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PRISM: NSA/FBI Mining Internet Data since 2007

People, an FBI person told the country they have all our email and phone conversations recorded -- all of them. They pretend they haven't "collected" it because they allegedly don't look.

Everything you've said online or on the phone since Bush took office is in their "book". The only question is whether they "take it off the shelf".
 
Kulindahr said:
Power corrupts.

It corrupts on the local level to the point that cops can just shoot innocent people and get no punishment other than a suspension with pay... they can cuff people and then make up the reason for the arrest.

Power wielded in secret just corrupts all the more rapidly. So to believe that the NSA is not spying on Americans is naive delusion.
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Yes, "power corrupts, and absolute power..."

I am not convinced that the NSA is scrutinizing and reading contents of stuff right now - but the slope from where things currently stand is very slippery indeed.
 
palbert said:
I recognize that NSA cannot at any one moment spy on American citizens. They can't do it physically and they can't do it legally.

I also recognize they are collecting, indexing and cross-referencing everything they can get their hands on. Present reports suggest the information is kept for 5 years. I call that spying; you may not. If you steal mail and don't open it for 4 years you have spied. maybe not effectively, but you have spied.

I foresee many dangerous consequences here. See my post #129. Extend it: what if in legitimately investigating A for a national security inquiry they investigate his contacts X, Y, and Z - as good investigative protocol says they must. Most investigations, as in a background check, will the investigate X, Y, and Z's acquaintances, say, M, N, and O. What then if Y and N have together committed felony murder? Complicate the picture by introducing a foreign national.

I think Y and N will be charged - for matters having nothing to do with national security. And based upon evidence "not gathered - !!! - through spying.

Can you honestly say they haven't been spied upon? I cannot.
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With a piece of mail, the contents of the mail have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Anything written on the outside of the envelope does not. So if someone keeps a piece of your mail for 4 years and doesn't open it, then they are not spying on you. In fact, unless they opened your mailbox and took it out, they haven't even committed a crime.

Now with your scenario you gave, if all of those parties are foreigners outside of the country, then anything gathered on them could be used for any purpose. If any of those parties are US citizens or are in the country legally, then you have to have a court order to collect any information involving those parties. Those court orders specify what information can be collected. If the fact that two of those people committed murder is included in the scope of that information, then it could be used in court. If it doesn't fall in the scope of that court order, it can't be used regardless of whether it points to a crime or not. So the NSA gains nothing from spying on Americans anyway because nothing they get would be admissible in court without a valid court order/warrant covering it.

***

palbert said:
I also don't buy the story that we only monitor "foreign" transmissions, including phone calls. Given today's interlinked communications network a communication does not necessarily stay within the US. Once the connection leaves the US, goes to a foreign country, and comes back it is no longer a "domestic" communication. It is subject to full monitoring. And lord only know how satellite relays obscure the jurisdictional quagmire.

The staunch chest-thumping defenders do so without much thought.
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I give this plenty of thought and have done MUCH research. I would suggest everyone here start out by reading the FISA and the FAAs. The reason for the FAAs was because foreigners were using networks that would pass the messages through servers/switches in the US but both parties would be in a foreign country. The current definition of foreign communications involves the parties on that communication and their locations, not the location of the wire that carries it.

Kulindahr said:
People, an FBI person told the country they have all our email and phone conversations recorded -- all of them. They pretend they haven't "collected" it because they allegedly don't look.

Everything you've said online or on the phone since Bush took office is in their "book". The only question is whether they "take it off the shelf".
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What FBI person said that? Can you link the transcript or the news article or anything?
 
tigerfan482 said:
Except there was evidence in that case. Blind commitment to paranoia and hatred of the government obviously doesn't require one to think logically.
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Those who question government activities clearly are not patriots......"love America...or leave it..." a familiar refrain during the Vietnam war...when questioning the war was akin to treason.
 
tigerfan482 said:
....
Now with your scenario you gave, if all of those parties are foreigners outside of the country, then anything gathered on them could be used for any purpose. If any of those parties are US citizens or are in the country legally, then you have to have a court order to collect any information involving those parties. Those court orders specify what information can be collected. If the fact that two of those people committed murder is included in the scope of that information, then it could be used in court. If it doesn't fall in the scope of that court order, it can't be used regardless of whether it points to a crime or not. So the NSA gains nothing from spying on Americans anyway because nothing they get would be admissible in court without a valid court order/warrant covering it.
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We differ on the stringency of the legal process and the breadth of the "material" accumulated.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/19/fisa-court-oversight-process-secrecy
(Section: "The emptiness of "oversight" from the secret Fisa [sic] court)
(Article is both an excellent read and overview)
 
