The Top 5 Lies NSA Defenders Still Spread: Don't Let Them Get Away With It
from the and-yet-they-keep-coming-back dept
The EFF has helpfully put together a list of the top 5 claims that defenders of the NSA have to stop making if they want to remain credible. In short, it’s the top five lies that defenders of the NSA keep repeating over and over again, even though they’ve each been widely debunked. It’s a handy guide to the statements and why they’re untrue. You should go read the whole thing, but these are the five:
- The NSA has stopped 54 terrorist attacks with mass spying
- Just collecting call detail records isn’t a big deal
- There have been no abuses of power
- Invading privacy is okay because it’s done to prevent terrorist attacks
- There’s plenty of oversight from Congress, from the courts and agency watchdogs
If you read Techdirt regularly, you’ve already read why all five of these are not true. And yet… they keep popping up. We expect politicians and NSA defenders to lie, but what’s unfortunate is that people — and mainly the press — let them get away with these blatant lies. Hopefully, putting them all in one single spot, with all of the supporting documentation, will help more in the press to call out these claims as bullshit when they’re set forth by NSA defenders.
Filed Under: lies, nsa, surveillance
Comments on “The Top 5 Lies NSA Defenders Still Spread: Don't Let Them Get Away With It”
WTF is wrong with Techdirt? Why is this an https site now?
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Check article on site going full SSL for your security and anonymity for details.
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Techdirt Is Now 100% SSL …this is a good thing. Trust.
HTTPS creates a secure channel over an insecure network. This ensures reasonable protection from eavesdroppers and man-in-the-middle attacks, provided that adequate cipher suites are used and that the server certificate is verified and trusted.
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My browser still spits back an exclamation mark to the left of the URL.
Either way I don’t really care. https is slightly slower though but the difference isn’t that big of a deal.
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Secure channel? Okay. “Vulnerabilities” were recently discovered in SSL. So what does Techdirt do? It goes SSL. And we’re supposed to “trust”? If anything, it should raise suspicions.
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The vulnerabilities were discovered, and are being fixed; indeed, I seem to recall that someone from Techdirt posted that they’ve already applied the fixes for Techdirt itself.
SSL is not guaranteed absolutely 100% secure, true – not even with the fixes for the discovered vulnerabilities; there could always be more which haven’t been discovered yet.
But it’s far, far more secure than not using encryption at all, which is the status quo ante, and is still the main alternative.
There is absolutely nothing suspicious about using SSL at this point. Refusing to use SSL, in favor of using no encryption, would be more on the suspicious side.
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Vulnerabilities exist in everything. The question is, do they get fixed as they’re discovered? With OpenSSL, the answer is “yes, and quickly”.
“If anything, it should raise suspicions”
This makes no sense. It implies that because a security scheme has vulnerabilities, using it is worse than using nothing at all? That’s crazy talk.
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If you use no protection, you know you’re vulnerable and be very careful what you say. If you are using a protection system that you think is secure but really is vulnerable you might say things you wouldn’t say in the open.
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If I wouldn’t say it in the open, I won’t say it at all. Doing otherwise is a sort of dishonesty.
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Why do you want everyone to know what your doing here?1
What is their ROI?
Some questions to ask:
For the amount of money spent each year, how many deaths have been prevented? Use whatever factor per incident is appropriate (say 100) and compare with other death prevention measures – fires, road, chemical, medical?
For the numbers of information collected, what is the percentage has been useful in prevention compared to total information collected?
For the numbers of abuses (for which we will always have more than 1) what is the ratio of abuses (misfires) to events?
How often has the constitution been broken for successful prevention?
How many many times has Congress, etc been informed for each collection regime. That is the full Congress (not just some minor committee), etc.
Compare all figures with any other death prevention methodology and work our the specific ROI’s involved.
Re: What is their ROI?
I wouldn’t mind betting that even if you took the most optimistic figures for how many lives are saved by the NSA (and honestly, anything greater than zero is optimistic) it’d pale in comparison to how many lives would be saved if you invested the same amount in healthcare. And that’s just the most obvious example of a better return on investment.
Re: Re: What is their ROI?
