An honest question for legal and constitution minded

[RVonse]

Through Julian Assange we know virtually every form of electronic communications is bugged by the NSA. Even this post I am writing today will be stored by the government somewhere. We've known this for at least 6 years and long before Trump took office

So the NSA almost certainly has records and proof certain of any wrongdoing Trump may have been involved.

So here is what I dont get. Isn't the main charter of the NSA, CIA, etc to protect the nation from all enemies both foreign and domestic? And wouldn't the director of those same organizations know about the Trump Russia probe by now? If Trump was an evil treasonous villian that his enemies claim.... why would not one of these organizations do something about it? In order to protect the nation and fulfill their purpose for existing?

Im just asking because none of it adds up to me.

How can anyone (including the democrats and Nancy Pelosi) possibly believe the Russia scandal is real? The NSA would have had him in irons before he even took the oath of office if a Russia threat was real wouldnt they? What am I missing here?

 

[jonatha]

Isn't the main charter of the NSA, CIA, etc to protect the nation from all enemies both foreign and domestic?

No.

"the CIA has no law enforcement function and is mainly focused on overseas intelligence gathering, with only limited domestic intelligence collection."

The wikipedia article on the NSA is less succint but arrives at a similar conclusion.

Members of the armed forces swear the "enemies foreign and domestic" oath. And in a feat of irony that brings me close to considering it proof of a deity, so do immigrants during their naturalization ceremony....

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

No way a top paid lawyer (heck the Hyper Chicken lawyer could) isn’t able to get such evidence tossed out on 4th amendment grounds.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[dismal]

If Trump was an evil treasonous villian that his enemies claim.... why would not one of these organizations do something about it?

This is not so much a question of law but a question of fact.

I can't imagine a reason they wouldn't do something about it that would stack up to the severity of the problem.

It's impossible to imagine what "X" might get a bunch of Obama administration people to say:

"We had definitive proof against Trump but were willing to let a treasonous villain ascend to the Presidency because X".

 

[coloradoatheist]

I agree with the others. However I think you are assuming the NSA is 1000s of times better than they actually are.

 

[SimpleDon]

Through Julian Assange we know virtually every form of electronic communications is bugged by the NSA. Even this post I am writing today will be stored by the government somewhere. We've known this for at least 6 years and long before Trump took office

So the NSA almost certainly has records and proof certain of any wrongdoing Trump may have been involved.

So here is what I dont get. Isn't the main charter of the NSA, CIA, etc to protect the nation from all enemies both foreign and domestic? And wouldn't the director of those same organizations know about the Trump Russia probe by now? If Trump was an evil treasonous villian that his enemies claim.... why would not one of these organizations do something about it? In order to protect the nation and fulfill their purpose for existing?

Im just asking because none of it adds up to me.

How can anyone (including the democrats and Nancy Pelosi) possibly believe the Russia scandal is real? The NSA would have had him in irons before he even took the oath of office if a Russia threat was real wouldnt they? What am I missing here?

If the NSA has been storing all of the emails exchanged by everyone in the country, a pretty big if, this would be a huge volume of data that would be impossible for humans to have read. The NSA would have to use computer software to scan the emails for keywords that would trigger a human to check it. This would have to be done in real time as the email is sent otherwise the system couldn't keep up. There are between 200 and 300 billion emails received everyday in the US.

So it is not very likely that your supposition is correct, that the NSA has your emails stored somewhere just waiting for you to be elected president so that intelligence services can get you impeached. The "deep state“, I suppose.

The NSA is primarily interested in the 70% of the world's total internet traffic that is routed through the US. If a government official in Russia or any other country sends an email 70% of the time it is routed through servers in the US. Even if they can't read the message the NSA can tell who it is from and who it is going to. It is highly unlikely that the NSA collects every email that passes through. They would have to target specific servers to trap all of an email.

The Trump organization did have a dedicated email server that only received emails from Russian addresses. This server wasn't found by the NSA or any government agency but by a private cyber security company who made the knowledge of its existence through the :CrowdStrike blog. CrowdStrike is a writer of anti-malware software. The Trump server was scanned and highlighted as a potentional source or possible victim of malware because of the strange nature of what was being directed to it.

