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Privacy United States

NSA Orders Employees To Spy on the World 'With Dignity and Respect' (theintercept.com) 46

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
The National Security Agency, the shadowy hub for the United States' electronic and cyber spying, has instructed its employees that foreign targets of its intelligence gathering "should be treated with dignity and respect," according to a new policy directive. The Intercept: The directive, released this summer as internal guidance, is for the NSA's vaunted signals intelligence, or SIGINT, division, which is responsible for covert surveillance and data collection worldwide. "In recognition that SIGINT activities must take into account that all persons should be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their nationality or wherever they might reside," says the previously unreported directive, which was issued by NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone.

Civil liberties experts say the PR-friendly directive is an attempt to mollify European partners and American critics amid a simmering congressional debate over whether to reauthorize the NSA's broad surveillance authorities. Experts also pointed to the absurdity that the NSA, an intelligence agency that specializes in electronic eavesdropping including the interception of text messages and emails, could do so respectfully. "This is like the CIA putting out a statement saying that going forward they'll only waterboard people with dignity and respect," Evan Greer, director of the digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, told The Intercept. "Mass surveillance is fundamentally incompatible with basic human rights and democracy."
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NSA Orders Employees To Spy on the World 'With Dignity and Respect' More

NSA Orders Employees To Spy on the World 'With Dignity and Respect'

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  • And they say... (Score:4, Funny)

    by rbrander ( 73222 ) on Friday August 25, 2023 @10:23AM (#63796208) Homepage

    ...these guys have no sense of humour.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      To be fair, this is Darth Vader level humor.

    • I'm not paranoid but... OK, so how many of you guys are NSA sock-puppet accounts, grooming & radicalising the rest of us?

      I'd like to state for the record that I'm not, nor have I ever been, a sock-puppet account.

  • SIGINT is good and important. Every nation state has a duty to its people to engage in it.
    And of course every country should be trying the block the spying of the others.
    But acting shocked and offended when you catch others doing it is the weirdest sort of pretence.

  • "Equity," "Diversity," and "Inclusion"?

    • I am sure that they spy on people without regard to race, etc. In fact, they probably target such people since they are potentially vulnerable.

    • Going to be a lot of that when the drone is sent to kill people based on nsa Intel. A jdam is very much race color age and gender blind.

      • Maybe not. After all there have been plenty of stories over the years about software facial recognition not working as well for various demographics.

        I'm generally worried about drones getting good enough to kill only a single person and leaving everyone around them alive. We only see protests about our overseas operations because we blow up a lot of civilians or innocent bystanders to kill our targets. I don't think people will complain as much if we only hit the intended target.

        • Drones don't do facial recognition - yet, LOL.

          The problem with facial recognition and people of color typically has to do with how poorly lit their samples are - light-skinned faces are easier to see key details on in 'normal' lighting. (The technology isn't racist, the photos typically suck.)

          I once worked for a company that fired a black worker via telegram (lots of issues, not important why), but HR told security to not let him on campus. To accomplish this, they xeroxed his ID badge photo and had it post

    • Can't spell DEI without DIE!
    • The only thing worse than government overreach is minority outreach. Amiright?

  • Bullshit (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DewDude ( 537374 )

    You can't treat someone with digitinty and respect while violating their privacy.

    Hopefully we can get real candidates in power that will slash wasteful government spending and ELIMINATE these unethical organizations like the NSA and CIA that are used as weapons against it's own citizens as much as it is against our enemies.

    If it's illegal for us, it should be illegal for them. Every single normal person would be in pound-me-in-the-ass prison if they did even .002% of the stuff these organizations did. Enoug

    • Counter-suggestion: Eliminate (not defund) the NSA and CIA and DHS and move their resources to the appropriate intelligence services under SecDef, such as Army Intelligence, Naval Intelligence, etc. Leave the FBI in place but give them the resources to actually do the job they're supposed to do for the people - and give them some new, effective oversight while we're at it.

      • At one point I heard the US gov't has as many as 17 intelligence agencies - that kinda seems like alit.

