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Yet Another NSA Program: Mystic

By Jeralyn, Section Civil Liberties
Posted on Wed Mar 19, 2014 at 04:59:40 PM EST
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The Washington Post reports on yet another NSA surveillance program: Mystic.

The National Security Agency has built a surveillance system capable of recording “100 percent” of a foreign country’s telephone calls, enabling the agency to rewind and review conversations as long as a month after they take place, according to people with direct knowledge of the effort and documents supplied by former contractor Edward Snowden.

In related news, in a court filing, DOJ confirmed warrantless mass e-mail surveillance during the Bush administration.

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    Yet Another NSA Program: Mystic | 12 comments (12 topical)

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    Nothing is all bad (5.00 / 4) (#1)
    by Peter G on Wed Mar 19, 2014 at 07:36:45 PM EST
    For example, think of this as an opportunity to post a link to Van Morrison singing the first two minutes of his "Into the Mystic."  And a very nice version of the Allman Brothers performing the whole song.

    Not cool... (none / 0) (#6)
    by kdog on Thu Mar 20, 2014 at 09:02:32 AM EST
    to drag Van the Man into this sh*t;)

    Besides, there is nothing mystical about it, in fact it's the exact opposite...natural, normal, and common.

    Parent

    Then how come they didn't (5.00 / 1) (#2)
    by jimakaPPJ on Wed Mar 19, 2014 at 10:28:41 PM EST
    tell Obama Putin was gonna invade Crimea??

    Or did they??

    Now now Jim... (5.00 / 2) (#5)
    by kdog on Thu Mar 20, 2014 at 09:00:15 AM EST
    the president probably doesn't have this kind of security clearance.  We'll have to wait for Ed Snowden to tell us who knows/knew what and when.

    Parent
    LOL (none / 0) (#14)
    by jimakaPPJ on Thu Mar 20, 2014 at 11:06:45 PM EST
    I mean falling down lol.

    Parent
    Mass email (none / 0) (#3)
    by Mikado Cat on Thu Mar 20, 2014 at 08:35:48 AM EST
    surveillance by Bush.

    "Specifically, the President authorized the the NSA to collect metadata related to Internet communications for the purpose of conducting targeted analysis to track Al Qaeda-related networks. Internet metadata is header/router/addressing information, such as the 'to,' 'from,' 'cc,' and 'bcc' lines, as opposed to the body or 're' lines, of a standard e-mail. Since July 2004, the collection of Internet metadata has been conducted pursuant to an Order of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court," the still-unidentified official from NSA's Signals Intelligence Directorate continued.

    This seems fairly limited collection of publicly available information. Packet sniffing the backbone routers or similar. I'm not seeing evidence of misuse of the data, or the need for a warrant like a wire tap would require. This is looking at the "outside of the envelope" in email, not the content.

    Well (none / 0) (#10)
    by sj on Thu Mar 20, 2014 at 02:09:38 PM EST
    that's fine and dandy if you don't want to have private communications or private lives. For those of who believe that our business is our business as long as it is legal and/or hurts no one, well not so much.

    And I love how you decided that who I communicate with is "publicly available information". Well, actually no I don't. That easy acceptance of a major intrusion into "None Of Your Business" land by the government is a huge part of the problem.

    Shrugged shoulders becomes tacit approval becomes de facto approval.

    Parent

    You asked me a question in the now closed (none / 0) (#11)
    by CaptHowdy on Thu Mar 20, 2014 at 04:53:39 PM EST
    Free for all.  My network includes, as far as I can tell, every doctor in the area.  My scripts are nearly free and I just had a colonoscopy without one penny out of pocket.  Not even a copay.

    Don't want to go OT just wanted to answer your question.

    Parent

    Didn't realize (none / 0) (#13)
    by CaptHowdy on Thu Mar 20, 2014 at 07:07:11 PM EST
    There was a new open thread.

    Parent
    Wow (none / 0) (#12)
    by CaptHowdy on Thu Mar 20, 2014 at 05:29:27 PM EST
    We sort of agree.   Sort of.

    Parent
    Thanks again Ed! (none / 0) (#4)
    by kdog on Thu Mar 20, 2014 at 08:58:38 AM EST
    Feels like I'm saying that once a week.

    Now we know, and like the GI Joe cartoons taught me as a boy, "knowing is half the battle".

     

    So much fail security (none / 0) (#8)
    by Mikado Cat on Thu Mar 20, 2014 at 11:23:37 AM EST
    I wonder if any of these invasive measures are worthwhile. They have all certainly failed to create any illusion in my mind that we are "safe".

    Yet Another NSA Program: Mystic | 12 comments (12 topical)

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