But these emails were encrypted, a relatively easy way to secure emails.

You have to remember that Trump was considered to be a clown that had no chance of being elected president, why would the intelligence services pay any attention to him?

Who knew that so many people would support a proto-fascist, white supremacist racist, reality TV star whose main claim to fame was that he managed to bankrupt three casinos and the former Eastern Airlines Shuttle between Washington, New York and Boston? And why would the intelligence services cook up fake crimes to accuse him of when he readily admits committing so many real ones, aggravated sexual assault for example or fraud running a charity for his benefit or a fake school or signing contracts that he doesn't honor? Or obstructing justice?

 

[funinspace]

What SimpleDon said X2

How can anyone (including the democrats and Nancy Pelosi) possibly believe the Russia scandal is real?

They probably believe it for the same kind of reasons that most people believes that 911 was done by 19 Muslim terrorists as generally described in Wiki; and wasn't some sort of insider plot.

What am I missing here?

Apparently quite a bit...

 

[coloradoatheist]

The one thing that the NSA could have is an easy way to break encryption that we don't know about. That would be their most powerful tool. It's thought at this time the encryption methods used, such as mentioned in email, is easily breakable. But the idea that the NSA is watching everything you do is crazy.

 

[bilby]

Even if the NSA had the ability to read all the email, including encrypted email, ever sent by anyone; AND they had the ability to extract the relevant information from those emails, AND they were as a result in possession of undeniable evidence, then they likely still couldn't use it.

The continued effectiveness of an intelligence agency is dependent upon secrecy. As a result, you have a classic dilemma - If you act on the information you have, then you risk destroying your ability to obtain any further information; But if you never act, then the future information is valueless.

The usual solution to this is to find (or fake) another, less secret, means by which you might have obtained the information.

During WWII, the British comprehensively compromised German coded signals. By the end of the war, the joke was that German Generals could have gotten their orders more quickly from Bletchley than they did from Berlin. But clearly if the Allies had acted on the information they had as soon as they had it, the Germans would have known that they were compromised, changed their codes, and this source of excellent intelligence would have vanished.

As a result, there was a strict prohibition on any use of this 'ultra' intelligence, unless the information was also available from another plausible source.

Modern intelligence agencies understand this. They NEVER announce publicly what they know, unless they are confident that doing so will not give away how they came to know it.

If any US spy agency had hard evidence of treason by the President or any other highly placed individual in the US Government, we should expect to see an investigation that appears no different from any other such investigation. They would not be very good at their jobs if the fact that their intelligence was critical to the investigation was obvious - or even seemed plausible.

Real life doesn't conform to the rules of TV drama. In reality, nobody cares if the audience doesn't understand how the detectives got their man - indeed, they are at pains to prevent that from happening, because they don't want to give the game away.

Bragging is for idiots and fictional characters.

 

[Bronzeage]

The NSA, CIA, FBI, and A&W Rootbeer may have data which conclusively proves Donald Trump is being blackmailed by the Russian government. The problem is finding it.

Intelligence data is like taking pages from a dictionary, slicing each into one inch strips and then handing them over to someone else to put back together. If someone asks for the definition of the word "scleroderma", they'll look for that word, then try to find the strips which complete the definition. In the process, thousands of pieces of paper are examined and discarded for being irrelevant to the search.

This idea applies to information such as which telephone number called another number, with dates and times. If there are voice recordings of the files, consider the dictionary to be reduced to 1/4 inch wide strips.

In any case, none of this evidence would be admissible in a criminal court, but the issue would never come up. One of the key rules of the intelligence game is to never reveal information which would reveal that you have information. This does not mean the information wouldn't be used to zero in on perfectly admissible evidence. All you really need is scleroderma and the rest falls into place.

 

[funinspace]

The one thing that the NSA could have is an easy way to break encryption that we don't know about. That would be their most powerful tool.

