Don't worry though they have a fool-proofing auditing systems in place to prevent abuse of the intelligence they have intercepted on US "persons".
I am always amazed at the double claim the NSA makes:
1. That they have a great auditing system that catches abuses.
2. That the auditing system shows that most NSA employees are honest because they have caught very few abuses.
The two claims do not support each other.
These two alternatives would be more convincing:
1. That the auditing system is great and thus we have caught millions of abuses.
2. That the auditing system is easy to bypass and therefore we have caught very few abuses.
The very fact that Snowden could take what he did, in the way in which he did, and that they still don't know the extent of data copied shows that their auditing systems are easy to bypass.
Not necessarily. Snowden took mainly metadata: PowerPoint presentations and the like. I have not heard tell that he took any actual intercepts or personally identifiable cell phone data. I suspect the latter is what is audited.
I don't think we can draw any conclusions about NSA security practices by looking at what Snowden did or did not take. His goal was to expose the NSA's domestic spying programs by turning evidence over to newspapers, so why would he want to walk off with tons of raw tracking data? Taking anything other than what he needed to make his case would just have strengthened the arguments of the people who say he's a traitor who wanted to harm the U.S.
I think it's pretty safe to say, the NSA can't secure data against an one person working alone. Therefore the NSA's security practices don't have a prayer at keeping out a determined nation state.
That's probably not the conclusion you're looking for though.
Comments
Don't worry though they have a fool-proofing auditing systems in place to prevent abuse of the intelligence they have intercepted on US "persons".
I am always amazed at the double claim the NSA makes:
1. That they have a great auditing system that catches abuses.
2. That the auditing system shows that most NSA employees are honest because they have caught very few abuses.
The two claims do not support each other. These two alternatives would be more convincing:
1. That the auditing system is great and thus we have caught millions of abuses.
2. That the auditing system is easy to bypass and therefore we have caught very few abuses.
The very fact that Snowden could take what he did, in the way in which he did, and that they still don't know the extent of data copied shows that their auditing systems are easy to bypass.
Not necessarily. Snowden took mainly metadata: PowerPoint presentations and the like. I have not heard tell that he took any actual intercepts or personally identifiable cell phone data. I suspect the latter is what is audited.
Don't worry - from what I've heard - metadata isn't all that useful anyways. Which is why we're collecting massive amounts of in in a center in Utah.
/s
You're playing a game with the definition of "metadata" to refute a point the parent comment didn't make.
It was sarcasm.
I don't think we can draw any conclusions about NSA security practices by looking at what Snowden did or did not take. His goal was to expose the NSA's domestic spying programs by turning evidence over to newspapers, so why would he want to walk off with tons of raw tracking data? Taking anything other than what he needed to make his case would just have strengthened the arguments of the people who say he's a traitor who wanted to harm the U.S.
I think it's pretty safe to say, the NSA can't secure data against an one person working alone. Therefore the NSA's security practices don't have a prayer at keeping out a determined nation state.
That's probably not the conclusion you're looking for though.