Truth Claims, Malaprops, Cows, and the NSA Debate
I was obviously unexcited about the way last night’s Chiefs-Broncos game went because I made the perhaps ill-advised decision to point out an obvious error in this post from former NSA analyst John Schindler.
He was trying to make a legitimate point — that some of the coverage of the Snowden leaks has conflated total Top Secret/SCI clearance holders with the number of people cleared into the compartments of the documents he took.
As The Guardian has taken center stage in the Snowden drama, serving as the English-language conduit of choice for publishing classified information about the National Security Agency and its partners that was stolen by Edward Snowden, it’s taken heat from the British government about its possibly illegal activities.
As a dodge, Guardian editors have taken to throwing around the “no big deal” excuse because, they claim, 850,000 people in the US, UK, and partner governments had access to this stuff. It was simply Ed, one in an (almost) million, who did the dirty deed. For one of the many iterations of this nonsense see here.
Yet nonsense it is. It plays on the fact the US and Allied governments have given out a lot of high-level clearances in recent years. But it requires a bit of explanation to understand the details – and why The Guardian is lying.
Everybody at NSA – whether military, civilian, or contractor – holds an active TOP SECRET (TS) security clearance with Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) access. That’s what it takes to get in the door at NSA.
[snip]
But TS/SCI is just the basic level of clearance at NSA and its partner and Allied agencies. Above that there exist many kinds of caveats and special programs that go (or have gone) by weird names such as GAMMA, VRK (Very Restricted Knowledge), and ECI (Exceptionally Controlled Information). Across DoD they have similar SAPs (Special Access Programs). The bottom line is that nobody at NSA sees “everything.” The entire system is in fact designed to prevent any one person from seeing everything.
The problem, however, is that Schindler made the same kind of stupid error he was accusing the Guardian of. I’ve copied the text above, including the link, as it was first posted and as it remained when I went to bed last night. At both of those times, the link went to this article, which actually didn’t make the claim he said it did (after the several hour exchange we had, he did finally change the link to this letter).
The agencies were supposed to be “selective in which contractors are given exposure to this information”, but it was ultimately seen by Snowden, one of 850,000 people in the US with top-secret clearance.
That is, to prove his case that the Guardian was lying, Schindler originally linked to an article showing the Guardian not making that claim (note, I have no idea what the 850,000 number actually refers to, but the total of TS security clearance holders was 1.4 million this time last year, but that would not include the Brits who had access).
So I asked (tweets are in reverse order),
His immediate response was to accuse me of willful cluelessness. He insisted it was a lie and that I was unable to see what normal people see because I was so lit phd.
it’s a LIE – which you would know if you actually knew anything about NSA & intel. Less lit PhD, more cryptology – #protip
your inability to see what’s clear to normal people is so lit-PhD-cliche it’s terrifying.
He came up with something that was closer to the claim he made, though still not what he accused the Guardian of (though also, I believe, erroneous), but did not change the original erroneous link yet.
The Guardian understands that a total of 850,000 NSA employees and US private contractors with top secret clearance had access to GCHQ databases.
In the middle of it all, he tweeted his “stock phrase,” “This gets easier when you stop lying.”
When I was in #NSA CI I had a stock phrase: “This gets easier when you stop lying.” Now I’m saying it to The Guardian
And then it kept going and going and going, punctuated by the troubling comment above and the comedic relief of former Tory MP Louise Mensch coming in to tell me I should respect his expertise and then proceeded to lecture me that “cow” is not a verb (I think she has since deleted these tweets they’re there–I just couldn’t find them) and on what a malaprop isn’t.
While we were all laughing heartily, Schindler added an update and in that update linked to this article, which quoted former Lord Chancellor Falconer making the claim, but did not include such a claim from the Guardian.
