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dkf

(37,305 posts)

27. Isn't that the "backdoor loophole" Wyden has been speaking of?

Sat Aug 17, 2013, 02:28 PM

Aug 2013

"While the FAA 702 minimization procedures approved on 3 October 2011 now allow for use of certain United States person names and identifiers as query terms when reviewing collected FAA 702 data," the glossary states, "analysts may NOT/NOT [not repeat not] implement any USP [US persons] queries until an effective oversight process has been developed by NSA and agreed to by DOJ/ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence]."

The term "identifiers" is NSA jargon for information relating to an individual, such as telephone number, email address, IP address and username as well as their name.

The document – which is undated, though metadata suggests this version was last updated in June 2012 – does not say whether the oversight process it mentions has been established or whether any searches against US person names have taken place.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/09/nsa-loophole-warrantless-searches-email-calls

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How does "data may be queried only when there is a reasonable suspicion" = 20 million/month? [View all] dkf Aug 2013 OP

Back in June, I wasn't that far off in my upper estimate of NSA profiling of 90 million callers/mo. leveymg Aug 2013 #1

For scale, a couple decades ago their were about 1 billion domestic phone calls per day FarCenter Aug 2013 #13

Thank you.nt pnwmom Aug 2013 #42

Could it be "Super low bar on 'reasonable suspicion?' " DirkGently Aug 2013 #2

How many analysts do they have that determine reasonable suspicion? dkf Aug 2013 #4

The system is largely automated. The profiling software determines who's call gets assigned to an leveymg Aug 2013 #6

Problem with "standards" applied without scrutiny is DirkGently Aug 2013 #7

Looking at the math they'd need 427 actual analysts dickthegrouch Aug 2013 #56

Cause the queries to suspission ratio could be 1 supect to n number of queries but I'm sure uponit7771 Aug 2013 #3

Well you're right about one thing... ljm2002 Aug 2013 #34

and that's only Ft. Meade headquarters and nearby facilities. liberal_at_heart Aug 2013 #5

Good point. nt Demo_Chris Aug 2013 #8

The definition of "reasonable suspicion" equates to "breathing"? Yo_Mama Aug 2013 #9

Bingo. Th1onein Aug 2013 #58

You are now under suspicion dkf. signed the NSA PowerToThePeople Aug 2013 #10

The thought has occurred. Scary. dkf Aug 2013 #11

They can query foreign communications data a hundred million times a month if they want. randome Aug 2013 #12

Sure if they can separate that out...which we both know they can't. dkf Aug 2013 #15

Huh? Of course they can. randome Aug 2013 #19

No they guess at the "foreignness". If it were that precise they wouldn't have any US data. dkf Aug 2013 #21

That doesn't mean 20 million people gollygee Aug 2013 #14

Doesn't each query touch the entire database? dkf Aug 2013 #16

What does that have to do with anything? gollygee Aug 2013 #17

No...each message is data in the universe. dkf Aug 2013 #18

No gollygee Aug 2013 #22

I work with databases all the time. dkf Aug 2013 #24

I also work with databases gollygee Aug 2013 #25

Isn't that the "backdoor loophole" Wyden has been speaking of? dkf Aug 2013 #27

I don't think that is how it works. Very inefficient for one thing, and efficiency matters a lot. nt bemildred Aug 2013 #20

How else would a query work. It obviously needs a specified universe. dkf Aug 2013 #23

I don't know what the NSA does, or any spooks, but I know a good deal about databases. bemildred Aug 2013 #26

Which is why the government is at the forefront in developing ways to handle uber data. dkf Aug 2013 #28

Right, massive parallelism can help, but only with partitionable queries. bemildred Aug 2013 #31

True, but cross link a name, IP address, email, phone #s, etc together and isn't that one query? dkf Aug 2013 #35

Again I don't know, but if it was me ... bemildred Aug 2013 #38

Okay I hear you...I run (and must sometimes debug) several custom SQL programs dkf Aug 2013 #44

Please see post #41, I think that's the point. bemildred Aug 2013 #46

Like I posted earlier, they were using it in Iraq to predict attacks and I imagine unrest. dkf Aug 2013 #48

That's what they claim. So you believe them now? nt bemildred Aug 2013 #50

Originally I didn't understand why this would be of interest in times of chaos. dkf Aug 2013 #53

It's pretty messy. bemildred Aug 2013 #54

Your partioning point is a good one. randome Aug 2013 #29

Yes, I used to just wallow in this stuff, back in the 80s and 90s. nt bemildred Aug 2013 #32

Also this: NSA establishes $60 million data analytics lab at NC State Published: August 15, 2013 Up dkf Aug 2013 #30

Yes, no doubt. bemildred Aug 2013 #36

Well we both know many advances have been made through defense research. dkf Aug 2013 #37

This is computing theory, performance theory, it's math. Finite math. They aren't going to fix it. bemildred Aug 2013 #39

Unfortunately they found in Iraq that the more data they added the better the predictive capability dkf Aug 2013 #40

That's not math, is it? bemildred Aug 2013 #41

No...they were using it to predict things too. dkf Aug 2013 #45

Well, I have to go, nice chat. nt bemildred Aug 2013 #47

Yes! Appreciate it. dkf Aug 2013 #49

The algos they use in the US probably track the Dow. The CIA has been working on this sort of thing leveymg Aug 2013 #51

If so that puts a new spin on Fed actions. dkf Aug 2013 #55

I'm sure until recently, anyway, the point has been to stay well away from red lines. leveymg Aug 2013 #57

That is an excellent question... ljm2002 Aug 2013 #33

Greenwald, Ron Paul, ACLU Bad! Spying Good NoOneMan Aug 2013 #43

I thought it was explained pretty well in the article bhikkhu Aug 2013 #52