Would You Trust Any Organization That Doesn't Trust 4,000 Of Its Employees? What If It's The NSA?

from the something-wrong-here dept

It's becoming increasingly clear that one of the reasons Edward Snowden was able to access so much secret information -- and walk out of the door with it -- is that the NSA is an organizational mess. A fascinating post by David Ignatius in the Washington Post underlines another way in which the NSA is deeply dysfunctional by any normal standard:

the NSA planned to investigate at least 4,000 of its employees and contractors in 2013, thanks in part to new software that could detect "anomalous" behavior by the workforce.

He goes on to ask an extremely important question:

How do you run an organization where 4,000 of your employees are suspect? I fear that if the NSA tries to impose ever-more stringent controls, this will create even more disgruntled workers and a larger pool of anomalies. A new "Red Scare" may well follow the Snowden revelations, but making every employee a suspect is likely to backfire.

Even the most anodyne of organizations that can't fully trust 4000 of its employees is in big trouble; if it's one that handles some of the most sensitive information in the world, with the potential to save or cost many lives, that lack of trust is a recipe for disaster on a massive scale. And as Ignatius notes, the more the NSA tries to clamp down on people, the more likely it is to create further Edward Snowdens.

Ignatius also points out that the solution is not to close down, but to open up. By reducing drastically the number of things that are deemed secret in the first place, it would be possible to concentrate on protecting just those that really matter:

The beneficiaries in a no-secrets world will be relatively open societies, such as the United States, that are slowly developing a culture of accountability and disclosure for their intelligence agencies, however painful the process may be. The fewer secrets, the less to protect.

Although it's arguable to what extent the US has developed that "culture of accountability and disclosure" for the NSA yet, as President Obama inches towards admitting the scale of the problem here, the rest of the analysis in Ignatius' piece is well-worth reading.

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Filed Under: clearance, contractors, ed snowden, nsa, nsa surveillance, review, top secret

Administration's Surveillance Review Board Appointees Mostly Sympathetic Insiders

from the totally-dying-of-shock-right-now dept

The surveillance review panel (feat. special guest James Clapper!) Obama announced on August 9th has taken shape. Four appointees have been named, and if this ends up being the totality of the panel, there's not much hope it will provide any sort of meaningful pushback on excessive or intrusive surveillance.

As the Washington Post reports, the four members of the panel are all Washington insiders.

[O]bama administration’s surveillance review panel will include former intelligence and White House staffers, including Michael Morell, Richard Clarke, Cass Sunstein and Peter Swire.

Morell is 33-year veteran of the CIA, who retired from his post just two weeks ago. Where he stands on privacy matters isn't exactly clear, but considering his former position as deputy director, it would stand to reason he's more aligned with the NSA's thinking than the public's.

Richard Clarke is a long-time cyberwar hawk, having served as the chairman of the Counter-Terrorism Security Group under George H.W. Bush, as well as a long stint on the National Security Counsel. Clarke has made recent pushes for more offensive cyberwar strategies and has generally contributed to the FUD surrounding these issues.

On the plus side, he was highly critical of the second Bush administration's actions during his testimony to the 9/11 Commission. That being said, he's really not in favor of scaling back surveillance efforts. Orin Kerr sums Clarke up this way in his piece on the surveillance panel.

[I]n my experience working on some similar issues as he did in the government, Clarke had a reputation for seeing everything as an extraordinarily grave national security threat. I would think Clarke is likely to bring in a pro-government perspective on the issues here.

This brings us to Cass Sunstein, who's a bit of a wildcard. Sunstein's written work tends to draw together a blend of constitutional law, behavioral science and economics, often reaching some very interesting conclusions. But what's most concerning about Sunstein's appointment is the views he expressed in a 2008 paper co-authored with Adrian Vermule, where he argued that the government should be paying more attention to those spreading conspiracy theories.

