US senators say there’s “no evidence” bulk metadata surveillance is useful
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Bulk metadata surveillance is however extremely useful in doing espionage against diplomats, which gives the US favorable hand in negotiations.
It also extremely useful in doing industry espionage, gifting US companies with stolen information (in return for favors? We don't know what Boeing gave NSA in return).
Its somewhat useful to hammer down on local political activists. Who dare to start a occupy movement, or a website dedicated to whistleblowers with NSA sipping through every email, every phone call, and perfect information about who meets with who?
Its possible useful in hammering down on political embarrassing entities like megaupload, giving the US foreign office and advantage when interfering in other countries justice systems.
People in the police and IRS is always thankful when they can do parallel construction, which in turn gives NSA support to continue.
I have a vague memory that out of 40 cases, only one is about terrorism. That might be wrong (or maybe it was about FRA), but if that is true, it would explain why NSA is doing bulk meta data surveillance in the face of the contradicted claims about its effectiveness in anti-terroism.
For those you prefer content and don't care so much about the metadata.
The UK has recently had debates about the collection of bulk metadata. Imagine our surprise when GCHQ was slurping it all along. They say that they're a secret organisation and that their collections can't be used for domestic law enforcement, and that this debate was actually about allowing law enforcement to collect metadata.
I would prefer GCHQ to not be slurping this data, but I don't see it as being particularly harmful to me. But extending that out to the general law enforcement agencies, or wider to local government officials etc, is terrifying. GCHQ employees are reasonably well trained in secrecy and privacy and the risk of information being misused is low[1], but we've seen plenty of abuses of personal data by police forces (selling information to news papers, and so on) and local councils (spying on people applying for parking permits or for entry to certain schools) and so it's a bit scary letting them get hold of any more data than they strictly need, especially if there's no judge involved.
Because there is no meaningful distinction between metadata and data. Its a deception when agencies claims that metadata somehow is harmlessness.
How is bulk metadata useful against diplomats? To know who they talk to, when, and from where. Did that diplomat spend hours or minutes discussing our offer? Did that diplomat just call back to his superiors when at the same time pretending to not care about this information we "slipped"? Did that diplomat just do a call at 1 am from a cheap motel known for their hookers?
How is bulk metadata useful against industrial espionage? Did they spend minutes or hours discussing the deal we just offered them? Company A just offered to become the remote branch in China, so why is company B calling someone located in China? Are they looking at competing offers? Who, where and in what capacity does Company B has research labs/production sites? Why is that negotiator calling from that "infamous" cheap motel? Does the wife/husband know this? And if I map out each call from the CEO, I should get all the detailed and private HR information I need. When I asked them, they pretend that its a company secret...
Metadata: The information you use to infer the data you don't yet have.
Even if you trust GCHQ, how about their partners from other countries who have access to our data GCHQ kindly collected?
A bunch of people collect data.
Some of those people do stuff with that data, and that stuff will have consequences for me.
At the moment it feels like GCHQ has a big store of my data. Maybe they even grep the data for my name. But the consequences to me are better quality research on data-mining (because they sponsor some university research) and a diversion of my tax money to stuff I don't want to fund. (With a bit of industrial espionage, I guess, as shown by the old EU parliament report on ECHELON).
Looking at other abuses of data collection: I don't like the way the UK police are building a massive DNA database. I feel like that carries much more risk of harm to society, and to me, than GCHQ slurping data. An idea DNA database for law enforcement would include everyone who has ever committed a crime, and no-one else. But the UK database includes anyone who has ever been arrested. It doesn't matter if they go to trial and are found not guilty, or if they don't even go to trial. It also includes people who volunteer to be DNA sampled. (EG, in prominent sex attack cases the local population sometimes volunteer to "rule themselves out". It's bizarre.)
The criminal records database is also worrying. Obviously we need it, but there have been plenty of examples of corrupt police officers selling information to the press. It's easy to imagine them selling information to ex-colleagues, or them mis-using the databse for personal use. (Even with the protections in place.)
