Glenn Greenwald: Low-Level NSA Analysts Have ‘Powerful and Invasive’ Search Tool (ABC This Week)

[chimpymustgo]

-edit-

Today on “This Week,” Glenn Greenwald – the reporter who broke the story about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs – claimed that those NSA programs allowed even low-level analysts to search the private emails and phone calls of Americans.

“The NSA has trillions of telephone calls and emails in their databases that they’ve collected over the last several years,” Greenwald told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “And what these programs are, are very simple screens, like the ones that supermarket clerks or shipping and receiving clerks use, where all an analyst has to do is enter an email address or an IP address, and it does two things. It searches that database and lets them listen to the calls or read the emails of everything that the NSA has stored, or look at the browsing histories or Google search terms that you’ve entered, and it also alerts them to any further activity that people connected to that email address or that IP address do in the future.”

Greenwald explained that while there are “legal constraints” on surveillance that require approval by the FISA court, these programs still allow analysts to search through data with little court approval or supervision.

“There are legal constraints for how you can spy on Americans,” Greenwald said. “You can’t target them without going to the FISA court. But these systems allow analysts to listen to whatever emails they want, whatever telephone calls, browsing histories, Microsoft Word documents.”

“And it’s all done with no need to go to a court, with no need to even get supervisor approval on the part of the analyst,” he added.

But the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee told Stephanopoulos he would be shocked if such programs existed.

“It wouldn’t just surprise me, it would shock me,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Georgia, said on “This Week” Sunday.

-edit-

“It’s an incredibly powerful and invasive tool, exactly of the type that Mr. Snowden described,” Greenwald said.
~~~

More at:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/07/glenn-greenwald-low-level-nsa-analysts-have-powerful-and-invasive-search-tool/

Greenwald, said: I defy the NSA to DENY this.

Who do you believe: vile Saxby Chambliss who defiled war-hero, paraplegic Max Cleland, or a reporter who is trying to reveal a secret program that government officials continue to lie about?

[nashville_brook]

1. important stuff.

[leveymg]

2. They do it during the 72 hours FISA allows NSA to acquire evidence for a warrant.

There's a little-known loophole provided by the PATRIOT Act and expanded by the 2008 FISA Amendment (the same one that Senator Obama voted for) that allows NSA three days to seek a warrant and seven under "exigent circumstances" - the government has interpreted this to mean that during that time, analysts are free to look at whatever they want in real-time (this program) and across US government and foreign databases. See, http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=journals&uid=143890

Indeed, it is virtually certain that large amounts of US person data are available without warrants to NSA personnel, at least in the files of other agencies that analysts and contractors may access in the process of profiling suspected terrorists and other NSA targets. Under the law as it was changed by the PATRIOT Act, analysts have 72 hours to examine US person content before they have to seek a warrant. See FISA, 50 U.S.C. § 1801(h)(4): http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1801

no contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party shall be disclosed, disseminated, or used for any purpose or retained for longer than 72 hours unless a court order under section 1805 of this title is obtained or unless the Attorney General determines that the information indicates a threat of death or serious bodily harm to any person.


Furthermore, NSA and its contractors have a full week to seek a FISA warrant under "exigent circumstances". 50 U.S.C. § 1805(e)(3): http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1805

(3) In the absence of a judicial order approving such electronic surveillance, the surveillance shall terminate when the information sought is obtained, when the application for the order is denied, or after the expiration of 7 days from the time of authorization by the Attorney General, whichever is earliest.

PRISM is a “database of databases.” Analysts have access to many databases, both domestic and foreign intelligence agencies, and those contain information from all sources – and they generally are not minimized to segregate US person information. According to the sequence of steps shown in SLIDE 2, US person voice content does get separated out and sent to NUCLEON, and the metadata is deposited in MARINA, but only after a US person has gone through the profiling process. This suggests that US person content is utilized in some way at the initial profiling stage of PRISM, which appears to skirt the intent of FISA, if as we see below, loopholes allow it's use in practice.

