Big Brother is Watching You

[Ombudsman]

I get the feeling that those who are most upset about this NSA surveillance are people who don't have much computer knowledge. Kinda like poor LEO, Partisan's and Mad Roland's outrage over IP addresses. They ignorantly think they are more anonymous than they are.

The reason those of us who are tech savvy aren't wringing our hands over the NSA issue is because it just doesn't seem like news.

[Stinger]

...As well, it seems that ThinkProgress (at least the writer who can keep what his or her sources said straight),

Selective choices in sourcing, as I've been saying.

Not someone who works for the government or simply believes whatever the government says, as you've been saying.

the Guardian,

One article ignoring all their other ones and, as I quoted, it also contains statements backing me up.

The article the ThinkProgress piece sites as a source, then misstates the opposite. Much of what's out there has been misreported by journalists who don't know or don't bother with the difference between data mining and collecting content.

the New York Times,

Thoroughly castigates the feds for the horrendous imposition on innocent Americans, which is the core point we're discussing and what you're defending. It did not make a point for you at all.

Wrong. We haven't been discussing that. We've been discussing whether or not the NSA is monitoring content or simply collecting metadata. It did make my point because it clearly stated data mining and not listening in or looking at content.

and the Washington Post

Nope, as I quoted, it talks about content.

As I quoted, it says data collection, not content monitoring. What part of "U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program," the article title, did you not get?

The Silicon Valley operation [PRISM] works alongside a parallel program, code-named BLARNEY, that gathers up “metadata” — technical information about communications traffic and network devices — as it streams past choke points along the backbone of the Internet.

ThinkProgress misinterpreted that part.

all back up that we're talking about data mining, not content intercept.

Can't search terms unless you have access to content.

You keep voicing your assumption, but you never provide any proof. I provided proof that you can use search algorithms without having access to content.

Big difference in technique.

I guess you keep putting ACLU and civil liberties in to give some strength to your case. Civil liberties wasn't part of the discussion here. We were discussing whether or not the NSA was mining data or listening/looking in.

Civil liberties has been part of this thread since Wneglia wrote the title, you cited Eichenwald as being "a civil libertarian", and if it weren't for the ideal and legal reality of civil liberties, no one would care about the NSA's shenanigans. You're kind of being silly now.

I'm not talking about the thread. I'm talking about the response to my comment upon which our whole discussion is based. I've been extremely clear and on point about that.

No, the discussion we're having was specifically about your comment implying that the NSA might be monitoring our forum because it noted the content of our thread.:

(note: full quote restored)

I was making an educated guess above about the NSA and our failed drug war, just found this:

Did You Know that NSA Spymasters Are Involved in the War on Drugs?: A lot of people don't realize that the NSA has a mandate to "stem the flow of narcotics into the country."

That means that PRISM may have noted any of our posts here about drugs and the drug war. Knock, knock . . .

Logical fallacy. Begging the question. Only if it's examining content of domestic traffic. You haven't come anywhere close to proving that.

"Knock, knock . . ." obviously indicated that it was a joke, as I said. As you quoted, I said "PRISM may have noted any of our posts". "monitoring our forum" is your own mistaken assumption.

So, let's go to the post of mine that you edited out the reference to:

True that, I might draw the short straw. But, it's not every local yokel, it's not every locale, and none of them have national power to pry into everything.

Otoh, it's not like the local-federal distinction is clear. Take the drug war - a 50-year costly, ineffective, rights-diminishing, racist, destructive local-federal hand-in-hand fight. Why wouldn't this power be used to pursue it, who says it hasn't already been? After all, drugs at various times have been "Public Enemy #1". We can be fairly certain the power's been used for interdiction thus leading to someone here, and based on history we can guess that it's been used to harm competition in favor of "friends" we can't fund directly.

That's the problem, this kind of unrestrained, secret, snooping on everyone can be turned against anyone deemed "bad" by the government, anytime, and will be.

My point all along - the NSA itself admits that it's activities are not limited to the terrorism you imagine it to be.

I didn't "edit anything out." I simply quoted the only part I reacted to -- PRISM - PRISM. You said PRISM. I responded to PRISM.


To which I responded:

Next to impossible. PRISM collects records from internet companies, not content. The most they should be able to tell is who posted when, not who posted what.

Trying to change the argument to civil rights is what's silly.

Yes, when you edit out parts of posts of mine and ignore the posts that the edited out bits refer to then you are able to falsely pretend that the argument has been changed. Not very honest of you. Again, I'm insulted that after all this time you think you can get away with it.

Where did I edit out any relevant part of one of your posts? I did point out where you did that to one of mine.

...I was asking you to list whichever one of your sources that exhibits a lengthy, historic knowledge of this program, someone who has written about it a month or more ago, not someone who heard the leak last week and fired off a column without a basic knowledge of the program.

