NSA General Counsel Insists US Companies Assisted In Data Collection

Related to yesterday's story about the NSA, Advocatus Diaboli (1627651) writes with this excerpt from The Guardian: "Rajesh De, the NSA general counsel, said all communications content and associated metadata harvested by the NSA under a 2008 surveillance law occurred with the knowledge of the companies – both for the internet collection program known as Prism and for the so-called 'upstream' collection of communications moving across the Internet. ... nearly all the companies listed as participating in the program – Yahoo, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and AOL – claimed they did not know about a surveillance practice described as giving NSA vast access to their customers’ data. Some, like Apple, said they had 'never heard' the term Prism. De explained: 'Prism was an internal government term that as the result of leaks became the public term,' De said. 'Collection under this program was a compulsory legal process, that any recipient company would receive.'"

Of course they did!

[GodfatherofSoul]

The Feds kept the receipts!

When Apple said they'd never heard of Prism, they were using lawyer-speak to conflate not knowing the official program name with not knowing the program existed.

Taking bets here..

[OzPeter]

The first rule of NSA data collection is that you don't mention NSA data collection or the NSA .. ever.

Unless you want to be tried by a secret court and end up somewhere you really don't want to be.

Meanwhile if they openly admitted it...

[bussdriver]

They likely would have been charged as traitors for admitting the whole thing... The legal agreement must say something about keeping silent and that would STILL be in effect to this day as long as the legal agreement is still active.

Re:Taking bets here..

[poetmatt]

What I find is hilarious is that "being forced to comply" is considered "assisting".

Apparently when your only choice is jail or compliance, somehow you're assisting in the process.

Re:Of course they did!

[Jane Q. Public]

Yes, exactly. But not just Apple, by any means. Apple, AT&T, Comcast, etc., etc., ad nauseum.

They've all been using Orwellian doublespeak, implying they had no knowledge at all by claiming they had no knowledge of a tiny, specific thing.

Traitors, the lot of them.

Let's all remember that treason is not disobeying your government, it is betraying your country and your people.

Weasel Words

[PineHall]

After the hearing, De added that service providers also know and receive legal compulsions surrounding NSA’s harvesting of communications data not from companies but directly in transit across the internet under 702 authority.

And

De and his administration colleagues were quick to answer the board that companies were aware of the government’s collection of data under 702, which Robert Litt, general counsel for the director of national intelligence, told the board was “one of the most valuable collection tools that we have.”

But what was not said was

Neither De nor any other US official discussed data taken from the internet under different legal authorities. Different documents Snowden disclosed, published by the Washington Post, indicated that NSA takes data as it transits between Yahoo and Google data centers, an activity reportedly conducted not under Section 702 but under a seminal executive order known as 12333.

So they did not lie but they did not tell the whole truth either.

Redirecting Attention?

[Mysticode]

This sounds like the NSA is trying to redirect some of the negative attention they have received from this elsewhere. Although that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't true.

Re:Of course they did!

[gnasher719]

When Apple said they'd never heard of Prism, they were using lawyer-speak to conflate not knowing the official program name with not knowing the program existed.

People like you are the reason why the NSA is spreading this nonsense. To deflect any anger from themselves to these companies, like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Apple. Because they _know_ that there are plenty of fanboys who put all the blame on Apple, or put all the blame on Google, or on Microsoft, and then the other fanboys say that Apple is innocent and Google is evil, or Google is innocent and Apple is evil, and Microsoft is evil anyway, and everyone forgets about the NSA.

Fact is, the NSA are lying and spying scumbags. Fact is, there is no evidence that anyone supported them knowingly or willingly. The only indication that someone did is the word of the lying and spying scumbags.

Re:Obvious but not interesting.

[gstoddart]

It would have been nice if someone would have shown some spine here.

How do you know they didn't? Did some front-line tech guy say "no fucking way" only to be dragged off under a secret warrant?

However, the fact that no one had the balls to stand up to the NSA really doesn't get them off the hook for anything.

Indeed, I view this as the legal equivalent of saying that once you'd cocked the hammer on the gun and your rape victim stopped struggling she was a "voluntary participant".

"Why yes your honor, we did threaten the accused, but once he realized we might throw him off the roof he confessed" used to be the poisoned fruit, now it's Standard Procedure for the government agencies.

A government which works in secret and through intimidation under secret laws has ceased to be just, and will only get worse.

They do it the same way the president does it.

[Charliemopps]

They do it the same way the president does it. They don't tell the press secretary anything... then he can say "We aren't aware of anything like that!" and maybe even the president doesn't directly know... but 1 guy knows... the guy in regulatory compliance... or the corporate lawyer. Of course, that person doesn't go out in public to discuss it so they can never actually called out as liars. But we all know the truth.