NSA snoops on credit card transactions, says report

[The Straight Story]

"Follow the Money" is not just a catchphrase but an actual branch within the National Security Agency that spies on payments processed by Visa and others, according to Der Spiegel.

Citing documents from 2010 leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the German news magazine reported Monday that the "Follow the Money" division funnels the data it gathers into its own financial database. In 2011, that database held 180 million records, with 84 percent of them credit card transactions.

In response to a request for comment, an NSA spokesperson sent the following statement to CNET:

The U.S. Government acquires information about economic and financial matters to combat a range of threats to the national security of the United States and its allies, including information about terrorist financing and terror networks. This information is collected through regulatory, law enforcement, diplomatic, and intelligence channels, as well as through undertakings with cooperating foreign allies and partners.

The NSA examines the transactions of customers of large credit companies such as Visa as part of its overall surveillance, Der Spiegel said. Specifically, the agency looks for international ties by targeting Visa customers in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.


http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57603076-83/nsa-snoops-on-credit-card-transactions-says-report/

[gopiscrap]

1. this so fucking out of control

[randome]

2. If it was out control, wouldn't they be collecting U.S. data?

Obviously there are controls. They may be arguable ones but there are controls.

And does anyone have a better suggestion for how to track money laundering, terrorist financing, etc?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[mindwalker_i]

7. "Obviously?"

Why is it obvious there are controls? In the last month or so, a lot of controls or limitations we were lead to believe were in place were, in fact, not in place.

[randome]

13. From what the article says and quotes, it is 'obvious'.

...regulatory, law enforcement, diplomatic, and intelligence channels, as well as through undertakings with cooperating foreign allies and partners.

Specifically, the agency looks for international ties by targeting Visa customers in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

That sounds like a lot of constraints on how the NSA conducts its business. Of course it could all be lies but absent evidence to the contrary, why assume that?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[Mojorabbit]

14. 180 million records on file is not being constrained IMO nt

[randome]

19. 180 million records on file does not even equal half a day's worth of transactions, I bet.

I don't know more precise numbers but that sounds pretty miniscule to me when talking about the rest of the world outside America.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[Mojorabbit]

21. That is not finely targeted spying no matter how many days worth it is. nt

[mindwalker_i]

15. That doesn't sounds like a "control"

They are saying that they do those things - look for international ties, etc. - but it says nothing about controls in place on abuse of the system. After finding out about LOVEINT and such, it's unreasonable to assume that just because their description doesn't include directly saying "we spy on everybody" that we can assume they don't spy on everybody.

[randome]

20. Every LE agency has its LOVEINT moment. Some rise to the level of scandal. Others do not.

No problem here with the NSA being more transparent and less secretive. I'm just saying that the article in the OP is heavy on insinuation without even addressing the topic of what controls are in place to prevent abuse.

In other words, it's not so much informative as speculative.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[mindwalker_i]

22. What controls are in place

And can you trust that they actually are in place? I still don't see why "obviously there are controls in place" - I don't see anything obvious at all. However, given the recent set of articles and revalations, it would be very difficult to believe anyone from the inside saying there were controls in place, at all.

At this point, "Trust us" is guarenteed to produce the opposite result of what was intended.

[Marr]

8. I was just wondering whether this would be Old News™ or just Pragmatic™.

Guess I got my answer.

As for tracking money laundering... well, believe it or not, it was done without just spying on people en masse at one time.

[randome]

12. Before the Information Age, sure.

Is collecting foreign transaction information the same as spying? I suppose that's arguable but it's not that big a deal to me.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[Jackpine Radical]

3. There's no end to this shit--

Every day brings a new turd.

[gopiscrap]

4. I agree

this is the kind of bullshit that drives me to be more and more radical everyday!

[Jackpine Radical]

6. It's also the kind of thing that may wake up a whole lot of the Sleepers.

[Skidmore]

11. I find it amazing that so many people who have spent years on these

forums telling everyone that there is no such thing as privacy anymore because of technology still get shocked when confronted with the real life situations that bear that out.

