Yonatan Zunger (zunger) wrote,
Yonatan Zunger
zunger

The NSA is watching you

USA Today reporting that the NSA keeps logs of all calls in the US. Not really a big surprise.

Now, recently you may have heard Alberto Gonzales explaining to Congress how the NSA does not perform any surveillance inside the US without legal warrants, etc. Which is true... if you accept a definition of "surveillance" analogous to Clinton's definition of "sex." This might be enough legal cavilling to make what he said not strictly perjury, (or rather, that would be an issue if the Senate Judiciary Committee hadn't thoughtfully decided not to swear him in...) but I'd say it doesn't pass the smell test: this was surveillance by any plain-English understanding of the word.

So there you have the difference between the Clinton and Bush administrations: one prevaricates about his sex life, the other about the erosion of Constitutional liberties.
Tags: us politics
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zunger

May 11 2006, 20:25:07 UTC 9 years ago

Oh, I'm well aware that this has been standard operating procedure for a long time -- thus the "not really a big surprise." Although I would dispute that it's specifically part of the NSA charter, since that just commits them to SIGINT of various sorts.

But I disagree about the meaning of the word "surveillance." I agree that what they are doing isn't surveillance in the sense of the federal wiretapping law; but it is surveillance in the dictionary and common-use sense of the word. Which is why it seems like a rather Clintonian excuse to me; it's not "sex" in the strictest sense of the word, but it certainly would be if you asked someone in the street.

s33k3r

May 11 2006, 21:30:59 UTC 9 years ago

When debating semantics, one has to accept the definition of the authorities in question.

The government has defined "surveillance" to mean a certain thing for decades. There's no fine line. What the NSA does in this instance clearly does not fall under that category. Legally, no surveillance is being conducted.

We may not like what they're doing, but it's less than what the telecommunications industry and the commercial sector does on a daily basis in the course of their operations.

zunger

May 11 2006, 21:41:34 UTC 9 years ago

Would you agree that the actions described are surveillance in the common-use sense of the word, but not in the legal sense of the word?

Note that I'm not alleging that what the NSA did in this case was illegal: as you said, this operation clearly did not fall under any legal definition of eavesdropping or surveillance. I'm more concerned that it was a bad idea (because of erosion of the principles of the Fourth Amendment) and that it doesn't pass the smell test. (Because it's something they wouldn't want to admit to in public, even if there were no security implications)