NSA Still Not Sure What Snowden Took, But May Try To Pre-empt Future Leaks

from the getting-ahead-of-the-story dept

We've been among those who have suggested that the best way for the NSA to deal with the upcoming NSA leaks is to just stop lying and come clean about what they're doing. It's such a crazy suggestion that even former NSA boss Bobby Ray Inman has suggested it as well. It looks like the NSA is considering revealing something, but it's likely to be pretty limited:

With respect to other information held by Snowden and his allies but not yet publicized, the NSA is now considering a proactive release of some of the less sensitive material, to better manage the debate over its surveillance program.

"We're working on how do we do that," says Richard Ledgett, the NSA official in charge of the agency's response to the Snowden disclosures.

This came following a story about Keith Alexander claiming that Snowden may have taken "up to 200,000" documents with him -- a number that has generated some headlines. Of course, when you read the details, you realize that while Alexander quoted a range that had 200,000 as the ceiling, it also notes that officials at the NSA "remain unsure which documents he downloaded for leaking to the media." Yes, nearly six months in, they still don't know what he took. And this is the agency saying that they have such great audits that no one can abuse their systems? Really?

Glenn Greenwald has already mocked the claim of 200,000 documents (and, I was pretty sure in the past he had put the number in the tens of thousands -- closer to 60,000). But, once again, we're left wondering how the NSA can claim it has controls in place when it still has no idea what happened. Either way, open on up, NSA. Let's see what you've got. I'm sure that each attempt to spin things will be quickly debunked by actual documents from Snowden.

Filed Under: audits, eric holder, keith alexander, leaks, nsa, nsa surveillance, pre-emptive leaks, surveillance

TPP IP Chapter Leaked, Confirming It's Worse Than ACTA

from the no-wonder-it-was-kept-secret dept

We've been waiting a long time for a major leak of the secretive TPP agreement, and thanks to Wikileaks, we now finally have it (pdf - embedded below). It's long and heavy going, not least because of all the bracketed alternatives where the negotiators haven't been able to agree on a text yet. Even though the draft is fairly recent -- it's dated 30 August, 2013 -- it contains a huge number of such open issues. Fortunately, KEI has already put together a detailed but easy-to-understand analysis, which I urge you to read in full. Here's the summary:

The document confirms fears that the negotiating parties are prepared to expand the reach of intellectual property rights, and shrink consumer rights and safeguards.

Compared to existing multilateral agreements, the TPP IPR chapter proposes the granting of more patents, the creation of intellectual property rights on data, the extension of the terms of protection for patents and copyrights, expansions of right holder privileges, and increases in the penalties for infringement. The TPP text shrinks the space for exceptions in all types of intellectual property rights. Negotiated in secret, the proposed text is bad for access to knowledge, bad for access to medicine, and profoundly bad for innovation.

Although many areas are touched by the draft's proposals -- access to life-saving medicines would be curtailed, while the scope of patents would be extended to include surgical methods, for example -- the effects on copyright are particularly significant and troubling:

Collectively, the copyright provisions [in TPP] are designed to extend copyright terms beyond the life plus 50 years found in the Berne Convention, create new exclusive rights, and provide fairly specific instructions as to how copyright is to be managed in the digital environment.

Here are some of the term extensions being proposed:

For the TPP copyright terms, the basics are as follows. The US, Australia, Peru, Singapore and Chile propose a term of life plus 70 years for natural persons. For corporate owned works, the US proposes 95 years exclusive rights, while Australia, Peru, Singapore and Chile propose 70 years for corporate owned works. Mexico wants life plus 100 years for natural persons and 75 years for corporate owned works. For unpublished works, the US wants a term of 120 years.

A more technical issue concerns the use of the "3-step test" to act as a further constraint on possible exceptions to copyright:

In its current form, the TPP space for exceptions is less robust than the space provided in the 2012 WIPO Beijing treaty or the 2013 WIPO Marrakesh treaty, and far worse than the TRIPS Agreement. While this involves complex legal issues, the policy ramifications are fairly straightforward. Should governments have a restrictive standard to judge the space available to fashion exceptions for education, quotations, public affairs, news of the day and the several other "particular" exceptions in the Berne Convention, and more generally, why would any government want to give up its general authority to consider fashioning new exceptions, or to control abuses by right holders?

