NSA warned to rein in surveillance as agency reveals even greater scope

[kpete]

Last edited Wed Jul 17, 2013, 09:07 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: Guardian

NSA warned to rein in surveillance as agency reveals even greater scope
NSA officials testify to angry House panel that agency can perform 'three-hop queries' through Americans' data and records


The National Security Agency revealed to an angry congressional panel on Wednesday that its analysis of phone records and online behavior goes exponentially beyond what it had previously disclosed.

John C Inglis, the deputy director of the surveillance agency, told a member of the House judiciary committee that NSA analysts can perform "a second or third hop query" through its collections of telephone data and internet records in order to find connections to terrorist organizations.

"Hops" refers to a technical term indicating connections between people. A three-hop query means that the NSA can look at data not only from a suspected terrorist, but from everyone that suspect communicated with, and then from everyone those people communicated with, and then from everyone all of those people communicated with.



A document published last month by the Guardian detailing the history of the NSA's post-9/11 bulk surveillance on telephone and internet data refer to one- or two-hop analysis performed by NSA. The document, provided by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, does not explicitly mention three-hop analysis, nor does it clearly suggest that such analysis occurs.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/17/nsa-surveillance-house-hearing

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More from the AP:

For the first time, NSA deputy director John C. Inglis disclosed Wednesday that the agency sometimes conducts what’s known as three-hop analysis. That means the government can look at the phone data of a suspect terrorist, plus the data of all of his contacts, then all of those people’s contacts, and finally, all of those people’s contacts.

If the average person calls 40 unique people, three-hop analysis could allow the government to mine the records of 2.5 million Americans when investigating one suspected terrorist.
….
The government says it stores everybody’s phone records for five years. Cole explained that because the phone companies don’t keep records that long, the NSA had to build its own database.

http://www.twincities.com/breakingnews/ci_23675608/more-questions-from-congress-surveillance

[Pholus]

1. Add this Atlantic Wire article...

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/07/nsa-admits-it-analyzes-more-peoples-data-previously-revealed/67287/

Keeping in mind this bit:

"For a sense of scale, researchers at the University of Milan found in 2011 that everyone on the Internet was, on average, 4.74 steps away from anyone else. The NSA explores relationships up to three of those steps. "

So watching patterns in friends of friends of friends is three deep. At a bit more than four deep you were watching practically everyone anyway....

[99th_Monkey]

5. Wow. Great explanation in just a few words.. thanks. ~nt

[Hissyspit]

14. +1

[Laelth]

2. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[last1standing]

3. "through Americans' data and records"

This isn't a case of the NSA merely keeping a "phonebook" of numbers called. This is data and records of individuals with an invasion of privacy occurring in the first hop.

Anyone who does not believe this is unconstitutional needs to study the Constitution and what it means.

[PSPS]

12. Yes, I'm sure our "constitutional scholar" president is on top of this!

[tavalon]

16. Thank you

I get tired of the people here buying the wording, metadata. It's not metadata and anyone who says it is because the NSA says it is, hasn't been paying attention.

[tularetom]

4. I'll bet they can't connect me to Kevin Bacon in three hops

[Pholus]

7. At 500000 "terrorists" (on the list) to one Kevin Bacon? Probably.... :) nt

[99th_Monkey]

6. K & R ~nt

[Jackpine Radical]

8. I hate it I hate it I hate it!

James Sensenbrenner is a thoroughly despicable Republican of the worst sort.

He has turned on the NSA, no doubt for purely political reasons.

Leaving his actual reasons aside, I hate it when he or someone like him does something I agree with. It fills me with cognitive dissonance when it happens.

[dgibby]

11. I was going to say, it gives me the creeps,

but you said it better. I feel like somebody just walked on my grave. UGH!

[nebenaube]

28. which is why

I think this whole thing is just another premeditated action item in the long game.

[Jackpine Radical]

31. Interesting thought.

[Hydra]

32. I'm totally with you there

Whenever Pat Buchanan used to say something that sounded sane and reasonable, I always caught myself thinking, "Has the world gone THAT crazy??"

[NealK]

9. K&R

[Yo_Mama]

10. K&R.

[Hissyspit]

13. "Three-hops deep..."

[tavalon]

15. Telling the folks at TIA to shut it down just caused PRISM to come up in it's wake

I don't feel much optimism that this is going to work.

[leveymg]

17. 117K on the NSA terrorist list means 117X117X117 thousand people profiled. That's over a billion!

That's a lot of hops, which means that practically one-in-six with a phone in the world, and practically all adult Americans, have been profiled by the NSA.

Yet not a single verified case where a terror plot was thwarted in the U.S. That's a staggering Return of near-zero on our $800 billion investment in NSA with this system.

Near-zero. Almost a trillion dollars.

[Nihil]

20. K&R for your reply and reply .1 ...

... and now waiting for the usual cheerleaders to turn up and assure us that "we are not supporting the president"
or other such bollocks ...

[Pholus]

25. Yup, though that does assume each terrorist does not have an interlocking directory of contacts.

And ignores that probably 99% of them actually only meet the government rather than the generally accepted public definition of being a terrorist.

I estimated that each terrorist suspect investigation by the NSA drags in a the communications records of quarter of a million other US citizens for the analysis.

[dixiegrrrrl]

33. Could not agree more. Well said.

[reusrename]

18. It's the Kevin Bacon game.

I don't understand how there can be folks here who support this and don't believe it's dangerous.

[99th_Monkey]

19. This is getting REALLY interesting, watching the politicians ire at the NSA

because I KNOW that what's really going on, the subtext if you will, is a) that each one of these politicians is going to have to explain to their constituents why they're privacy has been invaded, and b) each of these politicians ALSO cannot help but feel personally threatened & affronted by this end run by NSA/CIA around the constitution, to chip away at US citizens' rights to privacy.


EVEN MORE CREEPY, these politicians ALSO KNOW THEY THEMSELVES ARE ALSO UNDER CONSTANT SURVEILLANCE by NSA, et. al. and WILL BE, unless & until they fix this mess.

[nebenaube]

29. All they'll do is add a white-list. n/t

[GliderGuider]

21. "We are shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"

Riiiiight. The NSA just realized how thoroughly it has been rumbled, and the Congresscritters are all in a lather over the threat to their political futures - both from the NSA spying on them, and from the public backlash.

Snowden really poked a stick into that incestuous nest of fire ants, didn't he? Oh, the schadenfreude!

[marions ghost]

22. Geolocation Privacy & Surveillance Act

Update, 1:10 p.m.: Another bit of news. The longstanding question of whether or not phone metadata collected by NSA includes geolocation data has been answered. "We are not collecting that data," Inglis said, "under this program." (Because they collect it under another program? It is obvious that it is being collected.)

The proposed Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act

http://www.gps.gov/policy/legislation/gps-act/

[Pholus]

23. I always love fine print...

"under this program"

Really. What about another program?

[marions ghost]

24. "wink wink speak" =truthiness

Maybe they're collecting it over here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023287837#post14

[Pholus]

26. Definitely a good guess.

I used to think "spy speak" was oh so clever. These days I just see it as weaselly and unethical.

[Blue_Tires]

27. "rein in" = "repackage, rename and hide it better"

[nebenaube]

30. That's the reason for all this...

It failed in regard to Boston, so now they need monies to refactor.

[NoodleyAppendage]

34. Yep. Total Information Network --> PRISM --> ?

Do we really think that those with this power in their hands are going to just give it up? Really?