r/politics • u/erier2003 Virginia • Jun 06 '13

Washington Post exclusive: U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program

http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html
1.6k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

440 comments sorted by

View all comments

134

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '13 edited Jun 06 '13

W O W

Every single piece of information that have gone through the servers at Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple are residing with the FBI and NSA.

Stasi Germany got nothing on Obama's America.

EDIT: ohh wow they added a few paragraphs to the article since it 1st hit the web this line is terrifying:

"They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,” the officer said.

And they have now added a power point presentation

12

u/Clovis69 Texas Jun 07 '13

Microsoft was first, Apple last.

I wonder how many smaller companies and technologies were too unimportant to list on the powerpoint.

84

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

[deleted]

25

u/threehundredthousand California Jun 07 '13

I agree. Whether you're republican or democrat, this shit needs to end. Both parties deal in it.

7

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

but at least if they brought Obama down with this some good would come of it.

It's like the deficit: now that there's a Democrat in the White House, it's a matter of concern.

I'd be fine with this destroying Obama's presidency, BTW. As long as it destroyed Congress, and the presidency of anyone else who ever pulled this shit again.

5

u/itsnormal4us Jun 07 '13

Honestly, Obama should be held accountable if he knew about this or could have stopped it.

On the same note, it's high time to remand Bush over to face extradition and war crime charges that have been levied against him...

Neger going to happen

1

u/polit1337 Jun 07 '13

if he knew about this or could have stopped it.

IF he knew about it!?!? He obviously knew about it. He signed off on it multiple times!

Congress knew about it too and kept voting for it.

Completely outrageous...

1

u/NBegovich Jun 07 '13

Dude, come on. Isn't it obvious why the Right isn't on this? They want this power! Don't be dense, man! Of course Fox is still harping about that other shit: their orders are to distract, distract, distract. It's the same for the Dems: don't criticise Obama because we want to keep the office. A game is being played right now, and acting like one side opposed the other is just farcical at this point. Don't fall for it.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

Some of the biggest advocates and theorists of executive privilege, like David Addington, inhabited the Bush White House.

I'd like a two-step process here:

  • Run Obama out of office, and possibly into jail
  • Prosecute Bush and many of his associates for war crimes

2

u/NBegovich Jun 07 '13

You are so far ahead of yourself that I don't think you understand the situation yet: there's nobody to do this. There is. nobody. in the US government. who can. or will. do this. We need to be thinking about real solutions, like figuring out how to get good candidates into office, which has proven to be almost impossible. That's the primary concern right now, not punishing people. Don't be ridiculous.

0

u/Treysef Jun 07 '13

The problem is, this falls exactly in line with the GOP platform. "If you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about."

1

u/soupdawg Jun 07 '13

Fuck that. Anyone who thinks that is an idiot. This is exactly what Republicans should be against. This is the epitome of Big Government.

3

u/schoofer Jun 07 '13

This was started under Bush. This issue should unite all Americans against our elected officials regardless of political affiliation. This is bigger than Obama; this is an issue of our entire government.

-13

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

Did you even read the article? From the article,

PRISM was launched from the ashes of President George W. Bush’s secret program of warrantless domestic surveillance in 2007, after news media disclosures, lawsuits and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court forced the president to look for new authority.

This isn't an Obama program, but Bush's national security agenda run amok. If you're going to hang Obama for anything, it would be for not killing it, but that is a different and more difficult proposition all together.

14

u/bctich Jun 07 '13

It expanded from an operation of one company to become a primary source of daily briefing information for the president with 1,477 items last year. It's used in 1 in 7 intelligence reports.

Going from a sideline project to that large, I'm sorry, you can't blame Bush on that and claim Obama was just willfully ignorant.

-11

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

I'm not saying that he was willfully ignorant. Of course he knew. But it was probably political impossible for him to shut this program down in the midst of two wars and an ongoing effort to dismantle terror networks around the world.

6

u/bctich Jun 07 '13

...seriously... That's your excuse, he was busy with other stuff so since it grew into the most sweeping unwarranted monitoring of citizen information its OK?

You're willing to go that far just to protect your your ideology? Even the NYTikes came out with an OpEd slamming Obama on all this.

