John McCain Says That Keith Alexander Should Be Fired... For All The Wrong Reasons

from the what-about-prosecuted dept

Senator John McCain, who is certainly considered more "hawkish" on national intelligence and thus a lot more likely to support the NSA, made some interesting statements in a recent interview with the German paper Der Spiegel, including saying that President Obama should fire Keith Alexander. While that might surprise you, the reality is that he does so for all the wrong reasons -- mainly, he doesn't blame Alexander for illegal spying. He blames Alexander for letting word get out that we were spying on "friends."

SPIEGEL: Are the intelligence services out of control?

McCain: There has not been sufficient congressional oversight, and there has been an absolutely disgraceful sharing of information that never should have taken place. For many years, we had an absolute provision that any classified information, which was going to be shared, is based on need-to-know information. I was a Navy pilot and had Top Secret clearance because I was in a squadron that in case of war with Russia would carry nuclear weapons. But that did not mean that I was privy to everything to do with all of our war plans in case of a nuclear war.

SPIEGEL: That means that you only knew what you absolutely had to know.

McCain: Yes. Then along came 9/11 and we said, "Oh, one of the reasons why we didn't know about 9/11 is that we didn't do enough information sharing." So now we have a private in the Army with access to most secret cables.

SPIEGEL: You mean Private First Class Bradley Manning, now Chelsea, who leaked thousands of secret documents to Wikileaks.

McCain: And now we have a contractor employee, not a government employee, who has access to information which is, when revealed, most damaging to the standing prestige of the United States and our relations with some of our best friends. Why did Edward Snowden have that information? And what are we doing as far as screening people who have access to this information? It's outrageous, and someone ought to be held accountable.

SPIEGEL: Who must be held accountable?

McCain: The head of the NSA, the president of the United States, the Congressional Intelligence Committees, all of these contractors we pay that were responsible for performing the background checks. There should be a wholesale housecleaning.

SPIEGEL: Should Keith Alexander, head of the NSA, resign?

McCain: Of course, they should resign or be fired. We no longer hold anybody accountable in Washington. The Commandant of the Marine Corps fired a couple of generals because of failure of security at a base in Afghanistan. Tell me who has been fired for anything that's gone bad in this town.

Notice that it's not because of the spying that Alexander should be fired... but rather because people like Manning and Snowden were able to leak documents.

And, yes, elsewhere in the interview, McCain does complain about the extent of the NSA's spying... but not on ordinary Americans. No, the only thing that seems to upset him about it is when it impacts our relationships with "friends" in foreign governments. Look at this key quote:

SPIEGEL: In your opinion, how should intelligence services define the lines that must not be crossed?

McCain: The limit should be the potential damage to relations with that country. In other words, is it worth the collateral damage that could result in those techniques being revealed? What would be the reaction of our friends to it?

Notice absolutely no mention of things like people's rights to privacy? Notice absolutely no mention of concern for citizens either in the US or elsewhere? Nope. His only concern is when the spying might "damage relations" with a friendly country. Incredible.

Elsewhere in the interview, McCain scoffs at the idea that Germany might offer Snowden asylum, saying "we're too good friends" for Germany to do such a horrible thing. He also insists that he knows Snowden revealed everything to the Russians, despite no evidence to support this. He says that if you don't believe Snowden revealed everything to the Russians, "then you believe that pigs can fly." Furthermore, he calls Snowden a "defector," which is simply factually inaccurate. Snowden was forced into the Russians' hands by the US's clumsy approach to trying to stop him.

The only thing that seems to offend McCain is (1) that we let "low level" people like Manning and Snowden have access to secrets and (2) that we might offend a few "high level" friends. It's the complaint of an ultimate insider, who only cares about friends in high places and has absolutely no concern whatsoever for the common people he hasn't been in touch with in decades.

Filed Under: angela merkel, bradley manning, chelsea manning, ed snowden, germany, john mccain, keith alexander, surveillance

Congress Flips Out About 'Snowden The Traitor' As They Try To Pass Legislation To Stop The Program He Revealed

from the cognitive-dissonance dept

Congress is quite incredible at times. Compare and contrast the following two articles. First, we've got the news that Congress is pushing very, very hard to roll back and limit the various NSA surveillance programs -- programs that we only really know the full details about because of the leaks from Ed Snowden to the press. Then, we've got a bunch of Senators calling Snowden a traitor and arguing that Russia has "stabbed us in the back" by taking Snowden in. It's as if they don't even realize what they're saying and how fundamentally ridiculous they look:

“Russia has stabbed us in the back, and each day that Mr. Snowden is allowed to roam free is another twist of the knife,” said Senator Chuck Schumer....

