The Corruption Of Power: President Obama Trusts Himself Not To Abuse NSA Info

Congressional Reps Ask Bruce Schneier To Explain To Them What The NSA Is Doing, Because The NSA Won't Tell Them

from the look-at-that dept

Thu, Jan 16th 2014 1:52pm — Mike Masnick

This is both depressing and good news at the same time. A group of Congressional Representatives (who are among the most critical of the NSA) apparently asked Bruce Schneier to come brief them on what the NSA is doing because the NSA won't tell them:

This morning I spent an hour in a closed room with six Members of Congress: Rep. Logfren, Rep. Sensenbrenner, Rep. Scott, Rep. Goodlate, Rep Thompson, and Rep. Amash. No staffers, no public: just them. Lofgren asked me to brief her and a few Representatives on the NSA. She said that the NSA wasn't forthcoming about their activities, and they wanted me -- as someone with access to the Snowden documents -- to explain to them what the NSA was doing. Of course I'm not going to give details on the meeting, except to say that it was candid and interesting. And that it's extremely freaky that Congress has such a difficult time getting information out of the NSA that they have to ask me. I really want oversight to work better in this country.

There's really not much more to be said about that, other than it shows what a complete joke it is for anyone to claim that Congress has real oversight over the NSA. It's great that these Reps would reach out to someone with qualifications like Schneier to have this kind of conversation. It's depressing that such a thing was necessary.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: bob goodlatte, bruce schneier, congress, jim sensenbrenner, justin amash, nsa, oversight, security, surveillance, zoe lofgren

35 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

vancedecker (profile), 16 Jan 2014 @ 1:57pm

Honestly, from listening to the NSA people, they probably don't exactly know themselves. It's the consultants and contractors that actually know the systems, just like in real companies, often the senior executives are just the stooges there for show or because their frat bro from USC brought them in.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DLC, 16 Jan 2014 @ 2:02pm

Re:
USC = the Trojans = crafty and devious group that trick you into letting your guard down = NSA

I see what you did there!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2014 @ 2:06pm

Re:
When dirt hits the fan senior executives only pretend that they knew nothing about it to avoid getting in trouble. "It was all done by some lower level employee behind my back" they claim. Chances are they aren't as ignorant as they make themselves out to be.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2014 @ 2:19pm

Funny the public hears every week what the NSA claims it isn't doing. All the efforts so far going into calling them to account aren't working. Judges for the FISA court are claiming it's too much work to hold them accountable. The oversight committee gets lied to and no one is out for blood over it. The president sends out a committee to investigate and then pretends to act on it, all the time doing cosmetic changes that have no real meaningful effect.

The public is pissed off about it and it is not going to blow over. So far, a $4 billion contract to sell military jets has been cancelled, AT&T has been denied bidding rights to a setup in Europe, France has found it has a white elephant on it's hands in the terms of a satellite found to have spy stuff hardwired in and the UAE won't proceed with the purchase, and various companies such as Crisco are finding out they are no longer welcome in the China market. This stuff is just getting started on the market side. We'll be hearing more of that for years.

And in all this, we have an Intelligence Committee that acts anything but intelligent. The house can take care of this really fast. Clear it right up. All they have to do is end financing the NSA until it can come up with answers that can be believed and so far, the answers coming out of the NSA can't.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2014 @ 2:24pm

Re: Re:
Just checking but you're willing to supply the same logic to Obama and the NSA right?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jake, 16 Jan 2014 @ 2:28pm

Re: Re:
And if they are, they shouldn't have been. Wasn't it President Truman had a sign on his desk saying, "The Buck Stops Here"?

And yes, I know that applies to the current President as well, but I'm not entirely convinced the NSA are actually taking orders from the Oval Office at this point.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Beech, 16 Jan 2014 @ 2:36pm

What gives me hope is that I'm not terribly surprised to see Amash's name there. It seems to me that he's one of the good ones.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2014 @ 2:36pm

Re: Re: Re:
If you follow that logic to its logical conclusion it begs one question, who exactly are they working for now?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
weneedhelp (profile), 16 Jan 2014 @ 2:41pm

Thats it damn it!!!
"various companies such as Crisco are finding out they are no longer welcome in the China market." - Now the Chinese wont buy our vegetable shortening either? Well if that isn't the straw that broke the camels back.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2014 @ 2:44pm

Re: Re: Re:
Possibly
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2014 @ 2:44pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Like all bureaucracies, themselves. It just they have the technology to protect themselves by spying on everybody else.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2014 @ 2:55pm

Re: Thats it damn it!!!
You might like this take on it better that I ran across after posting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/surveillance-fallout-hits-startups-hard-bu siness-executives-say/2014/01/15/5e0b615e-7df6-11e3-93c1-0e888170b723_story.html
[ link to this | view in thread ]
vancedecker (profile), 16 Jan 2014 @ 3:09pm

Re: Re:
The point is that the real abuse is happening in a way that the upper levels may not even be aware of.

If Snowden gained this much access, other probably have it as well. Companies, Private Investigators, Foreign Government pay a lot of money for information obtained from blackmarket sources.

How many Snowdens are out there whose purpose is purely profit driven?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
vancedecker (profile), 16 Jan 2014 @ 3:12pm

Re: Re: Thats it damn it!!!
How can anything they say be taken seriously and credibly when United States law allows them to lie, actually demands that they lie. It's impossible to know.

