N.S.A. Report Outlined Goals for More Power

[Indi Guy]

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — Officials at the National Security Agency, intent on maintaining its dominance in intelligence collection, pledged last year to push to expand its surveillance powers, according to a top-secret strategy document.

In a February 2012 paper laying out the four-year strategy for the N.S.A.’s signals intelligence operations, which include the agency’s eavesdropping and communications data collection around the world, agency officials set an objective to “aggressively pursue legal authorities and a policy framework mapped more fully to the information age.”

Written as an agency mission statement with broad goals, the five-page document said that existing American laws were not adequate to meet the needs of the N.S.A. to conduct broad surveillance in what it cited as “the golden age of Sigint,” or signals intelligence. “The interpretation and guidelines for applying our authorities, and in some cases the authorities themselves, have not kept pace with the complexity of the technology and target environments, or the operational expectations levied on N.S.A.’s mission,” the document concluded.

Using sweeping language, the paper also outlined some of the agency’s other ambitions. They included defeating the cybersecurity practices of adversaries in order to acquire the data the agency needs from “anyone, anytime, anywhere.” The agency also said it would try to decrypt or bypass codes that keep communications secret by influencing “the global commercial encryption market through commercial relationships,” human spies and intelligence partners in other countries. It also talked of the need to “revolutionize” analysis of its vast collections of data to “radically increase operational impact.”...

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/us/politics/nsa-report-outlined-goals-for-more-power.html?_r=0

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[jtuck004]

1. "existing American laws were not adequate to meet the needs of the N.S.A"

Sounds like Goldman Sachs, or Chase Bank.

[Laelth]

2. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[RC]

3. How many DU'ers are still defending the NSA?

And why?

[OnyxCollie]

4. Because...

Obama!

[RC]

5. Blind obedience is frightening and detrimental to the masses.

[randome]

6. One doesn't need to 'defend' the NSA to know that every LEA tries to extend its capabilities.

What is needed is a Congress that will regulate them the way they should be regulating corporations.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[RC]

7. The problem is that the NSA needs to be regulated out of existence.

They have proven themselves to be an out of control corrupt agency. Heads need to roll, prison sentences need to be handed down. The NSA is far enough out of control that RICO can and should be invoked. Just because it is a government agency, empowered with their own secret court, does not necessarily make what they do legal. Especially when it clashes with the U.S. Constitution. The United States has other ways to get the information it wants. Legal ways.

[randome]

9. So simply don't use computers? That's not a valid alternative.

How would one go about trying to stop human trafficking, international child porn rings, drug cartels, money laundering and terrorists?

Monitoring foreign communications, I would think (no expert, here), is essential.

I think much of today's conflict comes from the fact that digital information is ridiculously easy to obtain and disseminate. It's the Information Age and closing down one agency simply means another will eventually use the same techniques.

New laws and regulations, yes, but we shouldn't -and can't- simply give up on trying to stop international crime.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[RC]

11. International crime calls for international cooperation

It is not our responsibility to go it alone. Yet we do and that is even starting to piss off our "friends". Going it alone is a bu$h the lesser mind set. We are supposed to be Liberals, Progressives, socially cooperative, not the world's bully.

[randome]

12. The Five Eyes network is cooperation but it's a very convoluted one.

Every nation has laws that forbid its government from monitoring their citizens so they 'contract out' the dirty business to other countries and then they return the favor by monitoring that country's citizens.

It's a hell of a loophole but I don't know what the alternative is. Probably more equitable treatment of citizens in general and reducing the population so that crime doesn't fill the nooks and crannies the way it does now.

But those are long-term -and probably Utopian- solutions.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[JDPriestly]

26. The spokesperson for the NSA lied to Congress and the American people at a congressional

hearing. Have we forgotten that? The NSA is clearly out of control. It is an anti-democratic time-bomb in our executive branch.

I'm all for surveillance of actual terrorists -- people who want to overthrow the government through violent means -- but I am not at all in favor of mass surveillance. What in the world are they looking for? There just aren't that many terrorists in the world. And very few of them are in the US using the internet.

[RC]

29. Absolutely. The NSA has become an out of control criminal agency.

With all that information at their disposal, black mail of anyone, high or low, can be a foregone conclusion. That is no way to run a supposedly free country.

[deurbano]

13. What's LEA?

[randome]

14. Law Enforcement Agency.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[Indi Guy]

16. Your argument, while valid, ironically is also spurious.

Precious little of value comes out of Congress these days.

To put the onus on Congress to curtail the overreach of the NSA or any other LEA is patently unrealistic.

[Maedhros]

17. Obama could certainly get the ball rolling in the right direction

by firing James Clapper and instructing Holder to prosecute him for lying to Congress.

(Yeah, I'm not holding my breath.)