[....] “I think this is a troubling pattern,” Ayotte said, pointing to Putin’s support for Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, his crackdown on adoptions and a string of other decisions in which he’s “basically just trampling on what we’ve expressed to him that we want to see happen … we’re not just talking about Snowden here.”

[....] “I think Snowden is a traitor, and Putin did a wrong thing."... Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told BuzzFeed.

[....] “Russia’s action today is a disgrace and a deliberate effort to embarrass the United States,” McCain said in a statement.

So... he's a traitor, and Russia has "stabbed us in the back" by allowing him to stay in that country... and... oh yeah... we need to fix this whole spying thing that Congress really sorta kinda knew about all along, but didn't much care about until Snowden let the public in on it. Incredible.

Filed Under: chuck schumer, congress, ed snowden, harry reid, john mccain, kelly ayotte, legislation, nsa, nsa surveillance, traitor

There Are Many Reasons Not To Give The NSA The Power To Spy On Your Info

from the here-are-just-a-few dept

We were just noting that the Senate is undergoing a fight concerning whether or not the Cybersecurity Act is going to go anywhere, with much of the fight being a tug of war over your privacy. Senators Franken, Paul and Schumer are supporting an amendment to add in more privacy protections. Senators McCain and Hutchison are looking to take away privacy protections and give the NSA much more power to violate your privacy and access your private info, with less oversight and without it having anything to do with cybersecurity.

The folks over at EFF have put together a nice list of reasons why the NSA cannot be trusted with your data. There are a bunch of reasons, but here are a few:

• NSA has a dark history of violating Americans’ constitutional rights

  In the 1960’s, a Congressional investigation, led by four-term Senator Frank Church, found that the NSA had engaged in widespread and warrantless spying on Americans citizens. Church was so stunned at what he found, he remarked that the National Security Agency’s "capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything." (emphasis added) The investigation led to the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which provided stronger privacy protections for Americans’ communications—that is, until it was weakened by the USA-PATRIOT Act and other reactions to 9/11.

• NSA has continued its warrantless wiretapping scandal

  In 2005, the New York Times revealed that the NSA set up a massive warrantless wiretapping program shortly after 9/11, in violation of the Fourth Amendment and several federal laws. This was later confirmed by virtually every major media organization in the country. It led to Congressional investigations and several ongoing lawsuits, including EFF’s. Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act to grant telecom companies retroactive immunity for participating in illegal spying and severely weaken privacy safeguards for Americans communicating overseas.Since the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) passed, the NSA has continued collecting emails of Americans. A 2009 New York Times investigation described how a “significant and systemic” practice of "overcollection" of communications resulted in the NSA’s intercepting millions of purely domestic emails and phone calls between Americans. In addition, documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU, although heavily redacted, revealed "that violations [of the FAA and the Constitution] continued to occur on a regular basis through at least March 2010"— the last month anyone has public data for.

• NSA recently admitted to violating the Constitution.

  Just last week, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—which oversees the NSA—begrudgingly acknowledged that "on at least one occasion" the secret FISA court "held that some collection… used by the government was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment." Wired called it a "federal sidestep of a major section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act," and it confirmed the many reports over the last few years: the NSA has violated the Constitution.

There are more where that came from. All of these, however, raise serious concerns about why Senators McCain and Huchison seem so eager to allow the NSA to abuse your privacy even more with their amendments. What are they thinking? The EFF has put together an action page asking you to contact your Senators (which you can do via a handy site set up by the American Library Association). The EFF site is also asking people to tweet to their Senators, using the hashtag #defendprivacy and has set up a nice tool to make that easier as well (at the "action page" link above).

In the meantime, we're still waiting for someone (anyone?) to tell us exactly why this bill is needed without resorting to hyperbole about planes falling out of the sky. If there's an existing problem with infosharing, what is it? What law, today, is blocking this kind of infosharing? Until the government can explain that, it seems weird that they're pushing for much greater spying power by the NSA and fewer privacy rights. How can they defend this when they can't even point to what the roadblocks are?

