The mysterious "Other NSA Program" was DATA MINING

[Sparkly]

NYTimes this morning reports on the mysterious "NSA Program" Gonzales and Mueller kept referring to. It wasn't eavesdropping without a warrant, evidently; it was the data mining "program" (also without warrants).

It's still unclear WHY this raised such an argument that people were willing to resign over it, if eavesdropping without warrants (and possibly intercepting mail) weren't enough... The article says it's unclear whether it was about the way the data was going to be mined, or the way it would be used. And, why did Gonzales not just say in the first place that this was what he was referring to?

Mining of Data Prompted Fight Over Spying

By SCOTT SHANE and DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: July 29, 2007

WASHINGTON, July 28 — A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program.

It is not known precisely why searching the databases, or data mining, raised such a furious legal debate. But such databases contain records of the phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans, and their examination by the government would raise privacy issues.

The N.S.A.’s data mining has previously been reported. But the disclosure that concerns about it figured in the March 2004 debate helps to clarify the clash this week between Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senators who accused him of misleading Congress and called for a perjury investigation.

The confrontation in 2004 led to a showdown in the hospital room of then Attorney General John Ashcroft, where Mr. Gonzales, the White House counsel at the time, and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff, tried to get the ailing Mr. Ashcroft to reauthorize the N.S.A. program.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/washington/29nsa.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1185711286-Gmm2loc9YN2qQZJPXXq+Nw

This raises more questions than it answers. They'll have to comb back through Gonzales' testimony to figure out when he might have been referring to eavesdropping as "the program" and when he might have been referring to data mining as "the program." I think they should just make him come back and start over from the beginning! Talk about layers of obfuscation!

And they should bring Comey back, too.

Somehow, the administration has never acknowledged their data mining, and for some reason they did not want Gonzales to acknowledge it in his testimony. There's definitely more behind all this.

[Sparkly]

1. Replying to myself: Info is apparently so new, the NYTimes editorial staff didn't have it

The Times' editorial on Gonzo seems to have been written before the front page article was released...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/opinion/29sun1.html

[ThomWV]

2. Kick, kick, kick, kick. and keep on recommending - Please!

This is the most critical thing in the news today.

[Sparkly]

3. I thought so, too!!!

Raises many questions, doesn't it?!

[ThomWV]

4. Jesus! Do people not understand what this means?

If you link data mining to communications interception and if the computers are large enough (Ft. Mead) it means not only can they profile you, but that they can do it in real time and do it predictively.

I want to say that again - they can do it in real time and they can do it predictively.

They can do it for every man, woman, and child (including to a degree illegal aliens) in the country and in fact to a lessor extent in much of the rest of the industrial world as well.

[Sparkly]

6. What does "predictively" mean?

And I think the link between this and the eavesdropping is important, too, whether they're calling it all one "NSA program" with several "operational" elements, or whether they're calling it two different "programs."

[ThomWV]

13. This will scare you to death ...

It means that if their profile of you comes up something they predict to be a menace to society, and with the laws already in place, you could be picked up off the street, no one notified, tossed into a jail (not even necessarily in this country), denied access to the law, and held indefinitely.

They could predict what you intended to do. See?

All it takes is in place with a mature Total Information Awareness (remember the Pentagon program that supposedly had been killed?) linked to real time communications monitoring. Add to that mix one very large computer and Bush's already assumed powers and you have what I have described above.

[The Cleaner]

17. Minority Report?

NSA precogs...
:scared:

[BR_Parkway]

19. I thought I was outraged before reading this - now, I've never seen it

summed up so completely and simply. Thanks for putting it in nice easy terms to scare the absolute shit out of me!

Predictively - how far we've come from 'presumed innocent'

[C_U_L8R]

9. Everyone wave and say hi to Agent Mike !!!

And Agent MIke, we're sure you're a patriot and a good person
who wouldn't want to live in a fascist police state either.
So we encourage you to do whatever you can to expose
the rats who are running these black ops on the American people.

Thank you.

[MADem]

10. Only if you're a predictive type and don't know how to speak in code.

If you figure they're watching you, and listening in, you talk about baking bread and going to the supermarket....when bread is something else entirely.

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. So why is Gonzo claiming this is an NSA secret? We already knew about it.

Sounds like he's just using delay tactics and now that we've called his bluff, let the trial begin.