Under the law, US person telco content is supposed to be "minimized" under Sec. 215 of the PATRIOT Act, and Sec. 216 is supposed to do the same for US person Internet records. Meanwhile Sec. 702 of the 2008 FAA (FISA Amendent Act) legalized the sort of targeted NSA activities that PRISM carries out, but that targeting is supposed to be restricted to foreign persons abroad. Nonetheless, because of loopholes in the law -- such as the allowance under Sec. 1801(h)(4) and 1805(e)(3) for up to seven days of unfettered viewing of US person data that has been worked into PRISM's Tasking process (profiling) -- it does not look like the FISA wall that is supposed to separate these two NSA programs provides any real separation.

• NOTE B, SLIDE 3: NSA intercepts email, on-line chats in real-time, CONTENT TYPES C,D

This appears to answer some of the issue of whether analysts can access communications in real-time, or whether they have to wait for a warrant. That question was raised by this report in CNET: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-spying-flap-extends-to-contents-of-u.s-phone-calls/

The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls, a participant in the briefing said.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed on Thursday that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed "simply based on an analyst deciding that."

If the NSA wants "to listen to the phone," an analyst's decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. "I was rather startled," said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee.

Not only does this disclosure shed more light on how the NSA's formidable eavesdropping apparatus works domestically, it also suggests the Justice Department has secretly interpreted federal surveillance law to permit thousands of low-ranking analysts to eavesdrop on phone calls.

James Owens, a spokesman for Nadler, provided a statement on Sunday morning, a day after this article was published, saying: "I am pleased that the administration has reiterated that, as I have always believed, the NSA cannot listen to the content of Americans' phone calls without a specific warrant." Owens said he couldn't comment on what assurances from the Obama administration Nadler was referring to, and said Nadler was unavailable for an interview. (CNET had contacted Nadler for comment on Friday.)

Because the same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages, being able to listen to phone calls would mean the NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications without going before a court and seeking approval.


Bear in mind two things: the system seems to handle phone, internet, and email messages differently, and under FISA as revised by the PATRIOT ACT, NSA analysts and contractors have 72 hours to do what they want with all data before seeking a warrant. A warrant is only required if the decision is made to target the individual.

[nashville_brook]

8. damn -- thanks for the explanation!

[nenagh]

25. Thanks leveymg

[randome]

26. As I posted in the other thread...

...none of this precludes the necessity of having 4 levels of approval before the data is viewed.

Even the 72 hour 'leeway' needs someone to sign off on, although I admit that's only conjecture on my part.

But if that wasn't the case, then any analyst could look up a jilted lover's personal info and do with it what he/she wanted. And we have seen no evidence that is being done.

Even Snowden was not able to get access to personal data. All he was able to steal were internal NSA documents. That actually supports the idea that access is pretty well protected. Carl Bernstein agrees with that.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[leveymg]

35. Has it occurred to you that the system is set up with some controls on private use of

US person data (which explains why Snowden couldn't copy the communications he viewed onto a removable data stick), but that the system itself is nonetheless massively intrusive? It's the massively intrusive part of the way the NSA system works that seems to arouse most opposition, along with the fact that despite nearly a trillion in funding over the past decade, it has had no proven efficacy in stopping any real terrorist attacks inside the US.

[randome]

41. Any monitoring done with legal warrants will always be 'intrusive'.

There's no escaping that.

But I agree with you completely that we should at least know more details about how information furnished by the NSA has done actual good. We've received some statistics but not enough, in my opinion. A better justification for the money would go a long way toward figuring this all out.

If a practice is not doing any good, or even if it has minimal benefit, it should be stopped.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[leveymg]

48. The pre-warrant profiling can be equally intrusive, if it involves real-time monitoring

The worst part about all this is that once a person is "pinged" (profiled) -- even three hops out from a designated target -- the system retains a record of the investigation, which itself is a factor the system weighs in determining whether a person is potentially a threat.

It's a giant terrorism profiling system that has catalogued and labeled virtually every American adult. Three hops out from the 117,000 designated terrorist list is over a billion people. The system only operates on a 51% probability basis in targeting. Flip a coin, and you're treated as a potential terrorist.

[randome]

56. The 51% figure pertains to whether or not an individual is foreign or not.

In other words, if an analyst is uncertain about this but leans more in the direction that an individual is foreign, he/she should go forward with that assumption.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[leveymg]

64. It's the same thing - 51% that the person can be targeted as foreign, with the

presumption that (s)he is.

