NSA's data collection - the POTUS won't actually stop the data collection

ATCclears · Jan 17, 2014

From CNN:
In a speech at the Justice Department today, President Obama will call for an end to the National Security Agency's controversial bulk phone record collection program as it currently exists, a senior administration official told CNN Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta.

According to the official, the president will recommend that the collection of Americans' phone records remain at the NSA temporarily as he seeks input from Congress and the U.S. intelligence community on where to store the data permanently.

The president will also take steps to modify the program so that a "judicial finding is required" before the NSA queries the database.

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Notice that the President won't actually stop the core data collection.

Peter

The Heretic · Jan 17, 2014

This doesn't make sense:

1) As you mentioned, it won't stop it, just move where the data is "stored".

2) They don't store the data now - they run it through filters and toss out any data they are not interested in, which is about 99.9% of it. After 36 to 48 hours the uninteresting data is deleted.

This doesn't make you safer from the snooping, because it doesn't take much for them to be interested in you. If you are 2 to 3 "steps" away from someone on their list, then you will probably also be on their list and get roped into surveillance. If you are in some group they deem subversive, then you may wind up on their list. Most people aren't, but once you are then the software will pick up on your data.

In short, at best this is just BS, at worst it means they may "store" the data even longer - although I doubt it; they are furiously building data centers for the processing of the data as we speak. Actually moving the data somewhere else (which I doubt they intend to do) would just make the program cost more and accomplish nothing with regards to privacy or to slow down the increasing government surveillance.