NSA Admits Searching "3 Hops" From Suspects 322
New submitter cpitman writes "In a house hearing Wednesday the NSA admitted that it could query not only a suspect's records, but also perform up to a 'three hop query'. Considering that most people in the world are separated by under 6 degrees of separation, the NSA essentially claims that any single suspect gives them rights to investigate a large chunk of the world's population. With the terror watch list having over 700,000 names, just how many times has Kevin Bacon been investigated?"
Congress is "angry" (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's true that members of Congress are angry, that's favorable news! Maybe they can be persuaded to get off their butts and do something about this.
This might be of interest.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Foreign Policy had a fascinating article last month on how metadata analysis is used in terms of relationships between suspected "evil" people and known "evil" people. (The word "evil" in quotes to signify that for purposes of this topic, the definition of "evil" is unimportant.) The article talks about the challenges of fewer vs. more degrees of separation in link analysis; the new revelation that they go to 3 degrees throws it into even more perspective.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/17/evil_in_a_haystack_nsa_metadata [foreignpolicy.com]
"Admission" vs. Truth (Score:5, Interesting)
In a house hearing Wednesday the NSA admitted
What cause do we have to believe them? They've been lying to us about surveillance for at least 8 years, probably much, much longer.
Oh, right, we're just supposed to take their word for it, because they've been so goddamn trustworthy up to this point, haven't they?
Fuck these pieces of shit. Disband their organization, and charge every single employee and contractor with high treason. It's the only way to make things right.
Guilt by Association (Score:5, Interesting)
3-hop was NO legal limit (Score:4, Interesting)
The owners of Slashdot once again resort to playing down the extent of NSA surveillance and abuse. So-called '3-hop' mining searches were used to prevent agents being swamped with far more 'connections' than they could ever think of processing. Actual NSA personnel were free to examine the details of ANY individual connected at any 'distance' to a named target, whether that meant '3-hops' or 30.
Here's something you sheeple should consider. You happen to be the neighbour of a target, and even though innocent, you have unwittingly learnt things of interest to the intelligence agencies. If the target becomes aware you have been interrogated or co-operated with the authorities, the mission against the target is compromised.
No problem to Team Obama. If the target is important enough, you will be secretly arrested, subject to 'enhanced' interrogation just in case you aren't quite 'innocent', and then disposed of (as in EXECUTED) so there is zero chance of the fact of your interrogation getting back to the target. You are the cattle, and if putting you down serves the interests of your masters, no-one is going to think twice about doing this.
Now true, dying this way is as unlikely as a major lottery win, but the point you sheeple should b aware of is that your life has no value whatsoever to those that rule over you. What they have done to millions of civilians in the Middle East, they'll do to you and your family just as easily if they deem it 'useful'.
Now the NSA track your vehicle movements almost perfectly with under-surface RFID readers (license plate reading cameras are only used to associate an actual vehicle with the fingerprint of the RFID chips embedded in your tires) - now the NSA tracks the locations of each citizen perfectly via their cell phones - now the NSA tracks your network of friends and associates almost perfectly via the social Internet services you use - now the NSA is focusing on plugging the last few holes in their total surveillance grid.
Google Glass, The Xbox One, and Bill Gates' child database service form a massive three-headed attack by the NSA against traditionally 'difficult' intelligence targets.
-Google Glass is designed to eliminate the idea of a 'private' conversation, and ensure that most people self-censor most of the time. Self-censorship means expressing views that toe-the-line promoted by authority, ensuring that everyone thinks that everyone else is a loyal supporter of the police-state.
-Xbox One gets the world's most sophisticated bugging system into the homes of millions of citizens. A bugging system so 'clever' it knows when people are having sex by tracking signature skeletal movements of the people in the same room as the console.
-Gates' database system that tracks every detail of every child's life in the most intimate detail is the most disturbing NSA project of all. Gates provides high-ranking sex offenders with the best possible intelligence for safely selecting victims. Then there are the pre-crime aspects, and also the ability to search for the most useful sociopaths for recruitment into command and control positions over the sheeple. Not least is the fact that when you control the kids, you control their parents.
Look, to the question "how bad are things in the USA today?", the answer is "as bad as they could possibly be, with the active intention of having the future very much worse if all the political plans of people like Gates pan out".
If you don't want to be treated as cattle, you had better learn how to stop behaving as cattle. Rejecting all propaganda emanating from the mainstream media is a very good start. No one in real power has you best interests at heart. They didn't 20,000 years ago. They didn't 4,000 years ago. They didn't 2000 years ago, or 1000, or 500, or 200. Whoever rules considers those that choose to live as sheep as beneath contempt. It isn't right, it isn't decent, but it is how it is.
You can't fight the NSA at a higher level, but you can fight them in your daily life. Reject all
Re:Congress is "angry" (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's true that members of Congress are angry, that's favorable news! Maybe they can be persuaded to get off their butts and do something about this.
If you review the Washington Times article it looks like Congress is of a mind to pare things back.
