Quote :

"Obama pushing for Obamacare in California on Friday means the administration is in panic mode."

Eh? California is the largest state in the country and is so far the furthest along in implementing the law. It's exchange is ready to go and the prices are lower than anyone expected. He's going there to prop California up as a model for the rest of the nation to follow.

As for this NSA stuff, it's probably the first Obama "scandal" that's actually legitimate. Certainly more than Benghazi-gate and the IRS bullshit. This is how they responded,

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/06/administration-internet-tapping-not-directed-at-americans-165639.html

Quote :

" The Obama administration responded to reports Thursday that the National Security Agency monitored data from major internet companies with a defense of the practice, describing it as a key piece of its efforts to protect the country. “Information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats,” a senior administration official said in a statement. The culling of information from companies including Apple, Google and Facebook, as reported Thursday evening by The Washington Post and The Guardian, involves “extensive procedures” approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court “to ensure that only non-U.S. persons outside the U.S. are targeted, and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about U.S. persons,” the official said. The program is also overseen by the Executive Branch and Congress, which last reauthorized the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act less than six months ago. The government can only use Section 702 of the law, the piece used to justify the so-called PRISM program, “to acquire foreign intelligence information, which is specifically, and narrowly, defined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” the senior administration official said. “This requirement applies across the board, regardless of the nationality of the target.”"

I'd imagine the truth lies somewhere in between this and the WaPo article. It's not has benign as the administration would like us to believe, but I seriously doubt it's as insidious as the media is making it sound. I mean, a college dropout and his pothead younger brother just pulled off the worst terrorist attack since 9/11. You're telling me those two idiots didn't use Google, MS and cell phones? Clearly the data mining/tracking isn't as intrusive as all that. Still, Obama should come clean about it now that the cats out of the bag. This would also be a chance for the GOP to put their hatred of Obama to good use, if they actually care about this.

[Edited on June 7, 2013 at 11:56 AM. Reason : :]

6/7/2013 11:54:28 AM

Or how about just stop doing it altogether?

Why isn't that an option?

6/7/2013 11:57:30 AM

Sure it's an option, but in Obama's own words just now "You can't have 100% security, 100% privacy, and zero inconvenience. There has to be tradeoffs.". All these programs have been approved and are overseen by congress. If the political will is there to get rid of them entirely, they will be.

6/7/2013 12:24:32 PM

Also Obama's own words:

"often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out...acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled as they have been during the Bush administration."




hmmmm.......

6/7/2013 12:41:03 PM

Quote :

"If the political will is there to get rid of them entirely, they will be."

No.

I promise you. This revelation will lead to "investigations" and "prosecutions" in an attempt to close leaks.


The popular will to restore privacy will be ignored. Buh-lee-dat




[Edited on June 7, 2013 at 12:45 PM. Reason : ]

6/7/2013 12:45:00 PM

Yeah, probably. But I mean, the popular will to do much of anything lately has been ignored.

6/7/2013 12:51:28 PM

That graph would be relevant if what the legislature passed actually reflected the public will. Besides, you don't even have to pass laws anymore. Almost anything can be done via executive order nowadays.

6/7/2013 12:58:31 PM

Yeah, that's sort of the point. The Senate couldn't pass a background check bill that was supported by 90% of the nation, and Obama himself went to bat for harder than anything since his first couple years in office. Meanwhile, the House passes a bill to repeal Obamacare every other week, which damn near no one fucking wants to happen at this point. So yeah, we probably can't rely on Congress to scale back surveillance of electronic communications, but that says more about how shitty congress is than anything else.

6/7/2013 1:15:48 PM

Quote :

" which damn near no one fucking wants to happen at this point."

wat?

6/7/2013 2:53:46 PM

Quote :

"The Senate couldn't pass a background check bill that was supported by 90% of the nation,"

[Citation Needed]

6/7/2013 4:16:41 PM

It's a shame the Boston Bombers weren't on Verizon.

We can't even keep people that we are warned about from doing crazy things.

6/7/2013 7:22:59 PM

My favorite part is the FISA court, which only hears from the government and never from the people about whom they wish to collect data about. Furthermore, no one knows what the arguments are or whether anything has ever been denied in one of these court "hearings" so how is this really a check on these monitoring powers?