That's a good example of how TPP is not just trying to change copyright in favor of the maximalists, but also to rig the entire process in favor of strengthening it in the future. Here's another one, where TPP wants to stop any return to copyright systems that require registration -- something that has been suggested as a way of solving some of the problems that arise because of copyright's automatic nature:

The TPP goes beyond the TRIPS agreement in terms of prohibiting the use of formalities for copyright. While the issue of formalities may seem like a settled issue, there is a fair amount of flexibility that will be eliminated by the TPP. At present, it is possible to have requirements for formalities for domestically owned works, and to impose formalities on many types of related rights, including those protected under the Rome Convention. In recent years, copyright policy makers and scholars have begun to reconsider the benefits of the registration of works and other formalities, particularly in light of the extended terms of copyright the massive orphan works problems.

As you would expect, TPP wants strong protection for DRM; but even here, it manages to make things worse than they are:

The copyright section also includes extensive language on technical protection measures, and in particular, the creation of a separate cause of action for breaking technical protection measures. The US wants this separate cause of action to extend even to cases where there is no copyrighted works, such as in cases of public domain materials, or data not protected by copyright.

This would make it illegal to circumvent DRM even if it has been applied to materials that are in the public domain -- effectively, enclosing them once more. Finally, it's worth noting that under the section laying down damages for copyright infringement we read the following:

In determining the amount of damages under paragraph 2, its judicial authorities shall have the authority to consider, inter alia, any legitimate measure of value the right holder submits, which may include lost profits, the value of the infringed goods or services measured by the market price, or the suggested retail price.

It's exactly the phrasing that was used in ACTA, and which turned up in the recent free trade agreement between the EU and Singapore. That encapsulates well how TPP builds on ACTA directly, while the other measures discussed above show how it goes well beyond it in many respects.

That's the bad news. The good news is that we now have a very recent draft of what is perhaps the most contentious section of the agreement. In the weeks to come, we're likely to see many detailed analyses exposing just how pernicious this proposed deal will be for the public in the negotiating countries. The hope has to be that once they find out, they will make their feelings known to their political representatives as they did with SOPA and ACTA -- and with the same final result.

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Filed Under: act, copyright, leaks, patents, secrecy, tpp, trade agreement, transparency, ustr, wikileaks

UK Gov't Losing The Plot: Now Claiming Snowden Leaks Could Help Pedophiles

from the wtf? dept

Having already gone down the crazy path to arguing that journalism can be terorrism if it's "designed to influence a government," in the David Miranda detention lawsuit, the UK government is also claiming that the Ed Snowden leaks may help pedophiles. This seems to be a dystopian updated version of copyright maximalists trying to use child porn to support their own arguments. The general thinking is "just make some sort of nonsensical connection to child porn, and that'll show people how serious this is." The reality is that since most people can think, they realize that there is no connection to child porn, and thus the claim makes no sense. Same thing here, but at an even more bizarre level of insanity.

Paedophiles may escape detection because highly-classified material about Britain’s surveillance capabilities have been published by the Guardian newspaper, the government has claimed.

A senior Whitehall official said data stolen by Edward Snowden, a former contractor to the US National Security Agency, could be exploited by child abusers and other cyber criminals.

How? Uh, don't ask silly questions like that. The government has said "child abusers" so shut up and be scared. The Telegraph article, by David Barrett, admits that the government didn't explain how it made this connection, but then attempts to connect the dots for you:

it is well known that many paedophiles use the internet to share child pornography and to groom potential victims. They also use “peer to peer” groups on the web to communicate with other child abusers.

Any clues about how to evade detection which have been provided by Mr Snowden’s leaks could help paedophiles to cover their tracks.

But, under that argument, any privacy or encryption could be lumped into that same camp. Does David Barrett or the UK government refuse to use SSL on webpages, since encryption can be used to cover the tracks of pedophiles? The argument shows just how painfully desperate the UK government is in this case -- and also how petty and jealous it appears the Guardian's UK competitors have become, in that this is reported as if Snowden's efforts seriously would "help pedophiles."

