The document also states they acknowledged that they have ingested data they shouldn't and don't have a timeline on when, if ever, they'll purge it. Apparently the purge process has begun, but the not having a timeline to remove seems to read "best effort, if we don't get it all oh well". The real response should be: we received tainted data and are required to remove it all for that timeframe and rerequest all of it within N days. If you're Equifax and accidentally send out everyone's SSN to someone requesting their credit history you don't just use an excuse that you don't know how to remove it. You're obliged to remove it all. There doesn't seem to be a process in place for this. Convenient oversight.
Taking into consideration how historical evidence has shown just how toothless proper channels are when improper behavior aligns with leadership goals and taking into account that the government has a long history of trying to use technicalities to outsource work that wouldn't be legal if done in house, I think we are beyond any benefit of the doubt.
I do agree we should be sure to inform people correctly. "NSA spying on Americans continues to function in a way that breaks legal limits while giving plausible deniability" does seem a bit better a title.
But the ACLU is a better spokesman than I:
>"These documents provide further evidence that the NSA has consistently been unable to operate the call detail record program within the bounds of the law," the ACLU said in a letter to Congress this week lobbying for an end to the program.
That’s fine and well but I’m going to have to repeat myself.
That doesn’t mean you fill in the blanks yourself and go around pretending that was actually said..
yet, that's what the HN majority appears to do...
For me and the vast majority of the world population the distinction doesn't matter, because according to US law the NSA is allowed to spy on us as they please. Of course, this practice is illegal were we live, but that's not going to bother them.
I think you are moving the goalposts with terms like “looking into”. They are in possession of it and have permanent access to it. For emails and SMS, this involves full content, too.
It even includes US-US communication if the stored communications provider replicates it out of the country, which is so common as to be expected in almost all cases.
Who knew that was along the lines of what happened.
Take away from this is, an external party from the NSA can make a mistake and the media will still blame the NSA.
But then security has always been one of those area's in which you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. Turns out it is also susceptible to being dammed for others mistakes. Mistakes which end up exposing security operations even.
Why do we think mass surveillance is ok as long as it is constrained to the 96%+ of people who aren’t American?
What the NSA does is terrible. You should be scared of them and their actions even when they are operating within the “legal” bounds of section 215. This is never what the author of section 215 intended. This is why the DNI lied under oath to congress to cover up the program.
Seems like a major screwup like this is pretty normal for the NSA. Or at least they execute it with aplomb.
One doesn't just oopsie into the Statsi's wet dream and it should be regarded with the incredulity of someome claiming they "accidentally" molested an entire elementary school.
Then other hours old accounts staring commenting I should be banned for calling someone out.
I do wonder what the point of that rule is.
You can think of it as a special case of this rule: When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." But it's a special case worth singling out, because it's so common, and it's bad for HN in two ways: mean and predictable.
Of course, hiding a button with JavaScript is trivially defeated by your typical HN user, but I want to assume at least to some degree of good faith... this would be more of a "commitment device" than anything.