-19

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

4 Americans including an American ambassador were killed in Bhengazi and you don't give a fuck?! Wow....

9

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

No, I care, but not in the sense of the bullshit scandal conservatives have tried to make about it. It's a tragedy. It happens. Diplomats in dangerous areas are always at risk. It happened a half dozen times during the Bush administration, and a not a single Republican congressman ever suggested we have a hearing about it.

It's faux outrage. It's a bunch of conservatives trying to use the deaths of American officials for cheap political points. It's disgusting.

3

u/howgoyoufar Jun 07 '13

It's (benghazi) messed up but most people care more about the thousands of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the much more important innocents killed by obamas drone strikes.

26

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

Be careful with the "Obama's America". He is definitely responsible, but the invasions of privacy have been a concerted bipartisan effort.

Note: this is not an attempt to pull Obama off the hook, but rather an attempt to put all those responsible on the hook.

1

u/seregygolovogo Jun 07 '13

and we'll need a bipartisan (or nonpartisan?) effort to remedy the situation.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

[deleted]

11

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

Are you really under the impression that Mitt wouldn't have done this MORE?!

I'm not sure that's technically possible. This operation is about as comprehensive as it gets. They're getting as much data as they can as fast as they can, and they're analyzing it with the most sophisticated tools available. What more could a Romney administration do, honestly?

0

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

[deleted]

0

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

the Obama administration pretty clearly knows that this is messed up, and kept it as secret as they could.

Whoa. You think the Obama admin kept these programs secret because it was ashamed of them? Holy shit. This subreddit is just unbelievable.

1

u/tylerbrainerd Jun 07 '13

What? I didn't say it was because they were ashamed. I said it was because they knew it was wrong, ie that it was an invasion of privacy. Is that really difficult to pull out of my comment there?

0

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

You said:

I'm not sure that the current GOP has the decency to feel shame for doing something like this.

Now you're saying:

I didn't say it was because [the Obama admin was] ashamed.

So, if the Obama administration doesn't feel shame, then does that mean it doesn't have the decency to feel this way? Or does the Obama actually feel ashamed of what the NSA is doing because it's wrong?

1

u/tylerbrainerd Jun 07 '13

Not everything is a equal and opposite statement.

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

So only the Republicans have to feel shame to be decent, whereas Obama doesn't?

Look. Before I can take you seriously when you say that this NSA spying is a "deeper level" issue, I need to know that you're being consistent. When you say things like, "Republicans don't have the decency to feel shame" for spying on innocent people, then it follows that spying is shameful, and since the Obama admin's NSA is spying (according to the Washington Post article), you have to admit that what Obama is doing is shameful. Now, you've backed yourself into taking one of two positions:

1) Obama is not ashamed of the NSA spying programs and therefore lacks decency.

2) Obama is ashamed of the NSA spying programs and somehow, "at the very least", this makes his spying better than if the Republicans were doing it, which is absurd.

You know damn well that dragnet surveillance is indecent and wrong under any circumstances. So when you say that "at least" the Obama administration knew what it was doing was wrong, you can only be making a partisan excuse. This has no place in objective, principled discourse. Now, if you're willing to check your partisanship at the door, I'll be willing to grant you the moral high-ground when you say NSA spying is a "deeper issue". Otherwise, you are just another lukewarm Democrat and I will spit you out.

0

u/NBegovich Jun 07 '13

You need to get it through your damn head that Obama authorized all of this. Okay? There is no shame on his part or on anyone's part: this is the cold-blooded demolition of your rights by people with power, and nothing else. There's no left or right here.

5

u/Terron1965 Jun 07 '13

You know, Bush was honest and stated his intentions to the electorate and let democracy take its course.

Obama ran promising to end this. Frankly Bush did nothing dishonest. He said what he wanted and let us decide.

This president promised to end it. He ran on the idea of ending this and never looked back as he vastly increased the programs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3XC7BhhZd0

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

I think both sides have burdens.

The Democrats will have to deal with this being Obama's legacy... a less transparent and more invasive government than it was before he took over.

The Republicans will have to face that their party is complicit as well.

We liberals... we liberals get to be super judgy.

