http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/14/nsa-leaker-ed-snowden-used-banned-thumb-drive-exce/
( So 007 / Jason Bourne somehow outwitted what seems to be standard procedures or else someone helped him out , or this is a game being played within a larger game - which choice makes more sense ? )
NSA leaker Ed Snowden used banned thumb-drive, exceeded access
Questions were raised Friday about security procedures at the ultra-secret National Security Agency, after it emerged that Edward Snowden, the contract employee who leaked details of the agency’s broad-scale data gathering on Americans, exceeded his authorized access to computer systems and smuggled out Top Secret documents on a USB drive — a thumb-sized data storage device banned from use on secret military networks.
“He should not have been able to do either of those things” without setting off alarm bells, said one private sector IT security specialist who has worked on U.S. government classified networks. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivities of his current employer.
NSA officials “were laying down on their job if they didn’t disable the USB port,” the specialist said, referring to the small socket on the side of a computer where thumb drives are plugged in.
The NSA, which is still trying to ascertain the full extent of the breach, did not respond to a request for comment.
The Los Angeles Times first reported that Mr. Snowden used a USB thumb drive to smuggle electronic copies of an unknown number of classified documents out of the NSA facility in Hawaii where he worked. A U.S. official confirmed to The Washington Times “that’s one avenue” investigators are following.
The use of thumb drives on classified military systems — including those at NSA — has been effectively banned since malicious software, thought to be of Russian origin, infected the secret computer networks of U.S. Central Command five years ago.
A number of commercially available programs can switch off the USB port of every computer on the network.
“There is easily available software to do that,” said the security specialist, noting that there were also low-tech, more permanent means available.
“I have seen places where they used a hot glue gun to block it,” he said of the USB port.
Lawmakers briefed by NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander have not commented on the thumb-drive, but have said that Snowden was able to do something else he should not have been able to — exceed his authorized access to the NSA’s computer systems.
“It’s clear that he attempted to go places that he was not authorized to go, which should raise questions for everyone,” said House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Michael Rogers, Michigan Republican, on Thursday.
He said investigators were trying to “determine exactly what information [Mr. Snowden] may have gotten” from the NSA, following claims by Glen Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who first broke the story, that he had “dozens” more documents from the self-proclaimed whistleblower.
“Candidly, nobody really knows” how much he might have gotten away with, added Mr. Rogers. “I think we will know the answer to that shortly.”
The specialist said Mr. Snowden’s ability to access highly classified documents he should not have been able to was unsurprising, depending on his clearance level.
He noted that admitted Wikileaks leaker Pfc. Bradley Manning, even though a low level intelligence analyst had “very broad access,” to the Secret-level classified US network called SIPRNet.
Historically, the U.S. intelligence community operated on a “need to know” basis — even personnel with a security clearance were only allowed to see intelligence they had a need to know.
After U.S. agencies failed to share intelligence about some of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers; and with the huge leaps in computer network technologies and the growth of the World Wide Web as an indispensable communications tool, need to know is being edged out by “need to share.”
“SIPRNet is basically a parallel Internet at the Secret level,” said the specialist. “The different agencies have Web sites, FBI, DEA … Even at the Top Secret level [it’s] the same …You can surf around … there are lots of Top Secret documents routinely posted there without any additional access controls” beyond the fact that are on a highly classified network to which only cleared personnel have access.
“Its beginning to look like the NSA may have had the same kind of issues,” he concluded.
and.....
Ed Snowden’s magic thumb drive and other NSA fantasies
by Jon Rappoport
June 15, 2013
Well, they’ve solved the riddle. Ed Snowden was able to steal thousands of highly protected NSA documents because…he had a thumb drive.
This is the weapon that breached the inner sanctum of the most sophisticated information agency in the world.
This is the weapon to which the NSA, with all its resources, remains utterly vulnerable. Can’t defeat it.
NSA bans thumb drives, but certain special employees are allowed to use them.
Would Snowden have been in that elite circle? He was an outside contractor who’d been assigned to the NSA, and he was only there for four weeks, on his latest tour, when he did the infamous deed and then departed, never to return.
Not only did Snowden stroll into NSA with a thumb drive, he knew how to navigate all the security layers put in place to stop people from stealing classified documents.