6/7/2013 8:04:56 PM

Fisa court has been a tragedy for a while, this isn't your first time hearing about it I hope...

6/8/2013 9:16:25 AM

It was just pointed out to me that Echelon had existed well over a decade ago,this type of spying isn't new. FISA was created to add some modicum of legitimacy, the shocking thing is how pervasive it continues to be.

Obama gets accused by the right for giving in to terrorists when he talks about ending wars and closing gitmo, but he's a tyrant for maintains spying programs.

He's cant simultaneously be too soft and too hard..

6/8/2013 12:59:17 PM

The die hard Obama supporters are saying "but it started because of Bush!". Yeah, perhaps it did but Obama sure as hell didn't put a stop to it. He also signed NDAA and renewed the Patriot Act (still a great Orwellian name for a bill). I think their defense mechanisms are up in finding out we were only given the illusion of choice.

6/9/2013 8:05:31 AM

"But it was Bush!!!"
Umm, didn't Obama promise a CHANGE to the policies of Bush?

6/9/2013 4:33:23 PM

Yeah, but only naive idiots believed him.

6/9/2013 7:44:34 PM

A politician not keeping all their promises? Now I've seen everything!

(should i switch my cell phone provider, just as an act of protest?)

6/10/2013 9:42:03 AM

No, you should keep pretending it's unimportant.

It makes you look cool.

6/10/2013 9:48:19 AM

nm

[Edited on June 10, 2013 at 10:39 AM. Reason : i'm dead-serious about changing service providers]

6/10/2013 10:23:26 AM

Well of course that's up to you.

You're probably paying too much anyway.

6/10/2013 11:32:00 AM

In regards to the data mining, it's pretty clear now that the WaPo botched the article and there was a ton of misinformation and hyperbole. There is no unfettered access to tech company servers or anything like that. From the follwup NYT article,

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/us/mining-of-data-is-called-crucial-to-fight-terror.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

Quote :

"Under the program, intelligence officials must present Internet companies with specific requests for information on a case-by-case basis, showing that the target is a foreigner and located outside the United States, a senior law enforcement official said Friday. If the N.S.A. comes across information about an American citizen during the search, it turns over that material to the F.B.I. for an assessment, the official said."

You can certainly argue that this is still overreach and a violation of privacy, but it's not the Orwellian nightmare we were originally led to believe.

6/10/2013 11:32:54 AM

You and I both know you wouldn't be so dismissive of this if it were the previous administration or Romney calling the shots.

The whole point of the outrage is that the fisa courts are so secretive that's hard to even understand what checks in balances even exist, let alone whether or not they are effective.

Quote :

"a senior law enforcement official said Friday"

You seriously have a bad habit of taking "official sources" at their word, even when it is their very word that is in question. I seem to remember you doing the exact same thing during the whole drone debate that was had in this exact same thread a few months ago.

6/10/2013 4:35:21 PM

What was the first thing to call attention to the FISA courts? Were they the ones making decisions on people in Guantanamo Bay? I remember hearing about them during Bush's years, I think.

6/10/2013 4:59:31 PM

Quote :

"You and I both know you wouldn't be so dismissive of this if it were the previous administration or Romney calling the shots."

Not really. I never said much about warrant-less wire tapping or anything the NSA was doing back then. Feel free to search, I didn't care then and I care even less now. I mean, let's be real. The NSA doesn't operate out of a giant black building in the middle of bumfuck because it looks cool. What did you think they were doing?

Quote :

"You seriously have a bad habit of taking "official sources" at their word, even when it is their very word that is in question. I seem to remember you doing the exact same thing during the whole drone debate that was had in this exact same thread a few months ago."

I take official sources because they are the only sources available that even approach credibility. And in this case, the information is coming from many sources, including sources from within the tech companies themselves. Here is another follow up article,

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/technology/tech-companies-bristling-concede-to-government-surveillance-efforts.html?src=recg

Quote :

"Each of the nine companies said it had no knowledge of a government program providing officials with access to its servers, and drew a bright line between giving the government wholesale access to its servers to collect user data and giving them specific data in response to individual court orders. Each said it did not provide the government with full, indiscriminate access to its servers."

