NSA data mining

[tigerfan482]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

Most Congresscritters don't even know what's going on. As Senator Wyden and others have reported, those in Congress with clearance can't even tell their colleagues about a great deal of what goes on -- which means that there is no oversight, and that Congress votes without even knowing what it's voting on.

Whitepaper from the Justice Department outlining the legal rationale behind the programs as well as Congress's participation and awareness in reauthorizations.

Links to documents sent and made available to ALL members of Congress to review in 2009 and 2011 explaining these programs. All on that link is the link to the primary order for the Verizon collection of metadata issued by the FISA court. you'll also note the 2011 letter explains the earlier point brought up by a member of Congress who had his requests for classified information to be sent to him denied. It clearly shows the requirement to obtain, view, and store classified information in secure rooms only.

If Congress is unaware of what they're voting on it's because they've willfully kept themselves in the dark about it. The primary purview of the intelligence institutions falls to the Intelligence Committees in both the House and the Senate as has been the case for many decades and as is the case in any other aspect of the government. I would also fault Congress for voting twice to extend programs they felt they didn't know anything about. I think what is actually the case is that they did know, they voted for these programs, and are now changing their tune when it's politically convenient after the shit hits the fan. It's also good to note that even with all of the leaks recently, they STILL maintained the programs and voted down an amendment to stop the programs.

 

[bankside]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

tigerfan, you're not even consistent from one post to the next. Here you're saying the shit has hit the fan and now they're changing their tune. Only a few posts ago you were saying the democratic representatives would never change things without good reasons.

Well evidently the reasons are good. The program is not.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

Seantor Wyden has explained that only members of the Senate Intelligence committee get to see the actual substance of a great deal that goes on. So it's impossible for Congress to be informed, especially when those committee members aren't allowed to tell other members of Congress what exactly is happening.

 

[tigerfan482]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

tigerfan, you're not even consistent from one post to the next. Here you're saying the shit has hit the fan and now they're changing their tune. Only a few posts ago you were saying the democratic representatives would never change things without good reasons.

Well evidently the reasons are good. The program is not.

Actually, I'm quite consistent. I never said Congress was changing anything, as evidenced by the recent rejection of an amendment to stop these programs. They're merely acting like they are concerned and are continuing with business as usual. Unfortunately, Congress has generally had to act as a buffer to the American people because they swing wildly from one extreme to another depending on the circumstances. When 9/11 happened, people demanded to know why their government didn't do enough to protect them, so they passed these laws. The media has leaked documents without the proper context and, in many cases, fluffing them up with rhetoric to make people think the government is monitoring their every move, and now some people are worried about it (although, not enough since 50% of the population still thinks the NSA programs are a good idea), and those people in the minority want the programs ended. Then, the next terrorist attack will happen and we'll be right back to where we were after 9/11. People's emotions swing wildly and the government can't pass new laws every time the wind changes.

 

[tigerfan482]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

Seantor Wyden has explained that only members of the Senate Intelligence committee get to see the actual substance of a great deal that goes on. So it's impossible for Congress to be informed, especially when those committee members aren't allowed to tell other members of Congress what exactly is happening.

I linked the letters sent to all members of Congress in 2009 and 2011. Go read them before commenting. There is more than enough information in those to make an informed decision on whether to continue such programs or not. And I trust very little of what Wyden says because he is as biased as the Republicans out digging around for some link to the President on the IRS scandal or the Benghazi incident. He doesn't like the intelligence programs and he will say whatever he needs to to undermine them. There are numerous other Senators and Representatives who are on the intelligence committees who says there is plenty of oversight.

 

[T-Rexx]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

There is another issue coming out of this that also gets Washington's attention and that is business bottom lines. There is a reason Google and Microsoft are bending over backwards to try and convince their customers they limit cooperation with the NSA. German telecom companies are now announcing that not only are they moving to SSL encryption on their e-mail accounts but are moving ALL of their traffic off of American servers. They calling the project "E-Mail Made in Germany".

One of the consequences of the revelation of these spying programs by the Obama administration will be to modify the infrastructure of the internet globally, so that far less international traffic flows through American data pipes. Right now, American infrastructure is only used because it's cheap. But, nobody wants to be spied upon. The world has the ability to fix this problem. And I expect that they will.

That will leave the NSA with no one to listen to but Americans. But that is probably most of what the NSA does, anyway, since most of the world's internet traffic originates here.

 

[tigerfan482]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

One of the consequences of the revelation of these spying programs by the Obama administration will be to modify the infrastructure of the internet globally, so that far less international traffic flows through American data pipes. Right now, American infrastructure is only used because it's cheap. But, nobody wants to be spied upon. The world has the ability to fix this problem. And I expect that they will.

