(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)
Per the Washington Post:
A panel appointed by President Obama to review the government’s surveillance activities has recommended significant new limits on the nation’s intelligence apparatus that include ending the National Security Agency’s collection of virtually all Americans’ phone records.
It urged that phone companies or a private third party maintain the data instead, with access granted only by a court order…
The panel also urged legislation that would require the FBI to obtain judicial approval before it can use a national security letter or administrative subpoena to obtain Americans’ financial, phone and other records. That would eliminate one of the tool’s main attractions: that it can be employed quickly without court approval…
The White House released the 300-plus-page report [pdf] as part of a larger effort to restore public confidence in the intelligence community, which has been shaken by the Snowden revelations…
Despite the proposed constraints, panel member Michael Morell, a former deputy director of the CIA, said, “We are not in any way recommending the disarming of the intelligence community.”
The panel made 46 recommendations in all, which included moving the NSA’s information assurance directorate — its computer defense arm — outside the agency and under the Defense Department’s cyber-policy office. …
Entire report, in PDF format, at the link.
Patricia Kayden
The report sounds like a good start. Can President Obama adopt them without Congressional support via an Executive Order? Would be a move in the right direction.
Snowden is cute as a dog.
Ash Can
Sounds good.
NotMax
Long way to go yet.
The White House and executive agencies still have to confab on which, if any, recommendations to implement or push for implementation via legislation, which, if any, to refuse, and which, if any, to tweak or modify before approving for implementation processing.
Yatsuno
@Patricia Kayden: I believe so. Actually it will more than likely be a hybrid thing where some of it is all Executive branch and some is law changes in Congress. Bit definitely some good stuff here.
Poopyman
I certainly hope they address the whole intelligence community as a whole. There are (at least) 19 intelligence organizations within the US govt, and while the focus is on NSA, you can bet that the greatest threat of intrusion into US citizens’ privacy is going to be from somebody else – the FBI.
Also too: there’s a real rivalry among the agencies for that sweet govt cash, and I hope the POTUS takes that into account when reading recommendations from guys like the one quoted above, who’ve spent large parts of their careers with one agency – the NSA’s biggest rival, as it happens.
Baud
This one is kind of a big change, no?
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Requiring Congress to do something? Everybody could agree it needs to be done and it might not ever happen in this Congress.
Schlemizel
What I love is the number of people running around saying we are being lied to about the depth and breadth of the spy operation. They are just sure that the explanation of gathering & use of metadata is a lie and also that NSA is listening in to their calls and reading their emails. Lets pretend for a moment that those are all lies. Lets further pretend that Congress passes a law or the courts rule the work unconstitutional; what makes you think that would change anything? Why would an agency so willing to lie about the former not just lie & say “OK, we stopped”?
That horse has been gone for about a decade. If Crust Crusty wins the WH in 16 all this concern will fade anyway
I also get a laugh out of the the good folks at Google and Yahoo et. al. who seem to have no problem gathering and analyzing that same sort of data plus a lot more who are deeply troubled by the collection and analysis of that data. Google shortened their motto to “be evil” some time ago.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
True. Unless one of the recommendations is repeal Obamacare, I don’t see the Republicans allowing this to get anywhere.
raven
@Schlemizel: You are not saying this is all bullshit? :)
burnspbesq
@Poopyman:
You’ve got that exactly backwards. The FBI is not an intelligence agency, it’s a law enforcement agency. Its mission is to build cases that AUSAs can sell to juries. That requires admissible evidence. Which, in turn, requires that the FBI care, a lot, about staying within the boundaries of current judicial interpretations of the Fourth Amendment.
Betty
Yes, but Mr. Putin has now said that he strongly endorses the work of the NSA and that he wants it to continue as is. Doesn’t that count for something?
