No Morsel Too Minuscule for All-Consuming N.S.A. - NYT

[WillyT]

No Morsel Too Minuscule for All-Consuming N.S.A.
By SCOTT SHANE - NYT
Published: November 2, 2013

<snip>

When Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, sat down with President Obama at the White House in April to discuss Syrian chemical weapons, Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and climate change, it was a cordial, routine exchange.

The National Security Agency nonetheless went to work in advance and intercepted Mr. Ban’s talking points for the meeting, a feat the agency later reported as an “operational highlight” in a weekly internal brag sheet. It is hard to imagine what edge this could have given Mr. Obama in a friendly chat, if he even saw the N.S.A.’s modest scoop. (The White House won’t say.)

But it was emblematic of an agency that for decades has operated on the principle that any eavesdropping that can be done on a foreign target of any conceivable interest — now or in the future — should be done. After all, American intelligence officials reasoned, who’s going to find out?

From thousands of classified documents, the National Security Agency emerges as an electronic omnivore of staggering capabilities, eavesdropping and hacking its way around the world to strip governments and other targets of their secrets, all the while enforcing the utmost secrecy about its own operations. It spies routinely on friends as well as foes, as has become obvious in recent weeks; the agency’s official mission list includes using its surveillance powers to achieve “diplomatic advantage” over such allies as France and Germany and “economic advantage” over Japan and Brazil, among other countries.

Mr. Obama found himself in September standing uncomfortably beside the president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, who was furious at being named as a target of N.S.A. eavesdropping. Since then, there has been a parade of such protests, from the European Union, Mexico, France, Germany and Spain. Chagrined American officials joke that soon there will be complaints from foreign leaders feeling slighted because the agency had not targeted them.

James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has repeatedly dismissed such objections as brazen hypocrisy from countries that do their own share of spying. But in a recent interview, he acknowledged that the scale of eavesdropping by the N.S.A., with 35,000 workers and $10.8 billion a year, sets it apart. “There’s no question that from a capability standpoint we probably dwarf everybody on the planet, just about, with perhaps the exception of Russia and China,” he said.

<snip>

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/world/no-morsel-too-minuscule-for-all-consuming-nsa.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all

[AnotherMcIntosh]

1. One sentence could be modified: the NSA "spies routinely on NOMINAL friends as well as foes, ..."

[Uncle Joe]

3. In that case, the U.S. has no friends and that's a sad statement. n/t

[Benton D Struckcheon]

6. We have a no spying agreement with some old and white members of the British Commonwealth,

the UK itself, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. So I guess they could be considered friends. Everyone else is on their own.

[Uncle Joe]

8. Or perhaps that just hasn't been exposed yet.

I don't believe it takes a great leap of logic from we can't trust 95+% of the world's leaders to we can't trust any of them.

At one time the NSA spied on our own Senators (D) Frank Church and (R) Howard Baker and they may doing it today, so I don't see them drawing a line with foreign leaders of any persuasion.

Once you become addicted to knowing everything while disregarding the inherent right of privacy then the ends always justify the means, no matter the victim.

[Playful Piranha]

4. Including the chief of the UN

U saw that part?

[nashville_brook]

2. k and r

[Rex]

5. Unofficially we spy on everyone and if there were Martians

we would have a bug in their HQ as well. Just something we do really well.

[arely staircase]

7. that is a great piece. I read it earlier today

A lot of what the NSA is doing seems to be worthwhile.

"Working closely with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which handles satellite photography, as well as G.C.H.Q., the N.S.A. team studied the Iranian leader’s entourage, its vehicles and its weaponry from satellites, and intercepted air traffic messages as planes and helicopters took off and landed.

They heard Ayatollah Khamenei’s aides fretting about finding a crane to load an ambulance and fire truck onto trucks for the journey. They listened as he addressed a crowd, segregated by gender, in a soccer field.

They studied Iranian air defense radar stations and recorded the travelers’ rich communications trail, including Iranian satellite coordinates collected by an N.S.A. program called Ghosthunter. The point was not so much to catch the Iranian leader’s words, but to gather the data for blanket eavesdropping on Iran in the event of a crisis."

but a lot of it seems to be a waste of time, diplomatically dangerous and a threat to privacy rights at home.

[KoKo]

9. Incredible Read! I didn't think the revelations could get worse about

what NSA has been doing, but what this article is so horrendous I had a hard time even finishing it!

This is so big...I don't see how it can ever be shut down. And, the scope of it is well....the word EVIL comes to mind.

The money spent on this for little results needs to go back to the people for our needs and not for the glorification of the NSA and it's contractors all over the world.

[jsr]

10. "An agency with an almost unlimited agenda.

Its scale and aggressiveness are breathtaking."

[PasadenaTrudy]

11. Police yourself...

Police me..

[xchrom]

12. du rec.

[DeSwiss]

13. K&R

[gulliver]

14. "Snooping on people is our job," the NYT continued.

Last edited Sat Nov 2, 2013, 05:23 PM - Edit history (1)

Our ace reporter, Judith Miller was able to get key inside information, and it helped start a war. You can't get much better at snooping than that. We didn't need to bug the White House either. We just listened to what Mr. Cheney said and reported it.