I don't think the NSA truly spies on everybody. Some people must be in control and above surveilance. There must be an official No Spy List. How do we find it?
Even in Orwell's 1984, no-one was above the spying, that's how they made sure everyone stayed on track. I'm sure those on top are spying on each other more than they do the average citizen. Most of us aren't being listened to by a live agent, but rather our phone conversations are converted to text, hence the term "metadata" which simply means data about data, a throw word. Then the text is ran through a computer algorithm and once a certain number of "Trigger Words" pop up the citizen would then be moved up the queue until they get to a live surveillance stage. But the more someone knows the more dangerous they are to the whole. So thereby I assume that those on top are watched much more closely because a slip up there would be disastrous to the efforts made to maintain secrecy and power.
Does any one remember the movie "Firefox" ? In the scene when the hero (Clint Eastwood) is being made up to look like the heroin dealer before going into Russia, his English MI-6 superior tells him "The KGB is like a sleeping monster. If you creep by quietly, he may just sniff at you and raise an eyebrow. But. If you awaken it..." Replace KGB with NSA.
This profile reveals when Spitz walked down the street, when he took a train, when he was in an airplane. It shows where he was in the cities he visited. It shows when he worked and when he slept, when he could be reached by phone and when he was unavailable. It shows when he preferred to talk on his phone and when he preferred to send a text message. It shows which beer gardens he liked to visit in his free time. All in all, it reveals an entire life.
I don't think that is necessarily true, though it would be quite the find! The reason I say that is that it is more effective to have everyone think that everyone else can spy on them within the organization. It creates a network of blackmail so that no one would rat out someone else "in the know". Plus anyone powerful enough to be on the "No Spy List" would probably also be powerful enough to have someone suicided if it came to that.
6 comments
8 time_shhift 2013-07-17
Lest we forget, the FBI took down General Petraeus while he was acting director of the CIA .
5 Chainweasel 2013-07-17
Even in Orwell's 1984, no-one was above the spying, that's how they made sure everyone stayed on track. I'm sure those on top are spying on each other more than they do the average citizen. Most of us aren't being listened to by a live agent, but rather our phone conversations are converted to text, hence the term "metadata" which simply means data about data, a throw word. Then the text is ran through a computer algorithm and once a certain number of "Trigger Words" pop up the citizen would then be moved up the queue until they get to a live surveillance stage. But the more someone knows the more dangerous they are to the whole. So thereby I assume that those on top are watched much more closely because a slip up there would be disastrous to the efforts made to maintain secrecy and power.
3 nighthawk1961 2013-07-17
Does any one remember the movie "Firefox" ? In the scene when the hero (Clint Eastwood) is being made up to look like the heroin dealer before going into Russia, his English MI-6 superior tells him "The KGB is like a sleeping monster. If you creep by quietly, he may just sniff at you and raise an eyebrow. But. If you awaken it..." Replace KGB with NSA.
3 izucantc 2013-07-17
Here are six month's of a German politician's life, using only metadata and other publicly-accessible data. Is this how it looks for the NSA when they're looking at us? http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-data-retention/
This profile reveals when Spitz walked down the street, when he took a train, when he was in an airplane. It shows where he was in the cities he visited. It shows when he worked and when he slept, when he could be reached by phone and when he was unavailable. It shows when he preferred to talk on his phone and when he preferred to send a text message. It shows which beer gardens he liked to visit in his free time. All in all, it reveals an entire life.
2 twobee2 2013-07-17
I don't think that is necessarily true, though it would be quite the find! The reason I say that is that it is more effective to have everyone think that everyone else can spy on them within the organization. It creates a network of blackmail so that no one would rat out someone else "in the know". Plus anyone powerful enough to be on the "No Spy List" would probably also be powerful enough to have someone suicided if it came to that.
1 mattgrimes 2013-07-17
Here you go.