FBI Boss: Collecting Billions Of Phone Records Could Prevent Next 9/11, Boston Bombing -- Despite Not Having Prevented The Originals
from the if-at-first-you-don't-succeed,-double-down dept
Robert Mueller, the director of the FBI testified in front of the House judiciary committee on Thursday, and like others before him, attempted to justify widespread domestic surveillance by pointing at all the terrorist activity it has and could have prevented. (All the while conveniently ignoring the fact that these tactics had little to do with successfully prevented terrorist attacks.)
He described how Khalid al-Midhar, one of the 9-11 hijackers, had called a Yemeni safe house from a phone in San Diego shortly before the attack – a phone call that would have been intercepted and acted upon, claimed Mueller, had today's surveillance system been in place.Prevented 9/11? That's an interesting claim -- one that can't be easily disputed (or verified). But there's a couple of problems with Mueller's scenario. One, the FBI would have needed to "connect all the dots" beforehand, something that much easier said than done. Not having these dots connected allowed the Boston bombers to slip through the surveillance net. This is not necessarily a failure. Exponentially increasing the amount of data turns surveillance into a search for a needle in a haystack -- and the FBI, NSA, et al seem to be mainly concerned that the haystack just isn't big enough.
Two, there's a good possibility that the FBI and NSA already had something like this in the works (if not actually operable) even before the 9/11 attacks. The Big Picture points out that the NSA was already installing backdoors in the Windows operating system back in 1999, and links to a story detailing a DEA/NSA collaboration, which supposedly installed a domestic "call tracing program" at AT&T and Verizon in December of 2000 and which had been tracking calls from the US to various countries since the 1990's.
The government’s dependence on the phone industry, driven by the changes in technology and the Bush administration’s desire to expand surveillance capabilities inside the United States, has grown significantly since the Sept. 11 attacks. The N.S.A., though, wanted to extend its reach even earlier. In December 2000, agency officials wrote a transition report to the incoming Bush administration, saying the agency must become a “powerful, permanent presence” on the commercial communications network, a goal that they acknowledged would raise legal and privacy issues.
In the drug-trafficking operation, the N.S.A. has been helping the Drug Enforcement Administration in collecting the phone records showing patterns of calls between the United States, Latin America and other drug-producing regions. The program dates to the 1990s, according to several government officials, but it appears to have expanded in recent years.This certainly gives the appearance that someone, if not necessarily the FBI, would have had access to a great many phone records months before the 9/11 attacks, if not actually years before. And yet, the attacks still happened and the head of the FBI is using the tragedy as a crutch to support harvesting millions of records on domestic end-to-end calls.
Officials say the government has not listened to the communications, but has instead used phone numbers and e-mail addresses to analyze links between people in the United States and overseas. Senior Justice Department officials in the Bush and Clinton administrations signed off on the operation, which uses broad administrative subpoenas but does not require court approval to demand the records...
In a separate program, N.S.A. officials met with the Qwest executives in February 2001 and asked for more access to their phone system for surveillance operations, according to people familiar with the episode. The company declined, expressing concerns that the request was illegal without a court order. The agency, those knowledgeable about the incident said, wanted to install monitoring equipment on Qwest’s “Class 5” switching facilities, which transmit the most localized calls. Limited international traffic also passes through the switches.
Other N.S.A. initiatives have stirred concerns among phone company workers. A lawsuit was filed in federal court in New Jersey challenging the agency’s wiretapping operations. It claims that in February 2001, just days before agency officials met with Qwest officials, the N.S.A. met with AT&T officials to discuss replicating a network center in Bedminster, N.J., to give the agency access to all the global phone and e-mail traffic that ran through it.
The same lawsuit accuses Verizon of setting up a dedicated fiber optic line from New Jersey to Quantico, Va., home to a large military base, allowing government officials to gain access to all communications flowing through the carrier’s operations center.
(For added verification that the "because terrorism" argument for widespread surveillance predates the 9/11 attacks, here's George Herbert Walker Bush complaining that requiring warrants for "terror" wiretaps would be an "unnecessary diminution of collection of foreign intelligence" -- in 1976.)
Despite this, Mueller doubled down on the "threat prevention" argument. Not only could the surveillance prevent the next 9-11, but the next Boston bombing as well. This led to many Congressmen angrily asking why the FBI hadn't bothered preventing the first Boston bombing, seeing as it had access to all of this ultra-effective, terrorist-fighting data. Mueller's rebuttal? Even the smallest curtailing of the FBI's virtually unlimited access to data would be catastrophic.
"If you narrow [the scope of surveillance], you narrow the dots and that might be the dot that prevents the next Boston," said Mueller.Mueller also expressed concern about granting permission to Google and other internet companies to disclose details on requests for data.