[Indi Guy]

18. The surveillance world/industry has overseen many presidents. Obama has no control here, and...

...no president has tried to reign in Spook Central since JFK was made an example of.

[randome]

19. Obama can do what he thinks is worth doing. So can Congress.

The reason they don't is probably because:

* Monitoring foreign communications is not against the law.
* Monitoring foreign communications serves a useful purpose.
* Most people actually don't care about the metadata issue.

Chancellor Merkel of Germany made a temporary 'fuss' about the NSA but that's already old news, isn't it?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[Maedhros]

21. You cannot make a claim about what "most people" care about.

You don't care about the NSA collecting metadata, but polls indicate the American public does:

http://rt.com/usa/nsa-poll-surveillance-issa-722/

According to the results of survey released this week by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, anti-NSA sentiment remains rampant in the United States more than three months after former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden first began disclosing top-secret documents exposing the inner-workings of a vast surveillance apparatus operated by America’s premier spy agency. Meanwhile, concerns regarding those practices are growing amid members of Congress and even independent coalitions.

Polling conducted by the AP and NORC last month and released on Tuesday suggest that 56 percent of Americans surveyed oppose the NSA’s collection of telephone records, and 54 percent said they were against the practices that put Internet metadata into the hands of federal investigators.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/13/nsa-surveillance-guardian-poll-oversight

A clear majority of Americans are concerned about the actions and operations of the National Security Agency (NSA) and want the intelligence body to be subjected to further review and greater congressional oversight, a Guardian poll has found.

In the opinion poll, conducted for the Guardian by Public Policy Polling, two-thirds of voters who responded said that in the light of a week-long series of leaked disclosures about the NSA's surveillance activities they wanted to see its role reviewed. Only 20% thought there were no grounds for further review, while 14% could not say either way.

[Indi Guy]

24. Hold on just a minute.

I'll just take one of your points for the time being.

You say, "Most people actually don't care about the metadata issue." The "metadata issue" is inextricably intertwined with the Constitutional issue -- as in the NSA's obvious and blatant contempt and disregard for the rule of law which is the Constitution. I dare say that most Americans do care about or Constitution. Wouldn't you agree?

[randome]

25. Other than on Internet bubbles like DU, I don't hear anyone else talking about it.

A poll is one thing. Anyone will answer 'Yes' to that question, then shrug and get on about their lives. In the poll you cited, a bare majority even said 'Yes'.

As for the Constitutionality, third-party records do not fall under 'personal effects' and it has long been ruled legal for the government to collect them.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[Indi Guy]

30. The NSA has already admitted that they violated the Constitution...

...when they violated the rules of the FISA court.

And as for the public's support for the Constitution -- I'd venture to say that most people aren't aware of how grievously the NSA has trashed it; and I've observed that the more this comes to light -- the more the outrage is growing in this country. I think it would be a foolish mistake to underestimate this nations reverence for our charter.

[Maedhros]

20. Sorry - not buying it.

Obama put Clapper into his current position; Obama can boot him out. If you're actually claiming that Obama is afraid to have Clapper fired and prosecuted, then my answer would be that IMO courage is a basic requirement for holding the office of President.

[JDPriestly]

27. No doubt true.

[jsr]

8. Strengthening our most powerful branch of government

[Pholus]

10. Their perversity continues! Mapping "any device, anywhere, all the time."

"The program is not used for surveillance, they said, but to understand computer networks."

Conducting surveillance on the US population would be bad so of course we don't do that. We simply have a realtime map that can map "any device, anywhere, all the time" so that we "understand the network." Gotcha. That's why their friggen codename evokes the "X marks the spot" mental imagery right?

But the intelligence officials said that Treasure Map maps only foreign and Defense Department networks, and is limited by the amount of data available to the agency.

I guess all the US addresses just appear on their "300000 foot perspective" of the internet as "Here be Dragons!" right? It'd fit the theme of a "Treasure Map" at least.

But as usual, you simply have to parse their words and you know exactly what they're doing. I used to think Russians had to be really clever when they claimed that Pravda was an incredibly accurate news source if you simply knew how to read into how things were said and what was left unsaid. The NSA spokescritters have taught me that it isn't THAT hard to do -- it's simply annoying that they have so little respect for our mental capabilities that they try this blatant PR spinning bullshit.

1) Define mapping. I like my maps to be complete. Everybody does. So how many links off a foreign or DoD network are needed so you're sure your map is complete. Is it 3 like you do for metadata or 6 like for Kevin Bacon?

2) "Limited by the amount of data available" which is to say, in light of recent revelations, basically there are no limits.

[blkmusclmachine]

22. All because of 9/11, huh?!?!

[blkmusclmachine]

23. Or have they completely stopped using their bullsh!t "explanations" of WHY...

[JDPriestly]

28. No. They started this long before 9/11. Back in the Reagan era I have read.

I suspect their hope to do this existed long before Reagan.