Obama task force's NSA proposals go 'much further than anyone expected'

[TomCADem]

Source: CSM

The National Security Agency should stop collecting Americans’ telephone call “metadata,” instead letting phone companies keep the data describing trillions of calls, which the NSA could then search only with a court order, a panel advising President Obama recommends.

The recommendation was among the most significant made by the five-member Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, appointed by the president to respond to international and domestic anger over the NSA’s mass surveillance. Its conclusions, which include 46 recommendations, were released Wednesday a month ahead of schedule

The 308-page report was received favorably by some civil libertarians. “The committee went much further than anyone expected in increasing oversight of NSA surveillance activities,” says Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security program.

One cybersecurity expert saw the broad array of recommendations as a mixed bag. “It’s a mixture of good ideas and pet rocks,” says James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Security in Washington. “There are a lot of things in there we absolutely should do. But there are some things that don’t make much sense, things that require legislative change and that might be hard to get.”

Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/2013/1218/Obama-task-force-s-NSA-proposals-go-much-further-than-anyone-expected-video

[JDPriestly]

1. I'd have to know more about everything that the NSA is doing to have an opinion about these

suggestions, but some of them look very good. The records should stay with the phone companies until they are subpoenaed. There should be a privacy advocate in the FISA court although that attorney or advocate would probably have very little clout. The existence and presence of a privacy advocate in the FISA court would probably discourage NSA requests that go absolutely too far.

[WowSeriously]

2. How about we do away with the FISA court

[JDPriestly]

4. We certainly don't need it.

[Recursion]

6. If we do that we go back to the pre-1978 situation, where the Pres. could surveil without limits

The only limit before FISA was that information retrieved without a warrant couldn't be used in court, but none of this stuff is about court cases, anyways.

[WowSeriously]

8. I don't think that is correct. I thought FISA

was there so you could start surveilling first, and get permission later. The Fourth Amendment seems pretty clear that a warrant is required.

[JoePhilly]

9. That's not why FISA was created.

You need a warrant to get FISA approval.

Pre-1978, the executive branch was using the national security surveillance mechanisms against US citizens, without any warrants.

Senator Kennedy proposed the legislation, and Carter signed it into law.

[WowSeriously]

16. National Security, the excuse for all things unconstitutional.

Thanks for the education.

[Indi Guy]

34. Regardless of initial intent...

...in function the FISA court is scarcely more than a rubber stamp for all things unconstitutional, undertaken by our government.

[Recursion]

13. That's a provision of FISA, but before that the President was deemed to have "inherent authority"

to surveil pretty much anyone at any time for national security reasons. For all its flaws, FISA was actually a reining in of Presidential surveillance power.

[WowSeriously]

15. Ok. I guess the Fourth Amendment never mattered.

And I just don't where this National Security BS is ever mentioned The Quaint Document.

But thanks for the education.

[Recursion]

17. The fourth amendment kept whatever got gathered from being used in a trial

For that matter, as far as I know that's still true under FISA. It's odd, if you're surveilled but they don't do anything to you with the information, legally it's hard for you to argue any harm; I'm not a lawyer, but I don't know of any case based on direct 4th Amendment standing.

[WowSeriously]

28. The Fourth says nothing about usage.

It says it can't happen. As for FISA allowing it, I guess they found the loophole in that it can be a kangaroo court issuing a warrant.

[Recursion]

29. Law is funny that way

If a court has addressed that question, I don't know about it.

[WowSeriously]

30. Or man is funny that way

[davidpdx]

7. That's a good suggestion

But the advocate would have to have the ability to report abuses if they happened. The question would be to whom. I would think the Senate Foreign Intelligence Committee would be one answer.

You should drop Senator Wyden a note even if you aren't in Oregon. Use the zip code 97141 Tillamook for the city.

[NealK]

3. Bah! Humbug!

[QuestForSense]

5. Let the phone companies keep the data describing trillions of calls?

There are some things that don’t make much sense; here's one in the first sentence.

[JoePhilly]

10. They use that data for billing purposes.

Its part of their business data.

Or do you expect their to be no record of any call you make that maintained by the carrier?

They also use it to determine traffic flow and network performance. That helps them determine where they need to add new capacity, where they need to upgrade, so on.

Its their business data.

[joshcryer]

12. Actually they could use that data to increment billing data.

Then destroy it.

But then the government needs that data for tracking, for when they do have a warrant for someone. If the service doesn't keep that data, the US government considers it aiding and abetting criminal behavior.

It's also metadata so that they can sell it to other companies who want your consumer data so they can target ads at you.

[Recursion]

14. Huh? If I'm responsible for a network you can be damn sure I log all traffic

My network, my data.

[msanthrope]

20. Yes...it's how we get phone bills. nt

[QuestForSense]

24. Still not sure I see how that goes 'much further than anyone expected.'

The companies have been handing over copies of the data voluntarily all along. Now they're going to let them 'keep' it. This, from known liars. Call me skeptical.

[joshcryer]

11. The only thing surprising about the NSA debacle...

...is that they actually tried to work within the constitution.

It's beyond me the efforts they went to to keep from being accused of warrant-less wiretapping.

[randome]

18. Getting a warrant for the metadata is a good example of that.

A warrant isn't needed for third-party business records but they went the extra mile to get one, anyways.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[joshcryer]

19. This is why I believe it was LIHOP.

There's no way that they didn't have a monitor on privilege escalation on the server. No fucking way. So once it happened a bunch of people knew about it and were able to selectively provide data.

So what happens is we get data that is highly radicated showing that terrorists were caught.

We get data showing that FISA followed procedure.

We get data showing that internal methods caught respective employees cheating the system and who were punished accordingly.

