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...but that's like... not at all what the documents Edward Snowden released said?
Are you sure? What, exactly, was XKEYSCORE searching? What was PRISM collecting? Why did James Clapper lie to congress, and what was that lie about? As a bonus question, please also explain what LOVEINT is and how it could possibly become a problem in a system that rigorously enforced warrant requirements for accessing surveillance data.
I did most of this long long long ago at the old old old place and in other posts. But I'll reiterate some specifics:
Databases with information in them. This is like asking, "What are forks for?" and expecting that people are going to infer that caniballism is going on. It makes you sound really bizarre.
Data from specific selection terms for foreign intelligence targets. We had a very nice PCLOB report and everything on this. It detailed how it worked. Please educate yourself.
Because the question required a classified answer, but he was in a public forum, so he provided the correct, classified answer to them via a secure channel afterward.
That's two questions, but you're not really about accuracy, are you? Perhaps I'll leave this to you, because the first is so obvious that even AI slop would suffice (and you know it), while the latter is just you wanting to advertise some personal policy preference rather than having anything to do with the facts at hand. So, by all means, advocate away. Just don't think that anything you've said here changes what facts are actually in evidence.
Nice social shaming attempt, but in this case it is closer to asking "Why do you have those forks marked 'for long pig only'". But furthermore, if this was an exam, this answer would get zero points, akin to responding with "words" when asked what a certain book has written in it. Where did that information came from? What is that information? Does it contain domestic communications?
This also gets a loud incorrect buzzer - hell, even wikipedia explains this shit more clearly than your evasive non-answer. But thankfully, due to good people like Ed Snowden, we can just go read the internal documents about it. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data Maybe you just weren't educated about what the program actually does, but a part of the correct answer would be "Email, Video/voice chat, Photos, stored data, VOIP, file transfers, video conferencing, activity notifications, social networking details and special requests".
I'm sure that your alternative approach of asking someone accused of bad behavior if they did it and then just believing them in the face of contradictory evidence might be useful somewhere else though!
Behold, I am about to violate classification regulations and post classified content that cannot be posted in a public forum - you may wish to avert your eyes if you're a federal employee who isn't qualified to read this private, sensitive information:
"Yes."
That's all he would have had to say to avoid lying. He didn't provide a correct, classified answer to them in a secure channel afterward, and we know this because we can just ask Ron Wyden about it.
"After the NSA Director declined to correct these statements, I put the question to the Director of National Intelligence in March 2013. I wouldn’t have been doing my job if I hadn’t asked that question. My staff and I spent weeks preparing it, and I had my staff send him the question in advance so that he would be prepared to answer it.
Director Clapper famously gave an untrue answer to that question. So I had my intelligence staffer call his office afterward and ask them to correct the record. The Director’s office refused to correct the record. Regardless of what was going through the director’s head when he testified, failing to correct the record was a deliberate decision to lie to the American people about what their government was doing. And within a few months, of course, the truth came out."
Ok, sure - I'll answer! LOVEINT refers to NSA analysts using their domestic surveillance capability to spy on and monitor the communications of their loved ones and partners. Maybe 100% of all NSA employees are actually dating foreign nationals and legitimate surveillance targets, but I doubt it. The reason I bring up LOVEINT is that by virtue of the problem existing at all it shows that the warrant requirements aren't being applied and domestic communications are being collected - if the surveillance panopticon was functioning with the restrictions and rules that you are implying, it could never actually be a problem. But it is a problem, and the fact that it is means that the system is capable of abuse and is actively being abused.
Of course while LOVEINT is bad, the corrupt surveillance of the Trump campaign, including when he was President Elect, was far more serious - and incredibly convincing evidence that these systems need to be destroyed and everyone involved fired from the government and criminally prosecuted. Mind you, I'm not saying that SIGINT doesn't deserve to exist - but if your local police force has been completely infiltrated by the mafia and is helping criminals rather than stopping them, "Well we can't do anything about it because we need police" is not a convincing argument.
Which forks are those? You have a citation for those markings, right?
...for who? That answer will be precisely what I said. You get an even louder incorrect buzzer. Please educate yourself.
This is a lie. Note that when you quote the phrase
he means, "Correct the public record". Which means putting classified information in the public record. Which is illegal.
There are strategies put in place to discover these things. When discovered, those people get fired and prosecuted. Can you design a system that "functions with the restrictions and rules"... with absolutely zero possible failures? If you can, you can make a bundle of money, because everyone wants this. Just give it to us. We'll pay you an insane amount of money.
Then just tell us how to do it better! Make tons of money by telling us how to magically design these systems!
Perhaps. I've seen some serious suggestions for how to improve the systems that are in place. Do you have any? Or are you just bitching and lying about the facts that are in evidence?
The data included domestic communications from American citizens, and it comes from the companies listed in the slide. You're the one trying to claim that this data doesn't include domestic communications, and the reason you have so much trouble answering this question in an earnest way is that the answer destroys your position.
I'm going to trust Ron Wyden over an anonymous person on the internet when it comes to matters directly involving whether something was said to Ron Wyden or not. Do you have any evidence behind this claim?
Even if these strategies had a 100% success rate (which I highly doubt)... them getting caught and reprimanded does nothing to address the point that the fact they could actually do this is the problem! It's incredibly easy to design a system that doesn't fail in this way - you need to go to a court and apply for a search or wiretap warrant, then you can start collecting information on a target. If you actually enforce these requirements LOVEINT cannot happen outside cases where somebody is actively dating a legitimate surveillance target (in which case they should be forced to recuse themselves). Hell, some incredibly smart Americans actually came up with those requirements and put them into law hundreds of years ago.
No, the US government doesn't want this - nor would they pay me money for pointing out that they need to completely clean house in the intelligence community. A system which actually prevented abuse would prevent abuse, and it is abundantly clear that abuse was precisely what a lot of people in the US government wanted. There already WAS a system which functioned the way you're asking - the existing court system, where real judges in adversarial courts had to sign off on a warrant, not some rubber stamper that lets someone use opposition research they know is false to spy on presidential candidates. But that said, I'm not obligated to design a complete replacement for the government because I think that inescapable, warrantless surveillance is bad.
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