Quote :

"The data shared in these ways, the people said, is shared after company lawyers have reviewed the FISA request according to company practice. It is not sent automatically or in bulk, and the government does not have full access to company servers. Instead, they said, it is a more secure and efficient way to hand over the data."

Sure, they could be lying. The NSA could be also being doing shit behind their backs. But the bottom line is that the scope of this PRISM program was grossly overstated by the initial media reports.

6/10/2013 5:12:25 PM

Quote :

"I take official sources because they are the only sources available that even approach credibility. "

I don't see how you can say this with a straight face, when it is their credibility that is in question here.


Edward Snowden (NSA whistleblower): These guys have access to communications from thousands of Americans without their consent and who are not suspected of any wrongdoing.


Official NSA source: No we don't.


Shrike: "I believe him, yo. I don't know why, but I do."

6/10/2013 5:54:56 PM

I'm not contesting anything Snowden leaked, just the hyperbole in the initial media reports of the program. They aren't "tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies" , that's bullshit. At worst, they are pulling from what is essentially a private email box that the companies push requested data into. At least as far as PRISM is concerned.

6/10/2013 6:25:27 PM

I fail to see how that's any less troubling.

6/10/2013 6:40:45 PM

Well it's certainly less susceptible to abuse, for a start.

6/10/2013 6:54:35 PM

Quote :

"Q: What do the leaked documents reveal? A: "That the NSA routinely lies in response to congressional inquiries about the scope of surveillance in America. I believe that when [senator Ron] Wyden and [senator Mark] Udall asked about the scale of this, they [the NSA] said it did not have the tools to provide an answer. We do have the tools and I have maps showing where people have been scrutinised most. We collect more digital communications from America than we do from the Russians.""

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why


Your official sources have every incentive to downplay their involvement. Of course it lends itself to abuse. You can't be dumb enough to believe that an agency that lies on the record and that only answers to secret courts without any oversight is NOT going to abuse its ever growing authority.

6/10/2013 7:40:20 PM

Quote :

"Under the program, intelligence officials must present Internet companies with specific requests for information on a case-by-case basis showing that the target is a foreigner and located outside the United States..."

Is that why over half of the information they pull requires them to submit a report afterwards regarding them "accidentally" catching Americans' data in it?

6/10/2013 8:27:33 PM

For Shrike:

Quote :

"As we were about to begin publishing these NSA stories, a veteran journalist friend warned me that the tactic used by Democratic partisans would be to cling to and then endlessly harp on any alleged inaccuracy in any one of the stories we publish as a means of distracting attention away from the revelations and discrediting the entire project. That proved quite prescient, as that is exactly what they are attempting to do. Thus far we have revealed four independent programs: the bulk collection of telephone records, the PRISM program, Obama's implementation of an aggressive foreign and domestic cyber-operations policy, and false claims by NSA officials to Congress. Every one of those articles was vetted by multiple Guardian editors and journalists - not just me. Democratic partisans have raised questions about only one of the stories - the only one that happened to be also published by the Washington Post (and presumably vetted by multiple Post editors and journalists) - in order to claim that an alleged inaccuracy in it means our journalism in general is discredited. They are wrong. Our story was not inaccurate. The Washington Post revised parts of its article, but its reporter, Bart Gellman, stands by its core claims ("From their workstations anywhere in the world, government employees cleared for PRISM access may 'task' the system and receive results from an Internet company without further interaction with the company's staff"). The Guardian has not revised any of our articles and, to my knowledge, has no intention to do so. That's because we did not claim that the NSA document alleging direct collection from the servers was true; we reported - accurately - that the NSA document claims that the program allows direct collection from the companies' servers. Before publishing, we went to the internet companies named in the documents and asked about these claims. When they denied it, we purposely presented the story as one of a major discrepancy between what the NSA document claims and what the internet companies claim, as the headline itself makes indisputably clear: "

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/14/nsa-partisanship-propaganda-prism



Stop accepting "officials" statements and regarding them as fact. Practice a little skepticism.

[Edited on June 14, 2013 at 5:32 PM. Reason : womp, wooomp.]

