NSA, PRISM and Snowden
In all the discussions related to whistleblower Edward Snowden's
revelations about the NSA and the PRISM surveillance program,
first revealed by
Glen Greenwald in The Guardian,
there are some points I have not seen mentioned
and that I wonder about.
Isn't the fact
that they did NOT stop the Boston marathon bombers
evidence the surveillance program does NOT work very well?
It seems it was only helpful AFTER the fact in figuring out the motives.
As the Osama bin Laden raid showed, real terrorists
do NOT use the phone system or the internet.
Now that everyone knows about the NSA surveillance,
who would be dumb enough to get caught that way?
Even if was useful before, how can it still be?
I don't understand the government's reasons for secrecy.
If as the government says they
foiled more than 50 terrorist plots,
surely the people who got caught and their associates
(and now terrorists everywhere)
know about the surveillance programs.
It seems to me the main purpose for secrecy is
to keep the American people in the dark about it.
(Likewise the secrecy behind the deaths caused by
our drones only keeps Americans in the dark;
those being attacked know how many terrorists and
innocent people are being killed.)
Some things about this massive indiscriminate collection of information
reminds me of Reagan's
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to shoot down incoming missiles.
A big problem there was the enemy could send in hundreds of decoys
and there was no good way to distinguish them from the real threats.
Similarly why couldn't anyone who wants to foil NSA surveillance,
overwhelm the system with dummy phone calls and email messages?
Given the amount of email spam and the phone robocalls I get,
it doesn't seem that hard to do.
Why not require the government to prove they can do what they claim?
Here's a way that doesn't require giving away any secrets.
Under the auspices of some legitimate technically
knowledgeable organization,
like the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
who defends the public's digital rights interests
or the
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
for computer professionals,
let an unknown group of people use phones and email
to plan a mock terrorist attack and see if the
NSA can catch them!
They would be allowed to use fake message decoys
and encryption and other methods to obfuscate the real plot.
I bet the government would
(a) not accept the challenge, and or
(b) not catch them.
Addendum 06/24/2013: For some clues to possible answers see:
The Dirty Little Secret About Mass Surveillance: It Doesn't Keep Us Safe
Top National Security Experts: Spying Program Doesn't Make Us Safer, and Spying
Leaks Don't Harm America