http://www.vanityfai...ining-NSA-scandal

I can’t stand it.

A few days ago, I wrote in some detail about the National Security Agency’s data-mining program in hopes of calming the hysteria that has been whipped up in the last number of days by incorrect and misleading reports, as well as by plenty of ill-informed commentary based on those errors. At this point, I’ve decided that I need to tell a little bit more.

Some explanation up front: I spent seven years investigating the national-security systems and policies established in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks for my book 500 Days. I learned a fair amount about the data-mining programs of the N.S.A. and wrote about it. I summarized those findings in my last post. However, now it has become obvious to me that I need to go further than I did in my book, at least in hopes of calming things down. When discussing errors, I’m going to mention “reports” regarding news articles, but I’m not going to identify them—the last thing I want is for this to become a back-and-forth between reporters.

First, the much-ballyhooed PRISM program is not a program and not a secret, and anyone who says it is should not be trusted because they don’t know what they’re talking about. PRISM is the name for the government computer system that is used to handle the foreign-intelligence data collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

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A good read.

(via RandomMonster - http://www.balloon-j.../#comment-4489437 )

Cheers,
Scott.

I know my arguments are too high and mighty and so forth far too often. It's mostly laziness on my part - it's easier to be snarky than to be nuanced. But I honestly don't mean it to be personal. We're just yacking.

There's a lot of stuff out there that is contradictory and we'll probably never know the full story. My inclination is that the NSA simply can't grab and store everything for people in the US. Maybe I'm naive about this, too.

We all have our buttons and our red lines. I just am not upset about this metadata stuff. Bad cops can get stuff about us no matter what the laws are. Recall the stories about the IRS underlings getting returns on famous people. Recall the stories about the police breaking into the wrong house and killing innocent people. I'm not excusing that - I'm simply saying that there are legal protections in place that are generally followed.

I don't see the threat to my rights by metadata being stored. I don't see much of a threat of stuff stored in some server farm in Utah either. Stuff goes through my ISP and who knows what they do with it and how long they keep it, or other private servers along the way for that matter. As long as warrants are required to tie those packets to me personally, I think that's all we can hope for.

There are too many of us for domestic surveillance to be ubiquitous. We apparently disagree about that. If they're really going through everything, then they're just adding noise to the signals that they should be concentrating on according to their charter (they're tasked with foreign intelligence).

Something that makes me more sanguine is that the people who work for the NSA and the courts and the prosecutors are citizens, too. Most of the government employees I've come across do take their jobs seriously. They do understand the rules about Personally Identifiable Information. They do understand the importance of staying within the rules. Yes, there are always cowboys, but they are very rare.

Who knows whether the rules are too lax. Franken says that there is oversight and that some of the more sensational claims are wrong - http://www.startribu...gs/210862561.html

I'm sorry I've upset you. Don't let me get to you. :-)

Cheers,
Scott.