Metadata
It's not like we are listening
PEARL HARBOR / SECURITY / FREEDOM
The Inspiration
I am unsure of all the ideas that converged in my mind to write about this topic. I wrote it previously but when I scheduled it, I thought that December 7th would be a good day to publish it. It has now been eighty years since the Sunday morning attack at Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, HI. As you will note later in the post, many organizations were quickly grouped together and formalized after WW II and the trauma it brought to the whole world. America had always felt protected by the isolation the oceans brought.
The Setup
Both on 12/07/1941 and 09/11/2001, almost 59 years later, our world was upended. I have an uncle, my Dad’s brother, Peter Dolan Jr., who was enlisted in the Navy and stationed at Pearl Harbor as a machinist shipmate aboard the USS Tennessee. The eight large battleships were moored adjacent to each other in a tightly packed formation. Arizona and Oklahoma were sunk and lost forever on that morning. Both were moored adjacent to the ship my uncle was on. Although the USS Tennessee was damaged, it is likely that the inboard mooring provided more protection. My father and his two brothers followed their brother stationed at Pearl Harbor as soon as they were eligible to serve.
I think that if you enjoy words, writing might be a good avenue for your interest. One of my memories growing up was an interest I shared with my Mom. We both liked puzzles and the crossword puzzle was something we might sit side-by-side and do together. We received both a morning and evening paper throughout the years. Both my Mom and Dad shared a passion to read the news of the day. The three boys, meanwhile just argued over who got to read the sports page first.
Today’s title is the word metadata. I have decided to attempt consistently to use the best word throughout the daily post and provide background throughout. I am a sucker for “the word of the day” and especially enjoy it when the word in question is accompanied by a graph of the use of the word over time. How is something like that done? Well, it probably involves metadata.
Metadata Makes It’s Cultural Debut
Metadata became a “thing” after the government's response to 9/11. While computer and data nerds were talking about it readily, it did not seem to enter mainstream use until then. I do not remember the word being used outside of the tech world before 9/11. The failures of 9/11 were there for all to see on a loop on cable news. The fire at ground zero continued after the collapse for about 100 days. The fuel of modern business, the papers, and furniture provided the fuel for the spreading fire after the impacts of the hijacked planes. The fuel, coupled with the jet fuel the planes carried led to World Trade Center 1 and 2 becoming the only steel frame skyscrapers ever to collapse due to fire. In the case of the original impacts, the jet fuel in the aircraft provided a very large ignition source for the fires. The hijackers, in their planning, had chosen flights that were coast-to-coast and hence would have full loads of fuel aboard for the flights.
The events of 9/11 were a trauma for the whole world witnessed by the outpouring of support for America from all over the world. Almost immediately in the aftermath, all sorts of government agencies assessed the failure. It was captured best in the 9/11 Commission Report authorized by Congress to assess the aftermath of what had happened. “It was a failure of imagination” was one of the phrases that became synonymous with the events of that horrible day. Enlistment in the armed services skyrocketed, especially in New York City and the surrounding area. People wanted to right the wrong and some wanted revenge. The human condition had enraged the citizenry and a demand for action was palpable.
I remember that “special reports” continued on TV, radio in-depth discussions, and even movies dramatizing the events of the day were rushed out to quench the insatiable desire for answers. Amidst all this fresh, new information, my wife and I talked a couple of times about the breadth of the coverage. What we were noticing was how unhealthy it was to watch or read more and more of the content. It seemed unavoidable but my wife especially made some comments that it cannot be healthy for us to be watching it so much.
How much is enough? Well, we all know that especially the cable networks like Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and OAN are simply regurgitating half-truths when the news is hot simply to reinforce their seeming political stances. Those networks especially have created two-headed monsters in their structures. They split their coverage between “expert commentary” with snarky takes on almost everything mixed with a feeble attempt to provide a review of what happened in the world that day. They display faux outrage as if the issue in question affects them in any way. They accomplish this with voluminous hair, HD makeup, bleached teeth, and earnest peering into the camera as if on cue. When they are discussing the “wrongheadedness” of education, for example, ALL of us know that if they even have children, they are raised in a cloistered setting, unlike anything like they are supposedly so “outraged” about.
