NSA Head Asks How To Spy Without Collecting Metadata 509
jfruh writes "NSA Director Keith Alexander, testifying before the Senate this week, got weirdly petulant, asking his critics how he was supposed to do his job without collecting metadata on American communications. 'If we can come up with a better way, we ought to put it on the table and argue our way through it,' he said. 'There is no other way that we know of to connect the dots.' He also implied that major U.S. tech companies might have greater capacities than his organizations, and that they should help him out with new ideas."
Easy. (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't even slightly hard.
Step 1: Require that the companies collect the information and retain it.
Step 2: Get a court order when you need to obtain information about a specific individual, and then obtain only that information.
It's not the metadata that's the problem. It's the fact that you're in possession of it, not just for the people you're legitimately investigating, but for everybody, and the fact that with our legal system being as complex as it is, you can almost certainly find patterns sufficient to suspect any honest person of a crime.
For example, I recently received an email about repairing strings of Christmas lights from someone whose last name is Snowden. Assuming that there's some relation, there's a good chance that my metadata is caught up in one of these f**king dragnets even though I have jack s**t to do with the guy who released confidential info from our government. There's no legitimate reason for them to study me—I'm pretty boring, frankly—but I would not be in the least bit surprised if it happened.
I wonder when... (Score:2, Interesting)
they will say, "We can't do our job without a camera in every home".
Re:Then Fire Him (Score:4, Interesting)
The real question: How was he doing his job before? Or is he saying the NSA has been useless for the past 60 years, and only now is viable since everyone started carrying a real-time GPS tracker?
In that case, do we get our tax dollars back?
Headline should have read (Score:5, Interesting)
"NSA Director Keith Alexander, testifying before the Senate this week admitted he's not qualified to protect us from terrorism." He said " I have a limited imagination and can only come up with one illegal solution to the problem". This is despite the fact that many terrorist plots have been discovered without violating rights, and his spying solution has failed to stop others. All he has is a hammer so every problem looks like a nail.
Re:Easy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Step 1: Require that the companies collect the information and retain it.
Which then is at the government's fingertips. How about we do no such thing?
Re:Then Fire Him (Score:4, Interesting)
Then you are short sighted and not admitting reality.
and do not think i am a supporter of the rampant NSA spying.
But let's be real, and think about it.
(And refrain from hyperbole such as "all our rights")
This entire issue is once again the conflict between two competeing ideals that we ahve, and we want both to be true at the same time.
Like it or not, old unverified quotes aside, people want both liberty AND security. (why else do we have laws and police and military?)
The truth is, no intelligence work can occur without "metadata" (as a concept, not just related to digital tech), which is basically just circumstantial evidence in the digital realm. it may not prove a link, but it does indicate worth look (much like the correlation/causation saw). metadata can indicate if something needs a further look, or not.
I am not against the collection of data from an individual, targeted with reason, and with proper due process, such as a warrant. The potential can analysed, and then dismissed or acted on further. If dismissed, the data is flushed and not retained. That is reasonable and even normal.
And I believe the Admiral is being disengenuous when he says they cant function without the collection of metadata.
I believe that his implied intent, what he really means, is that they cant function without colelction of everyones data, all the time, and that is what he's trying to preserve. Essentially, a lie of omission.
I believe that to be wrong, and harmful.
The problem isnt the mere collection of metadata.
The problem is the collection of metadata ON EVERYONE ALL THE TIME, without cause or due process, and the permanent retention of that data.
Blanket collection and the mentality of "everyone is a suspect" is the problem.
Why do libertarians complain so much? (Score:-1, Interesting)
The internet isn't yours.
It is theirs.
The best thing for civil libertarians to do is to just get off the internet entirely.
Or do you guys complain every time you visit someone else's house?
This is the big problem with all these narcissistic individuals - they think they own the world because they think too highly of themselves.
When the Internet was created, everyone knew you didn't have privacy on it, since anyone could read everybody else's mail spool.
Somehow all these losers started invading the internet, decided to become comfortable within it, and they never got the memo that the Internet wasn't a private communications system.
We need to get these losers off the Internet. This is best for them.
It's also best for the Internet.
Refactor the NSA (Score:3, Interesting)
Split the NSA into the Department of Big Brother and the New-NSA. Big Brother collects all the data and tracks everything about everyone, but the data is not query-able without a warrant (and all access is logged and reviewed, and abuse is actually penalized). Then the New-NSA can do their job the way they're supposed to, using warrants.
Re:Then Fire Him (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Then Fire Him (Score:4, Interesting)
Framing (Score:5, Interesting)
Asking for "a better way to do X" presumes that X should be done to begin with.
"Help us find a better way to torture prisoners!"
Naturally the Senate didn't challenge him on this presumption just as it didn't hold him accountable for lying to them to begin with.
Re:Then Fire Him (Score:4, Interesting)
Is he doesn't know how to do his job without violating all our rights then he should be replaced.
He doesn't even know what the job is, apparently - "connect the dots" is an absurd metaphor, and doesn't work [schneier.com] in the real world.
It sounds like he's not even qualified. Metadata equals surveillance, and he's pretending that it's somehow strange that people don't expect their government to surveil their ever action.
