Are they storing content? YOU BET THEY ARE.

[Th1onein]

This is straight from the mouth of Diane Fienstein: "To search the database, you have to have reasonable, articulable cause to believe that that individual is connected to a terrorist group. Then you can query the numbers. There is no content. You have the name, and the number called, whether it’s one number or two numbers. That’s all you have… if you want to collect content, then you get a court order.

And, remember, they have a different definition of the word "collect" than you or I do. Clapper said, "To me, collection of U.S. persons’ data would mean taking the book off the shelf and opening it up and reading it."

[Whisp]

1. collecting content after the FBI has the numbers to tap...

why is this so difficult to understand?

but have your fun, I wouldn't want to spoil your Inspector Clouseau moments.

[PSPS]

4. Yes, we know. This is #10 on the worshipers' list of excuses.

"taking the book off the shelf and opening it up and reading it."

but have your fun. I wouldn't want to spoil your worshiper moments.

[Whisp]

6. get your napkin out, you'll be needing it like Allllll the other times...

[sabrina 1]

24. So, how come they didn't do this with the Boston Bomber?? Did they not have HIS number?

What Feinstein said makes no sense. When you have a suspect, and they did, you check the SUSPECTS phone calls, you don't go searching through the yellow pages to try to find a name he might have called, when you can watch HIS phone calls. Why was there no request for a warrant to do that, considering they had him on their radar for TWO YEARS?

How about we stick to the issues rather than attempting to distract with personal insults? Is it because there are too many questions that cannot be answered? Feinstein has adapted the same tactic, now she offers a ridiculous attempt to explain how this data collection can be used to stop terrorism and ends up making no sense at all.

[treestar]

73. The only reason he was suspect at all was a Russian warning

You can bet the Russians don't have any protection whatsoever. Their government spies on them with impunity . Be careful with that. It's an argument that the government should have more power, not less. The FBI didn't have a clue about Tamerlan other than that.

Plus the reason they were caught was store security cameras. The FBI might still not know who it was without that.

Besides, you're been the one arguing the side that it would all have been a terrible violation of "our rights" had Tamerlan been tapped.

[bornskeptic]

79. The NSA cannot do anything with a domestic number except turn it over to the FBI.

Unless Tsarnaev had phone calls with a known or suspected terrorist overseas, there is no way the NSA could have become involved. Even if the NSA had his number, they could not query the database for that number. That would constitute domestic surveillance. which the NSA is forbidden to engage in by law. I suspect you believe the fact is that they regularly violate that law. In fact your question does not make sense unless you are assuming that.Do you have any evidence that they are violating the law? I don't either.

[sabrina 1]

80. No, no one has any idea what they do, whether they break the law or not. That is not the issue.

The issue is, we have been told that they are 'collecting and storing' the phone #s and calling habits of millions of Americans, because that is how they will be able to catch terrorists.

You explained how ridiculous a claim that is. My question doesn't make sense because there is no answer that can justify what they are claiming.

Even if the NSA had his number, they could not query the database for that number. That would constitute domestic surveillance. which the NSA is forbidden to engage in by law.

Exactly, you have made my point better than I could have. So, why are they 'collecting and storing' the phone #s of Americans, who are outside the jurisdiction of the FISA Court, if as you say, it is useless for catching terrorists.

[Th1onein]

8. Whisp, they have a different DEFINITION of COLLECT, do you understand that?

Clapper, himself, says that, to him, "collecting" is taking the book off of the shelf and reading it. Got it? That means that they have the shelf, and THEY HAVE THE BOOK. They have the CONTENT, it's STORED in a "book" on their shelves. To "collect" it, all they have to do is get the "book" off of the shelf and read it.

Why is this so difficult to understand? All they had to do is change the definition of "collect," and that's what they did! They shifted the paradigm, and you're still operating according to the old one.

[Life Long Dem]

55. When they take it off the shelf

They hand the phone record to the FBI. The FBI then opens the book to read more than the phone record (that has no name).

You say - To "collect" it, all they have to do is get the "book" off of the shelf and read it.

NSA doesn't read it. The FBI does.

What's so hard to understand?