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Well, it’ll get to the House Oversight committee where Darryl Issa will flog it like a redheaded step child.
burnspbesq
@Baud:
If it requires judicial approval to get one, then it’s no longer an “administrative subpoena,” it’s effectively an old-school search warrant (albeit one that the FBI can get by showing something less than probable cause).
Be careful what you wish for. It’s not hard to imagine that the long-term effect of having already-overburdened U.S. Magistrates looking at different kinds of applications with different standards would be erosion of the probable-cause standard–and if that happens, good luck fixing it.
Schlemizel
@raven:
No, it’s all BS but I love the people who are just so sure the NSA is lying but would totally stop if we just asked them to. I am disappointed Obama didn’t take steps to limit them but all this crap was in place before he got there but I’m not sure it would have been much of a reduction and I am positive the current freak out would be just as big.
Intel, like the DoD has taken on a life of its own and will not be controlled by anyone with a real chance to be in charge. The real quetions should be how are we going to deal with that until the day comes we can dismantle the monster we created.
burnspbesq
@burnspbesq:
ETA: I’m perfectly OK with just eliminating the NSL altogether. That was always A Bad Thing. If the only thing that comes out of this exercise is elimination of the NSL, it was worth it.
Ultraviolet Thunder
I’ve been waiting to point out that 16 months ago a guy who used to hang around here until he got outed and changed his nym said this in an interview:
“Crypto/privacy/security. I think we’re in for a huge wrangle over personal privacy and crypto. There are compelling arguments on both sides: individuals want to use public communication channels securely and law enforcement wants to use available data to stop crimes. Readers of Charles Stross’ book Rule 34 and Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother know how this could shake out. It won’t be pretty when this conflict gets out of the hacker realms and into the mainstream.”
I know this is OT, but pretty much nobody who worked in IT was surprised by any of this at all.
Baud
@burnspbesq:
I assumed that the new NSL’s would have to be approved by the FISA court, not U.S. magistrates.
Mustang Bobby
I’m not wild about the idea of letting a private party hold the data for the N.S.A. A very conservative friend of mine; a retired homicide detective and medical examiner in Miami, says that all the corruption in our society can be laid at the feet of private enterprise. Blackwater and Halliburton stand out as prominent examples for him. So who’s to say that they would be any more trustworthy of protecting it than the N.S.A?
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
The NSA is getting this data from private parties (telecom and Internet companies) in the first place.
Ash Can
@Mustang Bobby: Not a bad point, but we have on the other hand a government agency that has been perfectly willing to outsource high-level security work to an outfit that can’t be bothered to avoid hiring someone bound and determined to steal classified information, even when previous employers raise red flags. I’m not sure which is worse.
Mustang Bobby
@Baud: I know, but I’m still subliminally creeped out by the idea of a private central storage facility.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
Sure. My preference would be another governmental body outside of the NSA or other national security/law enforcement agency.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby: @Baud:
The truth is, somebody out there is going to have this info, private or governmental, and it will be misused from time to time, whether for profit or for personal vendetta or just plain old stupidity. The technological cat is out of the bag and there is no shoving it back in.
I suppose an argument can be made that there is a better way, but I have no faith that we will get it.
Villago Delenda Est
Some day, the Congress of the United States will behave as its supposed to, as a co-equal branch of government with oversight powers on the Executive, and they won’t need a Constitutional Scholar President to egg them on to do their jobs.
And I’m not talking about that felonious sack of shit Issa’s pathetic excuse for “oversight” either.
Betty Cracker
@Ash Can: That basic competence issue bothers me too, along with questions about the value we’re getting for the cost of this vast security infrastructure.
danielx
@Schlemizel:
Point. It has been amusing, sort of, to watch NSA representatives say “of COURSE we don’t do that” and then Snowden releases some more information and they then say well, um…er…ah…actually we do that. But only with the best of intentions! Charlie Pierce has indeed got it right when he says there is no reason to believe anything they say…ever.
But Snowden and Greenwald are bad people, so pay no attention.
Feudalism Now!
