{"id":7668,"date":"2014-06-03T07:07:01","date_gmt":"2014-06-03T11:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=7668"},"modified":"2014-06-03T07:08:18","modified_gmt":"2014-06-03T11:08:18","slug":"five-ridiculous-ways-people-defend-nsa-spying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/five-ridiculous-ways-people-defend-nsa-spying\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Ridiculous Ways People Defend NSA Spying"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Top 5 Claims That Defenders of the NSA Have to Stop Making to Remain Credible<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0Cindy Cohn and Nadia Kayyali – EFF<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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\"spy-vs-spy\"<\/a><\/b>Over the past year, as the Snowden revelations have rolled out, the government and its apologists have developed a set of talking points about mass spying that the public has now heard over and over again. From the President, to Hilary Clinton to Rep. Mike Rogers, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and many others, the arguments are often eerily similar.<\/p>\n

But as we approach the one year anniversary, it\u2019s time to call out the key claims that have been thoroughly debunked and insist that the NSA apologists retire them.<\/p>\n

So if you hear any one of these in the future, you can tell yourself straight up: \u201cthis person isn\u2019t credible,\u201d and look elsewhere for current information about the NSA spying. And if these are still in your talking points (you know who you are) it\u2019s time to retire them if you want to remain credible. And next time, the talking points should stand the test of time.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 The NSA has Stopped 54 Terrorist Attacks with Mass Spying<\/b><\/p>\n

The discredited claim<\/i><\/p>\n

NSA defenders have thrown out many claims about how NSA surveillance has protected us from terrorists, including repeatedly declaring that it has thwarted 54 plots. \u00a0Rep. Mike Rogerssays it<\/a>\u00a0often<\/a>. Only weeks after the first Snowden leak, US President Barack Obama\u00a0claimed:<\/a>\u00a0\u201cWe know of at least 50 threats that have been averted\u201d because of the NSA\u2019s spy powers. Former NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander also repeatedly claimed that those programs thwarted\u00a054 different attacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Others, including former\u00a0Vice President Dick Cheney<\/a>\u00a0have claimed that had the bulk spying programs in place, the government could have stopped the 9\/11 bombings, specifically noting that the government needed the program to locate Khalid al Mihdhar, a hijacker who was living in San Diego.<\/p>\n

Why it\u2019s not credible:<\/i><\/p>\n

These claims\u00a0have been thoroughly debunked<\/a>. \u00a0First, the claim that the information stopped 54 terrorist plots fell completely apart.\u00a0 In dramatic\u00a0Congressional testimony<\/a>, Sen. Leahy forced a formal retraction from NSA Director Alexander in October, 2013:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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“Would you agree that the 54 cases that keep getting cited by the administration were not all plots, and of the 54, only 13 had some nexus to the U.S.?” Leahy said at the hearing. “Would you agree with that, yes or no?”<\/p>\n

“Yes,” Alexander replied, without elaborating.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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But that didn\u2019t stop the apologists. We keep hearing the\u201c54 plots\u201d line to this day.<\/p>\n

As for 9\/11, sadly, the same is true. \u00a0The government did not need additional mass collection capabilities, like the mass phone records programs, to find al Mihdhar in San Diego. \u00a0AsProPublica noted<\/a>, quoting Bob Graham, the former chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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U.S. intelligence agencies knew the identity of the hijacker in question, Saudi national Khalid al Mihdhar, long before 9\/11 and had the ability find him, but they failed to do so.<\/p>\n

“There were plenty of opportunities without having to rely on this metadata system for the FBI and intelligence agencies to have located Mihdhar,” says former Senator Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who\u00a0extensively investigated<\/a>\u00a09\/11 as chairman of the Senate\u2019s intelligence committee.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Moreover, Peter Bergen and a team at the New America Foundation dug into the government\u2019s claims about plots in America, including studying over 225 individuals recruited by al Qaeda and similar groups in the United States and charged with terrorism, \u00a0and\u00a0concluded<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Our review of the government\u2019s claims about the role that NSA “bulk” surveillance of phone and email communications records has had in keeping the United States safe from terrorism shows that these claims are overblown and even misleading…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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When backed into a corner, the government\u2019s apologists cite the capture of Zazi, the so-called New York subway bomber. However, in that case,\u00a0the Associated Press reported<\/a>\u00a0that the government could have easily stopped the plot\u00a0without<\/i>\u00a0the NSA program, under authorities that comply with the Constitution. Sens. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall\u00a0have been saying this<\/a>\u00a0for a long time.<\/p>\n

