The New Yorker: Verizon and the NSA: The problem with metadata

[TitanTiger 20,708]

Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from liberal Northern California and the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, assured the public earlier today that the government’s secret snooping into the phone records of Americans was perfectly fine, because the information it obtained was only “meta,” meaning it excluded the actual content of the phone conversations, providing merely records, from a Verizon subsidiary, of who called whom when and from where. In addition, she said in a prepared statement, the “names of subscribers” were not included automatically in the metadata (though the numbers, surely, could be used to identify them). “Our courts have consistently recognized that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in this type of metadata information and thus no search warrant is required to obtain it,” she said, adding that “any subsequent effort to obtain the content of an American’s communications would require a specific order from the FISA court.”

She said she understands privacy—“that’s why this is carefully done”—and noted that eleven special federal judges, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret, had authorized the vast intelligence collection. A White House official made the same points to reporters, saying, “The order reprinted overnight does not allow the government to listen in on anyone’s telephone calls” and was subject to “a robust legal regime.” The gist of the defense was that, in contrast to what took place under the Bush Administration, this form of secret domestic surveillance was legitimate because Congress had authorized it, and the judicial branch had ratified it, and the actual words spoken by one American to another were still private. So how bad could it be?

The answer, according to the mathematician and former Sun Microsystems engineer Susan Landau, whom I interviewed while reporting on the plight of the former N.S.A. whistleblower Thomas Drake and who is also the author of “Surveillance or Security?,” is that it’s worse than many might think.

“The public doesn’t understand,” she told me, speaking about so-called metadata. “It’s much more intrusive than content.” She explained that the government can learn immense amounts of proprietary information by studying “who you call, and who they call. If you can track that, you know exactly what is happening—you don’t need the content.”

For example, she said, in the world of business, a pattern of phone calls from key executives can reveal impending corporate takeovers. Personal phone calls can also reveal sensitive medical information: “You can see a call to a gynecologist, and then a call to an oncologist, and then a call to close family members.” And information from cell-phone towers can reveal the caller’s location. Metadata, she pointed out, can be so revelatory about whom reporters talk to in order to get sensitive stories that it can make more traditional tools in leak investigations, like search warrants and subpoenas, look quaint. “You can see the sources,” she said. When the F.B.I. obtains such records from news agencies, the Attorney General is required to sign off on each invasion of privacy. When the N.S.A. sweeps up millions of records a minute, it’s unclear if any such brakes are applied.

Metadata, Landau noted, can also reveal sensitive political information, showing, for instance, if opposition leaders are meeting, who is involved, where they gather, and for how long. Such data can reveal, too, who is romantically involved with whom, by tracking the locations of cell phones at night.

For the law-enforcement community, particularly the parts focussed on locating terrorists, metadata has led to breakthroughs. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the master planner of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, “got picked up by his cell phone,” Landau said. Many other criminal suspects have given themselves away through their metadata trails. In fact, Landau told me, metadata and other new surveillance tools have helped cut the average amount of time it takes the U.S. Marshals to capture a fugitive from forty-two days to two.

But with each technological breakthrough comes a break-in to realms previously thought private. “It’s really valuable for law enforcement, but we have to update the wiretap laws,” Landau said.

It was exactly these concerns that motivated the mathematician William Binney, a former N.S.A. official who spoke to me for the Drake story, to retire rather than keep working for an agency he suspected had begun to violate Americans’ fundamental privacy rights. After 9/11, Binney told me, as I reported in the piece, General Michael Hayden, who was then director of the N.S.A., “reassured everyone that the N.S.A. didn’t put out dragnets, and that was true. It had no need—it was getting every fish in the sea.”

Binney, who considered himself a conservative, feared that the N.S.A.’s data-mining program was so extensive that it could help “create an Orwellian state.”

As he told me at the time, wiretap surveillance requires trained human operators, but data mining is an automated process, which means that the entire country can be watched. Conceivably, the government could “monitor the Tea Party, or reporters, whatever group or organization you want to target,” he said. “It’s exactly what the Founding Fathers never wanted.”

http://www.newyorker...d=nl_Daily (260

[TitanTiger 20,708]

One of the people in the comments box made some good points:

During the WW2 North African campaign, the Allies were shocked at how much intelligence the Germans got simply by using (accurate) radio location of who was talking to who (without decoding the messages themselves). They quickly applied those lessons (intelligence, counter-intelligence, deception). The current revelations are simply a continuation/extension of this.