However, all this talk of software vulnerabilities seldom touches on the huge elephant in the room of hardware manufacturers. Intel, Nvidia...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
vancedecker (profile), 16 Jan 2014 @ 3:13pm

Re: Re:
it works on multiple levels...

:)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2014 @ 3:18pm

Re:
Good guy, at least hes making a god damn worth of an effort
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2014 @ 3:19pm

for these guys to properly understand this stuff they need to briefed on the material by someone who understands the material and can answer questions, being unclassified lets everyone interested in the room so afterward their is meaningful debat on policy, possible laws. NSA prraticed compartmentalisation with the informatioh, even if an opposed politician was concerned, how could he discuss it with those who helped him draft lesislation.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2014 @ 4:15pm

and just as upsetting that the FISC is going to continue giving the non-oversight that they have been giving up til now, because if they had to really give proper oversight, it would be too much work for them! what a joke and a fucking insult at the same time!!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2014 @ 5:06pm

Re: Re: Re:
NO!

All you have to do is listen to Jeremiah Wright and you will immediately grasp what the US economic problems are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Wright

The problems are planned.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
GMacGuffin (profile), 16 Jan 2014 @ 5:39pm

I suppose it's kudos to the Reps for asking the right guy, anyway.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Pissed off, 16 Jan 2014 @ 6:26pm

What prevents these stoogie Reps from comencing contempt-of-Congress felony charges against Alexander?

Just like they did against Hollywood screenwriters during the Commie Scare last time around.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That One Guy (profile), 16 Jan 2014 @ 6:50pm

Re: Re: Re:
To be fair, when this whole debacle started it wouldn't have been that surprising if Obama hadn't known a thing about what the NSA was really doing, since the NSA brass has shown no hesitation lying to anyone else, so it's not too hard to believe they'd have been lying to him to.

After all the info on the NSA started coming out though... if he doesn't know what they're doing now, it's because he doesn't want to know.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2014 @ 9:11pm

Um, who is Bruce Schneier?

Might have been a good thing to state in the article.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That One Guy (profile), 16 Jan 2014 @ 11:58pm

Wikipedia is your friend
Short answer:

'Bruce Schneier is an American cryptographer, computer security and privacy specialist, and writer. He is the author of several books on general security topics, computer security and cryptography.

Long answer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Schneier
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2014 @ 12:51am

Re: Re:
I wish Ron Paul was also in office.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2014 @ 12:52am

Re: Re: Re:
(also still in office *)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
David, 17 Jan 2014 @ 2:29am

Re: Re:
Don't overexert your analogies. It was the Trojans who let their guard down against the Danaes (Greeks). The Trojan Horse is what was used against Troy. The overall plotting is credited to Odysseus, but the job of the required social engineering was given to Sinon.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lance Bledsoe (profile), 17 Jan 2014 @ 2:47am

Re:
(I agree that more contextual info on Mr. Schneier would have been useful.)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Pragmatic, 17 Jan 2014 @ 5:19am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
According to a report in the National Journal, the Republicans are hoping to pin the blame on the donkey for surveillance.

Let's not fall for partisan tricks, as both parties are equally responsible. That there's no real oversight is down to Lofgren, et al, not acting sooner. If we're to have real oversight, we need to stop voting the same people back in and we need to hold the people who are in office now to account for their actions.

As for the president, I recall reading an article in TD that says he gets his info from the papers first. That'd explain why he knows very little about what's going on. He needs to stop being cautious and remember he's a Constitutional scholar. Or has he forgotten that?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Pragmatic, 17 Jan 2014 @ 5:21am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Follow the money. Corporations offering "security services" are behind this. I seem to remember reading about Spystein's husband making out like a bandit from all this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Pragmatic, 17 Jan 2014 @ 5:24am

Re:
The house needs to stop playing partisan games and remember they represent us. I predicted it'd take a financial hit to wake them up, and now that it's happening, they'll have to do something.

Get the popcorn: it's corp v corp and it's going to get ugly.

BTW haven't we forgotten the warplane deal with Brazil that went belly up over this?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Toby J, 17 Jan 2014 @ 8:27am

Speling
Those poor representatives can't get no respect, not only does the NSA not tell them anything but you misspelled two of their six names.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That One Guy (profile), 17 Jan 2014 @ 8:12pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
According to a report in the National Journal, the Republicans are hoping to pin the blame on the donkey for surveillance.

And desperately hope that no one points out that a number of these programs were first put in place by Bush, a republican, I'm guessing?

Yeah, they're both to blame, any attempt to play 'No, it's all their fault!' to score points with the voters and dodge responsibility needs to be shut down immediately and pointed to as the cheap dodge tactic that it is.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 18 Jan 2014 @ 3:57am

The Representatives are definitely talking to the right guy. I view this as good new. :)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
SandiM, 23 Apr 2014 @ 12:04pm

Deitybounce (NSA exploit)
The ant catalog indicates that Deitybounce installs on Dell PowerEdge servers. I found it on one of my computers at home. It told my Sony desktop that is was a Dell PowerEdge 2850 and began to load. It changed my single partition disk into five partitions with Drive I as the boot drive. It later converted this to the C Drive. It patched the MBR and the volume's boot sector. It is memory resident and I suspect it has changed the hpa on my hard drive. It also left the backdoor open for other exploits to install. I have 3 laptops and 3 desktops which are all infected. This would be criminal if you or I did this but apparently it's okay for the NSA to change the quality of my life and destroy over $15,000 worth of equipment.
[ link to this | view in thread ]