The NSA’s long history of often legally sketchy mass surveillance continues, despite some of the agency’s activities getting exposed more than a decade ago by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Now, the National Security Agency has had to reveal, in response to a senator’s questions, that it is, as one report put it, “sidestepping” obtaining warrants first before it buys people’s information, put on sale by data brokers.

This came to light in an exchange of letters between Senator Ron Wyden and several top security officials.

And this time – because of NSA’s own interest being at stake – he has been able to reveal the information he obtained.

Wyden’s January 25 letter to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines contained a fairly straight-forward request: US intelligence agencies should only buy American’s data “that has been obtained in a lawful manner.”

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

With the implication that something entirely different is happening, the senator went on to explain what: if these agencies went to communications companies themselves for the data, that would require a court order.

Instead, Wyden continued, they go the roundabout way to get information (like location data) taken from people’s phones – collected via apps, and finally ending up with commercial brokers, who sell it to the likes of the NSA. And, this particular agency is also buying “Americans’ domestic internet metadata.”

In other words, a comprehensive, yet legally questionable mass surveillance scheme.

Wyden “reinforced” his letter to Haines by attaching NSA Director General Paul Nakasone’s December response to one of his earlier queries – a back-and-forth that has been going on for almost three years, he says, and concerned other agencies as well and their practice of data acquisition.

But now that he said he would block the Senate confirmation of Nakasone’s successor – the information he received finally “got cleared” for release and pretty quickly.

Nakasone confirmed the practice, and then went on to justify it by saying it only pertains to “records” of online traffic, rather than “emails and documents.” He said what the NSA purchases is “netflow data” that comes from devices where “one or both” ends of the connection is in the US.

And why? It is “critical,” wrote Nakasone, in “protecting US defense contractors from cyber threats.”

    • FigMcLargeHuge@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      11 months ago

      And people just don’t care. I have been talking about this for years, and feel like I have been yelling at clouds. Treated like it as well.

      • pop@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        Just mention China/Russia is buying their data too, that’ll get them pearl clutching and showing actual serious concern.

        • FigMcLargeHuge@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          11 months ago

          They give an app, from a foreign company that has been reported as harvesting your information, full permissions to their phone basically without even a care. I don’t think they will even bat an eye if I drop that bombshell on them. People just don’t care or understand what they are giving up it seems, all in the guise of convenience or entertainment. Our lawmakers should write a law so that in order for a company to collect data on an individual, said individual should be forced to review all the data collected on them and approve it to be passed on. That will never happen though.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        11 months ago

        I agree that it’s bullshit that they sell our data unrestricted to anyone. I disagree that the government using our tax dollars to violate our constitutional rights is the smallest problem.

      • pop@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        Bro who’s jurisdiction do you think these companies work under? If the government didn’t plan it the way it is, these companies wouldn’t be out there selling data back to them.

        The “these companies sell it to anyone” seems like a deflection to passing any sensibllaws to prevent these companies from existing in the first place.

    • Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      11 months ago

      The problem is they don’t investigate the origins of the data they purchased - high chance half the data they’ve looked at was illegally obtained.

    • purplepuppy@links.hackliberty.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      Because no one should be allowed to give to someone else your personal data. Not everything should be allowed to be sold. It should be theirs in the first place.

      Just because you click you agree on terms of service, doesn’t mean you actually have a choice if your employer requires you to use that service and you live in wage slavery society where you have to get someones permission to have a place to live.

      EDIT: Besides, government that can literary print money in a society where everything can be bought for money is in practice no different then any autoritarian regime. What is next, pay for private cops that can kidnap you without cause and governments says they weren’t the ones that did it, it was these private companies and “we will fine them for this” then give them money for doing it and cover their fines with it. This is just ridiculous system. Who in their right mind can look at capitalism and say, wow, what a free society.

      • MrCookieRespect@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        11 months ago

        So you agree that the problem is that its sold rather than that a government agency buys it…

        And no, a government cant just print money, Central Banks are their own governing bodies, they are part of the State, but just like the courts the politicians cant interfere to much for security.

        And printing money is a big no no for every country unless its to replace old printed currency or stabilizing the market. It would cause a hyper inflation otherwise.

        • purplepuppy@links.hackliberty.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          11 months ago

          Both is the problem, in fact, it is the same problem. If one is selling it, clearly someone is buying it. Not all things should be for sale, that is my point. Central banks print money all the time, they never really stop, it is definitely not a big no no, it is a very basis of this debt based economic system. Central bank has to continously print money, because all money that is printed is owned back with interest to the central bank. And if there is no money for those lenders to pay back the interest, the banks that lend it will default. So in fact, money, in this stupid system, has to be constantly printed so that there is enough money to pay back interest on previously lended printed money. Central banks, congress, police and even private banks are all part of the governing body that decides for us, the regular people, how resources are allocated in our society. They are inseperable and intertvined in one power structure. As Gorge Carlin put it “it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it”.

  • Mango@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    11 months ago

    If their purchasing power is what obtained the data, how is that any different from using their own hands to invade our privacy??

    • MrCookieRespect@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      Because NSA is also allowed to go into a supermarket and buy coffee like everyone else, that data is being sold to everyone with a little money, its not even much…

      And the data is provided by you, you consent to it being collected by Facebook etc.

            • MrCookieRespect@reddthat.com
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              11 months ago

              But you are giving that data to Facebook etc. and consent to it being sold… To everyone with money… Thats the literal point, they aren’t invading your privacy, they just buy things conveniently because you throw your privacy away…

              • Mango@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                11 months ago

                I’m not giving my bruising history to Facebook, or even my attention. Also the government has higher regulations for obtaining consent than the private sector and cannot use the private sector to circumvent that.

                • MrCookieRespect@reddthat.com
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  Lmao, if you get your data sold, regardless of Facebook or Google or whatever. Everyone can buy it. Why the hell would the government not use publicly accessible data?

                  The problem is that its sold, not that the government buys it.

                  And the private sector should have less privacy invasion rights than private companies… And i don’t mean by that making it easier for the government…

            • FigMcLargeHuge@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              11 months ago

              I would really like to see a reference here. Because since 9/11 it seems like every single law they have passed has been a complete grab of our privacy rights to use in order to fight { insert cause here eg: terrorism }.

              • Mango@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                11 months ago

                Never heard the phrase ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’? How about ‘warrants’? Illegal search and seizure? Private voting? The point of all these laws is the same. We’re not to be profiled and targeted for that profile. The law has just lagged behind technology.

                • FigMcLargeHuge@sh.itjust.works
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  Ever heard about the Patriot Act? You might want to read up on that. To further that, as @MrCookieRespect@reddthat.com mentioned to you earlier, if you click and give away your privacy rights, then you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. Period…

  • purplepuppy@links.hackliberty.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    11 months ago

    What is the difference between capitalisam and dictatorship again? You enforce economic inequality, then it obviously evolves into monopolies where users cant reasonably pick alternative social media, since their employers use the old one. And because of lack of owning means of production, you have to do what employers want. Therefor companies get all your data and since the state has all the power to make all the money (literarly print it) they can buy off all the data. In the end we end up with identical systems where state enforces complete survailance of its citizens without any cause and together with capitalists creates a new state like government that can force citizens to do whatever they want. What is the real practical difference?

    • purplepuppy@links.hackliberty.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      Furthermore, if someone is against this type of system and says they want a direct democracy, then clearly they can’t vote for someone to give them direct democracy, because that is exactly the point. So if they organize themselves and vote and choose that now all the factories should be in workers control, then they are braking the law of private property and therefor are “intacing people to break a law” which is a crime of course.