He also rejected calls from technology companies such as Google to disclose the scale of the programs, saying even this information could help terrorists seeking to hide their communications.Sure, terrorists might decide to use services that fight government data requests (or avoid services the government is currently surveilling) but so will many Americans and foreigners who are currently suspected of nothing but are being loosely surveilled all the same. Keeping the terrorists in the dark would be one thing if the surveillance was limited to suspected terrorists, but the FBI/NSA's blanket coverage affects millions of people worldwide. This, combined with the lack of proof these supposedly crucial tools are useful in fighting terrorism, is a strong argument for allowing companies forced to comply with untargeted data hauls granted by a secret court to, at minimum, inform their users that these demands are being received and/or complied with.
"Any tidbit of information that comes out" about how authorities track communications means terrorists "find ways around", he said.
"Every time we have a leak like this and you follow it up and look at the intel afterwards [you find terrorists] are looking for ways around.. If we lose our ability to get their communications we are going to be exceptionally vulnerable."
You have to admire Mueller's one-track defense. According to him, everything that's been leaked harms our national anti-terrorists efforts. Non-terrorist Americans have no need to question the methods being used or fear for their privacy. Mueller says the call data can only be used for anti-terrorism efforts, citing section 205 of the PATRIOT ACT. But as Julian Sanchez points out, this section explicity allows the supposedly "one-purpose" information to be disseminated to law enforcement in order to pursue non-terrorist suspects [Section §1861(g)(2)(c)].
In this section, the term “minimization procedures” means—Above and beyond these "minimization procedures" that allow for a surprising amount of easy dissemination, there's the fact that the FBI (and others) have rendered the limitations of the PATRIOT ACT meaningless by declaring pretty much everything collected to be "relevant" to anti-terrorist efforts.
(C) notwithstanding subparagraphs (A) and (B), procedures that allow for the retention and dissemination of information that is evidence of a crime which has been, is being, or is about to be committed and that is to be retained or disseminated for law enforcement purposes.
Others questioned whether the FBI had acted lawfully in seeking to use section 215 of the Patriot Act to target all calls made in the US on the basis that they "might become relevant" to future terrorism investigations.Searching the houses of every phone owner might uncover something relevant to current investigations, which is arguably more useful than harvesting data for future reference, and yet, no one seems to think that's a good idea. Gathering metadata is much less intrusive than house-to-house sweeps, but just because it's less noticeable doesn't mean it's any less wrong.
Mueller's excuses were worn out before he even started using them. But it wasn't the first time "terrorism" has been used to justify government overreach and it surely won't be the last.
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Filed Under: civil liberties, fbi, nsa, patriot act, robert mueller, surveillance, terrorism
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i am waiting now to see how long it takes for the next 'terrorist plot' to be caught and prevented or the next terrorist plot that succeeds, God forbid! and people are hurt so that the crap comments can come out about how this would never have happened if we were able to troll through every single communication of everyone, everywhere! i wouldn't be surprised either if that isn't done intentionally, just so it can be a raised topic again and make the people feel guilty. it sure as hell wont be the first time!!
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Of course at that point we'll truly be in danger.
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:)
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Delusions
A huge data collection will however provide the stick with which to beat them with when the next incident happens, look you has the evidence but failed to see it.
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Re: Delusions
The suspects were well known to the security services - they had even tried to recruit one of them but they failed to predict the attack.
It puzzles me how people who, when challenged about their failure, say "well it's like searching for a needle in a haystack" but then turn round and demand a bigger haystack.
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Politicians are idiots
What is that word? The word is 'terrorism'.
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Re: Politicians are idiots
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Re: Politicians are idiots
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This has never been about
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Heck, if one were to be somewhat conspiratorial in nature, there is actually quite an incentive for the powers in charge to not prevent all terrorist attacks. Failure in this case leads to more and larger departments in the surveillance state, as well as more bloated budgets which can be turned into higher salaries for the managers of these departments.
History teaches us that rewarding failure tends to produce bad outcomes.
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It could
You are looking at version 1 and saying because it didn't work entirely, that it never will. On that basis, Apple was a flop (the Apple 1 wasn't all that), and the Wright brothers only went a few feet, so clearly planes will never work.
I think the term Luddite applies here, which is an odd thing for a vaunted staff member of Techdirt. Scared of technology?
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Re: It could
All I can say is FUCK YOU!
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Re: It could
They've had more than a decade to sort this out.
This isn't a matter of ironing out bugs. The project failed. It's time to scrap it and start over...or abandon the idea entirely.
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The issues raised for the most part are conjecture and an attempt to pile stuff up higher to make it look bad - but without still accepting that much (if not the entirety of the deal) is in fact legal, approved, and would generally pass legal tests of it.
