NSA Collects 200 Million Text Messages Per Day 287
ilikenwf writes "A new release from the files obtained by Edward Snowden have revealed that the NSA collects millions of text messages per day. These are used to gain travel plans, financial data, and social network data. The majority of these texts and data belong to people who are not being investigated for any crime or association. Supposedly, "non-US" data is removed, but we all know that means it is sent to a partner country for analysis, which is then sent back to the NSA."
Pitchforks (Score:2, Interesting)
Torches, hangmans nooses....these are a few of my favorite things.
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Agreed. Time to insist on our Constitutional Rights.
And some guillotines.
Re:Pitchforks (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll bet $100 that you don't do shit about it.
Re:And (Score:5, Insightful)
That makes no sense. They're the one advocating taking to the streets and guillotineing people. Not me.
We have all the tools we need to improve our country and we decline to use them. The voter turnout for people under 35 is a disgrace. If young people just voted at the same rate as old people, this country would transform overnight.
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Voting just replaces the public faces. The real problem, especially in DC, is the Congressional staffers who are in there for life. By and large, Congressional Representatives, be they Senators or Representatives, just do what their chief's of staff tell them to do. The staffers are the ones who write the bills and craft the laws that are the foundation of all of the problems we are facing.
Re:And (Score:5, Insightful)
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Young people overwhelmingly voted for bush?
Many documents of Snowden's date from the reign of King George II.
Re:And (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry if my proposal isn't as exciting as murdering people in the streets.
There's nothing we can do !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Only $100?
But then, I'd bet $1000 (if I had it) that they wouldn't do anything effective
As a naturalized citizen of the United of America I can tell you that there is *NOTHING* we, the voters of American, can effectively do, to change the system.
The system is so entrenched, with its roots dug so deep into so many fields, affecting so many people's livelihoods, that even if 90% of the voters (who do go out to vote) of the America decide that "Enough is enough", that is still NOTHING we can do !
"Vote them out", you say ?
When you vote them out, who would you vote in to replace them ?
The whole scenario of a supposedly "Two Party System" is a sham.
They are JUST THE SAME OLD SHIT, like two sides of a same coin.
Whether we vote Republicans or for Democrats, we vote for the same fucking system.
"Vote for somebody else then," you say.
Who ?
Third party ? Libertarians ?
I *AM* a libertarian, but even me know that the "Libertarian party" is worse than a fucking joke.
Every single day the system fill us with nonsensical topics such as "abortion", "welfare abuses", "prayer in the school" and so on, so to occupy our attention.
So we have the line drawn in between the people along the line of "Pro Life" vs "Pro Choice", and people having protests over "Gay Parade" (on both sides), and so what ?
I mean, those are the devices that the fucking system used to divert attention AWAY from the hundreds of millions of morons living in America anyway.
I am sorry to say that, for even I, as an American, have to admit that there are just too many morons in America and we have been moronic for way too long.
The so-called "Constitution" is no more.
Yes, there is still a piece of paper with the "We, the people..." written on it, but it might be as well printed "Made in China" on back, because the system doesn't give a fuck of that piece of paper anymore.
Do I sound pissed ? Sure I am !
But what the fuck more can I do ?
Re:There's nothing we can do !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. You should really leave such a terrible country right away.
Re:There's nothing we can do !! (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow. You should really leave such a terrible country right away.
I'm pretty sure american domestic opression doesn't hold a candle to american imperial oppression :/
Re:There's nothing we can do !! (Score:5, Interesting)
[I've taken the liberty of reflowing your text and eliminating your extraneous spaces preceding terminal punctuation, in order to improve both cohesion and my ability to reply.]
Whether we vote Republicans or for Democrats, we vote for the same fucking system. "Vote for somebody else then," you say. Who? Third party? Libertarians?
Yes — absolutely I say vote "vote for third parties" (especially to voters in "safe" states (i.e., non-swing states)). I also say "vote your conscience," "voting for 'lesser' evil is still voting for evil," "third parties need your vote — some D/R candidates don't even want you to vote," and "voting for a third party isn't 'wasting your vote; voting D/R (especially in a "safe" state) is wasting your vote."