About the NSA surveillance PRISM program? Give me a couple of cites.

If you are pretending to be unaware of the ACLU, etc.'s long opposition to the breadth of NSA surveillance nothing I can post will convince you.

Tell me who in the ALCU has been investigating and writing books on this topic.

And I pointed out that the Stasi analogy was a failure because we're talking about data mining -- not what the Stasi did.

Stasi could only dream of having the power to remotely monitor as many as we are, my analogy holds and you flat out lied in saying that I ever ran away from the term.

Okay. You ran from Al but not from Stasi. But you made a false accusation and dishonestly edited my quote, so spare the lectures.

As far as the Stasi went, they targeted individuals and intercepted content. That's not happening, and no one's using it to "disappear" people.

Also, you shouldn't list a source and then complain if he gets shot down.

You never "shot down" Gore. Like a TPer, you tried to make him representative of a comprehensive and broad-based opposition.

Okay, then cite where Gore has as much background as Eichenwald. Even Gore doesn't claim there is content monitoring. Unless you have proof that Gore has a thorough knowledge of this specific program, I did shoot Gore down as a valid source.

Clapper lied in March, 2013.

And your own sources point to prior lies, as I've been saying.

...There you go getting confused again. The government didn't tell Eichenwald anything.

He never talked to the government? Not a very good investigator then, is he? Is he that confused or is it just you? Again , the only people he could have gotten info. from, given the secrecy, are or were part of the problem. And, he's trumped by members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

And, organizations with decades of expertise almost always trump an individual. Sure, the individual is occasionally correct, but you lose an objective credentials argument.

Trying to be cute. Won't work. There's a big difference between swallowing whatever the government tells you and investigating an issue by spending years talking to people in the business. Since they're in the business, they are government employees, but they are not close the being "the government."

You can pretend not to know the difference for the sake of scoring points in a debate, but I know you're far too smart not to know the difference.

Your double standard of saying people people Eichenwald talked to can be dismissed because they are part of the problem while touting the words of Snowden and others who provided information, and of Udall and Wyden -- who got their information by talking to government people "who are part of the problem" -- is noted.

There wouldn't be a single valid, informative article written if journalists weren't talking to "people who are part of the problem." No one has been to NSA headquarters and watched what they're doing. They're getting their information from those damn untrustworthy government people.

Can't have it both ways.

I only cited the one source in that one post. There are many others ... including ThinkProgress,

Contradicted you.

Said data mining, not content collection.

we do know that the agency generated a massive database of phone records — i.e., which telephone numbers are dialing which numbers — and that a similar database of email data may exist.

NYT,

Made my point about the program being obscene.

But the discussion we're having is about data mining vs. content collection, so it made my point, not yours.

The surreptitious collection of “metadata” — every bit of information about every phone call except the word-by-word content of conversations —

WaPo,

Contradicted you.

Said data mining, not content collection.

U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program .... gathers up “metadata” — technical information about communications traffic and network devices — as it streams past choke points along the backbone of the Internet

the Guardian,

One article ignoring all their other ones and, as I quoted, it also contains statements backing me up.

You mean they aren't allowed to explain what they've written so far? This is a follow-up to explain what is going on and dispel inaccuracies from other sources -- i.e. NSA has direct assess to servers, etc.

internal NSA documents.

In the interests of aiding the debate over how Prism works, the Guardian is publishing an additional slide from the 41-slide presentation which details Prism and its operation. We have redacted some program names.

The slide details different methods of data collection under the FISA Amendment Act of 2008 (which was renewed in December 2012). It clearly distinguishes Prism, which involves data collection from servers, as distinct from four different programs involving data collection from "fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past".

Said data mining, not content collection.

U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program .... gathers up “metadata” — technical information about communications traffic and network devices — as it streams past choke points along the backbone of the Internet

A far fuller picture of the exact operation of Prism, and the other surveillance operations brought to light, is expected to emerge in the coming weeks and months, but this slide gives a clearer picture of what Prism is – and, crucially, isn't.

Exactly what I've been saying. Data mining, not content collection.

etc.

Who else have you cited?

I posted part of it and pointed out that the explanation was in the article, but I guess I'll have to post it.

Bold and large doesn't make you more correct. As you cited, "patterns of behavior" is maaaybe 51% accurate, and those patterns don't exist without access to content. Then, there's your continuing and naive insistence that what the government tells you it's doing is the limit to what it's actually doing.

Well, you didn't get it before, so I thought it needed emphasis. It shows how they use algorithms to detect anomalies in megawatt. You're assuming that the "51%" figure from a search mentioned is the same as KDD. Assumptions don't count as real evidence. They don't analyze content. Then, there's your continuing "The sky is falling" paranoia that the government's reading everybody's emails and everything they say is a lie.
...Thanks for proving my point.

