Has the Feinstein article proven they do store actual content of phone calls or what?

[boston bean]

To listen to at a later date, when they obtain a warrant after the fact? and that they are doing this with calls lawful citizens place?

What's the concensus?


http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3377468

If they are doing this, which it seems to me they are, do you think this is kosher?

I don't think so. I think they should get a warrant before any recording and storing takes place..

[NewThinkingChance40]

1. They shouldn't be recording

without probable cause. It is like inviting them into your home without knowing it. You may be innocent, but they shouldn't be spying on innocent people.

[boston bean]

2. I agree. They need probable cause and then a warrant for this type of activity.

Not just recording all digital phone calls to store in a database and query.

[BlueCheese]

3. Nothing conclusive...

... but when Feinstein says they "collect the call", it certainly implies that a call is stored and they're now accessing it, if this guide from Slate is correct (h/t Catherina: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023382049):

Collect. If an intelligence official says that the NSA isn’t “collecting” a certain kind of information, what has he actually said? Not very much, it turns out. One of the NSA’s foundational documents states that “collection” occurs not when the government acquires information but when the government “selects” or “tasks” that information for “subsequent processing.” Thus it becomes possible for the government to acquire great reams of information while denying that it is “collecting” anything at all.

[steve2470]

4. part of the answer here:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/20/exhibit-b-nsa-procedures-document

on page 4 of the document:

Communications and other information, including that reduced to graphic or "hard copy" form such as facsimile, telex, computer data, or equipment emanations, will be reviewed for retention in accordance with the standards set forth in these procedures. Communications and other information, in any forrn, that do not meet such retention standards and that are to contain communications of or concerning United States persons will be destroyed upon. recognition, and may be retained no longer than five years in any event. The communications that may be retained include eiectronic communications acquired because of limitations on NSA's ability to filter communications.

Also, consider this:

An article by Forbes estimates the storage capacity as between 3 and 12 exabytes in the near term, based on analysis of unclassified blueprints, but mentions Moore's Law, meaning that advances in technology could be expected to increase the capacity by orders of magnitude in the coming years.[2]

I think they will be storing massive quantities of data (i.e, call content and other data), but I have no hard and fast proof of that.

[cherokeeprogressive]

5. The paragraphs highlighted in the link seem to make it pretty clear ALL content is "stored"...

for use at a later time.

Don't worry though! It takes the signatures of 22 "highly vetted" agents in order to listen to it! Your privacy is safe... after all, they're HIGHLY VETTED!

Seriously though, I want someone like Prosense or flamingdem to come here and tell me it's okay; that Nancy Pelosi didn't know what she was talking about.

[grantcart]

6. I believe you have confused the order:

1) Get a connection to a specific number

2) Search the data base to try and establish a link

3) Notify the FBI which generates a warrant to retrieve content of any call

4) If a warrant is approved then they are authorized to gain access to the call.

It is previously established public knowledge that NSA captures and warehouses 1.7 billion communications a day

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/3/

But improvements have been overtaken by volume at the ODNI, as the increased flow of intelligence data overwhelms the system's ability to analyze and use it. Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications.

The Senator is saying that the calls (made in the US, I assume) are protected by the same protections that are established for wire taps. If that is true then it would be fine but and here is the big but, there needs to be unshakeable accountability and transparency, but that is a big but, not impossible but there needs to be multiple points of check and counter check by the bureaucracy and another check and counter check by Congress.

Assuming that passes muster there is another aspect of Congressional supervision that I think is overlooked. Assuming that privacy and legal protections are in place and maintained there still exists a significant question of cost and efficacy. I have had to much direct expenditure of millions of dollars of government money to not suspect that even when legal and protected many of these programs must have substantial questions of efficacy and cost.

We continue to purchase military hardware that is unlikely to be used in the 21st century, and this despite that these expenditures are not secret. I suspect that many of these intelligence operations fall into the same pattern, initially have had some success but continue to expand and become part of the architecture long past the time that they are still useful.

For example why I think that there may be value in identifying these non attached (throwaway) phones so that they can identify who is talking to each other and when, I seriously doubt that there is much substance in the calls themselves. Al Queda knows that they are being listened to so I would expect that the average call to be something like this:

Did you hear Mustapha had another son?

No, how much did he weigh?