The third parties are one of our best shots for restoring liberty, and they deserve the support of everyone who values the liberties that the authoritarian D/R Corporate Party has sacrificed on the altars of control, security theater, and corruption. (I usually recommend that people on the left vote Green, and people on the right vote Libertarian — both parties' anti-authoritarian platforms emphasize the restoration of civil liberties. It's a recommendation I encourage others to espouse if they like, as it conceals no left/right agenda.)
I *AM* a libertarian, but even me know that the "Libertarian party" is worse than a fucking joke.
I'm a left/socialist-libertarian, and I disagree. The Libertarian Party's last presidential candidate — Gary Johnson [wikipedia.org] — was an excellent choice for them; a completely sane, former two-term governor of New Mexico. As a left-libertarian, I was in agreement with nearly all of his social and foreign policy positions.
Every single day the system fill us with nonsensical topics such as "abortion", "welfare abuses", "prayer in the school" and so on, so to occupy our attention. So we have the line drawn in between the people along the line of "Pro Life" vs "Pro Choice", and people having protests over "Gay Parade" (on both sides), and so what? I mean, those are the devices that the fucking system used to divert attention AWAY from the hundreds of millions of morons living in America anyway.
I congratulate you for your unusual recognition of this for what it is (a distraction) — but it also illustrate the vast majority of issues on which the D/R factions of The Corporate Party are in agreement, as well as serving as divisive mechanism of control of the populace, via "divide & conquer" and by dissuading us from uniting against the government or their draconian policies. This strategy failed recently, in a wonderful coming-together between left and right for the "Restore the Fourth" rally in DC to oppose mass-surveillance. Hopefully, this is the beginning of a trend that will continue all the way to the voting booths in 2016.
Re:There's nothing we can do !! (Score:4, Insightful)
As a naturalized citizen of the United of America I can tell you that there is *NOTHING* we, the voters of American, can effectively do, to change the system.
Sounds like the rationlisation of a victim for being passive, but perhaps you just don't understand how the system works. Sure the parties all collude to present you with an illusion of choices they dictate (in reality the choices of the bodies that fund them), and all politicians no matter whether they're altruists or not cannot represent all the "needs" of the electorate (they also have to represent the people who voted against them) - but you can do something to force the election issues, and in turn affect legislation and how government (and government funded) bodies operate. Before each election the parties research the issues they lost votes to the previous election in order to hijack issues and gain a majority - so vote for single issue candidates that don't stand a chance of getting in. The biggest lie politicians tell is that without "major" parties (duopolies, e.g. liberal/labor, republican/democrat) governement will cease to function. Their rationalisation is that too many parties means government gets tied up in compromise negotiations - which is true only in that it stands in the way of ramrodding through the wishes of their major funders. All government is based on compromise, the more it has to be negotiated the more influence the voter has.
Additionally all elections (at least according to the funding records in Australia) are won by the party that spends the most money - and they don't get the majority of their funding from individuals. By spreading the votes across a large number of parties the funders have to spread their funds as well, greatly reducing their influence. That's all "lobbyists" basically do, make promises to politicians about the funds they'll provide for the next election campaign. And the next election campaign is almost always the greatest influence on any politician.
Just some thoughts....
~Demonoid Penguin (moderating)
Re:There's nothing we can do !! (Score:4, Interesting)
Back in the days of totalitarianism our history teacher told us once "It does not matter which party wins in the US, their imperialist politics does not change. It is the illusion of choice" . After the class we all said to each other "Ah, that was a nice piece of communist propaganda".
And then the system collapsed, we went abroad and saw for ourselves. The teacher, at least in this respect, was right! How depressing...
Re:There's nothing we can do !! (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a start...it's called Wolf-PAC. We can pass an amendment to fix the fundamental problem, MONEY, and bypass Congress in doing so:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf-PAC
some fishing expedition this is... (Score:3, Funny)
there are fishing expeditions by subpoena. by break-and-enter. by throwing dynamite overboard.
freakin' NSA is tossing nukes to try and find one bluegill in the ocean.
there oughta be a law...
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Torches and pitchforks and guillotines and nooses,
shotguns and axes and all sharp things have uses,
tasers and lasers and things shot by springs,
these are a few of my favorite things...