palbert said:
We differ on the stringency of the legal process and the breadth of the "material" accumulated.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/19/fisa-court-oversight-process-secrecy
(Section: "The emptiness of "oversight" from the secret Fisa [sic] court)
(Article is both an excellent read and overview)
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So there are laws and regulations in place to prevent spying on Americans. Those are on the books. You're basing your argument on the fact that "well it's too easy to break the law." Snowden has not provided any evidence whatsoever he could access any of this information. He's basically saying it and then saying "I know I don't have any proof, but trust me." We're holding this guy, who has broken the law, up on this pedestal and we're accusing everyone else of being the criminals.

The bottom line is that there are laws in place that keep the government from spying on Americans. If someone breaks that law and spies on Americans, then they are a criminal and should be held accountable. These laws are no easier to break than any other law out there. As I've said before, once proof starts coming out that they are actually spying on Americans, then I will be outraged. Until then, all we have is part of a PowerPoint presentation (why is no one asking the Guardian what's on the other 37 pages?) and the word of a person who is a proven liar. He was already breaking the law releasing this information, so why didn't he provide a sample of all of these minotred calls that he had all of this access to?
 
tigerfan482 said:
So there are laws and regulations in place to prevent spying on Americans. Those are on the books. You're basing your argument on the fact that "well it's too easy to break the law." Snowden has not provided any evidence whatsoever he could access any of this information. He's basically saying it and then saying "I know I don't have any proof, but trust me." We're holding this guy, who has broken the law, up on this pedestal and we're accusing everyone else of being the criminals.

The bottom line is that there are laws in place that keep the government from spying on Americans. If someone breaks that law and spies on Americans, then they are a criminal and should be held accountable. These laws are no easier to break than any other law out there. As I've said before, once proof starts coming out that they are actually spying on Americans, then I will be outraged. Until then, all we have is part of a PowerPoint presentation (why is no one asking the Guardian what's on the other 37 pages?) and the word of a person who is a proven liar. He was already breaking the law releasing this information, so why didn't he provide a sample of all of these minotred calls that he had all of this access to?
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No, what's on the books is a law that says the government can spy on Americans so long as it means they catch some foreigners while they're at it.

BTW, when you work in secret for a secret agency, where things are approved by secret "courts" working with secret interpretations of laws, then it's incredibly easier to break a law -- because no one even knows you're engaging in activities where there are laws.

And the proof that they're spying on Americans has been posted. Congress fell all over itself rushing to pass a law that made the illegal Bush warrantless wiretaps legit.
 
Kulindahr said:
No, what's on the books is a law that says the government can spy on Americans so long as it means they catch some foreigners while they're at it.
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Not true in the least. Please go read the FISA, FAAs, and the Patriot Act. The government cannot spy on Americans with a warrant.

Kulindahr said:
BTW, when you work in secret for a secret agency, where things are approved by secret "courts" working with secret interpretations of laws, then it's incredibly easier to break a law -- because no one even knows you're engaging in activities where there are laws.
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The FISA court is still staffed by federal judges who have legal standing as part of the judiciary. It was set up specifically to allow judges to render Constitutional decisions on programs that have to remain secret to protect the efficacy of the programs. The court was legally setup in 1978 and the judges that sit on it are appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. It is a completely legal court, made up of federal judges and is tasked with rendering decisions on classified situations. It makes it no easier to break the law.

Kulindahr said:
And the proof that they're spying on Americans has been posted. Congress fell all over itself rushing to pass a law that made the illegal Bush warrantless wiretaps legit.
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No it hasn't And if it has, repost it. I've been asking for proof in numerous threads and I either get nothing or I get a link to an opinion article. Please, repost the proof for all to see.
 
tigerfan482 said:
Not true in the least. Please go read the FISA, FAAs, and the Patriot Act. The government cannot spy on Americans with a warrant.


The FISA court is still staffed by federal judges who have legal standing as part of the judiciary. It was set up specifically to allow judges to render Constitutional decisions on programs that have to remain secret to protect the efficacy of the programs. The court was legally setup in 1978 and the judges that sit on it are appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. It is a completely legal court, made up of federal judges and is tasked with rendering decisions on classified situations. It makes it no easier to break the law.


No it hasn't And if it has, repost it. I've been asking for proof in numerous threads and I either get nothing or I get a link to an opinion article. Please, repost the proof for all to see.
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You're being deceptive and duplicitous: you've posted in the thread where the evidence was given. Representatives of the FBI and NSA have flat out said that they are spying on Americans and that the law authorizes them to do so.
 
