NSA Claims It Would Violate Americans' Privacy To Say How Many of Us It Spied On 221
colinneagle writes "Would you believe the Inspector General from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it would violate the privacy of Americans for the IG office to tell us how many people in the United States had their privacy violated via the NSA warrantless wiretap powers which were granted under the FISA Amendment Act of 2008? The Act is up for a five-year extension, but Senator Ron Wyden said he'd block FAA renewal until Congress received an answer from the NSA about how many 'people in the United States have their communications reviewed by the government' under FAA powers."
no need, I know ... (Score:5, Funny)
NSA and Catholic Priests, a connection? (Score:4, Funny)
Here at the NSA, we will NOT violate your privacy by telling you how many Americans privacy we have already violated.
Thank you, have a good day.
Here at the Catholic Church, we will NOT violate privacy by telling you which Priests violate children.
Thank you and god loves you, mainly little boys.
Re:It will violate the CIA's privacy when we know (Score:5, Funny)
Get your agencies straight: the CIA spies on people outside the USA, the FBI spies on people inside the USA, the NSA spies on people anywhere on the planet, the NRO spies on everyone throughout the galaxy.
Re:Obvious solution (Score:4, Funny)
o.O
Re:It will violate the CIA's privacy when we know (Score:5, Funny)
That was the old way.
Now DHS spies on everyone and all agencies share the same intelligence channel.
Re:Conspiracy theory (Score:4, Funny)
I personally would never click on a link that leads to a video or picture of a cat.
I would never click on a link that leads to a picture of a mans gaping anus, but we all make mistakes sometimes.
Re:Nice doublethink and opposite day there. (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder how soon before NSA is renamed the Ministry of Transparency.
Come to think of it, it would be both doublethink-y, yet also very appropriate.
Re:mistake? (Score:4, Funny)
I notice that there's no mention of Wyden's party affiliation in the article. Must be that liberal media trying to hide the good deeds of the Republicans again.
--Jeremy
310 Million +, encryption means naught (Score:5, Funny)
I agree with the poster above. NSA probably spies on all electronic traffic by everyone on Earth, which includes all residents of North America. I'd like to take this occasion to remind people about ECHELON [wikipedia.org], the 'secret' signals intelligence gathering system whose existence was leaked to the public in 1996 by some very brave Aussies. This revelation included the detail that, since 'Five Eyes' (AUS CAN NZ UK US) [wikipedia.org] foreign intelligence agencies were forbidden by charter from spying on their own citizens, they had worked out an arrangement to spy on each others' citizens and then swap data!
I also wish to take this opportunity to suggest to security-minded readers that NSA et al have advanced cryptanalysis tools at their disposal. While your first reaction might be "Duh!", please bear with me. In this message I actually disclose new non-public, non-official, hard-but-not-impossible-to-verify information. Specifically, I'd like to blow the whistle on the fact that they have probably had a working Quantum Computer system capable of cracking Public Key Cryptography since about 1996. Thus, even your encrypted data has been seen by NSA computers although, of course, that decrypted data set must be partitioned separately and used with extreme care, so as not to reveal its existence.
Science-oriented readers might wonder just what sort of QC could have been built a full 18 years ago, when current technology is just nearing the point of developing a useful QC. The answer is that they generated a 'teleportation/entanglement-based winner-take-all style recurrent topological quantum neural network', then trained it to emulate a Quantum Turing Machine that could run Shor's Algorithm. It exists in the physical form of a complex system composed of 'anyons' [wikipedia.org] interacting with each other within a 'two dimensional electron gas' [wikipedia.org]. Anyons can be generated by moving precision arrays of powerful electromagnets very near the surface of the 2DEG, like creating whirlpools in the bathtub with your hand. I strongly suspect the scientists involved discovered a rule, analogous to Rule 110 [wikipedia.org], that operates directly on the physical system of anyons within a 2DEG. For the detailed scientific underpinnings I suggest you study the collected works of Stuart Kauffman [wikipedia.org], Steven Wolfram [wikipedia.org], David Deutsch [wikipedia.org], and Robert Laughlin [wikipedia.org]. You have no reason to trust what I'm saying, and disinformation is entirely too common, but I want readers to understand that it is possible for a sufficiently determined and intelligent person to verify that what I just said is probably true, although certainly NOT just by Googling for it :-)
Readers should note that the new technology I describe is not limited to running Shor's algorithm and,in fact, is a powerful new general technology with various other uses. None of which matter much until this whole thing is declassified, so that civilian scientists will be able to study and publish on the topic. The NSA et al is keeping it secret to prevent everyone from knowing that PKI is no longer secure. IMHO this is insufficient reason to keep secret important new scientific knowledge.
Finally, lest someone complain that I might be harming National Security by making the above disclosure, I'd like to point out that China and Russia already have working QCs of their own that function on similar principles. This is an open secret within the Intelligence Community. Thus, I am disclosing new information to Slashdot readers and to the general public whom they might tell about it, but I am NOT telling international sp
Re:Conspiracy theory (Score:5, Funny)
"...the NSA is the *only* intelligence agency that, as a group, gives a damn about our rights."
So, you're saying that to save the village they had to destroy it?