Keith Alexander Sarcastically Blames Ambassadors For NSA's Foreign Spying

from the winning-friends,-left-and-right dept

It would appear that NSA boss Keith Alexander is beginning to get tired of all these questions about the NSA, and the supposed lack of support from the White House concerning the revelations of spying on foreign leaders. One of the things that is most often said about Alexander is that he can be very charming and charismatic in talking to people one on one, which has helped him in various political matters for years, but given his latest exchange, it sounds like he's beginning to crack a bit. When confronted by Maryland state senator James Rosapepe, who had been the US ambassador to Romania back in the 90s, Alexander decided to get sarcastic and blame US diplomats and the administration for having the NSA spy on foreign leaders:
"We all joke that everyone is spying on everyone," [Rosapepe] said. "But that is not a national security justification."

Alexander replied: "That is a great question, in fact as an ambassador you have part of the answer. Because we the intelligence agencies don't come up with the requirements. The policymakers come up with the requirements."

He went on: "One of those groups would have been, let me think, hold on, oh: ambassadors."
Of course, even if this is true, it's a fairly incredible statement, where the head of the NSA now seems to think it's appropriate to go sarcastic over such a question. It may be true that the NSA is "just following orders," but that hardly excuses the behavior, nor the near constant stream of misleading to outright false statements spread by the NSA, even while it searches for every loophole it can find to expand its spying efforts.
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Filed Under: james rosapepe, keith alexander, nsa, nsa surveillance


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  • icon
    silverscarcat (profile), 4 Nov 2013 @ 11:45am

    I'll tell you who else was just "following orders"...

    TSA agents.

    And now two of them are dead because they keep treating everyone like terrorists and criminals.

    Newsflash, Alexander, I know you're reading this, but if you treat everyone like a terrorist or criminal, that's what they will become, terrorists and criminals.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    blaktron (profile), 4 Nov 2013 @ 1:28pm

    This is a terrible misnomer, because while the administration and diplomatic corps might set high level policy for what information they would like to have, its the NSA's internal organization that has (clearly) been making tactical decisions on what data to grab and what to leave alone.

    This is an excellent attempt to make the conversation about whether or not the NSA *should* be spying on people, rather than the more nuanced, and more important discussion around *how* the NSA should be spying on people. And *who* those people should be.

    As long as he can keep the conversation centered around "should the NSA be spying" he is going to win, because that's his charter. We need journalists like you guys to keep the discussion focused on what's important.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 4 Nov 2013 @ 1:51pm

      Re:

      "... its the NSA's internal organization that has (clearly) been making tactical decisions on what data to grab and what to leave alone."

      They've been leaving some data alone?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Me, 4 Nov 2013 @ 1:28pm

    Feistein, Obama, Clapper and Alexander are scumbag, immoral liars through and through. They ought to be in jail.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Nov 2013 @ 1:31pm

    How much does it cost to become a US ambassador?

    Speaking of ambassadors…

    Study Puts ‘Cost’ to Landing Embassy Post” by Nicholas Confessore, New York Times, Jan 31, 2013
    It is the unspoken question on every big donor’s lips: How much do I have to give — really — to get appointed to a desirable diplomatic post by the president?

     . . . .

    [P]olitical ambassadors who had made campaign donations of $550,000, or bundled contributions of $750,000, had a 90 percent chance of being posted to a country in Western Europe.

     . . . .

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Shawn (profile), 4 Nov 2013 @ 1:33pm

    Now why would the Diplomats have Spying on their mind.. Maybe because the State Department ordered them to??
    In July 2009, a confidential cable originating from the United States Department of State, and under US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's name,
    ordered US diplomats to spy on Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, and other top UN officials. The intelligence information the diplomats
    were ordered to gather included biometric information (which apparently included DNA, fingerprints, and iris scans), passwords, and personal encryption keys
    used in private and commercial networks for official communications. It also included Internet and intranet usernames, e-mail addresses, web site URLs useful
    for identification, credit card numbers, frequent flier account numbers, and work schedules. The targeted human intelligence was requested in a process known
    as the National Humint Collection Directive, and was aimed at foreign diplomats of US allies as well.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    lars626 (profile), 4 Nov 2013 @ 1:46pm

    And who asked for ...

    And who specifically asked for them to grab all that data on Domestic calls? Who told them it was OK to lie to congress?
    I really hope somebody catches Alexander dirty on a totally unauthorized operation. He needs to be made an example of.
    Mr President, are you still in charge around here?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 4 Nov 2013 @ 1:55pm

      Re: And who asked for ...

      And who specifically asked for them to grab all that data on Domestic calls?

      Oh, that was the ambassadorial corps —the ambassadors— the ambassadors all the way!

      They were behind the domestic call collection program, for sure. In fact, they're the one's who thought of it, originally. They came up with the concept. Developed it. And then they pushed the program forward.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      ghost in the machine, 4 Nov 2013 @ 8:40pm

      Re: And who asked for ...

      never was

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Jerrymiah, 5 Nov 2013 @ 8:23am

      Re: And who asked for ...

      DO you really think he's ever been in charge. The NSA is in charge and telling what to do or say.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Nov 2013 @ 2:00pm

    He's beginning to crack. Let's hope for a full meltdown once they nail him to something completely and utterly illegal and immoral, like tapping Obama's phone.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    McCrea (profile), 4 Nov 2013 @ 2:35pm

    Not the priority

    Let me guess, they're going to eliminate foreign spying before they do anything about domestic spying.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 4 Nov 2013 @ 2:56pm

      Re: Not the priority

      Let me guess, they're going to eliminate foreign spying before they do anything about domestic spying.

      I don't think you understand diplomacy real well.

      They are going to talk about eliminating foreign espionage. And they are going to talk about it, and talk about it some more, and hold meetings, and issue whitepapers and go to conferences, and send cables, and draft resolutions, and discard resolutions, and walk out of conferences in a huff, and then be reluctantly pursuaded to restart negotiations “without implied commitment”, and then the talks will go well, and then the talks will go poorly, and there will be leaks about the talks, and headlines about the talks, and then the republicans will ask ”why are we even talking about this? and the democrats will say “we have to talk”, and the pundits will give their opinions, but the talks will go on and on and on… and on and off and on and on again…

      That's diplomacy 101 for you.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Nov 2013 @ 2:59pm

    Not a bit of humility. It's everyone else's fault. This is exactly the sort of answer you would get from a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

    Newsflash. Had the NSA not jumped in to get all it could without worrying about legal consequences, no one would be pointing fingers at the NSA. This was one of the very sticking points over Alexander becoming head of the NSA by his predecessor. The fact that Alexander would ignore legal boundaries to grab ever how he could what ever it was he sought. As the head of the NSA Alexander is directly to blame. It is he that has set up this mentality in the NSA.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Nov 2013 @ 6:11pm

    Admitting you have a problem, is the first step in treating a spying addiction.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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