The Wall Street Journalpublished an crucial investigationlast week , reporting that the National Security Agency ( NSA ) has verbatim access to many key telecommunications switch around the country and “ has the capacity to reach more or less 75 % of all U.S. net dealings in the hunt for foreign intelligence , include a wide regalia of communications by foreigners and Americans . ” Notably , NSA official repeatedly refuse to talk about this account on theirconference callwith reporters the next daytime . Instead the Director of National Intelligence and the NSAreleased a assertion about the storylater that evening .
If you understand the statement quickly , it seems like the NSA is disputing the WSJ story . But on heedful reading , they actually do not deny any of it . Aswe’ve shown before , often you have to carefully parse NSA statements to root out deception and misinformation , and this statement is no different . They ’ve tried to parry an accurate story with theirsame quondam word game . Here ’s a breakdown :
The NSA does not sift through and have unfettered memory access to 75 % of United States online communication … The news report leaves readers with the impression that the NSA is sifting through as much as 75 % of the United States online communication , which is but not straight .
Of course , the Wall Street Journal never says the NSA “ sifts through ” 75 % of US communication . They reported the NSA ’s system “ has the content to get to rough 75 % of all U.S. Internet traffic . ” The NSA ’s new term “ sift ” is undefined , but no matter of what the NSA is doing or not doing to 75 % of Americans ’ emails , they do have the expert capacity to search through it for key word — which they do not deny .
In its foreign news foreign mission , and using all its authorities , NSA “ touches ” about 1.6 % , and analysts depend at 0.00004 % of the domain ’s Internet traffic .
See what they did there ? The Wall Street Journal was speak about US - only communicationstraffic , not the world ’s full Internet traffic . The Brobdingnagian legal age of the world ’s cyberspace traffic is video — cyclosis and downloads . fit in toa written report done by Cisco , video recording made up more than half of all World Wide Web dealings in 2012 — and that does not admit peer - to - equal sharing . By 2017 , they predict 90 % of all Internet traffic will be video .
As Jeff Jarvisaptly documented , the NSA can hoover up an extraordinary portion of the world ’s ( and American ) communication theory while only bear on 1.6 % of full cyberspace traffic .
Oh , and that 0.00004 % ? That math may be wrong too . The Atlantic Wire double - checked the NSA ’s numberswhen they first used that statand determined the NSA ’s math was off by an order of magnitude – it actually look for ten times more than they say they do.1
The assistance from the provider , which is oblige by the law , is the same activity that has been previously discover as part of Section 702 collection and PRISM .
First , comment that they are conflatingPRISM — which involves collection from Internet company like Facebook — with the “ upstream ” collection the Wall Street Journal cover on : telecommunications companies like AT&T that give the NSA lineal approach to the fibre oculus cables that all cyberspace traffic jaunt over . Here ’s the NSA ’s own leaked graphic explain the difference :
Second , siphon off off magnanimous portions of cyberspace traffic flat from the Internet lynchpin is not “ compelled by law . ” In fact , as EFF argued in court for old age , the telecoms ’ participation in this program with the NSA was both illegal and unconstitutional . Obviously , they knew it , because that ’s why Congress snuff it ex post facto resistance for companies like AT&T in 2008 . But that exemption only extended to the telecommunication , and EFF ’s case against the ongoing illegal surveillancecontinues .
subdivision 702 specifically prohibits the intentional acquisition of any communications when all party are known to be inside the US .
Yes , Section 702 nix the intentional acquisition of US communication theory , but once US communications are in an NSA database — whichhappens often — the NSA can search them without a warrant , as document recentlypublished by the Guardian reveal . strange or anon. people are assumed to be foreign , imply many US masses will be caught up in the dragnet .
The law specifically disallow targeting a US citizen without an individual court of justice order based on a showing of likely causal agent .
We ’ve antecedently dissected the NSA’swarped definition of “ object ” , where they only have to be 51 % sure the person they ’re spying on is extraneous . Additionally , a legion of loopholes be that allow the NSA to keep US communications if they ’re encrypted , if there ’s grounds of a crime , and more .
And as the New York Timesreported on its front page two weeks ago , officials take on the NSA is “ search the content of huge measure of Americans ’ e - post and text communications into and out of the state ” under the guise of depend for information about target , not just communication theory to targets .
If that communications involves a US soul , NSA must stick to Attorney General and FISA courtyard approve “ minimisation subprogram ” to ensure the Agency protects the privacy of US person .
Those “ minimization procedures ” do not ensure that the NSA protect privateness . Rather , they are sadly inadequate , in the main concerned with minimizing the amount of data to be removed from the database , and expanding on the circumstances under which the NSA can keep the information and divvy up it with other agencies .
So there you have it : how the NSA sham to deny a media report without denying it at all . We are still awaiting an honest story of the NSA ’s capabilities . order your voice to demandan independent probe today .
This article isreproduced from Electronic Frontier Foundationunder Creative Commons license . Image byTischenko Irina / Shutterstock .
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