Fetch my paintbox ...
... and colour me surprised.
Cue platitudes and excuses from Keith Alexander in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ...
The NSA violated privacy laws thousands of times in the last five years by spying on US citizens, an internal audit by the super-snoopers has disclosed. The Washington Post reports that the intelligence agency also overstepped its legal remit since Congress gave it broad powers in 2008. Most of the violations involved …
"Just heard on the radio they're going to make a statement today."
"We officially acknowledge that, unofficially, a few individuals working for numerous United States intelligence agencies may have overstepped their legal authority.
However, we can not officially acknowledge the unofficial activities due to 'national security' issues.
Therefore, we believe that the official investigation will reach a conclusion, one reached via closed-door negotiations to assure the America public of being secure against the threats against us. The negotiations and settlement will be officially classified, due to the sensitive nature of the NSA policies under investigation, but, rest assured, the interest of the American people will be taken into account and the proper precautions will be taken in the future."
Does that doublespeak sound about right?
The really scary part of this is that these violations are at the consolidation and analysis center so they only reflect errors that escaped redaction at the collection centers, where the majority of the work gets done.
So what we're looking at here is a system that is so broken the presence of ~2500 constitutionally illegal procedures slip through the curtains to be reported, the rest are squashed hidden suppressed corrected before they get reported to HQ.
> . . .
Most of the violations involved unauthorised surveillance of Americans and foreigners in the US. Problems arose thanks to clumsy operator mistakes, insufficient or inaccurate research, failures to follow the correct procedures and even typos.
. . . <
Typos.
And no one mentioned Terry Gilliam's Brazil yet.
That would be 2776 errors out of how many queries? For an overall error rate of what? The Post inconveniently does not mention that, so the number is effectively meaningless. That number is undesirable, to be sure, but it certainly be more meaningful if put in a suitable context.
If you repeatedly fire a machine gun at random in a highly populated area, sooner or later someone will be killed. There is no need to put anything in "a suitable context". A criminal act is a criminal act, and thousands of criminal acts are A VERY BAD THING, no matter what "error rate" they are said to represent. If someone is doing something that is supposedly legal, but every now and then makes a mistake that results in an illegal act, that person has (broadly speaking) three main options:
1. Stop making ANY errors.
2. Stop the activity.
3. Go to prison.
By the way, how many people have been sent to prison for these "thousands of illegal acts"?
"If they just came out and said basically they do what they like with no oversight that would annoy me less".
Yes, but it would rudely puncture the carefully-nursed illusions of "democracy", "freedom", "human rights", and "the rule of law". Which is more important - at least, to the people who matter.
'“We’re a human-run agency operating in a complex environment with a number of different regulatory regimes, so at times we find ourselves on the wrong side of the line,” a senior NSA official told the Post in an interview.'
I wonder how the courts would view it if a multinational company said, "We are a human-run company operating under several legal systems in different countries, so at times we find ourselves on the wrong side of the line".
Or a car driver said "I'm a human driver, driving on a lot of different roads with a lot of different speed limits, so at times I find myself driving too fast".
I'd been hoping that something cataloging the number of violations that occur within the NSA would come out. Now we at least get some smallish glimpse of the truth.
Keep in mind that these violations only concern American citizens, residents and travelers who are within the U.S. The rest of the world is a SigInt free-fire zone as far as the NSA is concerned. I don't overly mind that, since I as an American don't have many legal protections from snooping by foreign governments--that's just the world is. But if you are one of el Reg's many, many non-American readers, you can assume that there are no legal barrier between the NSA and whatever personal or work-related data you are working with.
"I'm a human firearms operator, firing at a lot of different targets so at times I find myself shooting people and US senators."
That's not going to get you off a murder charge, is it?
One week jail time per incident sounds quite reasonable, and 53 years in the slammer might concentrate the mind of the NSA's chief.
missing by a town, that's understandable given the difficulties manually targetting these things. What do you expect them to do, create an Earth-spanning set of positioning satellites? Or maybe spend millions creating a way of navigating using spinning lasers?! While we're at it let's throw in bouncing radio waves too! Honestly, you people and your science fiction.
Next you'll be saying they should be prosecuted for bombing the next-but-one country during that Kosovo conflict a few years back. This is war, son, and people die in-theatre. Or, in that case, thousands of miles outside it.
"I'm a human firearms operator, firing at a lot of different targets so at times I find myself shooting people and US senators."
That's not going to get you off a murder charge, is it?
That depends if you're a cop or not...
http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/11/cops-shoot-man-in-bed-shooting-ruled-jus
Conservatives support growing government too. They just want it to grow in a way that puts money into their programs. Don't ever buy that bullishit about the conservative platform being for smaller government, it isn't; their platform is greater control.
A study of their own policies prove it, it's just that the conservatives are also known for completely ignoring their own facts if it'll get them what they want.
