Obama's Secret Terrorist-Tracking System, by the Numbers

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/08/05/watch-commander/

by couchand • 12 years ago

176 35 12 years ago

firstlook.org

undata• 12 years ago

How depressing.

pvnick• 12 years ago

I just love the label they used for the No Recognized Terrorist Group Affiliation on that graph.

cranklin• 12 years ago

UTF-8 art

pserwylo• 12 years ago

And yesterday Australia announced that it will be pushing ahead with an ISP level data retention scheme in the name of fighting terrorism [0]. This is after last year explicitly asking for feedback on the proposal to retain Australian's internet history, and receiving countless concerned letters from the community (along with security agencies who were pushing for data retention) [1].

I suspect in a decade or so that we will also have a similar chart as this post [2].

[0] http://www.zdnet.com/abbott-brings-on-mandatory-data-retenti...

[1] http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Hous...

[2] - Only an order of magnitude smaller due to our population difference.

contingencies• 12 years ago

Yes. Results of the poll on the Sydney Morning Herland article http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/data-s... visible at http://imgur.com/u71Keqs - 97% oppose mass surveillance.

Our 'democracy' has become non-representational. I'm honestly considering quitting my job, returning to Australia and joining the Wikileaks party.

angersock• 12 years ago

thanks obama

frede• 12 years ago

These revelations are too new to be from Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald and Bruce Schneier suspect a second leaker.

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/485081861119832064

ser_ocelot• 12 years ago

The article never claims that the documents are from Snowden. There is likely one or more new whistleblowers leaking documents post-Snowden: this series of articles from The Intercept, the stories in the German press last month, and Jacob Applebaum's TAO Catalog presentation last year.

Justen• 12 years ago

So does the gov't: http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/05/politics/u-s-new-leaker/index....

rdtsc• 12 years ago

Yap. This is exciting. Just like one bad thing about Snowden (and Binney) was that if public was not outraged enough, it would actually make things worse. As those who administer these programs will just get bolder and expand them. It it a little too early to decide if this effect it taking place.

But one good thing is (and I've said this before in relation to the whistleblowers) is that it will encourage more whistleblowers.

One of the apparent requirements for working at many of these 3 letter agencies is patriotism. If you show patriotism, you are a good candidate. They will spend money training you technical things, but they can't train you to be a patriot and love your country. The "problem" with such patriots is that they actually take to heart things like "Constitution", "Privacy", "Freedom" and so on. The hope of the agency is that with enough brainwashing and threats of loss of job, imprisonment, etc., these values would move to the background.

The "pragmatics" on top understand that those concepts are just there for propaganda. It is the sys admins and other mid-level analysts that might actually believe, and might just pull a Snowden so to speak once in a while.

NSA understood this and immediately went into self-preservation mode. They probably never even thought along the lines of "OMG we have let the public down, we have screwed up, etc etc.", rather they saw it as, we are not threatening and controlling our employees enough. So instead of spying less on our own citizens, we should institute "no-lone-zones" (like nuclear silos have), so you are together with an accountabil-a-buddy who is supposed to snitch on you if you do something silly.

dan_bk2• 12 years ago

This is exciting.

Not really convinced about that. What's important/exciting should be what we do about it, not how many messengers we have. We really have enough information by now to know what's at stake. Meanwhile, if you remember a couple of months back, the NSA sent out an internal memo stating that they simply intend to "winter the storm", and that seems to be what's happening until now (besides a few more or less symbolical proposals from the gov't).

[...] it will encourage more whistleblowers.

Not convinced either. Again, we already know that deep changes would be needed. Also, whistleblowers, in this case, are obviously ready to die for their cause. There are not many people like that. And the World's support for people like Snowden has been completely absent or at least appallingly weak. And then, there's the fact that the NSA is currently in a huge lock-down process, which makes me think we won't see another Snowden, when this is done. That's why I believe, either there is change now or pretty much never.

infinotize• 12 years ago

The article indicates many states are beginning to supply federal agencies with biometric data including driver's license photographs. It also states a local police force (the NYPD) was a customer of a facial recognition system.

How long until central databases are collecting datapoints on our whereabouts at all times, not only from mobile devices, but just the image of our faces?