Filed Under: al franken, charles schumer, cybersecurity, john mccain, kay bailey hutchison, privacy, rand paul

Let Your Senator Know Right Now That You Are Watching If They'll Vote To Protect Privacy

from the speak-up dept

On Friday, we mentioned that this week is the week in which the Senate will wrangle over the new Cybersecurity bill. The current bill has some privacy safeguards, but not nearly enough. Senators Al Franken and Rand Paul have put together an amendment to strengthen the privacy safeguards even more -- and over the weekend, Senator Chuck Schumer agreed to co-sponsor the Franken/Paul amendment after talking to various folks in the tech industry and the civil liberties community. That adds more weight to the amendment. Unfortunately, Senators John McCain and Kay Bailey Huchison and a few others, who have been carrying water for the NSA throughout this fight, are looking to move the bill very far in the other direction, wiping out tons of privacy protections. It's really shameful.

Either way, this is the week to let your Senator know how you feel about all of this (and if you're a constituent of McCain or Huchison, please ask why they're so against protecting the privacy of the American public). The American Library Association has kindly set up a simple one-click tool to call your Senator and let them know how you feel.

The EFF has a page with some more info as well, noting that it's basically too late to email your Senators, so please call. If you want some more info, check out Fred Wilson's analysis of the situation, which matches almost exactly with mine. We still have not been given a compelling reason why any such legislation is needed. We keep hearing scare stories about mushroom clouds and planes falling from the sky if information can't be shared. But... what no one has done yet is explain which existing regulations block the necessary sharing of information. If they did that, we could look at fixing those laws. Instead, we're just told scare stories and given a massive 211-page bill that wipes out all sorts of previous laws, and adds all sorts of other things to the law. Given the length of the bill, it's quite likely there are some awful "easter eggs" in there that we'll only discover years down the road.

That said, if the bill is going to pass, it would be much better if it had very strong privacy protections in it, and the Franken/Paul amendment go a long way towards putting such protections in. The McCain/Huchison proposal do the opposite, and basically seek to take away privacy protections, while giving the NSA much more ability to access your data. Don't let the Senate trample your privacy rights. Go ahead and use the ALA's tool to contact your Senator today.

Filed Under: al franken, chuck schumer, cybersecurity, john mccain, kay bailey huchison, privacy, rand paul, senate

Next Week: The Senate Fights Over Whether It Can Take Away Your Online Privacy

from the pay-attention dept

If you haven't been keeping up on all the politics of the cybersecurity bill fight over the past few weeks, a new bill was recently introduced that at least had some improvements concerning privacy (though it still had lots of problems). Yesterday, the Senate basically made it clear that they're done with debating the issue, and will bring the new bill to a vote next week. But now the real fight begins: the fight over the amendments on the bill. A whole bunch of amendments have already been proposed, with a second batch expected to be filed on Monday.

Senator McCain is leading the charge with a whole slew of amendments which are designed to delete basically every last bit of privacy protection that is in the bill. Among many, many other things, McCain's amendments would take away the limitation that any information sharing not go directly to the NSA. As we've noted in the past, a lot of this is a turf battle over whether NSA or Homeland Security gets control of the info, and McCain has been "Team NSA's" biggest cheerleader all along. Furthermore, he wants to remove the limitation that the information can only be used for cybersecurity reasons, making the use of the information much, much broader. There are also all sorts of efforts to take away government liability if information is abused. Basically, everything that's useful or good in protecting privacy? McCain and a few other Senators seem to want to take that away.

On the flip side, there are a few good amendments to increase privacy. Senators Al Franken and Rand Paul are pushing an amendment to strengthen the privacy protections. Senator Wyden is pushing an amendment that basically includes his GPS Act, which basically says law enforcement can't track GPS data without a warrant.

Either way, next week is going to be quite a big fight in the Senate, and the "marginally better" Cybersecurity Act may quickly turn into somethinghorribly destructive to your online privacy. If you care about your privacy, now (and all next week) would be a good time to call your Senator and tell them that any attempt to weaken privacy protections is unacceptable, and that they should get behind the proposals to strengthen privacy protections.

Filed Under: al franken, cybersecurity, cybersecurity act, john mccain, privacy, rand paul, ron wyden, senate

NSA Power Grab: New Legislation Would Give It Broad Powers To Spy On 'Critical' Private Networks

from the doesn't-pass-the-laugh-test dept

Well, we saw this one coming a mile away. Last week, in talking about the current fight in the Senate over the new cybersecurity legislation that's making the rounds, we noted that the behind-the-scenes story appeared to be that the NSA was going to make a power play to try to get responsibility for cybersecurity handed to it, rather than Homeland Security. Over the last few days, it's become clear that's exactly what's going on. While neither the NSA nor DHS inspire much confidence when it comes to heading up cybersecurity, the NSA plan is really crazy. It's expected that Senator McCain will be introducing legislation shortly that would give cybersecurity responsibility to the NSA.

