Maybe, or maybe there are advanced mathematical ways to break the codes that aren't otherwise apparent.

I suppose it's possible, but the very best and brightest mathematicians have poured over these algorithms for years, so I don't believe the NSA has anything that can break them in a reasonable timeframe.

It's like saying you can't move faster than the speed of light or you can't resolve objects smaller than the wavelength of the radiation used to probe- generally true but there are always ways around it if you're clever enough.

You say that, and yet both examples you've given nobody can find a way around.

Unless the NSA has a quantum computer that hasn't even been theorized yet, they have no way of breaking modern cryptography.

Maybe, or maybe there are advanced mathematical ways to break the codes that aren't otherwise apparent. It's like saying you can't move faster than the speed of light or you can't resolve objects smaller than the wavelength of the radiation used to probe- generally true but there are always ways around it if you're clever enough.

I strongly suspect the NSA can break most encryption out there, or doesn't have to due to backdoors.

Unless the NSA has a quantum computer that hasn't even been theorized yet, they have no way of breaking modern cryptography.

Maybe I'm wrong, but if things like PGP really stopped them I think you'd see it pretty quickly disappear under national security directives.

For a while, PGP wasn't allowed out of the USA, it was categorized as a weapon. The problem is that the NSA couldn't stop the spread of encryption.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

There is nothing obvious about this, the problem here is people refuse to acknowledge the difference between law enforcement evidence gathering and intelligence gathering they are not the same evidence is gathered to arrest and prosecute in a court of law thus it can be used to take away your freedom and is a function of the justice system, intelligence gathering is used to target our nations enemies militarily and to help our decision makers to take action and is wholly a function of the executive branch, no where in the constitution does it mention privacy the concept of expectation of privacy was made up from whole cloth it does not exist, if the government uses Intel to detain, prosecute and jail me a U.S. citizen using evidence gathered without a warrant then they have violated my civil rights, if they listen to my phone conversations, read my email or whatever and use that to find and target foreign agents/terrorists then it is not a violation of my civil rights, nothing was searched nor siezed and then there is that pesky unreasonable part is it really unreasonable for our security and Intel agencies to be gathering Intel on those talking to possible foreign agents terrorists? No I don't think so and the Supreme Court has agreed in every case.

If the communications are encrypted, they're pretty much SOL with or without a warrant, because modern cryptography would take too much time to break.

I strongly suspect the NSA can break most encryption out there, or doesn't have to due to backdoors. Maybe I'm wrong, but if things like PGP really stopped them I think you'd see it pretty quickly disappear under national security directives.

Plus, what is being mined is not simply the content of the communications but their fact.

The fact is probably far more telling than the content anyway, but even that can be hidden by using an anonymizing proxy or TOR.

michael, maybe I should ask, when you go to the judge to ask for a warrant, how do you answer the questions: who, when and where?

I'm not a lawyer, so I don't really know what the standards are for getting a warrant. However, I would imagine that the "who" is well enough known by the time the warrant is sought, the "when" seems kind of arbitrary, and there "where" would either be the end systems (phone, PC, iPod, etc) or somewhere in the line of transmission at the TelCo, ISP, etc.

Plus, what is being mined is not simply the content of the communications but their fact.

I think the problem with the wiretapping issue is that we haven't figured out a good way to monitor for the new technology and stay at least with it.

Most internet communications are still unencrypted, and most go through a relatively small number of centralized hubs. The security agencies shouldn't have any trouble keeping up with that.

If the communications are encrypted, they're pretty much SOL with or without a warrant, because modern cryptography would take too much time to break.

The FBI has claimed that the leads given them by the NSA were all pretty much garbage. There haven't been any serious terrorist rings busted using this kind of info. Anyone have anything to actually support the program?

Weighing a grotesque intrusion versus a serious security capacity is one thing, but a grotesque intrusion versus GIGO? That should be a no-brainer.

Franklin, I'm not sure one can get a warrant for the activity described by Russell Newquist.

Nor should one be able to. It is the data equivalent of rifling through the houses of everyone in harlem in order to catch a criminal. Excessive and a violation of the 4th.

Allowing that kind of ubiquitous monitoring by the government is pretty atrocious really.

Franklin, I'm not sure one can get a warrant for the activity described by Russell Newquist. For example, "where" is the location to be searched?

The network hubs would be the physical locations, but I thought you could get a warrant to eavesdrop on a person, not just a property.

I am an expert in the software engineering field

I've never heard somebody make this claim, and have it turn out to actually be true.

My own highly-informed, but not expert level, take is that they are using some kind of computer learning algorithm to determine, on the fly, what communications warrant recording, and which are innocuous. Given the variety of data that is being inspected, any such algorithm would naturally generate many false positives, and that the data from those catches are being misused.

As for misconduct, such a system can easily be "taught" to flag and record any number of patterns/topics/discrepencies. If there is no oversight on the legality of what is being taught, but acceptance that anything caught is caught legally, then you have a problem.

I think oversight makes sense, but I also think it makes sense to give some leeway to those doing the monitoring to monitor whatever they can where there is suspicion.

Suspicion - exactly! Reasonable suspicion leads to getting court-ordered warrants, which are a good way to get the oversight you desire.