Local councils have weird powers to spy on subjects. They use these powers to ensure that people applying for a parking permit actually live in that area, and are not just applying for the permit to sell on to other people. Or they use the powers to spy on parents applying to a school, to ensure the parents live in the catchment area. My local council has a bunch of employees who are abusive, nasty, idiots. "Little Hitlers", "Jobsworths", etc. Again, there are plenty of examples of corruption in local government.
With all of those people there are opportunities for the misuse of data and for corruption. And they actually have an affect upon my life - credit ratings are wrong or I get harassed everytime I drive my car or I get refused something that rightfully I'm allowed or whatnot. These everyday abuses that actually happen are more important to me than the theoretical risk of totalitarian government.
There is very little terrorism in the US, compared to other violent crimes like murder or rape. It's a little harder to quantify because most deaths & injuries were due to one event. Potential mega events like nuclear terrorism or another 9/11 scale event are possible are even more black swanish. But in an average year there is virtually none. Terrorism & counter-terrorism are mostly emotional, the emotional impact of a terrorist attack carries more weight.
What would effective even look like? Reducing the number of yearly incidences from 6 to 4? Making arrests?
Effective Anti-terrorism laws looks identical to effective anti-murder laws, which anti-mass murder legislation is part of. That might still sound too abstract, so let me list a few more concrete methods:
Good psychological health care. Healthy people do not walk into a day care and shoot children.
Justice system that focus on protecting society and rehabilitation, rather than jails focused on punishment. See Norway in healthy reaction to insane mass murderers.
A foreign policy that do not maintain wars indefinitely. Creating peace is never going to be easy when loaded missiles (drones) keeps flying above peoples head everyday. Torture is also a big no-no.
Well funded and staffed police investigators. This is how organized crime (which all terrorist organizations are) gets taken down. Taking down al-Qaeda is not much different from taking down a drug cartel. If anything, the drug cartel is more dangerous, got more guns, got more people, and is more secret.
Wyden & co. are trying to show in each case that the intelligence would have been available by other means.
This is important because it tends to undermine both the government's statutory interpretation argument (that all call records are "relevant" for these investigations) and maybe the 4th amendment argument (if collection of metadata is a search, then search is "reasonable").
Which is sophistry. The goal of defense policy is to minimize attacks, not maximize counterattacks. Superior communication intelligence is a powerful deterrent to attacks. No sensible person wants to be the next Osama bin Laden or Dread Pirate Roberts. At this point all that is left is non-sensible attackers like the Shoe Bomber and the Penis Bomber.
At the very least, even without abuses (which is ridiculous to even contemplate that there weren't/aren't any) mass surveillance can create chilling effects on free speech, journalism, and creativity and innovation in general, as well as to progress in a society.
How do you admit you are gay or try to convince others that being gay is okay, in a society where the vast majority are against it, and the government has zero tolerance for it, for example? In a society that monitors everything, it would be very hard to turn being gay from "illegal" to "legal.
And that's just one example: women using birth control, doing abortions, being of different faith, smoking pot, copying an image "illegitimately" from the web and so on, can all be "illegal" at some point, in any society.
It's a pragmatic approach to preventing this stuff from happening.
The "privacy is a right!" stuff just doesn't work for some people. So, for those people, it's handy to have other arguments. "It's expensive and doesn't work! Let's spend that money on cops and gang-reconciliations instead!" may be more effective.
Supplements the discussion.
There are plenty of people, with real power, who don't care about what's legal (and perhaps what's constitutional) because terrorists. (See also because pedophiles).
For those people you need to let them know that their over-reaching privacy invasions aren't just a matter of constitutional niceties (their terms, not ours) but actually ineffective.
Even if 1984 works that doesn't mean it's a society we want to live in.
Rather than a majority of US senators.
Obviously hyperbolic titles get more clicks.
Or just like cosmologists have seen no evidence of God, that doesn't mean god doesn't exist.
