NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds

[citizen k]

Much good it does for all the private citizens some NSA assholes blackmailed, that now they are going to be scorned at an audit.

Who are these "private citizens some NSA assholes blackmailed" of which you speak?

Whistleblower Says Spy Agency Targeting Top American Leaders

NSA whistleblower Russel Tice – a key source in the 2005 New York Times report that blew the lid off the Bush administration's use of warrantless wiretapping – told Peter B. Collins on Boiling Frogs Post (the website of FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds):

    Tice: Okay. They went after–and I know this because I had my hands literally on the paperwork for these sort of things–they went after high-ranking military officers; they went after members of Congress, both Senate and the House, especially on the intelligence committees and on the armed services committees and some of the–and judicial. But they went after other ones, too. They went after lawyers and law firms. All kinds of–heaps of lawyers and law firms. They went after judges. One of the judges is now sitting on the Supreme Court that I had his wiretap information in my hand. Two are former FISA court judges. They went after State Department officials. They went after people in the executive service that were part of the White House–their own people. They went after antiwar groups. They went after U.S. international–U.S. companies that that do international business, you know, business around the world. They went after U.S. banking firms and financial firms that do international business. They went after NGOs that–like the Red Cross, people like that that go overseas and do humanitarian work. They went after a few antiwar civil rights groups. So, you know, don't tell me that there's no abuse, because I've had this stuff in my hand and looked at it. And in some cases, I literally was involved in the technology that was going after this stuff. And you know, when I said to [former MSNBC show host Keith] Olbermann, I said, my particular thing is high tech and you know, what's going on is the other thing, which is the dragnet. The dragnet is what Mark Klein is talking about, the terrestrial dragnet. Well my specialty is outer space. I deal with satellites, and everything that goes in and out of space. I did my spying via space. So that's how I found out about this.

    Collins: Now Russ, the targeting of the people that you just mentioned, top military leaders, members of Congress, intelligence community leaders and the–oh, I'm sorry, it was intelligence committees, let me correct that–not intelligence community, and then executive branch appointees. This creates the basis, and the potential for massive blackmail.

    Tice: Absolutely! And remember we talked about that before, that I was worried that the intelligence community now has sway over what is going on. Now here's the big one. I haven't given you any names. This was is summer of 2004. One of the papers that I held in my hand was to wiretap a bunch of numbers associated with, with a 40-something-year-old wannabe senator from Illinois. You wouldn't happen to know where that guy lives right now, would you? It's a big white house in Washington, DC. That's who they went after. And that's the president of the United States now.

Other whistleblowers say the same thing.  When the former head of the NSA's digital spying program – William Binney – disclosed the fact that the U.S. was spying on everyone in the U.S. and storing the data forever, and that the U.S. was quickly becoming a totalitarian state, the Feds tried to scare him into shutting up:

    [Numerous] FBI officers held a gun to Binney's head as he stepped naked from the shower. He watched with his wife and youngest son as the FBI ransacked their home. Later Binney was separated from the rest of his family, and FBI officials pressured him to implicate one of the other complainants in criminal activity. During the raid, Binney attempted to report to FBI officials the crimes he had witnessed at NSA, in particular the NSA's violation of the constitutional rights of all Americans. However, the FBI wasn't interested in these disclosures. Instead, FBI officials seized Binney's private computer, which to this day has not been returned despite the fact that he has not been charged with a crime.

Other NSA whistleblowers have also been subjected to armed raids and criminal prosecution.

After high-level CIA officer John Kiriakou blew the whistle on illegal CIA torture, the government prosecuted him for espionage.

Even the head of the CIA was targeted with extra-constitutional spying and driven out of office.  Indeed, Binney makes it very clear that the government will use information gained from its all-pervasive spying program to frame anyone it doesn't like.

(More examples here.)

Retired high-level CIA analyst Ray McGovern – the top CIA briefer to numerous presidents – said this a few weeks ago on a radio program:

    Which leads to the question, why would [Obama] do all these things? Why would he be afraid for example, to take the drones away from the CIA? Well, I've come to the conclusion that he's afraid. Number one, he's afraid of what happened to Martin Luther King Jr. And I know from a good friend who was there when it happened, that at a small dinner with progressive supporters – after these progressive supporters were banging on Obama before the election, "Why don't you do the things we thought you stood for?" Obama turned sharply and said, "Don't you remember what happened to Martin Luther King Jr.?" That's a quote, and that's a very revealing quote.

