US 'Intelligence' Boss Reveals 'Redacted' Date In The URL Of The File

from the or-in-the-other-version-of-the-document-you-already-released dept

Thu, Nov 21st 2013 8:37am — Mike Masnick

We've written a few times about the latest document dump by James Clapper and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence this week, in which they declassified a large pile of documents (after being told to by the courts -- though they don't mention that part). But, one of the odder parts was that the dates were redacted on certain legal filings, such as the FISA Court order by judge Reggie Walton smacking the NSA around a bit for not complying with the law. Here's the end of that document with the date redacted:

Eagle-eyed Marcy Wheeler, however, has noticed two things. First, the absolute geniuses at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence left the date of the ruling in the URL of the file. You can mouseover to see it, or just know that it's: http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/1118/CLEANED101. Order and Supplemental Order (6-22-09)-sealed.pdf. See that in there? That pretty clearly indicates this is Walton's order from June 22nd, 2009. Good job, team redaction!

Oh, and it gets even stupider.

It turns out that this same document was already declassified in an earlier data dump... with totally different redactions. Both files are embedded below.

From that, you can see that the redactions (in both) seem rather arbitrary (especially redacting the dates). In many cases, it's difficult to understand why any of these points were redacted in either document. For example, in the original declassification, the following is redacted, but is available in the new release:

The Court further ordered that it would allow NSA, for a period of 20 days, to continue to share the unminimized results of authorized queries of the PR/TT metadata with NSA analysts other than the limited number of analysts authorized to access such metadata, but that such sharing was not to continue beyond the 20-day period unless the government first satisfied the Court, by written submission, that such sharing is necessary and appropriate on an ongoing basis.

Either way, it says quite a lot (none of it good) about our "intelligence" professionals when they offer up a document with a redacted date (makes no sense in the first place), which is easily revealed by the very URL (wtf?) that the intelligence officials chose, and which is further undermined by the fact that the same document had already been declassified with totally different redactions (and which reveals the date). And we're supposed to believe these folks are smart enough to not screw up with all the data they're collecting on everyone?

CLEANED101 Order and Supplemental Order (6 22 09) Sealed (PDF)CLEANED101 Order and Supplemental Order (6 22 09) Sealed (Text)

Pub Jun 22 2009 Order (PDF)Pub Jun 22 2009 Order (Text)

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: dates, fisa court, fisc, intelligence community, james clapper, nsa, odni, redactions, surveillance, urls

22 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 8:40am

And that, folks, is why they call it 'theater'.

Because if you made this up, you'd be being "too unrealistic".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 8:46am

it makes me wonder why these people are charged with looking after our safety and protecting us from terrorism and god knows what else in the first place, when they cant even get the same document redacted at the same points or know how to stop the date actually being completely revealed to all and sundry!!
it seems as if it weren't for the enforced things they can do and force others to do, they couldn't secure their trousers!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 10:01am
  
  Re:
  Hell, the fact that they redacted it AGAIN at all is dumb enough. Someone didn't think to look to see what they've already released before marking it up again for release?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it

out_of_the_blue, 21 Nov 2013 @ 8:59am

Oh, those clumsy incompetents at NSA! Gave weenies tidbits to gasp over!
According to Mike's analysis, then, we can stop worrying that NSA could ever make effective use of the data in a high-tech police state: tracking and stifling dissent, blackmail, industrial espionage.

This is just more distraction from the known criminals and known crimes, diffuses the anger over those, doesn't help free us of the tyranny.

Meanwhile, there's a far more important anomaly:
Cerf - who is Google's chief internet preacher - added: "Privacy may be an anomaly."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/20/vint_cerf_privacy_may_be_an_anomaly_online/

04:59:05 [f-482-5]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 9:02am
  
  Re: Oh, those clumsy incompetents at NSA! Gave weenies tidbits to gasp over!
  You could try reading the rest of his comments, but that might make your brain hurt.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Baron von Robber, 21 Nov 2013 @ 9:05am
    
    Re: Re: Oh, those clumsy incompetents at NSA! Gave weenies tidbits to gasp over!
    ootb's brain was long taken over by bacteria. It was a step up.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Rich, 21 Nov 2013 @ 9:38am
    
    Re: Re: Oh, those clumsy incompetents at NSA! Gave weenies tidbits to gasp over!
    I don't even bother reading his comments anymore. I just automatically hit 'report.'
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Brazenly Anonymous, 21 Nov 2013 @ 10:03am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Oh, those clumsy incompetents at NSA! Gave weenies tidbits to gasp over!
      I don't even bother reading the blogs anymore. I just automatically file a DMCA.
      
      Not that I support OOTB, but you are missing out on the parodies.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - techflaws (profile), 21 Nov 2013 @ 10:44pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Oh, those clumsy incompetents at NSA! Gave weenies tidbits to gasp over!
      Same here. Still waiting for someone to come up with a (Greasemonky) script for this.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Question all redactions, 21 Nov 2013 @ 9:19am

The only possible explanation I can think of for redacting the paragraph stating a court order was limited to 20 days, is that they know they violated that court order.

It suggests that the primary reason for any redaction is not national security, but avoiding embarrassment, or possible prosecution.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
dave blevins (profile), 21 Nov 2013 @ 9:40am

Use of NSA
Scott Adams had it right when Dilbert hacked NSA for info to recreate his files 'cause his backup was corrupt. NSA doesn't know what they have and have so much they can't find anything.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 9:44am

This comment is for John Fenderson...
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131119/07485225289/declassified-opinion-shows-nsa-exploited-pen-r egister-statutes-to-collect-internet-metadata-millions-americans.shtml#c315

Still think they aren't morons?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- John Fenderson (profile), 21 Nov 2013 @ 1:03pm
  
  Re: This comment is for John Fenderson...
  Yup.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 10:38am

You're seeing this wrong, the question we should be asking ourselves is: can it really be intelligence if it's less intelligent every day?

Checkmate terrorists.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 10:46am

If all you have is a redacter, everything looks like it needs to be redacted...
Perhaps if they stopped paying these people by the number of word redacted they would stop feeling like they HAVE to redact something or they aren't doing their job...

/s
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
crade (profile), 21 Nov 2013 @ 11:24am

It's simple really, they want you to think the document was ordered on 6-22-09 and don't want you to know the actual date, So they put it in the URL, allow everyone to make the assumption that is the date of the order without ever having to make the false claim and redact the real date. Tada :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Zem, 21 Nov 2013 @ 1:02pm

They are different documents
Has anyone else noticed that the judges signature is different on both documents? There is sufficient difference between the two that one of them might be a forgery.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 1:40pm
  
  Re: They are different documents
  I'm not seeing it... Look the same to me.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Zem, 21 Nov 2013 @ 2:10pm
    
    Re: Re: They are different documents
    There are two signatures in the first document by the same judge. Compare those two. There are some significant differences in the way the key letters are formed.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Sleuthing, 22 Nov 2013 @ 4:34am
  
  Re: They are different documents
  They are indeed different documents. Different number of pages, and the last page on the one 'declassified' document doesn't at all look like the last page on the other document.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Sleuthing (the failure), 22 Nov 2013 @ 4:36am
    
    Re: Re: They are different documents
    Never mind. The one document has 3 more pages tacked on it. But indeed the two signatures of the judge in that document look different. Then again my own signature changes between two documents.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2013 @ 7:52pm

I guess it might have looked a tad suspicious if someone found out pre snowden, that the one word redacted was "metadata"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]