"The existence of both domestic and foreign conspiracy theories, we suggest, is no trivial matter, posing real risks to the government’s antiterrorism policies, whatever the latter may be." They go on to propose that, "the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups"...

Glenn Greenwald has more on Sunstein's paper in his 2010 piece for Salon.com

Sunstein advocates that the Government’s stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.” He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called “independent” credible voices to bolster the Government’s messaging (on the ground that those who don’t believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government).   This program would target those advocating false “conspiracy theories,” which they define to mean: “an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role.”

This would be designed to increase citizens’ faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists.

Whatever you may personally think about conspiracy theorists and the potential dangers they pose, it's hard to believe that government infiltration and propagandizing is the correct response. (It's somewhat hard to argue this sort of activity actually requires a response from the government at all.) Having someone with an inclination towards government-led espionage activities aimed at its own citizens on a surveillance review board isn't exactly a comforting thought.

The final name on the list, Peter Swire, may be the only appointee to take on an actively adversarial role. Swire has long been an advocate for privacy, having served as the Chief Counselor for Privacy in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during the Clinton administration.

More recently he has been very active working to achieve a global "Do Not Track" standard and has, over the past several years, written articles and given interviews critical of the agency's activities, including co-signing an amicus brief arguing that the NSA's telephone metadata program is illegal. He's also been a longtime critic of parts of the PATRIOT Act. If anyone's going to be advocating for privacy, it's probably going to be Swire. Unfortunately, this may leave him as the odd man out.

On top of that, this board, composed mainly of government and surveillance proponents, will be reporting directly to confirmed liar James Clapper (the administration phrases it "reporting through") who is or isn't directly involved with the appointment process, depending on how you define the word "establish."

I guess one (or 1.5, depending on Sunstein's contribution) out of four is better than nothing. But by selecting intelligence officials and former administration staff members, Obama is (once again) sending the message that the "debate" will be still be very tightly controlled.

Filed Under: barack obama, cass sunstein, james clapper, michael morell, nsa, nsa surveillance, peter swire, review, review board, richard clarke, surveillance

Right Before Snowden Leaks, President Obama Fired Nearly All Members On Key Intelligence Advisory Board

from the this-is-where-we-were-headed-all-along? dept

Remember last week's press conference, where President Obama insisted that he had already kicked off the process of a major review of the way we do intelligence and surveillance in this country -- and about how he was going to set up an "outside" review group to look all this over? The same review group that will be set up by and report to James Clapper (but, the White House assures us, not run by him)?

Right, so a few people pointed out that President Obama already has an independent group that's supposed to do that thing: called the President's Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB). There's just one tiny, tiny problem in all of this. It now appears that, back in May, just before all the Snowden stuff started coming out, it appears that the administration basically kicked nearly everyone off of the PIAB board. It went from 14 members down to just four. And those members were basically asked to leave:

“They kicked me off,” said former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.). “I was on it a long time under Bush and under Obama. They wanted to make some changes.”

“I don’t know anything about whether they’ve brought in new members. They thanked me and that’s about all I know,” added Hamilton, widely known for his service as vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission.

[....] Philip Zelikow, who served as executive director of the 9/11 Commission and later as a top aide to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, was also asked recently to step off the PIAB.

“I’ve resigned from the Board, one of ten of the fourteen earlier members who have done so,” Zelikow said via email. “Four of the earlier members have remained, pending a reconstitution of the Board at some point for the balance of the President’s second term. The White House website displays the current situation, pending that.”

Hamilton's ouster is particularly interesting, given that just a month ago, he wrote an oped piece about how the NSA's surveillance efforts have gone too far. Seems like he'd be handy to have on this committee reviewing the NSA surveillance, no? So, forgive us for, once again, finding it difficult (or laughable) to believe President Obama's claims that he had a serious revamp of the NSA's surveillance activity in his priorities before the Snowden leaks happened. It seems clear that things were going in the other direction: ramping up the spying, while cutting back on the oversight and review.