Eight pounds and four ounces.

Praise be to Allah!


And that message will have passed a one time reference in code that is of little value.

So the one thing that I would like to see added to the conversation, beyond the privacy and legal questions, is a completely separate review on the efficacy and cost of these programs. Perhaps all operations have to start with a 4 year sunset provision and that a separate Congressional committee has to certify that the program involved is 1) effective and 2) worth the cost.

[boston bean]

12. So you are saying it is a less of a problem, because they have to get a warrant

To listen to the stored recorded calls.

My point was they should need a warrant to record, store lawful citizens calls.

What am I missing.

[grantcart]

13. I don't think you missed anything, we just see different parts as being more important.

Rather than millions of intercepts, as the impression is given, there are few actual wiretap warrants:

http://www.uscourts.gov/Statistics/WiretapReports/wiretap-report-2012.aspx

The number of federal and state wiretaps reported in 2012 increased 24 percent from 2011. A total of 3,395 wiretaps were reported as authorized in 2012–1,354 authorized by federal judges and 2,041 by state judges. Compared to the applications approved during 2011, the number approved by federal judges increased 71 percent in 2012, and the number approved by state judges rose 5 percent. Two state wiretap applications were denied in 2012.

I believe that I read somewhere that there were about 320 Fisa warrants issued last year.

Here is the procedure for a Homeland Security Department investigator to obtain a warrant

1) request from Customs, ICE or Border Patrol agent with specific multiple links to a specific number with 'hard' info.

2) application goes to head of local HSI unit

3) if approved it is sent to local federal prosecutors office

4) if approved it is returned to HSI who sends to DC HSI for approval

5) if approved then it is sent to the Justice Department

6) if approved sent back to local federal prosecutor and then it is served to the phone company for a live wiretap.

Now once the wiretap is on they can only listen on a private non commercial line for 2 minutes. If nothing incriminating is found then they have to break off and not return for 20 minutes and so on, they cannot listen and record for unlimited times.

A few decades ago wiretap testimony was quite common. When was the last time you can remember it being an important part of a court case?

1) First point is that the substance of the call has become virtually unimportant from Tony Soprano to Walter White mass entertainment has taught everyone how to avoid government wiretaps with a throwaway phone. I don't think that Al Queda is giving valuable information over landlines.

2) I suspect that what is of value is the use of phone calls to identify who is connected to who. This unidentified person called this number which was operating in northern Peshwahr province, which builds a data base that leads to putting together who is where and who has what job, etc.

3) The most important thing, to me, is not whether there is a mass of communication that they can go back a pull a conversation out of but whether or not all of the checks and balances, and well established rules governing wire taps are maintained. I don't worry about the Administration but Rove clearly tried to politicize the use of federal prosecutors, and this is the real problem, IMO, not whether it is before or after the conversation was 'captured' as long as it wasn't listened to until they got the warrant.

So, for me, it is establishing transparent rules with accountable systems and an active oversight.

There is a lot of concern about a hypothetic violation, GG nor Snowden, can point to anyone who has been arrested with an improper warrant. In fact the bombing of Boston by people who had been tipped by Russians as possible useful targets for surveillance shows that while the data base and the conversations 'captured' are significant the actual use has to be triggered by a specific investigative action and isn't being swept conclusively.

So, to me, its not a question of before or after but that the system has integrity, accountability and oversight.

The other question I raised is not a question of legality of search but the efficacy.

All of the programs should have a sunset provision of 4 years and before they can be extended a separate Congressional committee should have to validate that the program is a) effective and b) worth the cost. I have my doubts. Those funds can be used for valuable investments in Green technology and for food stamps so if those billions are being used in a secret program I want to make sure that they are worth it.

Part of the problem that I think DU has avoided on the question, frankly, is that the desperation of the Republicans have made them so desperate that the Administration has to work to a zero percent risk allowance. Just look at Benghazi and the hundreds of hours spent on that nonsense. If there was ever a successful attack on American soil and it was shown to have a potential to be stopped by better surveillance then you should expect everything, including impeachment proceedings, to be on their agenda. Unfortunately I think this causes the Administration and the bureaucracy to overspend because they cannot be seen to even allow a 2% of a terrorist attack even though the cost difference between 2% and 0% might be $ 40 billion.