Moreover, if you replace NSA or PRISM with GOOGLE, you would realize that almost all of these things are acts done in the name of business every day. Google probably knows more about your personal habits and your love of gay Spanish midget porn stars than the US government does. Yet you seem to have no issue handing that information to a company that is just trying to make a profit off of reselling it - yet you have great concerns about the state working with technology to try to develop better ways to not only react to crime after the fact, but to try to prevent it before it happens (or as it happens).
I guess I am just not as naive as you are, thinking we live in some perfect world where the bad guys just don't exist.
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"...no regard for the actual issues raised, while basing every argument on half-assed assumptions about the opinions of the people you're talking with that bear no relationship to reality, and ignoring the actual arguments they regularly make."
Thanks for reminding me.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: It could
You don't see the very stupid concept that we should for some reason deny the authorities the rights we grant companies working for profit?
You don't grasp that the collection of third party information, while perhaps distasteful, it not particularly in violation of your privacy?
It's a wonderful world you live in, one of "ignorance is bliss". You are truly a scary man.
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It seems that you don't understand the extremely important difference between voluntary and involuntary data sharing.
No, I don't grasp that. The collection of third party information is absolutely, 100%, a violation of my privacy. If all the third party information about anyone is collected, the end result is essentially identical to what would be obtained by bugging me, searching my stuff, and following me around.
If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck...
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I do. Once you share with a third party, you pretty much lose all the privacy that comes with it. The courts over the years (not just FISA, but open courts) have pretty much ruled consistently that this data is not protected private speech.
Also, please consider Techdirt. Check the number of cookies and trackers related to your visits here. Are all of those truly voluntary, or are you just ignoring them because you don't like the implications?
The collection of third party information is absolutely, 100%, a violation of my privacy.
Go argue with the courts, they don't agree. Your communications (voice, text message, email) are protected, but the "envelopes" that you send them in are open to view and therefor not private in the same manner.
They are not bugging you, they are not searching your stuff - they are only looking at what you willingly share with others. You share as much with Google and Mike's many advertisers and third party cookie tossers. Why aren't you upset about that?
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Yes, I know. But so what? I'm not talking about what's legal. I'm talking about what's right.
Indeed they are voluntary. I can prove it, too: I've opted out of them, with the exception of one cookie. So, again, how do I opt out of government spying?
Well, we disagree. I think that they are bugging me, and they are searching my stuff. I think that the arguments that they aren't are mere legalisms and wordsmithing.
Well, I don't, as I said. But even if I did, it still boils down to that being my choice. Because I choose to share intimate details with one entity does not mean that I should be forced to share them with a different entity.
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You keep pushing out that accusation, apparently without the basic idea of what it means... Interesting...
"You don't grasp that the collection of third party information, while perhaps distasteful, it not particularly in violation of your privacy?"
I do. I also grasp that a private company that explicitly allows you you to opt out of said collection is less dangerous than a US government agency that doesn't allow such things, especially for non-US citizens. But, you already made idiotic assumptions about me, so you really don't know what I think. Ignorance is truly your forte, I believe.
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Personally, I don't care one bit whether or not the program is legal, except that if it is, that just makes the whole situation even worse.
The program is dangerous and wrong. That's all I care about.
Really? I can opt out of the spying done by Google. How do I opt out of the NSA?
Says who? And even if that were true, so what? That is a consensual arrangement. When the government does it, it is not.
That right. The government always abuses these powers. Even if these programs were started with the best of intentions, they never stay that way.
The problem is that the government has the ability to cause great harm to us all, far more than Google can do. So it requires a much shorter leash.
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I don't thin there's a person here who thinks there are no bad guys. But their existence doesn't justify these overreaching programs.
I would rather live in a dangerous world where I'm free than live in a safe world under tyranny.
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You do understand that this is the particular strength and failing that the enemies of the US are using against it, right?
Until after 2001, the US policy on visas was pretty much "ask and you get", with little vetting and little consideration for who was entering the country. The US was (and still is in many ways) a country without a proper border controls, no tracking for people it let's in, no way to know if they have left or not on time.
The 9/11 bombers used that system, that "freedom" as the basis for their attack.
The US is a place full of dangerous freedom. Mostly dangerous, with more guns per person that any other place on earth, more needless death... all in the name of freedom, her clothes bloodstained from those who practice it with full vigor.
The people who seek to harm (or destroy) the US know all of this, and use your culture against you as a weapon, or at least as a path to get to you.
Your dangerous freedom is likely to cost you that very freedom at some point. Isn't that sad?
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If you think the term Luddite applies here you haven't the vaguest of conceptions what the term actually means. Being anti-government abuse and pro-civil liberties and privacy is in absolutely no way what-so-ever the same thing as being anti-technology. What a load of horse shit.
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Re: It could
Not necessarily.
All those failed prophecies (heavier than air flight is impossible, you (Einstein) will never amount to anything, we don't like their sound (the Beatles) etc) are noteworthy because they are unusual.
