NYT: How the U.S. Uses Technology to Mine More Data More Quickly

[markpkessinger]

Note: some here have suggested that the NSA's collection of telephone and internet communications data being collected renders it virtually impossible to sift through in any meaningful way, and thus represents no real threat to privacy. I invite those folks to read this article -- and to think again.

[font size=5]How the U.S. Uses Technology to Mine More Data More Quickly[/font]
[font size=1 color="gray"]By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: June 8, 2013 [/font]

< . . . >

New disclosures that the N.S.A. has secretly acquired the phone records of millions of Americans and access to e-mails, videos and other data of foreigners from nine United States Internet companies have provided a rare glimpse into the growing reach of the nation’s largest spy agency. They have also alarmed the government: on Saturday night, Shawn Turner, a spokesman for the director of national intelligence, said that “a crimes report has been filed by the N.S.A.”

With little public debate, the N.S.A. has been undergoing rapid expansion in order to exploit the mountains of new data being created each day. The government has poured billions of dollars into the agency over the last decade, building a one-million-square-foot fortress in the mountains of Utah, apparently to store huge volumes of personal data indefinitely. It created intercept stations across the country, according to former industry and intelligence officials, and helped build one of the world’s fastest computers to crack the codes that protect information.

While once the flow of data across the Internet appeared too overwhelming for N.S.A. to keep up with, the recent revelations suggest that the agency’s capabilities are now far greater than most outsiders believed. “Five years ago, I would have said they don’t have the capability to monitor a significant amount of Internet traffic,” said Herbert S. Lin, an expert in computer science and telecommunications at the National Research Council. Now, he said, it appears “that they are getting close to that goal.”

< . . . >

The agency’s ability to efficiently mine metadata, data about who is calling or e-mailing, has made wiretapping and eavesdropping on communications far less vital, according to data experts. That access to data from companies that Americans depend on daily raises troubling questions about privacy and civil liberties that officials in Washington, insistent on near-total secrecy, have yet to address.

< . . . >

[treestar]

1. I wonder what they do with the snail mail

if anything, and if there was an outrage about that.