Various corporations have used this in planning reorganizations: email meta-data can provide a better picture of interactions than simple reporting. And there are often unrelated surprises: The ones people talk about are the embarrassing affairs revealed (noted in the article).

Academic research has shown how easy it is to make very accurate classifications of people using small amounts of seemingly insignificant data (eg "likes" on Facebook pages).

This episode should be seen as part of a bigger story that the old notions of privacy were based not so much on law as on costs and human decency.

1. The cost equation has changed. In the past, the very high costs of collecting and analyzing this data meant that such efforts could be used only sparingly and forced the government to carefully consider who was targeted. Similar situation: In the old days, tailing a suspect in a car could require 5-10 vehicles with trained personnel; now with a GPS attached to the car, a technician sitting at a computer can simultaneously monitor multiple vehicles.

2. Human decency: Part of the former high cost of data collection and analysis was that it was manual, involving people both inside the agency and outside (people contacted as sources of data). This provided multiple opportunities for people to ask questions and say NO. And in the case of abuses, it also meant that there was typically a significant pool of potential whistle-blowers. With computers having replaced humans for most of this, there are few opportunities to stop or report abuses.

[telling tiger 156]

I have often said on this forum that the culture lags far behind in understanding the amount and usage of data, the sheer volume of it and frankly, both culture and law are archaic as compared to our technologic capabilities. No one supports our personal information and communications being used to glean either demographic or as this article suggested, personal medical information. We can establish programs to look for key words and other slices of data all day ,everyday. The fact that this is a shock to anyone is as disconcerting as the inability of us to prepare for the future of it. From a legal standpoint we are 3 decades behind even being able to equitably treat an involved FB post in a criminal or civil case. In 2 days, now, we create roughly as much data as we did as an entire culture from the beginning of a more civilized world much less the start of recorded state and judicial histories. This conversation is not only overdue, this conversation is assuredly going to lag behind technology always. Technology doesn't have to make a cultural adjustment. Populations do. http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/04/schmidt-data/

[AUMed 0]

The expert in this story relies on the assumption that the NSA knows who the identity of the two parties. The NSA has released documents that show that this is not the case. They mine the metadata for patterns and then GET A WARRANT to wiretap. Only after they've satisfied the 4th Amendment do they know the identities of the parties in question.

[TexasTiger 13,556]

The expert in this story relies on the assumption that the NSA knows who the identity of the two parties. The NSA has released documents that show that this is not the case. They mine the metadata for patterns and then GET A WARRANT to wiretap. Only after they've satisfied the 4th Amendment do they know the identities of the parties in question.

Kinda a key distinction, huh?

[TitanTiger 20,708]

Do you honestly think its some arduous process to reverse lookup a phone number?

[TexasTiger 13,556]

Do you honestly think its some arduous process to reverse lookup a phone number?

One or tens of millions? Without the suspicious patterns to point you in a direction, which numbers would you choose?

[TitanTiger 20,708]

So there's no chance of them having all this information and going on a fishing expedition? You trust people who didn't even want you to know this was happening in the first place that much?

[TexasTiger 13,556]

So there's no chance of them having all this information and going on a fishing expedition? You trust people who didn't even want you to know this was happening in the first place that much?

Of course there is a chance. There is a balancing act going on. Is looking for patterns in phone records AND THEN getting a warrant to phone tap as bad was actually listening to calls without a warrant? I don't think so. Is any surveillance tactic subject to possible abuses? Yes.

[TitanTiger 20,708]

So, would you be opposed to the government putting together a fingerprint and DNA database on everyone in the country, then getting a warrant to access it when they feel they have a need for it?

Not to mention, you don't need the content of the calls as the article pointed out. In many ways, what they have is even better and gives them greater ability to profile innocent people.

I'm sorry, but I just don't get the sense this blasé attitude about the whole thing would be coming from some of you if Dick Cheney or some other neocon were still heading things up.

[TexasTiger 13,556]

So, would you be opposed to the government putting together a fingerprint and DNA database on everyone in the country, then getting a warrant to access it when they feel they have a need for it?

Not to mention, you don't need the content of the calls as the article pointed out. In many ways, what they have is even better and gives them greater ability to profile innocent people.

I'm sorry, but I just don't get the sense this blasé attitude about the whole thing would be coming from some of you if Dick Cheney or some other neocon were still heading things up.

I doubt I would have a problem providing a finger print or retinal scan to get an ID, driver's license or passport. DNA contains far more information than establishing one's identity and I don't think government needs that.