McGovern also said:

    In a speech on March 21, second-term Obama gave us a big clue regarding his concept of leadership – one that is marked primarily by political risk-avoidance and a penchant for "leading from behind": "Speaking as a politician, I can promise you this: political leaders will not take risks if the people do not demand that they do. You must create the change that you want to see."

    John Kennedy was willing to take huge risks in reaching out to the USSR and ending the war in Vietnam. That willingness to take risks may have gotten him assassinated, as James Douglass argues in his masterful JFK and the Unspeakable.

    Martin Luther King, Jr., also took great risks and met the same end. There is more than just surmise that this weighs heavily on Barack Obama's mind. Last year, pressed by progressive donors at a dinner party to act more like the progressive they thought he was, Obama responded sharply, "Don't you remember what happened to Dr. King?"

We're agnostic about McGovern's theory. We don't know whether Obama is a total corrupt sell-out ... or a chicken. We don't think it matters ... as the effect is the same.

[Phillip V]

All these violations and errors are due to insufficient agency budget. More money for NSA and government will boost the national economy and civil liberties.

[Bluebook]

This tends to show the laws are working.  The NSA has its own internal audit function which appears to be quite thorough; it is catching violations and correcting them.
How else do you think rule of law works?  It's not like simply declaring the law negates all possibility for error or improper judgment.  There needs to be a compliance function.

I work in politics. Right now I work for the current administration. I know very well how to spin negative news into non-news. The way you argue in this and other threads is pretty much exactly from that playbook.

NSA does not break the law.
Ok, so the NSA has broken the law, but it did not happen many times/the breeches are not very bad.
Ok, so the NSA broke the law many times, but they have an internal audit function that discovered all these instances and will correct them so the system works

The next step in this playbook is to start blaming individuals in NSA for breaking the rules.
Oh yes, misstakes were made, but it was because of poor leadership/individual error and you cant blame the law or the system, because they work as intended.

The thing I dont understand is this: Why are you taking this position? If it was me living in the US, I would be concerned that the NSA is downloading and storing internet traffic, phone traffic metadata (and content, if you are to believe certain sources).
The revelation that this is going on on such a massive scale would send alarm bells ringing for many reasons.

Yet, you dont seem to care, and instead you go through the "how to deny a scandal when you are in government"-playbook, page by page.

[garbon]

[Agelastus]

I work in politics. Right now I work for the current administration. I know very well how to spin negative news into non-news. The way you argue in this and other threads is pretty much exactly from that playbook.

NSA does not break the law.
Ok, so the NSA has broken the law, but it did not happen many times/the breeches are not very bad.
Ok, so the NSA broke the law many times, but they have an internal audit function that discovered all these instances and will correct them so the system works

The next step in this playbook is to start blaming individuals in NSA for breaking the rules.
Oh yes, misstakes were made, but it was because of poor leadership/individual error and you cant blame the law or the system, because they work as intended.

I'm having a "Humphrey Appleby" moment here...

Anyone else remember the "Five standard Excuses" scene? The ones that have even been used to explain away "small" wars (I think it was five anyway.)

[Syt]

I work in politics. Right now I work for the current administration. I know very well how to spin negative news into non-news. The way you argue in this and other threads is pretty much exactly from that playbook.

NSA does not break the law.
Ok, so the NSA has broken the law, but it did not happen many times/the breeches are not very bad.
Ok, so the NSA broke the law many times, but they have an internal audit function that discovered all these instances and will correct them so the system works

The next step in this playbook is to start blaming individuals in NSA for breaking the rules.
Oh yes, misstakes were made, but it was because of poor leadership/individual error and you cant blame the law or the system, because they work as intended.

I'm having a "Humphrey Appleby" moment here...

Anyone else remember the "Five standard Excuses" scene? The ones that have even been used to explain away "small" wars (I think it was five anyway.)

http://www.yes-minister.com/polterms.htm#5 Standard Excuses

5 Standard Excuses in Government
1. There is a perfectly satisfactory explanation for everything but security prevents its disclosure (used in the Anthony Blunt case);
2. It has only gone wrong because of heavy cuts in staff and budget which have stretched supervisory resources beyond the limit (the Comprehensive Schools excuse);
3. It was a worthwhile experiment now abandoned, but not before it provided much valuable data and considerable employment (used for Concorde);
4. It occurred before certain important facts were known and could not happen again (the Munich Agreement excuse with the important fact being that Hitler wanted to conquer Europe);
5. It was an unfortunate lapse by an individual now being dealt with under internal disciplinary procedures (the Charge of the Light Brigade excuse).

