Keith Alexander's Big Idea: What If The NSA Just Collected Phone Data On Suspected Terrorists?
from the this-option-just-came-to-you? dept
In what may be NSA boss Keith Alexander's final appearance before Congress before retiring in a few weeks, he appeared to (for the first time publicly) acknowledge that perhaps they don't need to track everyone and could, instead, try just watching the phone records of suspected terrorists. He acts as if this is a brand new idea. Seriously:One option that Alexander called feasible involves sharing what amounts to a watch list of suspected terrorists’ phone numbers with phone companies. The companies would search for links to other numbers, returning that data to the government.Of course, as others have pointed out, you don't need "a precedent" for that -- we have it already. It's called a pen register and has been widely used by law enforcement for a decade, and there's a whole law discussing how it can be used.
He said if the government could work out a system in which it could share those “terrorist selectors” in a classified manner, “it sets the case in precedent” for sharing classified threat data with industry for cybersecurity purposes.
Alexander said that there were "pros and cons" to that particular approach, but that's a pretty big shift from the man whose mantra has long been "collect it all." Also, all this may not matter at all since Alexander is about to be out of the job -- so perhaps it's just in his final moments as NSA boss that he finally admits what plenty of people have been saying all along: there's simply no justifiable explanation for the NSA collecting information on just about everyone.
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Filed Under: keith alexander, nsa, privacy, surveillance
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Wait...
He might actually be a HUMAN after all?
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Yes there is. Free webcam porn.
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Re: Wait...
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Re:
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I'm not buying it
Yeah, bull.
He doesn't believe a word he's saying, he's just trying to trick people into thinking he does, so he doesn't leave the position with the reputation of 'Grab it all!', but instead someone who was willing to 'compromise' in order to 'protect' the privacy rights of americans.
If he'd cared in the slightest about those rights before, he had plenty of time to make those changes, the fact that he only brings up the possibility of maybe scaling things back, right before he retires, shows it's nothing more than a scam, a trick to try and salvage his reputation some.
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Re: Re:
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Well...
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Re: Well...
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In no way will this "revolutionary idea" work because all the NSA will do is classify every American as a terrorist and we're right back to square one.
Hold on a second. I just had an epiphany.
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Re:
I think it hinges on the "degree of separation" nonsense. If they maintain the whole "can search two (or three) hops away" stance, then these requests would end up returning most of the information they had been collecting anyway -- which means that as nice as this sentiment sounds, it's really not that nice.
The odds are very good that you are two or three "hops" away from a terrorist subject, no matter who you are.
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Baby steps for Little Keith...
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Re:
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Re: Wait...
Instead, consider this.
When he is an insider he wants to collect all phone data.
When he will soon be an outsider, he is for limited collection.
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There is a carcass somewhere under that can. The NSA doesn't use the same meanings for words in the English language as everyone else that speaks it.
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Problem is, we're all suspects!
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"He said if the government could work out a system "
IF
Progress, none.
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WHAT?
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Re: I'm not buying it
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Re: Re: I'm not buying it
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Re: Re: I'm not buying it
Update: As some folks pointed out in the comments, the Washington Post is noting that Alexander inherited the room, which was built a few years before he took over. Our apologies. The Foreign Policy story suggested otherwise. The Post notes that Alexander still liked to use the room to impress politicians, but he did not build it himself.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130916/00583024525/how-information-dominance-center-was-made-to-l ook-like-starship-enterprise-bridge.shtml
Blame him for what he has done by all means(there's more than enough of that to last), but blaming him for things he hasn't done just makes it less likely people will believe the real stuff when it's exposed.
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Re: Problem is, we're all suspects!
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Re: I'm not buying it
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Re: I'm not buying it
Because until now almost evrything he has said and done pretty much implies his definition of "terrorist" is something along the line of "anyone who doesn't philosophically agree that what we are doing is totally right".
Under such a definition there are still potentially millions of "terrorists" out there and therefore what he said boils down to "nothing should change".
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Re: Re: I'm not buying it
Approximately 300 million from just one country in fact by their 'definitions' of just what/who classifies as a 'terrorist'.
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Re: Re: Wait...
Indeed. Human.
However, not something to be proud of.
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