Engage brain before opening mouth.
God may exist, we cannot say. Cosmologists are not looking for God, and so the fact they have not discovered God means little. WMD don't exist in Iraq because it was a lie ginned up to allow us to go to war. It doesn't matter what weapons inspectors find - the point wasn't WMD but the reaction to the inspections programme.
A secret collection of mass meta-data collection being examined by people without security clearance is unlikely to find any benefit because no-one is going to tell them what happens with the data. "We see no evidence of benefit" could mean "there is no benefit, and thus we haven't seen any evidence" or it could mean "there is plenty of benefit, but that's all secret, and no-one will tell us about it, and thus we've seen no evidence of benefit".
> Engage brain before opening mouth.
That makes you sound like a bit of a dick. Just saying.
I'm sure you are aware but Sen. Wyden is on the Select Committee on Intelligence. He is hardly a random guy with no security clearance. If he hasn't seen any evidence that the bulk surveillance has any benefit, then the NSA is withholding critical information from the people that are supposed to be performing oversight over them.
NSA is currently tapping Skype, both chat and video. [1]
There's also some evidence that the NSA is collecting every domestic communication, word for word. [2] (Full transcript [3])
[1]: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/nsa-taps-skype-ch...
[2]: http://youtu.be/az-YWMNWQuU?t=2m6s
[3]: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/government_programs/july-dec1...
For anyone wanting to see such evidence can go here: http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-data-retention
This is a 6 month representation of cell phone metadata overlayed with this politicians public information like tweets or other stuff freely available on the internet.
The twitter overlay was just an added point to illustrate that the politician was really at these places. Otherwise one could start with "yeah, well the meta data could come from anybody. Who's to say that all this data really belonged to him?"
I hope I don't have to point out how the metadata alone is useful in tracking suspected terrorists. You have GPS, SMS, timestaped phonecalls etc. Anybody who gets to request this metadata from a cell phone provider for Person X can track that person across the country. You might as well wear a Lo-Jack that is directly connected to the authorities. Same result, it would just be a little easier for them to access that information. Now, they still have to request and actually receive the meta data from a customer of the cell service. Unless of course NSA and company already have complete system access and the request to receive the meta data is just a formality.
Collecting all of the data from all of the citizens in the US, or any country for that matter, is in fact counterproductive, as it creates a great deal of background noise, drowning out the useful data on the subject of interest (also it is illegal to conduct surveillance of US citizens without a warrant... Not to mention all US citizens without a warrant.) I don't think many people would agree that tracking everyone in the US is useful for tracking 'terrorists'. Unless you are talking about collecting data on every citizen to stop future crime that has not happened yet. If that is the plan, that sort of surveillance might be useful, if say ordinary citizen 9834202 decided to commit a crime at an undetermined future date.
My understanding of the argument is that the mass collection of metadata, from every phone number in America, has not provided any security benefit. For those who feel that sacrificing liberty for security is acceptable, sacrificing liberty to gain no security is probably not.
For all the "tea party" rhetoric that comes from Republicans, I've yet to see 1 Republican step up and put his reputation on the line. Where are Rand Paul and Ted Cruz? How do they reconcile the NSA's actions with their so-called beliefs?
If they didn't have the records ahead of time, the NSA or the FBI would have to get a warrant, submit the warrant to all N of the major phone providers, wait for however long it takes them to process it, get responses from N-1 providers that the phone number doesn't belong to them. They then have to analyze the data, then repeat the process for the second layer, etc. What would be done in a few minutes if they already had the data now might take a few weeks. If you believe that an attack is likely, you may not have a week to identify the initial contact, two weeks to identify the cell he's working in, etc.
All of this rests on the assumption that analyzing phone metadata is good way to get leads for an investigation on international terrorism. Are there better ways to get leads? Can the information still be useful if gathered through a traditional warrant process? If not, is it worth the privacy tradeoff to foil X number of cases over the course of a decade, and are there good ways to handle the information in order to mitigate privacy concerns?