"The audit only covers figures from the NSA's Maryland headquarters"
I read this as "NSA's marketing headquarters"
" so at times we find ourselves on the wrong side of the line"
I read this as "so we often find ourselves"
"The FISC does not have the capacity to investigate issues of non-compliance, and in that respect the FISC is in the same position as any other court when it comes to enforcing [government] compliance with its orders"
And I read that last 'compliance' as 'non'compliance.
Is this what is meant by the phrase 'I see the fnords" I wonder?
If they watch FOX News then they may actually see this NSA news as a top story. If they watch CNN or MSNBC then they will just be watching about Hanna Anderson and Lisa Robin Kelly. Of course, if the incompetent George Bush were President then these so called "News" orgs would be calling for his impeachment.
The Washington Post is a left leaning newspaper, but they at least seem to have some level of integrity.
"...will get a good bollixing..."
Are you kidding me? With this administration? This is typical Chicago style tactics. The ends justify the means. What happened to the people that brought us the IRS attacking conservative groups? They got promotions. The one guy that was "let go" was retiring this year anyway. Too many rights being ignored with this administration. Wake up!
And I think we know how well that turned out.
It seems no one has powers of investigation or over sight with the NSA.
You are allowed to know when they broke (what little) law there is in this area when they tell you they did, and by how much.
... a BuSab.
Some quotes from the linked Wikipedia article:
"...The bureaucratic machinery becomes a juggernaut, rolling over human concerns and welfare with terrible speed, jerking the universe of sentients one way, then another, threatening to destroy everything in a fit of spastic reactions."
" ...signs of anti-sentient behaviour by corporate or government entities ..."
Sounds eerily familiar, doesn't it? It seems Mr. Herbert knew what he was talking about.
Warning: This post should be taken with a grain of salt. A very small one, but a grain of salt nevertheless. :0)
No. As a regular on the DC scene I can assure you that there is nothing worth putting under surveillance there except possibly drug buys by members of Congress and the DC City Council. But that's not scandalous or interesting because they passed laws that make it illegal to request they be screened for drug use.
People go to DC to be seen and distribute money, all the real business takes place away from that festering ass boil of a town.
In all seriousness, the calling code thing seems like the only slightly believable part of all this. People do make mistakes, but that's also why letting people have this much power is a really bad idea.
"buggy software confused the US telephone area code 202 with intentional calls made to Egypt (country code +20)."
The sentence is buggy (s/intentional/international/), not so sure about the software: IIRC, whether you are in the US or not you need to dial +1202... for DC, but you would dial +20... (without 1) for Egypt. I'd suppress disbelief with more ease were it not for that pesky 1.
I know. The bug in NSA code is most likely something like this:
// ----- begin NSA code -----
// more people in the rest of the world than in the US -> initialize to true
bool log_the_call(true);
...
// log_the_call = is_international_call(caller_number,callee_number);
if (log_the_call)
store_metadata_for_analysis();
...
// ----- end NSA code -----
Just a simple, innocent human error...
What this shows most strongly is that the NSA and the associated apparatus around this (and similar) programs just does not value the privacy and civil liberties of their fellow human beings very highly at all.
You might say that of course they don't care for privacy but within the scope of spying, it is still possible to make such concerns a high priority.
There is a shell of just such a concept in that that is how the official mouthpieces talk about it but the reality seems to be that there is just no responsibility because they always assumed they would just continue on without any 'accidents' ever seeing the light of day. In other words, they don’t care about doing something ‘wrong’, only about being caught.
That's the really disturbing part about this. It's not the spying per se - that happens and I think there is a certain amount of that we all have to accept, reluctantly. No, the more disturbing part is the way these people view the public.
This is the core problem with almost all information gathering, whether it be massive government-sponsored surveillance, electronic health records, or even simple customer data. The ends are viewed as FAR more important than the means and that is unacceptable when dealing with people's personal information.
Collection of personal information should be seen like borrowing someone's car. Sure, you borrowed it to benefit yourself and so will use it to drive yourself off wherever you need to go. BUT, your primary concern should be making sure you keep the car in good condition because it's not yours and the owner trusted you to take care of it.
In the analogy, say you're running late and have the option of taking a shortcut down an unsealed road or the congested freeway. The correct choice is the sealed freeway because although the unsealed road would be faster and more convenient, you might get scratches or a chip in the window, upset the suspension or simply wear the tires more than necessary.
That's the way privacy and personal liberty should be treated - like an expensive, easily-damaged, and costly to repair possession.
Unfortunately, all the NSA (et al) care about is their surveillance and it feels like that has become an end in itself, with all other considerations secondary.
In short, what this shows is that the NSA and, by extension, the government, view citizens' privacy and personal liberty as unimportant. There can be no defence - if they considered these concerns important then they would have such safeguards and oversight as to make these breaches and 'accidents' almost non-existent.