Want privacy, wean yourself from the technology. It has be come laughable. It became laughable years ago when there was no provision set that control of a person's information stays with that person--that it does not automatically become owned by someone else who collects it.

[Mojorabbit]

16. There has to be some balance

You cannot function in today's society without technology. Many jobs require using it. That does not mean we have to give up all our privacy.

[Skidmore]

18. I think we are past the time that the genie can be put back

in the bottle. Businesses have been granted ownership of personal information and thereare too many technology cowboys out there happy to hack away. Frankly, I have been given no good reasons why the equally faceless Anonymous should be trusted any more than corporate or government consumers of this technology and software.

[Th1onein]

23. NO, Skidmore, we will NOT. And we should NOT be asked to.

This is OUR technology. WE created it. OUR tax dollars paid for it. It belongs to US. NOT THE NSA.

We should not have to "wean ourselves from the technology" simply because one of the agencies that OUR tax dollars pay for decides to abridge OUR Fourth Amendment rights.

When all we had were phones and snail mail, would you have said that we should "wean" ourselves from those? No, you wouldn't and you didn't. There is NO DIFFERENCE NOW. These are still OUR rights to privacy, technology or no technology.

Stop apologizing for the spying.

[Skidmore]

24. Who's apologizing. I just think that the reality is that

the technology and those who develop and use it on a large scale have done so with setting enough precedent and complicated design that it cannot be regulated any longer in the way that people would like it to be. Your privacy has not existed for a couple of decades now when it comes to the internet and electronic data. What do you think these corporations have been doing with all of that information they collect and which they claim ownership of? I'm just looking at the reality of that big ball of string that is pretty tangled by now.

[Th1onein]

25. It is not the technology that needs to be regulated; it's the NSA!

And it is an apology to say that because of technology we should expect our own government to spy on us. It's a different matter when we give PERMISSION for companies that we trade with to use our data. If we choose not to do business with them, they can't see or use our data. But the NSA is SPYING ON US WITHOUT OUR KNOWLEDGE OR PERMISSION. It is against the fucking law; what is it about that that you don't GET? Why should WE give up our use of technology simply because THEY can't obey the law?

[BelgianMadCow]

5. RT yesterday: NSA ‘Follow the Money’ branch spied on Visa customers, SWIFT transactions

According to one of the documents, the UK's intelligence agency, GCHQ, admitted cooperation with the NSA to spy on the world finance system. In its report, concerning the legal perspectives on "financial data", it said that the collection, storage and sharing of politically sensitive data was a deep invasion of privacy and involved "bulk data" full of "rich personal information," much of which "is not about our targets."

http://rt.com/news/nsa-spy-visa-swift-893/

[1-Old-Man]

9. Is this some sort of surprise? It shouldn't be

I don't think very many people have any concept of what it is the NSA does. To most the NSA is just the CIA in another guise, but that is an utterly wrong way to try and understand the Agency. They capture and collect electronic information. If its transmitted or stored electronically, whatever it is, then you can safely assume they have it. So it can be your phone calls, your e-mail, your credit information, your banking information, your health records, and I daresay your voter registration information too. If someone's got it on a computer somewhere then you can assume they have it as well. They do not use spies, they use the electromagnetic spectrum. There is no such thing as an NSA Agent, they do their jobs with wires and mathematics not schemes and guns. And virtually all of their information is from the source, not the recollections or speculations of something as arcane as a spy.

[hunter]

10. Oh dear. I'll confess. I've bought stuff at Wal-Mart.

I hang my head low in Liberal Shame.

But in my defense it's the nearest big-box store to my home and no other store offers one-stop shopping for both beer and motor oil. I like to minimize my errands, and I do recycle my motor oil.

Oh dear, I confess, I have a car too.

It's an old car, mid-'eighties with a salvage title, but I don't ride my bike or walk everywhere.

The shame, the shame...

[HipChick]

17. I will confess now...I bought a blow up sheep

as a prank for my old boss.. it wasn't for me