Surveillance and Its Discontents

[Valin]

WSJ

 

The false 'tradeoff' between liberty and security in the terror war.

6/13/13

 

In 1998, after Osama bin Laden orchestrated the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, FBI agents were deployed to collect evidence so they could issue a warrant for his arrest. Twelve years later, Seal Team Six raided his Abbottabad compound, shot and killed him and his guards and then dumped his corpse into the sea.

 

The difference is that the U.S. is now waging a war on terror, and not a metaphorical war like LBJ's on poverty. This is a crucial distinction that has been lost amid the growing ruction over the National Security Agency surveillance programs. Another point lost amid the uproar is that the safety of citizens is the firstand in our view, the principalobligation of government.

 

In our age of proliferating nuclear weapons and genetically engineered biotoxins, a country serious about self-preservation must detect potential threats and prevent attacks before they occur, not prosecute them as crimes after the fact. The architecture to protect civilians must therefore include signals intelligence, or surveillance, to obtain actionable information about the plans, actions and capabilities of the decentralized and lethal networks that are al Qaeda and its franchises.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Terrorists change behavior after leaks, lawmaker says

June 14, 2013

 

 

A top Republican lawmaker claimed Thursday terrorists have already started to change their behavior after a self-described NSA whistleblower leaked information about classified U.S. surveillance programs to various media outlets, saying the leaks may make it "harder to track bad guys."

 

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., declined to provide specifics on what terrorists he was referring to, only saying there are "changes we can already see being made by the folks who wish to do us harm, and our allies harm."

 

He also said the revelations might "make it harder to track bad guys trying to harm U.S. citizens in the United States."

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

The National-Security Right Goes Silent

On the NSA, the dog will not bark.

Andrew C. McCarthy

 

The jihad rages on, but the War on Terror is over.

 

(Snip)

 

After a series of attacks through the Nineties, the 9/11 atrocities destroyed the World Trade Center, struck the Pentagon, and killed nearly 3,000 Americans. In the savage clarity, our nation finally realized that what Ive called kinetic Islam a combination of militant jihadists and their sharia-supremacist enablers was at war with the United States. The PATRIOT Act was a product of our vigorous and persuasive contention, on the national-security right, that the challenge was an enemy force, not a criminal-justice problem. That challenge demanded a national war-footing, not judicial due process.

 

(Snip)

 

The NSA is in hot water again, but it is not doing anything different from what it was doing in the Bush years under the authorities Republicans and conservatives won in the bruising battles over reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act and overhauling FISA. It is still collecting telephone-usage records (metadata) on millions of Americans (though not the content of their conversations). It is broadly targeting the communications of non-Americans outside the United States for surveillance though some domestic American communications may inadvertently be picked up because the surveillance involves vacuuming up traffic as it zooms across U.S.-based servers.

 

(Snip)

 

Here is the thing, though: Even if were done with the jihad, it is not done with us not by a long shot. Therefore, it is no less delusional to forfeit the national-security arsenal essential for waging the war than it was for Obama to forfeit the war itself. I fear learning that lesson will prove very painful.

 

_______________________________________________________________

If the "Civil Libertarians, if they are successful in this attack, one wonders what those people who are now crying Man The Barricades, will say when the (say) 40-50 people are killed by home grown Jihadis, and it is discovered they were in communication inside the country? Will they be hollering just as loud for the heads of people in the NSSA?

[Valin]

The National-Security Right Goes Silent

On the NSA, the dog will not bark.

Andrew C. McCarthy

 

From the Comments

 

 

AJoeWhoKnows 10 hours ago

 

One gleans from this article that Mr. McCarthy is under the impression that only Libertarians are hostile to surveillance. Mr. McCarthy seems to think Conservatives have no problem, and ought to have no problem, with the Big Brother surveillance state.

 

Mr. McCarthy is misinformed. Being in favor of a strong national defense and confronting and defeating our enemies IS NOT the same as accepting statism and a voracious central government surveillance apparatus actively collecting personal information on the entire American population, and this is where Mr. McCarthys error lies.

 

 

 

Andrew McCarthy AJoeWhoKnows 5 hours ago

 

I winced when I reread the "hostile to surveillance" line this morning. No one sensible is not "hostile to surveillance" in the sense that no one wants to be scrutinized by the government, particularly without individualized suspicion. What I meant to convey is that libertarians are more hostile in principle than most to the contention that more surveillance is needed in times of peril -- or, to flip it around, libertarians are more sensitive to the possibility that government will abuse power or use crisis as a pretext for expanding power. So I think the point about my use of "hostile to surveillance" is a fair one.