Falconer, who also said he deprecated attempts to portray the Guardian as an “enemy of the state”, pointed out that 850,000 people had access to the files leaked by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Falconer, a close ally of Tony Blair who served as lord chancellor from 2003-07, told the Guardian: “I am aware that the three heads of the agencies said what has been published has set back the fight against terrorism for years. Sir John Sawers [the chief of MI6] said al-Qaida would be rubbing their hands with glee. This is in the context of maybe 850,000 people literally having access to this material.”
But still, hours after I first — in what I thought was a fairly polite comment — informed him his link didn’t prove what he said it did.
Several hours into the process, Daveed Garenstein-Ross found several more examples, some of which made the 850K claim, some which didn’t.
Through this entire discussion, I didn’t dispute that Schindler could find an example nor the point of the post — that nowhere near 850K people were cleared for these compartments. I just felt that if Schindler were going to aggressively accuse Guardian of lying, his links ought to back his claims. (See below for the range of other links bandied about last night.)
To me, it served as a metaphor for the larger debate on the NSA, akin to the refusal in some quarters to consider the lies of one’s own side. I suggested Schindler fix an easily fixed error. It took him hours and heaps of insults before he did, before he would hold himself to the same standard he was holding the Guardian to.
Errors happen. Lies do too. All sides have committed both, though clearly the security services seem to be capitalizing on their information asymmetry to try to ensure maximal disinformation and confusion.
But there are still truth claims to be made, with the expectation of evidence. Or there should be.
This was a clear example of the point Schindler was making.
The Guardian understands that a total of 850,000 NSA employees and US private contractors with top secret clearance had access to GCHQ databases.
This one was not (it was, in fact, a pretty good definition of what Top Secret documents are supposed to mean — a grave threat).
Information which if leaked could endanger lives was shared, we are told, with some 850,000 individuals, one of whom was Edward Snowden, the US National Security Agency contractor.
This Comment Online piece (that is, an opinion piece, which in my case at least is not closely edited by the Guardian) by Simon Jenkins that made the claim.
An estimated 850,000 American officials and contractors are thought to have access to this material.
The claim appeared in a set of questions for Parliament to ask.
Edward Snowden was one of 850,000 employees and contractors who had access to the secret material he leaked to the Guardian and others. Did the chiefs know that so many people outside the UK had access to British secrets? What has been done to reduce the numbers who can see this material?
Then a version of the same question published with the answers (which clarified the point Schindler did, by saying there are tight arrangements for who can actually get to the information).
What action, if any, has been taken to reduce the number of people (estimated to be 850,000 employees and contractors) who have access to the secret material uncovered by the Guardian?
Committee chairman Sir Malcolm Rifkind asked: “Can we assume that you are having discussions with the your American colleagues about the hundreds of thousands of people who appear to have access to your information?”
Parker said: “All three of us are involved in those discussions.”
He added: “We have very tightly controlled IT access, and arrangements for who can download what.”
And finally, a letter from Alan Rusbridger to Parliament (a version of this is what Schindler swapped out the link to).
On the issue of staff names, you will be aware that over 850,000 people worldwide have access to not only the Snowden documents but to a whole range of information on GCHQ. Neither we nor any of our journalistic partners have published the identities of any personnel from the intelligence community, a point accepted and welcomed by the relevant agencies.
Updated with last Mensch tweet.
Two quick points:
1. You’re scoring some points. Otherwise some stupid Brit cow wouldn’t be playing grammarian and whatshisname wouldn’t be calling you a liar.
2. Snowden was a sysop. By definition, a sysop gets to get into anything and everything so as to be able to fix and upgrade the system. If the NSA was operating according to definition – no reason to think they weren’t else they surely would have said something about it by now – then Snowden had access to anything on the system.
@scribe: Wishing Snowden had pulled the FISA opinions and OLC memos before he left, assuming those were on a system somewhere and not just one-off hardcopies.
So, it’s “so lit-PhD-cliche” for you.
What insult can I use for bmaz?
@scribe: Yup. But there are only 1000 of him. Probably less now.