You could build an entire highway system in Africa – saving millions of lives by making it possible to provide medical care and clean water – and the goodwill generated would probably stop more terrorist attacks than the NSA spying.
Re: What is their ROI?
Here is an interesting study/paper from 2011.
Terror, Security, and Money: Balancing the Risks, Benefits, and Costs of Homeland Security
John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart
points
interesting talking points, but your assertions seem mostly built up by those who oppose the government and the NSA.
1 – who knows? Where do you see this specific claim? I have seen some claims that the NSA action has helped in cases, but not a specific number claimed.
2 – For many people, collection of call detail (aka meta data) is not a big deal. There are some grumblings online (like this post) but seemingly no overwhleming backlash.
3 – there are abuses of power all the time, from the cop who uses a taser when a baton would have been enough, to the guy at the DMV who checks out the blond girl’s details to try to hit her up for a date, stalker style. The question isn’t if there is abuse, but rather if the abuse is widespread, systematic, and enough to negate the intent of the agency. So far, there aren’t tons of cases lining up here, just seemingly the regular level of exceptional situations.
4 – loaded. Calls that go outside the US are subject to different legal standing.
5 – There is plenty of oversight. The NSA didn’t appear out of thin air and take over the place, it was created and is funded like any other agency.
How about some actual links to direct quotes on stuff like this?
Re: points
1 – 5: Easy, just use the handy dandy search tool on this website and search for those key words. Links will appear.
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Or he could click the link in the very first line of the article, but then he would have to gasp click more links.
Re: points
1: the 54 events around the world figure that they think they had some involvement in(a shaky figure at best) magically went around and around in the mouths of pundits and promoters until it became “The NSA Has Stopped Over Fifty Attacks On America With These Special Powers!” And then the actual events turn out to be catching some guy sending a couple thousand bucks to a charity that is considered to have terrorist ties or other baloney.
2: It remains a big deal, even when people don’t know it. There is no overwhelming backlash because of the incredible success in making this vast trove of data seem boring and remote.
3: With the incredibly exceptional powers lined up, both in laws on the books and in their willingness to just do whatever they like, “the regular level of exceptional situations” is freakin unacceptable.
4:no one was talking about calls, though that court-created mechanism is interesting. Care to address.. well.. anything else the NSA has done with it’s seemingly unlimited budget and unlimited power to fight terr’r?
5: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/02/nsa-federal-agency-created-secret-memo-rather-congressional-legislation.html
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/04/congress-nsa-denied-access
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/black-budget/
Re: Re: points
1 – EFF is sort of playing games here, the 54 number appears to be reasonable, but they are objecting because only about a dozen are directly attributed to calls in the US. It’s one side giving the big number, and the other side trying to pare it down to belittle it.
2 – Some feel it’s a big deal, but if the US government wants to keep a record of the number of times I order pizza (too often) or the number of times I call for a taxi, they are more than welcome. From what I can see online, outside of the vocal minority, most people seem okay with this as well.
3 – Bad news for you, anything that involves humans will have some abuses, some stretching, and the odd guy checking out the hot girl with his super investigator powers. You can call it freaking unacceptable, but these are people and not robots.
4 – There have been tons of allegations, plenty of smoke but not a whole lot of fire. I don’t get upset at NSA for using the same sort of digital backdoors that H4x0r types use every day to get their digital jollies. Moreover, it does help to put the question of what is really private, and what is not.
5 – 1952. 62 years later, get over it. The congress, a long series of presidents, and the like have all had the chance to legislate the agency into the ground. They have not. The agency is almost old enough to be out of copyright!
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3 – Bad news for you, anything that involves humans will have some abuses, some stretching, and the odd guy checking out the hot girl with his super investigator powers. You can call it freaking unacceptable, but these are people and not robots.
I do call it unacceptable and if they hadn’t collected the data then these humans couldn’t have done what they did – that is sort of the point.
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if the US government wants to keep a record of the number of times I order pizza
You no understand. That this is not what they are doing. They are collecting all of the phone calls you make, combining that with other communication information, and are able to accurately determine what you have been doing and where you have been.
While you may not be much of a target, the real problem becomes when someone of importance starts doing something they do not like.