 

If you think I favor statism, though, you're not too familiar with my work -- not that you're under any obligation to be. And I would be very hostile to a surveillance state if I though one was going on, but I just disagree that this is what's happening.

 

I don't believe collecting data is the same as scrutinizing it, and I am satisfied that there are safeguards in place, outside the executive branch, that prevent the data from being scrutinized in the absence of individualized suspicion. I don't think those who disagree with me on this point are being unreasonable -- as I've argued on the Corner, if the national intelligence director does not give Congress accurate information, it certainly undermines the argument that you can trust the program because there is judicial oversight.

 

But if we take a step back for a second: If you assume the Obama administration is so corrupt, or that Big Government surveillance is so innately corrupting, that this or any executive branch is sure to abuse its power, then what difference does it make what the rules are? Let's forget about the law for a second. These capabilities exist and the government has ways to get the information we're talking about whether they Patriot Act and FISA allow it or not. If we are just going to assume roguish behavior, I think we're at the end of any useful discussion because you can't roll back technology. In my humble opinion, it makes more sense to assume that though power is corrupting, that propensity can be effectively checked by dividing the powers and encouraging the different branches to watch each other. In my mind, what we have now strikes that balance correctly. But I could, of course, be wrong ... and in any event it probably does not matter whether I am wrong because the fact is these programs require public support and that support is cratering. When I say that sort of thing, some say it's sour grapes. I don't mean it that way. It's just an observation of fact.

[Valin]

Government Security Clearance Access

Jun 15, 2013

C-SPAN | Washington Journal

 

Evan Lesser talked by video link from Atlanta about who gets security clearances and what information those individuals have access to within the intelligence community. Nearly five million people hold U.S. government security clearances. He clarified and explained clearance myths, the process, contractors, and elaborated on the current National Security Agency (NSA) situation with the leak by Edward Snowden. He responded to telephone calls and electronic communications.

 

The program concluded with a video clip of Education and Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) being interviewed on June 13, 2013, for Newsmakers.

[pollyannaish]

I don't believe collecting data is the same as scrutinizing it, and I am satisfied that there are safeguards in place, outside the executive branch, that prevent the data from being scrutinized in the absence of individualized suspicion.

I agree with this but...it makes it so doggone easy to abuse. You just have to query things like patriot or tea part to get information. I have incredibly mixed feelings, but the IRS scandal iis a huge wake up call for me.

 

There are safeguards in place, bit they are consolidated in the beltway. Who is the watchdog? Congress? The Judicial branch? The media? The justice department? The military? Law enforcement? Each of these institutions has been used almost without oversight to further the goals of a corrupt administration.

 

I don't think Snowdan is a saint. In fact I think he's as corrupt as the rest of them. But I am just uneasy about how many tools we've allowed the government to have access to under the idea that safeguards are in place.

 

I am open to someone making me feel more comfortable about this, but I'm incredibly skeptical at this point.

[Valin]

@pollyannaish

 

Yes these kind of programs can be abused, and it is always a very very good idea to be...wary of what the boys and girls in DC are up to.

But the question still remains...What do we do? Because there are bad guys out there, and this NSA program is a very good way of finding them and stopping them.

 

 

The Costs and Benefits of the NSA

The data-collection debate we need to have is not about civil liberties.

REUEL MARC GERECHT

Jun 24, 2013

 

Should Americans fear the possible abuse of the intercept power of the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland? Absolutely. In the midst of the unfolding scandal at the IRS, we understand that bureaucracies are callous creatures, capable of manipulation. In addition to deliberate misuse, closed intelligence agencies can make mistakes in surveilling legitimate targets, causing mountains of trouble. Consider Muslim names. Because of their commonness and the lack of standardized transliteration, they can befuddle scholars, let alone intelligence analysts, who seldom have fluency in Islamic languages. Although one is hard pressed to think of a case since 9/11 in which mistaken identity, or a willful or unintentional leak of intercept intelligence, immiserated an American citizen, these things can happen. NSA civilian employees, soldiers, FBI agents, CIA case officers, prosecutors, and our elected officials are not always angels. Even though encryption is mathematically easier to accomplish than decryption, the potential for abuse of digital communication is always thereall the more since few Americans resort to encryption of their everyday emails.

 

But fearing the NSA, which has been a staple of Hollywood for decades, requires you to believe that hundreds, if not thousands, of American employees in the organization are in on a conspiracy. In the Edward Snowden-is-a-legitimate-NSA-whistleblower narrative, it also requires that very liberal senators and congressmen are complicit in propagating a civil-rights-chewing national surveillance system.