Filed Under: ed snowden, exaggeration, leaks, pedophiles, propaganda, surveillance, uk

US Intelligence Effectively Admits That, Despite Earlier Statements, They Don't Think Snowden Gave Docs To Russians

from the apparently-they-figured-out-what-he-had dept

The Washington Post has an interesting article about James Clapper calling intelligence officials around the globe to effectively pre-warn them that cooperative activities with US intelligence agencies are likely to be revealed in the press before long, thanks to Ed Snowden. It's a worthwhile read, but two things struck me about it:

1. It sounds like the NSA might have finally figured out what Snowden took, only five or so months later.
2. They seem to know that (contrary to what they've claimed publicly) Russia does not have access to the trove of Snowden docs. That's not stated explicitly, but the following snippet makes it pretty clear:

   In one case, for instance, the files contain information about a program run from a NATO country against Russia that provides valuable intelligence for the U.S. Air Force and Navy, said one U.S. official, who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation. Snowden faces theft and espionage charges.
   
   “If the Russians knew about it, it wouldn’t be hard for them to take appropriate measures to put a stop to it,” the official said.

   That statement certainly indicates that the Russians haven't taken those appropriate measures... meaning that they don't yet know about it. Of course, Snowden himself recently insisted that he got rid of the docs before going to Russia, but some chose not to believe him. The statements above suggest not only that Snowden was being truthful, but also that administration and Congressional officials who insist that Snowden gave the documents to the Russian are ignorant or lying.

It's funny how a little sunlight and transparency often has a contagious way of revealing even more over time...

Filed Under: ed snowden, intelligence, james clapper, leaks, russia

Governments Have A Long History Of Calling Journalists 'Traitors' When They Publish Embarassing Materials

from the a-little-history-lesson dept

It's been somewhat incredible to watch government officials try to claim that reporters covering the NSA revelations from Ed Snowden's leaked documents are somehow "traitors." Last week, in the UK, the head of MI5, Andrew Parker, made a fool of himself going around telling other newspapers that The Guardian had somehow helped terrorists. However, as Amy Davidson at the New Yorker reminds us, when the government suddenly starts calling journalists "traitors," it pays to be skeptical, because it's most likely that the government is just very embarrassed about some news that makes them look bad.

Davidson relays the story of "the Spiegel Affair" from 1962, in which German officials went completely insane in attacking Der Spiegel for supposedly "putting lives at risk" by revealing 41 "highly classified state secrets." Officials also claimed that the publisher and the reporter were fleeing the country and needed to be stopped and arrested. The publication's offices had to be raided. Of course, it all later turned out to be almost entirely bogus. The report was certainly embarrassing to German officials -- highlighting how ill-prepared the country was in the case of an attack, because a simulation had resulted in fifteen million West Germans dead. Many of the official claims were outright lies (like the publisher skipping town to Cuba, which never happened). While that doesn't mean that reporters can't sometimes reveal too much, it's a good reminder that when the government flips its lid in situations like this, it pays to take the claims with a very large grain of salt.

The key paragraph from Davidson makes the point clear:

The professional secret-keepers are phenomenally bad at distinguishing between the threat of terror and their terror at being threatened—or worse, as with Strauss, at being humiliated. They need the press not just to shake them up but also to keep them from being destabilized by their own weaknesses and vanities.

We've discussed at length the overclassification problem in the government, and this is all a symptom of that. The government likes to overclassify things that may embarrass government officials -- and thus they tend to overreact when those things eventually come out. This is, in part, because of the embarrassing information, but also because of the attempt to cover up the embarrassment, which only makes the whole thing worse.

Either way, this historical example is good to remember as we continue to see government officials make fanciful claims without any evidence to support them about how much the Chelsea Manning or Ed Snowden leaks have "harmed" our safety.

Filed Under: germany, governments, journalism, leaks, traitor, uk, whistleblowers

Ed Snowden Confirms He Took None Of The Documents To Russia

from the as-expected dept

As we noted last month, from earlier comments Ed Snowden had made about it being impossible for him to reveal the documents he leaked to the Russians or Chinese, it seemed quite likely that he got rid of the documents and had no copies any more himself. This seemed even more likely after the report from earlier this week that the four laptops he took were more of a diversion than anything else. And now, Snowden has confirmed directly that he handed the documents off to Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald and did not keep copies for himself, as he's now explained to the NY Times' James Risen.

