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In reply to the discussion: The Latest Snowden Leak Is Devastating to NSA Defenders [View all]hughee99
(16,113 posts)A few seconds ago, you said that they couldn't even tell if randome16@gmail.com was a US citizen, now they're going to care enough to find out exactly who it is? I'm calling bullshit on that. You can argue one side or the other, but not both.
If you're in the NSA and have an interest in someone's communications, walk down to an internet cafe or public library, create an email strawman@gmail.com, and send lolcats to both an NSA target and your target. Now your anonymous strawman account is node 2 in a 3 node collection warrant, and your target is node 3. Who cares if the NSA has your anonymous email in their collection, do you think they have the resources to figure out who created it?
As far as breaking laws and regulations, I think it's pretty clear they work on their own sort of system over at the NSA, and while it might be illegal (and I'm not even sure that it is) you'd almost never be able to prove it.