Both of the President\u2019s hand-picked advisors on mass surveillance concur about the telephone records collection. The President\u2019s Review Board issued a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0in which it stated \u201cthe information contributed to terrorist investigations by the use of section 215 telephony meta-data was not essential to preventing attacks,\u201d The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) also\u00a0issued a report<\/a>\u00a0in which it stated, \u201cwe have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which [bulk collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act] made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in an\u00a0amicus brief<\/a>\u00a0in EFF\u2019s case\u00a0First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. the NSA<\/i><\/a>\u00a0case, Sens. Ron Wyden, Mark Udall, and Martin Heinrich stated that, while the administration has claimed that bulk collection is necessary to prevent terrorism, they \u201chave reviewed the bulk-collection program extensively, and none of the claims appears to hold up to scrutiny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even former top NSA official John Inglis\u00a0admitted<\/a>\u00a0that the phone records program has not stopped any terrorist attacks aimed at the US and at most, helped catch one guy who shipped about $8,000 to a Somalian group that the US has designated as a terrorist group but that has never even remotely been involved in any attacks aimed at the US.<\/p>\n

2. Just collecting call detail records isn\u2019t a big deal.<\/b><\/p>\n

The discredited claim<\/i><\/p>\n

The argument goes like this: Metadata can\u2019t be privacy invasive, isn\u2019t very useful and therefore its collection isn\u2019t dangerous\u2014so the Constitution shouldn\u2019t protect it.\u00a0 Even the\u00a0President said<\/a>, \u201cwhat the intelligence community is doing is looking at phone numbers and durations of calls. They are not looking at people\u2019s names, and they\u2019re not looking at content\u201d\u2014as if that means there is no privacy protection for this information.<\/p>\n

Why it\u2019s not credible:<\/i><\/p>\n

As former director of the NSA and CIA Michael Hayden\u00a0recently admitted<\/a>: \u201cWe kill people based on metadata.\u201d\u00a0 And former NSA General Counsel Stu Baker\u00a0said<\/a>: \u201cmetadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody\u2019s life. If you have enough metadata, you don\u2019t really need content.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, a\u00a0Stanford study<\/a>\u00a0this year demonstrated exactly what you can reconstruct using metadata: \u201cWe were able to infer medical conditions, firearm ownership, and more, using solely phone metadata.\u201d Metadata can show what your religion is, if you went to get an abortion, and other incredibly private details of your life.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>There Have Been No Abuses of Power<\/b><\/p>\n

The discredited claim<\/i><\/p>\n

President Obama stated in an\u00a0interview<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthere are no allegations, and I am very confident \u2014knowing the NSA and how they operate \u2014 that purposefully somebody is out there trying to abuse this program\u2026\u201d And General Alexander stated in a\u00a0speech<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cWe get all these allegations of [abuses of power] but when people check… they find zero times that that’s happened. And that’s no bullshit. Those are facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why it\u2019s not credible:<\/i><\/p>\n

We already have evidence of abuses of power. We know that NSA analysts were using their surveillance powers to\u00a0track their ex-wives and husbands<\/a>, and other love interests. They even had a name for it, LOVEINT. The FISA court has also\u00a0cited the NSA for violating or ignoring court orders<\/a>\u00a0for years at a time. And those are just self-reported abuses \u2013 the only oversight that occurs is that the NSA investigates itself and reports on the honor system to Congress or the FISC about what it finds. A real independent investigation might reveal even more. Unfortunately, until we get something like a\u00a0new Church Committee<\/a>, we are unlikely to see such details.<\/p>\n

4. Invading Privacy is Okay Because It\u2019s Done to Prevent Terrorist Attacks<\/b><\/p>\n

The discredited claim<\/i><\/p>\n

We keep hearing the same thing:\u00a0Surveillance is<\/a>\u00a0a \u201ccritical tool in protecting the nation from terror threats.\u201d When we\u00a0reform the NSA<\/a>, it must be done in a way that \u201cprotect[s] the operational capability of a critical counterterrorism tool.\u201d The implication is that the stopping terrorist attacks is the government\u2019s only goal.<\/p>\n

