NSA's Surveillance Powers Extend Far Beyond Counterterrorism

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/nsas-surveillance-powers-extend-far-beyond-terrorism-despite-governments

by sethbannon • 13 years ago

145 36 13 years ago

eff.org

ffrryuu2• 13 years ago

Industrial espionage + attacking political opponents + labeling whistleblower as crazy and commit them to the hospital.

selimthegrim2• 13 years ago

Sounds sufficiently Soviet to me.

ffrryuu2• 13 years ago

We hate them because they remind us of ourselves.

bediger40002• 13 years ago

I'd say we will know the NSA's data is getting used when some up-and-coming political figures get sent back down due to revelations about weird porno habits, or other internet-related pecadilloes.

Or maybe when we notice an entire generation does not have any representative leaders in national US politics. Only old farts, whose predilections were exercized pre-Intenet, remain. Hmmm.....

CamperBob22• 13 years ago

Already happened, although it wasn't the NSA in particular. Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Spitzer_prostitution_scan... . Gee, I feel safer already.

alexeisadeski3• 13 years ago

A world without Spitzer is in fact safer...

bediger40002• 13 years ago

How do we know the NSA wasn't involved? Perhaps Spitzer is on the business end of a "parallel construction".

That's the problem with Secret Evidence, obtained by illegal means. How can we be sure that the Secret Evidence wasn't used to start a parallel construction?

Zoomla• 13 years ago

or when politicians don't execute their promises after being elected.

einehexe• 13 years ago

This is a classic strawman that the EFF sets up to easily knock down. No one in their right mind thinks that the sole purpose of the NSA is terrorism. All American interests are to be looked after. The NSA unilaterily disarming would be a dream come true to many, mostly those who would like to see the West decline.

sinak• 13 years ago

From my conversations with friends and family, I think many people think that the NSA's sole purpose is to fight terrorism. That thinking has been reinforced by the NSA and the administration repeatedly claiming that NSA surveillance is justified because it prevents terrorist attacks. If not the "sole" purpose, in the least they think it's the NSA's "main" purpose.

But the main point of the article is that the Obama administration justifies surveillance by saying it's critical to preventing terrorism, but that surveillance is being used for many many purposes beyond just counterterrorism, making it a poor case.

mpyne4• 13 years ago

But the main point of the article is that the Obama administration justifies surveillance by saying it's critical to preventing terrorism, but that surveillance is being used for many many purposes beyond just counterterrorism, making it a poor case.

Being useful for one major thing doesn't mean that a tool is not also useful for other things. You can in fact point out as many other minor things as you wish, but that doesn't invalidate (by itself) the usefulness for the major task. So I don't see EFF's point here.

In fact that was the point I was about to make before screening the comments: "Of course NSA's powers extend beyond simple counterterrorism, who is claiming otherwise? Did they not read even a synopsis of the relevant law?"

saraid216• 13 years ago

No one in their right mind thinks that the sole purpose of the NSA is terrorism.

There are a lot of people on HN who think that the sole purpose of the NSA is terrorism. Most of these people can't be bothered to visit the front page of nsa.gov.

jlgreco• 13 years ago

Should we not commend the EFF for correcting this misconception?

fit2rule• 13 years ago

Well then you know .. with that position .. you are invoking the Imperial clause, and the age of Sovereignty of the individual is over. We are such fodder, given your terms, for master plans. Indeed: chattel.

dreamdu5t• 13 years ago

Bingo. The real crux of the NSA issue isn't about privacy, or "checks and balances", it's about individual sovereignty and the fundamental question of the legitimacy of government.

selimthegrim2• 13 years ago

So who's in your rogue's gallery of enemies of freedom(TM) and justice(TM)? Inquiring minds....

betterunix2• 13 years ago

"No one in their right mind thinks that the sole purpose of the NSA is terrorism."

Funny how the government keeps bringing up terrorism when people ask why the NSA is violating our privacy rights. Why is the government not pointing to all those other important American interests the NSA is protecting?

bane2• 13 years ago

Because fighting commies isn't as sexy as it used to be.

unclebucknasty5• 13 years ago

Actually, the strawman here is your assertion that the NSA has set up a strawman.