Mr. Snowden said he gave all of the classified documents he had obtained to journalists he met in Hong Kong, before flying to Moscow, and did not keep any copies for himself. He did not take the files to Russia “because it wouldn’t serve the public interest,” he said.

“What would be the unique value of personally carrying another copy of the materials onward?” he added.

While he obviously did take them to Hong Kong, that was before anyone was paying attention to him, and he notes that he was well aware of how to hide the documents from the Chinese, having actually taught a class at the NSA on Chinese cybercounterintelligence.

“There’s a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents,” he said.

He further noted that the NSA is well aware that neither the Russians nor Chinese got access to the documents, meaning that when US officials are suggesting that he gave the docs to both (or that they got them from him) they're either ignorant or lying. He also explained that, contrary to the claims from some that he "defected" to Russia, his intent had never been to "defect" to either Russia or China, but (as people have noted) due to the US's own actions, he's effectively been stranded in Russia for the time being.

Filed Under: china, documents, ed snowden, leaks, russia

As Expected, Snowden's Four Laptops Were A Diversion; Didn't Contain Leaked Files

from the moving-on dept

One of the oddities of the whole Ed Snowden affair has been all the talk of how some people are absolutely positive that officials in both China and Russia have copies of all the documents he had. One thing that's often brought up is the fact that he traveled with four laptops -- with the assumption being that the documents are somehow stored on those laptops, and it's likely that government officials in those two countries were able to get access to those laptops and thus get the documents. Except, as some pointed out early on, that doesn't make much sense. Why would you need four laptops to carry a bunch of documents? Documents can be quite small and you don't need extra laptops if you run out of room. Furthermore, as reporter Barton Gellman has explained, Snowden's expertise is in keeping stuff like that secret, and it seemed quite unlikely that he had the documents on those laptops -- which is also why he was able to state that there was no actual way for officials in those countries to get the data from him.

There's now more support for this claim, as Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst, who was among a small group of high profile whistleblowers from the US intelligence community who traveled to Russia to meet with Snowden last week, has explained that the laptops were nothing more than "a diversion."

The four laptop computers that former U.S. spy contractor Edward Snowden carried with him to Hong Kong and Moscow were a "diversion" and contained no secrets, according to an ex-CIA official who met with Snowden in Russia this week.

The classified documents that Snowden had downloaded from the U.S. National Security Agency were stored on smaller devices, such as hard drives and thumb drives, and they have not been turned over to the Russian or Chinese authorities, said Ray McGovern, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst.

Of course, some will point out that the Russians and the Chinese could also get those hard drives and thumb drives, but from everything that's been stated, it seems fairly clear that Snowden doesn't have them any more himself, either. Either way, it would appear that a lot of people jumped to conclusions that have yet to be supported by any actual evidence.

Filed Under: ed snowden, laptops, leaks, nsa, nsa surveillance

Question: Will Dianne Feinstein Investigate Her Own Leak Of Classified Info? Will She Face Espionage Act Charges?

from the just-asking... dept

So, we just discussed how it appears that Dianne Feinstein accidentally confirmed what was widely suspected: that the NSA is tapping the internet backbone to get access to emails. This is interesting on many levels, not the least of which is that Feinstein herself has been famously harsh against any kind of leak, regularly arguing that the leaks themselves are more damaging than what the leaks may reveal about US government abuse. In the past, Feinstein has raged against leakers:

In a televised interview Wednesday, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein repeatedly vented her ire over leaks of classified information and she signaled that she favors a more aggressive crackdown on those who are passing national security secrets to the press.

"What we're seeing...is an Anschluss, an avalanche of leaks. And it's very, very disturbing. You know, it's dismayed our allies. It puts American lives in jeopardy. It puts our nation's security in jeopardy," Feinstein (D-Calif.) said on CNN's "Situation Room" program.

Similarly, she has argued that Ed Snowden is a "traitor" for revealing information, though unlike her, he didn't reveal this particular program (or at least it hasn't been reported on yet).