6/14/2013 5:29:18 PM

Dude, what are you trying to prove here? It's already been proven that the WaPo and Guardian sensationalized the PRISM story to make it seem more insidious then it is. It's not a dragnet, it's not 24/7 surveillance of every piece of data that goes through Silicon Valley. It's not even as bad as what Google and MS do themselves with the data you willingly give them. It's basically a federated search where after approval, the NSA submits a query that is then consumed by the various tech companies. They run that query themselves over their own servers and return the results back to the NSA. PRISM basically automates the process of submitting, executing, and parsing the results. That's the "direct access". I have some expertise here as I've worked on a similar system that queries various medical databases. You don't have a direct open connection to the databases, your level of access and what you're allowed to query is controlled 100% by the source.

6/14/2013 6:15:11 PM

Quote :

"Dude, what are you trying to prove here?"

That this:

Quote :

"It's already been proven that the WaPo and Guardian sensationalized the PRISM story to make it seem more insidious then it is"

Is probably not true. It hasn't been "proven." It's been disputed. It's been disputed by the very companies and government officials who are in question. That's not proof, and any moderately intelligent person should know the difference between an assertion and proof. The fact that you take their disputes at face value without a base level of skepticism speaks volumes to your mindless deference to authoritarianism. This story is going to get bigger, which is probably why Representative Loretta Sanchez said this after her classified briefing by the NSA this week:

Quote :

""What we learned in there is significantly more than what is out in the media today. . . . I can't speak to what we learned in there, and I don't know if there are other leaks, if there's more information somewhere, if somebody else is going to step up, but I will tell you that I believe it's the tip of the iceberg . . . . I think it's just broader than most people even realize, and I think that's, in one way, what astounded most of us, too.""

What I'm basically getting at, is that you are bending over backwards to marginalize a story that is only going to get bigger. And I'm gonna go ahead and go on the record and state that when more information comes out (and it will), you will be the first to move the goalposts yet again in order to defend your team.


It's nice to know that you parse excel sheets at your job from time to time, though.

6/14/2013 6:41:59 PM

No, it's not going to get any bigger. The WaPo and the Guardian botched the original story. The fact they've both walked back from their original assertions is proof enough of that. We've gotten testimony from the tech companies themselves that what they originally claimed is not only not the case, but that it's probably not even possible.

http://www.zdnet.com/how-did-mainstream-media-get-the-nsa-prism-story-so-hopelessly-wrong-7000016822/

Quote :

"But it can’t just grab whatever it wants from those services. The government needs to present a warrant in the case of American citizens suspected of domestic crimes (if you’re not a U.S. citizen and you’re not in the United States, sorry, you’re not protected by our Fourth Amendment). For investigations related to possible terrorist activities, the FBI can use a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) order or a national security letter, which doesn't require a warrant. The company served with that document either challenges the order or delivers the requested documents and data."

Quote :

"The system described in the PRISM presentation appears to be an automated way to process those FBI and NSA requests. It's clearly not an open doorway into any of those companies' servers, as The Guardian and the Post originally alleged. "

Which is exactly what I said. Look, I realize you have an agenda here. Your dick probably got super hard when reading those original articles. The fact is, they were mostly bullshit and media sensationalism. Every single piece of information we've gotten since then, from every possible source, official and non-official, bears that out. Now I need to get back to parsing excel sheets

[Edited on June 14, 2013 at 6:54 PM. Reason : :]

6/14/2013 6:53:55 PM

nah...I pretty much assumed that was already the case. Ever mounting news of a slide toward authoritarianism doesn't even phase me anymore. I read that article, and the D didn't even move.

I do start to swell up whenever I get the chance to call out my fellow "progressives" for being mark-ass bitches and "team players" whenever their guy does the same thing as the guy before him, though. It's always fun to see someone abandon any pretense of their principles just because they don't want to put themselves in the uncomfortable position of realizing they've been duped.

Quote :

"No, it's not going to get any bigger"

We'll see. I feel pretty good about my odds.

6/14/2013 7:01:10 PM

Quote :

" The WaPo and the Guardian botched the original story. The fact they've both walked back from their original assertions is proof enough of that."

