outside of the US (US hacking into Chinese computers, US collecting intelligence on Brazil and Latin American countries, UK collecting information on countries at the G-20 summit, etc.) We also see in his recent comments that he'll use this information in a sort of blackmail or vengeance fashion, threatening to now release more documents on more countries for his partner being detained. And I wouldn't be surprised at all if they used the detention of Miranda to confiscate information he was carrying between two parties who possess stolen information. In fact, the British Government has said as much. I find it funny that those who possess stolen documents are now complaining that their documents were stolen from them. Don't use your boyfriend as a data mule, passing through a country you possess classified information on which you have published, if you don't want him detained. I also find it kind of funny that the big, bad US that the Guardian loves demonizing is the place they said they did most of their reporting given the wide freedoms it gives to the press.

 

[T-Rexx]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

Apparently the Feds have yet to determine what materials Snowden took.

This is true. Remarkably, the NSA still doesn't know what was taken.

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_...-us-doesnt-know-what-snowden-took-sources-say

This breathes life to Glenn Greenwald's statement that the revelations will continue. Some think the intrusion at the Guardian and the detention of David Miranda were ham-fisted attempts to get some idea of what information was out there.

The Miranda incident and the intrusion at the Guardian are bizarre. I cannot make sense of them except that they seem to have been attempts by the UK government to intimidate people and nothing more.

If you want to know what Greenwald has, why detain Miranda? Miranda had very little to do with this incident. His involvement has mostly been that he has a relationship with one of the reporters to whom information was leaked. And yet, he was detained for nine hours, the maximum time allowed by the law under which he was detained. He was detained under the Terrorism Act, even though he was not accused of terrorism. The point seems to have been the detention itself, not the accomplishment of anything useful.


The invasion of the Guardian's offices was similarly bizarre.

It resulted in one of the stranger episodes in the history of digital-age journalism. On Saturday 20 July, in a deserted basement of the Guardian's King's Cross offices, a senior editor and a Guardian computer expert used angle grinders and other tools to pulverise the hard drives and memory chips on which the encrypted files had been stored.

As they worked they were watched by technicians from Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) who took notes and photographs, but who left empty-handed.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/nsa-snowden-files-drives-destroyed-london

Smashing the hard drives hardly destroys evidence in the digital age. It merely destroys one copy of the evidence. The Guardian's editor even informed the GCHQ people that other copies of the data existed "outside the country" and that other parties had been given the same data. They did not seem concerned by this, nor did the G-men ask for a copy of the data. Again, the point seems to have been the symbolic destruction of the computer drives, and not the accomplishment of anything useful. They've been watching too many ancient James Cagney movies.

Snowden made fun of the incident on his Twitter account today.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

This is true. Remarkably, the NSA still doesn't know what was taken.

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_...-us-doesnt-know-what-snowden-took-sources-say




The Miranda incident and the intrusion at the Guardian are bizarre. I cannot make sense of them except that they seem to have been attempts by the UK government to intimidate people and nothing more.

If you want to know what Greenwald has, why detain Miranda? Miranda had very little to do with this incident. His involvement has mostly been that he has a relationship with one of the reporters to whom information was leaked. And yet, he was detained for nine hours, the maximum time allowed by the law under which he was detained. He was detained under the Terrorism Act, even though he was not accused of terrorism. The point seems to have been the detention itself, not the accomplishment of anything useful.


The invasion of the Guardian's offices was similarly bizarre.




Smashing the hard drives hardly destroys evidence in the digital age. It merely destroys one copy of the evidence. The Guardian's editor even informed the GCHQ people that other copies of the data existed "outside the country" and that other parties had been given the same data. They did not seem concerned by this, nor did the G-men ask for a copy of the data. Again, the point seems to have been the symbolic destruction of the computer drives, and not the accomplishment of anything useful. They've been watching too many ancient James Cagney movies.

Snowden made fun of the incident on his Twitter account today.

That's pretty much my take as well. But why the UK would engage in such sophomoric intimidation games is a puzzle.

 

[kallipolis]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

That's pretty much my take as well. But why the UK would engage in such sophomoric intimidation games is a puzzle.

The police action was moronic....we can be sure that the UK security authorities did not initiate this action without authorisation from the very top of the power pyramid. David Cameron is conveniently on holiday....thus will not be taking questions....and parliament is on Summer recess.

 

[kallipolis]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

This is true. Remarkably, the NSA still doesn't know what was taken.





they seem to have been attempts by the UK government to intimidate people and nothing more.






The Guardian's editor even informed the GCHQ people that other copies of the data existed "outside the country" and that other parties had been given the same data.

All noteworthy observations

 

[palbert]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

NOTE:

The Twitter account @EJosephSnowden is generally recognized as FAKE.