But arriving at that decision also involves an investigation, which in itself is intrusive and alerts other intelligence and law enforcement agencies that the NSA is investigating you. If you're trying to get public-sector employment, for instance, that can severely complicate your life.

[questionseverything]

81. leveymg

you said,US person data (which explains why Snowden couldn't copy the communications he viewed onto a removable data stick)

i think that maybe a false assumption,just because snowden has not shown personal e mails does not mean he couldn't do that...he said in the beginning ,he did not do this to target or embarrass any1 but to let the people know what was going on

[leveymg]

82. I think it's really a rhetorical point being raised because the debunkers have been debunked

and there isn't much of any real substance they have left in their arsenal to discredit Snowden's claims.

I was just pointing out that the system probably does make it difficult for analysts to make unauthorized copies of the contents of the NSA database. For instance, it would make sense if the analyst's work station (workbook) doesn't have a Print Screen function attached to it and a way to post outside the system, although there's probably a workaround for any barrier that can be devised.

The claim that Snowden couldn't have access because he didn't make a copy isn't really a particularly piercing argument, anyway, more of a red herring.

[questionseverything]

83. agree with this totally

The claim that Snowden couldn't have access because he didn't make a copy isn't really a particularly piercing argument, anyway, more of a red herring.

BUT and i hate to sound like randome but have we seen any evidence that there "probably" are protections or that any of it makes "sense"

i am not trying to be snarky with you,i apprieciate and follow your informative posts but at this point i am not willing to give nsa the benefit of the doubt and i think we have only seen the tip of the iceberg

[jazzimov]

89. I want to thank you and randome for an excellent

discussion based on actual facts and research. Your post regarding the access matches my understanding of the situation. It shows that what the NSA is doing is legal, although their interpretation of the law may not match it's original intended purpose.

As for the "51% sure" argument, one thing both of you seem to be forgetting is that phone number formatting is different in different countries. It's a pretty simple matter to tell if a number dialed is in the US or not simply based on the number of digits dialed.

There is something that both of you seem to be forgetting - if the law is being misinterpreted, then the law needs to be changed.

We do not know if the law has been effective or not because of the secrecy surrounding it. If the purpose is to change the law, then procedures will need to change - in which case there is no need for secrecy. Then we could properly assess whether or not such protection is needed or is warranted.

[sabrina 1]

88. Where are the legal warrants for tens of millions of American citizens?

Take your time, we'll wait!

[cantbeserious]

32. Thank You For Sharing Hard Information

eom

[grasswire]

40. thank you leveymg for your scrupulous research,

.....and constant attention to detail.

[Luminous Animal]

42. Have you emailed that to Greenwald? If not, you should.

[Mojorabbit]

71. Thanks! Great post! nt

[Tippy]

3. Greewald is jerk...He thinks he is saving us... but the exact opposite is true

[leveymg]

4. Very informative comment. Thank you for your contribution. Not.

[L0oniX]

20. Lots of people following ... nonsense n/t

[think]

6. Sarcasm or conjecture?

[chimpymustgo]

7. You really should listen and read and understand what he is trying to tell you about your government

Perhaps it is too late for "us" to be saved. But some of us still want to try.

We do not a semblance of democracy with this spying and lying.

[stonecutter357]

39. I don't need glynn are comrad eddy to tell me anything

.Perhaps it is too late for "us" to be saved

Nonsense no one is coming after you

[frylock]

54. ESL or teabagese?

[Mojorabbit]

76. Thank you for the great op. I see the thread drew the denier gang

to jack what started out as a good discussion about it.

[fascisthunter]

16. No, he's a big Meanie-poo

and, and, and....*breathing heavy*

[L0oniX]

19. Nonsense. n/t

[KG]

24. hilarious.

[stonecutter357]

37. K&R

This^^^

[Arctic Dave]

5. I wonder how much blackmail has been carried out by this.

Let's just say this is true on face value.

