Senator Feinstein Admits the NSA Taps the Internet Backbone

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/09/senator_feinste.html

by antsar • 13 years ago

106 20 13 years ago

devx• 13 years ago

Throw her in a federal prison for "hurting national security" and for being a "spy and traitor". Fortunately, she didn't manage to "defect" to some of US' enemies - like Russia - so it should be easy enough to arrest her and keep her there for a year before we come up with a solid list of charges.

Oh - what say you? She's a Senator that has immunity and can't be imprisoned for leaking NSA's classified information? Well, that's great news! I expect a lot more senators to come forward with other juicy classified NSA information then...

frank_boyd• 13 years ago

So this should make her a terrrerist then.

HarryHirsch• 13 years ago

In a way this is true. If anyone can come up with a definition of terrorism, it's causing an outrage for political purpose. The Snowden revelations and the subsequent revelations have certainly changed the political landscape, just like the Red Army Faction did back then, consequently, yes, Sen. Feinstein qualifies.

venomsnake• 13 years ago

So was Nixon with the pulled out his ass war on drugs. And Tipper Gore for the "metal hurts our kids".

_bfhp• 13 years ago

She also apparently doesn't even understand the NSA violations that she was trying to talk about [1]

[1] http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/09/27/whoa-whoa-whoa-stop-dia...

j-g-faustus• 13 years ago

I was struck by this part:

"FEINSTEIN: [...] upstream collection [...] comprises about 10 percent of all collection that takes place under 702, and occurs when NSA obtains Internet communications, such as e-mails, from certain U.S. companies that operate the Internet [backbone]"

If vacuuming the internet backbone is only 10% of the data they collect, where the hell do they find enough data to fill the remaining 90%?

Phone calls/SMS? Banks/payments? Encryption they can't break, so they have to ask the endpoint, like Lavabit?

pyre• 13 years ago

It's possible that this is a misunderstanding of terms. It seems reasonable that when the NSA pulls up all data on a single person only 10% of it comes from the Internet firehose, and the other 90% comes from Facebook/Google/etc. They may be sucking up all of the Internet, but are not able to correlate is to a person 100% of the time in an automated fashion.

o0-0o• 13 years ago

Liberal Senatrix from Cali that says, "The chase is on" while referring to Snowden.

What a fat, disgusting, old hypocrite.

cscurmudgeon• 13 years ago

Really?

whyenot• 13 years ago

I know some people have very strong feeling about her, but come on, HN used to be better than this. Criticize what she has done, not her appearance / age.

contingencies• 13 years ago

I'm willing to overlook people's self image related qualms with this post on account of how impressed I am by the neologism Senatrix. Hilarious! More like this :)

bsullivan01• 13 years ago

She's an opportunist scumbag. Usually the liberal (and libertarian) ones are against a surveillance state, but she has no core, no backbone.

bediger4000• 13 years ago

Or perhaps she's been compromised: Apparently, ex-California Representative Jane Harman made an appearance on a NSA wiretap (http://www.salon.com/2009/04/20/harman/). If you read that Salon article, after getting caught dealing with AIPAC, AG Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez intervened, and Rep Harman went on to "became probably the most crucial defender of the Bush warrantless eavesdropping program".

To be 100% fair here, it sounds like some ethics and accountability offices did want to have Harman prosecuted, but the Bush administration intervened to get Harman off the hook. Apparently they went on to use that as leverage on Harman.

So, it's been done before. The results looked like what Feinstein is doing now.

mmagin• 13 years ago

Even back as far as when she was mayor of San Francisco, it's not clear that she was particularly liberal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianne_Feinstein#Mayor_of_San_...

warmfuzzykitten• 13 years ago

I doubt she has any idea what an internet backbone is.

thrownaway2424• 13 years ago

Nobody does, because it's not a thing which exists.

hnriot• 13 years ago

Sure it is. Ever hear of routers and fiber cables and switches ...

weland• 13 years ago

She has no idea what a backbone is, of any kind.

icecreampain• 13 years ago

At this point, I'll believe anything about US spying, no matter how ludicrous. If someone told me that the NSA has spent billions setting up spying stations on Mars and Pluto, I'd figure that it seems like a really small amount compared to how many tax dollars they COULD have spent building bases there.

javajosh• 13 years ago

Don't talk to the police, because it strips away your 5th amendment protection against self-incrimination. [1]

Under the NSA's universal surveillance regime, you are always talking to the police.

So, not only does PRISM, etc violate the 1st and 4th amendments, but it makes the 5th amendment all but useless. I mean, I guess I'm okay with shredding the constitution if that's what the majority of american's want, but something tells me they don't want that.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

Senator Feinstein Admits the NSA Taps the Internet Backbone

Related Stories