It would be nice if we had an agency outside of law enforcement to protect this info. A check on the NSA, CIA and DoD with an almost fiduciary duty to protect data from being used. But that won’t happen. You have nothing to be afraid of, if you have nothing to hide, amiright?
Emma
@danielx: As any student of history can tell you, there’s never been a reason to believe anything a national intelligence agency tells you. Ever. They are paid to do some very nasty things on our behalf without warning our enemies that they are doing it and that leads to some very very very iffy behavior. The problem is, what limits does the law place on them AND how do we enforce them?
And Snowden and Greenwald aren’t bad people. They’re arrogant, entitled assholes.
One can hold two ideas at a time.
srv
So move the security arm to another agency, so the people who do all the exploits and those who protect from them aren’t in the same area and never chat, or have the same bosses.
Sounds like an agency that doesn’t want to play with the others (Sneakers).
1/2 the panelists probably make their livings off this kind of stuff, so fox in henhouse and all that.
Tripod
@Schlemizel:
I wonder if pushing this stuff back into an extra judicial netherworld is the goal.
DoD has been pissed since their intel was rolled up into that Bush-Cheney post 9/11 re-org. Some day these turf wars are gonna end…..
Cervantes
@burnspbesq:
True in theory, but if you look at the FBI’s own rendition of “What We Investigate,” you will see that of its eight stated priorities, the top three have to do with “national security”: namely, “Terrorism,” “Counterintelligence,” and “Cyber Crime.”
And in that light, does the following (apart from the superlative):
still seem unreasonable to you?
different-church-lady
I can hardly wait to get over to Daily Kos and read all the diaries outraged that Snowden was depicted as a small dog.
kindness
What I find difficult is that in this realm, it is the Democrats who would normally be erring on the side of freedom from Big Brother. Republicans will say they are against it and will certainly use this report as a stick to hit and poke the Obama Administration over, but in actual practice as we saw the very last Republican Administration, they are way worse.
And that is the really sad thing. For me, it isn’t all that inconsistent. I didn’t support the additional oversights that the AUMF & The Patriot Act gave our spying agencies and I still don’t support it even though it is my guy heading the Federal government.
Damned by both the ‘loyal’ opposition and by my own guys. Sucks.
Poopyman
@Cervantes: Thanks for answering, probably better than I could. I have a little knowledge about what goes on between elements of the various agencies that forms the basis of my opinions.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Mustang Bobby:
I can’t imagine why you would be uncomfortable having private companies store this data.
Target confirms massive credit, debit card data breach
But the problem is that the government has access to the data, not that the data is being collected at all. Right.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): This argument is somewhat disingenuous. The data breach at Target wasn’t stored data. It was card info being snatched at the point of sale.
Also, is it your argument that, as long as private companies have certain information about people, it is no big deal for the government to have it as well?
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
And the Russian fraudsters who buy your card number on the black market can only drain your bank account, not send you to jail, so it’s no big deal, amirite?
Actually, my argument is that if private companies have certain information about people, the government will inevitably be able to get it, so private companies shouldn’t be allowed to gather any information we wouldn’t want the government to have. That’s how they do it in Europe, and I don’t see any reason why, say, Google should be allowed to gather information on us that’s vulnerable to being breached by either private parties or the government.
If the information isn’t gathered, the government can’t access it. Cut it off at the source. I really don’t get why people defend Google and Facebook’s massive databases but freak the fuck out if the government wants the same information.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: So phone companies should not keep records of phone calls made? Good luck challenging your bill. Google and Yahoo shouldn’t store emails? Credit card companies shouldn’t have a record of every purchase you make with your card? I am sure that is how it works in Europe. Nevertheless, I agree with you that there should be limitations on the amount of personal data that companies can hold. At the same time, The info that they do have should not be accessible by the government unless the government can show that it has met the Constitutional standards for needing it. The fact that someone shares some financial information, for example, as a part of a credit card application does not make that information public.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
If the government having access to that information is the Worst Thing Ever, then aren’t you sacrificing your freedom for convenience if you let the phone company or credit card company or internet provider store your data just so you can dispute your bill or find an old email in the cloud? What’s more important to you, your convenience or your freedom from government intrusion?
