My Life in Circles: Why Metadata is Incredibly Intimate

[HiPointDem]

One of the most disingenuous arguments in the aftermath of the NSA spying revelations is that the American people shouldn't be concerned about the government hoovering up its sensitive information because it's only metadata--or a fancy way of saying data about the data.

"This is just metadata," Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein assured the American people... "There is no content involved." President Obama and his national security officials have made similar assurances. Feel better? You shouldn't and here's why.

A tool developed by MIT Media Lab proves how intrusive the collection and analysis of metadata is over time..Dubbed "Immersion," the tool analyzes the metadata...and visualizes it... I've allowed Immersion to analyze almost 9 years of my Gmail history. The results are incredibly cool--when done voluntarily--and absolutely frightening--when you consider government does this analysis without consent or judicial oversight. While the data visualizations below have been anonymized...I'll briefly describe how incredibly powerful and revealing such data crunching is when laid out in all its transparent glory....

When visualized and analyzed over time, my data reveals my family members--who are all tightly grouped and linked together--and those people who I am, or was, closest to in each phase of my private and professional life. All of my various work colleagues are networked together as well as my many circles of friends, tethered together around high school, grad school, different work places, and even where I've lived. It's easy to tell which woman became my wife, when we met, and how our relationship grew stronger over time. By using Immersion's time scroll, I can go back in time, find my wife, and watch as her speck balloons into the biggest orb in my interconnected sea of circles.

The data visualization also shows potential discord over time, such as friends who have either become acquaintances or even possibly enemies. (If someone were to target individuals to gather dirt on me, my guess is they would start with people who had a history of communication with me and then suddenly trailed off or fell off a cliff, visually speaking. Immersion allows you to see this by simply clicking on a particular contact's circle, which reveals your "interaction volume.&quot And more worrisome for a journalist, it's easy to determine who my sources were for particular stories. This is why mathematician and former Sun Microsystems engineer Susan Landau told the New Yorker's Jane Mayer that metadata is "much more intrusive than content."

The data visualizations the tool spits out are even creepier since we know government metadata collection didn't stop at Americans' call records. When the Guardian recently published a 2009 report from the National Security Agency's inspector general, the public learned that the government collected their online records as well...

Metadata, no matter what the detractors say, collected over time is an intimate repository of our lives--whom we love, whom we're friends with, where we work, where we worship (or don't), and whom we associate with politically. The right to privacy means our metadata shouldn't be collected and analyzed without reasonable suspicion that we've done something wrong.

http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/my-life-circles-why-metadata-incredibly-intimate

[VanillaRhapsody]

1. Couldn't they find all that just by reading your Facebook?

[HiPointDem]

5. i don't have a facebook, or a twitter, or a reddit, or any of it. but i have email.

[reusrename]

15. Of course not. The NSA does an analysis of our social networks.

Facebook is more like a pretend social network. It's more like what you would like your social network to be, instead of what it really is.

[Hekate]

2. 5th Rec, and kick

[cui bono]

3. knr

[Summer Hathaway]

4. So "A tool developed by MIT Media Lab proves ...

... how intrusive the collection and analysis of metadata is over time."

Where's the part about how this tool, or anything like it, is being used by the NSA? Or should we all just assume that because this type of analysis is possible - when using "a volunteer's Gmail account", as the article points out - the NSA is using it to delve into my personal life, and for no apparent reason?

The Perpetually Paranoid Express - crazy, but always on time.

[Pholus]

12. Do you think they don't use toilet paper if they don't tell you they do?

Silly, NSA isn't going to tell you what they're doing. That's why they created these things called "secrets" and prosecute people who actually say what's going on.

It's like you haven't been paying attention or something. Network analysis is the new magic word in military applications, especially COIN activities. You have to know who is a threat, you have to know who to take out to cripple enemy activities.


How did we combat roadside bombers? Network analysis:

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/03/131755378/u-s-connects-the-dots-to-catch-roadside-bombers


How did we catch Saddam? Network analysis:

http://www.asanet.org/footnotes/julyaugust05/fn3.html

How do we fight insurgencies? Network analysis:

http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/07summer/reed.pdf


How do you locate terror cells? Network analysis:

http://globalsecuritystudies.com/Minor%20Nodes%20Final.pdf

What does US phone metadata do? Allow you to map the network of connections in the US for Network Analysis.

Where it gets creepy, though is this:

How do you influence public opinion? Network analysis:

http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/I2O/Programs/Social_Media_in_Strategic_Communication_%28SMISC%29.aspx

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/07/darpa-wants-social-media-sensor-for-propaganda-ops/

Remember, Bush (and the current administration) maintain that domestic propaganda is allowed

http://mediabloodhound.typepad.com/weblog/2009/09/senior-official-in-bush-domestic-propaganda-program-remains-obamas-pentagon-spokesman.html

[Summer Hathaway]

73. You missed my point by light-years

But I'm not surprised.

[LondonReign2]

40. Oh FFS

Because there's no way with a mere $80B budget the NSA would be able to do this, right?

[Summer Hathaway]

72. Who said they didn't have the necessary funds?

And what does that have to do with anything?

[Downwinder]

6. How would Dianne Feinstein respond to a FOiA request for

her offices' telephone metadata?

[HiPointDem]

7. good question & i think we know the answer already.

[JDPriestly]

8. Absolutely correct. A lot of this information is available if you pay for it.

The metadata the government is collecting is far more revealing.

I doubt that Obama has thought much about it really. But it is an awful program. It would prevent union organizing if employers had access to this data.

We need to tighten our laws that protect our privacy not only to protect our privacy from the government but from private parties like our neighbors and our employers.

It is already very easy to find out a lot about people just from a Google search of their name. Try Googling your own name. If you are on Facebook or Linked In or any other similar website you are even more transparent. We have not choice about having more transparency about our lives than ever before, but the government can find out enough about us just from Google searches. Collecting our metadata is way, way overboard.

People do not have a clue as to what this means. They defend it because they don't understand it at all. But this is a horrendous program.

I remember looking a couple of people up on fairly common programs and discovering things out about them that I might have preferred not to have learned. Really. Your metadata reveals strange things about you -- and not all of the conclusions that can be drawn from your metadata are true.

[KoKo]

46. And think of what can be profiled from our DU Posts, KOS Posts

or any site that one has engaged in for a long period of time like Yahoo Groups, Political Blogs--anywhere people regularly engage and reveal bits and pieces of their personal lives on the web. Even if one has never been on Facebook or Linkedin...if you've communicated on any website, chat room, etc. there's a profile that can be put together easily.

It's really chilling that this information is being collected and that there's such a quick way to create profiles using algorithms and whatever else. Also, easy for there to be identity mistakes, glitches and errors that wouldn't easily be able to be corrected by a person "targeted" for closer scrutiny who wouldn't even know they were targeted.

[intaglio]

9. Seriously, you need to get a sense of proportion

Metadata* is intrusive because it can reveal a lot about you if studied in bulk.

Well no sh1t, Sherlock ...

So can your credit card, so can loyalty cards, so can your traffic tickets, so can your speech patterns and so can your ZIP code. Any data about you can be so used and there are a lot of advertising companies, financial service companies and insurance companies whose businesses are based on being able to compile such data and make such analyses. Welcome to the modern world - you seem to have been missing for the past 50 years.

Now try and make it illegal to look at such data and you will stop cellphone and telephone companies, the internet and even, of your law is wide enough, the USPS from working.

So make it illegal to use such data? Well good luck with getting Google or Amazon or Costco to go along with that.

My Sigoth has pointed out:

even walking down the street you are generating a host of such information; go into a shop and buy, with cash, a magazine and a soda even that data can be used and studied in bulk, it can even be traced back to you in person;

back in the 1950s a shopkeeper would know that Mrs Brown came in every Friday for 2 loaves of Hovis and would be able to advise police searching for Mr Brown that it seemed he went missing 6 months prior to Mrs Brown's report because she has only been buying 1 loaf for the weekend for that time.

Seriously one of the advantages of a computer is that it can perform operations on vast quantities of data and that was always the intention; this is how the "Bombes" at Bletchley Park were able to make near real time decoding of Enigma possible.

__________________________________________________________

* I use metadata precisely because the complex and slightly misleading "data about data" is so cumbersome.

[HiPointDem]

10. "f studied in bulk". 'in bulk' is the only way it comes. metadata is precisely the patterns formed

by a person or organization's 'bulk' data.

in bulk is the only way they're going to study it.

and the only way you would know that mrs. brown came in every friday for 2 loaves of Hovis IS IF YOU WERE SPYING ON HER, JUST LIKE THIS DATA COLLECTION SYSTEM IS SPYING.

[intaglio]

14. Both paranoia and ignorance are what you are demonstrating

Living back in the 50s everybody in villages or country towns "spied on each other". My sister came home from medical school one day early 60s with a large Sudanese gentleman and you could, literally, watch the net curtains twitch as we walked him back to the station. The parishioners at the local church kept their vicar under surveillance because a previous incumbent had been defrocked for pedophilia.

When my grandmother fell ill the newsagent and the off license were spreading the news because she had not come in for her Daily Mirror, the 5th of Martell and her Senior Service. That added to the milkman seeing us go into the cottage hospital with grapes meant that Gran was ill. Back then it was not called "aggregating data" but "putting 2 and 2 together."

It still happens, I've called at some houses on a quarterly round and not received a response when I know that the (elderly) occupant is (mostly) always home. So I check, often I've found that the customer has gone to hospital but others have found comatose or deceased pensioners. Our local shops know who is ill or who has been short of money, our neighbours know when I'm depressed or when we have bought something that requires delivery.

Another name for it is community, not f'n "spying", and, yes, it can be used by the cops or the spooks or by marketing companies - so what?

[HiPointDem]

19. so what? my neighbors are not the US government or global corporations. i don't care if my

neighbors know if i'm sick or not, and the government and microsoft are not part of my 'community'. government & corporate spying has nothing to do with 'community,' it has to do with power, policing, and profit. what an absurd comparison.

[intaglio]

26. So at one point it is spying on you

at the next you don't care.

You agree to your neighbours looking at what you have done but would cavil at them giving that information to the police if there was a murder in the area.

At one point people say they have agreed to Microsoft "spying" on them (it is in the conditions of service to which you agree) and now you say "no it is not"..

You, presumably, agree to the USPS looking at an address on an envelope but would have a conniption if they traced a letter to a criminal back to you.

Would you agree that visitors to child porn sites should be traced or would that offend against their liberty?

Start with consistency before you start complaining, start realising there are no hard lines to be drawn

[HiPointDem]

27. i expect my neighbors to notice what i do. i notice what they do. BECAUSE WE'RE NEIGHBORS.

however, they have never yet read all my mail or recorded all my phone calls.

you're ridiculous.

[intaglio]

35. No, you refuse to see how short sighted your ideas are

So you are happy with your neighbours watching your day to day activities. Would you similarly happy if they read your mail envelopes and return addresses? No?

Then if the mailman drops a letter or misdirects it you would expect your neighbours to leave it lying in the road or would you want them to drop it in your mail box? Probably the latter. Would you then blame them for looking at the return address?

If you publish an address on an envelope do you think that no-one should read it or that it should not be read by a machine? Well hard luck both those things happen and both are done by Government employees and government machines. If you send a package to a dubious address, say Schmidt Pharmaceuticals, Cali, Panama do you really think that this does not provide at least a some justification to seek a warrant to open your package?

If you do think that the Government should ignore exactly the same communication just because it is electronic? Do you think that they are unjustified in seeking a warrant to examine the content of such an e-mail?

[HiPointDem]

61. but they don't. because if my neighbors read my mail, thye'd be arrested. unlike the government

& corporations.

[intaglio]

62. The envelope can be read but not the content

The metadata - not the content is read. To read content they have to have a warrant and, exactly like an envelope, the metadata can give probable cause.

[HiPointDem]

63. if my neighbors took anything out of my mailbox, even just to look at the outside, they are

subject to prosecution.

you are just ridiculous.

[intaglio]

66. I specifically excluded that posibility

by having the mail misdirected or lying in the street.

Your e-mails (or web requests) in transit pass through many computers all of them are required to look at the metadata to ensure that your content is correctly handled. Some of those computers and servers will be government owned or controlled not because they are spying but because (approximately) that is the route your service provider or phone company has given to that part of the data to ensure rapid processing.

Essentially, your metadata is visible to the whole street and everyone can help deliver it. What is concealed by the protocols is the content and for that a warrant is needed.

I have said elsewhere that there are things that do concern me about this. The first is obviously the independence of FISC and the extent to which it examines the requests for content from the NSA. The second is the length of time unexamined content can be held before it is deleted or cleared for examination.

[HiPointDem]

68. so now the spying applies only to letters which fell out of the mailsack? ridiculous comparisons

in defense of a ridiculous policy.

[intaglio]

69. No I did not say that

I said the reverse - and either you know it or you are too obtuse to understand

In either event, conversation over.

[HiPointDem]

74. 1. Your comparison of nsa to someone's neighbors or 'community' is ridiculous from the get-go.

2. Your account: "your metadata is visible to the whole street and everyone can help deliver it" is bullshit. my 'metadata' is *not* visible to the entire street: not in your little story about my neighbors, & not on the 'internet' street either.

[sabrina 1]

97. 'Some of those computers and servers will be government owned or controlled'

So can you explain why the Government needed to collect EVERYONE'S data, and why they paid billions of dollars to Private Corps like Booz Allen, to do it?

And why did they also spend so much money on a software program to make it easy for them to view the CONTENT of all that data??

It's a case of finding clues, and then figuring out where the clues lead.

I see you have complete faith that none of these clues mean anything. That we can totally trust the Government and the Private Security Corps NOT TO USE that software program that makes viewing the content of all that they are collecting,so easy and to believe that their collection and storage of all that data that costs so much of our tax dollars is just for fun.

What do you think was the motive behind developing software that is directly related to the 'collection and storing' of everyone's personal data?

[EOTE]

28. What a truly awful comparison.

So, members of your community know what you were up to, therefore it should be fine that the government spies on ALL of us constantly. You are just a good little citizen, aren't you?

[intaglio]

37. No, but it is perfectly normal for government employees

to look at mail.

Sorry if you find modern life uncomfortable but unfortunately time travel to before the invention of the Kalamazoo machine is not yet possible.

[EOTE]

42. Normal according to whom?

According to all the good little brownshirts? Just because some internet yahoo says something is normal doesn't make it right or even the least bit decent or legal. The shit I'm seeing excused around here is mind-blowing.

[intaglio]

49. According to everyday history and experience

History and experience you conveniently ignore.

Do you deny that USPS workers are Government employees? Do you deny these employees have been staring at your mail for a couple of hundred years.

Legal. Looking at metadata is exactly congruent with looking at an envelope, return address and all. Are you claiming that USPS workers are committing an illegal act by looking at your mail? What of your neighbour who finds one of your letters mixed in with his own, is he acting illegally by dropping the letter through your letterbox.

You think metadata is not somehow different? Then how does your e-mail and your web pages arrive at your computer because there is not a series of tubes that directly connect you to the website you are viewing. Packets of data can be moved by many routes between you and your screen. Don't believe me? then check the standards required by W3C.