Far more likely? As I described in my prior article,Snowden was really working for his former employer, the CIA. People at the CIA were able to steal those NSA documents, and they handed them to Snowden. All part of the endless turf war between the CIA, NSA, and other intelligence agencies.
Moving right along, Barbara Honegger, a former analyst at the White House during the Reagan years, makes a crucial point: US intelligence agencies can get around domestic spying laws by allowing other countries to spy on US citizens.
England, for example. This scandal is sitting there ready to explode.
NSA works out a deal whereby British agencies can access electronic communications in the US. Then, the Brits give the tons of data to NSA. Therefore, NSA didn’t directly steal.
It’s “sharing.”
“Oh no, we didn’t steal. We allowed other people to steal. Then they gave us what they stole. Of course, we are also, in fact, stealing and spying in the US, 24/7, but that’s another story for another time…”
It’s called redundancy. NSA spies on Americans, the Brits spy on Americans, and NSA stores everything, just to make sure they’ve covered all the bases. Twice.
Taking this one step further, NSA would be spying on British citizens, too. That’s “reciprocity.”
Here’s a fantasy for you. Terrorists all over the world were just shocked into a panic, because Ed Snowden “told them” the NSA has been spying on the Internet.
Therefore, all those emails, photos, and videos the terrorists have been sending to each other online for years? Spied on. Intercepted. Wow. What a revelation.
The terrorists never considered that possibility before. This is what Pentagon, NSA, CIA chiefs, and incensed Congress people would have us believe.
Let’s see. Terrorists just realized the Internet isn’t safe. Jack and the Beanstalk. Two fairy tales. Hold one in each hand. Weigh them. I’d believe Jack and the Beanstalk over the other fantasy, if I had to choose.
Author John Loftus, several years ago, pointed out that there already existed miles of incriminating data on the Muslim Brotherhood in US intelligence-agency files. Yet nothing was being done about it.
In other words, tons of NSA data on innocent Americans were being collected. And the valuable stuff on guilty parties was being ignored. A real laugher.
Imagine the sub voce reaction of the Muslim Brotherhood:
Brotherhood spokesman, Mr. Cash On Delivery, Jr., stated, “We in the Brotherhood have nothing to fear. We’re all proxies. We fight for Western shadow elites. They pay us to destabilize countries to advance a Globalist-controlled planet. Internet spying? Who cares? We’re doing just fine. In fact, there’s a mile of incriminating data on us in NSA computers. Nobody does anything with it. Guess why.”
Then there is China. Snowden’s most recent leak reveals the NSA has been hacking Chinese government computers. Another walloping shocker. Can you even remain standing in the face of this one? Feeling dizzy with surprise? Sit down. Drink a glass of water.
The spy-vs.-spy scenario between China and the US has been playing out for decades. By now, it’s so complicated probably no one on either side understands it fully.
Yes, major thefts of vital info have occurred. But, aware of the ongoing hacking war, China and US have undoubtedly been cooking up whole databases of false and misleading information to be stolen.
It’s basically a jobs program. And Snowden’s revelation about it is about as stunning as sunny weather in Palm Springs.
John Young, at Cryptome, correctly indicates that the overriding issue in the Snowden affair is “architecture.” The actual structure of spying, the whole machine. If Snowden comprehends that, then we’re talking about something worth revealing.
Not just the US machine, but the global apparatus. The interconnected spying system collectively employed by many nations.
Snowden seems to be saying he has this knowledge.
I have doubts. I’d bet against it. I think he’s inventing script.
Still waiting to be uncovered? NSA spying to collect elite financial data, spying on the people who have that data: the major investment banks. NSA scooping up that data to predict, manipulate, and profit from trading markets all over the world.
A trillion-dollar operation.
Snowden worked for Booz Allen, which is owned by the Carlyle Group ($170 billion in assets). Carlyle, the infamous. Their money is making money in 160 investment funds.
A few of Carlyle’s famous front men in its history: George HW Bush, James Baker (US Secretary of State), Frank Carlucci (US Secretary of Defense and CIA Deputy Director), John Major (British Prime Minister), Arthur Levitt (Chairman of the SEC).