[quakerboy]

33. Lets talk about the new Utah data storage facility

Ive seen estimates anywhere from 5 zettabytes (5,000,000,000,000,000gb or 5,000,000,000,000 tb) of data, up to a Yotabyte (1,000,000,000,000,000GB or 1,000,000,000,000 TB)

Storing metadata on every call made in the last 10 years wouldnt take 1/10,000,000th of that space. One Ten millionth

If you tried to fill that storage siwht CD quality audio recording, at the smaller estimate of that facility's storage capacity, that's enough to hold 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 minutes, or 83,333,333,333,333 hours, 3,472,222,222,222,222 days, 9,512,937,595,129 years of Audio. Thats 30,000 years of audio for each of the 313 million American. Or, if you prefer, 1,300 years of audio for each of the 7 billion residents of the planet.

Alternately, if you go to HD Video, 416666666666666 hours. Or 47564687975 years. 151 years of video per American. 6 years of HD video per person on the planet.

So what exactly do you think they plan to store there? I bet they plan limit it to what they get warrants to collect. Don't you?

[reformist2]

53. Yep. It's obvious. If they *can* save everything, they *do* save everything.

[hughee99]

57. Perhaps this is going to be "the cloud", too.

If there's any information the government didn't get from your phone calls and emails, you'll have the opportunity (when you save things on "the cloud&quot to unknowingly turn that information over to them too.

[PSPS]

2. Apparently, you didn't get the memo

All of this is OK, you see, because (pick one):

1. This is nothing new
2. I have nothing to hide
3. What are you, a freeper?
4. But Obama is better than Christie/Romney/Bush/Hitler
5. Greenwald/Flaherty/Gillum/Apuzzo/Braun is a hack
6. We have red light cameras, so this is no big deal
7. Corporations have my data anyway
8. At least Obama is trying
9. This is just the media trying to take Obama down
10. It's a misunderstanding/you are confused

And a new one that tops them all:

11. You're a racist.

[Poll_Blind]

3. Tell me about it. Getting close to having enough shitty excuses for a bingo card! nt

PB

[RobertEarl]

7. Latest one I've come across

"I work for the government. We never lie and we're always right."

[HardTimes99]

11. Except for Vietnam and Iraq! - nt

[RobertEarl]

13. And now, NSA

Their pleadings are nothing more than a blanket appeal to authority.

Probably paid to come here and distract, obfuscate and diffuse. I try to give each of them a nice kick.

[Egalitarian Thug]

22. Nice collection. Bookmarking it for easy use in the inevitable future of excusing

the inexcusable.

[corkhead]

36. +1 Oh and another one - "what's the big deal. It's just meta-data which has no content"

Who I talk to, when I talk to them, how long I talk to them, and the location where I and the person I am talking to are at the time of the conversation is apparently of no consequence.

[HoneychildMooseMoss]

86. How about "The Constitution was written by slave owners."

I want to scream every time I read that.

[Safetykitten]

46. That was a fantastic list. I think you have them all covered. Thank you!

[Tx4obama]

5. The excerpt you posted does NOT mean what you think it means. Also, NSA is NOT storing conversations

1) NSA searches the databases to find out what number a particular suspected terrorist called

2) A judge is presented with probable cause and asked to issue an order for a telephone wiretap

3) If the judge signs the order the FBI can then wiretap a phone

[RobertEarl]

9. You are so 1980's

This is not the about FBI, this is about the NSA.

Two different orgs.

I'd say nice try, but it wasn't any good, at all. Zilch.

[Tx4obama]

14. Apparently you haven't been paying attention. It is the FBI that does the 'wiretapping'.

The NSA does not 'tap' the phones - it is the FBI.

----

From Charlie Rose's interview of President Obama...

-snip-

“What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your e-mails,” he added, before Rose interjected, “And have not.”

“And have not,” Obama reiterated. “They cannot and have not, by law and by rule, and unless they — and usually it wouldn’t be ‘they,’ it’d be the FBI — go to a court, and obtain a warrant, and seek probable cause, the same way it’s always been, the same way when we were growing up and we were watching movies, you want to go set up a wiretap, you got to go to a judge, show probable cause.”

The number of requests for wiretapping orders from the FISA court, Obama said, is “surprisingly small.”