Metadata constrains what can legally be examined, which is why a warrant for further examination of content needs to be obtained from FISC in exactly the same way that a warrant to examine the contents of a postal packet should be obtained

Decent. Which standards of decency are you claiming? and how do they relate to reality? "Everybody knows" is not good enough any more than "all right thinking people".

Finally ... Godwin - you lose.

[EOTE]

50. Your knowledge of what is normal is almost as lacking as your knowledge of Godwin.

No, USPS employees can NOT read our mail. They also can't keep logs of who, when and where my mail is sent. As much as you want it to be the case, the government keeping extensive logs of anyone and everyone for no reason whatsoever is NOT acceptable, and decent and thinking people are going to do something about it no matter how much your ilk wants it to go unnoticed. For someone who has such a tenuous grasp on reality, you sure do talk about it an awful lot.

[intaglio]

53. USPS employees can read the envelopes

do you deny this?

Yes, they do keep logs of who sends what; always when the consignment address is dubious and there is even a temporary record made of other envelopes because the mail runs through an OCR reader and that tracks consignment details and alerts the workers if a dubious address is spotted. This is one way in which postal fraud is detected.

OK, you do not want the government to keep extensive "logs" are you also going to cancel the census or the voter enrollment drives?
What about those sick individuals who plot murders or racial crimes or pedophilia should there be no "log" kept of that. What of phone calls, should your phone company be allowed to make a permanent record of the numbers you call and must they be prevented from passing those on to the police?

Think! Do not fall back on "everybody knows" or "it's not decent" if those were the measure then inter-racial marriages would still be illegal.

[EOTE]

55. Read the OUTSIDE of the envelopes?

Yes, of course they can do that, that's actually what their job is, duh. What they CAN'T do is make copies of what's in the inside of those envelopes and then link that information to the information on the outside of those envelopes. That seems to be the comparison you're trying to make, I keep thinking that you can't possibly be daft enough to make that comparison (as well as the comparison that the government spying on us is just like our neighbors keeping tabs on us). I keep thinking you can't possibly be ignorant enough to make comparisons like that, yet here we are.

[Quantess]

80. Mail carriers can read what's on the envelopes?

Yes, imagine! Reading envelopes is the mail carrier's job!


Oh good grief. I could be facepalming, but instead I'm laughing. I hope you can laugh it off, too.

[EOTE]

81. And apparently that means it's just fine for the government to spy on us.

Or, it's fine that the government spies on all of us because our neighbors can "spy" on us by checking up on us or something. The justifications I've been reading here are absolutely mind-blowing.

[Quantess]

82. I saw a very poor analogy just the other day.

The analogy was so poorly fitting to the NSA, and so random I can't even remember now what it was!
.
.
.
I just looked it up: "You can't fight a forest fire with a water gun. The water will just run out."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3314779

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

[intaglio]

86. And that, approximately, is what this metadata is

It is the data "envelope" that marks the content. If that data indicates that a questionable contact has been made then the package is kept for further examination. In a postal system the packet is delayed, in a digital system it is copied for later examination, which should have to be court mandated

The big problem that inspections face is that the digital world is fast and ephemeral and the answer that the NSA seems to have come up with is to copy everything but not examine it unless further checks prove the need.

What I have said in this last paragraph needs to be challenged in open court to establish the limits of power.

[EOTE]

89. You are laughably bad at making these analogies.

First of all, it's the USPS's JOB to look at those envelopes, they can't do their job without that ability, are you truly so incredibly uninformed not to know that? Also, is the USPS allowed to make copies of what's inside those envelopes WITHOUT your permission and then link those copies to the data they find on the outside? No, of course not. Your multiple comparison are so ridiculously stupid that everyone sees it other than you. The government spying on us is NOTHING like our neighbors checking on us and it's even LESS like the USPS reading the addresses on the outside of our envelopes. Those comparisons are insanely daft and worse, to the extent that stupid people actually buy into them, they're dangerous. I've never seen such vociferous defense of a surveillance state and the fact that it's coming from people who are ostensibly liberal is sick. If you're going to defend the attack of our civil liberties, at least don't do it in such an incredibly bone headed fashion.

[intaglio]

90. It is the very mechanism of the internet that requires this data be examined

What is more many of those computers on which the internet depends for its infrastructure are government owned. Whether they should be government owned is another matter.

Oh, and despite your charmingly archaic ideas, most mail is not looked at by a human until the point of delivery.

The internet was never designed to be private and your assumptions are just kneejerk distaste. Grow up.

[EOTE]

91. It's already being examined, by computers as a part of your ISP.

There is NO reason for it to be examined by the government, NONE. I've worked in IT my entire adult life, I know where my data goes and what is needed for it to be routed properly. The internet was never designed to have every user's data collected and analyzed as it is. That you are still making these ridiculously stupid comparisons shows how utterly in the dark you are about this issue. You clearly don't give one damn about civil liberties, that much is very clear, but you also have a ridiculously uninformed view of technology as well. Grow up? You are eagerly cheering the destruction of our liberties and I'M the one who should grow up? You would be hilarious if your ilk weren't so destructive to this country.