Kulindahr said:
You're being deceptive and duplicitous: you've posted in the thread where the evidence was given. Representatives of the FBI and NSA have flat out said that they are spying on Americans and that the law authorizes them to do so.
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I have not done any such thing. I have specifically said there is no evidence the US is spying on US persons. And representatives from the NSA have specifically said they DO NOT spy on Americans. The FBI may have said they use systems to perform surveillance on Americans, but that is with a warrant and they are authorized to do so as they ARE the domestic law enforcement body.

Again, so you don't get confused

palbert said:
The secret order concerning minimization of surveillance without a warrant of US persons:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/20/exhibit-b-nsa-procedures-document

as Exhibit B to the main article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/20/fisa-court-nsa-without-warrant .

This just became available so I haven't digested it yet.
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Definitely read through it then. You will see that they show a) the NSA is tasked only to monitor communications of foreign individuals in foreign countries and b) if, in the course of doing this they unintentionally get the communications of an American citizen (such as they're monitoring a terrorist and they call an American), they have very strict procedures on how to destroy such information or process it per current law.
 
^
You should read what you reference:
Top secret documents submitted to the court that oversees surveillance by US intelligence agencies show the judges have signed off on broad orders which allow the NSA to make use of information "inadvertently" collected from domestic US communications without a warrant.
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(emphasis added)

See? They can can use information from domestic sources and they don't need a warrant to get it.
 
Kulindahr said:
^
You should read what you reference:

(emphasis added)

See? They can can use information from domestic sources and they don't need a warrant to get it.
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First off, I didn't reference anything. Also, please read the actual documents and not the Guardian's article (assuming you don't actually need someone else to read it for you and explain it to you.) The documents clearly spell out that the NSA can only target foreigners not in the United States. The information that the article is referring to in the quote is communication intercepted while monitoring or "spying" on foreigners overseas (i.e. not domestic communications.) If, while collecting on foreign targets, they determine that any of the communications is to/from or regarding a US citizen, then they are required to destroy the information unless the information meets a set of exceptions (defined by law), at which point they are required to turn the information over to law enforcement/Department of Justice for proper processing. So, no, they are not spying on Americans.
 
A very balanced article that debunks both aspects of tin foil shrieking headlines. The author makes the most important point in the quote below. Modern privacy mixing with technology is definitely a conversation worth having but not starting with a basis of knowledge that is entirely inconsistent and incorrect.

In the long run it’s a good thing that people are talking about these serious issues, and gaining some understanding of the kinds of privacy problems that inevitably arise in our age of technology. But some of the reporting, possibly driven by confirmation bias, verges on paranoid fear-mongering—and that’s never a good way to start a national conversation.
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JayHawk said:
A very balanced article that debunks both aspects of tin foil shrieking headlines. The author makes the most important point in the quote below. Modern privacy mixing with technology is definitely a conversation worth having but not starting with a basis of knowledge that is entirely inconsistent and incorrect.
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That's interesting. More and more it seems that not only is the NSA using terminology in unique ways in order to hide what it's doing, but what they're really doing is being inflated because media people don't understand technical terms. So the obfuscation feeds off itself, ignorance supplementing deception.

Maybe somewhere in the middle is the truth -- probably that the NSA is spying on Americans every time they get "inadvertent" data that requires no warrant, but aren't going to the effort of listening to all of us.
 
Kulindahr said:
That's interesting. More and more it seems that not only is the NSA using terminology in unique ways in order to hide what it's doing, but what they're really doing is being inflated because media people don't understand technical terms. So the obfuscation feeds off itself, ignorance supplementing deception.

Maybe somewhere in the middle is the truth -- probably that the NSA is spying on Americans every time they get "inadvertent" data that requires no warrant, but aren't going to the effort of listening to all of us.
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Again, how about reading the supporting material instead of quoting an opinionated article. If you want to know why they keep so much secret, look how people react when they find out information they can't understand. They take no time to research, trust blindly in those that tell them what they want to hear, and make no effort to find out the ACTUAL truth for themselves. Since we're living in your fantasy world, I'd rather have the government spying on my every move with a 1% chance of stopping a terrorist attack or preventing some state actor from stealing secrets and sabotaging various aspects of our country than having you sitting behind your keyboard, armed with the knowledge of everything the government does, doing nothing but complaining about whatever the paranoid delusion of the day is. At least in the first scenario we have a 1% chance of some sort of success.
 
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