Let’s see, there’s Schindler, and then there’s Cesca and deranged Eichenwald, that Johnson guy. Bob Shieffer. Hard to tell if they are more pro-NSA or more anti-Greenwald.
But in any event, they’re small potatoes.
And on to the good news, Marcy—you wont have Joshua Foust to kick around anymore. He got himself some job with the Human Fund, err, the Eurasian Foundation. No more NatSec freelancing for him. Was the USG paying him too? I forget.
@scribe: Well systems can be segregated so a sysop for one might not reach others. I suspect the NSA is thinking about that now much as the DOD and State Department have belatedly asked themselves whether everything Chelsea Manning is accused of accessing should be on one system.
Ultimately, however, points or no points it is telling that IC defenders who are “in the know” like Schindler are focused not on defending the propriety, utility, or opportunity-cost of the ICs actions but are just seeking to call everyone else a liar over points that, really, don’t mean squat. And those who aren’t “read in” but should have been (ex Tory MPs) are reduced to telling everyone else to “shut up” and “respect their service.”
Ultimately whether 850,000, 85,000, or 85 people had access to these dragnets that doesn’t make them ok. And when someone does wrong and exposes the rest of us to pay for it then they have not “served” or at least not served us and there is no reason to keep silent and just accept it. Apparently the IC defenders either cannot or will not comprehend this.
@emptywheel: Just so lit-PhD-cliche, these numbers things.
What is, exactly, the criteria necessary to be a “lit-PhD-cliche”? What’s more “terrifying” to me is a world where we marginalize people and their opinions based on their credentials. We need more access and less authoritative nonsense. What a clown.
If democracy ever prevails in this country and we find the need to reeducate these intel types that quote might come in handy.(is handy correct English????)p.s. If Louise reads this I’m an American I ain’t got no good grammar.
Excellent. Kudo’s for repudiating one more piece of bullshit. Now, let’s look at something.
If I understand correctly, there are around 850 THOUSAND people on this planet, who are allowed to look at what we can’t look at, is that correct? And they can’t look at what others who have a “better security clearance” can look at, right?
What could possibly take this many people to do? 850,000 people, within our government alone, looking at every person on the planets private data. Let that sink in. 850 THOUSAND people. Unbelievable.
In fact, I submit the Surveillance State is already on a scale that would send Orwell into fits of gut splitting laughter…or gut wrenching horror..depending on how you look at it. Orwell aside, with everything we know, even at this point, I would submit this insidious monster known as the NSA, and the conniving three branches of the USG, is the living definition of Totalitarianism-R-Us. All they need now is to usurp the 2nd Amendment, which they are trying to do as I type, by virtue of the UN Small Arms Treaty. At least..they think they will. Unfortunately, the moment the US Congress ratifies this treaty, they will have also, unbeknownst to them, enacted the Law of Unintended Consequences. Let them try.
Hippie punching, a one-sided sport. In Rick Scott’s Ayn Randian future a Liberal Arts diploma will be on display next to Limbaugh’s “Liberal”, in the John Wayne Museum. Feminism has cut the ballsac off manly men and drained our society of its testosterone. I AM NOT SHOUTING, I JUST TALK LOUD! NOW SHUT UP!
(1) His juvenile condescension and petulance are remarkable, if only to confirm how threatened by scrutiny he and his cohort feel themselves to be. (2) How does “more crypotology” answer the question as to who is cleared into what? (3) What’s his definition of “normal people”?
@par4: Neither does she. SHe should ask for her Oxford tuition money back.
@Jessica: “Lit-PhD-cliche” is already a punchline.
Sorta like how “We are all Carlos Danger” was last month.
So, don’t worry about it. The best way for Establishment figures (like the clown and the cow being pilloried here) to try to “prove” their point* is by spewing as many words as possible in as little time as possible, regardless of any relation between those words and reality. Their point, BTW, is always that they and not you are superior and right in all things.