[intaglio]

92. For the umpteenth time

your ISP's computers are just a tiny proportion of the machines that handle your data

Please check "Packet Switching" before making an ignorant post like this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_switching

Packet switching is a digital networking communications method that groups all transmitted data – regardless of content, type, or structure – into suitably sized blocks, called packets. First proposed for military uses in the early 1960s and implemented on small networks in 1968, this method of data transmission became one of the fundamental networking technologies behind the Internet and most local area networks.

Please do not just trust Wikipedia, do your own searches and start to learn about the modern world not the 1960s "Leave it to Beaver" fantasies you seem to enjoy. The internet is not a series of tubes.

[EOTE]

93. Like a dog trying to explain the concept of fetch.

Yes, I'm quite aware that there are numerous protocols and vast amounts of hardware that go between the client and server and beyond. All of that is ENTIRELY irrelevant as to whether or not it's a horrific breach of our rights to have this data collected and analyzed by government agencies. The fact that you're still trying to obfuscate this issue shows what your true agenda is. You're not only laughably bad at making analogies, but you're just as bad at hiding your agenda. Once again, I've been working IT my entire adult life (since the day I turned 16), you're not going to teach me anything I don't already know. You are, however, doing an awful good job of showing what an authoritarian you are. In case anyone around here happened to have missed that.

[intaglio]

95. Well you have not displayed your awareness

It is not horrific, it is not unConstitutional, it is not illegal, it is not immoral. It might be unethical but others will have to parse that. It is disturbing to those who think the world is candy bars and fluffy bunnies but if (IF) you have been working in this area since you were 16 how is it you were not aware of these and other programs?

How has it escaped your attention when these matters have been talked at at length for years or decades?

I'm not in the business and I heard about them and read about them in the Chans or the trade blogs.

How is it that you can deny the simple fact that packets do not follow each other in an orderly procession but by a variety of routes most of which have nothing to do with your ISP except as enablers.

It is you implying that the data only goes via your ISP, it is you flaunting your supposed knowledge, it is you who chooses to deny the foundation role the US government plays in the application the modern internet.

You are probably truly shocked by this current scandal but you are acting like a disruptor. I have offered analogies, tried to talk rationally to you but these are all beyond you. No matter what is tried you claim they never apply; yet you cannot find any but the most flimsy of reasons to deny them.

goodbye

[EOTE]

96. It is the collecting and analyzing of that data which is unconstitutional AND immoral

There is no doubt that the collection of this data by a government agency constitutes an unreasonable search. And your knowledge of what has and hasn't escaped my attention is probably a good deal less than your knowledge of applicable analogies. It was awful when Bush was doing this and it's just as awful now, more so considering that this is coming from an administration that promised transparency. This is the exact opposite of transparency.

And that you still don't see any difference between the routing of data and the storing and analyzing of your data POST transfer shows that you either know nothing of data processing, or you're an intentional disruptor.

I don't need even flimsy reasons to deny your analogies because they're so godawful to begin with. Hell, a father telling his son that a woman is like a fine wine is a masterful analogy compared with the tripe you've come up with. If you say something that makes a lick of sense to begin with, I might have to try a little harder to discredit it.

[GiaGiovanni]

84. But USPS employees don't have data massaging software in their heads

and they can't do millions of calculations in nanoseconds about who is connected to whom.

[intaglio]

87. Which is why the NSA came up with this fix

and, as observed elsewhere, postal services do actually keep electronic records of envelopes - hand sorting only happens to a minority of documents.

[GiaGiovanni]

99. Why what?

I'm not understanding what you are saying here. How about making it clearer. Thanks!

[GiaGiovanni]

83. But not to keep permanent copies of both sides of the envelope

and there are laws preventing government employees from abusing that information--at least the low level employees (not the political appointees).

[LondonReign2]

41. You are trying to dismiss the government programs by

equating them to neighbors looking out their windows????

That might be the best* one I've heard yet. Bookmarking this one to use later.






* By best I mean hilarious in its stupendous foolishness. One hopes you don't seriously believe people will be taken by this argument.

[intaglio]

51. No I am pointing out that privacy is not what it appears

If you want to run off with the wrong idea that is up to you. Communities work by having many "open" secrets which are shared (to a greater or lesser extent) with others. No-one is "spying" on you but if something unusual happens and these secrets can be examined by outsiders.

My point, to try and make it clear yet again, is where does "spying" start? and to point out that privacy has never been as absolute as claimed.

Does the local butcher seeing you buy a better cut of meat constitute spying?

Does the local cop making inquiries of your neighbours constitute spying?

Does the postal worker checking the addresses on your mail constitute spying?

Does that worker reporting a dubious address to his inspector constitute spying?

Does a web record of a contact with a dubious website constitute spying?

I have no doubt that you would say that last is definitely spying except that you have to find somewhere to draw the line. What part of an internet communication cannot be mined for data by an overarching program and how is that consistent with the internet working? Remember if no part of an internet message or telephone call can be examined then communication does not happen.