Filed Under: barack obama, lee hamilton, nsa surveillance, oversight, philip zelikow, piab, president's intelligence advisory board, review, surveillance

Universal Music Uses Bogus DMCA Claim To Take Down Negative Review Of Drake's Album

from the free-speech? dept

We keep talking about how the DMCA takedown process, all too frequently, is used to stifle speech, and defenders of the system claim that it's ridiculous to bring up the First Amendment in a discussion on copyright. But here's yet another (in a very long list) of examples. Henry Adaso wrote a short, but marginally negative review of Drake's album Take Care. The review was posted to About.com last November. The entire review reads:

Drake - 'Take Care'

A briefly entertaining, occasionally ponderous, sometimes lazy, sometimes brilliant, slow-rolling, rap-singy, bulls-eye missing, kitten-friendly, runway-ready, mega corny, lip-smacking, self-conscious, self-correcting, self-indulging, finely tuned, Houston infatuated, crowd pleasing, delightfully weird, emotionally raw, limp, wet, innocuous, cute, plush, brooding, musical, whimsical, exotic, pensive, V-necked, quasi-American, strutting, doting, cloying, safe alternative to sleeping pills.

Best Song: "Lord Knows"

Release Date: November 15, 2011

Not particularly positive, but not particularly scathing either. He also posted another post on About.com that merely pointed to that review, but included no additional content other than that he wrote a 50-word review.

Either way, both of those links are gone from Google's search. Why? Because just as someone filed a bogus DMCA to take down one of our key SOPA posts, Universal Music, via the BPI (British RIAA) filed a DMCA notice with Google claiming that both of those pages were infringing. That's clearly a false takedown, and pretty clearly designed to stifle a negative review. Adaso discusses all of this in his own blog post, in which he suggests that perhaps Universal and BMI are purposely trying to take down negative reviews, though it's equally likely that they're just incredibly incompetent. Still, whether incompetence or malice, it's clear that the DMCA is being used to censor and stifle speech, and in this case it just so happens to be speech in the form of a negative review of a Universal Music Artist (a Universal Music artist who has also expressed displeasure with how Universal has used copyright law against his own best interests).

But, no, there's no free speech concerns around the DMCA, right?

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, drake, free speech, review, take down
Companies: bpi, universal music

54-Year Old School Teacher Who Doesn't Know How To Download Movies First To Be Kicked Off The Internet In France

from the hadopi'd dept

We recently noted that, over in France, under the HADOPI three strikes regime, they had their first 10 people get their third strike, and each was being reviewed to see if they should lose their connection. Well, it looks like the first guy has lost his connection... and it's a 54-year old school teacher who insists he has no idea how to download unauthorized content. The story is a little unclear, but it sounds like he had open WiFi, and he didn't understand what the "first strike," was really about. When he got the "second strike" notice, he tried to figure out how to secure his WiFi, but it either took too long or he was unable to figure it out... and so along came the third strike. The guy is pretty upset about this, for a damn good reason. It's going to be ridiculously expensive to fight and it may get appealed up to European courts outside of France, which would entail significant travel expenses as well. This is why it's supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, right?

Filed Under: france, hadopi, oversight, review, three strikes
Companies: hadopi

Funny How None Of The Bills About Extending The Patriot Act Seem To Kill Off The Pieces So Regularly Abused

from the actually,-not-that-funny dept

We've already discussed how it appears that Congress is set to extend the Patriot Act with little debate yet again, despite the growing evidence of rather massive abuses of the law by law enforcement officials, with little to no evidence that the law has actually helped. As it stands now, in the Senate there are apparently three competing versions of the extension, and not a single proposal that would actually cut off the highly controversial sections that allow for spying on Americans with little to no oversight.

