How the NSA collects everything you do on the internet

[Admiral Valdemar]

There's a good Adam Curtis blog post on this subject of spies going out of control.

[Eleas]

Also, the NSA will totally use the information they collect in a legal and responsible manner.

[Thanas]

How stupid can you be to think this is a good way to proceed about this? I mean, what were they thinking? "Let's give him a final warning that this is serious business"?

[K. A. Pital]

"Let's give him a final warning that this is serious business"?

But these structures tend to think exactly that way.

[Metahive]

What, you give people huge unchecked power and they'll immediately abuse it? I can't believe it, this is so unheard of in the history of mankind! If only the Führer knew! /gullible citizen

They behave like gangsters. What's next, they'll put a cut-off horsehead into someone'S bed and make people offers they can't refuse? Fuck the fucking security apparatus. The only security they're preserving right now is their own. Goddamned powertripping dipshits!

[Thanas]

"Let's give him a final warning that this is serious business"?

But these structures tend to think exactly that way.

Yeah but they should have learned by now that real journalists don't budge to this. I mean, they tried it with their own journalists and it backfired immensely (see Valerie Plame). "Gee, a few years have passed, let's try it again. Maybe this time it will be different".

Maybe they wanted his computer/handy/storage devices all along because they might have thought he carried a copy of what Snowden gave him? Still, rather stupid.

[K. A. Pital]

Thugs in general are pretty stupid. The article posted by Valdemar demonstrates exactly this: spies are not, on the average, a more intelligent breed of humans, some collection of uberminds. They're for the most part mediocre, gullible humans geared to tasks that feed mass paranoia inside their own organization.

[TheHammer]

So, in short, you concede that you got nothing to support your assumptions. Yet you trust the NSA because...you just trust them to be honest, upstanding, correct citizens. You must be the most gullible pig there is, TheSquealar.

I concede nothing THANASS. As I've said from the start, I want to see evidence of abuse and its outcome before drawing conclusions. You asked me why I thought it would be different than the scenarios you described, and I've told you why I think it will be that way, while acknowledging the possibility that it wont be different. My response to you on Page 3 of this thread said that as plainly as could be said.

No, screw your "due course", little piggy. Put up or concede that you got nothing in the way of evidence which supports your assertions that people have been punished for abusing the system.

No, due course is the only way we actually come to a conclusion based on facts. The person making assertions (based on your assumptions) regarding the NSA is you. My only assertion is that an audited system was far superior for uncovering abuse than the examples you cited which relied greatly on witness testimony and evidence analysis. I provided supporting evidence for that claim, one that I don't think you're challenging me on.

Oh yes, the same agency which lied and lied again will suddenly turn into a champion of civil rights and punish people. Righto. Pull the other one, little piggy.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think for one minute that the NSA will do so out of some sort of moral obligation. But I believe they will do so of their own self-interest. If there is unchecked abuse, then when it is revealed to the public (As it certainly will be), then they must know based on past experience that congress will call for resignations and tighter controls. Self preservation would be cause enough for them to come down hard on rougue users abusing the system, or in pushing the limits of their power too far.

No. There is no agency in the world that is so good that 99% of their requests for surveillance are approved (and if you claim there are, cite them) and the article even cites cases where the NSA went ahead and did surveillance without telling FISA anything, which speaks volumes about how serious the NSA itself is taking FISA.

You just cited that the NSA gets 99% of its requests approved, so there is at least one agency.

No, I don't believe that EVERY request for surveillance that passes through the NSA gets approved. Many of them are likely denied internally before they ever reach the FISA request stage. The ones that do have likely been vetted to the point where approval is a no-brainer.

This is not an executive summary.

See this:

Analysts are specifically warned that they "MUST NOT" provide the evidence on which they base their "reasonable articulable suspicion" that a target will produce valid foreign intelligence. They are also forbidden to disclose the "selectors," or search terms, they plan to use. In examples that draw on actual searches, the document shows how to strip out details and substitute generic descriptions.

A senior intelligence official said in an interview that this form provides only the "headline" and that the document should not be misread to suggest that the NSA is hiding anything from its outside auditors. Particulars are available on request, the official said, by supervisors at the Justice Department and the office of the Director of National Intelligence, and those offices often delve deeply into the details. The official acknowledged that the details are not included in reports to Congress or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

So contrary to your assertion the FISA court does not get to see any evidence at all nor is it available to them. This is a rubber stamp, nothing more.

Actually, if you read the instructions themselves (and not the writers interpretation) and the notes they read EXACTLY like how to create an executive summary. Further, some of the instructed limitations may be technical in nature. Did you note how they asked the users to format their information with the ///tar:? It looks to me like database tags. Near the bottom, the document displays how those tags will show up in a couple of different interfaces.

But I'm sure your emphasis is on the rather ambiguous final line that you bolded:
The official acknowledged that the details are not included in reports to Congress or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

I'd like to point out that this is not a quote, rather it is the writer's interpretation of what the "official" said. What does this mean exactly? What reports if he referring to? Did he mean an actual FISA request or something else? In short, that statement needed follow up questions along the lines of "OK, what information DOES FISA get when you submit a request?" or "what details do congress get on its reports?".

The bottom line is, this document only provides a portion of a much larger process. Unless you can see the whole process, it is impossible to draw informed conclusions. Hence we get your uninformed conclusions where you've substituted your assumptions where there is missing information.

[Maraxus]

Court: Ability to police U.S. spying program limited

By Carol D. Leonnig, Published: August 15

The leader of the secret court that is supposed to provide critical oversight of the government’s vast spying programs said that its ability to do so is limited and that it must trust the government to report when it improperly spies on Americans.

The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said the court lacks the tools to independently verify how often the government’s surveillance breaks the court’s rules that aim to protect Americans’ privacy. Without taking drastic steps, it also cannot check the veracity of the government’s assertions that the violations its staff members report are unintentional mistakes.

“The FISC is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided to the Court,” its chief, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, said in a written statement to The Washington Post. “The FISC does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance, and in that respect the FISC is in the same position as any other court when it comes to enforcing [government] compliance with its orders.”

Walton’s comments came in response to internal government records obtained by The Post showing that National Security Agency staff members in Washington overstepped their authority on spy programs thousands of times per year. The records also show that the number of violations has been on the rise.

The court’s description of its practical limitations contrasts with repeated assurances from the Obama administration and intelligence agency leaders that the court provides central checks and balances on the government’s broad spying efforts. They have said that Americans should feel comfortable that the secret intelligence court provides robust oversight of government surveillance and protects their privacy from rogue intrusions.

President Obama and other government leaders have emphasized the court’s oversight role in the wake of revelations this year that the government is vacuuming up “metadata” on Americans’ telephone and Internet communications.

“We also have federal judges that we’ve put in place who are not subject to political pressure,” Obama said at a news conference in June. “They’ve got lifetime tenure as federal judges, and they’re empowered to look over our shoulder at the executive branch to make sure that these programs aren’t being abused.”

Privacy advocates and others in government have voiced concerns about the ability of overseers to police secret programs of immense legal and technological complexity. Several members of the House and Senate intelligence committees told The Post last week that they face numerous obstacles and constraints in questioning spy agency officials about their work.

In 2009, for example, a Justice Department review uncovered a major operational glitch that had led to a series of significant violations of the court’s order and notified the court, according to records that were declassified July 31 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The government described the problem as one of “over-
collection” of metadata records for U.S. phone calls.

In September 2009, NSA Director Keith B. Alexander made a presentation to the FISA court about the agency’s effort to remedy the problem.

“FISA Court placed several restrictions on aspects of the business records collection program until the compliance processes were improved to its satisfaction,” the memo stated.

The public summaries of the violations do not say how long the problem went undetected and unreported to the court, or what information was improperly gathered by the agency’s automated collection systems.

“The problems generally involved the implementation of highly sophisticated technology in a complex and ever-changing communications environment which, in some instances, results in the automated tools operating in a manner that was not completely consistent with the specific terms of the Court’s orders,” according to unredacted portions of a December 2009 memo provided to the Senate and House intelligence committees.

Two people familiar with the 2009 flaw said that the agency was collecting more “fields” of information from the customer records of telephone companies than the court had approved. The NSA declined to answer questions about the event.

One senior intelligence official, who was authorized by the White House to speak on the condition of anonymity, described the 2009 incident as a “major event” that prompted the agency to dramatically increase its compliance staff.

“We uncovered some disconnects between us and our overseers, disconnects between what we had put in documentation, the way we had described things in documentation,” the official said.

Although the violation was unintentional, the official said, “it wasn’t always the easiest of discussions” with the court.

The agency paused, “got ourselves with our overseers back into fair territory,” and has since made “substantial improvement” in compliance, the official said.

Privacy advocates say they fear that some violations are never reported to the court.

In January 2008, the NSA appeared to have mistakenly collected data on numerous phone calls from the Washington area code 202, thinking they were foreign phone calls from Egypt, whose country code is 20. According to a 2013 “quality assurance” review of the incident, a communications switch misread the coding of the calls and presumed they were international. The NSA has broad authority that is not subject to the FISA court to collect and monitor foreign communications under certain circumstances.

The description of the 2008 problem suggests that the inadvertent collection of U.S. phone calls was not reported to the FISA court.

“However, the issue pertained to Metadata ONLY so there were no defects to report,” the review stated.

Under FISA rules, the government is required to immediately notify the court if it believes it has violated any of its orders on surveillance.

The government does not typically provide the court with case-specific detail about individual compliance cases, such as the names of people it later learned it was improperly searching in its massive phone or e-mail databases, according to the two people familiar with the court’s work.

In contrast to the dozens of staff available to Congress’s intelligence and judiciary committees, the FISA court has five lawyers to review compliance violation reports.

A staff lawyer can elevate a concern about a significant compliance issue to a judge on the court, according to a letter Walton recently sent to the Senate describing the court’s role.

The court can always demand and obtain more details about cases, but it is unclear how often that occurs. In the past, while grappling with rules for implementing the surveillance programs, judges on the court have requested a visit to NSA headquarters to inspect the operations, the officials said.

Last week, the president said that he recognizes that some Americans may lack trust in the oversight process — in which the secret court approves the rules for collecting Americans’ communications — and that he will work with Congress on reforms, which could include a privacy advocate to the court.

“In other words, it’s not enough for me as president to have confidence in these programs,” Obama said in his news conference. “The American people need to have confidence in them, as well.”


Barton Gellman, Peter Wallsten and Alice Crites contributed to this report.

© The Washington Post Company

Link

[salm]

Has anyone here been to demonstrations? It seems that most of the demonstrations are rather small and the population doesn´t seem to care a lot about them being spied on.

[Thanas]

That is my experience as well.

[Metahive]

O look, TheHammelSquealer is back. He gets browny points for that. And then they are all taken away again because it turns out he's just repeating himself. I see a long and successful career in professional politics ahead for you, Hammelsquealer!

[Thanas]

No, due course is the only way we actually come to a conclusion based on facts. The person making assertions (based on your assumptions) regarding the NSA is you. My only assertion is that an audited system was far superior for uncovering abuse than the examples you cited which relied greatly on witness testimony and evidence analysis. I provided supporting evidence for that claim, one that I don't think you're challenging me on.

Lolwhut? There is no audit in place that leads to punishment for abuse. If there is, put up evidence now.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think for one minute that the NSA will do so out of some sort of moral obligation. But I believe they will do so of their own self-interest.

Bullshit. There is no pressure whatsoever on them to clean up their act. Instead Obama acts as a shield to them.

If there is unchecked abuse, then when it is revealed to the public (As it certainly will be), then they must know based on past experience that congress will call for resignations and tighter controls. Self preservation would be cause enough for them to come down hard on rougue users abusing the system, or in pushing the limits of their power too far.

Oh, you mean, like the same heavy punishments the torturers and war criminals received? Aka "no punishment at all".

You just cited that the NSA gets 99% of its requests approved, so there is at least one agency.

Obviously I should add things that are clear to any adult when talking to incompetent children. So "there is no agency that gets 99% of its requests approved without a rubberstamp".

No, I don't believe that EVERY request for surveillance that passes through the NSA gets approved. Many of them are likely denied internally before they ever reach the FISA request stage. The ones that do have likely been vetted to the point where approval is a no-brainer.

You mean, the ones "thoroughly vetted" like the case of 300 americans being observed because the "thorough vetting" thought Baghdad and Washington had the same zipcode? Or the "thoroughly vetted" other 2000 cases of mistakes and abuse?

Actually, if you read the instructions themselves (and not the writers interpretation) and the notes they read EXACTLY like how to create an executive summary. Further, some of the instructed limitations may be technical in nature. Did you note how they asked the users to format their information with the ///tar:? It looks to me like database tags. Near the bottom, the document displays how those tags will show up in a couple of different interfaces.

But I'm sure your emphasis is on the rather ambiguous final line that you bolded:
The official acknowledged that the details are not included in reports to Congress or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

I'd like to point out that this is not a quote, rather it is the writer's interpretation of what the "official" said. What does this mean exactly? What reports if he referring to? Did he mean an actual FISA request or something else? In short, that statement needed follow up questions along the lines of "OK, what information DOES FISA get when you submit a request?" or "what details do congress get on its reports?".

The bottom line is, this document only provides a portion of a much larger process. Unless you can see the whole process, it is impossible to draw informed conclusions. Hence we get your uninformed conclusions where you've substituted your assumptions where there is missing information.

You are obfuscating and stonewalling again. Provide evidence that FISA has access to all the evidence or STFU.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I see Groklaw has shutdown over fears about their sources/staff being compromised.

[Thanas]

Groklaw?

[TheHammer]

No, due course is the only way we actually come to a conclusion based on facts. The person making assertions (based on your assumptions) regarding the NSA is you. My only assertion is that an audited system was far superior for uncovering abuse than the examples you cited which relied greatly on witness testimony and evidence analysis. I provided supporting evidence for that claim, one that I don't think you're challenging me on.

Lolwhut? There is no audit in place that leads to punishment for abuse. If there is, put up evidence now.

I can't make this any clearer: An audited electronic system is vastly superior in determining who did what, when, and to whom when compared to a situation relying on Human testimony and evidence analysis. That's been my only solid contention to this point. You would agree to that much at least yes?

I believe that punishments are likely because of the compelling evidence gained from an audit would be extremely difficult to refute. To be clear, we are talking about actual abuse not inadvertent acts or errors.

As for actual punishments handed down because of that audited system, we have no evidence either way at this point so your request for evidence is premature. I can no more prove that they were punished than you can prove that they were not. Further, as I've made no claim that people have been punished because of the audits, your request for evidence is also unfounded.

Again, once more information comes out as to what was done for particular violations (and again, history has shown that it likely will come out), we can revisit that aspect of the discussion. In the mean time your repeated demand that I "come up with evidence" that isn't available is ridiculous.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think for one minute that the NSA will do so out of some sort of moral obligation. But I believe they will do so of their own self-interest.

Bullshit. There is no pressure whatsoever on them to clean up their act. Instead Obama acts as a shield to them.

I completely disagree. There has been pressure put on them to be more transparent, and proposals for additional outside monitoring including a "privacy advocate" being added to the process. All of this without any sort of major privacy breach being yet reported. If there were a major privacy breach, one would expect fall out that would dwarf the recent IRS scandal.

If there is unchecked abuse, then when it is revealed to the public (As it certainly will be), then they must know based on past experience that congress will call for resignations and tighter controls. Self preservation would be cause enough for them to come down hard on rougue users abusing the system, or in pushing the limits of their power too far.

Oh, you mean, like the same heavy punishments the torturers and war criminals received? Aka "no punishment at all".

This statement was proven bullshit far earlier in this thread. When examples of wrong doing, including who did the wrong doing, are clear then there are punishments handed out. You may not feel the severity fit the crime, but your statement that there was "no punishment at all" is pure hyperbole.

The problem with prosecuting many of the incidents you cited is, as I have been saying from the start, they rely heavily on testimony of individuals and analysis of physical evidence. It is a lot easier to hide crimes if you are the only witness to them.

You just cited that the NSA gets 99% of its requests approved, so there is at least one agency.

Obviously I should add things that are clear to any adult when talking to incompetent children. So "there is no agency that gets 99% of its requests approved without a rubberstamp".

And it should have been clear that I was making a wise-ass comment to your ridiculous request. In order to debate the particulars of requests approved by the FISA court, one would need examples of the requests that were approved and those that were denied. I do not know of any resource to go to for that information.

The fact that some requests are denied, and some techniques ruled illegal, is evidence enough to disprove that they are a "rubber stamp".

No, I don't believe that EVERY request for surveillance that passes through the NSA gets approved. Many of them are likely denied internally before they ever reach the FISA request stage. The ones that do have likely been vetted to the point where approval is a no-brainer.

You mean, the ones "thoroughly vetted" like the case of 300 americans being observed because the "thorough vetting" thought Baghdad and Washington had the same zipcode? Or the "thoroughly vetted" other 2000 cases of mistakes and abuse?

I don't know which incident you are referring to here. A zipcode is strictly for postal service (snail mail) which would have fuck all to do with any sort of electronic transmissions.

I presume you mean the incident where there was a computer glitch that made the system link calls from the 202 area code, mistaking them as calls to Egypt with its 20 country code. That's not a mistake of the vetting process, it was a programming and technical error. As the report noted in that instance: “the issue pertained to Metadata ONLY so there were no defects to report”.

Actually, if you read the instructions themselves (and not the writers interpretation) and the notes they read EXACTLY like how to create an executive summary. Further, some of the instructed limitations may be technical in nature. Did you note how they asked the users to format their information with the ///tar:? It looks to me like database tags. Near the bottom, the document displays how those tags will show up in a couple of different interfaces.

But I'm sure your emphasis is on the rather ambiguous final line that you bolded:
The official acknowledged that the details are not included in reports to Congress or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

I'd like to point out that this is not a quote, rather it is the writer's interpretation of what the "official" said. What does this mean exactly? What reports if he referring to? Did he mean an actual FISA request or something else? In short, that statement needed follow up questions along the lines of "OK, what information DOES FISA get when you submit a request?" or "what details do congress get on its reports?".

The bottom line is, this document only provides a portion of a much larger process. Unless you can see the whole process, it is impossible to draw informed conclusions. Hence we get your uninformed conclusions where you've substituted your assumptions where there is missing information.

You are obfuscating and stonewalling again. Provide evidence that FISA has access to all the evidence or STFU.

I don't know if the court see's ALL the evidence, or if it only sees important details. And neither do you. You have again made a ridiculous demand that I provide proof for a contention that I have not made. I believe I've been clear that we don't know what the FISA court sees or does not see as pertains to the evidence in requests for approval. We would need at least one example of such, and access to a full file, to make an informed statement on those lines.

Read the article Maraxus posted from the Washington Post in this thread (presumably you have skimmed it, but apparently didn't absorb what it was saying). It details the relationship between the FISA court and the NSA, and the courts ability to request details about specific cases and restrict the use of search techniques. It also describes an evolving process seeking to strike a balance between privacy, and allowing the NSA to do its job. It's also clear that this process is ongoing. I don't think I'd have any thing ground breaking to add to that.

[Gaidin]

I'm curious, as someone not educated in law. The leaked audit aside for the moment, why would the FISC ever get all the evidence anyway? They're not where the trial goes down. They're where you ask for a wiretap. I thought you only ever needed one side of probable cause no matter what court you were in for a wiretap? The FISC just let the ruling and argument remain classified?

[Metahive]

Isn't anyone else annoyed that HammelSquealer is making it very easy for himself by just putting brick after brick on his Berlin Wall of Ignorance? And it's the same brick every time too! "We don't have evidence for wrongdoing!", "They'll never abuse their power!", "Everything is fine! x infinity.

[Siege]

Groklaw?

The legal analysis site.

[K. A. Pital]

I think that this thread, one by one with the quoted publications of new evidence, shows deep failures in the system again and again leaves less and less place for the ignorant defence - "they won't abuse their power". TheHammer's statements are clearly becoming more and more self-defeating. When more facts crop up, he'll just say he never denied that abuses can happen. He just thought they won't and they'll be punished appropriately.

[Metahive]

When more facts crop up, he'll just say he never denied that abuses can happen. He just thought they won't and they'll be punished appropriately.

You forget, all those past occurrences that show the government is unable/unwilling to adequately punish wrongdoers in their employ? They're "irrelevant" and "obvious Red Herrings aimed at derailing the thread and obfuscating the topic" according to HammelSquealer Wyatcheslavowitch Molotov here.

[TheHammer]

I think that this thread, one by one with the quoted publications of new evidence, shows deep failures in the system again and again leaves less and less place for the ignorant defence - "they won't abuse their power". TheHammer's statements are clearly becoming more and more self-defeating. When more facts crop up, he'll just say he never denied that abuses can happen. He just thought they won't and they'll be punished appropriately.