[LondonReign2]

52. Run off with the wrong idea?

You are the one that has repeatedly tried to downplay NSA spying by equating it to buying meat at the local butcher, walking on the street, et al. If you repeat such silliness multiple times in this thread, including in your reply, that is the idea you are trying with epic failure to promote.

I'm trying to figure out if this should be argument #15 on Team NSA's go-to list, or if it's really just a twist on "nothing to see here." Either way, mindboggling that you think this line of argument makes even a little bit of sense.

[intaglio]

54. No I was responding to another post

and still you have not addressed the big question -

"Where does observation become spying"

[LondonReign2]

56. I give up

Is it the butcher? Or the lady looking through her curtain?

[intaglio]

58. I'm asking you

If you do not know how on earth do you expect anyone else to know?

[LondonReign2]

59. But I don't know, I thought you did

It is the butcher? The baker? Or the candlestick maker? Please please tell me because now I want to know which of these is just like the NSA

[intaglio]

64. My point, which you continue to ignore is

you cannot draw hard and fast lines except between metadata and content or envelopes and contents.

Sometimes what your neighbours are doing amounts to to spying on you.

Sometimes the neighbourhood cop is nosy sometimes he is detecting or solving crime.

Sometimes the toll camera is only that, at others it is a search and rescue tool or a tool for spotting criminals.

[LondonReign2]

65. Damn neighbors!

Is that the answer? It's the neighbors looking out their window as you walk down the street that are JUST LIKE THE NSA?

I had no idea.

[intaglio]

67. Ok, avoid discussion and good luck with any business careet you might have. n/t

[LondonReign2]

70. You're not going to tell me the answer?

But you've worked so hard here to pooh pooh the NSA programs, pointing out how remarkably similar they are to buying meat at the butcher.

[Hissyspit]

11. Businesses are not the same as the government.

[intaglio]

17. No they're worse.

If only business is allowed to collect such data how long before they start selling the information to the Government? How long before they start to manipulate it to influence the Government and the people?

If the Government has no way to correct the data given to them by business, what happens to your freedoms?

[Egnever]

88. +1 Bazillion

The potential for abuse is certainly equally as bad if not far worse.

[Pholus]

13. Strangely, your "Bombes" were directed at an actual enemy.

Not at their own population. That is a crucial difference.

Analyzing the US population metadata by default makes every US citizen a suspect without probable cause. That, of course, is unconstitutional unless you want to split hairs on some legal definitions and then classify those interpretations as secrets to prevent them from being challenged. Kind of what the core situation here actually is.

By the way, let's kill your other canard too. Your shopkeeper? Talked to the police to divulge that information only when it became relevant.

These days, the state would like to notice that "Mr Brown" went missing itself by taking the commercial records and maintaining them itself:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/u-s-agencies-said-to-swap-data-with-thousands-of-firms.html

I'm with Orson Wells on when a policeman's job is easy.

[intaglio]

16. They handled data in a vast number of combinations

That is what they were designed to do no matter who the target.

Churchill tried to put the genie back in the bottle but by then it was too late.

Analysing metadata makes no-one a suspect unless you decide to check such data on a limited population. Finding patterns in that data might indicate that some individual could be investigated further.

Parallel - a road that normally passes traffic freely locks up. This is observed by overhead cameras. Is it spying to send a police car to see why?

Another parallel - a car is observed by cameras with number plate recognition entering a toll road but not exiting; is it spying to check if that car has got home or crashed whilst unobserved?

A third - letters are observed by postal workers addressed to Hassan Iz-al-Din in the Lebanon; should the bulk observation of addressees on many envelopes negate the chance to inspect those particular packages further?

It is complicated but blanket whining that "the gub'mint is spying on me myself alone" is nonsense and is all too often all that the complaints on DU amount too.

[HiPointDem]

20. blanket whining that "the gub'mint is spying on me myself alone" = please show me where

anyone said anything like that.

in fact, the 'whining' is that the government is spying ON EVERYONE.

[intaglio]

23. As demonstrated above it is not spying n/t

[HiPointDem]

24. you didn't demonstrate any such thing. you made a bunch of absurd comparisons.

[intaglio]

32. The comparisons are only absurd because you refuse to live in the present

Wide scale data gathering happens and it is legal. If you think it is not find a place to draw the line.

Government only restricted from looking at meta? Then all government computers and servers will have to be removed from the internet (and watch it crash).

Only businesses can aggregate the data? Then they'll sell it to government or they'll use it against government; businesses are not moral (except in the fantasies of Randroid groupies)

No analysis of source and destination meta? Then don't expect the internet to work at all.

No statistical data? Have fun fighting all of the major players whose businesses depend on such analysis

[JimDandy]

77. You are leaving out the obvious:

Government and private servers conduits only and no data, meta or content, kept after packet reaches the next node.

[intaglio]

79. No, they are not a series of tubes

or wires, they are computers and interact with data on every scale. Look up the term "Packet Switching"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_switching

Packet switching is a digital networking communications method that groups all transmitted data – regardless of content, type, or structure – into suitably sized blocks, called packets. First proposed for military uses in the early 1960s and implemented on small networks in 1968, this method of data transmission became one of the fundamental networking technologies behind the Internet and most local area networks.