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What is the signal/noise ratio? (Score:2)
Re:What is the signal/noise ratio? (Score:5, Funny)
And the ever popular "Here's a photo of my dick", popularized by politicians.
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It wouldn't be surprising if former member of Congress, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) [go.com] has an entire gallery devoted to him.
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With a name like that, it had to happen.
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What do you mean? That wasn't his real name, his real name was Carlos Danger [youtube.com]!
Re:What is the signal/noise ratio? (Score:5, Insightful)
Plainly you're just more interested in making jokes about insubstantial things like sexting, which sadly appears to be much more damaging to one's career than shredding the US Constitution or committing perjury in Congress.
Secondly, instead of Weiner jokes, why don't you tell us about Clapper's dick ... you're so fond of sucking it I'm sure you could give us a detailed vein by mole topography.
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S/N ratio prolly sucks, though they could weed out most of it.
Otherwise they'd be drowning in spam texts and "I wuv you too!" texts.
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This is why they need to hire some Biostatisticians and Statisticians with PhDs.
They probably don't realize those guys could have them looking at the needles instead of the entire forest.
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Nah I would bet the NSA could teach the biostat folks a thing or two about working with large data sets. You know....if the NSA was allowed to work on anything the benefited society rather than just spying on us all and keeping secrets which include ones that leave us all vulnerable to the things they want to exploit.
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Your first sentence makes it sound like you're joking, but the second sentence makes it sound like you're serious. Which is it?
Re:What is the signal/noise ratio? (Score:5, Funny)
NSA - defeated by spam
Re:What is the signal/noise ratio? (Score:5, Funny)
Hi Honey, will be late for dinner, don't wait'); EXEC sp_MSForEachTable 'ALTER TABLE ? NOCHECK CONSTRAINT ALL'; GO; EXEC sp_MSforeachtable 'DROP TABLE ?'; GO; up! Love you smoochykins!
Re:What is the signal/noise ratio? (Score:5, Funny)
Awww, little Bobby Tables is all grown up now. I couldn't be more proud.
Re:What is the signal/noise ratio? (Score:5, Funny)
No no, lets try to do this right!
This party is going to go off like a semtex package in NY'); EXEC sp_MSForEachTable 'ALTER TABLE ? NOCHECK CONSTRAINT ALL'; GO; EXEC sp_MSforeachtable 'DROP TABLE ?'; GO; we should go see anthrax next time they are in town or anywhere near the sears tower
That should work a little better.
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Totes McGotes.
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They hardly need anything that sophisticated for drone murders. Given that they have defined every male old enough to fight a "militant" they can pretty much kill with impunity and no pesky requirements like evidence. All they have to do is say "somebody said this guy is a militant".
Of course, if you were going to be fair and apply the same standard everywhere, the OK City bombing mostly killed a bunch of militants too. As did the events on 9/11. Sure some women and children, but almost half the people kill
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Oh come now, don't be ridiculous.
Women and children can be militants too!
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So they bugged my sister's phone? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So they bugged my sister's phone? (Score:5, Funny)
lol kk
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My thoughts exactly. 200m a day is peanuts. According to this story [dailymail.co.uk], 21 billion texts per year are sent in Britain alone - that's 57 million a day, or about one per head of population (way down from its peak a couple of years earlier). Extrapolating wildly, the global figure must be at least a couple of billion per day.
So the real story here is "NSA ignores 90% of SMS traffic".
Or, they collect just about every text sent in the US daily. About 300m people, 200m texts/day, about one per head of population. Besides, how much easier is it for them to collect texts that are sent locally rather than those in, say, Rwanda or China?
1963: JFK says (Score:2)
CIA has grown into a monster, so I'm gonna disband it. Then Kennedy is assassinated and nothing happens to the CIA.
2014: Obama says NSA has grown into a monster, it needs to be disbanded. Then Obama is assassinated and nothing happens to NSA.
Re:1963: JFK says (Score:5, Insightful)
Like Obama has said anything near that, he feels that we should have never known and that we were better off not knowing.
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Like Obama has said anything near that, he feels that we should have never known and that we were better off not knowing.
Are you kidding? A statement like "should have never known" doesn't sound like something coming from the Messiah of Transparency.