 

[palbert]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

Question:

If the NSA has the tight controls it says WHY don't they know what Snowden took?

 

[tigerfan482]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

This is true. Remarkably, the NSA still doesn't know what was taken.

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_...-us-doesnt-know-what-snowden-took-sources-say

The Miranda incident and the intrusion at the Guardian are bizarre. I cannot make sense of them except that they seem to have been attempts by the UK government to intimidate people and nothing more.

If you want to know what Greenwald has, why detain Miranda? Miranda had very little to do with this incident. His involvement has mostly been that he has a relationship with one of the reporters to whom information was leaked. And yet, he was detained for nine hours, the maximum time allowed by the law under which he was detained. He was detained under the Terrorism Act, even though he was not accused of terrorism. The point seems to have been the detention itself, not the accomplishment of anything useful.

The invasion of the Guardian's offices was similarly bizarre.

Smashing the hard drives hardly destroys evidence in the digital age. It merely destroys one copy of the evidence. The Guardian's editor even informed the GCHQ people that other copies of the data existed "outside the country" and that other parties had been given the same data. They did not seem concerned by this, nor did the G-men ask for a copy of the data. Again, the point seems to have been the symbolic destruction of the computer drives, and not the accomplishment of anything useful. They've been watching too many ancient James Cagney movies.

Snowden made fun of the incident on his Twitter account today.

The Miranda detention is simple. Greenwald has already acknowledged that Miranda was carrying information and files about the NSA between Poitras and Greenwald. The Guardian has admitted to pay for his trip. I'm sure the British Government knew this and detained him to regain the stolen material he was carrying. It's the same with the information the Guardian had in their computers. The government gave them a choice to either destroy the data or be taken to court. The Guardian decided to (and had their own staff) destroy the hard drives in the computers. Not quite as sinister as government agents destroying computers in the basement.

These two episodes were done, despite the information that the data exists in other places, for the simple fact that the London Guardian headquarters and detaining Miranda at Heathrow were within the jurisdiction of the British government and places like the Guardian's offices in New York are not.

Question:

If the NSA has the tight controls it says WHY don't they know what Snowden took?

Because as they have stated several times and as the documents that have leaked have shown, their production databases (XKeyScore, PRISM, etc.) are separately maintained and controlled systems with different user access controls from their enterprise-wide intranet which hosts general information, presentations, etc. Snowden was also a system administrator with root access to the enterprise intranet, so he would have been able to erase or conceal any activities he performed there. That's why NSA has decided to get rid of 90% of their system administrators. I bet those people who have lost or are losing their jobs are hailing Snowden as a true patriot right now.

 

[T-Rexx]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

The Miranda detention is simple. Greenwald has already acknowledged that Miranda was carrying information and files about the NSA between Poitras and Greenwald.

The material being ferried was between a journalist and a filmmaker doing a story on the NSA.

Since when does making a film (or doing a story on an intelligence agency) constitute terrorist activity?

And why does Britain care about a film about a US spy agency?

Can you name any other example of a western country detaining a partner of a journalist because of a story he did?

And if all they wanted was the information Miranda was carrying, why did they detain him for nine hours?

The Guardian has admitted to pay for his trip. I'm sure the British Government knew this and detained him to regain the stolen material he was carrying.

What "stolen" material would that be?

Was something stolen from Britain?

This is a story about the NSA. Which, I believe, is not an institution of the British government.

These two episodes were done, despite the information that the data exists in other places, for the simple fact that the London Guardian headquarters and detaining Miranda at Heathrow were within the jurisdiction of the British government and places like the Guardian's offices in New York are not.

In other words, absolutely nothing was accomplished by the destruction of the hard drives at the Guardian, and the people who demanded this destruction fully understood how stupid this was.

So, why did they do it, if they knew it was senseless?

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

The material being ferried was between a journalist and a filmmaker doing a story on the NSA.

Since when does making a film (or doing a story on an intelligence agency) constitute terrorist activity?

The government was acting on behalf of the NSA, I guess. That makes everything okay -- even breaking the law.

 

[T-Rexx]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

The government was acting on behalf of the NSA, I guess. That makes everything okay -- even breaking the law.

That's one of the remarkable things here.

Cameron is Obama's poodle.

I've never understood why European nations are so subservient to the USA. We can just order them to do whatever we want, and they always comply. They have no spines. The American government is the world's government.

 

[kallipolis]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

That's one of the remarkable things here.

Cameron is Obama's poodle.

I've never understood why European nations are so subservient to the USA. We can just order them to do whatever we want, and they always comply. They have no spines. The American government is the world's government.

Subservient, no....over cooperative, yes.