Suppose you’re one of the princes in the NSA castle, and Ed Snowden has just gone public with your documents. You’re saying, “Let’s see, this kid worked for Booz Allen, which is owned by the Carlyle Group. We’ve been spying over Carlyle’s shoulder, stealing their proprietary financial data. What are the chances they’re getting a little revenge on us now?”
Yes, you’re thinking about that. You’re looking into it.
Scandals, and how they’re presented to the public through the press, are rarely what they seem.
The players are different, their motives are different, and they’re trading blows in a different arena.
They’re accessing the Matrix and manipulating it at levels invisible to the general public, who are trained by mass media to look in the wrong direction.
The NSA, CIA, and Carlyle would be settling their differences behind the curtain.
Jon Rappoport
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1803
Snowden’s Gambit:
Expose NSA Domestic Spying Operation, Hold Global Spying Program in Reserve
It’s a pretty sad spectacle watching the US Congress toading up to the National Security Agency. With the exception of a few stalwarts like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and to a lesser extent Ron Wyden (D-OR), most of the talk in the halls of Congress is about how to keep the army of Washington private contractors from accessing too many of the government’s secrets (which need to be protected by government employees!), and about whether to try NSA whistleblower Ed Snowden for treason.
NSA Director James Clapper was able to lie bald-facedly to the Senate Intelligence Committee last week without even a reprimand, much less a contempt citation, claiming that the NSA does not spy on millions of Americans’ telecommunications. That type of behavior by members of the executive branch makes a laughing stock out of Congress, but the members of Congress don’t seem to care. They know that they are already viewed as corrupt and loathsome toadies by the broad spectrum of Americans who continue to elect them to office, their collective approval rating now having fallen to a record low of 10% (who are those 10%, anyhow, the extended families of the members of Congress, or dead people in Chicago whose names are being forged on polling forms?). I guess the attitude among Congresspersons must be that they don’t have anything to lose by being accommodating to the march of the national security state. They have hit bottom already.
Poor Snowden, who has put his life on the line in an attempt to try and wake up the somnolent American public to how our free society has been hijacked by a fascist consortium of security agencies and private corporations, has to watch as the broad mass of Americans turn away from the news and switch to the endless stream of police dramas, where the Constitution is viewed as an anachronistic impediment to justice, and the cops are all good guys dedicated to protecting the rest of us.
The frightened and vengeful police state is intent on shutting Snowden down.
Fortunately, Snowden is no slouch, and has given himself some personal insurance in the form of downloaded information that, as he put it in his initial television interview from Hong Kong, could “shut down” the US intelligence machine overnight.
NSA whistleblower Ed Snowden is no longer a US story in Hong Kong. He's a big local story now, and that will likely derail US extradition hopes
He’s already shown his enemies in the White House and the NSA his power, dropping the information to theSouth China Morning Post that his files show the US has been at least as an aggressive an international hacker as has China, hacking into the main Internet switching systems in both China and Hong Kong.
That news seems to have gotten China’s attention, with the initially aloof Chinese government now publicly chiding the US government for hypocrisy in its charges of Chinese hacking of US private company and government computer systems. The US has to know that Snowden wouldn’t be keeping the only copy of his damaging data in his safe house room with himself. He has certainly shared it all, not just with journalist Glenn Greenwald and the two newspapers -- the U.K. Guardian and the Washington Post -- which together published his initial information about massive NSA spying, but also with others. It has to know that if it goes after him, Snowden’s associates will blow things up by going public with things like the identities of all CIA spooks and their locations around the globe, and the international targets of NSA surveillance abroad -- which will include many US “friends.”
Already, Hong Kong people, initially reported to be not terribly interested in Snowden, are getting worked up at his report that their internet system was targeted and that their communications are being heavily monitored by the US. They are also rallying to his defense. Tomorrow, a big march, ending with a rally in front of the US Consulate in Hong Kong (where Snowden has already stated that there is a large CIA operational station), is planned. That will, I am sure, be the first of many.
I don’t think Snowden is interested in turning over NSA information wholesale to China, but even if he offers China some details about American government hacking of Chinese computer systems -- say the hacking of the public internet switching centers, which would be illegal under an international treaty signed by the US -- he will be seriously damaging the NSA, though without doing something that could be considering “aiding the enemy.”
