Former CIA and NSA employee source of intelligence leaks

[Admiral Yi]

Yeah, Bluebook, based on what I'm reading that's not how it operates.

[Valmy]

What information exactly do they now know that they did not before?

The same information you didnt know before.

That the government was watching them?  Pretty sure both me and the terrorists were aware of that, unless they are the biggest idiots in the history of the universe.  That is why they tend to not use the internet and so forth.

I do not trust our system of checks and balances, and indeed it is my responsibility to not do so.

Yeah, you need guns to feed blood to the God of Liberty or some such nonsense.

I am not even sure what you are recomending here.  I think this policy is going way beyond what I think the government should be able to do and is unconstitutional.  The very fact the judiciary allows such a huge violation is evidence the checks and balances are not working and I hope political action, and yes judicial action, will now follow to correct the abuses.  Besides it is not like the US government has a spotless track record here.

Ultimately the real check on the US government is the people, we are supposed to be sovereign.  Not sure what that has to do with guns and I thought this was the position we are supposed to take to what we consider abuses.

[The Minsky Moment]

The information on Prism is vague so I suppose some paranoia is explicable.
However, as best as understand it, it appears to be some kind of platform such that if law enforcement obtains a particular authorization to search, it can run a single query or set of queries on multiple data sources simultaneously, rather than running a bunch of separate ones and trying to piece them together.
it doesn't mean there is some Yank Stasi reading everyone's email.

[The Minsky Moment]

That the government was watching them?  Pretty sure both me and the terrorists were aware of that, unless they are the biggest idiots in the history of the universe.  That is why they tend to not use the internet and so forth.

But they have to use some communications network and that explains why these kinds of programs might be useful.
The example I say today in an FT op-ed involved a piece of intelligence where law enforcement knows that Bad Guy A in the US is going to call Bad Guy B in Yemen at a particular time, but both Bad Guys - being savvy - are using prepaid phones.  Using standard tapping techniques, law enforcement is out of luck because they don't know what phones are going to be used.  But with the call metadata, they can get a list of every call made from the US to Yemen at that exact time and date, and then use computerized algorithms to narrow down the likely candidates and pinpoint a likely location for Bad Guy A. 

[Berkut]

I think argument of the form that this doesn't work anyway are, well, stupid.

The NSA isn't spending billions on these systems because they don't think they work.

And more to the point, whether it works or not is only part of the question.

Randomly searching peoples homes without warrants would almost certainly result in more crimes being solved. That doesn't make it a good idea.

Just because the technology makes it possible doesn't mean that it is allowable.

[Valmy]

But they have to use some communications network and that explains why these kinds of programs might be useful.

Well obviously it has nothing to do with usefullness.  I mean I presume the NSA has a system that is very useful.

[Zanza]

I hope the other 35 or so slides he provided to the Guardian and WP will be published eventually. They are supposed to be more explosive than the initial five or six slides they published.

[alfred russel]

How is having all this information easily available possibly be bad except for the whole freedom and privacy thing?  This only hurts my interests as a private citizen, it seems to greatly increase the power and effectiveness of the US.

I agree that it is bad from a freedom and privacy thing.

But what increases the "power and effectiveness of the US" is almost a philosophical argument...I would argue that ultimately the US is most effective when it provides quality employment for its citizens and positively impacts world culture and technology. I have doubts that obtaining access to massive amounts of private data in order to deter terrorism has much positive impact. But I suspect that over the long term it will be an impediment to US companies that are right now dominant in the IT sector.

Unless you are suggesting he is lying I am not sure how this is relevent?  Are we not supposed to take these things seriously until some sort of platonic angelic figure whistleblows?

For all I know he is some sort of platonic angelic figure whistleblower.

[11B4V]

Fox is reporting the ACLU has filed suit.

[Valmy]

Fox is reporting the ACLU has filed suit.

[The Brain]

Fox is reporting the ACLU has filed suit.

So they didn't.

[Berkut]

Does the ACLU have standing?

[Admiral Yi]

So they didn't.

[DGuller]

Fox is reporting the ACLU has filed suit.

So they didn't.

[11B4V]

Does the ACLU have standing?

Dont know
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/us/aclu-files-suit-over-phone-surveillance-program.html?_r=0