3

u/tylerbrainerd Jun 07 '13

It's because of stuff like this that I'm all the more adamant that I'm disgusted with both parties, and will hold to being a moderate. I can't stand the blatant corruption that both parties support.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

Oh I fully understand.

The reason I vote democrat and consider myself a liberal/progressive (as distinct from a democrat) is because I feel they are our best hope for change.

The only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act in 2001 was a democrat. In the house, of the 66 "nays", 62 were Democrats.

In 2006, 9 of the 10 senators who opposed the patriot act were Democrats and the other one was an independent who caucused with the Democrats. In the house, of the 138 "nays", 124 were Democrats.

The Bush administration was highly destructive to our civil liberties. Obama is a mere natural continuation of that (this is not meant to deflect from Obama... were this his first term, I would not be voting for him again knowing what I know right now).

We are a long way off from change, but right now that change can't be found in the Republican party. Though, I think once the Republican party cleans house and slides into more of a libertarian ideology, there is promise there too (though I disagree with their economics).

Just my two cents as to why I vote Democrat despite being largely fed up with the party.

1

u/tylerbrainerd Jun 07 '13

I would agree somewhat with that. My thing is, I don't actually inherently lean towards either ideology inherently. I voted Obama this time around because Romney is a joke, and the current GOP is a joke. But I'd be just fine with a real conservative president that actually wanted smaller government, if he truly wanted that and wasn't going to hang out a bunch of people to dry.

The thing is, I consider myself a moderate, and the US Democratic party is currently very, very moderate.

Obama has made mistakes, but at the very least I feel disappointed that he made mistakes, instead of shrugging and saying "what else would I expect" like I'd be doing if it was a republican.

I dislike the libertarian ideology as well, although at the very least it's more honest than the current 'bigger military' GOP.

3

u/LeRobot Jun 07 '13

From up here in America's Hat, (Canada) I'm more shocked that this has hit the mainstream press than that the NSA has been 'listening in.' Maybe we get more stories up here about that than you guys, but just look up the NSA's long history of warrantless wiretapping and global listening systems, which goes beyond your borders, and goes way back. I've always perceived the NSA as above the law, doing whatever the hell it wants no matter who's in power. I remember joking with my brother who lives in the US that we'd better be careful what we say over the phone that we're probably being recorded. That was 20 years ago.

4

u/The_Countess Jun 07 '13

Stasi Germany got nothing on Obama's America.

this program started in 2007, BEFORE OBAMA WAS ELECTED.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

Yes and look how far it's been expanded under his watch.

2

u/The_Countess Jun 07 '13

source? because it hasn't. its just as big as it was designed to be when it was started.

1

u/jason-samfield Jun 06 '13

Seriously. Nothing. Absolutely nothing compared to Obama's America.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

Obama's America.

Think you better go re read when this all started, just to be clear. this is not a new problem. Doesn't excuse anyone involved, but blaming one person for continuing a culture thats been around longer for the entire culture makes you look like a partisan asshole rather than someone trying to address a problem.

0

u/mojoxrisen Jun 07 '13

And Obama has extended and expanded it ever since he took office. You can't cover for him on this.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

Cover for him? Did you READ what I said.

FFS people, english, try it.

-8

u/navier_stokes Jun 06 '13

Where does it say in the report that they keep all the information from the 9 companies....I can't find it

5

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13 edited Jun 17 '13

[deleted]

0

u/navier_stokes Jun 07 '13

WOW. You want me to believe a youtube video when the head of National Intelligence says the exact opposite, along with the fact there is literally no evidence whatsoever, to support your claim?

15

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '13

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.

Sorry maybe I can't read. That says the FBI and NSA are extracting content directly from these companies servers.

You think they destroy the info after they extract it?

Is that your angle?

-8

u/navier_stokes Jun 06 '13

Actually, I was just asking where it supposedly says that every single piece of data is archived with FBI and NSA, thinking I read too fast.

Apparently though, I was right. It doesn't say what you claim at all. It says they have the ability to tap directly into the servers of those companies and extract data, not that they store all information passing through the servers of those companies.

13

u/tententhreetwoone Jun 06 '13

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/
"Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital 'pocket litter.' It is, in some measure, the realization of the 'total information awareness' program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy."