Why it\u2019s not credible:<\/i><\/p>\n

We know that NSA surveillance is not used just for stopping terrorists and it\u2019s not even just used for national security.<\/p>\n

The Intercept<\/i>\u00a0recently revealed leaks detailing the NSA\u2019s role in the \u201cwar on drugs<\/a>,\u201d\u2014in particular, a\u00a02004 memo<\/a>\u00a0detailing how the NSA has redefined narcotics trafficking as a national security issue. We also know that the NSA feeds\u00a0data to the DEA<\/a>, where it ends up playing a part in ordinary law enforcement investigations. And internationally, the NSA engages in\u00a0economic espionage<\/a>\u00a0and diplomatic spying, something detailed in Glenn Greenwald\u2019s recent book\u00a0No Place to Hide<\/i><\/a>.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

5.<\/b>\u00a0There\u2019s Plenty of Oversight From Congress, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and Agency Watchdogs<\/b><\/p>\n

The discredited claim<\/i><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve repeatedly heard from the President and from NSA defenders like\u00a0Sen. Dianne Feinstein<\/a>and Rep. Mike Rogers that Congress knows all about NSA spying. Right after the first Snowden leak,\u00a0President Obama said<\/a>: \u201cyour duly elected representatives have been consistently informed on exactly what we\u2019re doing.\u201d We\u2019ve also heard that a court has approved these programs, so we shouldn\u2019t be concerned.<\/p>\n

Why it\u2019s not credible:<\/i><\/p>\n

EFF and others have long documented that Congress has an incredibly\u00a0hard time getting information<\/a>\u00a0about NSA spying. And it\u2019s not just Congress. We learned a few months ago that the Department of Defense’s deputy Inspector General, in charge of Intelligence and Special Program Assessments,\u00a0was not aware<\/a>\u00a0of the call detail collection program.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the secretive\u00a0Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court<\/a>\u00a0(FISC) is completely incomparable to an ordinary adversarial court. It makes decisions in a vacuum, and it doesn\u2019t always have complete information, much less a second adversarial voice or technical help. Its chief judge has said that it\u2019s\u00a0not equipped to conduct oversight<\/a>. EFF\u00a0recently had to tell the court<\/a>\u00a0that its\u00a0Jewel v. NSA<\/i>\u00a0case even existed \u2013 the government had apparently decided that it didn\u2019t have to. We also know that the FISC isn\u2019t much of a block, since\u00a0in 11 years<\/a>\u00a0\u201cthe court has denied just 10 applications, and modified several dozen, while approving more than 15,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

So why are we giving up our rights?<\/i><\/p>\n

It’s time for NSA and its supporters to admit what we all know is true: what is at stake in this debate is the simple ability for any of us\u2014in the US or around the world\u2014to be able to use the Internet without fear of surveillance. They continue to be willing to overstate their case in order to scare us into allowing them to continue to\u00a0 \u201ccollect it all.\u201d\u00a0 But the American people are getting wise and the media are increasingly double-checking their claims. As a result, more Americans than ever now say that the NSA has gone too far and those tired old stories are starting to wear thin.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why it\u2019s time to\u00a0tell Congress<\/a>\u00a0that these excuses won\u2019t work anymore. Right now, Congress is considering legislation that could be a first step to reining in NSA mass spying. But there\u2019s a contentious political battle taking place on Capitol Hill, with NSA defenders pushing aweaker version<\/a>\u00a0of the reform bill while civil liberties groups campaign for powerful reform. Please\u00a0add your voice<\/a>\u00a0and call on the Senate to pass real NSA reform.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0This article\u00a0first appeared on Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/a>\u00a0and is reproduced here under Creative Commons license.<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Top 5 Claims That Defenders of the NSA Have to Stop Making to Remain Credible \u00a0Cindy Cohn and Nadia Kayyali – EFF Over the past year, as the Snowden revelations have rolled out, the government and its apologists have developed a set of talking points about mass spying that the public has now heard over and over\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1426,1670],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7668"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7668"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7671,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7668\/revisions\/7671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}