LOL. You just went and skipped right over:

...Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who had classified knowledge of the program as members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, were unable to speak of it when they warned in a Dec. 27, 2012, floor debate that the FISA Amendments Act had what both of them called a “back-door search loophole” for the content of innocent Americans who were swept up in a search for someone else.

You've gone from saying that they might be snooping our forum because of comments about the drug war -- which is pretty ludicrous considering the sheer volume of information they get on a daily basis -- to saying that they might get someone's communication accidentally and look at it.

LOL, you ignored the other adjectives, incidentally and deliberately.

For what purpose, I don't know? Voyeurism? Idle curiosity?

Drug war, political retaliation, suppression of dissent, etc. Why is it that you "don't know" the things I've been citing all along?

In material they collected accidentally? For people who are accidentally or incidentally swept up in a search for someone else?

They're saying that it would be from some unintended glitch that there MIGHT be the possibility of someone checking the communications of a random American. It does not say that the program searches the communications of random or targeted Americans.

And they, in your own citation again, are saying that content is monitored, thus defeating your entire pedantic point dodging the fact of how massive, intrusive and Stasi-like this whole thing is.

You just went and skipped right over your own source showing that the lies predated Clapper, that "the NSA is capable of pulling out anything it likes", and that it's "flip of the coin confidence, lack of stringency, and no worries about accidents".

Quote where it says content is monitored. You quoted Udall and Wyden being concerned about a loophole where content could possibly be monitored, I haven't seen anything that said it was.

And, if you're searching for terrorists and end up with some flotsam and jetsam, WHY WOULD YOU bother to go searching through irrelevant.

"if you're searching for terrorists" being the operative phrase. If you're serving any other government end it's not irrelevant.

It's pretty specific when you're talking about computers.

No, the computers have the capability to do whatever their operators want them to do, they have no conscience of their own.

But when you focus it on something, that's all it focuses on.

...You're talking about the National Security Agency. They're attempting to find terrorists. They're data mining petabytes a day, and you're worried because of some emails to some 99% groups or something?

Again, despite the long history of intelligence services abuses, you assume that everything they're telling you is true and that we should just trust them now - because it's what you want to believe.

I'm not trusting them. I'm trusting the investigative journalists who know far more about it than I do. You assume everything they're telling you is false and the we should not trust them now -- because it's what you want to believe.

...The NSA PowerPoint doesn't show content intercept.

Yes it does, otherwise it's stupid.

No, it doesn't. Just another of your assumptions, I guess. The PowerPoint is stupid. Government people shouldn't make PowerPoints. But it doesn't show content collection, just sources of data.

So far, your best shot was a couple of articles in ThinkProgress

Your source until it didn't say what you wanted it to say.

Now that was completely dishonest.

So far, your best shot was a couple of articles in ThinkProgress where content was mentioned in the article . . . but not in the original source.

Your best source was a couple of articles where the writer sloppily (intentionally") erroneously claimed the opposite of what his or her sources said.

The article I quoted in ThinkProgress didn't have such sloppy (dishonest?) journalism. There is a difference.

If you want to hold articles up as proof when the writer got his basic facts from his source wrong, go right ahead.

As I quoted and you choose to ignore, both those sources do discuss content, most notably the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who trump your single journalist. The fact here is that ThinkProgress is 100% credible when you quote it, "sloppy (dishonest?)" when I do. That's pathetic.

(No comment on your blatant dishonesty in deceptively editing my quote?)

Sloppy and dishonest applies to the individual article regardless of who quotes it.

The article you chose cited two articles as sources. The article you chose quoted those articles as saying content was monitored. When I checked the two articles used as sources, they said the opposite -- data was mined -- content was not monitored.

Do you not consider that sloppy or dishonest journalism? They teach you in J school to always quote your sources correctly.

...Bill Clinton was and is much more in the loop than Al Gore. You do know who his wife is, don't you?

You're accusing Hillary of violating secrecy law? Okay . . . if that's what you need to do to defend yourself.

Are you naive enough to think she doesn't talk to her husband?

...Wow. It backed me up. You should have read the link. It said data mining, not content collection. The ThinkProgress writer should have read it, too.

No, again, the WaPo actually said:

...Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who had classified knowledge of the program as members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, were unable to speak of it when they warned in a Dec. 27, 2012, floor debate that the FISA Amendments Act had what both of them called a “back-door search loophole” for the content of innocent Americans who were swept up in a search for someone else.

...From inside a company’s data stream the NSA is capable of pulling out anything it likes...

Analysts who use the system from a Web portal at Fort Meade, Md., key in “selectors,” or search terms, that are designed to produce at least 51 percent confidence in a target’s “foreignness.” That is not a very stringent test. Training materials obtained by The Post instruct new analysts to make quarterly reports of any accidental collection of U.S. content, but add that “it’s nothing to worry about.”