Meanwhile, the Senate's current rules on revealing classified information suggest that an investigation is warranted:

The Senate Office of Security and the House counterpart are charged with investigating or coordinating investigations of suspected security violations by employees. In addition, investigations by the House and Senate Ethics Committees of suspected breaches of security are authorized by each chamber’s rules, directly and indirectly. The Senate Ethics Committee, importantly, has the broad duty to “receive complaints and investigate allegations of improper conduct which may reflect upon the Senate, violations of law, violations of the Senate Code of Official Conduct, and violations of rules and regulations of the Senate.” The panel is also directed “to investigate any unauthorized disclosure of intelligence information [from the Senate Intelligence Committee] by a Member, officer or employee of the Senate.”

If, for example, Senator Wyden had ever actually revealed the details of any classified program (as some had urged him to do), you can rest assured that such an investigation (along with a public tarring and feathering) would likely have occurred. It's also unlikely that he would be allowed to remain on the Intelligence Committee.

So, will Senator Feinstein call for an investigation into her own leak? Will she call herself a traitor? We'll see...

Filed Under: dianne feinstein, investigations, leaks, nsa surveillance, surveillance

The Press Lumps Ed Snowden And Chelsea Manning In With Mass Murderers, Actual Spies

from the all-the-same dept

Many in the press still seem to have difficulty recognizing that a whistleblower, even one disliked by the government, isn't somehow an automatic pariah to society. Instead, they like to lump them in with actual law breakers. Here are two recent examples. First up is the Washingtonian, who seems to think that Ed Snowden and Chelsea Manning should be viewed in the same light as actual spies -- people who famously chose to sell secrets to our enemies or to help those enemies against the US. Lumping Manning and Snowden in with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Benedict Arnold, Aldrich Ames, John Walker Lindh and others suggests a profound misunderstanding of what Snowden and Manning did: releasing evidence of significant wrongdoing by the US government to the press. You would think if anyone could understand it, it should be the press. Still, I can understand how some confused people still want to argue that there's at least a continuum between some of those folks and Manning and Snowden -- even if I disagree wholeheartedly -- simply because of the releasing of classified information. I think it's very different to give that info to the press, which is then able to go through it and report on the stories (as both Snowden and Manning did) than giving it to a foreign power, but some people don't seem to get that distinction.

Either way, even if you think the above chart is okay, the following one is simply outrageous. As pointed out by the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer, Time Magazine has put together a graphic comparing Snowden and Manning to mass murderers Nidal Hasan and Aaron Alexis. Yes, the argument they're making is that these are all examples of "missed signals in our government-clearance system." And we've certainly discussed how terrible the process is for getting top secret clearance these days. But, even so, lumping those four together is crazy. There's nothing about what Manning or Snowden did that should have set off alarm bells during the clearance process. They were people who loved America and then realized that the government was secretly doing things that they believed to be fundamentally anti-American, and they set out to try to fix that by alerting the public. That's pretty damn different than going someplace and shooting it up.

These are both subtle ways in which the press is trying to smear Snowden and Manning, by lumping them in with crimes of which they are not guilty.

Filed Under: bradley manning, chelsea manning, ed snowden, espionage, journalism, leaks, murder, spies, whistleblowers

DOJ Puts Another Leaker In Jail: The War On Whistleblowers Rolls On

from the no-leaks-allowed dept

You may recall that, prior to the whole Snowden affair, the DOJ was under fire for spying on the phone records of a bunch of Associated Press journalists. The issue was some details of the US disrupting a supposed plan by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to bomb a US-bound plane were leaked. The DOJ has now triumphantly announced a guilty plea for the leak from Donald Sachtleben, an ex-FBI agent, who apparently gave detailed info about the plot to AP journalists. Sachtleben was already dealing with charges for child porn, so this just piles on top of that. He's agreed to serve 43-months in jail for the leak, covering both a charge of disclosing national defense information as well as retaining classified info.

While this does seem like a case of more of a general "leak" rather than direct whistleblowing, it clearly fits in with the President's war on whistleblowers, whose architect loves to send people to jail to make an example of them.

It's still difficult to see how this justified spying on so many AP phone lines. While some keep insisting that the leak was really dangerous, as has been previously noted, now CIA boss (prior to being in that position) appeared to reveal a lot more about the "plot" that suggested that here was never any actual threat at all. Furthermore, the AP had agreed to hold off on publishing the info until the government had made it clear that there was no risk.

Filed Under: aqap, arrests, doj, donald sachtleben, leaks, surveillance
Companies: associated press