That will leave the NSA with no one to listen to but Americans. But that is probably most of what the NSA does, anyway, since most of the world's internet traffic originates here.

I highly doubt it. Too much of the internet's infrastructure runs through the US. It would cost tens, if not hundreds, of billions to setup infrastructure to completely avoid the US, and then you wouldn't have access to any US sites. There is a reason everything goes through here and it's because countries just don't have enough to setup their own. We'll see when the price tag comes around who is ACTUALLY willing to pay to be comforted that the US isn't spying on them. And even then, it will be irrelevant since most of these countries work with US intelligence agencies anyway. Hell, even if they did set up their own internet infrastructure, they'd still have to invite the NSA over to help them get their own metadata collections systems up and going.

And I think your stats are wrong. The US is no longer the dominant player in the internet market. By pure users alone, Asia is first and then Europe, with the US coming in third. Source.

 

[bankside]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

I highly doubt it. Too much of the internet's infrastructure runs through the US. It would cost tens, if not hundreds, of billions to setup infrastructure to completely avoid the US, and then you wouldn't have access to any US sites. There is a reason everything goes through here and it's because countries just don't have enough to setup their own. We'll see when the price tag comes around who is ACTUALLY willing to pay to be comforted that the US isn't spying on them. And even then, it will be irrelevant since most of these countries work with US intelligence agencies anyway. Hell, even if they did set up their own internet infrastructure, they'd still have to invite the NSA over to help them get their own metadata collections systems up and going.

And I think your stats are wrong. The US is no longer the dominant player in the internet market. By pure users alone, Asia is first and then Europe, with the US coming in third. Source.

Americans designed the internet to be able to be routed around failed areas, or troubled areas. Trouble spots like the number three player, when that player has a spying problem.

Now you're not even consistent within the same post. The US is not indispensable to the internet.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

Americans designed the internet to be able to be routed around failed areas, or troubled areas. Trouble spots like the number three player, when that player has a spying problem.

Now you're not even consistent within the same post. The US is not indispensable to the internet.

Yes. The whole point of the internet was that it have no center, no core, no vulnerable heart.

 

[tigerfan482]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

Americans designed the internet to be able to be routed around failed areas, or troubled areas. Trouble spots like the number three player, when that player has a spying problem.

Now you're not even consistent within the same post. The US is not indispensable to the internet.

How am I not consistent in this post? You claiming every post I make is inconsistent does nothing to further your argument and really shows you're grasping.

While the US is not the number one country in terms of internet users, it by far routes the most internet traffic in the world. And yes, while the internet is designed to be able to be routed around trouble spots, it's not designed to be routed around the epicenter of the internet - the US. Most of the world's major backbones run through the US and are run by US companies.

Here's a map of undersea cables and where they run. As you can see, the common point of almost all of them is in the US. So in order to bypass that, they would have to interconnect all countries with each other which would be a massive undertaking.

 

[darden]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

I'd imagine that the internet would work without the US, it just wouldn't be particularly pleasant and sites hosted in the US would go dark.

 

[tigerfan482]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

I'd imagine that the internet would work without the US, it just wouldn't be particularly pleasant and sites hosted in the US would go dark.

Depending at what point you define the internet no longer existing, it very well could. You could have groups of smaller networks in individual countries that could interconnect and communicate. However, given that a good amount of internet data resides in the US, I would argue that cutting the US out of the loop would no longer qualify it as the internet anymore. The US is the common connection between many countries and others. Cutting the US off would just segment the internet and you'd have regional groups of networks instead of a large, interconnected network of networks.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

How am I not consistent in this post? You claiming every post I make is inconsistent does nothing to further your argument and really shows you're grasping.

While the US is not the number one country in terms of internet users, it by far routes the most internet traffic in the world. And yes, while the internet is designed to be able to be routed around trouble spots, it's not designed to be routed around the epicenter of the internet - the US. Most of the world's major backbones run through the US and are run by US companies.

Here's a map of undersea cables and where they run. As you can see, the common point of almost all of them is in the US. So in order to bypass that, they would have to interconnect all countries with each other which would be a massive undertaking.

I don't see a "common point" at all, just a distribution of connections. It wouldn't take that much to bypass the US.

 

[tigerfan482]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

I don't see a "common point" at all, just a distribution of connections. It wouldn't take that much to bypass the US.