McCain is positioning his version of the bill as one that focuses on "a cooperative relationship with the entire private sector through information sharing, rather than an adversarial one with prescriptive regulations." However, reports are that McCain's version involves a plan that the NSA has been aggressively lobbying for to give it access to networks deemed "critical." The NSA says that it wants to monitor these networks in case of attack so it can spring into action.

However, given the NSA's other mandates (spying!) this certainly has raised some fairly significant concerns. Should every private company running a network deemed critical automatically be required to install a special NSA spying box? Even the White House and the Justice Department (no strangers to over aggressive monitoring) have pushed back that this would be "unprecedented government" intrusion into the civilian internet. It's apparently gotten so bad, that the Obama administration has privately slapped down NSA boss General Keith Alexander (last heard talking about how Anonymous was going to shut down powerlines) for "advocating for something beyond that, that is undermining the commander in chief."

Of course, the administration can't stop former NSA boss Mike McConnell from running around spreading fear mongering stories about how the entire internet is at risk if we don't give the NSA unprecedented spying powers. Left out of his talks on this matter is that, not only has he been making these claims about how the internet is on the verge of collapse if the NSA doesn't get these powers for many, many years (without any evidence to show that it's true), but he's also now employed by Booz, Allen as a VP -- which is relevant, because Booz is already profiting massively from all this fear mongering, by getting hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts to "help" the government deal with the scary threats of the internet.

Jim Dempsey, over at CDT has a discussion of just how ridiculous this NSA powergrab is, in that it makes some key assumptions that just don't seem supported by reality:

The NSA’s claims are premised on the dual assumptions that the private sector is not actively defending its systems and that only the NSA has the skills and the technology to do effective cybersecurity. The first is demonstrably wrong. The Internet and telecommunications companies are already doing active defense (not to be confused with offensive measures). The Tier 1 providers have been doing active defense for years – stopping the threats before they do damage – and the companies have been steadily increasing the scope and intensity of their efforts.

The second assumption (that only the NSA has the necessary skills and insight) is very hard for an outsider to assess. But given the centrality of the Internet to commerce, democratic participation, health care, education and multiple other activities, it does not seem that we should continue to invest a disproportionate percentage of our cybersecurity resources in a military agency. Instead, we should be seeking to improve the civilian government and private sector capabilities.

Dempsey goes on to say that the NSA has already been helping Tier 1 providers by sharing its "secret sauce" to protect them against attack without having to have full access to the networks, and it seems silly that a process like that can't continue and be quite effective without giving up all privacy. Similarly, Jerry Brito, who has been following all of this very closely, notes that it's somewhat crazy to think that we can't just continue with the NSA assisting at arms-length without giving them full access to private networks.

Brito further highlights that there's a reason why we have civilian law enforcement for domestic issues, not military officials -- noting that (while they don't always succeed), civilian law enforcement is used to working within "an environment where constitutional rights apply and to use force only as a last resort." That is simply not true of the military or the NSA, whose operations usually involve issues outside the US, where the Constitution does not apply. And yes, they've certainly blurred that domestic/foreign line over the years, but that's no reason to go even further and give the military more power of the private domestic internet.

Filed Under: critical infrastructure, cybersecurity, dod, john mccain, nsa, spying, turf war

Senators Ramp Up Fear Mongering To Try To Rush Through Cybersecurity Bill

from the and-of-course dept

We're still waiting for any actual evidence that this new cybersecurity bill is really necessary. An actual description of the real problem being dealt with would be a good start. Instead, we just get pure fear mongering. While some Senators are asking supporters of the bill to slow down and carefully consider the issue, the bill's backers, led by Senator Lieberman seem to be on "full speed ahead" mode -- trying to skip hearings and markups to take the bill straight to the Senate floor for a vote.

In this case, Senator John McCain is urging caution, and pushing back at claims that because totally different cybersecurity bills have been introduced in the past, this one can be rushed:

To suggest that this bill should move directly to the Senate Floor because it has ‘been around’ since 2009 is outrageous," McCain said. "First, the bill was introduced two days ago. Secondly, where do Senate Rules state that a bill’s progress in a previous congress can supplant the necessary work on that bill in the present one?"