Some corporate media pundits in the US, where punditry appears to have become synonymous with propagandist, are suggesting that Snowden could be arrested and taken China and forced to spill what he knows about the NSA, but I don’t think that is how these things work. If the US pushes too hard to bring Snowden back to the US to face trial and life in prison, or by trying to kidnap and render him to the US, he may be driven to accept a Chinese offer of sanctuary, either under protection in Hong Kong, or inside the People’s Republic. In that event, he will be wined and dined and encouraged to tell what he knows.
To do otherwise, turning to compulsion, would not be in China’s interest. If word ever got out that people who voluntarily offered to provide information to China were subsequently tortured to learn more, no one would ever again offer to help China. That’s why when people flee their home country and go to a rival state offering information, they are almost always treated well, provided with housing and an income, and largely left alone.
The biggest threat to the NSA and to the US national security state is that they go after Snowden too aggressively. They have already reportedly gone through their massive computer system and discovered what secrets he downloaded before he left his job. They are probably now in a state of deep freak-out.
My guess is that they will realize they are stymied and that their best bet is to lay low and hope that this all blows over, which it well might, the corporate media being as lame as it is.
Our job then -- those of us who want to see this growing neo-Stasi police-state system overturned and unraveled -- is to keep Snowden’s revelations front and center in the news, with articles, exposés and protests. At some point, we have to hope that the American people will wake up to the reality that the “Land of the Free” is becoming just an ironic expression, or hope that at least some other principled people at the NSA or the FBI will decide to join Snowden in blowing the whistle even more on what is happening.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/14/nsa-partisanship-propaganda-prism
On PRISM, partisanship and propaganda
Addressing many of the issues arising from last week's NSA stories
Email
James Clapper, on Saturday decried the release of the information and said media reports about it have been inaccurate Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
(updated below - Update II - Update III)
I haven't been able to write this week here because I've been participating in the debate over the fallout from last week's NSA stories, and because we are very busy working on and writing the next series of stories that will begin appearing very shortly. I did, though, want to note a few points, and particularly highlight what Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez saidafter Congress on Wednesday was given a classified briefing by NSA officials on the agency's previously secret surveillance activities:
"What we learned in there is significantly more than what is out in the media today. . . . I can't speak to what we learned in there, and I don't know if there are other leaks, if there's more information somewhere, if somebody else is going to step up, but I will tell you that I believe it's the tip of the iceberg . . . . I think it's just broader than most people even realize, and I think that's, in one way, what astounded most of us, too."
The Congresswoman is absolutely right: what we have reported thus far is merely "the tip of the iceberg" of what the NSA is doing in spying on Americans and the world. She's also right that when it comes to NSA spying, "there is significantly more than what is out in the media today", and that's exactly what we're working to rectify.
But just consider what she's saying: as a member of Congress, she had no idea how invasive and vast the NSA's surveillance activities are. Sen. Jon Tester, who is a member of the Homeland Security Committee, said the same thing, telling MSNBC about the disclosures that "I don't see how that compromises the security of this country whatsoever" and adding: "quite frankly, it helps people like me become aware of a situation that I wasn't aware of before because I don't sit on that Intelligence Committee."
How can anyone think that it's remotely healthy in a democracy to have the NSA building a massive spying apparatus about which even members of Congress, including Senators on the Homeland Security Committee, are totally ignorant and find "astounding" when they learn of them? How can anyone claim with a straight face that there is robust oversight when even members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are so constrained in their ability to act that they are reduced to issuing vague, impotent warnings to the public about what they call radical "secret law" enabling domestic spying that would "stun" Americans to learn about it, but are barred to disclose what it is they're so alarmed by? Put another way, how can anyone contest the value and justifiability of the stories that we were able to publish as a result of Edward Snowden's whistleblowing: stories that informed the American public - including even the US Congress - about these incredibly consequential programs? What kind of person would think that it would be preferable to remain in the dark - totally ignorant - about them?