Obama loses support for renewal of surveillance; NSA phone program will expire next year [washingtontimes.com]
The lawmaker who wrote the USA Patriot Act said Wednesday that, as it stands, the House will never renew the provisions that the Obama administration uses to collect Americans’ phone records, meaning the government’s surveillance program will be cut off some time next year.
Both Democrats and Republicans told top administration officials that they reject President Obama’s claim that the law allows the intelligence community to collect the phone numbers, time, date and duration of calls made by Americans, and they said Mr. Obama needs to change the way he is running the program if he wants to keep it intact.
If they do cut back on surveillance it will probably be OK, for a while. Of course it won't just be surveillance that has been cut back. The Obama administration keeps killing terrorists instead of capturing and interrogating them which means a significant loss of intelligence information, and is one of the notable differences between Presidents Obama and Bush. (The reason: Obama doesn't want to be stuck with more prisoners and the messiness of trials. He doesn't want to use military commissions and the Congress and electorate oppose criminal law trials in civilian courts.) Beyond that, the Snowden revelations have already had the effect of causing terrorists to change their communications methods to avoid surveillance thus reducing intelligence even more. The combination of all three factors may lead to a significant loss of intelligence information.
We'll see how it turns out. I won't be surprised if in the long run it turns out to be a riff on the old medical saw: The (intelligence) operations were a success, but the citizens died.
Re:What can voters do? (Score:2, Interesting)
You can't. If you vote for a candidate that promises to be the most transparent administration in history, you get one that imprisons more whistle blowers than all other presidents in history combined. Voting won't change anything, and direct action will only get you labeled a terrorist. There's absolutely nothing that can be done. Democracy and the rule of law is dead in America.
All we can do is sit around and wait for another Enlightenment, and then refresh the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It's good to see further evidence/proof of something I said a few months ago [dslreports.com], re: Americans having become apathetic beyond all reasonable doubt. Search for the word "apathetic" and read from there. The only ones we have to blame for this are ourselves. It doesn't matter if it's the 1% who control the country/make it corrupt, we're all still to blame for it in indirect and roundabout ways. The sooner we change our belief system -- that is, the belief and reliance on money -- the better off we'll become. (Really, take an hour-long walk and think about the big picture. You'll realise most idiocies today boil down to either money or religion; money is one we can choose to get rid of, or at least minimise its importance).
I've asked peers of mine (who are in agreement) what a good first step in the right direction would be. The best answer I got was to bring back war gardens [wikipedia.org] as a way of getting to know the people around you and helping one another out via non-financial means. It's a small step, but it's definitely a good step.
There are other, more extreme (or major/dramatic) means citizens could take, but that apathy -- now starting to border on the equivalent of Korean han [wikipedia.org] -- is what wins out every time. We'd rather sit around staring at out mobile phones like mindless zombified idiots and play Angry Birds than actually do something for the good of mankind (because yes, the United States has way too much bearing on mankind universally at this point -- another thing we should be ashamed of...)
Re:much of joe public doesn't care ... (Score:3, Interesting)
If it got to the point where it objectively, undeniably mattered, like if you got arrested after having a suspicious pattern of Facebook connections for instance, then they'd be a bit more careful with their online activity. But they still wouldn't stand up for anything, and they wouldn't stand up for you.
A few years ago I got arrested for something I didn't do, and several of my neighbors who knew I was innocent wouldn't help me with an affidavit. The police, prosecutor, and even my own lawyer didn't care if I was innocent or guilty either. It was really an eye opener, not at all like on Law and Order. Then when I left my DoD surveillance job for a 'worse' job elsewhere all I got crap from nearly everybody I knew too. Essentially, "it can't be wrong because everyone else is doing it." For the most part, the few people who expressed a little understanding in either situation were the same kind of people who would have agreed had I argued about NSA surveillance. But if the stakes were higher, I sense that most of them would disappear too. Morally, most Americans are not different from 1930's Germans. Not to say that the US government is fascist, just to say that people aren't the way they see themselves, and that after a half billion years of evolution people haven't changed much in 100 years.
Re:Can we discuss the fourth amendment now? (Score:5, Interesting)
Facebook says most people really only associate with 30 'friends'.
Hop 1: 9000 x 30 = 270k people.
Assuming that those people have associates that overlap the existing list somehow, we arrive at:
Hop 2: 270k x 15 + 270k= 4.32 million people
With a conservative estimate of the last hop only adding another three to twelve people, you're still talking between:
Hop 3: 4.32m + (4.05m x 3-12) = 16.47 million to 52.92 million people
Re:Can we discuss the fourth amendment now? (Score:5, Interesting)
I would assume you are low-balling quite a bit as well. As theory goes 6 hops will get you to anyone on the planet. Continental United States is probably much less than 6 degrees of seperation.
If I were a paranoid man I might consider someone in the NSA knew this and calculated the least number of people necessary to cover every man, woman and child in the US while making the number they're following seem "small" (anyone not connected within the 3 hops is already flagged for being "anti-social"). I'm not actually paranoid though and I figure it's just harmful stupidity.
Re:Can we discuss the fourth amendment now? (Score:2, Interesting)
Brave New World is the hope and change part. 1984 is when it's going stale.