Intelligence Director Claims NSA Surveillance Reports Inaccurate 262
Nerval's Lobster writes "James R. Clapper, the nation's Director of National Intelligence, claimed that recent reports about the NSA monitoring Americans' Internet and phone communications are inaccurate. 'The Guardian and The Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,' he wrote in a June 6 statement. 'They contain numerous inaccuracies.' While the statement didn't detail the supposed inaccuracies, it explained why the monitoring described in those articles would, at least in theory, violate the law. 'Section 702 is a provision of FISA that is designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-U.S. persons located outside the United States,' it read. 'It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States.' Those newspaper articles describe an NSA project codenamed Prism, which allegedly taps into the internal databases of nine major technology companies: Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL, and Apple. Both publications drew their information from an internal PowerPoint presentation used to train intelligence operatives. Speaking to Slashdot, Google, Microsoft and Facebook all again denied knowledge of Prism; the Google spokesperson suggested he didn't 'have any insight' into why Google would have appeared in the NSA's alleged PowerPoint presentation. But many, many questions remain."
"No Insight" - What they really mean (Score:5, Interesting)
Great argument (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be illegal, so that can't be what happened.
Re:Cue the consiracy theorists.... (Score:5, Interesting)
"The keyword here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink. Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."
Re:what gets me... (Score:3, Interesting)
I went to an Iraq War protest with my oldest son back in the day. Next time my wife went to print the family's boarding passes for a domestic flight, two passes wouldn't print.
Mine, and my youngest son.
Coincidence? If it was because of the protest, they did get the wrong boy, so maybe...
But I went to that protest fully expecting some kind of retaliation, and was not disappointed. I can board planes easily now, at least until they track this message back to me. Don't think the AC is going to fool them, based on these latest reports.
Re:Cue the consiracy theorists.... (Score:3, Interesting)
> Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."
This, by the way, and probably deliberately, is the textbook definition of neurosis.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
This has been going on since at least 2001. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cue the consiracy theorists.... (Score:4, Interesting)
what I'm confused about is.. didn't Obama just admit to this the other day?
or is this different spying?
wtf?