For example, say there is someone running in an election against a Senator that has been helpful to the NSA, they can look at the profiles they construct and may be able to identify activity that they can use to persuade them not to run for office.
We do not have laws to prevent domestic spying because we care about who knows when we order pizza, we have these laws so our government cannot act against our election system.
These laws exist for the same reason we do not allow our representatives to be “detained” for minor legal infractions when they are trying to get to a vote. We do not want to have law enforcement stopping people that could vote against their interests.
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anything that involves humans will have some abuses, some stretching, and the odd guy checking out the hot girl with his super investigator powers. You can call it freaking unacceptable, but these are people and not robots.
That is not a reason to let it continue. You don’t let someone finishing raping “because they are human”, you drag them out by their hair and make them stop.
don’t get upset at NSA for using the same sort of digital backdoors that H4x0r types use every day
Bullshit. NOT TELLING US ABOUT COMPROMISED SYSTEMS DOES US HARM. This is an agency that is supposed to protect people. Leaving a bear trap on the street at night because it ‘may’ help catch a criminal is stupid. Assuming that nobody else will step in it is even dumber.
The congress, a long series of presidents, and the like have all had the chance to legislate the agency into the ground.
So we give up? snif, snif, but it’s haaarrrd. We cannot get our lawmakers to regulate an agency so we should just let them do whatever they want?
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Out of copyright? Copyright is life plus 70. If the NSA is going to be out of copyright it has to die first.
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JFK, read everything he said, he was gonna have all three letter agencies get bent to extreme accountability.
Re: points
Where do you see this specific claim? I have seen some claims that the NSA action has helped in cases, but not a specific number claimed.
http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/803163-rogers-nsa-speech.html#document/p23/a125317
http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/802262-us-13-alexander-keynote.html#document/p14
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/27/19175466-nsa-chief-says-surveillance-programs-helped-foil-54-plots
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/09/19/nsa-sends-letter-to-its-extended-family-to-reassure-them-that-they-will-weather-this-storm/
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304520704579125950862794052?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304520704579125950862794052.html
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130911/02400324482/how-many-lies-can-politician-stuff-into-single-sentence-about-nsa-surveillance.shtml
There are plenty more. To say no specific number has been claimed is… wrong.
How about some actual links to direct quotes on stuff like this?
Ok. Now will admit to being wrong?
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Yes, I accept that I am wrong, I had not seen specific numbers like that. However, has anyone disproved it (aside pointing to a Techdirt opinion piece)?
Care to work the other 4 points now?
Re: points
“For many people, collection of call detail (aka meta data) is not a big deal.”
True, but these are people who don’t understand what metadata collection really means. Once explained to them, they have a problem with it. By the way, the resistance to this is far more than some minor “grumbling on the web”. It’s a significant percentage of the population.
“The question isn’t if there is abuse, but rather if the abuse is widespread, systematic, and enough to negate the intent of the agency”
The real question isn’t if there is abuse at all, but if there is significant potential for abuse. And it’s very clear with these programs that there is.
“loaded. Calls that go outside the US are subject to different legal standing.”
Where does point 4 talk about calls going outside the US? The calls don’t actually have to go outside the US to be surveilled.
“There is plenty of oversight”
Really? Can you point to it? The only two oversight mechanisms that I know of are the FISC and the congressional intelligence committee — both of which have demonstrably failed to provide anything like even a reasonable amount of oversight.
Add to that list that ‘bulk collection of digital communications could have prevented the September 11th attacks.’ Obvious weasel wording of ‘could have prevented’ aside, this strawman ignores that the Sept 11 Commission Report found that the CIA was able to track two of the suspected hijackers as they transited to the US, but failed to get the FBI to put them on a watchlist.
The part that is disheartening for me is that if there is another successful attack on U.S. soil, the same people will push for MORE invasive surveillance of U.S. citizens, not acknowledging that previous efforts with their inherent Constitutional abuses did not protect us.
It’s like getting in a car accident and then driving faster. If I had been going 20 MPH the accident wouldn’t have happened!
Even if they stopped the bogus claims, it’s a bit late “to remain credible” – they’d have to have had some credibility left to retain first.
