On the same day that
President Barack Obama spoke to the press about possible surveillance reforms—and released a related
white paper on the subject—the National Security Agency came out with its own rare, publicly-released,
seven-page document (PDF), essentially justifying its own practices.According to figures published by a major tech provider, the Internet carries 1,826 Petabytes of information per day. In its foreign intelligence mission, NSA touches about 1.6% of that. However, of the 1.6% of the data, only 0.025% is actually selected for review. The net effect is that NSA analysts look at 0.00004% of the world’s traffic in conducting their mission—that’s less than one part in a million. Put another way, if a standard basketball court represented the global collection would be represented by an area smaller than a dime on that basketball court.The document begins by referencing the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, DC, and notes that the NSA “did not have the tools or the database to search to identify [terorrist] connections and share them with the FBI.” The NSA then argues: “We do not need to sacrifice civil liberties for the sake of national security; both are integral to who we are as Americans. NSA can and will continue to conduct its operations in a manner that respects both.”