I have a column in the Guardian's newspaper edition tomorrow examining the fallout from these stories. That will be posted here and I won't repeat that now. I will, though, note the following brief items:
(1) Much of US politics, and most of the pundit reaction to the NSA stories, are summarized by this one single visual from Pew:
The most vocal media critics of our NSA reporting, and the most vehement defenders of NSA surveillance, have been, by far, Democratic (especially Obama-loyal) pundits. As I've written many times, one of the most significant aspects of the Obama legacy has been the transformation of Democrats from pretend-opponents of the Bush War on Terror and National Security State into their biggest proponents: exactly what the CIA presciently and excitedly predicted in 2008 would happen with Obama's election.
Some Democrats have tried to distinguish 2006 from 2013 by claiming that the former involved illegal spying while the latter does not. But the claim that current NSA spying is legal is dubious in the extreme: the Obama DOJ has repeatedly thwarted efforts by the ACLU, EFF and others to obtain judicial rulings on their legality and constitutionality byinvoking procedural claims of secrecy, immunity and standing. If Democrats are so sure these spying programs are legal, why has the Obama DOJ been so eager to block courts from adjudicating that question?
More to the point, Democratic critiques of Bush's spying were about more than just legality. I know that because I actively participated in the campaign to amplify those critiques. Indeed, by 2006, most of Bush's spying programs - definitely his bulk collection of phone records - were already being conducted under the supervision and with the blessing of the FISA court. Moreover, leading members of Congress - including Nancy Pelosi - were repeatedly briefed on all aspects of Bush's NSA spying program. So the distinctions Democrats are seeking to draw are mostly illusory.
To see how that this is so, just listen to then-Senator Joe Biden in 2006 attack the NSA for collecting phone records: he does criticize the program for lacking FISA court supervision (which wasn't actually true), but also claims to be alarmed by just how invasive and privacy-destroying that sort of bulk record collection is. He says he "doesn't think" that the program passes the Fourth Amendment test: how can Bush's bulk record collection program be unconstitutional while Obama's program is constitutional? But Biden also rejected Bush's defense (exactly the argument Obama is making now) - that "we're not listening to the phone calls, we're just looking for patterns" - by saying this:
I don't have to listen to your phone calls to know what you're doing. If I know every single phone call you made, I'm able to determine every single person you talked to. I can get a pattern about your life that is very, very intrusive. . . . If it's true that 200 million Americans' phone calls were monitored - in terms of not listening to what they said, but to whom they spoke and who spoke to them - I don't know, the Congress should investigative this."
Is collecting everyone's phone records not "very intrusive" when Democrats are doing it? Just listen to that short segment to see how every defense Obama defenders are making now were the ones Bush defenders made back then. Again, leading members of Congress and the FISA court were both briefed on and participants in the Bush telephone record collection program as well, yet Joe Biden and most Democrats found those programs very alarming and "very intrusive" back then.
(2) Notwithstanding the partisan-driven Democratic support for these programs, and notwithstanding the sustained demonization campaignaimed at Edward Snowden from official Washington, polling data, though mixed, has thus far been surprisingly encouraging.
A Time Magazine poll found that 54% of Americans believe Snowden did "a good thing", while only 30% disagreed. That approval rating is higher than the one enjoyed by both Congress and President Obama. While a majority think he should be nonetheless prosecuted, a plurality of young Americans, who overwhelmingly view Snowden favorably, do not even want to see him charged. Reuters found that more Americans see Snowden as a "patriot" than a "traitor". A Gallup poll this week found that more Americans disapprove (53%) than approve (37%) of the two NSA spying programs revealed last week by the Guardian.
(3) Thomas Drake, an NSA whistleblower who was unsuccessfully prosecuted by the Obama DOJ, writes in the Guardian that as a long-time NSA official, he saw all of the same things at the NSA that Edward Snowden is now warning Americans about. Drake calls Snowden's acts "an amazingly brave and courageous act of civil disobedience." William Binney, the mathematician who resigned after a 30-year career as a senior NSA official in protest of post-9/11 domestic surveillance, said on Democracy Now this week that Snowden's claims about the NSA are absolutely true.
Meanwhile, Daniel Ellsberg, writing in the Guardian, wrote that "there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago." He added: "Snowden did what he did because he recognized the NSA's surveillance programs for what they are: dangerous, unconstitutional activity."
Listen to actual experts and patriots - people who have spent their careers inside the NSA and/or who risked their liberty for the good of the country - and the truth of Snowden's claims and the justifiability of his acts become manifest.
