NSA-To-English Dictionary: I Don't Think These Words Mean What You Think They Do
from the if-you-can-redefine-the-language dept
For the last few weeks I'd been meaning to write up a "dictionary" of how the NSA translates certain words, completely different from the way any other English speaker does, in order to argue that what it does with its surveillance programs is "legal" under the law. I hadn't gotten around to it because every time I started, it seemed like there was more breaking news. Thankfully Jameel Jaffer and Brett Max Kaufman from the ACLU beat me to it, and put together a fantastic NSA lexicon, which highlights how the NSA has simply changed the meaning of many basic English words in order to argue that their efforts are, in fact, legal and above board. You can and should read the full and detailed explanations that Jaffer and Kaufman have put together for each word, but I'm going to take their same list and simplify it down a little. In bold is the word, and after it is what the NSA thinks it means.- Surveillance: When we actually access full content of your calls and emails, but not when we access all the data about who you talk to, where you are and what you do.
- Collect: When we run a search on data we
collecteder... "stored for safe keeping." - Relevant: Everything. It might become relevant in the future, thus it's relevant today.
- Targeted: As long as we're collecting the info for an investigation that involves a "target" then any info is "targeted" even if that info has nothing to do with the "target."
- Incidental: Everything that we collect... er... store that may become "relevant" at some point but isn't now even though it's "targeted." In short: everything.
- Inadvertent: Stuff we did on purpose on a massive scale that looks bad when exposed publicly.
- Minimize: A term we use to pretend that we delete information on Americans, but which has many exceptions, including if you encrypted your communications or if we have a sneaking suspicion that you're 51% foreign based on a hunch.
- No: When said to Congress in response to questions about whether we collect data on millions of Americans, this means "fuck you."
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Filed Under: collect, definitions, incidental, laws, legality, minimization, nsa surveillance, relevance, surveillance, targeted
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Translations
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Classified
2. Stuff the public already knows but we still don't want to tell them anyway.
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Re: Classified
2. Information not expected to be seen in a positive light if it is distributed.
1. Something of a nature that could make someone we like not included under 1 look bad.
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Re: Classified
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"
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One more fot the lexicon
The NSA and Congress are a shining example of this.
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Freedom: Slavery;
Ignorance: Strength.
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Re:
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* Direct access (to Google and Facebook servers):
When you think surveillance, think Google!
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Re: * Direct access (to Google and Facebook servers):
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Re: Re: * Direct access (to Google and Facebook servers):
When you think "techflaws", think vacuous one-liner ad hom.
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Re: * Direct access (to Google and Facebook servers):
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Follow the leader
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This is fun. Here are a few more:
FISA Court: Oversight.
Patriot Act: Our justification and authority to store all relevant data that protects you from terrorists and the boogyman.
Mark Udall (D-Colo) and/or Ron Wyden (D-Ore): Assholes that simply do not understand the need for our programs.
GCHQ: See, other democratic countries do what we do. What�s the big deal?
Legal: Whatever we decide would look like we are doing to prevent terrorism, child abuse and warts.
Senate Intelligence Committee: This is the committee that we give the least untruthful answers to when they ask about our programs.
Edward Snowden: Satan.
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Re: This is fun. Here are a few more:
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Oversight
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This is totalitarianism
Actually I believe that the ability of the government or any other group of people to redefine common language and inability of people to force government to use their version of language means that the power distribution in society is seriously skewed and therefore this is a strong sign of failing democracy. It's really scary to observe that in the US
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Re: This is totalitarianism
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Targeted
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