[Clips] Note the date: Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report

[Tyler Durden]

How many suspects have they rounded up with this system? I'd bet they come 
under the gun to start rounding up lotsa suspects otherwise the cost per 
detainee is far greater than any terrorist action they could have 
comitted...

-TD


>From: "R.A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>
>To: cypherpunks at jfet.org
>Subject: [Clips] Note the date: Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove,    
>Officials Report
>Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 22:12:28 -0400
>
>...From the "so, what else is new?" file...
>
>Cheers,
>RAH
>-------
>--- begin forwarded text
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>
>   Delivered-To: rah at shipwright.com
>   Delivered-To: clips at philodox.com
>   Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 22:06:31 -0400
>   To: Philodox Clips List <clips at philodox.com>
>   From: "R.A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>
>   Subject: [Clips] Note the date: Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove,
>   	Officials Report
>   Reply-To: rah at philodox.com
>   Sender: clips-bounces at philodox.com
>
>
><http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24spy.html?ei=5090&en=016edb46b79bde83&ex=1293080400&pagewanted=print>
>
>   The New York Times
>
>   December 24, 2005
>
>   Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report
>
>   By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN
>
>   WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The National Security Agency has traced and 
>analyzed
>   large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and 
>out
>   of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President
>   Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of
>   terrorist activity, according to current and former government 
>officials.
>
>   The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and 
>voice
>   networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White
>   House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping
>   directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main
>   arteries, they said.
>
>   As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic 
>surveillance
>   without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American
>   telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of
>   domestic and international communications, the officials said.
>
>   The government's collection and analysis of phone and Internet traffic 
>have
>   raised questions among some law enforcement and judicial officials 
>familiar
>   with the program. One issue of concern to the Foreign Intelligence
>   Surveillance Court, which has reviewed some separate warrant 
>applications
>   growing out of the N.S.A.'s surveillance program, is whether the court 
>has
>   legal authority over calls outside the United States that happen to pass
>   through American-based telephonic "switches," according to officials
>   familiar with the matter.
>
>   "There was a lot of discussion about the switches" in conversations with
>   the court, a Justice Department official said, referring to the gateways
>   through which much of the communications traffic flows. "You're talking
>   about access to such a vast amount of communications, and the question 
>was,
>   How do you minimize something that's on a switch that's carrying such 
>large
>   volumes of traffic? The court was very, very concerned about that."
>
>   Since the disclosure last week of the N.S.A.'s domestic surveillance
>   program, President Bush and his senior aides have stressed that his
>   executive order allowing eavesdropping without warrants was limited to 
>the
>   monitoring of international phone and e-mail communications involving
>   people with known links to Al Qaeda.
>
>   What has not been publicly acknowledged is that N.S.A. technicians, 
>besides
>   actually eavesdropping on specific conversations, have combed through 
>large
>   volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might
>   point to terrorism suspects. Some officials describe the program as a 
>large
>   data-mining operation.
>
>   The current and former government officials who discussed the program 
>were
>   granted anonymity because it remains classified.
>
>   Bush administration officials declined to comment on Friday on the
>   technical aspects of the operation and the N.S.A.'s use of broad 
>searches
>   to look for clues on terrorists. Because the program is highly 
>classified,
>   many details of how the N.S.A. is conducting it remain unknown, and 
>members
>   of Congress who have pressed for a full Congressional inquiry say they 
>are
>   eager to learn more about the program's operational details, as well as 
>its
>   legality.
>
>   Officials in the government and the telecommunications industry who have
>   knowledge of parts of the program say the N.S.A. has sought to analyze
>   communications patterns to glean clues from details like who is calling
>   whom, how long a phone call lasts and what time of day it is made, and 
>the
>   origins and destinations of phone calls and e-mail messages. Calls to 
>and
>   from Afghanistan, for instance, are known to have been of particular
>   interest to the N.S.A. since the Sept. 11 attacks, the officials said.
>
>   This so-called "pattern analysis" on calls within the United States 
>would,