(4) As we were about to begin publishing these NSA stories, a veteran journalist friend warned me that the tactic used by Democratic partisans would be to cling to and then endlessly harp on any alleged inaccuracy in any one of the stories we publish as a means of distracting attention away from the revelations and discrediting the entire project. That proved quite prescient, as that is exactly what they are attempting to do.
Thus far we have revealed four independent programs: the bulk collection of telephone records, the PRISM program, Obama's implementation of an aggressive foreign and domestic cyber-operations policy, and false claims by NSA officials to Congress. Every one of those articles was vetted by multiple Guardian editors and journalists - not just me. Democratic partisans have raised questions about only one of the stories - the only one that happened to be also published by the Washington Post (and presumably vetted by multiple Post editors and journalists) - in order to claim that an alleged inaccuracy in it means our journalism in general is discredited.
They are wrong. Our story was not inaccurate. The Washington Post revised parts of its article, but its reporter, Bart Gellman, stands by its core claims ("From their workstations anywhere in the world, government employees cleared for PRISM access may 'task' the system and receive results from an Internet company without further interaction with the company's staff").
The Guardian has not revised any of our articles and, to my knowledge, has no intention to do so. That's because we did not claim that the NSA document alleging direct collection from the servers was true; we reported - accurately - that the NSA document claims that the program allows direct collection from the companies' servers. Before publishing, we went to the internet companies named in the documents and asked about these claims. When they denied it, we purposely presented the story as one of a major discrepancy between what the NSA document claims and what the internet companies claim, as the headline itself makes indisputably clear:
The NSA document says exactly what we reported. Just read it and judge for yourself (PRISM is "collection directly from the servers of these US service providers"). It's endearingly naive how some people seem to think that because government officials or corporate executives issue carefully crafted denials, this resolves the matter. Read the ACLU's tech expert, Chris Soghoian, explain why the tech companies' denials are far less significant and far more semantic than many are claiming.
Nor do these denials make any sense. If all the tech companies are doing under PRISM is providing what they've always provided to the NSA, but simply doing it by a different technological means, then why would a new program be necessary at all? How can NSA officials claim that a program that does nothing more than change the means for how this data is delivered is vital in stopping terrorist threats? Why does the NSA document hail the program as one that enables new forms of collection? Why would it be "top secret" if all this was were just some new way of transmitting court-ordered data? How is PRISM any different in any meaningful way from how the relationship between the companies and the NSA has always functioned?
As a follow-up to our article, the New York Times reported on extensive secret negotiations between Silicon Valley executives and NSA officials over government access to the companies' data. It's precisely because these arrangements are secret and murky yet incredibly significant that we published our story about these conflicting claims. They ought to be resolved in public, not in secret. The public should know exactly what access the NSA is trying to obtain to the data of these companies, and should know exactly what access these companies are providing. Self-serving, unchecked, lawyer-vetted denials by these companies don't remotely resolve these questions.
In a Nation post yesterday, Rick Perlstein falsely accuses me of not having addressed the questions about the PRISM story. I've done at least half-a-dozen television shows in the last week where I was asked about exactly those questions and answered fully with exactly what I've written here (see this appearance with Chris Hayes as just the latest example); the fact that Perlstein couldn't be bothered to use Google doesn't entitle him to falsely claim I haven't addressed these questions. I have done so repeatedly, and do so here again.
I know that many Democrats want to cling to the belief that, in Perlstein's words, "the powers that be will find it very easy to seize on this one error to discredit [my] NSA revelation, even the ones he nailed dead to rights". Perlstein cleverly writes that "such distraction campaigns are how power does its dirtiest work" as he promotes exactly that campaign.
But that won't happen. The documents and revelations are too powerful. The story isn't me, or Edward Snowden, or the eagerness of Democratic partisans to defend the NSA as a means of defending President Obama, and try as they might, Democrats won't succeed in making the story be any of those things. The story is the worldwide surveillance apparatus the NSA is constructing in the dark and the way that has grown under Obama, and that's where my focus is going to remain.
(5) NYU Journalism professor Jay Rosen examines complaints that my having strong, candidly acknowledged opinions on surveillance policies somehow means that the journalism I do on those issues is suspect. It is very worth reading what he has to say on this topic as it gets to the heart about several core myths about what journalism is.