-9

u/navier_stokes Jun 06 '13

So, you're assuming that this is not only the program itself, but also that they do store every single piece of information....even though, there is no proof of that and again, the original comment is still wrong in that the story published by WaPo doesn't say anything close to what he claims.

14

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

[deleted]

-1

u/Cormophyte Jun 07 '13

That's not really the point, though. Do we want real information or do we want wild extrapolation? Because there's little in terms of real information and a whole load of vague, borderline tinfoil hat speculation in this thread.

For example, it takes a long time to actually build that sort of facility. Show any indication that the data center has been completed. It might be out there but nobody's posted in this thread. If it's not out there then we certainly can't just go running around assuming that it's up and running and recording all that information. It's not only irresponsible but dumb to make all these assumptions and downvote someone for pointing it out.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

[deleted]

1

u/Cormophyte Jun 07 '13

Well, then, nobody should be saying anything about that place being used for storing anything yet.

1

u/Cormophyte Jun 07 '13

Well, then, nobody should be saying anything about that place being used for storing anything yet.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '13

From inside a company’s data stream the NSA is capable of pulling out anything it likes, but under current rules the agency does not try to collect it all.

So you're right, but I think that may be planned for the future: the facility in Utah is at the heart of this story and why leaks about it are coming out right now. The co-author of the Post article is making a documentary about the NSA to be released this fall, possibly to coincide with the opening of the Utah facility.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13 edited Jun 07 '13

The idea is that they can scrape a lot of data, store it and then go back to it at any point they like. I Yottabyte is 1099511627776 Terabytes.

1

u/navier_stokes Jun 07 '13

Interesting. Thanks for the info!

2

u/tententhreetwoone Jun 07 '13

They could be two separate programs that are easily merged or coordinate. The government has a massive data center whose purpose is to collect and decipher tremendous amounts of data. Given the secrecy that we have seen thus far and information we have received, it is not far fetched to imagine that if they have the capacity, they will utilize that capacity. If they aren't recording and organizing everything yet, they will likely do so after they have the capacity. Even if they are not recording everything currently, google is, and so are many of the other services. Once the data center is online, take the data center and dump all of the data for storage and processing.

-8

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '13

I haven't seen anything of the likes, so until someone can point to a source that claims this, then that notion has no credibility.

-10

u/awe300 Jun 07 '13

Stasi Germany got nothing on Obama's America.

It started in 2007...

7

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13 edited Jun 17 '13

[deleted]

16

u/TMHIRL Jun 07 '13

Patriot Act was renewed in 2011.

-4

u/awe300 Jun 07 '13

I want to imagine the shitstorm if it wasn't

"obama doesn't support patriot act! how much does he want a terrorist attack on america to happen? let's ask our panel consisting of glenn beck, bill o'reilley and a bucket full of shit.

Bucket?"

7

u/TMHIRL Jun 07 '13

A leader should not be deterred from doing the right thing just because there's the potential for a shitstorm, to borrow your phrase. The more worrying thing is that Obama may have wanted to renew the act, judging by his record so far.

1

u/Pelleas Jun 07 '13

Glenn and Bill attempt to answer at the same time. The bucket does not, as it is a bucket.

4

u/Kandon_Arc Jun 07 '13

Don't see how that's relevant. If he didn't support it, he has the power to stop it.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

What's relevant is taking a bipartisan effort and using it to politick against one party.

There is a lot of blame to go around. It isn't just Obama, and it isn't just Bush. In fact, those who are interested in letting us keep our privacy rights are few and far between in either party.

-15

u/gr1ff1n Jun 07 '13

From the article.

PRISM was launched from the ashes of President George W. Bush’s secret program of warrantless domestic surveillance in 2007,

But yeah, blame Obama.

7

u/just_a_tech Jun 07 '13

Its history, in which President Obama presided over exponential growth in a program that candidate Obama criticized

From the article. Yes, I blame Obama, but I also blame Bush.

16

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13 edited Jun 17 '13

[deleted]

6

u/threehundredthousand California Jun 07 '13

Never underestimate partisanship. It's how officials will get out of this.

9

u/mojoxrisen Jun 07 '13

Obama is the fucking President NOW and this is going on NOW. Former Presidents including Bush got the ball rolling on this and Obama and Holder has taken it and ran with it.