And that was just on the one page of a 4-page article you linked. Please don't reinterpret your own links.


I don't reinterpret my links.

The Silicon Valley operation works alongside a parallel program, code-named BLARNEY, that gathers up “metadata” — technical information about communications traffic and network devices — as it streams past choke points along the backbone of the Internet.

By the way, the WaPo identifies PRISM as a Silicon Valley operation. That's a long way from Ft. Meade.

...Wow. It backed me up. You should have read the link. It said data mining, not content collection. The ThinkProgress writer should have read it, too.

I quoted what the Guardian said backing up my position.

And I quoted what the Guardian said, backing up my position, in a later article as it tried to dispel rumors and misinformation.

...What a foolish nit to try to pick ... especially since you just deceptively edited my quote.

Where? Good luck.

Right where I called you on it earlier. You deceptively edited my quote:

So far, your best shot was a couple of articles in ThinkProgress

Your source until it didn't say what you wanted it to say.

You made it seem like I dismissed the ThinkProgress articles because I didn't agree with them. I dismissed them because of sloppy journalism, which I clearly explained in the part you edited out of my statement so you could make your fallacious point.

My actual statement was:

So far, your best shot was a couple of articles in ThinkProgress where content was mentioned in the article . . . but not in the original source.

There was no attempt at deception.

You put a period where there was none, eliminating the phrase that backs up my core point about how bad this all is. Of course that's deceptive editing.

Again, quoting the relevant part of the sentence and omitting the irrelevant part is not deceptive. Since my only point is about collecting data, that's the only part of the sentence relevant to my argument. If I put a period instead of elipses, that's simply a careless mechanical error, not a deception.

...For continuing to point out that we're talking about data collection, not content monitoring? No problem...

Again, you try to divert from the central issue by trying, and failing repeatedly, to limit it to whether it's content or not. As everyone of your sources agrees, our civil liberties are severely threatened.

Again, that's the only point I'm arguing -- data collection vs. content monitoring. That's the only thing I've been discussing since we started. You said PRISM might monitor drug posts. I said PRISM is data mining.

Anything else is outside what I've been arguing. Not all my sources agree that our civil liberties are severely threatened. I don't even know where you got that.

[Stinger]

Back quite a few pages ago, Vrede staked out the position from which he argues. He said (paraphrased, hopefully correctly) that the fact people know the government is collecting data affects the way they act and thus infringes their freedom. From that position, the distinction between data mining and content monitoring would have no effect.

Very true, thanks. Plus, I've extrapolated from the long and ugly history of national security state abuses and quoted Stinger's own sources that keep saying it's content, too, most notably members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Your members of the SIC were worried about a possible loophole where some communications might inadvertently get picked up in a valid search

The sources I quoted all said data mining, not content (although you did have the Think Progress outliers where the journalist misquoted his sources and got everything backwards).

The discussion Vrede and I were having was whether or not PRISM was data mining or content collecting. That's all.

You keep saying that but the only way you got the mistaken impression was by editing out the reference to a prior post, and by ignoring the whole point of this thread.

I keep saying that because it's the frickin' truth. I actually know what I read, thought, and wrote about.

I didn't get a mistaken impression of anything. I didn't "edit out" a reference -- I ignored it because it was irrelevant to my point. I never referred to the point of this thread. I never referred to anything except the content vs. data mining issue.

You made a comment -- "That means that PRISM may have noted any of our posts here about drugs and the drug war. Knock, knock . . ." that implies that PRISM monitors content. I disagreed. "Next to impossible. PRISM collects records from internet companies, not content. The most they should be able to tell is who posted when, not who posted what."

How much simpler and clearer can it be.

It doesn't matter what I left out because I included the only part I took issue with.

Yes, if it were indeed limited to not include content, which it isn't, it would still be the largest, most intrusive government system ever devised collecting vast amounts of personal data on innocent Americans and usable for any end besides just the terrorism that we've done so much to create, thus restricting our freedoms by its very existence. Quibbling over content doesn't change any of that.

It is the largest, most invasive program ever devised. It does collect vast amounts of information. It is a threat to our civil liberties if misused. Clinton was discussing it, and he said "If ... and there probably will be ... when there is a case where someone " misuses the program and invades someone's privacy, then ....

It only accesses content or is used for something besides terrorism if someone in the NSA breaks the law. In that case, such information would be inadmissible in a court of law.

There are terrorists whose soul mission in life is to kill Americans and inflict damage on the U.S. This program has succeeded in protecting us in a number of cases. If they need to know whom I called, whom I emailed, and when and where, without abusing anyone's privacy, I'm probably going to give a really, really hesitant "Okay."

[Stinger]

It all depends on how gov't defines "wrong" at a given time. Would we, a nation that tortured as policy within the decade, trust the NSA's power with a Tricky Dick Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, Alberto Gonzalez or Dick Cheney?