[leveymg]

7. Yes, they keep content. That was shown on a NSA slide released weeks ago. Let's look at that:

Compare Feinstein's OpEd to the language the President used in describing the way the Sec. 702 system works.

Sen. Feinstein: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/senate-intelligence-committee-chair-reform-nsa-programs/2013/07/30/9b66d9f2-f93a-11e2-8e84-c56731a202fb_story.html?hpid=z3

When the NSA learns of a number used by a terrorist connected to al-Qaeda, it can search its database of phone records.

Only 22 highly vetted NSA analysts can approve a query of this database — and only when they have a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the number is connected to terrorism.

If the NSA analyst believes that circumstances justify the need to know the actual content of the call to probe further into what may be an active terrorist plot, the numbers are sent to the FBI, which requests a warrant from the court that oversees the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Ultimately, this court determines if “probable cause” is sufficient to grant the warrant to collect the content of the call.

Obama’s Misleading Statement to Charlie Rose: “There is no content in that database”

The President's interview with Rose is excerpted at length, below: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023050432

Program 215, (the President) said gets data from the service providers like a Verizon in bulk, and basically call pairs.

"You have my telephone number connecting with your telephone number. There are no names. There is no content in that database. All it is, is the number pairs, when those calls took place, how long they took place. So that database is sitting there," he said.

"Now, if the NSA through some other sources, maybe through the FBI, maybe through a tip that went to the CIA, maybe through the NYPD. Get a number that where there's a reasonable, articulable suspicion that this might involve foreign terrorist activity related to al-Qaeda and some other international terrorist actors.

Then, what the NSA can do is it can query that database to see did this number pop up? Did they make any other calls? And if they did, those calls will be spit out. A report will be produced. It will be turned over to the FBI. At no point is any content revealed because there's no content," Obama explained.

We now see that the President's statement is, at the least, misleading, if not confused: "There is no content in that database."

In fact, both parts – content and metadata - go through a single NSA database, and the NSA slide show that.

I think what Obama did there was conflate the Sec.702 system (PRISM) with one small part of that database, MARINA (voice) and MAINWAY (email), where metadata is stored. Voice content, meanwhile, goes to NUCLEON, below.

The slides that came out today describe a profiling system that NSA analysts can use -- XKEYSCORE, see, http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3378381 -- the data from XKEYSCORE is likely that referenced in the previously released slide (below) as "DNI Content," and that is the data the analyst can access at the profiling (Target Acquisition) stage in order to determine whether to pass the case over to the FBI for a FISA warrant. Once the the NSA managers determine a suspect should be targeted, that DNI Content in turn goes into the PINWALE database for further analysis.

[Link Speed]

8. After 9/11, I was (inexplicably) placed on the Watch List

Periodically, I would check messages and hear month-long batches of long-erased voicemails.

Sprint claimed cluelessness, of course.

It did not stop until I opened a sub-account under someone else's name.

I still get the Full Treatment every time I fly.

[leveymg]

9. I think that happened to a lot of people.

I too had problems with email which was disappearing on one system, but which I knew existed because it was still retained in a duplicate email system stored with a different provider.

I was pretty much told by the higher-level technical person to whom they escalated the work order, who finally resolved the issue, that my account was being monitored.

Did you get any friendly visits from Agent Mike? Agent Phil? Steve?

Welcome to DU

[Link Speed]

10. I have met other people who the same thing happened to.

It was truly disturbing. I felt as if I was constantly looking over my shoulder, but I never spotted Agent Mike.

These days, the only things with my name on them are my Driver's License and Passport. That is how paranoid the thing made me. I don't even have a personal bank account, although we own several businesses (GF's name).

[leveymg]

11. They were very brazen about it with me, but I took a piece of advise to heart:

if you are actually being targeted, your best defense is to be as open and public as you possibly can about whatever it is that they might be interested in. It tells them and others that you are not afraid, and that can be empowering.

In my case, beginning in 2002, I published a series about why US Counterterrorism failed on 9/11, the Agency's loss of control over double-agents within AQ, and subsequent CYA perjury committed by Bush Administration and CIA managers. I discussed that experience earlier this year in the discussion thread here: http://sync.democraticunderground.com/1014385756

Welcome to DU, and feel free to PM me if you want a more private discussion.