New U.S. Spychief wants access to all U.S. Internet Traffic

[Straha]

Spychief Mike McConnell is drafting a plan to protect America’s cyberspace that will raise privacy issues and make the current debate over surveillance law look like “a walk in the park,” McConnell tells The New Yorker in the issue set to hit newsstands Monday. “This is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.”

At issue, McConnell acknowledges, is that in order to accomplish his plan, the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse. Congressional aides tell The Journal that they, too, are also anticipating a fight over civil liberties that will rival the battles over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Part of the lawmakers’ ire, they have said, is the paltry information the administration has provided. The cyberspace security initiative was first reported in September by The Baltimore Sun, and some congressional aides say that lawmakers have still learned more from the media than they did from the few Top Secret briefings they have received hours before the administration requested money in November to jump start the program.

In a series of interviews that began in July, McConnell also weighs in on the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In the past six years, McConnell says, U.S. intelligence agencies have stopped “many, many” terrorist attacks. But his deputy David Shedd says that in the search for America’s most-wanted terrorist, “the trail is cold.” McConnell says that while bin Laden is believed to be in the tribal region of Pakistan, the U.S. will not invade the country to chase him down. You cannot indiscriminately attack a sovereign nation,” he says, adding, though, that if the U.S. can pinpoint his location, “we’ll bring it to closure.”

On interrogation policy, McConnell said he reviewed the secret U.S. policy on interrogation and evaluated it with the advice of the doctors who oversee the process. “Our policies are not torture,” he said, defining torture as “excruciatingly painful to the point of forcing someone to say something because of the pain.”

Asked specifically about waterboarding, McConnell appears to suggest waterboarding would be torture, but he then backtracks.

“If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can’t imagine how painful!” McConnell says. “Whether it’s torture by anybody else’s definition, for me it would be torture.” Asked later about that comment, McConnell says he did not mean to suggest he personally condemned it. “You can do waterboarding lots of different ways,” he says. “I assume you can get to the point that a person is actually drowning.” Yet McConnell declined to be more specific, because “if it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it.”

On McConnell’s apparent equivocation on waterboarding, CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said in a statement today that, McConnell’s comments amount to “a very strong endorsement of the value of CIA’s detention and interrogation program,” noting that McConnell also said the interrogation program has saved “tons” of lives. Mansfield added that the procedures have been deemed lawful by the Department of Justice, approved by the National Security Council, and shared with congressional intelligence committees.

McConnell, a South Carolina native, also reveals that he fancies himself a fabulous dancer.

Emphasis mine.

I'm a bit annoyed they didn't seem to follow up on some major questions here. Namely: Does he tango or just waltz? Or maybe he's more of a disco kind of guy... but then again that's probably some form of torture..

[FSTargetDrone]

the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse.

Excuse my supreme ignorance on technical matters, but is this even remotely feasible?

[General Zod]

the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse.

Excuse my supreme ignorance on technical matters, but is this even remotely feasible?

It isn't.

[Straha]

the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse.

Excuse my supreme ignorance on technical matters, but is this even remotely feasible?

It isn't.

Sure it is. You just reroute the series of tubes and change it so that everything goes through Washington! That should work, right?

[Nephtys]

The internet is pretty big, right? I gotta write up my proposal for congress in a few hours. Let's see, we'll need funding for... a hundred? No wait, two hundred interns working to read all the net pages and my spaces and hot mails... right?

[K. A. Pital]

“If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can’t imagine how painful!” McConnell says.

I hope he gets the chance to drown some time later in his life. That'd be a twist of fate and irony to remember. Dickhead.

[brianeyci]

The internet is pretty big, right? I gotta write up my proposal for congress in a few hours. Let's see, we'll need funding for... a hundred? No wait, two hundred interns working to read all the net pages and my spaces and hot mails... right?

Trained monkies. Tens of thousands of trained monkies.

Also more sucking Bill Gates cock. He can upgrade the computer complex at Fort Knox which already screens the entire US telephone service for keywords like jihad, President, assassination and Borat.

[Ritterin Sophia]

The internet is pretty big, right? I gotta write up my proposal for congress in a few hours. Let's see, we'll need funding for... a hundred? No wait, two hundred interns working to read all the net pages and my spaces and hot mails... right?

Trained monkies. Tens of thousands of trained monkies.

Someone remind me, what's the difference between an intern and a trained monkey? Doesn't paying the monkey's cost more?

[Straha]

The internet is pretty big, right? I gotta write up my proposal for congress in a few hours. Let's see, we'll need funding for... a hundred? No wait, two hundred interns working to read all the net pages and my spaces and hot mails... right?

Trained monkies. Tens of thousands of trained monkies.

Someone remind me, what's the difference between an intern and a trained monkey? Doesn't paying the monkey's cost more?

Not if you pay them in interns it doesn't...

[Sriad]

Excuse my supreme ignorance on technical matters, but is this even remotely feasible?

It isn't.

Sure it is. You just reroute the series of tubes and change it so that everything goes through Washington! That should work, right?

Of course it isn't remotely feasible for creepy intel types to analyze ALL internet data, but it's a disgusting violation of privacy rights for them to have the right to analyze ANY data they want freely.

[Xisiqomelir]

It's nice to want things.

[Admiral Valdemar]

So another head honcho in the US who thinks his desires can be manifested as practical solutions to contemporary problems. I wish I could read every terrorist's thoughts and fight crime, but life's a shit.

Totally technologically impossible and highly risky in the rights area of things to boot. I didn't see Jesus mentioned though, so no hat trick for him.

[General Zod]

Someone remind me, what's the difference between an intern and a trained monkey?

Head lice.

[Civil War Man]

Well, I hope the NSA likes furry porn, because if they go through with this, that's pretty much all they're going to be getting.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

I see this as the first major battle the Old American Establishment will wage against the entirety of the Internet. As noted in the 'Telling Bush Quote' thread, the Old Establishment seeks to create its own reality, and the only way to really do that is to have the information monopoly. However, you can't take a shit and wipe your ass back-to-front without someone essentially posting a 'DOING IT WRONG!' image macro at you. Just imagine what it must be like for Bobo the Wonder Chimp and other King Nothing dictators pining for 1984.

[Adrian Laguna]

Well, I hope the NSA likes furry porn, because if they go through with this, that's pretty much all they're going to be getting.

That's so true, probably lots of shemales too.

[bilateralrope]

Well, I hope the NSA likes furry porn, because if they go through with this, that's pretty much all they're going to be getting.

That's so true, probably lots of shemales too.

Well there is a lot of shemale furry art.

I wonder how long it will take before a someone writes a program designed to give false alarms to this monitoring system. Then they just send it, and its updates, out via one of the various botnets just to annoy the people running it.

[His Divine Shadow]

the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse.

This is the prime definition of abuse in my mind.

[B5B7]

Recipe to gain access to all the internet:
1. Obtain a Dalek
2. Try to persuade it to work for you
3. Learn that you are superior at dying