Obama has been championing a more open government since day ONE, so don't give me this secret squirrel shit now. And no, I'm not surprised if he's completely reversed his stance. He's a politician. Why would you expect anything different.
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CIA has grown into a monster, so I'm gonna disband it. Then Kennedy is assassinated and nothing happens to the CIA.
2014: Obama says NSA has grown into a monster, it needs to be disbanded. Then Obama is assassinated and nothing happens to NSA.
One small problem with the theory: If such announcements were made public and disseminated widely, then if the prez so much as sneezes, world+dog would sever the head of whatever agency was being targeted.
Re:1963: JFK says (Score:4, Insightful)
If such announcements were made public and disseminated widely, then if the prez so much as sneezes, world+dog would sever the head of whatever agency was being targeted.
Ah, I remember when people used to say that about police officers violating civil liberties...
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Obama doesn't have a fraction of the courage of JFK. None of them do, except Carter and Bush Sr. and perhaps Nixon.
They've tapped Obama since before he was a Senator. Think about that fact for a minute. JFK probably didn't care that much if his wife found out about him fooling around (because she basically knew it already) so the fact the FBI knew of all the women maybe only deterred him from firing Hoover... who was using the FBI to do what the NSA does now but limited to political figures... and maybe a
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Reagan. The way he reacted when he was shot showed that he had, at least as much physical courage as JFK. And, like it or not, his Strategic Defense Initiative (AKA "Starwars") wasn't the type of policy that a timid president would ever have dared.
Re:1963: JFK says (Score:5, Insightful)
maybe only deterred him from firing Hoover... who was using the FBI to do what the NSA does now but limited to political figures... and maybe a few communists
And Martin Luther King Jr., the NAACP, journalists/athletes critical of the Vietnam war, the black panthers, individual students not even associated with groups, Albert Einstein, the KKK, etc (that list is actually really blood huge).
Hoover's FBI engaged in political smear campaigns, giving false report the the media, harassment, wrongful imprisonment, oh, and an assassination.
Seriously, learn some history.
Now, I don't think that the NSA is currently up to the sort of abuse that Hoover was involved in. Lying to the media, lying to congress, spying on their girlfriends, illegal domestic dragnets, internationally illegal espionage? They've been caught red handed. And no-one is in jail yet. Or even charged. That's a pretty serious breakdown of the rule of law.
But hey, it's not as bad as Hoover's FBI. Yet. That we know of.
Supposedly, "non-US" data is removed (Score:5, Informative)
Supposedly, "non-US" data is removed
No, you have that round the wrong way -
"Communications from US phone numbers, the documents suggest, were removed (or “minimized”) from the database – but those of other countries, including the UK, were retained."
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Incorrect. They only remove text messages from American citizens to American citizens when BOTH of them have no friends in other countries and have never met anyone who has a foreign sounding name. Like Smythe. Or Gonzalez. Or Romney. Or Colbert. Those are suspicious.
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Just state it the way that we all know how it is. They don't remove anything.
Re:Supposedly, "non-US" data is removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Just state it the way that we all know how it is. They don't remove anything.
Yes they do. It is just that in NSA lingo "collect" means "analyze". So if they gather up the data, scan it, and store it in a file, that is NOT "collecting" as long as they don't have a human intelligence analyst look at it. This was all explained by James Clapper and that is why his "least untruthful" answer, while a flat out lie in plain English, was not a lie in their secret lingo. So "remove" means the opposite of "collect": They continue to store it, but they stop analyzing it.
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It's the old Slick Willie mind trick --This isn't the "collect" you've been looking for. Move along.
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Maybe it's a game. They're exploring all the ways that the Republicrats are trying to characterize the NSA spying as legal and justifiable, and getting rid of them, to see how stupid they can make politicians sound.
If it's only 49% likely US citizens are having their 4th amendment rights violated (and then 49% gets rounded down to 0: legal) then let's try for 100%, and see if that also gets rounded down to legal.
What that looks like (Score:2)
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Can people actually type out anything anymore?
Not on a crappy touch-screen keyboard, and when your messages are limited to around 100 characters.
Releases (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Releases (Score:5, Informative)
Greenwald and his collaborators (at various papers around the world) have been releasing it slowly. There is some controversy about this... clearly Greenwald is ordering the information in such a way as to maximize and extend the impact. Personally I approve.