The fact that they’re attacking EW – and finding minimal purchase upon which to base their attacks – is reflective of just how much their clouds of bullshit are threatened by actual analysis.
* IF you want to work on this further, go read “On Bullshit”, by Professor Frankfurt of Princeton. It’s a thin volume but dense enough that it will take some time.
For being such an asshole, Schindler is still a remarkably poignant case study of a security state dead-ender.
It is probably dawning on him that – after Snowden – the party is over for people of his ilk, and he didn’t even cash in on the big contracting money yet. He probably always thought there would be time later for that.
practically, schindler’s argument seems to be a typical p.r./damage control argument that even if the nsa lies a thousand and fourty times, no critic of that sacred institution, e.g., the guardian, may committ even ome lie, if lie it was.
this argument is made, of course, with the understanding that it will be multiplied a thousand and forty times by the mighty wurlitzer of the authoritarian media.
in short, for p.r. purposes, critics of the national security state are to be held up to a very, very bigh standard of accuracy relative to the accuracy demanded of statements by one of our sacred natsec institutions.
be that as it may,
i am more interested in this quote in which nsa p.r. guy schindler writes:
“…The bottom line is that nobody at NSA sees “everything.” The entire system is in fact designed to prevent any one person from seeing everything…”
well, well. the question then arises:
if no one person, even the emperor alexander, knows everything about nsa’s programs, then how can the nsa be held accountable by its own top administrators for the specific damage, corruption, incompetence, or personnel mistreatment any one of its compartmentalized programs may
generate at any point in time?
“next”
“hello, smith, just what program are you managing?”
“i’m sorry, sir, but that is decure, compartmentalized information.”
“i see. so tell the board, smith, how would you say your program is performing?”
“very well, sir”
“thank you, smith.”
“next”
I would think a PhD in literature would be quite a good credential for piecing together the tidbits of information, lies and half-lies, truths and half-truths that the intelligence community generate. After all, if she could make heads or tails of any of the shit that passes as lit. crit., she can make heads or tails of anything.
/shots fired
practically, schindler’s argument seems to be a typical p.r./damage control argument that even if the nsa lies a thousand and fourty times, no critic of that sacred institution, e.g., the guardian, may committ even ome lie, if lie it was.
this argument is made, of course, with the understanding that it will be multiplied a thousand and forty times by the mighty wurlitzer of the authoritarian media.
in short, for p.r. purposes, critics of the national security state are to be held up to a very, very bigh standard of accuracy relative to the accuracy demanded of statements by one of our sacred natsec institutions.
be that as it may,
i am more interested in this quote in which nsa p.r. guy schindler writes:
“…The bottom line is that nobody at NSA sees “everything.” The entire system is in fact designed to prevent any one person from seeing everything…”
well, well. the question then arises:
if no one person, even the emperor alexander, knows everything about nsa’s programs, then how can the nsa be held accountable by its own top administrators for the specific damage, corruption, incompetence, or personnel mistreatment any one of its compartmentalized programs may generate at any point in time?
“next”
“hello, smith, just what does your program do?”
“we steal other people’s information.”
“yes, yes, of course. everyone here does that. the board would like to know the specific program you are managing.”
“i’m sorry, sir, but that is secure, compartmentalized information.”
“i see. so tell the board, smith, how would you say your program is performing?”
“very well, sir”
“thank you, smith.”
“next”
Mensch obviously isn’t one. It’s astonishing to me that an Oxford graduate in English language and literature can’t distinguish between a spoonerism and a malapropism. Surely she must have read “The Rivals”.
Louise Mensch @LouiseMensch 9h
@cannedhiss @emptywheel no, I said wrong vocabulary and I was right. A malaprop is where you switch the first letters of words.
copied from her on twit. But was in twit images above.
What kind of idiot is this Louise Mensch person? She says:
“A malaprop is where you switch the first letters of words.”
Say what? I think she’s ragsping for the word/ concept “spoonerism”.
An almaprop is an entirely different thing.