I never said "they won't abuse power", and saying so is a mischaracterization of my position. Abuses of power will occur whenever power is present. What I've said is that when abuse does occur, it will be eaiser to identify under an audited system, and that I'd like to see how those instances are addressed by those who are supposed to be overseeing the project before freaking out over it. If you think I'm "moving the goal posts", by all means quote one of my earlier posts where I've said anything otherwise. Don't troll-paraphrase me like Methheadhive has repeatedly done (and is being ignored for), but quote me.

I work in IT, so maybe I have a higher tolerance for the trials and evolutions as these systems are developed. If I cut them more slack in dealing with technical glitches and human error, its because I have experience with these things from my many years in the field. Systems complex and simple have growing pains, but they are by no means static. There are plenty of instances of legitimate human error and unintended consequences that will come up from time to time. That doesn't mean you chuck the whole system because of it. You fix broken systems, retrain personal when neccessary, and remove those individuals incapable of being retrained.

That should not be misconstrued that I would be approving, tolerant of, or defending any instances of someone actually abusing their power. Those instances should be punished very harshly depending on the severity of the actual breach. Nor would I defend the continued use of processes once they have been found to be broken (and unfixed) from a technical standpoint, or outside the law.

What I'm seeing from the various articles is that there have been issues but that they have also made strides to correct those issues by increasing oversight, reforming processes, and fixing technical glitches. That's what I would expect and hope to see. It is by no means perfect, (and no one is saying it is) but I also see nothing particularly aggregious in what has been leaked so far. If evidence does come out where they are consistenly failing to improve issues, then I will gladly join the growing chorus calling for removal of these tools.

[NettiWelho]

"EFF Victory Results in Release of Secret Court Opinion Finding NSA Surveillance Unconstitutional "
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/e ... rveillance
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/us/20 ... ional.html
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/08/21/ ... titutional

Update: In response to EFF's FOIA lawsuit, the government has released the 2011 FISA court opinion ruling some NSA surveillance unconstitutional.

For over a year, EFF has been fighting the government in federal court to force the public release of an 86-page opinion of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). Issued in October 2011, the secret court's opinion found that surveillance conducted by the NSA under the FISA Amendments Act was unconstitutional and violated "the spirit of" federal law.

Today, EFF can declare victory: a federal court ordered the government to release records in our litigation, the government has indicated it intends to release the opinion today, and ODNI has called a 3:00 ET press conference to discuss "issues" with FISA Amendments Act surveillance, which we assume will include a discussion of the opinion.

It remains to be seen how much of the opinion the government will actually make available to the public. President Obama has repeatedly said he welcomes a debate on the NSA's surveillance: disclosing this opinion—and releasing enough of it so that citizens and advocates can intelligently debate the constitutional violation that occurred—is a critical step in ensuring that an informed debate takes place.

Here are examples of documents previously released by the administration in response to our Freedom of Information Act request. Anything even resembling those "releases" would be utterly unacceptable today. But we've come a long way since then—it took filing a lawsuit; litigating (and winning) in the FISC itself; the unprecedented public release of information about NSA surveillance activities; and our continuing efforts to push the government in the district court for release of the opinion.

Release of the opinion today is just one step in advancing a public debate on the scope and legality of the NSA's domestic surveillance programs. EFF will keep fighting until the NSA's domestic surveillance program is reined in, federal surveillance laws are amended to prevent these kinds of abuse from happening in the future, and government officials are held accountable for their actions.

[PeZook]

So, TheHammer, you have been provided with examples of abuse, both potential and actual, court opinions on the constitutionality of their policies, examples of past conduct by the US government as a whole and the NSA in particular, yet you still repeat your claims that they have electronic auditing so there's no reason to fret? And when people address that point, you just endlessly repet it over and over and over and over and over again?

This is classic stonewalling. Stop it, and address people's arguments.

[Metahive]

I'm "troll-paraphrasing" you, PigStyBoy? Nope, you've been doing this dishonest handwaving from start to finish, Porkchop, and everyone but you can see it. If I'm distorting your arguments, why don't you fucker then come prove it? Show me how I'm paraphrasing you wrong, you shit-wallowing product of piss-pudding. Put your money where your government-ass kissing mouth is, I dare you.

Also, you still haven't dealt with either mine nor Edi's arguments about Abu-Ghuraib and Haditha and how they implicate the government as being purely self-serving.