Re:Then Fire Him (Score:4, Interesting)
My guy is the one telling them to stop. I should vote him out? In fact both of my senators are part of major consumer protections and privacy initiatives. Other people vote in stupid ideologues. I honestly don't mind smart ones, but when you're voting for people who think women parts have rape defense mechanisms, that's not on me. When you have people that block functioning government because they disagree with government, what the heck does that have to do with me who votes in people to make government better? when you have party members on national television that they are trying to stop blacks from voting because it prevents democrats from voting, please again tell me how I am supposed to fix other people voting for intellectual midgets? This isn't to say all the people on my side are smart or all the people on the other are dumb, but right now, the preponderance of bad rests with the anti-science, fox new watching part of the country.
Re:Bingo. (Score:5, Interesting)
The left feared tyranny under GWB, and the right fears it under BHO, the problem is, both are only partially correct.... They hate the other guy's tyrant, but do not rightfully fear their own.
This, IMO, is the most sadly hilarious thing in American politics today.
Hey, Fuck you Slashdotters (Score:3, Interesting)
Get real. How else is this national conversation supposed to proceed ? OK so he got petulant- that is if we accept the editors editorializing on the facts- but so what? So the fuck what? This THIS is the back and forth we are desperately looking for and which we desperately, desperately need. Here it is. The director of the NSA openly soliciting for alternative ways to be effective and what does he get? A pile on of cynical snarky comments.
What does that say? It says you have no idea how to help him do his job. You've got the inflammatory rhetoric and taking offense bases well covered but when it comes down to someone actually doing what you claim you want - solicit the public for input- *tap tap* you're found to be a little thin.
Imagine his job. Anyone anywhere including malcontents in this nation (the US) could start putting together a doomsday microbe or nanobot or virus or whatever and anyone claiming that those things are possibilities either literally have no idea what they're talking about or have no grasp of the velocity of technology.
All of human civilization has a problem that's completely sui generis to our times in both magnitude and difficulty. It's that the ascending vector of technological capability and the descending vector representing the number of people it takes to wield that technology in completely arbitrary ways are whizzing past each other with frightening magnitude.
What are we going to do when all it takes to effect millions of billions of people is five or six like minded people? When the normal instinct for self preservation is absent in those five or six people? What happens when that describes the world ? How do we defend ourselves against that?
The world , if humans and mammals generally are going to continue to exist on it, is going to have to radically reorg itself with respect to the Big Issues of security, privacy and liberty. Going forward as we always have is a prescription for self-annihilation.
You may *think* the NSA is doing what it's doing because it's power mad and seeking fascist control over everyone - and that actually IS a danger , is just as Snowden termed it- "turnkey fascism" but in fact we have no evidence that they've involved themselves in running interference in the mundane affairs of making money and political freedoms excepting where they thought it intersected in national security , i.e. Wikileaks - an affair in which I think they took a very wrong turn BTW.
No the reality is that whatever very real and very dangerous potential for turnkey fascism is implicit in the uber-surveillance they've implemented, it hasn't been realized and that's not their intention. Their intention is to keep very very very bad things from happening.
So now you have the director of the NSA openly asking for assistance- whatever his tone (which you can imagine is rightly or wrongly likely semi-sarcastic just as your tone would be if some amateurs one day presumed to start telling you how to do your very complicated job) and what ideas do you have that aren't a form of pure rhetoric and which directly address the near-future calamity of Shiva-style power being accessible to any small group of lunatics.
What we consider our privacy is its present form is not going to survive this century. That's a fact. Either we have some king of incredible transparency on demand for everyone everywhere including the government or we take seriously the notion that we need to change what human beings are and what they're inclined to.
Neither of those really leaves much room for your freedom and liberty and self-determination and privacy as you understand them today.
People in the Middle Ages never would have accepted modernity if through some miracle it were thrust upon them suddenly and en toto. They would have gladly died fighting against it. We moderns feel differently about things because we have a concept of our selves and our freedoms and responsibilities . What we have to realize is that w
Re:Then Fire Him (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep profiling does work, the problem is the people who see it as "racist" whine and cry about it. It's the same type of people who whine and complain when police profile a known group, because they're the main instigators of specific types of crimes. In Canada we use profiling in police work, at the airports, and at border checkpoints. It's not perfect, but it does a much better job then "just a hunch."
Re:Back up... (Score:5, Interesting)
The answer has been given on slashdot before. The enemy of the USA has changed from North Korea, Russia and Cuba (scary!) to any religious organisation with 50 thousand dollars.
Ok, if I understand you, you mean to say that since North Korea, Russia and Cuba are places, then they're only capable of building bombs within their own boundaries, but if they're a religious group, then they can easily build bombs within the United States. I call "boogieman" on that claim, sir.
The enemy of the United States, and every other country, and every other group of people, and every other person in the entire universe, is fear itself. Secrecy creates a platform by which fear can thrive, like mold on bread. That fear can then be used by anyone that has risen above it, on those that value that fear. People like you seem to be one of those that values fear, and tries to reason it out.
"The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it." --JFK
"The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself." --Franklin D. Roosevelt