(This isn’t a “shot” at our brothers across the 49th; the only difference between the US and Canada in this respect is that we, like the UK, don’t have “Constitution Rights” to abuse in the first place.)
An additional lie:
6. It’s impossible for the DOJ and NSA to backup or print out evidence from their databases, in order to comply with court orders.
I think there’s an easy rebuttal:
Calling NSA defenders liars when they make any claims is unpatriotic and basically treasonous because the more people know what is and isn’t true, the more knowledge our enemies have to use against us.
The world would be a much better place if everything the government said was a lie and everyone believed it all.
Checkmate, freedom lovers.
I would add, possibly at number 1, the lie that Snowden’s leaks have severely damaged U.S. national security. I think that’s the most frequently parroted load of unsubstantiated bullshit to date.
Re: Snowden and National Security
It’s hard to determine exactly what damage Edward Snowden has done to the National Security, but I’d say it’s substantial. I don’t mean phone and email taps, I mean when he talked about how we were collecting signals intelligence from foreign countries and their leaders.
History clearly shows the dangers. It’s arguable that we would have lost World War II if the Poles hadn’t broken the German Enigma cipher machine. The Germans were losing, and they knew something was wrong, but they were convinced that Enigma was secure. If someone like Edward Snowden had made that information public we might have lost the war.
That’s not the only case. The US won the Battle of Midway because the Japanese didn’t know that we had broken their operational code. The in World War I British won the Battle of Jutland because the Royal Navy had broken the High Seas Fleet’s codes.
I believe that some of the things Snowden has revealed will make it harder for us to get the advantage that signals intelligence gave to the people who preceded us. His revelation about collection on foreign leaders is one example. The damage he caused may be much wider than we think and may last much longer than we fear. Targets will not just fix the systems Snowden has identified, they’ll also check others he hasn’t. And they may keep doing it for years.
Collecting on foreign systems is important because it gives us a window into their interests and actions. Of course we should collect on Angela Merkel. Germany has different interests are different from ours. She’s taken a different position on Ukraine and we’ll do better if we know the details of what it is. There are other examples.
Please be clear; I’m not defending bulk collection of US phone calls and email. That’s wrong and I’m glad Snowden told us. I’m talking only about what he’s said about collecting on foreign targets.
It’s how to understand the damage that Snowden did without having some of the history. I suggest “The Ultra Secret,” “We Slept at Dawn,” “The Codebreakers,” and “Seizing the Enigma.” There are some good websites on the Enigma: “http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/how-enigma-works.html,” “http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/enigma_01.shtml,” “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb44bGY2KdU,” “http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/atlantic/enigma.aspx.” There are some good sites on how codebreaking won the Battle of Midway: “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway,” “http://www.navy.mil/midway/how.html”
Thanks for taking time to read my post.
Re: Re: Snowden and National Security
I don’t mean phone and email taps, I mean when he talked about how we were collecting signals intelligence from foreign countries and their leaders.
To which the response should be, ‘Any country/leader that was surprised by spy agencies spying on foreign leaders/countries, is one filled with idiots’.
That’s pretty much the entire purpose for such agencies, to gather intelligence on what other countries are doing, any country that needed Snowden to tell them that is just a titch slow on how things work, and not likely a threat to anyone but themselves, so blaming him for it seems like a bit of a stretch, to put it mildly.
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The issue isn’t that he revealed we are doing it, it’s that he revealed information that might indicate how we did it.
Also, of course the Germans expect to the subject of collection. If they’re doing their job they would have used protected Merkel’s phones and so might have thought that they were.
The Germans have a two-War record of assuming their leaking communications were secure. (Lucky for us.)
Re: Re: Snowden and National Security
There’s never going to be a war between first and even second world (russia and friends) because that means nukes and that’s it. Hell it’s no secret Russia and NATO’s policy since the late 90’s is successful First Strike in case of diplomacy going completely kaput.
Since the troll is so interested in these numbers, I suggest as another has before that you use your lazy fingers to search this site for those numbers. You’ll even get a date it happened as well as a source link.
