Just to Annoy the NSA

[Shiranu]

Who exactly do people think the NSA is if not "the troops"?

Well, I disagree with "the troops" jobs as well, so it should stand to reason I don't care for the NSA either.

However, the NSA is treating Americans as the enemy, and as an American I find that a bit annoying.

[aileron]

However, the NSA is treating Americans as the enemy, and as an American I find that a bit annoying.

Examples, please.

[Shiranu]

However, the NSA is treating Americans as the enemy, and as an American I find that a bit annoying.

Examples, please.

The fact that any American is warrant to have their information stored, be it Akhmad if who beats his wives to make them wear burqas, complain about the American government as "The Great Satan" and post, "Allah Akbar!" on their facebook or Joseph, who works down at the local food pantry every week and donates half his salary to charity.

The fact they can store information without probable cause, without a warrant... that's kinda treating us as if, "You are all suspected criminals/terrorists/enemies, now lets go break the law to prove it!".

Note: I only use "Terrorist Akhmad" given the context; if the NSA was saying it was looking into illegals from South of the border it would have been Don Juan Julio Julian Jose who sells marijuana and is suspected of running people across the border. Joseph was just the first name to come to mind.

[aileron]

The fact that any American is warrant to have their information stored...

The fact they can store information without probable cause, without a warrant...

Storing information about you in terms of metadata and publicly available information does not require probable cause or a warrant.  It never has.  The only reason they have your data in there is because it's noise they need to filter out after they scooped up a lot of data looking for things they do care about.  

If they were really treating Americans as enemies, they would use this data for things like blackmail, extortion, etc.  The evidence supports the position that they're not using it for that purpose, but rather for the purposes of national security.

The more realistic question is what do we have to show for the expense?  They claim it's working, but the necessary secrecy makes it hard to prove the ROI.

[Shiranu]

... but rather for the purposes of national security.

Of course... lets infringe on people's privacy because security! Freedom! AMERICAAAAA!

And no, if they were treating us like terrorist/criminals/enemies, they would be treating us like suspected terrorist/criminals/enemies... they would be investigating us with (legally) no justification. Which is what they do.

The more realistic question is what do we have to show for the expense? They claim it's working, but the necessary secrecy makes it hard to prove the ROI.

The fact that they can't offer one success story kinda makes me doubt its effectiveness. I mean... just one. They say it helped prevent 10, no wait make  that dozens!... no wait, 50!... can we get the details of a single one?

Of the 42 (in June) confirmed terrorist plots since 9/11, 9 were carried out without the government stopping them. Of the remaining 33? AT LEAST 29 were uncovered by "traditional" law enforcement methods. That gives, of confirmed terrorist attempts, at most 4 out of 42 attempts being possibly stopped by the NSA. That is a piss poor ratio for the money they drop on it and the civil rights the infringe on.

[Thumpalumpacus]

The fact that any American is warrant to have their information stored...

The fact they can store information without probable cause, without a warrant...

Storing information about you in terms of metadata and publicly available information does not require probable cause or a warrant.  It never has.  The only reason they have your data in there is because it's noise they need to filter out after they scooped up a lot of data looking for things they do care about.  

If they were really treating Americans as enemies, they would use this data for things like blackmail, extortion, etc.  The evidence supports the position that they're not using it for that purpose, but rather for the purposes of national security.

The more realistic question is what do we have to show for the expense?  They claim it's working, but the necessary secrecy makes it hard to prove the ROI.

Given government's propensity for abusing what powers it has, I'm distrustful of secrecy cloaking domestic spying. The fact that the subject of such spying cannot even complain about it publicly would seem to violate the right to free speech, as well.

I don't like my government treating me as a potential terrorist. And I don't like not being able to object, publicly, were I to discover that I was being surveilled.

Security as a justification for the erosion of rights is the tired ploy of a power-hungry government seeking ever-finer levels of control over citizens.  Perhaps you're comfortable with that, but I'm not.

[Jason78]

However, the NSA is treating Americans as the enemy, and as an American I find that a bit annoying.

Examples, please.

The incredibly badly named PATRIOT act.

[aileron]

Given government's propensity for abusing what powers it has, I'm distrustful of secrecy cloaking domestic spying.

Spying involves obtaining secret or confidential information.  If you're posting things to publicly available websites, how secret is it?  

The fact that the subject of such spying cannot even complain about it publicly would seem to violate the right to free speech, as well.

Not sure I understand your concern here.  People complain publicly about NSA activity all the time.

I don't like my government treating me as a potential terrorist.

The more prosaic reality is that your data to them is just analytic noise that must be filtered out to get what they really want.

[aileron]

However, the NSA is treating Americans as the enemy, and as an American I find that a bit annoying.

Examples, please.

The incredibly badly named PATRIOT act.

I'm not a fan of the PATRIOT Act, but how is this an example of the NSA treating Americans as the enemy?

[PopeyesPappy]

However, the NSA is treating Americans as the enemy, and as an American I find that a bit annoying.

Examples, please.

Well there is this.

In the opinion by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court denouncing the practice, the judge wrote that the NSA had advised the court that "the volume and nature of the information it had been collecting is fundamentally different than what the court had been led to believe," and went on to say the court must consider "whether targeting and minimization procedures comport with the 4th Amendment."

This is what they are talking about.

The NSA disclosed that it gathers some 250 million internet communications each year, with some 9 percent from these "upstream" channels, amounting to between 20 million to 25 million emails a year. The agency used statistical analysis to estimate that of those, possibly as many as 56,000 Internet communications collected were sent by Americans or persons in the U.S. with no connection to terrorism.

This is how they are doing it.

For instance, two senior intelligence officials said, when an American logged into an email server and looked at the emails in his or her inbox, that screen shot of the emails could be collected, together with Internet transactions by a terrorist suspect being targeted by the NSA - because that suspect's communications were being sent on the same fiber optic cable by the same Internet provider, in a bundled packet of data.

If they are capturing everything in the pipe at the same time as the targeted communications then their estimate of how many untargeted communications are collected is considerably understated. Not only that but they are getting a lot more than just a screen shot of your inbox.

[Colanth]

For instance, two senior intelligence officials said, when an American logged into an email server and looked at the emails in his or her inbox, that screen shot of the emails could be collected, together with Internet transactions by a terrorist suspect being targeted by the NSA - because that suspect's communications were being sent on the same fiber optic cable by the same Internet provider, in a bundled packet of data.

"A bundled packet of data"?  Talk about people not understanding how network traffic works.  That's like a phone tap monitoring all phone calls going through a central office.

[Mister Agenda]

For what it's worth, when I was there us lower-echelon guys had it drummed into us that domestic surveillance was only conducted with the express authorization of the Attorney General. It wasn't the NSA that chucked that requirement, it was Congress.

[Jason78]

The incredibly badly named PATRIOT act.

I'm not a fan of the PATRIOT Act, but how is this an example of the NSA treating Americans as the enemy?

It allows the surveillance of american citizens with no oversight.