NSA Spying – Tip of the Iceberg

Recent news reports would lead you to believe that the NSA’s data collection activities are a threat to the rights of Americans and by reining in the NSA we could protect some of our rights.  If you believe that, you would be wrong.

The NSA may be really good at what it does.  It may in fact collect and store a lot of data and it may indeed have software that can comb through that data to identify particular voices, phrases, words, etc for closer examination.  The NSA’s data collection may be, and probably is, world wide and able to listen in or intercept voice, and data transmissions virtually anywhere in the world including within the borders of the USA.

However, the technological ability to do what NSA does is ubiquitous and cheap.  Everyone has it.  This week there was an example of the intercept of a somewhat embarrassing conversation between two US State Department employees. Before that, there was an embarrassing conversation between two European Union officials.  Tapes of both conversations were posted to YouTube – presumably by someone’s intelligence service.  Probably Russia’s FSB.   Do you really believe that no other spy agency has the talent to do what NSA does and do it on a world wide basis?  Well, I’ll tell you that virtually every country in the world can do it and probably does. Angela Merkel’s government in Germany that was complaining about NSA’s access to her cell phone is probably actively listening to your cell phone right now!  Moreover, the necessary equipment and software is relatively cheap so even non government actors can do what NSA does albeit it on a smaller and more selective basis.

NSA has some other activities in common with governments all over the world that involve getting information from internet service providers (ISP), telephone companies and other non government providers of communications services. This is the “back end access” to ISP and other servers that you have heard about. The easiest way to get this information is to ask telephone companies and web site owners to provide it. If the request was for information pertaining to certain numbers or people, this would require a search warrant.  However asking for all of the numbers or all of the back end information might not have this problem just as searching one person’s locker for contraband might require a warrant while a general inspection of all of the lockers, especially on a set schedule, might not.

Almost all voice and data traffic now passes through several media on its way from sender or caller to recipient.  Even telephone calls do not travel any longer solely within the phone company’s wires.  Calls go through the air via microwave, other radio equipment, satellite link and cell towers plus over the internet and maybe by other means.  The same is true of data.  Many, even most, of these media are open to anyone who wants to listen and/or record and who can make a relatively small investment in the equipment to do that.  While wire tap might be expensive and illegal, picking signals out of the air is cheap and legal. Even if it were illegal, enforcement would be difficult or impossible.

The real advantage of NSA, if there really is an advantage, lies in the ability to store huge amounts of collected data that can be combed through relatively quickly by computers running special search software to identify intercepted data of interest so it can be looked at by other computers or by humans and developed, either in itself or in combination with other information, into actionable intelligence.

Once you know this, the current rush to microphone to decry NSA “spying” – as disclosed by Edward Joseph Snowden – might sound a little different.  Moreover, the invasion of privacy by the NSA’s activity might not be illegal or any contravention of the Constitution. There is no “right to privacy” in the Constitution.  The “remedy” for government’s ill gotten information is its inadmissibility to prosecute criminals in court.  There is no such problem when the information is used to thwart, neutralize or kill people or groups seeking to inflict injury on our country.

Edward Snowden is a traitor who confirmed for several foreign governments what they already thought were the capabilities of the NSA.  If we can get him back, we should punish him as a traitor.  He is not a libertarian or champion of the Constitution.  He has sold out to the enemies or potential enemies of the USA!  Those who defend him and his disclosures do not understand that there is a big advantage in confirming what you already thought was true in addition to learning something new.  Snowden probably did not know what the Chinese and Russians knew about the NSA and they probably didn’t tell him.  Never the less, the information he provided to them verbally and in documents probably confirmed many things for them and thus strengthened them relative to us.  This is the activity of a traitor!

As for the politicians, the news media and commentators, who want to make hay from this story, let me suggest that your real story is one of espionage and intrigue by one Edward Joseph Snowden and the intelligence services of the People’s Republic of China and The Russian Federation.  There really is no sensational story in the legitimate workings of the NSA.  However, if you insist on looking into the NSA, then tell the story completely without suggesting that the gathering of data to be converted into intelligence is an operation bordering on the activities of a police state.

As for us as citizens and residents of the USA, we still have the option of defending our privacy and maintaining our liberty.  We can assure Ben Franklin that we do not seek to trade security for liberty by approving the legitimate activities of NSA.  However, we should realize that others have most of the tools and access that NSA has and take steps that will defend us and our data and conversations from all of them.  We can treat any telephone instrument, whether land line or cell phone, as if it is tapped by our own and foreign governments and others.  We should not discuss anything on any telephone that we do not want others to hear.  We should turn off the GPS function of our cell phone or turn the phone itself off and remove the battery, if we do not want anyone to know our location, We should realize that our picture is being taken, in most cases, when we get gas from a self service pump or money from an ATM.  A name is put with the face by the fact that we used a credit or debit card to do the transaction.  Thus a record is made of the date and time and location where you were. Anyone tracking your cell phone could have an independent verification of the pump or ATM data.  Since your credit card leaves a trail showing time, date and location, you must use cash or a prepaid credit card with an assumed name to avoid leaving this trail. In short, since we know we are being or can be tracked by all manner of gatherers of information and since we know that any number of listeners have access to our telephone, text, email, Face Book, Linked-In, etc., then we are forewarned and can make sure that anything we say or write is not something we do not want them to know.

And you thought that the activities of NSA were dangerous to you!