The Slippery Slope
Uh oh, I am on a tangent again, it is time to get back to metadata. The largest of the administrative changes made after 9/11 was the consolidation of every conceivable government agency into a structure to protect the homeland. The Homeland Security Agency consolidated responsibility and reporting to make sure “nothing was ever missed again”. If we fast-forward twelve years, we get to the introduction of metadata into the mainstream lexicon. Edward Snowden, a former contractor to the National Security Agency (NSA) leaked many details of the classified programs that teams of lawyers for the consuming agencies had judged well within the bounds of reasonable and legal, all to protect the homeland. The program most heavily covered at the time was the use of telephone metadata. Ah, we have arrived.
Instead of belaboring the point and going down a rabbit hole, metadata is simply data about data. Once we present our name in order to get an identity card of some kind, we are always asked other questions. All of these questions become “properties” of us, like our height, weight, eye color, and gender. All of these can be thought of as metadata about us. One other place we might see this is if we are avid photographers. When we take a photograph, the location we took the photo, the time and date we took it, and all sorts of details like the lens and zoom settings get stored with the photo we took. This is metadata. When we make a phone call, there is the number we called, when we called, how long the call was, and if it is a mobile phone, the location where the call originated and terminated. There is also information about how that call was “routed” through the network. This is the metadata about the call.
After WW 2, we faced the “Communist Threat”. We also had just battled an enemy that evolved their strength by creating police within the police, the secret police. What the era had taught us was, absent limits, such an infrastructure would destroy elements of civilized life and the pace would be rapid. When America embarked on the dangers of the new post-War world, it structured its police to be inward and outward-facing with NO overlap. We wanted a world where the FBI served law enforcement within our borders and a different force, WITH NO OVERLAP would protect us from forces outside of our country. During the war we called it the OSS, Truman established it broadly as the CIG and it soon became the CIA. It is important to understand that mass surveillance, well beyond the law and Constitutional protections did not begin after 9/11, they were merely perfected. Here is a history of such surveillance in the United States. Much of it intersects with some of the points I have made in this post.
I hope to read about Project Shamrock someday in a long-form book. That program spanned from 1945 to 1975 with unprecedented intrusions without a warrant. The widespread surveillance of American citizens is a sad chapter in our history. Grouping the broad civil rights movement as “a Communist under every stone” was the modus operandi chosen to justify surveillance of this kind. The next time you hear people referring to those in the “other political party” or worse-yet your “source of news” as fascists, communists, and socialists, take a pause and remember that branding of that sort is how individuals lose their rights along the slippery slope. The road to decline starts with unchecked rhetoric. One of the results of the Watergate scandal was long-overdue reviews of programs around surveillance including the Shamrock program.
Another outgrowth of the war and the race to build nuclear weapons was the emergence of “most trusted allies which became the five eyes. This emerged during the war and was formalized in 1946. The five eyes, for those unfamiliar, might surprise people who we most comprehensively work with to capture electronic information or signal intelligence (SIGINT). This is an association of the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand! I bet on a test, most people miss New Zealand. These are the places where Pacific and Atlantic cables carrying information often terminate. They also provide great compromise locations to get a sense of what is happening in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. While there are other reasons for this cooperation, the world of the future belonged to communication. By 1952, the NSA was created to manage Communication Intelligence (COMINT). This is all about interception. The NSA is limited from operating in the United States by the 4th Amendment.
9/11 became the event from which loopholes needed to be found. Of course, when we are in grave danger, loopholes can become the slippery slope where civil liberties can be sacrificed. Over time, people with a firm understanding of US operations have taken great care to not violate their security oaths. I think it is generally agreed that the United States and Britain have exploited loopholes in order to “legally” spy on their citizens. As the founding members of the 5 Eyes, here is a thought experiment on how this may (and has shown to) be done:
US citizens cannot be spied upon broadly by their own government. We recognize the danger of a secret police.