Let's not forget that this article was prompted by the NSA's universal, "because, terrorism" answer to virtually every "uncomfortable" question about its secret activities aimed at Americans.

webreac• 13 years ago

Terrorism and paedophilia are the usual scapegoats to justify unacceptable policies.

betterunix2• 13 years ago

You forgot drugs, witchcraft, etc. Whatever the uneducated masses are irrationally afraid of will be used by those in power to justify their abuses.

smokeyj• 13 years ago

If I could spy on anyone, I'd game the market, subvert the rule of law, and declare all my competitors terrorists. That is the American way.

justinschuh2• 13 years ago

Here's NSA's own statement on their SIGINT mission:

"The National Security Agency is responsible for providing foreign Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) to our nation's policy-makers and military forces. SIGINT plays a vital role in our national security by providing America's leaders with critical information they need to defend our country, save lives, and advance U.S. goals and alliances globally."

http://www.nsa.gov/sigint/

Now, it's not an accident that "policy-makers" comes first in that sentence. The truth is that the vast majority of productized intelligence is used solely to inform policy-makers in a capacity that will never lead to any form of military or clandestine intervention. Yes, operational uses certainly do exist, but they are not the norm.

Unfortunately, you won't find a government spokesman or politician coming out and admitting that in most cases, because it's a complicated and nuanced position. Instead of having that conversation (and risking both ignorant and informed criticism) they take the cynical approach of framing it as something that's hard to argue with. For many decades it was defending against the communists, and since 2001 it's been protection against terrorism.

So, articles like this one are the unavoidable result of avoiding a difficult conversation. That's why the public at large (and even many supposed experts) have entirely the wrong idea about why nations collect foreign intelligence.

sillysaurus22• 13 years ago

That's why the public at large (and even many supposed experts) have entirely the wrong idea about why nations collect foreign intelligence.

If you have the right idea, then why not share it here? It'd be a valuable comment, and I'd like to hear your point of view.

justinschuh2• 13 years ago

I'm not sure I understand your question. Nations conduct foreign intelligence primarily to inform policy makers in ways that help them further their own national interests. The majority of the time, doing so doesn't involve military or clandestine intervention. The specific reasons are as varied as nations and national interests. It could be as a diplomacy tool, to identify strategic areas for investment, to make informed decisions about trade policy and treaties, or just to keep track of what's going on in the rest of the world.

unclebucknasty5• 13 years ago

Unfortunately, you won't find a government spokesman or politician coming out and admitting that in most cases...

IMO these overstatements of threat are far less benign than that. I believe they know that the true scope and scale of their secret surveillance activities can only be justified using extreme scare tactics, such as the threat of terrorism. I believe this is true even if the American public was in full understanding of whatever nuanced policy benefits actually resulted for the citizenry as a whole.

That is, the problem may well be that the benefits do not accrue to the general populace, but to a much narrower set of vested interests. So, if Americans knew fully and exactly who benefited and to what degree, they may find that said benefits for the general populace do not justify the NSA's "attack" on the general populace.

So, this is not about avoiding a nuanced conversation. It's that the the measures themselves have been turned against the U.S. citizenry such that the benefits of the resulting policy decisions do not outweigh the affront to privacy and Constitutional rights. If these affronts cannot be justified even while they are turning their powers against the very people who are supposed to be the beneficiaries, then we must naturally ask the question "then whose interests are really being served here?"

That is the real conversation that they wish to avoid.

Further evidence of the dissonance is revealed when you consider the NSA SIGINT mission statement you provided. It's a very generic statement that wouldn't cause concern given what we knew and expected of the NSA's actual activities (i.e. prior to the Snowden leaks). It's only when you realize the fuller scale of NSA activity and its targeting of the broader U.S. population that this statement seems woefully inadequate to justify the attendant activities.

mpyne4• 13 years ago

It's only when you realize the fuller scale of NSA activity and its targeting of the broader U.S. population that this statement seems woefully inadequate to justify the attendant activities.

I've not even seen evidence that NSA is actually targeting the greater American population though. The issue is that NSA has expanded the scope of what they look at, and made it easier for their analysts to get away with assuming someone is not an "USPER". That obviously carries a greater risk of lumping Americans into that net where they wouldn't have before, but no one (not even Snowden, AFAICS) has been able to demonstrate the NSA is actually trying to deliberately target Americans with any of this.

bane2• 13 years ago

Of course it does, Counterterrorism is one of many missions it must undertake. It's not like the NSA was set up during the Cold War when terrorism was barely a policy making blip on anybody's radar or anything.

In other words, Spy Agency does Spying, news at 11.

NSA's Surveillance Powers Extend Far Beyond Counterterrorism

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