Oh, you have made me forego spending my time reading the @FakeJohnShindler Twitter feed, and go back to the Man himself.
But you will have to go some way to be called by John, as I was, a “Stalinist genocidaire”.
I think CNN will soon have another duo with which to do their Point-Counterpoint: John Shindler vs. Ben Wittes. Oh boy, that will be fun to watch (if I’m laid up in the hospital with two broken legs, maybe).
@ANOther:
Hey didn’t see your comment before- must have gone up while I was typing mine.
I see you anticipated me.
Another Navy War College windbag gets called to account. The tweet-stream last night was hilarious. Wonder how much sources and methods Schindler disclosed in his trolling.
@Jeff Kaye: Wow, I am jealous.
ah, there’s nothing that improves clarity of thought like a good old-fashioned naval flogging, and i’d say midshipman schindler has received a right proper flogging.
Coming to this late …
Who is this Mensch? It’s funny because you get made fun of because you’re a “lit-PhD”, when she looks 20
And “cowed”? She’s never heard of being cowed? Is that only an American thing? And she’s supposed to be some sort of language expert? You know, I’m not the sharpest tool that fell off of a turnip truck but even I know what a malaprop is
In looking at the wiki for malapropism, I found this example- way near the bottom-
~~It was reported in New Scientist that an office worker had described a colleague as “a vast suppository of information”~~
Hmmm….
“The failed MP crows, Emptywheel uncowed / The Lit wit or the nit-wit? Grammar rules”
Very upsetting that Louise Mensch is a metalhead. Still, this characterization from the Times UK (subscription req) sums her up rather well: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/article3777199.ece
Strictly speaking, Schindler was right, of course. Not all people who hold a TS clearance would have had access to the information Snowden was able to access. Not even all NSA employees with that level of clearance would have (most of the folks who hold a TS clearance work elsewhere) . Still, that, plus his position as a system administrator, seems to have been all the qualification Snowden needed.
That’s not lying on the Guardian‘s part so much as not understanding how access works.
@Anonsters: I was actually quite good at Lit Crit, turned down Zizek on my diss committee, and yes, it was the perfect training for this bullshit.
@JohnT:
When I told the Oxford online dictionary to confine itself to UK English, it gave me both a noun and a a verb. I believe the lady is mistaken even on her side of the Atlantic.
What a great post and thread, so much fun.
Special thanks to C, and Clark.
@Cujo359:
“…That’s not lying on the Guardian‘s part so much as not understanding how access works…”
that is an important point.
@rosalind: :-)
@scribe: “The fact that they’re attacking EW – and finding minimal purchase upon which to base their attacks – is reflective of just how much their clouds of bullshit are threatened by actual analysis.”
Gotcha – I had a feeling it was something of the sort. It should be worn as a badge of honor!
A new NSA/DOJ/FISA document dump with many files is now available for downloading and our perusal over at ICons tumblr: http://icontherecord.tumblr.com/post/67419963949/dni-clapper-declassifies-additional-intelligence
I’m sure Emptywheel is already on top of it, but just in case.
@Valley Girl:
‘Allegory of the Nile’ is a malaprop. ‘Leaving by the town drain’ is a poonerism.
I know this and I don’t have a degree in anything – but I read a lot. (I like Sheridan.)
@orionATL: Thanks. Yes, I think Schindler would have had better luck convincing people had he stuck to saying what is definitely true.
Speaking of which, you quoted this from him:
Your point about managers being able to be responsible is a good one. The other point is that if the information is there, it’s possible to obtain it, no matter how it’s guarded. That thought leads to another question – how widespread is access, and what are the controls? Without independent auditors being able to observe and discuss what they saw, I have no reason to believe what the NSA tells me. Clearly, access wasn’t limited to people authorized.
Further, no one has to look at all the data, just at the data he wants to see.
This Twitter thread had the look of another crazy one when emptywheel’s response popped into my Twitter stream. Appears I was right.