[Sparkly]

7. Evidently the administration never acknowledged it.

Although the NSA's data mining efforts have been reported previously, neither Bush nor his aides have publicly confirmed that, in connection with the surveillance program, the agency had combed through phone and e-mail records in search of suspicious activity.

(snip)

The report also provides further evidence that the NSA surveillance operation was far more extensive than has been acknowledged by the Bush administration, which has consistently sought to describe the program in narrow terms and to emphasize that the effort was legal.

(snip)

The practice of sifting through mountains of privately collected data on phone calls and Internet communications raises legal issues. Although the contents of calls and e-mails are protected, courts have ruled that "metadata" -- basic records of calls and e-mails kept by phone companies -- are not.

[Terri S]

8. I don't buy it

This smells like Gonzo trying to weasel his way out of a perjury conviction by asserting some kind of confusion about which program he was talking about. It doesn't even make any sense that people would be fine with eavesdropping but ready to resign in droves for data mining everyone already knew about. I don't doubt there was more to the data mining story but this smells like a really poor attempt to get Gonzo off the hook for the pathetic lies and selective memory crap.

[janx]

16. Yes indeed it does.

People knew about the TIA program, but Gonzo will probably assert that since the Chimp didn't officially announce it, it was classified and therefore he couldn't answer any question that pertained to it...

[Marr]

21. I agree with you.

This just doesn't make sense.

[Frustratedlady]

11. Honored to K&R #5! It's always in their way of wording, isn't it?

Gonzales has always been very, very careful about how he answers questions. However, things change. I wonder how far the Committee has gone back and reviewed prior testimony to see if they could pick up places where he actually provided answers to this situation, in his answer to some "other" situation they have been called to testify about? If he thought the Committee didn't know about "the program" in previous hearings, he might have accidentally let something slip.

He's slimy and hard to catch.

[Sparkly]

15. Yup. They should comb back through it.

And then bring him back in.

[bonito]

12. Sounds like the Total Information Awareness program

continues... http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/

[femmocrat]

14. K & R Thanks for finding and posting this.

I was suspicious of all that parsing that was going on at those hearings!

[Stalwart]

18. Fix the Facts - Twist the Law

Snip:

"The practice of sifting through mountains of privately collected data on phone calls and Internet communications raises legal issues. Although the contents of calls and e-mails are protected, courts have ruled that "metadata" -- basic records of calls and e-mails kept by phone companies -- are not."

We know how they fixed the facts before.

This is how they could twist the law:..

"The content of calls and emails are protected" (Our rights protected by law).

My money in the bank is also protected. So is my medical information. So are chemical weapons by separating them into part A and B until authorized for use. So is all the secret information we do not know about it. Last of all, so is what we say and write in our communications, until a warrant is obtained to listen to them.

If no third party ever knows or is able to learn what we privately say and write or said or wrote without our permission then it is protected until the law and legal procedures remove that protection.

If content of what we say and write is stored on a computer and it is protected until there is a warrant to look and listen then the content, as well as the associated right, has been protected. That is what government does: protect us and that is the most important thing, especially because we are in a war on terrorism. The government is doing many things to protect us that we don't and cannot know about. (Have to shoot us if we did?). If we knew then the terrorists would know.

So what is the difference between listening and looking at real time communications with a warrant or past communications content on a data base with a warrant? Both are protected. (twisted law and twisted thinking)

What is wrong is to unilaterally decide what is best for protection of our constitutional rights. However, 9/11 changed everything and the means of protecting our rights are too complicated for the public to understand, the government understands the safeguards. It can safeguard nuclear weapons and we do not need to know how.

The government failed us and fears doing so again. Has it convinced itself that it must record everything that is said and written, at least by the usual suspects, even if they are American citizens? When the next terrorists strike then "special rules related to special circumstances" will allow the government to comb through the data base of communication content without the need for warrants. Like martial law for information.

Not knowing who the next terrorists are until they strike, the most likely communication content of citizens, since terrorists hide among us, has to be stored (and protected) so the government can find terrorists and their associates.

A government's gotta do what a government's gotta do.

If a government goes to war by fixing facts and claiming to protect us and freedom then how unreasonable is it that the government is retaining communications content of its citizens ( with protection by its twisted thinking) in order to protect us and our freedom?

Some would think that is not right (or a right of the government) and they are going to say so. I think we are on the verge of learning how far the government has gone to "protect" us and our rights.