How do you know when a politician is lying? When he's moving his mouth.
But I'm supposed to be grateful that I have a job.
How do they receive (a) the problem itself and (b) you in describing the problem (given that it goes without saying that you so too have the tools/know-how to undetake your own packet sniffing party)?
Seriously? How does this become a larger political issue unless and until we start talking to people who severely are undereducated on the topic?
Whereas if you just presented the plans, chances are they wouldn't comment at all.
Whenever someone complains about profiling being politically incorrect, that's a euphemism for racial profiling.
To which I say:
Jihad Jane: http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/02/01/pennsylvania.terror.case...
Daniel Patrick Boyd: http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1913602,0...
The White Widow: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/pictures-white-widow...
And that's just crazies who call themselves 'muslims.'
In the US white nationalists typically murder a couple of people each year, and don't forget Anders Breivik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik
And of course there are other terrorist than dark skinned Muslims. And I know from experience living in Norway when Breivik struck, so please take your prejudices else where.
http://972mag.com/another-response-to-jeffrey-goldbergs-prai...
Even if you buy the egalitarian story about israeli profiling, it is ridiculous to think that (a) their state of constant war is anything like that in the west and (b) that what they do at airports should be applied to the entire population of the USA.
What you have to do is to chose the least worse solution.
So instead of violating a smaller number of peoples rights the US chose to violate everybody's rights with the TSA and the NSA. Even us who is not even living in the US or plan to go there.
The defenders then try to hide behind it with the argument that is fair, because everybody is mistreated. No it isn't. Violating several millions people is far worse than a few thousands. Especially violating peoples rights that can't even remotely be classified as a US person, like me.
And what was the end result of this nonsense US policy? Boston bombings.
Why? Because if you make everyone a suspect that is the same as saying there is no suspects.
In all of these cases, there where signs, but officials chose to ignore them because it is politically incorrect to profile on suspicious behavior and appearance.
So your argument is, it's better to mistreat a small group of people (to which you presumably don't belong) rather than a large group of people. Seems to me you've bought into the baseline fallacy that deliberately mistreating innocent people is A-OK.
What I'm saying is that mistreating millions is far worse than mistreating a few thousands.
Understand the difference.
Well I don't see a difference. Better that a minority live in the ghetto so that the rest don't have to? Each time you clarify all I see is my original conclusion being confirmed. Perhaps it is you who don't understand the consequences of the policies you are promoting.
First you associated terrorist with muslims (which I never said), that shows in it self that you are profiling, even if you don't admit it. And now you seem to think that profiling will lead to a nazi like world. What? No!
What Marxist has brainwashed you with this nonsense?
Reality is not an all or nothing world, but you however seems to accept the fact of 1) total mass surveillance of everyone 2) which will create a police state 3) in a police state you will get true prejudice (like racism) and no equality before the law 4)that terrorism has won.
It is you who must defend that fact that you need to search old solitaire playing ladies as much as young extreme radicals.
It is an analogy. I am starting to get the impression that you are a literalist. That's not a helpful tool in this discussion because all you do is outright deny rather than explain how what you've written does not fit the analogies and comparisons.
You could start with explaining how these two statements are meaningfully different:
"better to mistreat a small group of people rather than a large group of people."
"mistreating millions is far worse than mistreating a few thousands."
Explain the difference, don't just declare they are different.
First you associated terrorist with muslims (which I never said),
I stand by my characterization of your use of "politically incorrect" - the only people who use that term with respect to profiling are talking about profiling of minorities. Your follow-up reference to "appearance" and defense of the israeli system's racial profiling of arabs only confirm my initial evaluation.
you who must defend that fact that you need to search old solitaire playing ladies as much as young extreme radicals.
Jihad Jane is 50 years old. Your error is in believing that "profiling" works - that you can know who is an "extreme radical" with any level of certainty. As soon as you create a shortcut through security procedures, that shortcut becomes a vulnerability.
