<story><title>The NSA is turning the Internet into a total surveillance system</title><url>http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/11/nsa-internet-surveillance-email</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DanBC</author><text>They have huge amounts of data.  This is good, because now people can analyse it and see how effective the measures are.  Spending all that money must have some tangible, measurable, benefit, right?  So, show us.  Show us how many people have been caught as a result of all this monitoring.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think the results are going to be impressive.   See, for another example, the fingerprint collection at US airports.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Collect it all&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I wonder how many Americans know about the scheme to collect at airports the fingerprints of visitors to the US?&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s an article from 2008 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/03/25/us-security-fingerprints-idUSN2538685320080325&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reuters.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;2008&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;us-security-finger...&lt;/a&gt;), submitted to HN here (&lt;a href=&quot;https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6196375&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=6196375&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The U.S. government has been collecting digital fingerprints and photographs of nearly all non-citizens aged 14 and up entering the country since 2004, officials said, in a Homeland Security program called US-VISIT, at a cost of $1.7 billion.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; [...] On an average day, almost 14,400 international visitors undergo the fingerprinting process at Kennedy, officials said.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; More than 2,000 criminal and visa fraud cases have been detected by the screening process, introduced in response to security concerns following the attacks of September 11, 2001, U.S. officials said.&lt;p&gt;Roughly they&amp;#x27;ve scanned fingerprints for 36,792,000 visitors (who may be repeat visitors), and caught more than 2,000 people. (Between 2001&amp;#x2F;9&amp;#x2F;11 and 2008&amp;#x2F;9&amp;#x2F;11.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Udo</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re implying that all this spying would be OK if it allowed us to catch a lot of criminals. I don&amp;#x27;t think inefficiency is a good argument here, although for the moment it&amp;#x27;s a safe position to have. There are no benefits that make it worth living in a surveillance state, even if they perfect it.</text></comment>
<story><title>The NSA is turning the Internet into a total surveillance system</title><url>http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/11/nsa-internet-surveillance-email</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DanBC</author><text>They have huge amounts of data.  This is good, because now people can analyse it and see how effective the measures are.  Spending all that money must have some tangible, measurable, benefit, right?  So, show us.  Show us how many people have been caught as a result of all this monitoring.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think the results are going to be impressive.   See, for another example, the fingerprint collection at US airports.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Collect it all&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I wonder how many Americans know about the scheme to collect at airports the fingerprints of visitors to the US?&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s an article from 2008 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/03/25/us-security-fingerprints-idUSN2538685320080325&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reuters.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;2008&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;us-security-finger...&lt;/a&gt;), submitted to HN here (&lt;a href=&quot;https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6196375&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=6196375&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The U.S. government has been collecting digital fingerprints and photographs of nearly all non-citizens aged 14 and up entering the country since 2004, officials said, in a Homeland Security program called US-VISIT, at a cost of $1.7 billion.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; [...] On an average day, almost 14,400 international visitors undergo the fingerprinting process at Kennedy, officials said.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; More than 2,000 criminal and visa fraud cases have been detected by the screening process, introduced in response to security concerns following the attacks of September 11, 2001, U.S. officials said.&lt;p&gt;Roughly they&amp;#x27;ve scanned fingerprints for 36,792,000 visitors (who may be repeat visitors), and caught more than 2,000 people. (Between 2001&amp;#x2F;9&amp;#x2F;11 and 2008&amp;#x2F;9&amp;#x2F;11.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jacquesm</author><text>But did they catch those people because of the fingerprints or would they have caught them in some other way.&lt;p&gt;And was the stated reason for installing this program in the first place that they were going after criminal and visa fraud cases and if so is the damage that those people would have incurred post their capture greater than the cost of the system?&lt;p&gt;Preferably substantially greater. I no longer visit the US in part because I refuse to be treated like a suspected criminal simply because I&amp;#x27;m not an American. As a one man boycott it likely won&amp;#x27;t have much effect but I suspect I&amp;#x27;m not the only one doing this.&lt;p&gt;The TSA&amp;#x2F;US Customs combo is the worst possible way to welcome a new visitor to  your country.</text></comment>