@Snoopdido: In reading through the “Opinion of the FISC granting the Government’s application seeking the collection of bulk electronic communications metadata pursuant to Section 402 of FISA, the Pen Register and Trap and Trace (PR/TT) provision” (http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/1118/CLEANEDPRTT%201.pdf), I find it really interesting as to why the US government has redacted all references to the date when the US government’s application was submitted to the FISC as well as when the FISC issued its opinion/order. Why would that be necessary to keep secret?
Emptywheel, your thoughts?
@Snoopdido: Footnote 4 on page 4 of the same document:
“4 This briefing was attended by (among others) the Attorney General; [redacted approximately 9 characters] the DIRNSA; the Director of the FBI; the Counsel to the President; the Asssistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel; the Director of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC); and the Counsel for Intelligence Policy.”
Who is the redacted party and why is it necessary to be redacted?
If we include the semi-colon in that redaction, that leaves us with 8 characters to identify the secret person who also attended but can’t be named.
@GKJames: Good point! “More cryptology” doesn’t do squat for that. Cryptology (or rather cryptography to use the proper term) governs making and breaking codes not the number of analysts permitted to see the result. He clearly has no answer for that charge and is just being a dick.
@Snoopdido: An abbreviation of the Director, Central Intelligence Agency “the DCIA;” would fit the 9 character redaction, but if it was George Tenet, why would it be necessary to keep his attendance secret?
@Cujo359:
secrecy!
any explanation for any nsa behavior devolves to their expectation of secrecy.
the lifeblood of the nsa is not, as one might assume, valuable information distributed to just the right federal officials to keep us safe;
the lifeblood of nsa is secrecy.
secrecy and the concomitant, nearly absolute, lack of any kind of detailed accountability.
@Snoopdido: The answer to the $64000 question is redacted? Wow. Put that in your pipe, Moalin.
This seems as ridiculous as when they redacted the 4th Amendment.
@Jeff Kaye: “Stalinist genocidaire”.
Dayam, Jeff, quite the appellation…! ;-)
*sigh* Maybe I should pay more attention to my twitter feed…!
@William Ockham: I am willing to auction the title off, and will give you first dibs, prior to my posting on eBay.
@Jeff Kaye: *heh* I’ll start the bidding at $10, Jeff…! ;-)
“Surely she must have read “The Rivals”.’
Very unlikely that she even knows who the author was.
From Kollar Kotelly’s timeless opinion:
which is followed by 2 and 7/8ths redacted pages. Huh, how about that.
@ess emm: After some more thought, I’ve concluded that the redaction in Footnote 4 on page 4 of that document, depending on the timing of this FISC opinion, is either “the DCI;” – the Director of Central Intelligence or “the DNI;” – the Director of National Intelligence.
Here’s my rationale:
Notice that in the wording of that footnote, the order of persons/position listed is based on the ranking of position. I initially wondered if the redacted position might be the VP, but that would not meet the ranking standard since the VP would outrank the Attorney General.
Also, it could not be some position like a DAG – Deputy Attorney General since that position would be outranked by the DIRNSA.
Lastly, in the hierarchy of US government rankings, the DNI or DCI outranks the DIRNSA since both Directors, depending on the timing of this FISC opinion, legally are/were the overall head of all US intelligence organizations.
If I had to make a bet, I’d say the redacted position is “the DNI;”. That position was first filled by John Negroponte on April 21, 2005.
@Snoopdido:
I, too, would be interested to know why they redacted all the dates from some of these FISC orders. On what possible grounds could dates of submissions to the FISC of applications and of release of FISC orders and opinions be classified? Or on what possible grounds could dates fall within a FOIA exemption? Bizarre. I wonder if EFF could challenge those redactions.
LOLs. I left this message on his website (have no idea if he will post it):
This article misses the point, and you appear to be attacking a strawman. Emptywheel is asking you for a warrant for your reason. That is to say, evidence that backs up your claim that The Guardian is lying. Here’s how it works:
(1) You make a claim P1.
