Chief NSA Lawyer Hints That NSA May Be Tracking US Citizens 213
itwbennett writes "Responding to questions from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence yesterday, Matthew Olsen, the NSA's general counsel, said that the NSA 'may', under 'certain circumstances' have the authority to track U.S. citizens by intercepting location data from cell phones, but it's 'very complicated.' 'There's no need to panic, or start shopping for aluminum-foil headwear,' says blogger Kevin Fogarty, but clearly the NSA has been thinking about it enough 'that the agency's chief lawyer was able to speak intelligently about it off the cuff while interviewing for a different job.'"
Certain circumstances? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is my "shocked" face (Score:5, Insightful)
So much for Imperial America going away with Bush the Lesser.
Unthinkable scenario (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How is this anything new? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Translation: (Score:5, Insightful)
"Very complicated" = "not ever actually constitutional, but the courts would never be allowed to challenge it so we could do it if we wanted"
Well yeah (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm hardly going to debate the ethics or constitutionality or whatever of this, because to the following, it's irrelevant:
If you care about your privacy that much, why are you willingly carrying around a device that's transmitting your position with little or no encryption to everyone who wants to see it? If you want to secure your network, do you leave an open WAP transmitting its SSID as widely as possible? This isn't someone planting a tracking device. This is you shouting loudly to everyone that you're here, and then complaining when someone takes note.
Re:How is this anything new? (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as the circumstances are "when we have a warrant", then I don't see an issue.
I do. NSA was chartered for the purpose of gathering electronic intelligence of our enemies abroad (at the time of its inception, the Soviet Union). I worked at NSA in the late '80s, and at the time, there were signs posted all over warning that NSA was specifically prohibited by executive order from conducting surveillance on U.S. citizens within the United States. The FBI is tasked with domestic law enforcement, not NSA; NSA has no business whatsoever conducting surveillance on American citizens within the U.S.
Re:How is this anything new? (Score:4, Insightful)
If the "certain circumstances" were "when we have a warrant" he wouldn't have had to beat around the bush, he'd simply have said "when we have a warrant".
they also catch soldiers phone sex with their (Score:4, Insightful)
wives back home. while they are deployed to afghanistan. at least according to Bamford's "Shadow Factory" (citing Adrienne Kinney, a former intelligence worker who was at an NSA in Georgia)
Re:Does anyone really think this isn't going on? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that it'd be hard to track everyone at once, even with super computers and satellites like LACROSSE there are just too many people to track, so they can probably actively track a few thousand to a million people.
So what happens when the technology advances to the point where it is no more difficult to track the entire population of the U.S.? It's a logical fallacy to claim it's no big deal just because it's impractical given current technology. Technology will catch up, but if you wait until it does to object, it will be too late.
Re:Very complicated (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like Hoover and the FBI. Everything is cylical in nature indeed.
Re:This is my "shocked" face (Score:4, Insightful)
No but he drove us down that road as fast as he could for 8 years.
Re:Complicated reasoning. (Score:5, Insightful)
Its the same from both sides, don't obscure the truth that the gov in general is running around destroying privacy and other rights while people fight about what side of some random carpeted aisle the idea came from...