Of course, it isn't that McCain is "the voice of reason" here. He's actually pushing for a different bill that will give NSA broad spying powers over the internet. The dispute between McCain and Lieberman is really a long-running territorial dispute -- concerning whether Homeland Security or the Defense Department get to control the "cybersecurity" budget. The Lieberman bill gives the power to Homeland Security. McCain wants to give it to the DoD. Neither seem to want to bother with evidence of the actual need here.

Of course, backers of the bill are falling back on their typical doomsday scenarios to explain why they have to rush and avoid any sort of discussion or evidence:

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned the committee there could be grave consequences if Congress does not act to protect cybersecurity.

"Think about how many people could die if a cyber terrorist attacked our air traffic control system and planes slammed into one another," Rockefeller said. "Or if rail switching networks were hacked—causing trains carrying people—or hazardous materials—to derail and collide in the midst of some of our most populated urban areas, like Chicago, New York, San Francisco or Washington."

Yes, and think about how life would suck if someone hacked the road system in West Virginia and turned all roads into cabbage patches? I mean, if we're talking about total hypotheticals with no actual likelihood of happening, that seems just as reasonable a scenario as Rockefeller's. It's pure, insane, unsupported hypothetical fear mongering. Is our air traffic system connected to the internet? I sure hope not. If it is, that's the problem -- not the lack of some cybersecurity bill. We've seen no evidence that the air traffic or rail switching are subject to attack, so creating Hollywood-style scenarios is pretty ridiculous. Is Rockefeller honestly suggesting that the folks who run these systems aren't doing everything they can to secure those systems and that there would be any significant differences if this cybersecurity bill is passed? Somehow I don't think the folks who maintain our air traffic control system are sitting around thinking there's nothing they can do until a cybersecurity bill is in place.

So how about we take a step back, and rather than passing a broad bill based on fear mongering, folks like Rockefeller and Feinstein (hell, or even McCain) produce some actual evidence of a threat? Or is that too hard?

Filed Under: cybersecurity, cyberwar, dhs, dianne feinstein, dod, evidence, jay rockefeller, joe lieberman, john mccain, nsa

John McCain Settles Jackson Browne Lawsuit Over Song Use

from the giving-in dept

Last year, during the presidential campaign, singer Jackson Browne sued John McCain for using one of his songs in an ad. There were a few questionable aspects to the lawsuit. First, the ad wasn't actually from the McCain campaign. There were also some questions about whether or not this was fair use since it was ostensibly used for "political speech," but so far the court didn't seem too amenable to that. And so, McCain has settled the lawsuit and publicly apologized to Browne, who claims this wasn't a partisan issue (yeah, right), but about the rights of musicians. This actually would have been an interesting fair use battle, so it's a little disappointing that it's ended, but the argument over "musicians' rights" strikes me as a bit silly, too. McCain could have easily used the same song live at a campaign stop, assuming the venue paid a compulsory performance license. And someone in the McCain camp could have legally covered the song, paying the correct compulsory license as well -- and then potentially used that version in a commercial. Basically, all this really did was highlight how convoluted and often arbitrary copyright laws are in many cases. But, rather than learning a useful lesson on the mess that is today's copyright law, it looks like McCain has taken the easy way out.

Filed Under: commercials, copyright, fair use, jackson browne, john mccain, music

McCain Responds To Jackson Browne Lawsuit: Here's How Fair Use Works...

from the indeed dept

During the presidential campaign, we noted that singer Jackson Browne had sued the McCain campaign for the use of one of his songs in a commercial. The McCain campaign has filed a response to the lawsuit, first noting that it wasn't the McCain campaign that used the song in an ad, but the Republican Party of Ohio. Second, the campaign points out that the use of the song probably qualifies as fair use:

"Given the political, non-commercial, public interest and transformative nature of the use of a long-ago published song, the miniscule amount used and the lack of any effect on the market for the song (other than perhaps to increase sales of the song), these claims are barred by the fair use doctrine."

Of course, between this and the McCain campaign's attempt to get YouTube to apply different fair use rules to presidential campaign videos, it makes you wonder if Senator McCain will actually try to do something in the Senate to improve copyright law to make fair use more explicit and make it clear that it covers these sorts of actions. Somehow I doubt it.

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, jackson browne, john mccain