Comment by linkregister | Hacker News Reader

Comment by linkregister | Hacker News Reader

Maybe my reading comprehension isn't so sharp today, but I found this article difficult to parse. So I looked at the disclosed set of documents.

Basically, the series of documents are NSA OIG and Congressional reports about the email surveillance program that was shuttered in 2011. It provides a bit more information than was previously available under the original leaks in 2013.

What the author of this article is trying to express is the idea that the NSA was able to resume the function of the email metadata program (they call it PR/TT, or Pen Register / Tap Trace) with some other secret program. The NYT alleges that a paragraph on page 65 links this defunct program with the upstream collection and the PRISM (both FAA §702) programs. It's stated in the paragraph that the NSA concludes that it can do its job with upstream/PRISM and for phone calls, chaining through the telephony metadata collection (SPCMA).

TL;DR: The NSA stopped using the email metadata program and then relied on upstream/PRISM and the telephone metadata program to fulfill the need. The NYT got some FOIA'd documents to confirm this with an official statement.

So I thought that the article was misleading in that it attempts to link an email metadata program which applied to all email communication, including U.S. persons with two different programs (upstream and PRISM) which only authorize collection of targets that are not U.S. persons and are outside of the U.S., and have a valid foreign intelligence purpose.

It's certainly possible that the NSA simply disregards the laws and collects on everybody. However, there isn't any evidence of that here.

Kudos on the NYT for winning their lawsuit and getting the documents through FOIA, though.

>It's certainly possible that the NSA simply disregards the laws and collects on everybody.

The NSA is almost certainly engaging in full-take domestic content collection on everyone—including US citizens. If I had to guess, they're probably staying within the letter of the law while doing so via a combination of legal maneuvering and secret authorizations.

Consider Tim Clemente's on-air remarks, and the fact NSA has been been playing semantics games with the definition of "collection" such as to conflate it with the act of accessing information that's already present in storage.[0]

Also consider that Russ Tice has stated multiple times that full-take domestic content collection was occurring as recently as 2013.[1]

Moreover, what Snowden leaked was primarily from JWICS, which is arguably a glorified PowerPoint repository for the intelligence community. There are more sensitive networks, and it stands to reason that the lurid details of full-take domestic collection would probably be heavily compartmented, not floating around in clear unambiguous form on something like JWICS.

The whole metadata discussion is a bullshit facade. NSA is essentially offering up deprecated programs and their associated policy frameworks for sacrifice on the political altar. This serves to protect their current programs via way of misdirection, providing an illusion of reform.

[0] http://blog.rubbingalcoholic.com/post/52913031241/its-not-ju...

[1] 9:49, 1:13:29 @ http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/wp-content/uploads/BF.0112.T...

The real secrets and "keys to the kingdom" are "Eyes only" compartmentalized deep within ECI/VRK compartments. I sincerely doubt the NSA would ever keep a record of some of the sensitive things they do. The big thing with the Snowden leaks was the NSA did not know if he got evidence of full content collection at first and now that it is apparent he didn't, the discussion regarding the NSA is limited to only "Metadata" collection

The NSA has already said that:

1) all encrypted data is considered "foreign" and therefore all is collected (as if they couldn't see that metadata for that encrypted content...). So if you use Gmail or Facebook you're a foreigner.

2) if there's a >51% chance (flipping a coin) in their algorithm that the target is a foreigner (based on metadata, presumably) then the data will be collected.

3) EFF and others (I think Ron Wyden, too, who is in the Intelligence Committee) have said that the NSA is doing "backdoor searches" on Americans by interpreting the law as "if you communicate to a foreigner they can collect yours, too" - So if you have foreigner Friends on your Facebook or Twitter and you "like" or talk to them, your data will likely be collected.

4) When asked whether it collects the data on members of Congress, I don't remember the exact reply but it was something along the lines of "probably, since we collect it on everyone".

Knowing this (and there are other such answers from them), you have to be very naive to believe the NSA is only collecting the data at most on a small percentage of Americans.

From what I saw in other articles, the NSA started collecting the data from overseas so it can pretend it's doing nothing illegal - or something.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/20/9768778/nsa-web-surveilla...

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