from Gellman’s scoop (or authorized leaks):

The White House, the NSA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the record for this article. A senior intelligence official agreed to answer questions if not identified.

“We have rich oversight across three branches of government. I’ve got an [inspector general] here, a fairly robust legal staff here . . . and there’s the Justice Department’s national security division,” the official said. “For those things done under court jurisdiction, the courts are intrusive in my business, appropriately so, and there are two congressional committees. It’s a belts-and-suspenders-and-Velcro approach, and inside there’s rich auditing.”

But privacy advocates, such as Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), said the intelligence committee on which he serves needs “straight answers” to do vigorous oversight.

He added: “The typical person says, ‘If I am law-abiding and the government is out there collecting lots of information about me — who I call, when I call, where I call from’ . . . I think the typical person is going to say, ‘That sure sounds like it could have some effect on my privacy.’ ”

Two of the four collection programs, one each for telephony and the Internet, process trillions of “metadata” records for storage and analysis in systems called MAINWAY and MARINA, respectively. Metadata includes highly revealing information about the times, places, devices and participants in electronic communication, but not its contents. The bulk collection of telephone call records from Verizon Business Services, disclosed this month by the British newspaper the Guardian, is one source of raw intelligence for MAINWAY.

The other two types of collection, which operate on a much smaller scale, are aimed at content. One of them intercepts telephone calls and routes the spoken words to a system called ­NUCLEON.

For Internet content, the most important source collection is the PRISM project reported on June 6 by The Washington Post and the Guardian. It draws from data held by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other Silicon Valley giants, collectively the richest depositories of personal information in history.

from the Nakashima article, omitting the most blatant NSA propaganda:

“Only a very small fraction of the [information] acquired under the program is ever reviewed,” the statement said, noting that the government may not query the database for a particular phone number unless it has “reasonable suspicion” that the number is related to a specific foreign terrorist group.

Nonetheless, the amassing of the database — code-named MAINWAY — from the records of so many Americans who have no conceivable tie to terrorism has stirred deep concerns from a number of lawmakers as well as civil liberties advocates. They were not mollified by the release of the number.

“Under the standards of Section 215, they should not be able to have that large database of phone records in the first place,” said Sharon Bradford Franklin, senior counsel of the Constitution Project, a civil liberties organization. “The fact that they’re applying self-imposed restrictions — to have reasonable suspicion to search — doesn’t cure the problem of the over-collection.”

********

The statement repeated officials’ assertions that the NSA surveillance programs have contributed to the disruption of dozens of terrorist plots in the United States and more than 20 countries. But some lawmakers said they have seen no evidence that the phone records program has contributed to disrupting so many plots.

“When the intelligence community asks for a program that touches on the privacy rights of a significant number of Americans, they have an obligation to lay out how it provides unique value in terms of American security,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in an interview Friday. “I don’t think that’s being done.”

Scoop from Ellen Nakashima at WaPo around 9:15 pm eastern.

Hot scoop from Barton Gellman at WaPo just before 9 pm eastern.

On May 28, 1787, one of the delegates did propose a rule “against licentious publications of their proceedings” (Mr. Butler), but that was referred to the rules committee. The next day, however, it does appear that a “rule” was “added” that could be interpreted as requiring secrecy:

That nothing spoken in the House be printed, or otherwise published or communicated without leave.

I studied the Federalist Papers for a year in college and never knew that parts of the constitutional convention may have been secret.

Mine @74 refers only to the debate over ratification of the Constitution. The debates over ratification of the Constitution were certainly nearly entirely public. The Federalist Papers — nominally only related to the debate in New York — became best sellers in all the colonies.

The convention to draft the Constitution, on the other hand, may have met in secret from time to time, as DSWright’s last link in the main post suggests (Yates’s notes).

However, the same Yale Law Library which is the source of Yates’s “Notes of the Secret Debates” also hosts online copies of Madison’s “Notes on the Debates in the Federal Convention.”

Madison’s notes for the first day do not indicate that the proceedings of the convention were to held in secret.

That these are Madison’s “Notes on the Debates” and not notes on the “Secret Debates” should be apparent from the table of contents for that source.

Yes.

They kept their debates over the Declaration of Independence secret because they were at war with Britain. The debates over the Constitution may have been held in closed session from time to time but the proceedings were published on a contemporaneous basis. That’s what the “Federalist Papers” is all about — they were public debates. A reviewer on Amazon explains their provenance fairly clearly, although I have no idea who the reviewer is:

Due to concerns about the New York State legislators ratifying the The U.S. Constitution, these papers were journal pieces written to New York journals and newspapers to convince both the residents and state legislators to ratify The U.S. Constitution. One should note there were other published articles supporting ratification of The U.S. Constitution and other articles can be read in a text titled FRIENDS OF THE CONSTITUTION.

The DC Library even posted the entire text of Federalist No. 1, from which these grafs are excerpted [bold italics added]:

The Federalist No. 1: Hamilton October 27, 1787 To the People of the State of New York. After an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting Federal Government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America.

********

Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter, may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument and consequence of the offices they hold under the State-establishments-and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandise themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies, than from its union under one government.

********

An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized, as the off-spring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty. An overscrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretence and artifice; the bait for popularity at the expence of public good. It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of violent love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is too apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten, that the vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people, than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.

********

On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten, that the vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people, than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us, that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism, than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics the greatest number have begun their career, by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing Demagogues and ending Tyrants. In the course of the preceeding observations I have had an eye, my Fellow Citizens, to putting you upon your guard against all attempts, from whatever quarter, to influence your decision in a matter of the utmost moment to your welfare by any impressions other than those which may result from the evidence of truth. You will, no doubt, at the same time, have collected from the general scope of them that they proceed from a source not unfriendly to the new Constitution. Yes, my Countrymen, I own to you, that, after having given it an attentive consideration, I am clearly of opinion, it is your interest to adopt it. I am convinced, that this is the safest course for your liberty, your dignity, and your happiness.

********

It is facism. Also totalitarianism. Which is why Europeans instantly recognize it as an existential threat. Which is why Europeans are going to crush nominally “American” corporations and their brand names (Google, Gmail, Apple, iPhone, iPad, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Skype, YouTube) for aiding and abetting this facism. We are seeing reactions as of day nine of this backlash (first leaks to UK Guardian and WaPo were Thursday, June 5, IIRC). It is only beginning, not peaking, not even coming to direct confrontation yet.

Wait and see what happens to Obama when he tries to stand in front of the Brandenburg Gate next week and claim to be a hero of freedom and liberty. Fuckhead. They are going to plaster him with garbage. Remember Nixon’s limo being stoned (egged?) in South America? Like that ….

In Glenn’s article for the UK Guardian weekend print edition, he mentioned criticism by the EU justice commissioner of NSA’s mass surveillance, based on this June 11 item in the NY Times, but today’s UK Guardian (June 14) quotes the same EU justice commissioner as essentially trying to placate public outrage.

Viviane Reding, the EU commissioner for justice, said she was satisfied that US collection of metadata via the Verizon mobile phone network was “mainly an American question”.

The much bigger issues, raised by Edward Snowden’s leaks to the Guardian, concerned the NSA hoovering up data from social media and internet servers across Europe in flagrant breach of EU data protection regulations.

Reding said the US and the EU had agreed to set up a working group of security experts to grapple with the implications for the European public.

“Considering Prism, the US answers to the questions I have raised were the following: it is about foreign intelligence threats. Prism is targeted at non-US citizens under investigation on suspicion of terrorism and cybercrimes. So it is not about bulk data mining, but specific individuals or targeted groups. It is on the basis of a court order, of an American court, and of congressional oversight,” said Reding.

She emphasised that although national security considerations were vital, the rights of citizens were “non-negotiable” and also dwelt on the point of the availability of legal redress. Under EU laws, anyone living in Europe, including Americans, can resort to the courts on the grounds that their data privacy rights have been violated. Europeans living in the US cannot go to the US courts in parallel cases.

“I have been asking since a long time already and I continue to ask for full, equal treatment of EU and US citizens. Not more, not less,” said Reding.

While Reuters’s hed cites multiple “Germans” the article only quotes one likening the NSA to the Stasi:

Markus Ferber, a member of Merkel’s Bavarian sister party who sits in the European Parliament, went further, accusing Washington of using “American-style Stasi methods”.