The WaPo walked it back. The Gaurdian did not. Hence this portion of my previous post:

Quote :

"The Guardian has not revised any of our articles and, to my knowledge, has no intention to do so. "

That directly contradicts your "proof" that the articles were merely sensationalism. You seem to be confusing "proof" with your "opinion."

And, just to drive the point home, this is exactly what you are doing right now:

Quote :

"Democratic partisans would [try] to cling to and then endlessly harp on any alleged inaccuracy"

There were no inaccuracies in the Guardian article. Snowden alleged that the PRISM program granted the NSA access to private data. Major companies denied the claim when asked about that (BY THE GUARDIAN). Both of those details were included in the original Guardian article.

6/14/2013 7:43:44 PM

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-admits-listening-to-u.s-phone-calls-without-warrants/

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, is a traitor that should be imprisoned for leaking this classified information to the public.

Quote :

"Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the head of the Senate Intelligence committee, separately acknowledged this week that the agency's analysts have the ability to access the "content of a call." "

More Democrat traitors!

[Edited on June 16, 2013 at 10:26 AM. Reason : .]

6/16/2013 10:23:15 AM

^ no no, that's not what he meant.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/305855-house-dem-nsa-cant-listen-to-calls-without-warrants

Back to talking about Syria, citizens.

6/16/2013 10:00:30 PM

GOLO assured me this guy was Carter II and he wouldn't be re-elected.

But then I was told he was W II, but everyone switched sides with their opinions and I lost count.

So I took a nap, cause I heard the End of The World was nigh.

Again.

[Edited on June 16, 2013 at 10:58 PM. Reason : And again and again]

6/16/2013 10:57:33 PM

I like how this administration (like the previous and others) justifies such actions by the ol' method of "the ends justify the means". Well, hell if that's the case, let's just scrap the whole constitution. I'm sure police work would be much easier if good ol' government can just come barging through my door anytime to ask for papers and perform a contraband search.

And the favorite line of "this program has stopped terrorist attacks!". Oh really? Attacks never heard of outside of your offices? Like the attacks created by the FBI when they lure in extremists and get them to bite the bullet? I'm all about taking out turrrists, but not at the expense of my rights.

Oh yeh, and the explanation of "these are just business records of metadata" is complete trash. Firstly, it's data held by a private entity, thus should require a warrant to access; secondly, the acquisition of data, through a warrant, would be targeted and not a wide net that captures all, unrelated data, and lastly the data includes personal information, albeit very little, of private citizens which should require a warrant for government access, even if in the hands of private companies.

6/18/2013 2:34:26 PM

everyone see dirty wars.

or i guess read the book if you're really feeling like a douchebag.

6/18/2013 2:38:49 PM

^that's actually on my list. I've seen/heard Jeremey Scahill on a few interviews, and he seems to have a pretty comprehensive understanding of drones/foreign policy issues.

6/18/2013 5:33:53 PM

Quote :

"No, it's not going to get any bigger. The WaPo and the Guardian botched the original story. The fact they've both walked back from their original assertions is proof enough of that."

Ooooopssssiiieeees......

Quote :