Think about this: What happens if a hacker breaks into the government’s database?...

Probably not as much as if s/he breaks into American Express, Big Bank, Big Insurance, or anywhere else with more identity-specific data and access to financial records.

Exactly. A lot easier to do, and a lot more damaging.

[neoplacebo]

I'd say the odds are pretty good that the owners of those 7-11 stores in NY and VA that got busted for bringing in illegal Pakistani workers and providing them with fake identification may soon (or possibly already have been) experiencing a little "content collection" of their conversatons. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn that the entire operation that busted them resulted from info furnished by the alphabet boys. Even though I feel empathy for the workers, who will likely be deported, I think this particular operation is a good example of why to have this type of thing and also a good example of how it works. I don't think it's a very far jump to consider that one or more Pakistani "slaves" brought here to work for a Pakistani "jefe" at 7-11 for low wages and be forced to live in a shithole bunkhouse that he pays rent to "jefe" for while working 100 hour weeks might just say "screw this" and become radicalized. I just immediately thought of NSA when I saw this news story on ABC last night. But I do have a fine imagination.

[O Really]

Few are calling for shutting down the NSA rather than just reining it in. Tricky Dick did use gov't to snoop on his enemies, the tools he'd have now have changed.

I just linked ExtremeTech. Are you more tech savvy than them, Ombudsman? If it's not news, do you think Snowden should not be charged?

More folks that are not as tech savvy as Ombudsman :

[The National Security Agency's] capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide.
Senator Frank Church, 1975

Unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society.
Tim Berners Lee, Wired

May be, but the "reining" that many seem to call for would be equivalent to shutting it down. Sort of like "reining in" the cops by sending them out unarmed and on bikes. So would you be saying that Senator Church's prediction has come true? Or that anybody who has the capability to monitor Iran, et. al., could choose to monitor the US? Exactly how would you change that without taking away the capability to monitor Iran, et. al.? Isn't there some point where even you would put a modicum of begrudged confidence in the people running NSA and the people, military, elected and unelected, they work for that the agency will generally do what its mission calls for? Couldn't those people running the Air Force Space Command up in Minot turn their Minutemans (Minutemen?) missiles inward? How hard would it be for a submarine to chuck a missile into Manhattan? But they don't, do they? Or at least haven't. But it's not because they couldn't.

[Ombudsman]

Thinking online petitions mean a damn thing to anybody who matters is pretty naive too.

[neoplacebo]

Few are calling for shutting down the NSA rather than just reining it in. Tricky Dick did use gov't to snoop on his enemies, the tools he'd have now have changed.

I just linked ExtremeTech. Are you more tech savvy than them, Ombudsman? If it's not news, do you think Snowden should not be charged?

More folks that are not as tech savvy as Ombudsman :

[The National Security Agency's] capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide.
Senator Frank Church, 1975

Unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society.
Tim Berners Lee, Wired

May be, but the "reining" that many seem to call for would be equivalent to shutting it down. Sort of like "reining in" the cops by sending them out unarmed and on bikes. So would you be saying that Senator Church's prediction has come true? Or that anybody who has the capability to monitor Iran, et. al., could choose to monitor the US? Exactly how would you change that without taking away the capability to monitor Iran, et. al.? Isn't there some point where even you would put a modicum of begrudged confidence in the people running NSA and the people, military, elected and unelected, they work for that the agency will generally do what its mission calls for? Couldn't those people running the Air Force Space Command up in Minot turn their Minutemans (Minutemen?) missiles inward? How hard would it be for a submarine to chuck a missile into Manhattan? But they don't, do they? Or at least haven't. But it's not because they couldn't.

I don't know about the Minuteman, but on a US Navy Ohio class (SSBN) submarine, it takes two different people using two different keys to launch a ballistic missile. Not sure about the Los Angeles class (SSN). They have cruise missiles, but not ballistic missiles. It probably takes two folks and two keys anyway since cruise missiles can be nuclear armed. I read a story today that the NSA is going to start using a "two man" strategy to help prevent Snowdens from happening again. I wonder if this means they won't hire twins?

[rstrong]

Couldn't those people running the Air Force Space Command up in Minot turn their Minutemans (Minutemen?) missiles inward? How hard would it be for a submarine to chuck a missile into Manhattan? But they don't, do they? Or at least haven't. But it's not because they couldn't.

I'm pretty sure that none of them could launch at Manhattan if they wanted to; pretty sure they they're out of the loop when it comes to targeting. I've never heard of a launch sequence that involves finding your current location, finding target coordinates on a set of lookup tables listing Soviet bases, calculating the ballistic trajectory, adjusting for the earth's rotation, etc.

More likely they have a short list of valid targets already in the computer, with their launch coordinates already in the computer for ICBMs and entered in for SLBMs.