We get data showing that corporations colluded with the system thus requiring wiretap immunity.

We get data that the NSA went above and beyond what anyone thought was reasonable to lock down the data, requiring warrants to actually look at metadata (behavior, btw, that the MPAA and RIAA do on a daily basis with regards to file sharing and the DMCA).

In this vein I think Snowden and GG were patsies. It helps that the chat software they used based on bitcoin* (bitmessage) is 100% traceable (and one reason it was abandoned by the creator), was used by Snowden and Greenwald, proving that even their security culture was compromised.

The whole "Snowden was a genius" thing and the whole "Snowden deserves amnesty" thing just underscores it. Why would they elevate his status and say he deserves amnesty if they didn't get exactly what they wanted?

Is the NSA perfect? Highly unlikely. But damn the blowback has been minimal at best. If it was a groundbreaking leak there would be people going to jail en masse if you ask me. The whole thing seems to have been carefully orchestrated.

*let us not forget Snowden and Greenwald are Libertarians who would love Bitcoin from everything we know about them and that ultimate Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme created to profit the early adopters and wealthy.

Sorry if this is too conspiratorial but it's just all too convenient that the dump hasn't resulted in any backlash. Unlike the Wikileaks cables which did have a lot of good stuff which was damaging to the US.

[msanthrope]

21. You know, I would love to read more about this. nt

[joshcryer]

23. I'm trying to link it together.

If I am convinced I have done so convincingly I might make a post. The lack of backlash is what's the biggest deal for me.

I come from Snowden's hacker culture and I am highly unconvinced he'd have been able to get the data he did without someone knowing at the same time. We're talking getting data that 99% of the time would be monitored and then, then, leaving and leaving traces behind. If he could escalate privileges without an alert he could walk so easily.

He should've been able to escalate privileges, download data, then deescalate privileges, without anyone knowing he was even there. Then anonymously releasing the data. A "genius" would've done that.

What's even worse are the links I'm finding with Wikileaks and Russia, how they failed to release the Russian files, and how dozens of lulzec hackers got thrown under the bus after helping Wikileaks out. It all appears to be an anti-American sentiment as opposed to going after cronyism and being for absolute transparency.

[randome]

22. Not sure I buy into all of that.

But when changes are made at the NSA, there will be a vocal clique who trumpet the event as saving civilization from the evils of totalitarianism. Or something.

And it's 'victories' like this over phantom enemies that will serve to further demoralize the rest of us who think in terms of real enemies -austerity, infrastructure, climate change, jobs.

If DU is an example of the rest of the world -and I usually don't think it is- then the rest of the world is lazy and complacent because people would rather spend time chasing phantoms than dealing with real issues.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[QuestForSense]

25. +1

[joshcryer]

33. This is precisely my problem.

'Changes' will be made and everyone will put down their protest signs and go home. There. Problem solved. Just look at the UK. The most watched people on the planet. You literally cannot drive a car anywhere in the UK without your entire movement traced to 100% accuracy, for the past 250 trips. Literally.

Think about that. Every motorist in the UK, every single fucking person driving a car, has had their past 250 trips recorded.

How the fuck the the British allow themselves to accept that? Only 51% are against it. In the US almost 60% are against spying. I would bet in the UK it started out that high too but over time the system was accepted as "working." And I fear that's what's going to happen here after a few postures and "oversight" implementations.

[okaawhatever]

31. What about the timing of the release? Exactly when Obama finally has definitive info about China's

hacking, spying and stealing both gov't and business secrets. He was finally going to confront China at that summit in California. Undeniable proof that China's military is behind most of it, and then wham....complete change of topic. Now Obama is on the defensive. I think Snowden may have worked for either China or Russia. He had some pretty anti-American sentiments as far back as high school and put them on the internet, so he could have been targeted.
The timing of the revelations and the timing of the China summit is what I can't get past. Snowden leaving when he did didn't make sense. It's not like there was a compelling reason for it to happen right then. He also asked the WaPo to guarantee one story would be published within 72 hours. Stuff like that made me question the timing.

[joshcryer]

32. I don't see Obama on the defensive.

I see him reacting to a Libertarian attack on the surveillance state.

Don't get me wrong, I do think that what Snowden and Greenwald did was heroic.

I'm just posing the possibility that it was allowed to downplay the NSA's influence. When the NSA admitted to spying on the entire world where was the outcry? Oh, but they 'only' got warrants for around 60 people and the NSA lost everything!

Poor old NSA having to start from scratch.

Certainly, since he had about 3 weeks before the summit, Greenwald and Snowden wanted to make the largest impact possible. I think that Wikileaks' connection to Russia and Russian hackers indicates to me a facet of the organization is infiltrated by Russian spies (and don't kid ourselves, there are probably CIA and NSA dudes in there monitoring too; but their agenda would become obvious so they can't actually do anything within the inner group to affect change).

But I think to say that China or Russia had a play in the actual decisions is a bit off the mark, Russia probably did have a sense of urgency about the situation and Greenwald needed it to hit as soon as possible, before the summit. Had Obama actually called out China, then that would've been massive damage control. (Obama was very likely aware at the time of Snowden's existence and the observers very likely knew what he was going to do.)

My skepticism comes from how Snowden allegedly did it. A rights escalation on a server is simply unlikely to have gone unmonitored. It would've been monitored externally and an alert would've been sent. Especially if the user in question wasn't supposed to have those rights.

[PM Martin]

26. kick

[BlueStreak]

27. And Obama has already said he's not planning to accept most of them.

[hughee99]

35. I wonder how many people in the Administration and the NSA

got a good chuckle out of this article.

[wildbilln864]

36. Thanks Mr. Snowden...