I don't think the founders [US-centric post, but I think this applies to most technologically-advanced nations] envisioned this type of surveillance, and thus offered little protection against it. As the technology to employ this type of capability becomes simpler and cheaper, potential resistance in the form of court processes and public opinion will be comparitively slow to form. This will get a lot worse before it gets better.

justizin• 12 years ago

"How long until central databases are collecting datapoints on our whereabouts at all times, not only from mobile devices, but just the image of our faces?"

this is a fine question - the DHS has proposed a project with the City of Oakland to prototype just such a thing, described as a combination of NSA surveillance and stop & frisk, which they call the Domain Awareness Center. Originally targeted at the port post 9/11, it has grown to be a prototype of a citywide surveillance system that ties local and national authorities together closer than ever before.

It's not in place yet, and stopping it in Oakland, where all politics are driven by law enforcement / public safety policy, despite decades of data that show pouring money into the police department has not reduced crime, may be a good way to at least delay this across the country.

anigbrowl2• 12 years ago

You're a few months out of date. Plans for this have been scaled back to the portage areas: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2014/03/05/...

While I share your dislike of the program, it's important to look at the overall scope rather just the government one. After all, you could build a pretty good automatic photo identification system on top of Facebook.

oceanstone• 12 years ago

How long until central databases are collecting datapoints on our whereabouts at all times, not only from mobile devices, but just the image of our faces?

Check out TrapWire: http://www.zdnet.com/wikileaks-uncovers-trapwire-surveillanc...

Ntrails2• 12 years ago

Slightly off topic, but I am curious and don't understand, why do you care what the founders did or did not envision? You live in a democracy, where you elect people to govern the country in a way that suits the majority of the population.

The way I see it, these issues aren't about what someone 250(?) years ago wanted, but what the people who are alive today want. If their views outweigh those of the electorate today, is it even still a democracy?

hooliganned• 12 years ago

Because when government no longer represents the people, the constitution is supposed to be a final stopgap.

dalek_cannes• 12 years ago

Because democracy without an underlying system of values is indistinguishable from a tyranny by the majority (in other words, it cannot be two foxes and a hen voting on what's for dinner). That underlying system of values, as I understand, is the constitution. A law can be unconstitutional even if the entirety of congress votes in favor. While specific needs of American society have changed, I don't believe the values espoused by the US founders have changed a great deal over the past two centuries.

Disclaimer: not an American.

ctdonath• 12 years ago

Methinks the "killer app" for Google Glass et al is automatic face recognition and dossier summary display (look at someone, and a "bubble" of information is shown above them); unavoidable when its time comes, and will be exploited by those already data-mining all kinds of app usage.

courtneypowell• 12 years ago

Take a look at this article's analysis on whether or not the 'Founding Fathers' would have been for or against the type of surveillance we are now seeing.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/01/29/if_george_w...

jessaustin• 12 years ago

The CIA uses a previously unknown program, code-named Hydra, to secretly access databases maintained by foreign countries and extract data to add to the watchlists.

Hmmm, this seems like a pretty obvious vulnerability. When's the last time the CIA actually did something "secretly"? (Oooh, how would we know? Actually the last time they did something un-secretly was like a month ago, so there's a bound of sorts.) So if you do something to piss off the spooks in e.g. Russia or Israel, expect to be entered into their troll-the-CIA database, soon thereafter to be Hydra-ed into Obama's special uncategorizable tracking system.

diafygi• 12 years ago

https://prod01-cdn02.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/20...

¯\(ツ)/¯

colinbartlett• 12 years ago

"Directorate of Terrorist Identities (DTI)" sounds like something right out of a dystopian novel.

chopin• 12 years ago

Like "Ministry of Truth"?

chiph• 12 years ago

Minitrue prevents crimethink.

padobson• 12 years ago

Well this is no big deal, I'll just vote for a guy in the next election who will dismantle this system... oh wait.

rickisen• 12 years ago

They called the system Hydra? Really? Seams like some agents read too much Marvell comics

pessimizer2• 12 years ago

Or Greek mythology, rather.

TeMPOraL• 12 years ago

At least they're showing us their true faces.

Obama's Secret Terrorist-Tracking System, by the Numbers

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