[CountDeMoney]

yes, misstakes were made,

They certainly were.

[Admiral Yi]

I work in politics. Right now I work for the current administration. I know very well how to spin negative news into non-news. The way you argue in this and other threads is pretty much exactly from that playbook.

NSA does not break the law.
Ok, so the NSA has broken the law, but it did not happen many times/the breeches are not very bad.
Ok, so the NSA broke the law many times, but they have an internal audit function that discovered all these instances and will correct them so the system works

The next step in this playbook is to start blaming individuals in NSA for breaking the rules.
Oh yes, misstakes were made, but it was because of poor leadership/individual error and you cant blame the law or the system, because they work as intended.

The thing I dont understand is this: Why are you taking this position? If it was me living in the US, I would be concerned that the NSA is downloading and storing internet traffic, phone traffic metadata (and content, if you are to believe certain sources).
The revelation that this is going on on such a massive scale would send alarm bells ringing for many reasons.

Yet, you dont seem to care, and instead you go through the "how to deny a scandal when you are in government"-playbook, page by page.

How does one distinguish between a use of the government playbook to deny scandal and a legitimate explanation of why there is no scandal?

[Razgovory]

This tends to show the laws are working.  The NSA has its own internal audit function which appears to be quite thorough; it is catching violations and correcting them.
How else do you think rule of law works?  It's not like simply declaring the law negates all possibility for error or improper judgment.  There needs to be a compliance function.

I work in politics. Right now I work for the current administration. I know very well how to spin negative news into non-news. The way you argue in this and other threads is pretty much exactly from that playbook.

NSA does not break the law.
Ok, so the NSA has broken the law, but it did not happen many times/the breeches are not very bad.
Ok, so the NSA broke the law many times, but they have an internal audit function that discovered all these instances and will correct them so the system works

The next step in this playbook is to start blaming individuals in NSA for breaking the rules.
Oh yes, misstakes were made, but it was because of poor leadership/individual error and you cant blame the law or the system, because they work as intended.

The thing I dont understand is this: Why are you taking this position? If it was me living in the US, I would be concerned that the NSA is downloading and storing internet traffic, phone traffic metadata (and content, if you are to believe certain sources).
The revelation that this is going on on such a massive scale would send alarm bells ringing for many reasons.

Yet, you dont seem to care, and instead you go through the "how to deny a scandal when you are in government"-playbook, page by page.

The NSA tracking phone metadata is a small price to pay for the violation of the rights of Europeans.

[jimmy olsen]

Much good it does for all the private citizens some NSA assholes blackmailed, that now they are going to be scorned at an audit.

Who are these "private citizens some NSA assholes blackmailed" of which you speak?

Keeping quiet because they're being blackmailed. Duh

[Bluebook]

How does one distinguish between a use of the government playbook to deny scandal and a legitimate explanation of why there is no scandal?

You'll know it when you see it.

[Admiral Yi]

You'll know it when you see it.

You've seen it, and you know it's spin, and I've seen it, and I know it's an explanation.

That doesn't seem like a very helpful heuristic device.

[The Minsky Moment]

This tends to show the laws are working.  The NSA has its own internal audit function which appears to be quite thorough; it is catching violations and correcting them.
How else do you think rule of law works?  It's not like simply declaring the law negates all possibility for error or improper judgment.  There needs to be a compliance function.

I work in politics. Right now I work for the current administration. I know very well how to spin negative news into non-news. The way you argue in this and other threads is pretty much exactly from that playbook.
. . . Yet, you dont seem to care, and instead you go through the "how to deny a scandal when you are in government"-playbook, page by page.

I don't work in politics and I've never been in government, nor have any experience with PR, so sadly I have not seen this "playbook" of which you speak.
I do have some limited experience (from the outside) with how certain federal law enforcement agencies operate, however, and this story seems to fall within the usual parameters.
The OP story is one that describes the results of NSA internal audits for a particular year.
The editors of that story could have used the headline "NSA Internal Auditors Catch Operational Error".  The editors elected to use a different headline, however.  Both headlines would be accurate.  I assume the editors made their choice on the basis of what would attract interest and sell copy.
The more important question is how significant are the events of failed compliance, and assessment of that question requires data that is not in the story nor do you provide it.

[jimmy olsen]

Speaking of NSA related shenanigans, this decision, regardless of its legality was I think politically unwise. It will just inspire more suspicion and protest against the government without accomplishing anything.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/18/glenn-greenwald-guardian-partner-detained-heathrow