British citizens have similar but slightly different protections.
If the US and Britain SHARE information through the 5-eyes (that is without any controversial interpretation true) we have the core of the challenge
While the British CANNOT spy directly on their citizens by law, partners like the US (or other 5-Eye members) can share information with them.
While the US CANNOT spy directly on their citizens by law, partners like Great Britain (or other 5-Eye members) can share information with them.
It was occurrences of this sort that were broadly revealed by Edward Snowden. This had been done presumably to keep the Homeland SAFE while the 4th Amendment is in place thanks to the founders to keep the Homeland FREE.
The conundrum of safety and freedom in a nutshell.
I do not share here my opinion on what to do in these difficult cases. Rather, my only opinion is that if you see your Congressman or Senator, REGARDLESS OF PARTY, and they DO NOT KNOW THIS, I feel, by itself, means they are FATALLY UNINFORMED and not fit to serve because their oath is first, to the Constitution.
The other big revelation due to what Edward Snowden released was “three hops”. I worry that people WITHOUT a heavy focus on mathematics are the people in place to argue cases before the specialized courts that decide what is reasonable to keep us safe versus keep us free. I hope and pray that the judges are getting guidance and reading up on their mathematics when they hear cases related to this. This is finally where the metadata of our title comes in.
The information, in question about phone calls that we call metadata was previously discussed. Now let’s do a thought experiment. The folks at the NSA, that bastion of civil liberties protection, made the modest proposal that they would:
collect ALL OF THE PHONE CALL DATA in the land
keep it anonymous, ie. not associate names with the numbers to start
promise not to poke around because it is fun and interesting
only allow a handful of trustworthy folks poke around looking for patterns, sort of their own private Google I guess about our private lives
once they figure they found a “person of interest” and had their phone number they would provide guidance for the warrant they need. The critical piece of information was that the NSA presumably convinced otherwise reasonable judges that when it comes to poking around, the magic number is three hops.
You will see later how math makes such “reasonable requests” ridiculous.
Because of the Snowden revelation, the absurdity of turning over such sweeping power in police state fashion was clearly explained. Of course, the super-secret FISA Court does not give interviews, so I guess we just have to trust that nothing unreasonable is happening. So now it is time for a little math. Each person is of course different, but I decided to look at my contact list on my phone which I suppose would be the initiator of such a concern. So imagine you were searching for me. I happen to have about 500 people in my contact list. Let’s assume that only 400 of them have phone numbers. For the sake of making things easier, imagine I am a salesperson and I called 100 people in a given period.
The three hops that investigators “entitle” themselves to when they investigate me are (1) the 100 people (2) anyone who calls them, (3) anyone who calls those people (4) anyone who calls those people. Here is what this means for someone like me with 100 numbers of interest and for scale, anyone with 40 phone numbers. In my case, this means presumably the NSA would be able to scoop up 100 million people (about 1/3 of the country) and their identities. Of course, they are doing this to keep us safe. The more modest example of 40 only means 2.5 million people are affected. That is almost 1% of the population for a single warrant. This is madness. If it were not for Edward Snowden this nonsense would still be going on today. Here is a reference article that covered this issue when it was on the front of the newspaper and kept our attention for a few days (perhaps before the next Kardashian episode). If you think my examples are exaggerated, just imagine if only a couple of the people on your phone call list are salesmen, or how about a pizzeria? This is so ridiculous on so many levels. Beyond being ridiculous, it is so invasive of EVERYONE’S privacy.
Do not be mistaken that I think Edward Snowden should not be accountable for whatever his violations of the law were. However, his revelations, in an unexpected way have been a great service to the protection of individual liberty, and for that I am thankful. The American people would be served by a public trial when the time comes. It only seems reasonable if we had to see O.J. Simpson’s trial that we might be able to witness a trial that genuinely affects us all.
Ah, it is time for music. There is rarely a day when I don’t, at some point, find myself thankful that I was born in this country and have had the opportunities that come with living in a land that places individual freedom as its central proposition. Hallelujah. Here is the song. Hope to see you tomorrow.
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