The Program - William Binney Interview

What Hacker News said

Cites vyrotek · 2013-06 · on “NSA Whistleblower Speaks Out on Verizon, PRISM, and the Utah Data Center”

LI: "How much data do you estimate will be able to be stored at the NSA facility in Utah?" WB: "I simply took what was commercially available off of cleversafe.com, which is 10 exabytes in 200 square feet. Then I divided 200 square feet into the 100,000 square feet of storage that will be at the facility. Then you get 5,000 exabytes stored in that area. That’s five zetabytes. What that means is around 500 years of the world’s communications, if they used all the space for that purpose. I figure they wouldn’t have to do more than 100 years, and the rest of it they can use with parallel processors to try to break codes." 5 zetabytes? wow. Also, here's a video of a different interview from last

Cites asgard1024 · 2014-07 · on “William Binney: 80% of audio calls are recorded and stored in the US”

I don't think there is any doubt about the fact that NSA wants to store it all. Just look at the short interview/documentary with Binney that was linked from the article: [this video]

Cites jcbrand · 2014-07 · on “UN: Nations hide rise in private digital snooping”

If the CCTV cameras weren't connected to the internet and their recordings were periodically deleted, this wouldn't be a problem at all. Even Richard Stallman has said as much. What however is happening more and more, is that recorded data is kept indefinitely and is networked. Have you heard what Binney has said what the software he wrote for the NSA does? There are various domains from where it gathers data (cellphone, banking, social media, gps etc.). These domains are graphed and mapped in such a way that they can pull out all the attributes any individual has from any any or all of the domains. [this video] In other words, the data doesn't exist in a vacuum, it's all being graphed and correl

Cites timschmidt · 2025-12 · on “Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1”

"After 9/11, they took one of the programs I had done, or the backend part of it, and started to use it to spy on everybody in this country. That was a program I created called Stellar Wind. That was seperate and compartmented from the regular activity which was ongoing because it was doing domestic spying. All the equipment was coming in, I knew something was happening but then when the contractors I had hired came and told me what they were doing, it was clear where all the hardware was going and what they were using it to do. It was simply a different input, instead of being foreign it was domestic." - William Binney [this video]

Cites timschmidt · 2025-12 · on “Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1”

> Did you look at the slides you linked to? Many times. They detail methods and partners used in mass surveillance on US soil involving US corporations and US routed internet backbone connections. No independently verifiable proof is provided that US persons are not targeted by this program. Instead we're gifted such lovely terms as LOVEINT: [LINK] in which the NSA admits to warrant-less domestic spying for the most trivial of reasons. Further demonstrating a lack of appropriate controls or process around such capabilities. And testimony from "the agency official responsible for automating much of the NSA’s worldwide monitoring networks" indicating that mass surveillance infrastructure is us

Cites timschmidt · 2025-12 · on “Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1”

> The only mass collection was phone metadata collection "email, chat, video, voice, photos, stored data, VoIP, file transfers, video conferencing, notifications, social networking details, and the ever ominous "Special Requests"" [LINK] You will claim this program does not target US persons. To which I have already responded in another comment that "They detail methods and partners used in mass surveillance on US soil involving US corporations and US routed internet backbone connections. No independently verifiable proof is provided that US persons are not targeted by this program." NSA self-reporting of [LINK] incidents seems to indicate that warrant-less surveillance of US persons does, i

Cites timschmidt · 2025-12 · on “Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1”

> doesn't claim to have been there when it was implemented "After 9/11, they took one of the programs I had done, or the backend part of it, and started to use it to spy on everybody in this country. That was a program I created called Stellar Wind. That was seperate and compartmented from the regular activity which was ongoing because it was doing domestic spying. All the equipment was coming in, I knew something was happening but then when the contractors I had hired came and told me what they were doing, it was clear where all the hardware was going and what they were using it to do. It was simply a different input, instead of being foreign it was domestic." - William Binney [this video] > The

Cites timschmidt · 2025-12 · on “Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1”

"After 9/11, they took one of the programs I had done, or the backend part of it, and started to use it to spy on everybody in this country. That was a program I created called Stellar Wind. That was seperate and compartmented from the regular activity which was ongoing because it was doing domestic spying. All the equipment was coming in, I knew something was happening but then when the contractors I had hired came and told me what they were doing, it was clear where all the hardware was going and what they were using it to do. It was simply a different input, instead of being foreign it was domestic." - William Binney [this video] Clear as day to me. Only reason to chop it up or not cite the so