If you don't trust Wikipedia (always a good idea) then you can check further for yourself. Packet switching technologies are also used by cell phones and now by most "conventional" phone networks.

[EOTE]

94. I can tell you that the internet is closer to a series of tubes than it is to whatever

mangled metaphor you've got cooking in your head. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, you're a very clear illustration of that. All the tortured analogies you're making don't even attempt to explain how the government collecting and analyzing so much of our data without consent isn't a horrific breach of our rights. Then again, you don't seem to actually want to explain anything, rather you seem very content to just use incredibly inappropriate metaphors as an attempt at justifying the inexcusable. Been seeing a lot of that lately around here.

[Pholus]

21. Your desire to protect and serve is admirable

but your examples are irrelevant to the point at hand.

Parallel 1 -- obviously not as the camera replaces the eyes of the law enforcement agent in monitoring a large, anonymous traffic flow.

Parallel 2 -- Why do they need to have a "number plate recognition" tool when a simple counter would do the same thing. Overreach and a waste of tax dollars IF it's only purpose is for safety. But that's the point. They always use "safety" as the tactic to get their foot in the door.

Parallel 3 -- Is there a warrant? You know, one issued on "probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Otherwise, there is no right. Nor does the government have the right to maintain some database of all deliveries outside of the USPS that can be searched on a whim. They can get off their otherwise lazy asses, get a warrant and then use the USPS's own computers to get their info if they can prove their case.

"Analysing metadata makes no-one a suspect unless you decide to check such data on a limited population. Finding patterns in that data might indicate that some individual could be investigated further."

Huh. Sounds like you created a suspect with your analysis then. And your "probable cause" was subject to the base rate fallacy meaning that it's quite probable an otherwise innocent person gets hassled. Right after 9/11, the FBI got a nice lesson on the base rate fallacy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/politics/17spy.html?oref=login

Who cares? Well, you see the local law enforcement types are rather "take no prisoners" types you see. And the consequences of a fuck up, well, suck:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor%27s_residence_drug_raid

So, no. They don't get to make us suspects without probable cause. It's illegitimate and they have no track record to justify the real costs that we have to pay.

By the way, in the absence of solid accomplishments, this is what passes for the justification for NSA surveillance:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/13/1215916/-Rewriting-history-before-our-very-eyes

In the end, he one thing that is true about your surveillance apparatus is that it is being abused. Even making leakers "enemies of the state" can't stop the stories from coming out. Of course, given the high penalties I expect much more of the worst abuses are still considered to sensitive for our tender eyes.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-nsa-can-abuse-data-on-americans-2013-7

[intaglio]

31. Number plate recognition

Can identify which cars enter a toll area and which cars cannot - without human intervention. They "see" a car has entered but not left the toll zone and bring that number with attendant licensing details to the attention of a human. Is this spying? Remember, before you answer that all of these details are available about any car entering the toll zone.

Does it become spying if a policeman calls at your home and asks what happened? Is it spying if they access your mobile phone account to see which cell your phone was in or even the last recorded GPS position if a smart phone? Should they wait for a court order? Should the ambulance arrive late?

The reason why I quoted the first example, of a dumb camera system, is to point out there are no hard distinctions to be drawn and, to take it further from your comfort zone many traffic cameras can now be retro-fitted with OCR so detailed information about your own travel easily available. Uncomfortable? Yes. Illegal or unConstitutional? No.

The third? It is not "self incrimination" because, the information on an envelope is publicly visible, published. Let's say you stand in front of a crowd and shout about how you are going to kill Mr Ecks and then Mr Ecks shows up dead, is that self incrimination? Metadata on an e-mail or internet request is published data i.e. publicly visible, and it has to be publicly visible else the internet does ... not ... work. A warrant is only needed to open the envelope or to look at what is behind the metadata.

[Pholus]

38. Ethics: If you collect data, be honest about the reason.

Your toll road example is nice, however, because it sharply points out where there is a difference between the collection of data for legitimate transactional reasons and the supposed "right" of the government to create a massive federation of all this information and then use that information in the absence of suspicion. It is pure moral cowardice to hide one behind the other.

I have a right to be left alone in my affairs -- that is what Griswold v. Connecticut guarantees. The toll road can, for operational reasons, record the license plate of scofflaws or for convenience it can use electronic trackers to enforce toll payments. Those reasons are obvious. Even your safety reason is justifiable I guess, though again the counter would be a better system. But what is the justification for video surveillance and license plate readers to create a permanent record of who obeyed the law and used the "cash only" lane then? Overreach and power trips and civil rights abuses...

Even when those records exists, there is no reason they should be shared outside of the relevant application. If I am suspected of a murder, the government has a limited right to that information from the toll road as long as they can demonstrate the relevance to a neutral third party. But other than that, there is NO legitimate reason that information should leave the servers of the transportation department.

Of course, that's the actual reason the government tries to shut down any challenges to those FISA blanket warrants with claims of national secrecy. It's also why the very legal opinions justifying their actions are classified. We all know they do not have a legal right to take everything and then troll it with software to try to predict our behavior, associates or loyalty. But if they can keep the knowledge that it is being done suppressed for just a few more years, then "we've always known its being done" will grandfather it in.