The three Senate bills kick off with one from Senator Patrick Leahy, which would extend the various provisions until the end of 2013, but would also include a tiny bit more oversight. Then there's a version from Senator Chuck Grassley which gives up on this fake "sunsetting" idea and just says let's extend the provisions permanently without any additional oversight, and let the US gov't spy on Americans with no plan to ever go back and see if that makes sense. Stunningly, Grassley is apparently claiming that "temporary extensions and the threat of oversight would hinder U.S. intelligence agents." Think about that for a second. Apparently Senator Grassley thinks that actually making sure the US gov't isn't abusing the law would "hinder US intelligence." Then there's Senator Dianne Feinstein, who has apparently tried to set up a "middle ground" approach between the other two, where it would extend the provisions until the end of 2013, but wouldn't increase any oversight: Note the ridiculous situation this sets up. Feinstein's bill is technically "in the middle," but it's a middle that's shifted all the way down at the end of the ridiculous spectrum where the only option is to extend these widely abused and not at all necessary provisions.

Meanwhile, over in the House, the new leadership is simply trying to rush through an entirely new bill that will just push off any discussion until next year.

Filed Under: chuck grassley, dianne feinstein, laws, patrick leahy, patriot act, review

Journalism Professor To Lead UK's Copyright Review?

from the not-economics? dept

We recently pointed out that the UK is about to undergo yet another "big review" of copyright laws. Of course, they already did that just four years ago -- and then proceeded to ignore many of the key findings in that "Gowers Report." It was named that, of course, because the team that put it together was run by Andrew Gowers, a former journalist. So, apparently the current UK leadership is going back to the same well to lead this new report as well, and have picked journalism professor Ian Hargreaves to lead the effort. Nothing against journalism professors -- but it does make you wonder why the UK government isn't interested in having an actual economist lead a study on the economic impact of copyright laws and various potential copyright law changes.

Filed Under: copyright, ian hargreaves, review, uk

Leaked Report Admits That Hadopi First Strike Accusations Won't Be Reviewed For Accuracy

from the accuse-away! dept

As the French "three strikes" Hadopi process begins, with tens of thousands of notices being sent out to accused file sharers (their "first strike"), things may be even more ridiculous than previously assumed. Guillaume Champeau fills us in on the details of a leaked report from the French privacy commissioner (Google translation from the original French). Basically, the privacy commissioner CNIL admits that, due to the number of notices being sent, Hadopi will simply not be able to review the accusations for accuracy, and will need to accept the claims from TMG, the company hired by the entertainment industry to accuse people. Here's Champeau's summary:

"Rights holders have been authorized in June to collect IP addresses on P2P networks, by recruiting the services of the French company TMG. It will monitor P2P networks, store the IP addresses it believes illegally shares copyrighted works, and their rights holder customers will forward the ones they want to the French HADOPI.

Early this week, an internal report by the CNIL was leaked. The CNIL is the Privacy Commissioner in France. It is the Commission which has allowed rights holders to use the TMG services and collect IP addresses.

The report says that "due to the high number of expected cases (25 000 a day at first, then 150 000 a day), it is impossible for the [right holders' agents] to check the [infringement] reports one by one. Nonetheless, the system does not have particular control procedures, for instance by sampling, which would allow an agent to detect anomalies in a collection session".

It says that "the actions of the Hadopi will be limited to accepting or denying the transmitted findings, without the ability to check them. The first steps of the "three strikes" process will therefore lay only upon the collection operated by the TMG system".

Despite these concerns, the CNIL did authorize the right holders to collect the IP addresses, and did not oppose the 3 strikes process by the Hadopi.

Read that bold part carefully. What this is saying is that despite the fact that you can be kicked off the internet based solely on accusations, not convictions, and despite all of the problems with false accusations and the fact that an IP address alone does not accurately identify an individual, and despite the fact that the massive number of notices being sent out mean that there will surely be false positives, the only people reviewing these notices to make sure they're accurate will be employed by the agent hired by the copyright holders themselves. Due process? It's dead.