At this point the arguments I have heard for this program are more persuasive than the ones I've heard against it. As I understand it, when patterns raise legitimate suspicions, they get a warrant. The arguments against seem far more vague and contingent on something else being done that makes it problematic.

[TitanTiger 20,708]

They get a warrant from the same rubber stamp panel that granted them the right to gather all this information in the first place. Not comforting.

[homersapien 11,812]

So, would you be opposed to the government putting together a fingerprint and DNA database on everyone in the country, then getting a warrant to access it when they feel they have a need for it?

Not to mention, you don't need the content of the calls as the article pointed out. In many ways, what they have is even better and gives them greater ability to profile innocent people.

I'm sorry, but I just don't get the sense this blasé attitude about the whole thing would be coming from some of you if Dick Cheney or some other neocon were still heading things up.

I doubt I would have a problem providing a finger print or retinal scan to get an ID, driver's license or passport. DNA contains far more information than establishing one's identity and I don't think government needs that.

At this point the arguments I have heard for this program are more persuasive than the ones I've heard against it. As I understand it, when patterns raise legitimate suspicions, they get a warrant. The arguments against seem far more vague and contingent on something else being done that makes it problematic.

It comes from the same place that makes people want to buy assault rifles and stockpile ammunition.

It's "masturbatory paranoia".

[AUMed 0]

They get a warrant from the same rubber stamp panel that granted them the right to gather all this information in the first place. Not comforting.

So lawful, constitutional warrants just aren't good enough for you? Would you prefer that the NSA clears all of it's warrant requests with you first?

[japantiger 4,077]

So, would you be opposed to the government putting together a fingerprint and DNA database on everyone in the country, then getting a warrant to access it when they feel they have a need for it?

Not to mention, you don't need the content of the calls as the article pointed out. In many ways, what they have is even better and gives them greater ability to profile innocent people.

I'm sorry, but I just don't get the sense this blasé attitude about the whole thing would be coming from some of you if Dick Cheney or some other neocon were still heading things up.

I doubt I would have a problem providing a finger print or retinal scan to get an ID, driver's license or passport. DNA contains far more information than establishing one's identity and I don't think government needs that.

At this point the arguments I have heard for this program are more persuasive than the ones I've heard against it. As I understand it, when patterns raise legitimate suspicions, they get a warrant. The arguments against seem far more vague and contingent on something else being done that makes it problematic.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, papers, effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Amendment IV to the US Constitution; this amendment adopted on December 15, 1791. I really don't see any ambiguity here. If this isn't the seizure on my personal papers or effects without probable cause; I don't understand what it is...Let's put this act in a different context. A policeman approaches you (or an FBI agent, or, you take your pick) while you're minding your own business at a counter in McDonald's. You're just there waiting in line for your sausage, egg and cheese bagel and coffee for breakfast....he asks you for your phone number, who you've called for the last month and how many times. You ask "why?"...he says, "I'm just trying to protect you". How would you react? Do you think that any judge would find that reasonable?

This is just wrong. You can't torture the constitution or any current laws or practices regarding due process and search/seizures and make this right. How about if we enforced real common sense practices for providing for our safety. 1st; enforce immigration policies that already exist to not let terrorist threats in our country to begin with. For example, if you are from a predominantly Muslim country or a country with strong Al Quiada ties; you cannot get into the country without a thorough background check. After undergoing the search; you must provide proof of a job or other valid reason for being in the country. The job is validated and a system of reporting is established (can all be done electronically; SAS or other tools do this in industry every day) so that the employer or university must affirm that you are still employed or in good academic standing. If at any point; you are unemployed or drop out of school, you are deported. As a matter of course; all immigrants on visa's must leave when their visa expires. If they are not officially logged out of the US; then DHS or ICE finds them, arrests them and deports them...see, they would be committing a crime by overstaying their visa.....if we did these kind of simple things; we would have an effective immigration system that keeps the bad guys out of the country to begin with.

[TexasTiger 13,556]

So, would you be opposed to the government putting together a fingerprint and DNA database on everyone in the country, then getting a warrant to access it when they feel they have a need for it?

Not to mention, you don't need the content of the calls as the article pointed out. In many ways, what they have is even better and gives them greater ability to profile innocent people.

I'm sorry, but I just don't get the sense this blasé attitude about the whole thing would be coming from some of you if Dick Cheney or some other neocon were still heading things up.

I doubt I would have a problem providing a finger print or retinal scan to get an ID, driver's license or passport. DNA contains far more information than establishing one's identity and I don't think government needs that.