Actually, under current law, it does, which is why prospective employers can run a credit check on you and deny you employment based on that credit check. There are many, many situations where private parties can look at “private” information and use it against you. That’s why I don’t understand why there’s a freakout at the theoretical possibility of the government maybe using information that employers are already using to fire people.
Sorry, but I don’t buy into the libertarian argument that we should have completely privacy from the government, but it’s anything goes for the private sector because you somehow “chose” to send email or post a picture on Facebook.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne:
That’s great. I, however, have never made that argument.
Cassidy
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ve said before, this is information people have freely given away for the convenience of online shopping and free shipping. Why is it suddenly the worst invasion of privacy ever if the gov’t has it and didn’t go through the pesky process of buying that information from the corporation you freely gave it to?
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Great, so you agree with me that there’s information that neither private parties nor the government should be allowed to gather or keep in a database, right?
Omnes Omnibus
@Cassidy: Take the online aspect away. If someone writes a check to a store, that person has shared personal information with the store and with a couple of banks. Should the government therefore be able to look at the person’s checking account without a warrant?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Read my comment above. The whole actual comment I wrote.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
So you don’t agree with me that there is some information private parties should not be allowed to keep?
Again, I’m not saying, Oh, this is no big deal, Facebook keeps all of this stuff. I’m saying that if we’re going to be introducing new privacy laws, we need to have better privacy protections overall, not just against “government intrusion.” If all we do is rein in the NSA but let private companies continue to trample everyone’s rights, we’re not going to be any better off.
ETA: Shorter me: While we’re freaking out about privacy, can we add in some protections from the private sector as well instead of focusing solely on the Big Bad Gubbmint? KTHXBAI.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Read this fucking sentence from my comment: Nevertheless, I agree with you that there should be limitations on the amount of personal data that companies can hold.
ETA: I am all for new privacy laws that provide protection from both corporate and governmental intrusion. In the meantime, I continue to be for requiring the government to limit its searches to those that are Constitutionally permissible.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Great, so we agree that discussions about privacy should include conversations about how we protect our privacy from private companies as well as the government. I never see that happening here in the midst of the NSA freakout, but I guess someday the conversation will happen.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Discussions about privacy probably should include that. Discussions that are specifically about government surveillance probably don’t need to include that. If I start a discussion about drunk driving, are you going insist that we bring lowering the speed limit into it as well? Both relate to traffic safety.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I completely disagree, because most of the evidence is that said government surveillance is being facilitated by the private sector, which is providing the information to them. That information will not cease to exist even if laws are passed to limit the government’s access to it. Shouldn’t we be talking about the source of the problem, which is that private companies are gathering far too much detailed information about us that they then allow the government to access?
No, but I’d probably want to bring “do not serve” laws into it, since it’s an instance where the private sector is contributing to the overall problem that needs to be looked at.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: As I said above, I am in favor of laws providing greater privacy protection. What are the odds of such a bill getting through the present Congress? I would say somewhere between slim and none. Addressing the governmental side seems possible right now.
Further, ensuring that the government stays within its Constitutional limits seems to me a good thing in and of itself. YMMV.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Also, even if you limit the data that private companies can keep, they still need to keep a lot of information. Phone records, credit card transactions, orders received and shipped out, etc. Our legal system says that “probable cause” is needed for a search. I say getting this information constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment and probable cause is required.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I would like to have both, and I think it’s a false choice to say we have to decide between regulating the government and regulating private industry. They both need to be better regulated, and in part it’s to prevent them from reinforcing each other’s worst tendencies.
PopeRatzo
Does any of this happen without Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald?