NSA memo says the agency monitors 1.6 percent of all internet traffic

[morningfog]

Amid a global furor over US data collection policies, the Obama administration released two documents today describing the scope and what it claims is the legal justification for its monitoring of telephone metadata and internet browsing. The documents portray the National Security Agency's surveillance activities as more limited than recent published reports have made them out to be. But they avoid several key questions surrounding the spying, including which internet companies are cooperating with them and how, why the government has demanded absolute secrecy from the companies they work with, and how the agency's oversight functions work.

According to an NSA memorandum, the agency "touches" 1.6 percent of the estimated 1,826 petabytes of information that flow through servers every day. Of that 1.6 percent of monitored traffic, the NSA said it selects 0.025 percent for review. The agency sought to downplay the amount of data if collects. "If a standard basketball court represented the global communications environment, NSA's total collection would be represented by an area smaller than a dime on that basketball court," the memo says. It represents the NSA's latest damage-control effort in the wake of revelations from documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden. Published accounts of the NSA's surveillance programs that draw from Snowden's revelations have depicted a much more comprehensive system for monitoring internet traffic and telephone calls.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/9/4607540/nsa-memo-says-the-agency-monitors-1-6-percent-of-all-internet-traffic

[ZombieHorde]

1. I wonder if that is true. nt

[dkf]

2. The real question is how much does it store.

I don't trust their definition of "touches".

[grasswire]

7. that was my first thought

They have a very specific definition of "collects" and perhaps they have a very specific definition of "touches"

[JaneyVee]

3. 98.4% of you are just paranoid.

[grasswire]

8. Did you live through the sixties?

Or the Bush years?

And will you be "paranoid" when a Libertarian teabagger is POTUS someday?

[HardTimes99]

16. We have to learn to get along now, b/c when President Santorum mans the helm, we

will all inhabit the camps together.

[RKP5637]

29. Yeah, just think what's he'll do with DU!

... we could have some pretty evil regimes in the future, sometime ...

[msanthrope]

17. Good point about the Libertarians--2014 elections could get more of them into

Congress.

Time to support our Democratic candidates.

[JaneyVee]

22. Not the 60s, but I survived the Bush regime. No, I won't be paranoid under a

Different Prez either. Our Govt doesn't have even close to the resources to monitor anyone else except terrorists.

[grasswire]

23. well, you're behind the curve on that assumption

NSA has announced that they are going to automate the monitoring. Of course, machines don't have consciences and can't leak, so there's that. But they can work faster than humans, and cheaper.

[RKP5637]

30. Media storage, algorithms and software + supercomputers ... it's easier

than you might think ... I worked at one time in massive data management / analysis.

[millennialmax]

26. That's the gist of it. eom

[randome]

4. Right, everything Obama says is 'damage control'.

We clamor for more transparency and less secrecy but then we denounce what we hear when it doesn't measure up to the conspiracy we 'know' is being undertaken.

Many people are showing themselves to be without class when they refuse to stay objective.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]

[morningfog]

14. Even if it is 1.6%, considering how much daily traffic there is,

and how much of that is automated spam or media streaming, 1.6% accounts for essentially every email and post online from everyone. This is damning.

[randome]

18. And you still have no idea, none, that this is what the NSA is covering.

1.6% of the world's Internet traffic. NSA's mission is to monitor foreign communications. You are choosing to take the most nefarious interpretation as possible from this.

Objectively speaking and absent evidence to the contrary, 1.6% is miniscule.

I had hoped for more transparency and less secrecy but the dogmatic refusal to accept the same blows my mind.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]

[morningfog]

19. I don't think you understand the volume we are talking about.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023438572#post8

This poster broke the volume down. Objectively speaking, 1.6% of EVERYTHING is one metric fucking assload.

Your hopes don't concern me, nor does what blows your mind.

[randome]

20. 1.6% of the Sun's volume is still miniscule, relatively speaking.

So answer this: what would have been an acceptable figure for the NSA to monitor? Bearing in mind that there are international terrorists, child pornographers, organ marketers and human slavery rings that do need to be brought to justice.

If you're not satisfied with 1.6% what will you be satisfied with?

It's ridiculous to put a number out there because you still have no idea what kinds of investigations the NSA is currently conducting.

Anymore than you know what your local police precinct is up to.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]

[morningfog]

21. That has to be the worst analogy ever.

[burnodo]

5. "According to an NSA memorandum"

AN NSA memorandum??

[Rosa Luxemburg]

6. The NSa probably doesn't have enough staff

even with the contractors. They is a lot of boring stuff out there.

[limpyhobbler]

9. Depends on the meaning of the words "monitors" and "touches"

sneaky people

[ProSense]

10. Clearly, this can't be true

because everything the NSA releases is a lie.

The truth will never be known.

[cherokeeprogressive]

25. Ironically...

This post is likely to be closer to the truth than any other post in the thread.

I think you're starting to get it.

[RKP5637]

33. +1, n/t

[Th1onein]

11. SUCH A PITY that they define "collect" in a totally different way than most people do.

This is the big lie, you see? First, they COLLECT IT, and by that I mean actually COLLECT it. Then they store it. THEN, they review it, at their leisure.

But, the lie, of course, is that to them "collect" mean the act of ladling out the data so that they can review it. They've already GOT the data stored, but it's only when they take that particular group of bytes out, and READ it, that it's called "collect."

Fucking liars.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

12. Then that must mean...

...they're building the world's largest skating rink in the Utah desert as a gift to the American people.

[woo me with science]

13. A wildly, deliberately misleading piece of PR.

Last edited Sat Aug 10, 2013, 06:16 AM - Edit history (2)

Bots and automated traffic make up more than half of internet traffic. Netflix and Youtube streams make up about half of North American traffic.

They are trying to mislead the public into thinking that only one or two percent *of our personal communications* are spied on and stored, but the truth is that personal communications are a miniscule fraction of total web traffic to begin with.

Please see my OP here:


Misleading PR Claim by Gov't: We only monitor 1.6 percent of internet traffic."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023438572


They are collecting everything possible of your activity online. Count on it.

[HardTimes99]

15. In a little-noticed addendum to said memo, the NSA revealed that it reviews 100% of

DU site traffic daily, specifically looking for discussions of counter-measures to its snooping capabilities so as to neutralize those counter-measures.

DUers, you have been warned.

[kentuck]

24. Figures don't lie...

But liars figure.

What percent of all calls do they monitor? If you call your grandma and talk for an hour and they only listen to 1 minute, then they would have the gist of your call, why listen any further?

Or you are talking sports or funeral arrangements with a brother in another city, why would they need to listen to the entire call?

In effect, they have listened to 100% of the two calls but only listened to 1.6% of the entirety of the calls.

Beware of statistics.

[Earth_First]

28. Oh there you go making sense...

Let the authoritarians expose themselves...its great reading material.

[Posteritatis]

27. Strip out spam, botnets and streaming video and you're probably down to 5-10% of traffic. (nt)

[Turbineguy]

31. OK, let's do the math....

They'll need a $4 trillion budget next year to keep Snowden and Greenwald honest. $4 trillion. I wonder if Congress will notice. In any case, the GOP will only approve that kind of money to regulate Womens' reproductive organs.

[Rex]

32. Ya and we take up about 11% of the WWW.

China is the biggest user.