It is you who use the word better. Not me. And they are different because better implies that you accept it or think it's good. I don't. The only thing I accept is reality.
Are you some sort of mind reader? "The only people", nonsense. You made up your mind on the first reply and you are sticking to it, even thou things are much more complicated than that.
Once again, it was you who thought of muslims, not me. This is why profiling is politically incorrect because the accusers themselves are stuck in their prejudice. So I say terrorist, you say Muslim and then you accuse me of racism. This is how moronic the Marxist has become.
And once again you assume that profiling is racial profiling because some have been racially profiled i in Israel. But I hope you understand that a few examples does not make that true for all profiling.
Nice that you use Jihad Jane as an example without knowing the facts. Jihad Jane was not an old solitaire playing lady. She converted to Islam and became radicalized. She got caught by her writings by people running the Jawa report blog, blog dedicated to profile islamist terrorists. So profiling worked!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colleen_LaRose
From your answer I take that you would spend time searching the old solitaire playing ladies.
No, you declare your belief as reality and then hide behind that unsupported declaration.
Nice that you use Jihad Jane as an example without knowing the facts. Jihad Jane was not an old solitaire playing lady. She converted to Islam and became radicalized. She got caught by her writings by people running the Jawa report blog, blog dedicated to profile islamist terrorists. So profiling worked!
It's funny you should mention the "Jawa Report" as supporting your "reality" those guys are some of the most bigotted people on the net. Even the name of the website is bigotted - who do you think the "jawas" are? That they occasionally get something right is like saying that because a stopped watch is right twice a day, no one needs a working watch. You keep saying you aren't bigotted but every time you cite something as a defense it turns out to be just another example of bigotry. How many times will you quack before you realize you are a duck?
From your answer I take that you would spend time searching the old solitaire playing ladies.
If I believed in all the hysteria of terrorism, which you have defined as "reality" then yes, I would. If being an old lady playing solitaire is enough to get someone past security with less scrutiny, then terrorists would be stupid not to start playing solitaire, we already know they've got old ladies.
It was you talked about Jihad Jane and I look it up. Now you didn't like the answer so now you start calling me a bigot because the Jawa reports are by your accounts bigots. Splendid logic.
Is that all you have? That empty barrel calling everyone else bigots and racists. Truly intellectual and classy.
I guess now you done that we already have fewer terrorist, all by your help. "That racist was stopped, we can stop bombing now."
As little you know about logic same goes for your try to understanding the intelligence business. If all terrorist starting to act like old ladies playing solitaire, we would know because you are already profiling those groups who would do that. Come on dude! Think. Use that part thats called brain and start thinking outside the copy paste answers from Huffpo or wherever you get them.
But if we put your tiny intellectual mindset aside, we can conclude that Jihad Jane was captured by profiling. However you didn't really like that it was done by a bunch of redneck racist. You would preferred if Lars Vilks was actually murder by her. I mean blogging racism is much worse, right?
Your ignorance of your sources does not change anything. The Jawa Report is still wrong 99.99% of the time. Citing them does not prove that profiling works, it proves profiling does not work because the false positive rate is through the roof.
If all terrorist starting to act like old ladies playing solitaire, we would know because you are already profiling those groups who would do that.
You have this unfounded belief that profiling is effective, as if the people trying to evade profiling are dumber than the people doing the profiling - despite one being a bureaucracy and the other being a bunch of loosely-affiliated individuals able complete freedom to change tactics on a dime. Everything you say follows from that. Telling me to "think" doesn't make it any more true, all it does is prove you don't have any facts to support your conclusions. Everything you've cited has been proof to the contrary of your own claims.
You would preferred if Lars Vilks was actually murder by her.
Yes, that's exactly what I wanted. Spelling out how you are wrong, how everything you cite has racist connotations means I am evil. I'm going to take that accusation as proof of unwilling concession on your part and end the discussion here.
Which is completely useless since 99.99% of muslims aren't "al qaida folks."