Hunters, Gatherers and Traitors
From today's Washington Post.
“In the spring of 2001, NSA began to change direction in its counter-terrorism targeting under Lt. Gen. Hayden: rather than analyzing the mass of what was collected hoping for the gem in the growing mass of available material, NSA began a methodical process of dissecting terrorist target communications practices and network to determine what to collect. This is commonly referred to at NSA as hunting rather than gathering. It was a procedure that was in its infancy on 9/11.
So what happened? The perceived shackles of domestic collection were removed, the gathering process began again to overwhelm the hunting process, new software, data-mining and link analysis methods were applied to isolate potential domestic targets. The beginnings of an era of greater openness and candidness about NSA's challenges were halted and the agency disappeared into the administration's secret war.
It is understandable in the days and weeks after 9/11 that the administration would have wanted to move quickly to close the gaps and focus on potential terrorists in the United States. But in four years, we've only got the Joint Inquiry to understand the NSA's challenges. More openness and greater Congressional oversight and scrutiny would have helped the agency and the United States to move forward in a better (and legal) way.”
The "shackles of domestic collection were removed", the Constitution was trashed and look what has emerged from the slime.
“In the spring of 2001, NSA began to change direction in its counter-terrorism targeting under Lt. Gen. Hayden: rather than analyzing the mass of what was collected hoping for the gem in the growing mass of available material, NSA began a methodical process of dissecting terrorist target communications practices and network to determine what to collect. This is commonly referred to at NSA as hunting rather than gathering. It was a procedure that was in its infancy on 9/11.
So what happened? The perceived shackles of domestic collection were removed, the gathering process began again to overwhelm the hunting process, new software, data-mining and link analysis methods were applied to isolate potential domestic targets. The beginnings of an era of greater openness and candidness about NSA's challenges were halted and the agency disappeared into the administration's secret war.
It is understandable in the days and weeks after 9/11 that the administration would have wanted to move quickly to close the gaps and focus on potential terrorists in the United States. But in four years, we've only got the Joint Inquiry to understand the NSA's challenges. More openness and greater Congressional oversight and scrutiny would have helped the agency and the United States to move forward in a better (and legal) way.”
The "shackles of domestic collection were removed", the Constitution was trashed and look what has emerged from the slime.
posted by RJB at 12:37 PM
<< Home