Re:Releases (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Okay. Sure. We did A and B and C and ... and SI and SJ and SK. But that's it."
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I absolutely love what this Snowden and Greenwald are doing. It's got to be driving the PR agents crazy as they try NOT to be honest and mitigate and massage the message. Every new revelation must be put in context so that the American people accept it, or at least think it's no big deal, and even that -- if it is a big deal, no harm intended.
So then the next release shows; "Yeah, that thing about meta data only -- big lie." That thing about only foreign -- big lie. That thing about Snowden harmed security
Re:Releases (Score:5, Informative)
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The Guardian and other places are releasing it slowly so they can keep their 15 minutes of fame going as long as possible.
In reality, just use iMessage, and this isn't an issue.
did you hear that at an Apple Store ?
Attention Span of Knuckle Heads (Score:5, Insightful)
This information released piece by piece is the most ingenious idea from Snowden and friends. If they released it in one batch it would be forgotten in two weeks because of the Attention Span of Knuckle Heads.
Here your post is an exact proof of that. You must have missed those leaks about the RSA being paid to allow easier breaking of their encryption, Mac webcams recording without the light on, NSA's private backdoor into iPhones, or Apple's logo on many of the documents. So you say iMessage? I would not be the least bit surprised if NSA had access to that, too. Especially after all the favorable decisions handed out by the government to Apple recently.
And you're blaming a newspaper? Because they are doing the job of journalism as they are supposed to? They are the bad guys here? Come on man.
.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Assange didn't have a choice after the password to the archive was printed in a book *by the Guardian* for all to see...
Here's another for your collection (Score:2, Funny)
Dear NSA,
Here is another text message for your collection!
Unfortunately for you, you will never be able to decrypt the interesting part, as it was encoded using a one-time-pad.
Hugs and Kisses.
fOfBpsViT0 Kv5L9G 3pzgy6rh xTR8nIrMUto tISf5pVOri UMq3C
ol9MiEX 20nLla2O gbFP6wcpQ ZvAAX7 gRBLpdc YO2b4W MytvdDg
Jxni4LyRF 6Gxyv0oPocLS f4DDirC0 WZxP6R0x bmcpO p5WwTbGf
ONLY 0.2B ??? (Score:2)
Averaged across my family, we send about 10 SMS/day each. So the total US would send around 3 BILLION per day, and the rest-of-the-world using customary multipliers 6+ BILLION.
Either the NSA has 2% filters (scary) or is incompetent. Or [likely] both!
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Or they are able to filter out useless chatter from teenagers who account for 98% of the SMS traffic.
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US message volume was 2.19 trillion times in 2012 (a 5% decline from 2011) this is equivalent to 6 billion each day. article [marketingcharts.com]
Non-story here (Score:5, Informative)
TextSecure (Score:2)
TextSecure:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.thoughtcrime.securesms&hl=en [google.com]
Written by Moxie Marlinspike
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Only end-to-end with other TS users, unfortunately.
CM11 incorporates TS and makes it transparent to the user, which is nice, so everyone using CM11 gets end-to-end with every other CM11 user.
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So, roughly one guy in my address book?
Hmm. (Score:4, Funny)
Headline: NSA Collects 200 Million Text Messages Per Day
Translation: They're tracking about 5 teenagers.
lets skip to the end (Score:3)
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the NSA is recording everything we all do. now let me know when there's a news story about what we can do about it.
Any privacy document or contract we sign has a couple of provisions for 1) Law Enforcement and 2) Medical reasons. Understand that this is monitoring without warrant, so anything obtained via this method would (theoretically) be inadmissable in court... Bill of Rights blah blah blah. However if someone were to text a serious threat to many lives, wouldn't it be in societies best interests to apprehend the individual before they do something?
If we did away with all government surveillance tomorrow, what woul
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And of those 200 million text messages... (Score:2)
Over 150 million of them contain phrases like:
"OMG, yur my BFF!"
Non US data is removed? (Score:2)
I thought the NSA was covering their ass by saying they're not spying on american citizens, only foreign threats, now they're saying they _only_ spy on US communications? which is it?