-snip-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-says-administration-making-right-trade-offs-in-surveillance-programs/2013/06/17/3cbf0e42-d78e-11e2-a9f2-42ee3912ae0e_story.html?wprss=rss_national

[Th1onein]

17. Wrong again. See comment #16

[RobertEarl]

20. Yeah, he's from the government

They are always right and they never lie.

Obama may believe what he is quoted as saying, because he has been lied to. Obama doesn't know what the NSA actually does. All he knows is what the NSA tells him. He's fixing to bust some major fucking balls of the NSA when he finds out what the rest of us know. They collect and store anything they can. They are making Obama look like a fool. You should be pissed about that.

[Katashi_itto]

30. Likely if Obama wants plausible deniability

"Obama doesn't know what the NSA actually does."

He obliquely instructed them not to tell him everything

[JDPriestly]

59. Yeah. Sure.

What I am wondering is whether they may have the CAPACITY to search hard drives from the distance. Is that possible?

After all, Microsoft can tell whether someone is using an illegal copy of their software can't they?

And I have programs that protect me from viruses. Don't they peruse all my programs to make sure I don't have any illegal or unauthorized ones?

[Th1onein]

10. No, that's not quite true, Tx4obama.

Read what Clapper says. That's all you have to do. "Collecting" has a totally different meaning than what the normal usage is. He very nicely explains that to us, and to Congress.

[HardTimes99]

12. Clapper should be looking down the barrel of a perjury charge - nt

[Tx4obama]

15. See Comment #14. n/t

[Th1onein]

16. This is from the USA Today interview with three former NSA whistleblowers:

Q: What did you learn from the document — the Verizon warrant issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — that Snowden leaked?

Drake: It's an extraordinary order. I mean, it's the first time we've publicly seen an actual, secret, surveillance-court order. I don't really want to call it "foreign intelligence" (court) anymore, because I think it's just become a surveillance court, OK? And we are all foreigners now. By virtue of that order, every single phone record that Verizon has is turned over each and every day to NSA. There is no probable cause. There is no indication of any kind of counterterrorism investigation or operation. It's simply: "Give us the data." ...

There's really two other factors here in the order that you could get at. One is that the FBI requesting the data. And two, the order directs Verizon to pass all that data to NSA, not the FBI.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/

[Tx4obama]

23. Drake left the NSA in 2008, and Binney left the NSA in 2001 (UNDER BUSH)

Drake was at NSA under Bush when the old rules were in place and Bush was doing illegal things.

-snip-

In late 2001 he went to work at the NSA as a full-time employee at the Signals Intelligence Directorate at Fort Meade, Maryland, with his actual first day on the job as an NSA employee being September 11, 2001.[8][20][21] In 2002, he became a Technical Director for Software Engineering Implementation within the Cryptologic Systems and Professional Health Office. In 2003, Drake became a Process Portfolio Manager within NSA's newly formed Directorate of Engineering. He held a Top Secret security clearance.[8] During the congressional investigations into 9/11, he testified about NSA failures.[15] In 2006 he was reassigned to the National Defense University,[15] where he became the NSA Chair and an Assistant Professor of Behavioral Sciences within the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF).[8] Drake was forced to leave the NDU in 2007 when his security clearance was suspended, and he resigned from the NSA the next year.
-snip-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake

William Binney left the NSA in 2001

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_%28U.S._intelligence_official%29

[Th1onein]

31. BUT THE FISA WARRANT IS NOW! What difference does it make when Binney and Drake left NSA?

Good grief! The FISA warrant IS current! It's the first time we've seen one. When Binney and Drake were a part of the NSA makes no difference whatsoever.

[jeff47]

37. Because under Bush, there was no warrant.

Proceedures massively changed since the Bush administration.

[Th1onein]

67. It does not matter what it was or wasn't under Bush. The FISA warrant that Snowden showed us is

CURRENT and in that warrant, they are requiring that Verizon turn over ALL OF THE DATA to them. ALL OF IT. Not just foreigners' data, ALL OF IT.

