Five unanswered questions about the NSA’s surveillance programs

The Hill ^ | July 7, 2013 | Brendan Sasso

[jazusamo]

I thought the Booz Allen Hamilton handle sounded familiar, the infamous John Murtha got them to open an office in his hometown of Johnstown. If Murtha was connected in any way with them they gotta be crooked.

excerpt:

BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON OPENS JOHNSTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA OFFICE, BRINGING ITS FULL FIRM CAPABILITIES TO SUPPORT THE AREA’S GROWING GOVERNMENT, COMMERCIAL WORK

US Fed News Service, Including US State News

January 25, 2006

Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa. (12th CD), issued the following press release:

Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha (D) today joined officials from Booz Allen Hamilton in a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open a new office for the global strategy and technology consulting firm. The office, with seven current employees, is partnered with several Pennsylvania firms and academic institutions from its new offices at 1 Pasquerilla Plaza, in Johnstown.

“This is a company with 17,000 employees scattered across six continents, but with so many Booz Allen Hamilton’s clients in this region, they should feel right at home in downtown Johnstown,” Murtha said. “It’s a pleasure to welcome such an …

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-982275211.html

[txhurl]

We probably did away with witch hunts once we ran out of ‘witches’.

[RedMDer]

Please Help keep FR
Independent!!

[ROCKLOBSTER]

You make it sound like a bad thing:

First we sort it for Spanish surnames.
Then we sort it by calls to a foreign country (Mexico)
Then we compare it to the lists of expired visas, criminal court actions and motor vehicle accidents.
Next we pull up the street addresses.

[Vendome]

Doh!!!

[Lexinom]

it only “queries” the database a limited number of times for specific national security reasons.

Richardson explained that a single query could be an algorithm that scans the database and returns information on many people.

This is actually very normal. Companies mine data to create huge normalized databases of publicly-available data, and very often only a very small portion of that data is useful.

A "query" might look like "SELECT customerName FROM callHistory WHERE targetPhone LIKE '966%' AND callDate BETWEEN '2012-03-31' AND '2012-05-01';" to return the names of all individuals who called Saudi Arabia during April of 2012.

This is simple textbook stuff.

[HDCochran]

6. What arrangements have been made with Britain, Germany, etc. to collect the information on US citizens in the USA for the NSA in exchange for our collecting information for them on their citizens in their countries? That way everyone can testify under oath, “We do not collect information on our citizens in our country without a warrant.”

I believe reading some years ago that this is precisely the way NSA circumvents the Constitution.

[District13]

Something came out at the NSA protest on July 4th at NSA ground zero in Utah: You know when you are typing an email or typing something on a social network site - remember the times that you typed something rather harsh or inflammatory and you came to your senses and thought better of it and deleted it? Well, every one of your keystrokes - including the deletes - is held in storage.

Now suppose you have an enemy in high places (i.e., a liberal democRAT), your goose is cooked, baby! They can put your name out there and everything you ever typed or thought or said can be used against you. Doesn’t matter what your motive was; they can twist you up one side and down the other until you are thoroughly destroyed!

I mean, I have said/typed a lot of things I didn’t mean or that could be misconstrued or when I was really pissed off about something at the time. The powers that be can use my words to nail me! Whatever happened to FREEDOM OF SPEECH? This is some really scary stuff!! Our own country has turned against us.

I thank God for Snowden!!