(2) Someone asks you to back up P1.
(3) You provide reasons, evidence, and other warrants (P2, P3, etc) that support the claim in P1.
(1) claimed by you was that the Guardian was lying with respect to the 850k claim. Emptywheel asked you for (2) in order to back up your claims. Several bits of the evidence you provided for (3) do not infer what you stated. You claim the “The Guardian is lying,” which in predicate logic can be decomposed into a universally quantified if-then conditional of the form:
(P1) “For all x, if x is the guardian, then x is lying.”
(P2) The 850,000 claim is evidence for (P1).
The link you provided above in the original post states that Falconer — not the Guardian — made the claim. It’s even there in the link stating, “Falconer … pointed out that 850,000 people had access …” So your initial argument doesn’t even get off the ground, as the antecedent in (P1) isn’t The Guardian, it is Falconer. There are of course other articles out there stating the 850,000 claim, but again, it is not evidence for (P1). Even the strongest case from the articles provided over at EmptyWheel don’t actually state The Guardian is stating the claim. The strongest bit of evidence is the claim, “The Guardian understands that a total of 850,000 NSA employees and US private contractors with top secret clearance had access to GCHQ databases.” Again, it states The Guardian “understands.” “Understand” is an epistemic notion. It means that The Guardian has reasons for believing something. In those articles The Guardian is quoting a, ” … source with knowledge of intelligence.” Again, how can The Guardian be lying, when the antecedent of (P1) isn’t The Guardian making the initial claims? They are the messenger here, and you seem to have constructed an almighty strawman of their position.
Also the attacks on Emptywheel with irrelevant aspects of (3) is laughable. “Less lit-phd, more cryptology.” Really? What you mean to say is information security, not cryptology. Even the NSA on their page defines cryptology as, “Cryptology is the art and science of making and breaking codes and ciphers.” The area you are talking about (compartmentation) is the domain of information security, not cryptology.
So what we have here is a (supposed) ex-NSA analyst who: (i) can’t string together an argument, (ii) can’t analyse information accurately, and; (iii) doesn’t know the difference between infosec and cryptology. If you ever were an actual NSA analyst, it is no wonder you no longer have a job there. Someone should FOIA your name just to make sure they fired you for being sub-par (or in the more sinister case, that you are a liar).
@Anonsters: The redactions of the dates implies both importance and skullduggery to me. I am hoping that Emptywheel’s incomparable skill for connecting distant dots where others see no connection will surface here.
@TarheelDem: Schindler couldn’t hold a candle to someone like Richard Marcinko. Also, too, there is a reason the CIA is called Christians in Action, even by people who work with them.
@Snoopdido: Just reading Charlie Savage’s piece on this in the New York Times – http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/us/latest-release-of-documents-on-nsa-includes-2004-ruling-on-email-surveillance.html?ref=politics, and he states this:
“The Obama administration released hundreds of pages of newly declassified documents related to National Security Agency surveillance late Monday, including an 87-page ruling in which the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court first approved a program to systematically track Americans’ emails during the Bush administration.”
And continues later with this:
“The Bush administration temporarily shut down its bulk collection of email logs after Justice Department lawyers raised legal concerns in March 2004. Judge Kollar-Kotelly declared the collection lawful in July 2004, according to documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor.”
If this is correct as is likely, then this FISC opinion is dated July 2004. I’m still hoping that Emptywheel can connect the dots informing us as to why that date would have to be redacted.
Additionally, if the July 2004 date is correct, then my theory about the redaction of Footnote 4 on page 4 would mean that it can’t be “the DNI;” because that position didn’t yet exist. Back to “the DCI;” choice.
@Anonsters:
because dates allow arranging in order, i.e., chronology.
@Snoopdido:
I’m interested in why all the dates of all FISC transactions are redacted in the Bates opinion (file name CLEANEDPRTT2.pdf). Every single one. And a bunch of instances of what can only be “al Qaeda” appear to have been redacted, too. Really?
