Matt Blaze blog entry about NSA warrantless wiretapping

Tyler Durden camera_lumina at hotmail.com
Tue Jan 6 12:10:03 PST 2009


Well, one argument I'd bet had been ridden and will continue to ride under
Obama is that there is no eavesdropping unless a human actually listens in.

In other words, given that there's a giant vacuum cleaner, the first port of
call for that traffic is almost certainly some kind of keyword processor.
Traffic of high risk probably passes through successive layers of technology
until there's a decision to actually put a human ear on it. But the telcos
probably don't need/want to know the conditions under which a human is
actually invoked, and can deniably state that they were unaware, when they
gladly ripped out a copy of the traffic, that NSA, etc...was actually going to
break a law by having a human listen in sans warrant.

As a result, it's safe to say it's still occurring, though probably not in big
fat bundles and dedicated rooms. Back in the digital domain (as opposed to the
more obvious splitting out at the optical layer), it's easily possible for the
traffic to be routed in such a way as to grant the telcos complete plausible
deniability (eg, by leveraging CALEA in clever ways, or by merely grabbing
copies of protect traffic in UPSR rings).

Of course, this raises the spectre of the (impossible) Variola Suitcase,
meaning they probably have to do a lot more pre-filtering and dropping then
they would like.

-TD





> Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:27:49 -0500> To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net> From:
jya at pipeline.com> Subject: Re: Matt Blaze blog entry about NSA warrantless
wiretapping> > Matt's concluding concern that Southwestern Bell's AT&T might >
have violated the basic privacy promise of the original AT&T by> dancing to
NSA's tune, is indeed to be lamented. SW Bell has been > cooperating with the
Feds from its earliest days, thanks to the vast > military array and contracts
in its service area.> > One might suspect that SW Bell's buyout of AT&T was
assisted by> the spies for their own purposes to gain ready access to the>
infrastructure through tried and trusted friendlies. NTT's> arrangement for
the FBI to grab all its traffic at the Dallas> switch a part of the pattern.
And Verizon marches in step,> it too having a central intercept office in the
Dallas area,> and half-dozen more in NYC for the perdurable Euro suction.> >
This is not to say that all defense-fed corporations have not> been equally
cooperative whether by economic inducement or> by regulatory coercion. Oh, and
patriotism, kachink.> > Will any of this change under Obama? Would he dare
prosecute> the spies and the lawyers who waved them on? Nobody has> ever done
that.> > I'd count on the technicians running the systems to correct> the
abuse not the legal-politicos who think the invasiveness is > hunky-dory.
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