[sigmasix]

27. this x1000 -willfully misunderstanding

Willfully misunderstanding this point isnt the same as fighting tyranny. There is nothing in the story here that suggests gathering and storage of content of all phone calls made by every American, and it is obvious to anyone without an agenda that the context of this very OP suggests that content collection would be carried out after the warrant for the information is issued. Misdirections that include the Cnet article, and distortions of the truth about Obama's priorities that are so partisan that they include an unconstitutional need or desire on the part of the POTUS to spy on every American all the time, are the work of the extreme right wing and it's media echo machines. Some of you may think you are too smart to be caught-up in the work of the Koche brothers; that you can't be fooled into supporting thier narrative and agenda. That you just want to be able to feel like you know who the "real" bad guys are and have your conspiracy notions receive legitimacy.
You thought that libertarianism "sounded" good and the word "liberal" is in there somewhere, and liberties are what being liberal is all about, right?
Libertarian leaders are well-placed right wing partisans that owe fealty to the new Republican/Fox "News" party and deep criminally wealthy pockets. Teabaggery is one of the bastard offspring of this volitile mixture of deeply unAmerican ideology, vast sums of money and 24 hr neo-news echo chambers.

Read what is actually said in the OP, instead of what you want it to say. Decide for yourself who is more likely to be guilty of misdirection of the American people's trust; right wing neo-news media echo chambers? or President Obama?

[Th1onein]

34. THIS IS NOT ABOUT PRESIDENT OBAMA

Period. You got that? If anything, we who support Obama should be pissed off because the NSA brought this to his door, on his watch. I doubt he has a damned thing to do with it.

And, for the record? I'm still a Democrat and will always vote a straight Democratic ticket, UNTIL we get a better alternative than the Republicans. BUT, I think that there is a definite need for a better alternative than either party right now.

[Th1onein]

65. "Also, NSA is NOT storing conversations..."? Uh hummm....best look at this info:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-spying-flap-extends-to-contents-of-u.s-phone-calls/

The Washington Post disclosed Saturday that the existence of a top-secret NSA program called NUCLEON, which "intercepts telephone calls and routes the spoken words" to a database.

[Tx4obama]

71. I has already been proven that Declan McCullagh is not credible. n/t

[Th1onein]

74. Got a link for that "proof"?

Last edited Fri Jun 21, 2013, 12:57 AM - Edit history (1)

Edited to add: Didn't think so.

[HooptieWagon]

18. They wouldn't need but a fraction of yottabytes if they were only storing metadata.

The system they've assembled has enough memory to store several years of content. Obviously they intend to use it.

[Egalitarian Thug]

19. And this coming from one of the crookedest liars in the crooked liars club called the Senate.

& R

[Just Saying]

21. So you believe they are recording every call, every American makes

In case they need it? I find that far fetched.

Does anyone know the logistics of recording calls in our digital age? I don't know enough about this type of technology to know what phone tapping takes anymore. Used to be they had to install something at the actual phone or on the line I think.

[Th1onein]

35. Doesn't take much room at all to do that. They have their new storage facility in Utah now, you kno

"Used to be they had to install something at the actual phone or on the line I think." Yeah, those were the days, weren't they? Now, of course, nothing has changed, except the digital age makes it easier for them to monitor us, so they do it because they CAN.

[jeff47]

38. So they store the data in a building that isn't built yet?

What, are they routing the data through the TARDIS?

[randome]

42. Have they SAID they aren't? Hm? Hm?

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[wandy]

25. So you have been keeping 'metadata' for 6 months, just name, number, yada yada,,,,,,,,,,,,

TODAY you have reasonable suspicion that it's a dreaded terrorist. Something is going to happen and it ain't gonna be good.
You know that for sure and you know who..
What the hell good is all that 'metadata' gonna do you if you can't go back and get the VOICE content to fill in the what, when and where?

If you can't get all that information what was the point of keeping all that other JUNK!

Considering the bandwidth and amount of white space in a phone conversation, the compressed audio files would be tiny!

Come now.

[jeff47]

40. The good it does is you can attempt to identify 'friends'.

The good metadata does is it can help identify who someone's "friends" are.

So you do a search based on the Boston bombers's numbers. Yes, after they set off the bombs. That could reveal they spent a lot of time talking to someone else, who can now be interviewed by the FBI.