What is to keep someone from "hiring' one of the people with this ability and using the information for blackmail, extortion, etc?

[nashville_brook]

9. perhaps this explains why wall street bankers haven't been charged with crimes

doesn't take much to think of all the powerful people who could have or buy access to this info, and then extrapolate the most likely or powerful use of it.

[randome]

10. Maybe because the NSA has 4 levels of approval needed before looking at the data.

Even Carl Bernstein said that is a pretty robust system to prevent abuse.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[Arctic Dave]

50. Sure, maybe the NSA does.

But this doesn't relate that.

[randome]

60. Neither do Snowden nor Greenwald's claims.

I suppose it would be possible for a company to hire someone who previously viewed information on a terrorist suspect but has that ever happened?

What about the FBI? They have access to personal data, too. Why aren't we worried about them?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[Arctic Dave]

63. The FBI has been hammered already for misusing their powers.

I would guess nothing has changed.

I hope more information comes out so we can further assess the allegation.

[randome]

67. We are ALL in favor of that!

[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[think]

12. The whole private contractor CIA NSA FBI entanglement is a can of worms

in this regards....

[cantbeserious]

11. Given All The Government Lies - There Is Every Reason To Believe This True And No Reason Not To Believe

eom

[woo me with science]

13. In the hands of authoritarians and corporate profiteers:

Total Information Awareness.

[limpyhobbler]

14. I would be shocked if this weren't true.

[AllINeedIsCoffee]

17. I defy Greenwald to prove it. nt

[chimpymustgo]

22. I defy our GOVERNMENT to tell us the TRUTH. Minimum standard democracy. nt

[Mojorabbit]

72. Why don't you send him an email. nt

[randome]

18. Funny thing that Snowden wasn't able to get this type of access.

Funny.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[leveymg]

28. What are you talking about, now? Snowden said he watched people composing their on-line coms

virtually "as they were tying them", an NSA capability the documents he released confirms.

[randome]

31. When did he say that? I thought he said the NSA was capable of doing that.

Not that he, himself, did.

If he did say that, notice what he did not address: was any monitoring the result of legal warrants and procedures?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[leveymg]

46. One of the slides references "real-time" surveillance, and the WaPo report on what Snowden said:

Like market researchers, but with far more privileged access, collection managers in the NSA’s Special Source Operations group, which oversees the PRISM program, are drawn to the wealth of information about their subjects in online accounts. For much the same reason, civil libertarians and some ordinary users may be troubled by the menu available to analysts who hold the required clearances to “task” the PRISM system.

There has been “continued exponential growth in tasking to Facebook and Skype,” according to the PRISM slides. With a few clicks and an affirmation that the subject is believed to be engaged in terrorism, espionage or nuclear proliferation, an analyst obtains full access to Facebook’s “extensive search and surveillance capabilities against the variety of online social networking services.”

According to a separate “User’s Guide for PRISM Skype Collection,” that service can be monitored for audio when one end of the call is a conventional telephone and for any combination of “audio, video, chat, and file transfers” when Skype users connect by computer alone. Google’s offerings include Gmail, voice and video chat, Google Drive files, photo libraries, and live surveillance of search terms.

Firsthand experience with these systems, and horror at their capabilities, is what drove a career intelligence officer to provide PowerPoint slides about PRISM and supporting materials to The Washington Post in order to expose what he believes to be a gross intrusion on privacy. “They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,” the officer said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story_3.html

[randome]

59. All of this is still very vague on details.

Is any of this monitoring done with legal warrants? Why wouldn't the Washington Post think to include this information? Maybe because they don't know? Then why wouldn't they at least say that? Seems to me like that would be a fuller story than leaving that part completely uncovered.

Facebook and Skype are all public social media. Is the NSA tunneling through these companies' protections and getting at private data? No one says they are but there are plenty of unsaid implications that this is happening.

I don't like unsaid implications. I prefer to look at hard evidence.

And, again, 'watching your ideas form as you type'? Is this done with legal warrants? Funny again that Snowden didn't think to address this. He just leaves that implication hanging in the air.

Much like Greenwald's MO.

