Leak Shows NSA Grabbed Data On 70 Million French Phone Calls In Less Than 30 Days

from the no-wonder-its-data-centers-are-bursting-into-flames dept

Another leak has been released from Edward Snowden's files, this one covered by French newspaper Le Monde. Sam Jones, writing for The Guardian, breaks down the details.

The report in Le Monde, which carries the byline of the outgoing Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who worked with Snowden to lay bare the extent of the NSA's actions, claims that between 10 December 2012 and 8 January 2013 the NSA recorded 70.3m phone calls in France.

According to the paper, the documents show that the NSA was allegedly targeting not only terrorist suspects but politicians, businesspeople and members of the administration under a programme codenamed US-985D.

"The agency has several collection methods," Le Monde said. "When certain French phone numbers are dialled, a signal is activated that triggers the automatic recording of certain conversations. This surveillance also recovers SMS and content based on keywords."

Le Monde says "recording" but according to the Washington Post, the NSA grabbed the metadata on 70 million calls and recorded an unknown number of calls originating from certain phone numbers. Even considering the fact that intelligence agencies consider foreign surveillance to be completely normal (and, importantly, not granted the limited protections provided to the American public), the breadth of this collection has drawn some harsh criticism from French legislators.

The French government has summoned the US ambassador in Paris, demanding an explanation about claims that the National Security Agency has been engaged in widespread phone surveillance of French citizens…

The French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, warned: "This sort of practice between partners that invades privacy is totally unacceptable and we have to make sure, very quickly, that this no longer happens."

Partners or not, grabbing data on 70.3 million phone calls in less than 30 days means there's little being done in the way of targeting (much like here at home). Instead of answering this leak directly, spokespeople for the agency pointed to a statement made by James Clapper all the way back in June -- the one that says all these collections are "legal" and subject to "Congressional oversight." Clapper's canned statement also refers to the NSA's programs being used to "thwart terrorist and cyber-attacks against the US and its allies," but that hardly explains some of the phone calls that were "targeted."

According to the paper, the documents show that the NSA was allegedly targeting not only terrorist suspects but politicians, businesspeople and members of the administration under a programme codenamed US-985D.

Additionally, Le Monde states that unpublished information it obtained indicates massive phone surveillance on private citizens as well as more evidence of the agency delving into the "secrets of major national firms." This latter part was also an issue in Brazil, another country where diplomatic relations have been strained by revelations of the NSA's activities. Earlier leaks indicating the NSA spied on foreign embassies resulted in French president François Hollande threatening to suspend TAFTA negotiations. This latest leak only adds to the strain, even if a large majority of that "strain" has been, up to this point, political posturing.

The fact that the French government does plenty of its own domestic surveillance under a PRISM-esque program also indicates this call for an answer from the American ambassador to France may be more of the same. Nothing distracts from domestic surveillance issues like stories of another country's intrusive efforts -- efforts France's intelligence agencies may likely benefit from.

The above isn't meant to downplay the seriousness of what's going here. The NSA is collecting even more metadata (and intercepting an unknown number of phone calls). If this leak is simply a snapshot of an ongoing program (like the Section 215 collections in the US), then the agency is likely grabbing data on upwards of 800 million phone calls a year -- in just one country.

Filed Under: ed snowden, france, nsa, nsa surveillance, phone calls

NSA Delayed Installing 'Anti-Leak' Software At Site Where Snowden Worked Because Of 'Insufficient Bandwidth'

from the because-reasons dept

Reuters is reporting that the NSA apparently had "delayed installing" the "most up-to-date anti-leak software" at the site in Hawaii where Ed Snowden was based:

The purpose of the software, which in the NSA's case is made by a division of Raytheon Co, is to block so-called "insider threats" - a response to an order by President Barack Obama to tighten up access controls for classified information in the wake of the leak of hundreds of thousands of Pentagon and State Department documents by an Army private to WikiLeaks website in 2010.

The main reason the software had not been installed at the NSA's Hawaii facility by the time Snowden took up his assignment there was that it had insufficient bandwidth to comfortably install it and ensure its effective operation, according to one of the officials.

It's unclear from this reporting if "insufficient bandwidth" means, literally, insufficient network bandwidth, or insufficient time for local sysadmins to get to this project. If it's the former, then, huh? That makes no sense. There's no way they had insufficient network bandwidth, or if they did, then the NSA has some serious problems. If it's the latter, then, what? Good thing the NSA is now getting rid of 90% of its sys admins, huh?