>   in many circumstances, require a court warrant if the government wanted 
>to
>   trace who calls whom.
>
>   The use of similar data-mining operations by the Bush administration in
>   other contexts has raised strong objections, most notably in connection
>   with the Total Information Awareness system, developed by the Pentagon 
>for
>   tracking terror suspects, and the Department of Homeland Security's 
>Capps
>   program for screening airline passengers. Both programs were ultimately
>   scrapped after public outcries over possible threats to privacy and 
>civil
>   liberties.
>
>   But the Bush administration regards the N.S.A.'s ability to trace and
>   analyze large volumes of data as critical to its expanded mission to 
>detect
>   terrorist plots before they can be carried out, officials familiar with 
>the
>   program say. Administration officials maintain that the system set up by
>   Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does 
>not
>   give them the speed and flexibility to respond fully to terrorist 
>threats
>   at home.
>
>   A former technology manager at a major telecommunications company said 
>that
>   since the Sept. 11 attacks, the leading companies in the industry have 
>been
>   storing information on calling patterns and giving it to the federal
>   government to aid in tracking possible terrorists.
>
>   "All that data is mined with the cooperation of the government and 
>shared
>   with them, and since 9/11, there's been much more active involvement in
>   that area," said the former manager, a telecommunications expert who did
>   not want his name or that of his former company used because of concern
>   about revealing trade secrets.
>
>   Such information often proves just as valuable to the government as
>   eavesdropping on the calls themselves, the former manager said.
>
>   "If they get content, that's useful to them too, but the real plum is 
>going
>   to be the transaction data and the traffic analysis," he said. "Massive
>   amounts of traffic analysis information - who is calling whom, who is in
>   Osama Bin Laden's circle of family and friends - is used to identify 
>lines
>   of communication that are then given closer scrutiny."
>
>   Several officials said that after President Bush's order authorizing the
>   N.S.A. program, senior government officials arranged with officials of 
>some
>   of the nation's largest telecommunications companies to gain access to
>   switches that act as gateways at the borders between the United States'
>   communications networks and international networks. The identities of 
>the
>   corporations involved could not be determined.
>
>   The switches are some of the main arteries for moving voice and some
>   Internet traffic into and out of the United States, and, with the
>   globalization of the telecommunications industry in recent years, many
>   international-to-international calls are also routed through such 
>American
>   switches.
>
>   One outside expert on communications privacy who previously worked at 
>the
>   N.S.A. said that to exploit its technological capabilities, the American
>   government had in the last few years been quietly encouraging the
>   telecommunications industry to increase the amount of international 
>traffic
>   that is routed through American-based switches.
>
>   The growth of that transit traffic had become a major issue for the
>   intelligence community, officials say, because it had not been fully
>   addressed by 1970's-era laws and regulations governing the N.S.A. Now 
>that
>   foreign calls were being routed through switches on American soil, some
>   judges and law enforcement officials regarded eavesdropping on those 
>calls
>   as a possible violation of those decades-old restrictions, including the
>   Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved
>   warrants for domestic surveillance.
>
>   Historically, the American intelligence community has had close
>   relationships with many communications and computer firms and related
>   technical industries. But the N.S.A.'s backdoor access to major
>   telecommunications switches on American soil with the cooperation of 
>major
>   corporations represents a significant expansion of the agency's 
>operational
>   capability, according to current and former government officials.
>
>   Phil Karn, a computer engineer and technology expert at a major West 
>Coast
>   telecommunications company, said access to such switches would be
>   significant. "If the government is gaining access to the switches like
>   this, what you're really talking about is the capability of an enormous
>   vacuum operation to sweep up data," he said.
>
>   --
>   -----------------
>   R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
>   The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
>   44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
>   "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
>   [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
>   experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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>
>--
>-----------------
>R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
>The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
>44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
>"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
>[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
>experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'