With the subs there may only two keys needed to authorize a launch, but it takes a larger team to conduct that launch. I'd bet that there's some additional safeguards for the folks down south in Minot. Say, the computer preventing a launch unless NORAD says it's OK to do so, or communication is lost with NORAD.

[O Really]

So you guys are saying there are apparently somewhat effective safeguards in place to keep them from turning the missiles our way, but nobody bothered to create safeguards at NSA?

[Dryer Vent]

What's going on today is pussy stuff compared to COINTELPRO:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

and, look at Magic Lantern - where does this fit in and why aren't we discussing it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_(software)

[Stinger]

Mother Jones -- Five New Revelations -- from today's hearings:

1. Surveillance has contributed to thwarting more than 50 terror plots since 9/11.
NSA Director Keith Alexander testified that NSA surveillance has played a role in preventing more than 50 terrorist attacks since September 11, 2001. FBI deputy director Sean Joyce provided an outline of four of those cases:

The 2009 arrest of Najibullah Zazi for plotting to bomb the New York City subway system came after the NSA intercepted an email in which he discussed perfecting a bomb recipe. The agency executed search warrants with New York Police Department and found bomb-making components. (Serious questions have been raised about whether the FBI actually needed NSA surveillance in order to obtain this information, since the FBI wouldn't have had trouble getting a warrant to monitor the email account of a terrorist suspect.)
Using its authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the NSA discovered Khalid Ouzzani's nascent plans to bomb the New York Stock Exchange. Ouzzani pleaded guilty in 2010 to providing support to Al Qaeda.
NSA surveillance derailed David Headley's 2009 plan to bomb the offices of a Danish newspaper. At the time, he was considered a suspect in the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. He later confessed to conducting surveillance for the Mumbai attacks.
Joyce only provided vague details about a fourth plot: After 9/11, the NSA monitored an individual who had indirect contact with a known foreign terrorist organization overseas. Doing so, he said, allowed the FBI to reopen an investigation and disrupt terrorist activity.
2. The NSA doesn't need court approval each time it searches Americans' phone records.
NSA Deputy Director John Inglis said that 22 NSA officials are authorized to approve requests to query an agency database that contains the cellphone metadata of American citizens. (Metadata includes the numbers of incoming and outgoing calls, the date and time the calls took place, and their duration.) Deputy AG Cole also said that all queries of this database must be documented and can be subject to audits. Cole also said that the the NSA does not have to get separate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) approval for each query; instead, the agency merely has to file a monthly report with the court on how many times the database was queried, and how many of those searches targeted the phone records of Americans.

3. 10 NSA officials have permission to give information about US citizens to the FBI
There are 10 NSA officials—including Inglis and Alexander—involved in determining whether information collected about US citizens can be provided to the FBI. It can only be shared if there's independent evidence that the target has connections to a terrorist organization. Inglis said that if the information is found to be irrelevant, it must be destroyed. If the NSA mistakenly targets an American citizen, it must report this to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

4. Other countries are less transparent than the US, officials say.
Cole said that the FISA Amendments Act provides more due process than is afforded to citizens of European countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, and France. Alexander added that "virtually all" countries have laws that compel telecommunications firms to turn over information on suspects.

5) Fewer than 300 phone numbers were targeted in 2012.
NSA officials say that even though the agency has access to Americans' phone records, it investigated fewer than 300 phone numbers connected to US citizens in 2012. The officials did not provide any detail on the number of email addresses targeted.

Mother Jones

[Stinger]

Your selectivity is in citing ThinkProgress when it seems to agree with you, disparaging it when it doesn't. The fact here is that ThinkProgress is 100% credible when you quote it, "sloppy (dishonest?)" when I do. That's pathetic.

Sorry, that's not selectivity, and that's not what I did. That's paying enough attention to recognize when a writer gets his story wrong. If the cops say the suspect is white, and the journalist writes an article saying the suspect is black, and you question the article because it gets the information from its source wrong, that's not selectivity. That's recognition of reality.

Apparently, you're okay with a journalist getting his facts wrong as long as he says what you want to hear.



I never referred to disappearing people, just citizen monitoring when O Really raised the point. Confused or dishonest?

Realistic. That's what the Stasi did. You shouldn't use them as an example if you're not talking about doing wht they did. The whole analogy thing becomes one big fail.



Only in the ThinkProgress article you chose. You employed the double standard of dismissing it when it contradicted you.

QED. And QEPosted. Only when the article they cited said the opposite of what they did. The Guardian article that they linked to said data mining while the erroneously claimed is said content.

Your quote is not exclusive and the same article has 2 Senators debunking you.

No, the senators were concerned about a possible loophole where some citizens' communications might inadvertently get swept up and possibly looked at if the analyst were there. That's nowhere near the same as the NSA actively monitoring content.

The article does not claim to be a correction of all the other Guardian articles, and I quoted the parts that back me up.