Filed Under: anti-leak software, bandwidth, ed snowden, nsa, sys admins

Snowden's Negative Writeup By The CIA Was For Whistleblowing; Taught Him Why Going Through Proper Channels Gets Punished

from the interesting dept

You may recall there was a bizarre story last week in the NY Times, in which CIA officials had "leaked" to the NY Times that while in Geneva, back in 2009, Ed Snowden had been written up for "trying to break into classified computer files to which he was not authorized to have access." The CIA, though, quickly denied the story, and the whole thing seemed odd. The way it was written, it certainly suggested that Snowden was "hacking" around for questionable documents for years. However, in his new interview with the NYT's James Risen, Snowden explains what really happened, which actually tells a far more interesting story. It's not so much a story about Snowden trying to hack into machines to access data, but more a story of his first clear lesson in finding out what the intelligence community does to whistleblowers: because that's what he had done:

Mr. Snowden said that in 2008 and 2009, he was working in Geneva as a telecommunications information systems officer, handling everything from information technology and computer networks to maintenance of the heating and air-conditioning systems. He began pushing for a promotion, but got into what he termed a “petty e-mail spat” in which he questioned a senior manager’s judgment.

Several months later, Mr. Snowden said, he was writing his annual self-evaluation when he discovered flaws in the software of the C.I.A.’s personnel Web applications that would make them vulnerable to hacking. He warned his supervisor, he said, but his boss advised him to drop the matter and not rock the boat. After a technical team also brushed him off, he said, his boss finally agreed to allow him to test the system to prove that it was flawed.

He did so by adding some code and text “in a nonmalicious manner” to his evaluation document that showed that the vulnerability existed, he said. His immediate supervisor signed off on it and sent it through the system, but a more senior manager — the man Mr. Snowden had challenged earlier — was furious and filed a critical comment in Mr. Snowden’s personnel file, he said.

This is kind of interesting. It sounds like some CIA folks had tried to "leak" the story about the early reprimand in an attempt to make Snowden look bad, but now that a more complete version of the story is out, you quickly realize that it actually reinforces the reasons why Snowden knew that going through "official channels" for whistleblowing wasn't effective, and would likely just lead to him getting in trouble.

Filed Under: cia, ed snowden, geneva, whistleblowing

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

Snowden: DOJ Won't Prosecute Official For Lying, But Will Stop At Nothing To Persecute Someone For Telling The Truth

from the unfortunately-revealing dept

As you hopefully have heard by now, a group of US intelligence community whistleblowers traveled to Moscow last week to present Ed Snowden with the Integrity Award from the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence. As I saw mentioned (and repeated) on Twitter, this image of all of them together is like the Justice League of Whistleblowers. Wikileaks has now released some short video clips from the dinner they all had together. A few of them are quite interesting. Here's the one I thought most on point: If you can't watch it, this is the key quote:

It's led us to a point in our relationship with the government, where we have an executive -- a Department of Justice -- that's unwilling to prosecute high officials who lied to Congress and the country on camera, but they'll stop at nothing to persecute someone who told them the truth. And that's a fundamentally dangerous thing to democracy.

That encapsulates so much of what the problem is with everything that's happened in the past few months. It's a point well worth repeating. The other video I really liked was the one where Snowden talked about the problem of secret laws and secret programs and the idea that the government is supposed to be in power with the consent of the governed, but how that's impossible without oversight. The key statement:

This is not about any particular program. This is about a trend in the relationship between the governing and the governed in Amercia, that is coming increasingly into conflict with what we expect as a free and democratic society. If we can't understand the policies and programs of our government, we cannot grant our consent in regulating them....

Snowden has mostly stayed hidden away from the public eye since all of this began. He's turned down basically all interview requests, so there's been very little shown of him actually speaking, other than the initial video he recorded with Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald. Once again, these videos show someone who appears to have thought deeply about what he is doing and why he did it.

Filed Under: democracy, doj, ed snowden, lies, nsa, nsa surveillance, sam adams award, truth

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

Keith Alexander Still Playing Bogus Fear Card: 'People Will Die' Because Of Snowden Leaks

from the people-are-going-to-die dept

Keith Alexander just can't resist playing the "fear card" when it comes to the Snowden leaks. His latest move is to insist people will die:

Terrorists “listen, they see what has come out in the press and they adjust,” Gen. Alexander said. He said the damage from the leaks is irreversible. “I believe people will die because we won’t be able to stop some of those threats.”

Let's face facts: the NSA cannot and will not stop all attacks. It totally missed the Boston Marathon bombing, for example, even if (ridiculously) it now likes to cite that as one of its "successes" because it was able to make sure that other attacks weren't likely to follow. Yes, people will die from terrorist attacks. That's what happens. The NSA is never going to be 100% successful in stopping attacks. That's the nature of the game. In fact, it's not clear that the NSA has a particularly good track record at stopping attacks at all. But, going further, just because there are some threats, it doesn't mean we throw the 4th Amendment out the window the way Alexander apparently would like.