I have no problem stopping aspects of the NSA but it should be done with the basic idea of getting evidence and evaluating it first.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[sabrina 1]

65. It's not vague to the Democrats in Congress who have been trying to warn us for

years. And it's not vague at all to me. But you have to want the truth I suppose in order to remove the 'veil' of 'vagueness' that appears to be a problem for an every-shrinking number of people.

[randome]

66. We are ALL on board with more transparency and less secrecy.

Based on the evidence, let the chips fall where they may. Let heads roll, if needed.

But getting the evidence first and making judgements based on that, should be what separates Democrats from Republicans.

Truth should be arrived at by way of facts, not opinion. And definitely not via fear.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[sabrina 1]

70. We have the evidence, I know I have been spied on by Verizon on behalf of the government

I have cancelled them to stop them from violating my rights. I will join any of the upcoming lawsuits to make them pay for these gross violations of millions of their customers' privacy, in direct conflict with their own statement of privacy when we signed up with them.

[leveymg]

74. Can you tell us about that experience? It may be more common than most think.

[sabrina 1]

78. We called last week to cancel our Verizon cell phone service. I told them why, the agent on

the line denied they were doing what we now know they have done. We were told that they 'wanted to keep us as customers'. I'm sure they do. I referred to their privacy statement which says nothing about them 'owning our data' and being free to share it with the government.

Again she denied they were doing it. But we know that they have, and at least we don't have to fund our own loss of rights.

[leveymg]

80. I'm under the impression that all the major carriers have identical agreements with NSA.

Who did you switch to?

[sabrina 1]

85. Yes, I know that. We have had a Virgin Mobile cell phone, much better than Verizon

in terms of cost, options etc. So we are not switching, just eliminating the second cell phone with Verizon. We only went with them in the first place due to living in a rural area since Jan. and they were the only company whose signal we could access. Now however, we've found other options.

Re Virgin Mobile, I haven't heard anything about them so far, but if it turns out they too have spying on customers, we will dump them also.

I am hoping now that there will be legislation both nationally and internationally to curb these abuses. I know it will take time, but look how fast Congress has sat up to take notice since the leaks? Up to now, nothing was even being considered.

Money is what it's all about. Take it away and we will see some action, imo.

[leveymg]

68. One can only address what's been publicly reported. I share your frustration,

if differ somewhat in my attitudes and assumptions about Greenwald. We may agree more than you would guess about the dire consequences Snowden should be prepared to accept for his actions - but, IMHO, he was well aware of what he was doing.

[morningfog]

51. How do you know?

[randome]

55. Because he did not provide any.

Snowden would be the very definition of 'whistleblower' if he showed evidence of illegality or abuse. He has not.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[Generic Other]

21. Our government has been corrupted by liars, cheats and evil douchbags

And the rest are gutless or bought off.

I refuse to believe another word if it comes from the lips of a career politician who has ever been caught in a single lie or inaccuracy. Spout bullshit then you are shit to me.

Let the criminal hearings begin Watergate style. Time for some heads to roll, some secrets to be brought into the light of day. Time for a special prosecutor to be appointed that does more than play with the president's penis.

[Progressive dog]

23. Without evidence, neither --which means

I get to call them both scum. Where's the beef, Greenwald? What kind of "reporter" makes claims that he can't or won't substantiate?

[randome]

27. OMG! The NSA has TOOLS! And they USE them!

Still nothing to say that the evidence we've seen of 4 levels of approval being needed is wrong.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[leveymg]

29. You still haven't responded to my message to you about the 72-hour window for NSA to gather evidence

without a warrant allowed under FISA. What do you think they do with that loop-hole?

[randome]

34. I think the loophole is there for a reason.

I would bet even that 72 hour window needs substantial levels of sign-off before it can be implemented. It would be nice to know that for a fact.

I would bet there is a similar loophole for on-the-ground investigations for other law enforcement agencies. I don't know that, however.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[leveymg]

38. Binney says there's an automated profiling system that red-flags calls for human

investigation and a potential warrant. It was a feature of ThinThread, the predecessor system on which this is based. Google his talk at MIT on NSA profiling.