“I thought this era had ended when the DDR fell,” he said, using the German initials for the failed German Democratic Republic.

Opposition parties have jumped on the issue, keen to put a dampener on the Merkel-Obama talks and prevent them from boosting the chancellor as she gears up for a September parliamentary election in which she is seeking a third term.

“This looks to me like it could become one of the biggest data privacy scandals ever,” Greens leader Renate Kuenast told Reuters.

With a tip of the hat to Glenn, here is a link from Reuters. Hed:

Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

A longer excerpt from today’s trip advisor report from UK Guardian on the NSA’s giant data warehouse in the Utah desert.

Link to the Bamford article in Wired (March 2012) cited at the end is here.

Outside experts disagreed on the centre’s potential. Some said it will just store data. Others envisaged a capacity to not just store but analyse and break codes, enabling technicians here to potentially snoop on the entire population for decades to come.

William Binney, a mathematician who worked at the NSA for almost 40 years and helped automate its worldwide eavesdropping, said Utah’s computers could store data at the rate of 20 terabytes – the equivalent of the Library of Congress – per minute. “Technically it’s not that complicated. You just need to work out an indexing scheme to order it.”

Binney, who left the agency in 2001 and blew the whistle on its domestic spying, said the centre could absorb and store data for “hundreds of years” and allow agencies such as the FBI to retroactively use the information.

He said the centre will likely have spare capacity for “brute force attacks” – using speed and data hoards to detect patterns and break encrypted messages in the so-called deep web where governments, corporations and other organisations keep secrets. There would be no distinction between domestic and foreign targets. “It makes no difference anymore to them.”

James Bamford, author of The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America, said the public had yet to grasp the significance of Utah’s data-mining. “It’s basically a hard-drive. It’s also a cloud, a warehouse. It’ll be storing not just text and audio but pictures and video. There’s a lackadaisical attitude to this. People pay no attention until it’s too late.” Bamford wrote a cover story about the centre for Wired last year.

We can still shut this terrifying thing down before it is fully activated:

Welcome to the Utah Data Center, a new home for the NSA’s exponentially expanding information trove. The $1.7bn facility, two years in the making, will soon host supercomputers to store gargantuan quantities of data from emails, phone calls, Google searches and other sources. Sited on an unused swath of the national guard base, by September it will employ around 200 technicians, span 1m sq ft and use 65 megawatts of power.

Good Golly Molly! I am still wordless ….

Jeebus! WTF?

Holy Shit!

and, from the often very funny Alexandra Petri at WaPo:

Not to mention the description of “a parallel program, code-named BLARNEY, that gathers up ‘metadata’ — technical information about communications traffic and network devices — as it streams past choke points along the backbone of the Internet. BLARNEY’s top-secret program summary, set down in the slides alongside a cartoon insignia of a shamrock and a leprechaun hat, describes it as ‘an ongoing collection program that leverages IC [intelligence community] and commercial partnerships to gain access and exploit foreign intelligence obtained from global networks.’” There’s something about the combination of this jargon with a dopey cartoon insignia of a shamrock that is especially chilling. It’s the banality of eavesdropping.

For some reason, she links to a site called “MassLive” as her source for her quote about Blarney. (Slow to load.)

Would love to know more about that fnf dot org, but Google is clearly not worth saving. The ISPs and the phone companies have become our enemy. Gmail is a liability. Zuckerberg is a greedy weasel. Facebook has never appealed to me, and we discovered recently that its lobbying and political ad funding campaigns are just as craven as Hill & Knowlton or Burston Marsteller or Quinn Gillespie.

It’s heartbreaking to see YouTube get sucked into this shitstorm. I’m getting anxious that PayPal may be subverting our privacy, too.

But even if all our favorite app providers were actively fighting the NSA, all the NSA needs is access to the backbone, which it has had for decades. Remember, the slides on BoundlessInformant revealed that NSA can “Use Big Data technology to query SIGINT collection in the cloud.” And, “raw data, analytics, and back-end database are all conducted in the cloud (HDFS, MapReduce, Cloudbase).” And “BoundlessInformant is hosted entirely on corporate services ….”