It is not up to us to educate you. It is up to you to read current events if you want to stay current. None of the above I might add is current. It’s the old numbers trotted out when Snowden started his releases. That’s been a year ago.
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which troll do you refer to?
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It’s when they had that ridiculous map with the huge 54 and the inclusion of my country into the “Homeland” on it..my head is still reeling bout this.
To
1. They drank the Kool-Aid.
2. They are paid to spread these lies.
3. They have a vested interest in the industry behind the policies behind the lies.
4. They have huge egos and lots of hubris and are butthurt from all of the criticism.
5. They are power hungry assholes that don’t have any respect for the people, the law, or any of the principles on which this country was founded.
Re: To
Crap. Subject was supposed to be: Top 5 reasons these people continue to spread these lies.
4. Invading privacy is okay because it’s done to prevent terrorist attacks
5. There’s plenty of oversight from Congress, from the courts and agency watchdogs
My friend is an absolute believer in these two. In fact, he not only believes them about the NSA, but also about the FBI and local law enforcement. He excuses pretty much any abuse of power (as long as it doesn’t directly affect him) as being necessary to fight crime and believes that if a cop is guilty of abusing his power, the other police and courts will say so. Therefore, any case that goes against a person accusing the cop of abuse means that they lied.
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“Invading privacy” is not binary decision. There’s lot of grey area there. Example – I don’t mind checking call metadata, but opposing to wiretapping.
“Oversight” is not binary thing either. Of cause there is oversight. But – what exactly to be overseen is not so straight-forward.
Now, the problem is not in NSA or Congress. The problem is american general cowardice. Large majority of US population are actually very afraid of terrorists (real or imagined).
That’s understandable – US people never had to defend their country. US people never in history were threatened (Civil war doesn’t count and other wars was fought overseas). They thought they are untouchable, invincible and so on. Here come 9/11 and show that all expensive warfare won’t protect you from really determined people. So, the fear is real. And yes, NSA have many bona fide supporters for what they do.
Add to this known american arrogance (“why can’t we spy on German – that’s what CIA is for!”). Yes, of cause you can spy on whoever you want, but beware of consequences.
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Uh… What do you think the War of 1812 was?
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Wars on US territory involving foreign nations:
1. The American Revolutionary War
2. The Northweat Indian War
3. The Quasi-War (involving US merchant vessels in coastal waters)
4. The War of 1812
5. The Border War
That’s not including the Civil War, wars where the US invaded lands now within US territory, or the many wars with Native American tribes. Granted the last war within US territory was 100 years ago so nobody involved would still be alive today, but America has seen war inside its borders several times since its formation. Also Pearl Harbor showed us that we were still vulnerable to attack within our borders before 9/11.
But what is next? NSA can’t reform itself, while Russia and China clearly getting an edge here.
I don’t see how this one is a lie. It would only be a lie if the invasion of privacy was being done for some other reason. We’re starting to entire tinfoil territory if we assert that, and I have not see any proof of this claim.
If this had been phrased as, “Invading privacy is okay because it is preventing terrorist attacks” then it would be false because the mass surveillance has not stopped a single attack but that’s not the way this was phrased.
If the core of the disagreement is that privacy is more important than trying to prevent terrorist attacks then the authoritarian claim is not a lie at all but a difference in how much value the authoritarian ascribes to privacy. Since value judgments are all subjective bullshit, the authoritarian’s claim is no more true or false that of the civil libertarian.
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Should add “Snowden escaped to Russia” when the US Government stranded him there, probably on purpose, to start the strain in relation with Moscow that started last year, only to be temporarily warmed with the Lavrov Saves Kerry show.
There is only one point behind all this that really matters. How many times has the NSA-CIA-FBI violated the Constitution and my civil rights?
That is it folks. I don’t care if you don’t mind the government reading your email, collecting information about you or anything else. I don’t care that you have nothing to hide. There probably were slaves that had a pretty good life and didn’t mind being a slave. Being a slave violates human rights. Invading privacy violates the Constitution.
People died in support of the Constitution. Today, our military supposedly fights and dies in support of our Constitution. Every public official swears to uphold the Constitution.
Is it really that hard? Violating the Constitution in the way our government has done (and continues to do) should be considered treason.