The common point is the US. Do you not see all of the colorful lines running into it? The vast majority of the connections that interconnect regions in the world run through the US. There are a plethora of regional fiber trunks run, but the interconnection of the various regions occurs through the US. And again, what country is going to cut off access to the US? Economically alone that would cost billions of dollars closing yourself off to the online US market. Is every country going to set up it's own internet backbone that isolated form the US and its intelligence allies? I think cutting off Australia, Canada, the US, Great Britain, New Zealand, and various other cooperative European countries won't leave much left. You can't cut off traffic from a country to the US. It's just not feasible economically or technologically.

 

[Stardreamer]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

Whitepaper from the Justice Department outlining the legal rationale behind the programs as well as Congress's participation and awareness in reauthorizations.

Links to documents sent and made available to ALL members of Congress to review in 2009 and 2011 explaining these programs. All on that link is the link to the primary order for the Verizon collection of metadata issued by the FISA court. you'll also note the 2011 letter explains the earlier point brought up by a member of Congress who had his requests for classified information to be sent to him denied. It clearly shows the requirement to obtain, view, and store classified information in secure rooms only.

If Congress is unaware of what they're voting on it's because they've willfully kept themselves in the dark about it. The primary purview of the intelligence institutions falls to the Intelligence Committees in both the House and the Senate as has been the case for many decades and as is the case in any other aspect of the government. I would also fault Congress for voting twice to extend programs they felt they didn't know anything about. I think what is actually the case is that they did know, they voted for these programs, and are now changing their tune when it's politically convenient after the shit hits the fan. It's also good to note that even with all of the leaks recently, they STILL maintained the programs and voted down an amendment to stop the programs.

A whitepaper and a few documents, sounds amazing like what the Bush Administration did to justify their torture programs to congress. Seem those produced the same results, initial acceptance followed by a lot of Congressmen saying they didn't understand and were deceived once the full details began to emerge.

 

[palbert]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

There is another issue coming out of this that also gets Washington's attention and that is business bottom lines. There is a reason Google and Microsoft are bending over backwards to try and convince their customers they limit cooperation with the NSA. German telecom companies are now announcing that not only are they moving to SSL encryption on their e-mail accounts but are moving ALL of their traffic off of American servers. They calling the project "E-Mail Made in Germany".

For further information
http://www.zdnet.com/deutsche-telek...ermany-email-in-response-to-prism-7000019266/

 

[tigerfan482]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

A whitepaper and a few documents, sounds amazing like what the Bush Administration did to justify their torture programs to congress. Seem those produced the same results, initial acceptance followed by a lot of Congressmen saying they didn't understand and were deceived once the full details began to emerge.

And what laws were passed to stop waterboarding? What people were prosecuted for torture? What at all did Congress do? Nothing. You're making the argument that they were uninformed and then, when shown they were informed, you're making the argument the information wasn't enough. You're just like Congress. They know the decision they make and they conveniently avoid briefings and meetings so that if something ever does go bad, they can wash their hands of responsibility and claim they didn't know anything. Since Snowden released his information, let's see what's happened:

- The court has renewed the court orders for the metadata to continue to be collected.
- Congress has voted against eliminating the programs in question.
- The American public still supports the NSA programs, despite reservations about how the data is used.

If Snowden's aim was to get Libertarians and far lefties talking about what they already believed the government does, then he's succeeded. If his aim was to be hailed as some hero by everyone (because we see from ArsTechnica IRC chat that his positions on the opposite end of the spectrum didn't earn him the attention he wanted) and to cause the collapse of the intelligence system, then he has so far failed. Ultimately, we'll have to wait and see what Congress decides to do to placate the American public and get them settled back down again, but I'm sure you'll be waiting a while if you expect to see any real change in policy or law.

 

[tigerfan482]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

For further information
http://www.zdnet.com/deutsche-telek...ermany-email-in-response-to-prism-7000019266/

Seems from the article that they're not moving ALL of their internet traffic off of American servers, but are merely linking those 3 e-mail services together in country for in-country e-mail. Looks like Germany's intelligence is going to have some long nights ahead of them getting their metadata collection set up on these links since they can't use the US's anymore.

 

[darden]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

I guess I shouldn't complain too much... I work for an American web hosting company. we're in the midst of opening three new data centers in Europe because of increased demand by clients not wanting to store their data in the US. maybe I'll get a free German vacation out of the whole thing

 

[Corny]

Re: NSA data mining shared with the DEA

Seems from the article that they're not moving ALL of their internet traffic off of American servers, but are merely linking those 3 e-mail services together in country for in-country e-mail.

Correct. The whole "e-mail made in germany" thing is just a marketing ploy. The technique is (in an IT context) ANCIENT and the standard was defined at the end of the 90s. Many companies already use it. TLS is also only an end2end encryption on the transport layer. Which will help against the NSA grabbing the mail off the wire - but since it is still stored unecrypted on the companies servers, it is more or less a smokescreen.