The article was written after the original as a definitive piece to combat the misinformation floating around. Spin it again.
...Quote where it says content is monitored. You quoted Udall and Wyden being concerned about a loophole where content could possibly be monitored, I haven't seen anything that said it was.

That's a backtrack, you've been denying that it could or would be.

You just went and skipped right over your own source showing that the lies predated Clapper, again.

You're assuming that it was. Might be inadvertently swept up, and then someone might possibly violate NSA policy and look at it is not the same as actively monitoring for content.

Except for the ones you cite that then contradict you.

Sorry, but I haven't cited any that contradicted me. Your blinders are showing.

Sloppy and dishonest applies to the individual article regardless of who quotes it.

Sloppy and dishonest applies to ThinkProgress when it disputes you after you cited it.

I've explained (and quoted) how the ThinkProgress article cited the Guardian article that clearly said data mining while the ThinkProgress article falsely claimed that the Guardian said content monitoring. I quoted the Guardian article that the Think Progress article cited.

You conveniently keep ignoring that while repeating your false statement. Reminds me of someone.




which I clearly explained in the part you edited out of my statement so you could make your fallacious point.

Well, lookee there, every single one of Stinger's words were quoted accurately and in their entirety. Even better, this was a post where it was Stinger that did the deceptive editing.

As explained, I did not deceptively edit. I simply quoted the part your statement that I was responding to.

I shouldn't have to do that because it's blatantly obvious. You mentioned PRISM. I said PRISM was about data, not content. You said PRISM was about content. Why would I quote what I wasn't talking about?

Why do you claim deception when there was none there?

On the other hand, you deceptively lopped off the end of my sentence -- the part that explained why the ThinkProgress article was shoddy journalism -- so that you could better make your claim that I was simply choosing what agreed with me. I gave a perfectly valid explanation why that ThinkProgress article was sloppy, and you edited that part out to better make your claim

And now you're lying about it by claiming every word is there. It's not.

Except that every single word is there. You are the sloppy and fallacious one in saying - what, 10 or more times now? - that I edited anything out.

Look at that big blank spot where the rest of my sentence is supposed to be. I do believe that "every single word" is not there. You've got a little egg on your face.

[/quote]

[Stinger]

The one in blue is from my original quote ... with the valid explanation of why I found it to be sloppy journalism.

The second is from Vrede's reposting of that quote, edited to make it appear that I arbitrarily rejected articles I didn't agree with. My valid explanation was edited out, despite reassurances that every single word was quoted accurately.

[Stinger]

.

[Ombudsman]

Thinking online petitions mean a damn thing to anybody who matters is pretty naive too.

I'm just giving y'all something easy and painless.

Which is why they're useless.

[Stinger]

Sorry, that's not selectivity, and that's not what I did. That's paying enough attention to recognize when a writer gets his story wrong. If the cops say the suspect is white, and the journalist writes an article saying the suspect is black, and you question the article because it gets the information from its source wrong, that's not selectivity. That's recognition of reality.

Apparently, you're okay with a journalist getting his facts wrong as long as he says what you want to hear.

You made your choice. Your original article, disputed in the WaPo by 2 SIC Senators, is the one you hang onto while disputing my article confirmed by 2 SIC Senators.

Here we go again. The WaPo article said specifically data mining. You can't undo that with the speculation of two senators that there might be a loophole that might allow some innocent records to get sucked in inadvertently, which then might get looked at by an NSA analyst illegally if he wants to lose his job. That's the gist of the part about the senators,
and it in no way undoes the article's claim that PRISM and BLARNEY mine data, not content.

A hypothetical scenario where some unintended records might get seized (but looked at only illegally) is not a system that monitors domestic communications content. And there is no clear statement that they were referring to PRISM or BLARNEY. They could have been referring to the monitoring of foreign communications.

I really hope you read that this time. I believe you ignored the context ... and distorted the content of the article.

Realistic. That's what the Stasi did. You shouldn't use them as an example if you're not talking about doing wht they did. The whole analogy thing becomes one big fail.

Yes, I get that you ignored the context, you're making a habit of it.

Yes, I get that you apparently don't understand the full ramifications of your analogy. That's why O'Really asked you about Godwin's law.

Well, lookee there, every single one of Stinger's words were quoted accurately and in their entirety. Even better, this was a post where it was Stinger that did the deceptive editing.

As explained, I did not deceptively edit. I simply quoted the part your statement that I was responding to.

That's a different deceptive editing. As was clear from my full post, this is a reference to your deceptive editing of the NYT article by ending a sentence supporting my view well before it really ended. You've gotten yourself all confused.

Here we go again. As I clearly pointed out, I quoted the main part of the sentence ... the only part that was relevant to the discussion -- content vs. data. The rest of the sentence had nothing to do with content vs. data. It only had to do with some irrelevant point you were trying to make.