(6) Last week, prior to the revelation of our source's identity, I wrote that"ever since the Nixon administration broke into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychoanalyst's office, the tactic of the US government has been to attack and demonize whistleblowers as a means of distracting attention from their own exposed wrongdoing and destroying the credibility of the messenger so that everyone tunes out the message" and "that attempt will undoubtedly be made here."
The predictable personality assaults on Snowden have begun in full force from official Washington and their media spokespeople. They are only going to intensify. There is nobody who political officials and their supine media class hate more than those who meaningfully dissent from their institutional orthodoxies and shine light on what they do. The hatred for such individuals is boundless.
There are two great columns on this dynamic. This one by Reuters' Jack Shafer explores how elite Washington reveres powerful leakers that glorify political officials, but only hate marginalized and powerless leakers who discredit Washington and its institutions. And perhaps the best column yet on Snowden comes this morning from the Daily Beast's Kirsten Powers: just please take the time to read it all, as it really conveys the political and psychological rot that is driving the attacks on him and on his very carefully vetted disclosures.
UPDATE
The New York Times reports today that Yahoo went to court in order to vehemently resist the NSA's directive that they join the PRISM program, and joined only when the court compelled it to do so. The company specifically "argued that the order violated its users' Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures."
If, as NSA (and Silicon Valley) defenders claim, PRISM is nothing more than a harmless little drop-box mechanism for delivering to the government what these companies were already providing, why would Yahoo possibly be in court so vigorously resisting it and arguing that it violates their users' Fourth Amendment rights? Similarly, how could it possibly be said - as US government officials have - that PRISM has been instrumental in stopping terrorist plots if it did not enhance the NSA's collection capabilities? The denials from the internet companies make little sense when compared to what we know about the program. At the very least, there is ample reason to demand more disclosure and transparency about exactly what this is and what data-access arrangements they have agreed to.
UPDATE II
My column that is appearing in the Guardian newspaper, on the fallout from the NSA stories, is now posted here.
UPDATE III
Underscoring all of these points, please take two minutes to watch this amazing video, courtesy of EFF, in which the 2006 version of Joe Biden aggressively debates the 2013 version of Barack Obama on whether the US government should be engaged in the bulk collection of American's phone records:
That's the kind of debate we need more of.
June 11, 2013
Did Verizon build a fiber optic cable to give feds access?
That's the allegation contained in a class action lawsuit, and it was reported by no less than the New York Times in 2007. Business Insider noted this and other troubling information on the possible magnitude of NSA spying on Americans.
Over the weekend James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times - who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for this story on the NSA gaining the cooperation of U.S. telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to customer data- mentioned a detail from 2007 (emphasis ours):
In Virginia, a telecommunications consultant reported, Verizon had set up a dedicated fiber-optic line running from New Jersey to Quantico, Va., home to a large military base, allowing government officials to gain access to all communications flowing through the carrier's operations center. (snip)The news about the Verizon-NSA fiber optic connection came from a class action lawsuit brought by aformer AT&T engineer who worked on a proposal to give the the NSA access to all the global phone and email traffic that ran through an AT&T network center in Bedminster, N.J.
The Israeli hardware, which can record data that comes through an internet protocol network, was discovered by a former AT&T engineer named Mark Klein and confirmed by former NSA senior executive Thomas Drake.Another former NSA employee named William Binney, who, like Snowden, believes the NSA's surveillance has gone too far, says that ever since 9/11 the NSA has been hoarding electronic data - phone calls, GPS information, emails, social media, banking and travel records, entire government databases - and analyzes, in real time, "all of the attributes that any individual has" in addition to making networks of connections between individuals.Binney, one of the best mathematicians and code breakers in NSA history, quit after 32 years in late 2001 because, in his view, he "could not stay after the NSA began purposefully violating the Constitution."
The American public has been treated to pious denials of cooperation by major internet and telecom providers that look to be misleading, which can only fan the flames of public suspicion that something really, really bad has been going on.
President Obama famously declared that his forces must bring guns to knife fights in order to win. Is spying on Americans part of his firearms arsenal?
No comments:
Post a Comment