That and the case has to be assigned to an analyst, who is likely a contractor - those are the sign-offs before the case goes to an analyst for searches on his "notebook" across databanks - then after (up to) 3 days the case has to go back to an NSA manager who either trashes or escalates the case to the FBI liaison unit on site, which actually requests a FISA warrant.

[randome]

43. I would bet that contractors cannot be analysts. And I hope that's the case.

But we should know whether or not that's a fact.

I don't know about the automated profiling system. ThinThread was shut down and I'm not convinced that former NSA employees know everything that is occurring now.

Especially since Obama signed off on greater protections during the revision to the Patriot Act.

But more information is definitely needed! More transparency and less secrecy so we have information to determine what the NSA is doing and what it should be doing.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[leveymg]

47. Officers and contractors all have the same TS/SCI clearances. They do the same work as analysts

The NSA Managers at the centers are likely agency employees. But, contractors and agency employees all see the same data.

[randome]

53. I don't know, I'm going to have see a link about that.

Clearances may be the same but I doubt contractors can be analysts with direct access to personal data. If they do, that's something that should be stopped. I thought I read somewhere that there were few analysts with this type of access at the NSA. But I don't recall where I saw that.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[leveymg]

58. There have been several articles that look at job descriptions for contractors that require PRISM

and many of the other systems referenced in the slides.

They're doing the same work on the same systems. Snowden, as a former CIA employee, appears to have had a higher access than is typical to compartmentalized programs. CIA and NSA work together out of embassies to plant bugs and do local monitoring jobs that can't be collected by the normal NSA technical methods. It's been reported that while at CIA, Snowden was assigned abroad to that highly classified subagency, and details about that may well be the knowledge the USG is terrified will get into the hands of adversary services.

[randome]

62. PRISM is not used for domestic targets, only foreign ones.

At least that's the NSA's contention. If there is evidence to refute that, let the chips fall where they may.

But Snowden apparently did not have access to either PRISM nor to domestic personal data. As evidenced by his complete lack of evidence.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[leveymg]

69. It's all part of the same set of interlinked databases.

Alexander stated early on that analysts in developing evidence to obtain a warrant do search across USG and foreign databases. Those databases do not minimize US person data, so in effect, the NSA analyst has access to US person data that has been collected, in part, by NSA and in part by other agencies. That much we know.

The system is not as tightly firewalled for US person privacy as they would like us to believe. Probably the only thing the analyst can't have access to without a warrant is the content of phone calls in real-time.

[chimpymustgo]

44. Thanks for adding more info. Why won't our govt TELL US how it is spying on us?

Secrets and lies.

[JaneyVee]

30. And cops have guns that could kill a whole lot of people...if they wanted to.

[sabrina 1]

33. We need new laws. This 'data mining' issue came up during the Bush years, there was

enough concern among consumers at the time, and in other countries, where they found to be doing it without those governments' permission, that Congress actually held a few hearings on it, airc.

But of course with all the money involved for BUSINESS, nothing much came of those hearings, and apparently now things have become even worse.

[railsback]

36. All this means NOTHING

Nothing, that is, until Grayson makes us all pay with our tax dollars to hear what Greenwald is saying - currently a free service - before a non-official, non - oath taking body of Congresscritters who happen to agree with Greenwald. Only then will I believe Greenwald.. because I'll be forced to pay for it.

[Whisp]

93. really? wtf?? can you link me something?

green and gray in cahoots?

gawddammit.

[stonecutter357]

45. I don't need Glenn are comrad eddy to tell me anything.

So this is yet another OP I hate the USA,

[KoKo]

57. You finally got the spelling correctly: "Glenn and not Glynn" as you had in

your post up above. And might want to capitalize "eddy," also.

DU'ers tend to frown on errors like that made by new posters.