 

According to Glenn Greenwald, the left-wing American columnist of the Guardian newspaper, Snowden first realized how unpleasant the U.S. government could be when he read the cable traffic of CIA case officers attempting to recruit a foreign banker in Geneva by getting the poor man drunk and arrested, to set up an opportunity to bond with him. Note to the reading public and Mr. Greenwald: This makes no sense. CIA operatives dont want to get their recruits into legal and professional jeopardy; they want to nurture their prospective agents careers and self-confidence.

 

(Snip)

 

_______________________________________________________________

A second small question....Can some kind soul please name me a law that cannot be abused by those in authority? The fact is they can, and waaay to often are abused. While I never violated a persons rights (when I was a Security Policeman), I did hear of vauge rumors of people taken across the active runway and given a nice set of lumps, rather than arrest them.

[Valin]

http://youtu.be/sg6V4OwPcms

[pollyannaish]

@pollyannaish

 

Yes these kind of programs can be abused, and it is always a very very good idea to be...wary of what the boys and girls in DC are up to.

But the question still remains...What do we do? Because there are bad guys out there, and this NSA program is a very good way of finding them and stopping them.

 

A second small question....Can some kind soul please name me a law that cannot be abused by those in authority? The fact is they can, and waaay to often are abused. While I never violated a persons rights (when I was a Security Policeman), I did hear of vauge rumors of people taken across the active runway and given a nice set of lumps, rather than arrest them.

 

All good points. And an excellent article. Speaks to my feeling very conflicted on the issue.

[pollyannaish]

Also, I haven't watched a lot of TV on this, but I think it would be helpful to keep talking about the difference between the content of your communications and meta data.

 

Still...

[Valin]

Full Transcript of Q&A session with NSA leaker Edward Snowden

 

Or as some might put an ignorant traitorous POS explains it all to you.

[Valin]

http://youtu.be/6jK_VaxqFDU

[Valin]

King: Current NSA surveillance programs might have prevented 9/11

Ed Morrissey

6/20/13

 

At the very least, Rep. Peter King tells CNN’s Jake Tapper, it would have added to the “mosaic” that could have exposed the threat before the 9/11 attack that killed nearly 3,000 Americans. But was the mosaic missing too many holes because the NSA didn’t trawl telecom metadata, or because of the barriers between law enforcement and intelligence communities? (via The Corner)

 

http://youtu.be/HrUopiOhYJI

 

I’ve read the 9/11 Commission report repeatedly (although not recently), and I’m unclear on what Rand Paul meant by “warrants,” too. However, Paul’s overall point was that the failure wasn’t so much a lack of intelligence on the threat developing in the two years prior to the attacks, but the obstacles present at the time in the US in sharing the data in order to connect dots. Under the rules at the time — remember “the wall”? — even if the NSA had found some pattern in the metadata, they might not have been able to share much of that with the FBI, at least not its law-enforcement functions, thanks to exaggerated limitations on communication based on the law-enforcement approach to terrorism before 9/11. The US government was more concerned about making a case in civil court than attacking terrorism head-on.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Facts on the Collection of Intelligence Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

[Valin]

http://youtu.be/jflZaUNmxyk

Forward to 22 minute mark

[Draggingtree]

The top secret rules that allow NSA to use US data without a warrant

Fisa court submissions show broad scope of procedures governing NSA's surveillance of Americans' communication

 

• Document one: procedures used by NSA to target non-US persons

• Document two: procedures used by NSA to minimise data collected from US persons

 

Glenn Greenwald and James Ball guardian.co.uk,

 

 

Thursday 20 June 2013 18.59 EDT

 

Top secret documents submitted to the court that oversees surveillance by US intelligence agencies show the judges have signed off on broad orders which allow the NSA to make use of information "inadvertently" collected from domestic US communications without a warrant.

 

The Guardian is publishing in full two documents submitted to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (known as the Fisa court), signed by Attorney General Eric Holder and stamped 29 July 2009. They detail the procedures the NSA is required to follow to target "non-US persons" under its foreign intelligence powers and what the agency does to minimize data collected on US citizens and residents in the course of that surveillance.

 

The documents show that even under authorities governing the collection of foreign intelligence from foreign targets, US communications can still be collected, retained and used.

 

In practice, much of the decision-making appears to lie with NSA analysts, rather than the Fisa court or senior officials

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/20/fisa-court-nsa-without-warrant

[Valin]

@Draggingtree

 

The documents show that even under authorities governing the collection of foreign intelligence from foreign targets, US communications can still be collected, retained and used.

 

Dear Mr. Greenwald

 

Do me a favor. If you get anywhere within 10 miles of a point please let me know. Thank you.

 

With no respect

Valin (crazy evil war mongering right wing nut case)