At this point the arguments I have heard for this program are more persuasive than the ones I've heard against it. As I understand it, when patterns raise legitimate suspicions, they get a warrant. The arguments against seem far more vague and contingent on something else being done that makes it problematic.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, papers, effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Amendment IV to the US Constitution; this amendment adopted on December 15, 1791. I really don't see any ambiguity here. If this isn't the seizure on my personal papers or effects without probable cause; I don't understand what it is...Let's put this act in a different context. A policeman approaches you (or an FBI agent, or, you take your pick) while you're minding your own business at a counter in McDonald's. You're just there waiting in line for your sausage, egg and cheese bagel and coffee for breakfast....he asks you for your phone number, who you've called for the last month and how many times. You ask "why?"...he says, "I'm just trying to protect you". How would you react? Do you think that any judge would find that reasonable?

This is just wrong. You can't torture the constitution or any current laws or practices regarding due process and search/seizures and make this right. How about if we enforced real common sense practices for providing for our safety. 1st; enforce immigration policies that already exist to not let terrorist threats in our country to begin with. For example, if you are from a predominantly Muslim country or a country with strong Al Quiada ties; you cannot get into the country without a thorough background check. After undergoing the search; you must provide proof of a job or other valid reason for being in the country. The job is validated and a system of reporting is established (can all be done electronically; SAS or other tools do this in industry every day) so that the employer or university must affirm that you are still employed or in good academic standing. If at any point; you are unemployed or drop out of school, you are deported. As a matter of course; all immigrants on visa's must leave when their visa expires. If they are not officially logged out of the US; then DHS or ICE finds them, arrests them and deports them...see, they would be committing a crime by overstaying their visa.....if we did these kind of simple things; we would have an effective immigration system that keeps the bad guys out of the country to begin with.

Learned jurists have disagreed with you for years and your analogy demonstrates your lack of understanding of the issue you're complaining about.

[autigeremt 6,970]

So, would you be opposed to the government putting together a fingerprint and DNA database on everyone in the country, then getting a warrant to access it when they feel they have a need for it?

Not to mention, you don't need the content of the calls as the article pointed out. In many ways, what they have is even better and gives them greater ability to profile innocent people.

I'm sorry, but I just don't get the sense this blasé attitude about the whole thing would be coming from some of you if Dick Cheney or some other neocon were still heading things up.

I doubt I would have a problem providing a finger print or retinal scan to get an ID, driver's license or passport. DNA contains far more information than establishing one's identity and I don't think government needs that.

At this point the arguments I have heard for this program are more persuasive than the ones I've heard against it. As I understand it, when patterns raise legitimate suspicions, they get a warrant. The arguments against seem far more vague and contingent on something else being done that makes it problematic.

So you support voter ID then?

[japantiger 4,077]

So, would you be opposed to the government putting together a fingerprint and DNA database on everyone in the country, then getting a warrant to access it when they feel they have a need for it?

Not to mention, you don't need the content of the calls as the article pointed out. In many ways, what they have is even better and gives them greater ability to profile innocent people.

I'm sorry, but I just don't get the sense this blasé attitude about the whole thing would be coming from some of you if Dick Cheney or some other neocon were still heading things up.

I doubt I would have a problem providing a finger print or retinal scan to get an ID, driver's license or passport. DNA contains far more information than establishing one's identity and I don't think government needs that.

At this point the arguments I have heard for this program are more persuasive than the ones I've heard against it. As I understand it, when patterns raise legitimate suspicions, they get a warrant. The arguments against seem far more vague and contingent on something else being done that makes it problematic.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, papers, effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Amendment IV to the US Constitution; this amendment adopted on December 15, 1791. I really don't see any ambiguity here. If this isn't the seizure on my personal papers or effects without probable cause; I don't understand what it is...Let's put this act in a different context. A policeman approaches you (or an FBI agent, or, you take your pick) while you're minding your own business at a counter in McDonald's. You're just there waiting in line for your sausage, egg and cheese bagel and coffee for breakfast....he asks you for your phone number, who you've called for the last month and how many times. You ask "why?"...he says, "I'm just trying to protect you". How would you react? Do you think that any judge would find that reasonable?

