E-Mail Surveillance Renews Concerns in Congress

E-Mail Surveillance Renews Concerns in Congress

www.nytimes.com

The National Security Agency is facing renewed scrutiny over the extent of its domestic surveillance program, with critics in Congress saying its recent intercepts of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans are broader than previously acknowledged, current and former officials said.

The agency’s monitoring of domestic e-mail messages, in particular, has posed longstanding legal and logistical difficulties, the officials said.

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The email messages have been a complex problem because there can be no way of distinguishing between Americans and foreigners.

N.S.A. can collect the private communications of Americans so long as it was done only as the incidental byproduct of investigating individuals “reasonably believed” to be foreigners

It is unavoidable that some innocent discussions of Americans will be examined

www.nytimes.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

This subject really bothered me for awhile when I first heard of it, especially that text messages were being read. I use text as my preferred method of communication. But then it occured to me that there is simply no logistical way that every single electronic transmission could be assessed. They have to rely upon key words or phrases which flag some messages. Makes the odds of something personal being intercepted and read feel a bit less.

reply to post by Hefficide

there is simply no logistical way that every single electronic transmission could be assessed. They have to rely upon key words or phrases which flag some messages. Makes the odds of something personal being intercepted and read feel a bit less

Key words and phrases are being intercepted, but they have Artificial Intelligence that read entire messages (even coded messages) and then they can assess messages that are 'not innocent'

Originally posted by sunny_2008ny
reply to post by Hefficide

 

there is simply no logistical way that every single electronic transmission could be assessed. They have to rely upon key words or phrases which flag some messages. Makes the odds of something personal being intercepted and read feel a bit less

Key words and phrases are being intercepted, but they have Artificial Intelligence that read entire messages (even coded messages) and then they can assess messages that are 'not innocent'

I wonder if anyone has done some test emails with some of the "less" dangerous key words? Just to see what happens. Do you really think that someone would show up at their door?

The people in Congress that are now concerned are the same idiots that passed the laws that allowed this to happen in the first place.

A former N.S.A. analyst who, in a series of interviews, described being trained in 2005 for a program in which the agency routinely examined large volumes of Americans’ e-mail messages without court warrants. Two intelligence officials confirmed that the program was still in operation.

The government is spying on us and it is perfectly legal thanks to the BS Patriot act.

When will the American people stand up for their rights to privacy? I don't want to hear the old "If your not doing anything wrong then you have nothing to worry about" argument.

this is nothing new. maybe officially, not not really. they've been scanning our emails probably from the beginning of email. I remember a few years ago a friend mentioned "crash echelon day" where everybody they could get to cooperate put as man "flagged" words as possible into their emails but to no avail. this friend who has a fairly high government clearance himself said, "people constantly underestimate the computer power of echelon."

if you are sending subversive emails you are a fool. find a better way t o communicate. the rest of us are of course subject to arrest as soon as they figure out what new things might be against the newly distorted law.