aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Monday, January 30, 2006

NSA data miners

Robert X. Cringely details what he thinks is most likely going on with the NSA and FISA from a guy who used to work for the NSA. I suggest you read the articulation - “they’re using social network analysis...to identify people of interest...[before applying] for a FISA warrant and start actually intercepting” - this is his conclusion:

So what we have the NSA doing is probably data mining, calling records in order to identify the people they want to order intercepts on. They are doing it without warrants because they like being sneaky, don’t think they could get past the FISA court a warrant for 100 million calling records, and because the FISA law from 1978 probably doesn’t distinguish between a pen-trap and an intercept.

If that’s really the case, this doesn’t sound quite as bad as we’ve feared. I feel better thinking that they are culling calling records rather than listening-in to my conversations. And it makes a lot more sense, from a pure technical capability standpoint.

So why couldn’t they just tell us? Why couldn’t they have simply amended the FISA law to take such activities into account? Because they like to be sneaky, tend to distrust even the people who pay them (that’s us), and because they for some reason think that the bad guys won’t figure this out for themselves.

For the record, I absolutely, positively, 100% completely want my government to do data mining. I don’t want 20th century law enforcement in a 21st century world. How it is regulated/administered/overseen (Cringely’s “tell us...amend the FISA law") is what matters to me.

Bonus quote, Jobs and Disney: “It’s the start of a grand amalgamation based around a combination of content, technology, and networking, and I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see it end as a single huge company five years from now with Jobs at the helm.”