Constitutional? Legal? Not bloody likely. 100% political.

[TheMadMonk]

If it were legal, this "treasure trove" of data would be being mined for all it's worth just to put away child molesters, and we'd be seeing mass tomb-stoning of anyone and everyone who dared speak up against it.

If it were legal, all sorts of illegalities/crimes of collusion would be being pursued with all the force of the law.

Instead it's super duper, shoot yourself before reading, ultra secret, because there is a damned good (ie. about 100%) chance that less conservative judges would rule information from the program to be inadmissible, and any other evidence obtained as an indirect result of the program so tainted as to make a fair trial impossible.

As it is, we've already got one person claiming that proof of their innocence lies in the NSA's files and a Judge ordering the NSA to cough up those records. And his is only the first of what will be a flood of such requests.

So what happens now? NSA refuses to cough and possible criminals walk? What if the NSA does cough and the data puts the accused at the scene of the crime? NOW the NSA has to prove the provenance of the data or the accused still may walk.


Made public, this data loses almost all value. Kept secret it's really only good for black ops or blackmail.

[Cali_Democrat]

1. Be a little more specific with regard to black ops and blackmail

Specifically, what do you think the NSA is actually doing with all this data?

[TheMadMonk]

2. Pity about your sister's pot bust. Shame if her kids ended up in care.

Or you can join this protest movement and inform on them for us.

Or maybe it's starting to look like a (less than clean, or possibly just transvestite) judge is going to dismiss a flimsy trumped up terrorism case on its merits, so someone pops around to "have a word".

Is the NSA doing this right now? No idea. However, we damned well know for a fact that they and their ilk have done EXACTLY THAT in the past.

We do know that since 9/11 the vast majority of so called "terror plots" against the USA were fucking well INSTIGATED BY THE FBI. Almost certainly with the help of the NSA.

We also know that two of the plots which were genuine threats were not foiled by any intelligence operation, but because of fuckups in execution. Shoe and underwear bombers.

[JoeyT]

3. Given the history of intelligence agencies in this country?

I'd be floored if they didn't do something horrible with it. Course we won't find out until twenty years after the fact, if at all.

Metadata is plenty to find out if a married judge or politician has called a prostitute, or if his kid has called a drug dealer, for example.

[Downwinder]

4. Wonder if there is a mention of voting machines

in their haystack.

[HereSince1628]

5. There ARE limits on the resources available to use the data

I suspect that those limits are at least as important as the legalities.

[Downwinder]

6. Have to be transcribed and translated to be searchable.

Wonder what the accuracy is. Good enough to identify a cell phone for a drone strike.

[HereSince1628]

7. The actions taken based on the info also require resources if the action is drone strikes

you need drones, a nearby airbase, the mechanics, the fuel, the armorers and the ammunition, the avionics package and the folks who maintain it etc. etc. etc.

If the action is to get everyone for whom surveillance detects possible misdemeanor or felony activity into prison, then you must have an equivalently huge system to investigate, arrest/detain, prosecute, and a huge system of prisons.

When I say there is an upper limit on resources, that's the sort of thing I mean. It's impossible to support, and so, there must be prioritization of what is actually done.

In a very practical way, that limit on resources is likely more a protection for citizens than Clarence Thomas's opinion of the meaning and reach of the 4th amendment.