@orionATL:
Why is that a sufficient reason? (Set aside the reason why NSA might not want us to know, because of possible embarrassment or illegality on their part. My question is: can you think of a reason that would make such redactions legitimate?)
[Edited to add: Especially when the dates of when compliance incidents were noted are redacted and the dates of NSA’s “end-to-end review” are redacted. Yet at least some of those dates are provided in other documents NSA released today (some in the very descriptions of the documents on the website!).]
@Snoopdido: DCI by process of elimination.
But doesnt it seem like Greenwald, Poitras, Gellman, Savage—and now Marcy—wouldnt need these releases? I mean, wouldnt Snowden have had more than just one FISC order/opinion?
Oh, and Orin Kerr gets a shout-out on p. 23 of Kollar Kotelly’s opinion and order.
You know, I’m beginning to conclude that NSA redacted almost everything that says anything of importance about the bulk metadata collections in this CLEANEDPRTT2.pdf file, except that: (a) we made mistakes, but (b) hey, look, we created new, tough standards that the FISC approved!
I swear, this is propaganda-by-redaction.
For what it’s worth, the US government’s initial application for the Section 215 dragnet collection of all American call records “Production to Congress of a May 23, 2006 Government Memorandum of Law in support of its Application to the FISC for authorization to conduct bulk telephony metadata collection under Section501 of FISA” – http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/1118/CLEANED016.%20REDACTED%20BR%2006-05%20Exhibits%20C%20%28Memo%20of%20Law%29%20and%20D-Sealed.pdf has this astounding admittance on pages 4-5:
“The Application is completely consistent with this Court’s ground breaking and innovative decision [redacted] in [redacted] In that case, the Court authorized the installation and use of pen registers and trap and trace devices to collect bulk e-mail metadata [redacted sentence]. The Court found that all of “the information likely to be obtained” from such collection “is relevant to an ongoing investigation to protect against international terrorism.”
Note the acknowledgment by even the Executive branch that it considered this secret law as “ground breaking”. That is a pretty cynical admission about how the Executive branch and Judicial branch of the US government disappeared the American public’s 4th Amendment protections without any notification whatsoever.
@Snoopdido: Remember when all the mouthpieces of the Bush administration (President Bush, AG Gonzales, NSA Director Hayden, etc.) all claimed that their dragnet program was for calls where one of the ends was outside of the US?
From the very same document, see pages 9-10 for the “real truth”:
“In addition, when they are located inside the United States, [redaction] [redaction] [redaction] (my guess is likely al Qaeda operatives) make domestic U.S. telephone calls. For purposes of preventing terrorist attacks against the United States, the most analytically significant [redaction] telephone communications are those that either have one end in the United States or that are purely domestic, because those communications are particularly likely to identify individuals who are associated with [redaction] in the United States whose activities may include planning attacks on the homeland.”
Note the phrase “purely domestic”. That phrase shows that all of those US government mouthpieces explicitly lied, and did so “on the record”!
quote:”Note the phrase “purely domestic”. That phrase shows that all of those US government mouthpieces explicitly lied, and did so “on the record”!”unquote
I can hear Clapper’s head exploding about now. Of course..least untruthful “on the record” will make an appearance before long.
@D:
this is a very nice analysis.
i appreciate its pecision.
it would be nice to see similar disputes reduced to this bare-bones clarity.
thanks for posting it here.
LIT DOC, LIT DOC. What’s that, the alarm that sounds when someone spots you coming down the hall? Funny what some folks consider an insult. Sort of like the silly French in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. You Lit PhD you.
Q: What does someone do when they have no claim whatsoever to menschiness?
A: They adopt it as a surname.
Sorry to be late to the party.
@William Ockham:
LOL!
Didn’t get a chance to respond on the 18th when I read through this!
Have to say, “Thank you!”
Great post and thread. A nice Bday present it was!