Other predictions like:
Perpetual motion machines are impossible.
DRM will not prevent widespread infringement.
The next terrorist attack will not be predicted (because it will be different from the last one.
Have a well deserved reputation for remaining true.
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Re: Re: It could
The problem is you have absolutely no proof along those lines. Based on what has happened in the last 10 years, that might appear to be true, but as you pointed out, many things that were considered true in the past have been proven just to be old wives tales.
The earth was flat for a very long time, at least according to most people. For some people (such as yourself) it may still be the case, I don't know. Most of the rest of us have accepted this weird new science and moved with it.
Open your mind and consider the alternatives, rather than closing yourself down and getting stuck with your rotary dial phone because you know this new fangled touch tone thing won't catch on.
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Slippery slope
I suspect a blatant invasion of privacy would have to personally hit one of the higher-ups for them to wake up. I'm sure the thought crossed Snowden's mind...
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Prevent How
After the bombing a loose lipped FBI agent indicated they could tap the phones and listen in to what the bombers had talked about before the bombing. this must have been the Prism asset.
Prism Can assist in the conviction of a target, but Its a proven fact it can't find a clean skin, proven by the fact the NSA did not stop the first time villains that did those bombs in Boston. or told an agency, like the FBI who have people trained in apprehending Villains.
Now the FBI chief argues that Prism will stop the next act of madness, I call that Bullshit.
The Security services have bought an expensive toy, diverting money that could be better spent on crumbling infrastructure, or just paying down the national debt. Now the toy is public Its plain to see why it was so secret, to justify spending so much money, they will need to be-little the constitution.
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Re: Prevent How
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Re: Prevent How
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ummm
There are a lot of things in life we don't do and have laws against, even though it would be more convenient.
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Surveillance Failure?
The way this statement is constructed suggests a public phone was used, and therefore the call was recorded. This would indicate that it was not looked at in time, or not passed on in time.
(Unless it was a phone owned by Khalid al-Midhar, the content of the call would be required to identify him.)
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If only we had say the 20th 9/11 hijacker in jail before 9/11
If only we had intelligence documents titled "Bin Laden determined to attack in the US" a few months before 9/11.
If only the NSA had the tools available to give us either of those things, we could have stopped 9/11.
Oh right, we DID have both of those things, and the government still blew it.
And we DID have the NSA surveillance since 2005 it sounds like, and it failed to stop the Boston Bombers. Hmm, I don't think their arguments are very credible for some reason.
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Re: If only we had say the 20th 9/11 hijacker in jail before 9/11
"In the late 1980s, Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, concerned about the growing strength of the Islamist movement, told President George H. W. Bush, "You are creating a Frankenstein."[33]" from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
And as I write this it seems that the US is determined to repeat the mistake by supplying arms to the Syrian rebels. Some of those weapons will inevitably end up in the hands of Al Qaeda.
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Re: Re: If only we had say the 20th 9/11 hijacker in jail before 9/11
Funny how after all these scandals have come to surface, like magic, the US is claiming, without any hard evidence, that the Syrian government is using biological weapons and threatening to go to war. I guess they figured they needed a convenient distraction from all that's going on. Also highly interesting (i.e. questionable) that this happens just a couple of days after the Bilderberg meeting in the UK.
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Re: Re: If only we had say the 20th 9/11 hijacker in jail before 9/11
Oh don't worry, McCain assures us that we can keep those weapons limited to just the good guys and Al Qaeda won't get any of them.
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It may or may not stop the next 9/11.
The thing is, I stopped living in fear a long time ago, I am not afraid of terrorists, I am not afraid of suicide bombers or murdering a-holes that pick up people on the streets to kill just because he believes that others harm his kind more than his own kind harms their own.
If a 9/11 was to happen again I be sad and would do everything in my power to help bring those responsible to justice, Bin Laden is swimming with the fishes(literally) today and that was good.
If you are afraid to live in a free democratic country and are willing to give up your basic rights that protects you from rogue governments, well what can I say, I can't force everybody to listen and even if I could I probably wouldn't do it, by it will be a sad day for freedom and democracy.
We survive sure, the Chinese proved that, but there will always be in the back of the head that uneasy sensation that something is wrong.
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Bad idea...
Security through obscurity never works. Never!
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O.D.D.
So could not pissing people off. Try not being such an asshat, Mr. Authority.
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Back-Door in Windows?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9909.html#NSAKeyin MicrosoftCryptoAPI
In fact, in the year 2000, Microsoft's relationship with the Federal Government, and the Clinton Administration in particular, was highly adversarial, with anti-trust actions and all. Bill Gates was in a state of deep and public shock that the government could make him obey anti-trust law. It was a whole different world, as you will gather if you read Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's "Findings of Fact."'If the government had made Microsoft an improper suggestion, they would surely have recorded it, and published it as a means of discrediting their enemies.
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