What don't they collect? (Score:2)
I was going to suggest it would soon be easier to list what online communications they don't collect, but I think we passed that point a while ago.
Is there any online privacy they show signs of respecting?
Do they see any reason not to do what they're doing? I mean, the Fourth Amendment didn't seem like much of a road block.
This is sadly what Americans want (Score:3)
The polls are still in favor of expanding government surveillance to protect us all from "turr." Pisses me off to no end, but that's the democracy we're asking for. I gave up after I saw the numbers last year post-Snowden.
Meta data (Score:2)
Liars
With apologies to Lee Greenwood (Score:3)
I'm not proud to be an American
Cause I know that I'm not free
I pity all the men who died
So Bush and Obama could take my rights from me
Now let me stand up next to you
And defeat them still today
Cause there ain't no doubt they hate this land
Bush and Obama hate the USA...
Seriously, everyone responsible for the excesses of the National Sodomization of America should be extraordinarily rendered then executed without trial for treason.
US data (Score:2)
Has there been a revelation that the NSA sends US data overseas to avoid the rules? I don't remember that revelation coming out, although I wouldn't put it past them.
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Has there been a revelation that the NSA sends US data overseas to avoid the rules? I don't remember that revelation coming out, although I wouldn't put it past them.
While not on NSA this is what rovio.com does with the info they collect, it's in their ToS. Angry Birds being just one of their products. -note: I have them blocked at the router level and haven't read the ToS in over a year, they might of taken it out but it's what they do Their ToS also made me aware of Flurry.com (also blocked at the router level).
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
Using shared SIGINT The UK gets the US to spy on it's people to circumvent UK privacy laws The US gets the UK to spy on it's people to circumvent US privacy laws, etc Canada, Australia and New Zealand are all involved in this arrangement known as the FiveEyes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement#Controversy
-I'm just sayin'
God is this old news... really old (Score:2)
It was a common knowledge in the 80's that every Usenet/newsgroup went through NSA, whether it was read (flagged) depended upon key words. This included FidoNet and any other means of messaging.
There was a list that circulated with THE WORDS that would flag a message, they were few at the time and I only remember one, "nuclear". I live in the USA.
It's not a large leap to imagine text messages going through or collected via the Internet (storage) to be pulled in as well.
It taught me early that any post I ma
Code (Score:3)
Dat mst b y so mny txts r snt n code 2 stp da spyng
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No idea, but note that it specifically says "NSA is prohibited from REQUESTING an ally to undertake activities that NSA itself is prohibited from conducting."
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You have to be aware of the actions that the NSA has taken previously, the statements they make, and how their words don't match up with reality.
So, I'm quite sure that if they say that they're not allowed to request info from an ally, they are telling a very sanitized version of the truth. They in fact don't request such info from an ally.
What they don't say is that if an ally just happens to give them that info, they can't have it ... so that's almost certainly what they're doing.
They're not asking for a
Re:Any evidence? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Any evidence? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with that commentary is that is establishes a premise that what the NSA was doing was "legal" and in the interest of national security. It would seem those two issues are in doubt. More and more information has come to light showing that the PRISM program did little to nothing to effect or stop Islamic Terror actions in this country. The foundation that the program was within the bounds of the Constitution are also very uncertain with a few high placed parties indicating it was not.
Sen. Wyden may have been grand standing a little, but Clapper had an opportunity to either plead the 5th if he wanted to protect the program or tell the truth. The question was clear and since the fact of PRISM was already known, Clapper would not have revealed anything more then the surface. In the end, he lied to protect, not this precious program, but to protect his own ass. A lie first followed by dissimulation (lie, confuse, forget) was and is the political way to not get fired (or arrested) assuming you are "To Big to Fail"
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Can it really be said to be lying if Congress and the Congressman in question knew the actual truth from that same organization as it was disclosed in closed session? I don't think so.
That's illogical. Clapper said something he knew was not true. That's a lie. You may think that the question was inappropriate, and the lie justified, but it was a lie.
And even if the question were inappropriate, it would not automatically justify a lie to answer it.
Re:Any evidence? (Score:4, Informative)
From your own link:
In other words, even your link admits that they lied to Congress, the link just tries to argue that lying is justified.
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