Yeah, that would be a bad thing, if... It is true they they have kept to themselves, some vulnerability knowledge, that have later become public info (and then patched).

It's thought at this time the encryption methods used, such as mentioned in email, is easily breakable.

Huh, what? If one has a quality email service (usually paid for), the encryption can be quite good. The free shit...is well shit. You get what you pay for. Hell, Google's Gmail scans your email for advert purposes. One can also use VPN services tied to it, to even keep to/from information secure. If one is considering encryption email services, I would recommend one not based in the US, as our govt can use it's secret courts to demand access to shit w/o telling, and can give companies gag orders. Some options:
https://www.lifewire.com/best-secure-email-services-4136763

But the idea that the NSA is watching everything you do is crazy.

Yep, it is simply too much data for even our plethora of spy agencies data farms to hold.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Yeah, that would be a bad thing, if... It is true they they have kept to themselves, some vulnerability knowledge, that have later become public info (and then patched).


Huh, what? If one has a quality email service (usually paid for), the encryption can be quite good. The free shit...is well shit. You get what you pay for. Hell, Google's Gmail scans your email for advert purposes. One can also use VPN services tied to it, to even keep to/from information secure. If one is considering encryption email services, I would recommend one not based in the US, as our govt can use it's secret courts to demand access to shit w/o telling, and can give companies gag orders. Some options:
https://www.lifewire.com/best-secure-email-services-4136763

But the idea that the NSA is watching everything you do is crazy.

Yep, it is simply too much data for even our plethora of spy agencies data farms to hold.

The encryption used is based on the belief that it takes a long time to figure out the private key associated with a public using large integers. Trying to factor a combination of numbers is takes time, but if the NSA knew how to do it in seconds or had all the keys stored and could easily look them up, then decryption is easy, even for those encrypted emails.

 

[bilby]

It's always been impossible for intelligence agencies to keep tabs on everything.

Back in the day, the KGB would attempt 24x7 surveillance of all foreign visitors to Moscow. That meant assigning at least three agents to each person being watched (one for each eight hour shift). Of course, in reality more than that are needed, if your surveillance is to be even partially covert, and/or if you want to guard against the target giving your team the slip.

So for every person being watched, you need at the very least three, probably more like ten or twelve, watchers. That's just about achievable if you only want to spy on a small percentage of the people (for example, just the foreign citizens). It's a lot of effort, but it's not impossible.

But there's no way to keep track of everyone - you would quickly find that every man woman and child needs to be recruited to do nothing but spying, and that even then you are woefully short staffed.

Given that the NSA doesn't employ a significant fraction of the number of people who send emails worldwide, it's a fair bet that the VAST majority of email would never be seen by an NSA agent, even if they had the ability and the desire to capture and read all of it. It would be like trying to bail out the Titanic with a teaspoon.

 

[RVonse]

Even if the NSA had the ability to read all the email, including encrypted email, ever sent by anyone; AND they had the ability to extract the relevant information from those emails, AND they were as a result in possession of undeniable evidence, then they likely still couldn't use it.

The continued effectiveness of an intelligence agency is dependent upon secrecy. As a result, you have a classic dilemma - If you act on the information you have, then you risk destroying your ability to obtain any further information; But if you never act, then the future information is valueless.

The usual solution to this is to find (or fake) another, less secret, means by which you might have obtained the information.

During WWII, the British comprehensively compromised German coded signals. By the end of the war, the joke was that German Generals could have gotten their orders more quickly from Bletchley than they did from Berlin. But clearly if the Allies had acted on the information they had as soon as they had it, the Germans would have known that they were compromised, changed their codes, and this source of excellent intelligence would have vanished.

As a result, there was a strict prohibition on any use of this 'ultra' intelligence, unless the information was also available from another plausible source.

Modern intelligence agencies understand this. They NEVER announce publicly what they know, unless they are confident that doing so will not give away how they came to know it.

If any US spy agency had hard evidence of treason by the President or any other highly placed individual in the US Government, we should expect to see an investigation that appears no different from any other such investigation. They would not be very good at their jobs if the fact that their intelligence was critical to the investigation was obvious - or even seemed plausible.