You don't need the content to get a benefit from the data.

the compressed audio files would be tiny!

300,000,000 tiny files is still a lot of data.

[wandy]

54. The idea is to prevent.........

Ok, Cueball has successfully turned Metropolis a strip mine.
Looking at all of the 'metedata' you find that Cueball has called Ice Man, Jimmy White, Hawker Davis, Jules Sparkle, Haku Kou ,Chin Chillar and a host of others.
An APB is put out on the whole cast.
After a year you have them all rounded up. None confess.
Right about now it gets ugly involving boards, dish cloths and sprinkler cans.
After great effort you find out that B.D. Eyes was the contact.
Naturally B.D. Eyes called a host of others.
Rinse, repeat.

After testifying at Cueball's trial Dick Tracy goes boating on the new "Lake Metropolis".
The gold plaque at the entrance to Lake Metropolis reads "You're tax dollars at work"!

Hardly preventing terrorism. Why did we bother?

Data storage: To some 12 Tera Byte of house hold storage may appear excessive. To the NSA, trivial.

Oh, I bet some Ed Snowden lookalike is laughing his ass off at this append.

[jeff47]

61. You really shouldn't base police work on what you see in movies.

An APB is put out on the whole cast.
After a year you have them all rounded up. None confess.

Nope.

You start following them, get search warrants, warrants for wiretaps and so on. Now you don't need them to confess. And that didn't require recording any content before the wiretap warrant.

[wandy]

62. You may have missed the point. The damage was already done..............

Mind you I am not saying this is a good thing.
Of what good is capturing a co conspirator if a few thousand people have already been killed.
Their is no point in capturing a 'cell' after the fact. That plays into the fallacy that terror is a State, rather than a state of mind.
By the time you start following them around they will likely be long gone. That is if they haven't blown themselves to kingdom come in the commission of their act.
The goal would be to perceive/respond rather than simply react.
The entire misguided concept was to PREVEVT.

Preventing Terrorism and Enhancing Security

https://www.dhs.gov/preventing-terrorism-and-enhancing-security

The police work you see in the moves relies on the idea that everyone plays by a given set of rules.
Terrorists or just good old fashion car thieves don't work that way.
To stop an act you would need to know "who, what, when, and where" before the act was committed.
Even were you willing to shred the forth amendment in entirety, that would still be quite a trick.

Ps. Like the SR-71 Blackbird, if you've seen it in a movie it is long obsolete.

[jeff47]

63. That's because we don't believe in pre-crime.

So yes, the criminal must actually cause some damage before we arrest them.

Of what good is capturing a co conspirator if a few thousand people have already been killed.

Because it prevents the next few thousand from being killed.

Their is no point in capturing a 'cell' after the fact.

Because cells only ever commit one act if left to their own devices. They'd never plan and execute a second attack. Just like bin Laden stopped after his first successful attack in the 90s.

The police work you see in the moves relies on the idea that everyone plays by a given set of rules.

Nope. They're based on what a scriptwriter finds exciting.

In the real world, police work is based on the idea that the government can not act against people until a crime has been committed. Which means you will not be able to prevent the first illegal act. But you can prevent the second, and later. That second and later criminal act could be the actual attack, or it could be a second attack.

100% security would require jailing the entire country. That is not a good plan.

[wandy]

72. Well this is a difficult situation.............

How does it prevent the next few thousand from being killed?
The whole idea behind cells are that they are mostly self contained.
More or less like the cells in a leaf. You may pick and destroy the cells in that leaf, but the tree does not die.
You must find the leader. Strike at the root. In which State does that leader reside.
What State will you kill to strike the root.
How will that change the state of mind residing in the cells?
Will you change the state of mind with shock and awe?
Will you change that state of mind with hellfire enabled drones?
Will you change that state of mind by limiting you're own abilities?
New leaders will come forward. After all, Lyndon Johnson did the best he could.
And you are most correct. We can not act until another crime has been committed.
Nor can we imprison everyone, or declare perpetual war on any country we have ill will toward.

I never said this discussion was going to be easy.
It is a discussion the American people should have engaged in nearly 12 years ago.