The only thing I did was neglect to use elipses instead of the period I used. That was a careless mechanical error that changed nothing.

...On the other hand, you deceptively lopped off the end of my sentence -- the part that explained why the ThinkProgress article was shoddy journalism -- so that you could better make your claim that I was simply choosing what agreed with me. I gave a perfectly valid explanation why that ThinkProgress article was sloppy, and you edited that part out to better make your claim

And now you're lying about it by claiming every word is there. It's not.

Look at that big blank spot where the rest of my sentence is supposed to be. I do believe that "every single word" is not there. You've got a little egg on your face.

That dumb again, what is it - 20 times now? I'll make it clearer for you by making the supposed missing words bold and large:

...So far, your best shot was a couple of articles in ThinkProgress

Your source until it didn't say what you wanted it to say.

where content was mentioned in the article . . . but not in the original source. I've provided an expert, Bill Clinton,

I apologize. You didn't deceptively edit it out so that it changed the meaning of the sentence. You deceptively moved it so that you could make your false accusation that I approve of ThinkProgress until it doesn't say what I want it to. That's not what I said. I clearly gave the reason I considered that article sloppy journalism.

You could only do that by moving the reason I gave for dismissing the ThinkProgress article in question.

Really big difference there. Yeah, the words are there, but you deceptively move them to another line so you could make your false claim. Kudos.


I'll even throw in the New York Times -- "The surreptitious collection of "metadata" — every bit of information about every phone call except the word-by-word content of conversations."

Misquote! The sentence actually ends with " — fundamentally alters the relationship between individuals and their government." I'm insulted that after all this time you thought you get such deception past me.

http://www.blueridgedebate.com/viewtopi ... ss+#p24299

No "big blank spot" at all.

Here we go again. It doesn't matter what the sentence ends with if it's not relevant to what I'm discussing -- content vs. data. The rest of the sentence doesn't undo what the first of the sentence said, and the first part of the sentence -- metadata collection -- is the only thing I was talking about.

You should wipe that egg off your face before you eat crow.

And I would . . . if there were any there.

So much for those deliberative and thoughtful research skills you've been bragging about, you didn't even get it when I posted the same full quote earlier on this page. Instead, you made a bigger fool of yourself by creating pretty, multicolored, and dishonest, tifs.

So not noticing that you deceptively moved something to render it out of play instead of deceptively editing it out to render it out of play is the same as deliberative and thoughtful research skills? Really? That sounds really desperate.

So much for your honesty and logical thought.

You deceptively moved words so that you could give a false impression of what I said. Your comment wouldn't have worked very well if you had put it after the valid reason I gave, would it? So you just moved it so you could give your false impression. You never responded to the part you moved. You ignored it and went on to talk about Clinton. That's dishonest.

You keep complaining about me leaving off a part of a quote that has nothing to the point under discussion ( while having sent to oblivion a key part of my sentence). That's logically flawed. Whether or not something "fundamentally alters" anything has absolutely nothing to do with whether it's data mining or content monitoring.

Try explaining how "fundamentally alters the relationship between individuals and their government" somehow magically changes "The surreptitious collection of "metadata" to actually mean "the surreptitious monitoring of content."

If you can pull that one off, my hat's off to you, and I'll go eat some crow. Until then ....

[Ombudsman]

Not always, but what was useless was citing all those tech and other groups that disputed your pretentious claim that "those of us who are tech savvy aren't wringing our hands". You just ignored the debunking from the same post while griping about petitioning.

Well that's because you seem a little touchy about it and it wasn't exactly a debunking of what I said, despite your claim to the contrary. Ya know, sometimes people just ignore what you've said because they can agree to disagree and you're pretty bright and generally logical so there's no need to hold an occasional illogical statement against you. Not all of us choose to engage in the endless line by line back and forth that you and Stinger like. I'd be surprised if anyone actually reads all that anyway.

[Stinger]

Not always, but what was useless was citing all those tech and other groups that disputed your pretentious claim that "those of us who are tech savvy aren't wringing our hands". You just ignored the debunking from the same post while griping about petitioning.

Well that's because you seem a little touchy about it and it wasn't exactly a debunking of what I said, despite your claim to the contrary. Ya know, sometimes people just ignore what you've said because they can agree to disagree and you're pretty bright and generally logical so there's no need to hold an occasional illogical statement against you. Not all of us choose to engage in the endless line by line back and forth that you and Stinger like. I'd be surprised if anyone actually reads all that anyway.

I don't think either of us read it all. I'm through with that anyway. I wasted wa-a-a-a-y too much time. Got more important things to do ... like call overseas so NSA can monitor my conversations.

[O Really]

Snowden seems to have a bump in his road to hero, maybe a free ride to martyrdom...http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06 ... snhp&pos=1