This is just wrong. You can't torture the constitution or any current laws or practices regarding due process and search/seizures and make this right. How about if we enforced real common sense practices for providing for our safety. 1st; enforce immigration policies that already exist to not let terrorist threats in our country to begin with. For example, if you are from a predominantly Muslim country or a country with strong Al Quiada ties; you cannot get into the country without a thorough background check. After undergoing the search; you must provide proof of a job or other valid reason for being in the country. The job is validated and a system of reporting is established (can all be done electronically; SAS or other tools do this in industry every day) so that the employer or university must affirm that you are still employed or in good academic standing. If at any point; you are unemployed or drop out of school, you are deported. As a matter of course; all immigrants on visa's must leave when their visa expires. If they are not officially logged out of the US; then DHS or ICE finds them, arrests them and deports them...see, they would be committing a crime by overstaying their visa.....if we did these kind of simple things; we would have an effective immigration system that keeps the bad guys out of the country to begin with.

Learned jurists have disagreed with you for years and your analogy demonstrates your lack of understanding of the issue you're complaining about.

Exactly which part is not factual?

[TitanTiger 20,708]

They get a warrant from the same rubber stamp panel that granted them the right to gather all this information in the first place. Not comforting.

So lawful, constitutional warrants just aren't good enough for you? Would you prefer that the NSA clears all of it's warrant requests with you first?

No. If you're going to argue in this thread, don't respond with utter silliness.

I'd like a court that is accountable to someone other than the very people who are asking them for things to approve the requests. As it stands, we have the government as the only side in a secret court to present its case. There's no opportunity to appeal. Well, check that...in the 10 or so times out of over 20,000 requests that they've actually been denied, the government can appeal. The rest of us just get to shut up and do as we're told. I'd like to see some semblance of a court that isn't already in the NSAs back pocket. In other words, I'd like a real court, not a secret sham one.

[homersapien 11,812]

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, papers, effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Amendment IV to the US Constitution; this amendment adopted on December 15, 1791. I really don't see any ambiguity here.

If this isn't the seizure on my personal papers or effects without probable cause; I don't understand what it is...Let's put this act in a different context. A policeman approaches you (or an FBI agent, or, you take your pick) while you're minding your own business at a counter in McDonald's. You're just there waiting in line for your sausage, egg and cheese bagel and coffee for breakfast....he asks you for your phone number, who you've called for the last month and how many times. You ask "why?"...he says, "I'm just trying to protect you". How would you react? Do you think that any judge would find that reasonable?

You asked what was not "factual" about your post.

Recording the calls made by and to every phone number without assigning identity to the numbers is not violating the privacy of "personal" papers, etc. by definition.

If a known or suspected terrorist is contacting certain numbers in the US, that constitutes probable cause meriting further investigation, provide a legal warrant is sought to do so.

Regarding the McDonald's analogy it doesn't apply at least if the cop doesn't even ask your name. But even if he didn't, a judge would not grant him a warrant to proceed. (So you actually got that right. )

[AUGradinTX 0]

Holy shiz, some of you have lost it...

Even the crooks in DC think this is an abuse of power...

[autigeremt 6,970]

STOP! Don't let facts get in the way of the story! Lol

[homersapien 11,812]

Holy shiz, some of you have lost it...

Even the crooks in DC think this is an abuse of power...

Thanks for that analysis!

[AUGradinTX 0]

Holy shiz, some of you have lost it...

Even the crooks in DC think this is an abuse of power...

Thanks for that analysis!

Here's some analysis for you. Why would the NSA need to collect all this data in order to find out who a suspected terrorist is talking to? All they need to do is get a warrant and they can then get that information from the suspect's service provider. Why do they need this information about EVERYBODY???

The program's defenders in Congress say it is necessary to identify people with whom known or suspected terrorists are associating. If the government is investigating a terrorist suspect, however, Section 215 allows the government to obtain that person's records and learn who his or her contacts are. There is no imaginable need to collect every American's phone records for this purpose.

Elizabeth (Liza) Goitein

Co-Director, Liberty & National Security Program

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324798904578529763558353462.html

[homersapien 11,812]

Holy shiz, some of you have lost it...

Even the crooks in DC think this is an abuse of power...

Thanks for that analysis!

Here's some analysis for you. Why would the NSA need to collect all this data in order to find out who a suspected terrorist is talking to? All they need to do is get a warrant and they can then get that information from the suspect's service provider. Why do they need this information about EVERYBODY???

My understanding is:

1) commercial records are not kept beyond 30 days

2) subpoenaing commercial records is too cumbersome and slow.

3) the process doesn't work effectively unless you have everything. (i.e: "can't find a needle in a haystack unless you have the entire haystack")