"Top secret documents submitted to the court that oversees surveillance by US intelligence agencies show the judges have signed off on broad orders which allow the NSA to make use of information "inadvertently" collected from domestic US communications without a warrant. The Guardian is publishing in full two documents submitted to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (known as the Fisa court), signed by Attorney General Eric Holder and stamped 29 July 2009. They detail the procedures the NSA is required to follow to target "non-US persons" under its foreign intelligence powers and what the agency does to minimize data collected on US citizens and residents in the course of that surveillance. The documents show that even under authorities governing the collection of foreign intelligence from foreign targets, US communications can still be collected, retained and used The procedures cover only part of the NSA's surveillance of domestic US communications. The bulk collection of domestic call records, as first revealed by the Guardian earlier this month, takes place under rolling court orders issued on the basis of a legal interpretation of a different authority, section 215 of the Patriot Act. The Fisa court's oversight role has been referenced many times by Barack Obama and senior intelligence officials as they have sought to reassure the public about surveillance, but the procedures approved by the court have never before been publicly disclosed. The top secret documents published today detail the circumstances in which data collected on US persons under the foreign intelligence authority must be destroyed, extensive steps analysts must take to try to check targets are outside the US, and reveals how US call records are used to help remove US citizens and residents from data collection. However, alongside those provisions, the Fisa court-approved policies allow the NSA to: • Keep data that could potentially contain details of US persons for up to five years; • Retain and make use of "inadvertently acquired" domestic communications if they contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity; • Preserve "foreign intelligence information" contained within attorney-client communications; • Access the content of communications gathered from "U.S. based machine[s]" or phone numbers in order to establish if targets are located in the US, for the purposes of ceasing further surveillance. The broad scope of the court orders, and the nature of the procedures set out in the documents, appear to clash with assurances from President Obama and senior intelligence officials that the NSA could not access Americans' call or email information without warrants. ... "In the absence of specific information regarding whether a target is a United States person," it states "a person reasonably believed to be located outside the United States or whose location is not known will be presumed to be a non-United States person unless such person can be positively identified as a United States person." If it later appears that a target is in fact located in the US, analysts are permitted to look at the content of messages, or listen to phone calls, to establish if this is indeed the case.... ...Even if upon examination a communication is found to be domestic – entirely within the US – the NSA can appeal to its director to keep what it has found if it contains "significant foreign intelligence information", "evidence of a crime", "technical data base information" (such as encrypted communications), or "information pertaining to a threat of serious harm to life or property"... ... ...Once armed with these general orders, the NSA is empowered to compel telephone and internet companies to turn over to it the communications of any individual identified by the NSA. The Fisa court plays no role in the selection of those individuals, nor does it monitor who is selected by the NSA..."

I like how the analysts are allowed to continue eavesdropping on Americans just to confirm that that person is within the United States, so that they can then presumably stop eavesdropping...but any information gathered during that process can be retained if it has "evidence of a crime."


Full article:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/20/fisa-court-nsa-without-warrant


[Edited on June 20, 2013 at 4:30 PM. Reason : ]

6/20/2013 4:02:24 PM

^ the 1st and 4th bolded items seem incidental to any surveillance program. They can't determine what's foreign without first analyzing it.

The 2 and 4th, particularly the 2nd, seem pretty egregious, but also incidental. It'd be pretty bad if the gov. had information on a crime, and didn't or couldn't do anything about it. The bigger question would be if the suspect were made aware their arrest was in part due to secretly acquired information, on how, if at all, this information were used in court.

[Edited on June 20, 2013 at 6:00 PM. Reason : ]

6/20/2013 5:59:09 PM

No....the bigger question is whether or not information should be used against you AT ALL if it is obtained without a warrant and without probable cause.

Storing people's communications who are suspected of no wrongdoing for 5 years is a terrible breach of privacy. Who could argue otherwise?

6/20/2013 6:35:03 PM

I mean, if a cop were to search your home without a warrant and without probable cause, only to discover that you had some weed in your cabinet or a bootleg DVD, that would be inadmissible in court.


But this is apparently not the case when it comes to surveillance, where the defendant wouldn't even be aware that he or she is being monitored and subject to legal scrutiny.

6/20/2013 6:48:58 PM

^ bingo. And people like Shrike will look the other way, as long as their guy is in office.

6/21/2013 12:09:10 AM

The problem is less the surveillance and more the FISA courts. I don't know much about them, but where do they fit in the judicial branch, and what basis are they making these decisions under?

What you're saying is technically accurate, they shouldn't be storing anyone's data, but the whole reason we have a judicial branch is to have oversight of these things, and it looks like for that part they went through the proper constitutional channels.

It would be good to know what specific basis, if any, the courts granted this authority under.

If I were in charge of the NSA, and I was told to use technology to find bad guys, I would need a large sampling of both guilty and innocent people to build a proper bad guy finding algorithm. All of these court orders seem to be written around that, without giving away exactly why the NSA wanted this information.

6/21/2013 9:53:27 AM

Yawn. Are you guys still on this NSA thing? The rest of the Obama hater train has left that stop and moved on to how he's dealing with Russia. Please keep up at least.

6/21/2013 10:53:18 AM