        • For a nation our size, it makes sense to have a small handful rather than just one, but 17 (if correct, and I could believe it) is way beyond that, and to have any of them running around impervious to oversight (because they've collected dirt on the officials they theoretically answer to) is unacceptable, too.

      • I think the last person to seriously consider this was named John F Kennedy.

    • You can't treat someone with digitinty and respect while violating their privacy.

      But, to steal one of George H. W. Bush's catchphrases, this will be kinder, gentler espionage.

  • Oh good (Score:2, Funny)

    by Tellalian ( 451548 )

    When my fascist Orwellian overlords take away my rights, I prefer they do it with a smile...

  • Be scum with dignity and respect! (Score:3)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday August 25, 2023 @10:54AM (#63796298)

    Somehow I think I am not qualifies for such a role. The level of cognitive dissonance must make heads explode.

  • Post Snowden, what should have happened to the NSA? They should have been completely dismantled, investigated, and prosecuted. Just like Kennedy threatened to break the CIA into a million pieces, the same fate is well deserved by the NSA. What actually happened? Nothing. No material impact whatsoever. Zilcho. Nada. Anyone who says different is probably lying just like the NSA was lying for years when they were asked about these programs pre-Snowden.

  • "We leave the SIGKILL to our friends in the MI-6 [wikipedia.org]."

    At least that's what they want you think bwuhahahahaha.

  • Translation (Score:4, Funny)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday August 25, 2023 @11:42AM (#63796414)

    From now on, please smile politely when you beat people up, don't cackle like a maniac. It's bad form.

  • You can't discover a terrorist's digital trail after identifying them if you don't have the historical data. You don't know who might be in a terrorist cell until you otherwise identify one person in the cell. Crippling the NSA is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to trust your government. The people that work for the government are also citizens and there are too many of them for dark secrets to really be kept all that well.

    • Most terror attacks in the US post-9/11 are done by lone-wolf domestic white nationalists radicalized in plain sight on public forums like Gab and 8chan, I'm not sure how the NSA storing all the communications of foreigners is going to help with that.

      • Most terror attacks in the US post-9/11 are done by lone-wolf domestic white nationalists radicalized in plain sight on public forums like Gab and 8chan

        Really?

        Got any actual numbers to support that claim, or just things that Democrats say?

        I suspect you say 'attacks' and what you mean are 'plots' which never turn into action (for example, the MI Gov kidnap plot that never went forward).

        Are you comparing the # if casualties/killings, or the number of events?

        I think you've conflated a few different things together to create a boogie man to defend voting for whatever candidate the Democrat party puts forward.

  • There is nothing 'respectful' about rifling thru others personal effects. Maybe the NSA as far as its original mission is concerned is needed, but let us skip the bullshit and cognitive dissonance shall we please?

    you don't 'respectfully spy' on someone.

  • Snowden will be pleased. Lets review the playbook: Deny everything Attempt to destroy Snowden by calling him a rogue operator and traitor. Shift narrative and soft shoe admittance of programs. Roll out good-will programs after 20 years while continuing to invade every part of people's lives.

  • What's missing -- follow the damn law. (Score:3)

    by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Friday August 25, 2023 @01:09PM (#63796614) Journal

    What's missing is any instruction to actually follow the law. Not to invade US citizens' and residents' privacy in violation of the 4th amendment and laws governing privacy and the operation of the spy agencies.

    • To be fair, THE LAW is an instruction to follow the law. They shouldn't need an "oh, and we really mean those laws, too". What is needed is proper oversight and enforcement of the laws on them - and for them not to have dossiers of "get out of jail free or the public finds out what you did on Epstein's island" (for instance) cards that they can use against the people who are ostensibly over them.

  • Ask for permission first before spying. It is the polite thing to do.

  • Whew (Score:3)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Friday August 25, 2023 @02:23PM (#63796828) Journal

    I guess that's sorted then.
    What a relief!

  • Extreme Prejudice, Dignity & Respect
  • Between W, Trump and now Biden, we are seeing the destruction of America. Xi and Putin must be ecstatic.
  • Everyone knows you don't break a pinky swear.

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