[intaglio]

26. When metadata gets to the companies

They store it

That is how their business works

This is how they keep up to date with the patterns of internet usage

That is part of how Google Analytics works

That is how Microsoft can watch what programs you use and interact with

That is how Java keeps tabs on the version of their software you use and interact with

That is how advertisers keep track of what adverts you have seen and what "click-throughs" you have made

This is how your anti-virus software provider tracks what sites are dangerous

They have always done so because their business requires them to do so

It has nothing to do with Prism, it just has to do with how the internet works

Prism accessed data that was already being stored

The level of ignorance on display about how the internet works is stunning

[baldguy]

82. +1000

Of course, the facts don't support the RW induced hatred for Obama from the DU hivemind.

[Buns_of_Fire]

28. It's all starting to sound like an old Bob Newhart routine:

Man #1: "Hello."
Man#2 (to himself): "Hmmm. I wonder what he meant by that."

Every word, every phrase, every sentence is becoming so hyper-parsed these days that one doesn't really know anymore what the other person might be saying -- or what they meant, since they might be working from a Webster's while I might be working from a Funk & Wagnalls.

[JDPriestly]

29. They also have a different use of the word "can."

They mean "may." They don't mean "can."

Once the government has access to the database in which the information is stored, it can reach in and take what it wants. It may be illegal, but they can do it.

And an IT guy like Snowden would be the go-to guy for doing it. In one sense it is illegal, but what difference would it make because once they look at the data and decide they want it, they can go to a court and get an order that lets them get the data officially.

They probably would not use data in court that they did not acquire under a court order, but if they have access to the vast database, they "can," that is are technically capable of getting it.

I assume that they would have ways to grab from the database that is being saved. The only way they couldn't would be if say Yahoo or Google saved it and only gave it to the government when presented with a specific court order. But that is not likely to be the case because it is a lot of data and we know that the government has a lot of facilities in which they are now or in which they plan to store this data.

Does anyone think I am wrong. If the data is being stored somewhere and the US government knows where it is being stored, couldn't a good hacker or IT man access it?

[Th1onein]

32. You're right. But, this is what they want......

If you, or I, or anyone, pisses them off, threatens the status quo too much, they want to be able to reach into that database and search the content of every phone call, every text message, every email, every search query, and make a case against us. They don't have dossiers on us, but they have the capability of creating a dossier on each and every one of us, anytime they need to, to shut us up, to shut us down. THEN we become "targets." And you don't even have to become a target for a criminal investigation, although that would ruin your life, just like they ruined Drakes. Your business? Got a competitor? They have the capability of feeding your competitor information about your business so that you no longer have much of a business. Your girlfriend? How about that porn video you rented back in 2002? What about your church? How would they like to know about your proclivities for visiting that gentleman's club you did a search on back in 2003? You used your credit card there, remember?

The possibilities are mind-boggling. But, of course they are, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[OilemFirchen]

49. Well then...

THEY have just added this little screed to YOUR file.

That'll teach 'em!

[JDPriestly]

56. And the opportunities for trading the data with private companies are

just enormous. It might not be official, but what is to stop a large company from buying information on a small start-up with improved technology.

The commercial spying possible with this is incredible. All these people working at home and sending their work to their companies via the internet? How safe are the encryption systems -- especially for small companies and firms?

[jeff47]

41. No, he would not be the "go-to guy" for this.

He was the go-to guy to fix the printer. Or install an OS update.

The "go-to" guys for what you describe are analysts.

If the data is being stored somewhere and the US government knows where it is being stored, couldn't a good hacker or IT man access it?

Depends how exactly it's being stored and protected. A comptently-run company like Google or Yahoo can prevent a "hacker" from getting to it.

[Recursion]

45. As I keep pointing out, the NSA *invented the technology* to keep the sysadmin from seeing data

It's called SELinux. The NSA submitted it to the mainline kernel 10 years ago. It went through peer-review and was added. It keeps people with Snowden's alleged job from being able to do what Snowden allegedly did. (Does NSA use SELinux? If so, do they configure it right? We have no idea, but the NSA certainly has the capability.)