[stonecutter357]

84. 78 IQ

78 IQ and dyslexia,I do pretty good for myself but i know i can do better.

[chimpymustgo]

86. Maybe Glenn could help you with some basic reading comprehension and spelling.

Not to mention understanding the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

[flamingdem]

49. Greenwald is using language like a lawyer, later he can sleaze out of what he said

quote:
It searches that database and lets them listen to the calls or read the emails of everything that the NSA has stored, or look at the browsing histories or Google search terms that you’ve entered, a

everything the NSA has stored - as in NOTHING since it's metadata unless there is a specific warrant

browsing history? Really? Let's do the math on that with hundreds of millions of people. I call BS.

[MineralMan]

52. The thing about Greenwald is that he, personally, knows nothing

about the NSA. His source is Snowden, a guy who managed to steal some presentation slides while working as a contractor for a company doing some work for the NSA.

Greenwald knows shit about the NSA. Snowden knows little more about it, I suspect, and is simply extrapolating from the small access he actually had.

And there it is.

[leveymg]

73. Snowden knows a lot more about the NSA and CIA than what was on those slides.

The Special Collections Service (SCS) is a joint subagency run by CIA and NSA out of a nondescript office complex in Beltsville, MD. It operates primarily out of US embassies to do targeted collections abroad that NSA can't through technical ("overhead&quot surveillance.

It's been reported that Snowden was part of that, which is about as top secret/compartmentalized as it gets.

[Mojorabbit]

75. Your comment about Snowden goes against all the information that has been posted about his access.nt

[WillyT]

61. K & R !!!

[malaise]

77. You cannot privatize national security

No one is safe from these corporate thieves. Greed is greed.

“Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all.”

[chimpymustgo]

79. “Capitalism is the belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives" will pillage

and rape and steal, and the great unwashed will let them get away with it.

Distopian nightmare.

[Enthusiast]

87. Saxby Chambliss is vile.

I wouldn't believe a word he said.

[Catherina]

94. "I have been assured... stopped 2 or 3 years ago.. may have been some abuse... pure accidental"

Chambliss said he recently spent time with NSA officials and was assured that the programs Greenwald describes have been exaggerated.

“I was back out at NSA just last week, spent a couple hours out there with high and low level NSA officials,” Chambliss said. “And what I have been assured of is that there is no capability at NSA for anyone without a court order to listen to any telephone conversation or to monitor any e-mail.”

Chambliss said that any monitoring of emails is purely “accidental.”

“In fact, we don’t monitor emails. That’s what kind of assures me is that what the reporting is is not correct. Because no emails are monitored now,” Chambliss said. “They used to be, but that stopped two or three years ago. So I feel confident that there may have been some abuse, but if it was it was pure accidental.”

Really Chambliss?

[Enthusiast]

95. I feel so much better now.

[Catherina]

90. Video and excerpt of story about NSA employees sniggering over US soldiers pillow talk and sex chats

Exclusive: Inside Account of U.S. Eavesdropping on Americans


By BRIAN ROSS (@brianross) , VIC WALTER, and ANNA SCHECTER
Oct. 9, 2008

Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.

...

She said US military officers, American journalists and American aid workers were routinely intercepted and "collected on" as they called their offices or homes in the United States.

...

The accounts of the two former intercept operators, who have never met and did not know of the other's allegations, provide the first inside look at the day to day operations of the huge and controversial US terrorist surveillance program.

...

Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of "cuts" that were available on each operator's computer.

"Hey, check this out," Faulk says he would be told, "there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, 'Wow, this was crazy'," Faulk told ABC News.

...

"It's not for the heck of it. We are narrowly focused and drilled on protecting the nation against al Qaeda and those organizations who are affiliated with it," Gen. Hayden testified.

...


http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/exclusive-inside-account-us-eavesdropping-americans/story?id=5987804

[chimpymustgo]

92. Thanks for posting. Perhaps the dunderheads will wake up a realize the truth.

[ProSense]

91. Greenwald's evidence for his latest claim is a 2008 report.

Greenwald's evidence for his latest claim is a 2008 report.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023361622

[PowerToThePeople]

96. I now trashcan any thread with Glenn Grenwald in it.

[Dash87]

97. Of course they do - collecting data is easy.

Making it useful is the difficult part, and I doubt the government is competent enough to do so.

[GiaGiovanni]

98. Congress needs to look into this

Very disturbing