Funny how government capture and protection of all (or as much as technology currently allows for a selected sub group) communication content of American citizens in a data base until a warrant is obtained to look and listen is going to be blown by somebody that reveals this top secret (if the government doing it). Nothing can be protected that well and revelation itself will prove it.

I think the government has to let trees fall without hearing them (unless there is a warrant to listen when they fall) not intentionally record the sound of all trees falling for later listening ( with a warrant). That means that once the tree has fallen there is never any future ability to hear it but there is always the ability to examine the resulting evidence.

Unfortunately, this is a position that would cost the lives of some Americans that would otherwise be spared if the government could look and listen without restriction to the communications content in a vast data base. What are we willing to give or give up? It is our decision on our rights, not that of our government.

There are big bucks to be made in what it takes to capture and retain information, anonymize it and sift it later, when allowed. In many ways, factors that play in the war are playing here.

Fix the facts, twist the law. For what purpose?

[bonito]

20. This spying can be used for other purposes as well

Keeping the neocons in power,the NAU project and can also be used selectively, keeping their interest off the radar.

[Sam Ervin jret]

23. Worse than that my friend : Public or GOVERNMENT DATA collection and mining

See: Frontline: spying on the home front : The government 1. misdirected At&T phone data lines to use to their own ends in several big US cities. This was outlawed after the Nixon administration in order to keep abuse of executive power down 2. used this data and a Vegas created software program related to the game "six degrees of separation to see who knew who? Good Bye Right to Free association. We already gave up right to freedom from illegal search and seizure in #1.
Say good bye to more of you rights

[janx]

22. This is a red herring, Sparkly.

The Senate Judiciary Committee certainly knew about the program (if we knew, they certainly knew).

Apparently there was some dispute about it though. Gonzo tossed the red herring into his testimony deliberately, to try to confuse and mislead rather than just answer the questions.

The right wingers are already drinking this article and declaring that it "vindicates" Gonzo. Nothing could be further from the truth. ;-)

The senators knew what he was up to.

[Sparkly]

26. Unless the data mining went further than we know

Very confusing if they were using two definitions of "An NSA Program," and splitting hairs somehow between "operations" and "the program."

The collection of masses of data, supposedly impersonal, is different from delving in to personal privacy (records etc.) without cause or warrant, I think. The dispute was about "a program" that was illegal for invading privacy, as I understand it. Whether that's warrantless wiretapping or warrantless data snooping, I don't know.

It could be, as you say, that they made up this "other program" in order to say "there was no dispute," pointing to apples when the committee was asking about oranges. But it has to be clarified:
- which program the "gang of 8" was briefed on;
- which program created so much dispute people were ready to resign over it;
- which program they took to Ashcroft's hospital room.

I think they may be trying to have it one way or another depending on the question. Sometimes it's one program, sometimes another, sometimes both, sometimes neither. I have no idea.

[notadmblnd]

24. because it's being put out there as a distraction?

[Sam Ervin jret]

25. worse than you think

[Garbo 2004]

27. Gonzo still lied since clearly there was disagreement. If as Gonzo claimed,

there was no problem with authorization, then why the stunt of going to hospital to get Ashcroft to sign something he had no authority to sign at the time? Comey was AG at the time, not Ashcroft. Because they already knew Comey wouldn't sign it. Amd they were trying to get a signature from Ashcroft who did not have the legal authority to sign the document. And Ashcroft wouldn't sign it either.

It's not a matter of legalistic technical answers on "this program" rather than "that program" that "some" might argue absolves Gonzo of lying, since bottom line Gonzo's assertion that there was no disagreement on (re)authorization is itself a demonstrable lie.

[Sparkly]

28. Yes!

How can he contend there was no disagreement about "it," unless he's talking about one thing when he claims there was no disagreement, and another thing when he talks about going to Ashcroft's hospital in order to get him to override Comey? The two things don't make sense together.

[ThomWV]

29. You're right and that really is the point

You're dead right. The real question is not what are the constituents of the "program", that doesn't matter at all. What we know is that there was some program made up of some parts and that program was to be approved by whatever was in the envelope that Gonzo and Card had with them in the hospital room. He said there was no controversy over that program - but hours after the hospital visit half of the DOJ was ready to resign. That was his lie and it doesn't matter a bit what the program was about.