[jeff47]

47. Don't know that it even needed to go that far.

It appears Snowden claimed he could get to the data because he could run any program on the systems. Given that he was a system administrator, it's not unusual that he could run any program.

But just because he can run the program doesn't mean he can log in. Reading between the lines of statements from the NSA folks, and it looks like he would have been blocked by a login screen.

[reformist2]

39. All anyone has to do is read about the size of the databases their building.

Figure out how many gigabytes of memory PER PERSON that is....

[Recursion]

44. It's pretty impressive to store stuff in a database that isn't built yet

I wish I could do that.

[ohheckyeah]

83. It's not like they don't have existing databases.

They are just building a bigger and better one. If I say I'm building a new house it doesn't mean I don't have one I'm living in now.

[Recursion]

43. No, "collect" means "start recording it". Your definition is a huge stretch

That's just not what it normally means.

With reasonable cause, you can search the database of who contacted whom. Having searched that, you can get a court order to then collect what they say after that.

[Th1onein]

66. You are absolutely and inequivocally wrong.

You need to read Clapper's statement. You need to educate yourself about this topic. They already HAVE the database and it is searchable. THAT search is termed, according to the NSA as "collecting."

[Recursion]

70. Nope

I appreciate your discomfort on being this wrong, though. Peace.

[Th1onein]

75. Your judgement that I am wrong, unfortunately for you, is not backed up by any evidence.

Sorry, you lose.

[Th1onein]

85. It's not MY definition, it's Clapper's.

And you keep talking about "the database." If the telecoms don't keep our info for long enough for them, then what "database" do you think that they are tasking to get the information? Lol! They have a database with EVERYTHING in it! Don't you get that? That's what Clapper was talking about with his library and books metaphor. The library is the database, it's THEIR database, because the telecoms don't keep the data long enough for them. Our communications are the "books" on the shelves, and when they "collect" our info, all they have to do, according to Clapper, is take a book from the shelf and start reading it.

[DiamondDog]

48. Of course they are,

Why do you think they built that spiffy new data storage center in Utah, the one that can hold yottabytes of data. Why do you think they are building its twin in Maryland? The record of every phone call you make, every text you type, every web page you visit is and will be stored, all for future use.

[OilemFirchen]

50. Brilliant!

You proved that "they" are storing content by quoting a Senator explicitly stating that they aren't.

[randome]

51. It's a fact!

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="

?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font]
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[Turbineguy]

52. There should be a fairly simple way of determining this

based on cost.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/07/news/economy/nsa-surveillance-cost/index.html

So would $10 billion per year cover the cost of servers, memory, running and maintaining them and the electric bill? Plus all the other stuff the NSA does (like making sure that a guy running for the US Presidency is in fact qualified to do so).

Looking in the wayback machine.... Saddam Hussein did not deny he had WMD's. If he had admitted that his real grip on power was only based on his .45 sidearm he would have been toast a lot earlier.

[stevenleser]

58. President Obama said Monday night they store the metadata for 5 years. So, you arent risking much

by your supposition.

[pnwmom]

60. That doesn't say what you think it says.

If they want to collect content, then they have to get a court order -- which allows them to wiretap or otherwise collect content HENCEFORTH, not retroactively.

[hootinholler]

64. Yes, but we still have no proof of a slurp and burp operation

*That* is what we need. Hopefully Snowden has something that reveals that.

Clapper's testimony is troubling indeed. Picking up the book and reading it implies the book has been written. The metaphor is clear, but is that enough to hang our hat on?

[Th1onein]

69. They are all speaking of it in these terms. Not just Clapper.

And, what is a "slurp and burp operation"?

[hootinholler]

77. What I've been calling storing all communications content (slurp)

And then mining it to isolate one person after the fact (burp), thus slurp and burp.

I know they are all very careful in what they are saying right now. I just wish someone would confirm that they are storing content for future reference.

[Th1onein]

78. You got your wish!

How lucky! See: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=513645

[jazzimov]

68. Which means they need a court order.

Please read your own OP.

[Recursion]

76. I swear to God

If half the OPs actually read their OPs...

[limpyhobbler]

81. Exactly. They are building a library. It can be used for any purpose in the future. nt

[Skip Intro]

84. And they want everyone to be a page in that book.