Certainly there are a few on DU who would make that claim that based on the 2005 allegations already. When this one dies down, the same people will make the claim the next time new and grander abuses manage to find their way into the light of day.

By the way, in your last bit, we were talking about the fourth, not the fifth amendment in the last part. In your model it is not self-incrimination if I accept a package (say 32 pounds of pot) delivered to me (or left on my door) because it is a public record -- go ask the Mayor of Berwyn Heights how that assumption worked out for him. If I have paid for a service from the post office and the government has no articulated reason to suspect me, they do not have a right to permanently record the transaction.

[KoKo]

47. Recommend read....

[intaglio]

57. Very true and, to me, the most disturbing part

At present this data is being gathered, essentially, "for the duration of the current emergency" and that I completely agree is wrong. There has to be a limitation especially as the data can be examined, pretty much, in real time. There will be a few cases where extended retention is requested for no good reason perhaps because of lack if data about the website or person concerned.

Equally there has to be court that is less of a secret tribunal than FISC.

[Pholus]

75. On that one, the disclosures from yesterday have at least one small plus...

That the retention period seems to have been no more than five years (at least in 2008).

Whether that was from 2008 limits on capability or some vestige of decency remains to be seen.

[GiaGiovanni]

85. Excellent post!

I wonder how many actually read the whole thing.

[EOTE]

98. Thanks for taking the time to post this.

The Berwyn Heights incident you cite is a horrifying example of government over reach. No one has been held to account in that awful raid and not only have police not apologized for it, but they said they'd do it again. And people here think the government needs MORE information on innocents. Sick.

[JoePhilly]

34. Good luck ...

But they're never going to get it.

Once some one decides that the "analysis of meta data = spying", there's little hope.

I've tried to explain that the records the phone companies keep are THEIR records, not OUR personal data. I've pointed out that depending on who your phone company is, you PAY THEM to provide you a list of who you called and for how long. Nothing says "not mine" more than having to purchase it. They still don't get it.

They don't get that the analysis of meta data is neither good, nor evil. Its just a technique that has been used by scientists since science itself began.

They also get confused because they think that the analysis of the meta data associated with a specific individual is the same as the analysis of meta data associated with large groups or populations. The NSA has to get different types of warrants for those 2 uses of meta data. But good luck explaining that difference to the folks who don't (or intentionally won't) understand the difference.

And then articles like the one on the OP help increase their confusion. The article correctly notes that the meta data about YOU can be used to find out a great deal about you. But to be allowed to do that type of analysis, the NSA needs a warrant that is specific to you.

The media has a vested interest in all this ... outrage generates eyeballs ... and the term "meta data" is boring ... but "spying" is scary.

[G_j]

18. K&R

[xchrom]

22. du rec.

[Electric Monk]

25. easy to tell which woman became my wife

[jberryhill]

33. Next thing you know, the government will be keeping track

...of who is married to whom.

Why, they even migh set up government offices to register who is married to whom.

And then, before you know it, they'll be collecting that information on tax forms sent directly to the government!

[Pholus]

39. Yes, all that "harmless" information...

Funny you should use that example...a buddy was denied a security clearance because his estranged father he hadn't seen in 10 years had married two illegal immigrants since the last time they talked.

Bet those government offices got used then, huh.

[jberryhill]

43. How interesting that they told him the reason for the denial

So, the problem with secret government record keeping is that it can be used to deny people the ability to engage in secret government record keeping? I'm not sure you appreciate the irony of your complaint concerning your buddy, but I do find it unusual that the reason for denial would be given to him.

However, the notion stated in the OP, that the government can figure out to whom one is married, is pretty funny. Why, the next thing you'll tell me is that the government can figure out which automobiles are registered to whom.

[Electric Monk]

60. ok then, what about your mistress? You seem to have missed my blatantly obvious point. nt

[Shivering Jemmy]

29. There is nothing to be done about it

Ban any kind of data collection and you'll just have someone whip up a new information fusion algorithm to replace the lost data

[HiPointDem]

30. yes we are helpless before their mighty power, so we may as well submit

[Shivering Jemmy]

45. Submit or don't. The end result is the same.

Your strategy is wrong. Pick a better way to resist than passing a law.

You can't ban every algorithm that comes along. So what will you do?

[treestar]

36. Really? Trying to flog this as much worse than it is?

Who your family is? That is something that is well known and has been since the dawn of society. Do you never see your friends in public? Is it such a big secret who your friends are?

[LondonReign2]

48. K&R

[felix_numinous]

71. K&R We are being profiled

and anyone who cannot see this by now won't change their opinion unless a Republican got elected president. There is already enough evidence.

I think enough people know what's going on to pressure our reps. and keep speaking out.

Yes--we live in a digital age where our personal information can be accessed. But instead of just sitting back and allowing this information to be used against us, we need laws to protect us against profiling--and being treated like suspects and not innocent citizens.

[JimDandy]

76. We knew this intuitively

but having software to show this visually would be a powerful tool for the doubters, on-the-fencers and "nothing-to-hiders".

[GiaGiovanni]

78. K & R

.