Real life doesn't conform to the rules of TV drama. In reality, nobody cares if the audience doesn't understand how the detectives got their man - indeed, they are at pains to prevent that from happening, because they don't want to give the game away.

Bragging is for idiots and fictional characters.

That sounds reasonable and logical to me and actually not something I had considered. Thank you.

So if you are correct, that would mean that the fake dossier is just cover for some other evidence obtained indicating Trump was with the Russians? That at least makes some kind of sense to me and within the bounds of plausabilty.

 

[RVonse]

What SimpleDon said X2

How can anyone (including the democrats and Nancy Pelosi) possibly believe the Russia scandal is real?

They probably believe it for the same kind of reasons that most people believes that 911 was done by 19 Muslim terrorists as generally described in Wiki; and wasn't some sort of insider plot.

What am I missing here?

Apparently quite a bit...

Perhaps you correct. But what you have said does nothing at all to answer my OP. I do not see any logical connection at all between 911 and Trumps Russia probe.

 

[RVonse]

But the idea that the NSA is watching everything you do is crazy.

And Im pretty sure you are wrong.

Obviously neither of us can prove our position.

But here is what we do know. We know there are massive data centers in Utah. We know that digital data storage has become extremely cheap. We know about the Assange memos. And we also know that artificial intelligence is here and deemed to be a credible threat to humanity by people (such as Musk) who would know.

Spying on everyone is not a crazy idea considering where technology is today.

 

[RVonse]

But there's no way to keep track of everyone - you would quickly find that every man woman and child needs to be recruited to do nothing but spying, and that even then you are woefully short staffed.

Given that the NSA doesn't employ a significant fraction of the number of people who send emails worldwide, it's a fair bet that the VAST majority of email would never be seen by an NSA agent, even if they had the ability and the desire to capture and read all of it. It would be like trying to bail out the Titanic with a teaspoon.

In aviation they say (and I believe) the government has a 10+ year technology lead on what we know is out there. It does not stretch my imagination they have artificial intelligence far ahead of the private sector as well.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Even if they have the traffic that doesn't mean they can break the crypto.

And they have the problem of identifying what's interesting out of a huge mass of garbage. I just transferred 1.6gb of encrypted data this afternoon.

Suppose they devote the CPU power to breaking the crypto (I have no idea what the crypto used is, I won't say it's secure against their efforts.) They're going to get a huge pile of cabinet orders. How many piles of such junk are they going to be able to wade through to find the interesting thing?

 

[4321lynx]

The NSA etc can limit electonic surveillance chores by being "picky". For instance they may follow me now that I have subscribed to this thread. What possible reason do I have to be interested in this subject? Then they look at my posts here and in other Boards and my history in Canada and UK and my visits overseas and whom I met in these places and where and whom I avoided and BINGO...!!!!....

And I could tell you what Bingo stands for but then I would have to kill you, or THEY, maybe a different THEY, would have to kill me.

And was that a joke? Or not? And was this whole post nothing but a message to someone "run... they're onto you..." , or the opposite of that, or what, to whom, where, why now...
Anyway... oh forget it... ( -) 1234

and what the hell does that last bit mean?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Even if they have the traffic that doesn't mean they can break the crypto.

And they have the problem of identifying what's interesting out of a huge mass of garbage. I just transferred 1.6gb of encrypted data this afternoon.

Suppose they devote the CPU power to breaking the crypto (I have no idea what the crypto used is, I won't say it's secure against their efforts.) They're going to get a huge pile of cabinet orders. How many piles of such junk are they going to be able to wade through to find the interesting thing?

This is extraordinarily ridiculous to say. The Trump Campaign was making these contacts in the wide open. Papadopoulos bragged about it to the Australian ambassador while drunk! European Intelligence found out about it... not even trying to search for it. They were watching other people. And then the idiots in the Trump Campaign didn't even erase the evidence!

The only reason why this investigation hasn't finalized in the resignation of Trump is because of the complicit obstruction by the Republicans in Congress, in both the House and Senate.