Filed Under: france, hadopi, oversight, review, three strikes
Companies: tmg

Patent Office Proposes Speed Lane (And Slow Lane) For Patents; Treating The Symptom, Not The Disease

from the that-won't-solve-anything dept

One of the big complaints with the US Patent and Trademark Office is the insane length that it takes these days to get a patent approved. It can be many years at this point. The USPTO has set a goal to help deal with that problem, but so far all we've seen are things like getting examiners to approve more patents. That doesn't help at all. The real problem isn't the patent approval process, it's the patent system itself. The whole setup of the patent system is wrong. If it worked as intended, and was used as a tool to promote innovation, you would see just a small number of patents approved. Right now, it lets through tons of patents that have no impact on progress whatsoever, except perhaps to hinder it. But because of massive abuse of the system, the response has been to flood the system with even more patent applications. The system of having random patent examiners determine what is and what is not both new and non-obvious doesn't scale.

The latest plan from the PTO isn't going to help matters either. The idea is to set up a speed lane and a slow lane for patents. The speed lane means that you pay more and your patent gets reviewed faster (within a year). The middle lane is the same as it is today... except (oops) you now get pushed down a bit because of all the big spenders in the fast lane above you. Then there's the slow lane, which is cheap, but don't expect to see your patent for ages. Apparently they might add some setup with the slow lane that also separates payments out, so you can submit the patent, but later decide to not follow through on it, without having to pay as much. It sounds sort of like a parallel to today's provisional patent system.

Of course, none of this will help. It just means that companies with more money to spend will jump to the fast lane, clogging that fast lane, and lengthening the wait times for those who don't want to spend that much money. It's difficult to see how that helps. The real issue is vastly cutting back on what is considered patentable. Move way from having companies feeling the need to patent anything and everything and get them back to focusing on competing in the marketplace. If there must be a patent system, let it be limited to the rare cases where there is actual proof that the gov't granted monopoly makes sense (if those exist) and where there's no likelihood of independent invention coming up with the same thing at about the same time (a key point that should determine obviousness).

Filed Under: backlog, patents, review

Did The FTC's New 'Blogger' Guidelines Just Change The Way All Book/Music Reviews Must Be Conducted?

from the just-wondering dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in the fact that the FTC has (as was widely expected) approved new rules on "endorsements" or "testimonials," including a section on bloggers or "word-of-mouth marketers." The end goal here is definitely admirable, but I question whether or not this ruling really makes sense:

The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that "material connections" (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers -- connections that consumers would not expect -- must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other "word-of-mouth" marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.

Again, the concept is definitely admirable. There's long been a fear that companies are effectively bribing people with free stuff in order to get good reviews, and the FTC wants people to reveal that info. But... does that really make sense? It seems to me like this could just create a totally unnecessary minefield for anyone who blogs. And why is this focused on bloggers and word-of-mouth marketers? Almost all book and music reviews in the mainstream press involve the books and music being sent for free - and there's never been any question of impartiality of most of those reviews -- but why are they now left out of these rules? Is every blogger who reviews a book going to have to disclose where they got it? What about music? Many music bloggers are sent mp3s by the record labels. Do they need to reveal who sent them stuff? Does that really matter?

The real question, from my standpoint, is whether or not the FTC is really needed here. If someone is constantly blogging positively about stuff they get for free, they put their own credibility at risk, as people realize that the products aren't actually very good. It seems like the type of situation that sorts itself out. Those who are constantly pushing products for questionable reasons hurt themselves and soon no one trusts them. Does the FTC really need to be involved in that process? In the meantime, I'm suddenly glad that we don't do reviews on this site for the most part. I do occasionally mention or review books, but I guess I'll have to mention when I buy those books vs. when I'm sent them for free (it's about 50/50), which seems pretty pointless.

Filed Under: bloggers, disclosure, endorsements, review, testimonials, word of mouth
Companies: ftc