As I've said before, I'm sure law enforcement would be able to stop lots of crimes -- and potentially some people getting killed -- if it was just able to put a video camera and microphone everywhere. But we don't allow that, because the tradeoff in terms of a violation of our privacy is too great.

Furthermore, that bullshit line about terrorists "adjusting" based on what they read in the press? That might (though, not really) have some weight if others in the intelligence community hadn't already noted that terrorists already know all of this and avoided using these systems, and the fact that the NSA hasn't been able to actually show how any of these programs were essential in stopping a terrorist attack on the US.

Having followed pretty closely what the Snowden docs have revealed, it's not at all clear how any of it would actually make it more difficult for the NSA to do its job. It basically revealed that they're tapping a bunch of things that most people realized weren't particularly secure in the first place.

For all the talk of having a "serious debate" on these issues, it would help a lot of Keith Alexander and James Clapper dropped the whole "you're all going to die" charade. No one's buying it.

Filed Under: ed snowden, fud, keith alexander, nsa, nsa surveillance

CIA Warned About Snowden Trying To Get Into Computers He Wasn't Authorized On Back In 2009 [Update: Or Not]

from the checks-and-balances dept

Update: And, of course, now the NY Times is walking back this story as the CIA has directly denied it:

Asked repeatedly for comment over the past several weeks, most recently on Thursday, the C.I.A. declined. But on Friday, the C.I.A. responded with a statement, the first public acknowledgment that Mr. Snowden had worked for the agency.

“The C.I.A did not file any report on Snowden indicating that it suspected he was trying to break into classified computer files to which he did not have authorized access while he was employed at the C.I.A., nor was he returned home from an overseas assignment because of such concerns,” Todd Ebitz, an agency spokesman, said in the statement.

This contradicts what the NY Times had reported on Friday -- and while it appears someone is not being particularly honest, we'll take back the story as well. Original below -- but crossed out.

The NY Times has an interesting report, claiming that investigators looking back through Ed Snowden's history, discovered that he was written up back in 2009, while working for the CIA, in Geneva, for "trying to break into classified computer files to which he was not authorized to have access." It was for this reason that he was sent home, and moved on to a new job, as a contractor for the NSA. The report notes that the writeup -- known as a "derogatory report" -- was considered somewhat minor, and wasn't shared with folks at the NSA.

What's interesting about this is that it at least suggests that Snowden has been considering all of this for quite a long time. Back in June, he had told Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras that his time in the CIA "disillusioned" him, and a colleague of his in Geneva apparently said recently that Snowden "was already experiencing a crisis of conscience of sorts" when she knew him back then. This seems interesting on a variety of levels, as it further highlights that Snowden didn't take the decision he made to be a whistleblower lightly. Plus, he had a long time to think things through, which supports the claims that Barton Gellman recently made, concerning Snowden's larger view of what he was doing.

Filed Under: background checks, cia, ed snowden, nsa, security

UK Intelligence Boss Blames Snowden And Reporters For Giving A 'Gift' To Terrorists

from the blame-game dept

Well, it appears that the head of the UK's MI5 is going on the offensive (and I mean that in multiple ways) concerning the Ed Snowden leaks, spreading a hilarious story claiming that it's Snowden (and to a lesser extent the Guardian) who have "helped the terrorists" with the leaks... and the UK press dutifully repeated the talking points as fact: And, indeed, the claims are making the rounds of the UK press with little analysis.

Revelations by Edward Snowden about British eavesdropping are a gift to terrorists because they weaken the ability of the security services to stop those plotting deadly attacks against the West, the head of the MI5 Security Service said on Tuesday....

[....] Though he did not mention Snowden by name, Parker warned about the danger of disclosures about the work of Britain's listening agency, known as GCHQ, whose capabilities were made public by media reports based on documents from Snowden stole.

"It causes enormous damage to make public the reach and limits of GCHQ techniques. Such information hands the advantage to the terrorists. It is the gift they need to evade us and strike at will," Parker said in his first public speech taking up his post as MI5 chief on April 22.

This is hogwash on multiple levels. First, it takes incredible self-obsession to claim that someone exposing your questionable activities should be blamed for the consequences of those questionable activities. That's what Andrew Parker doesn't seem to recognize: the problem isn't that Snowden revealed these things, it's that the intelligence community was doing it in the first place. Second, it's already been shown, repeatedly, that terrorists already assumed these kinds of surveillance efforts were ongoing, and were careful to avoid such easy routes of surveillance. Third, if the surveillance relies on keeping the entire concept secret, you're doing it wrong. For decades, criminals have known that the police have the ability to tap phones. There's a whole process involved with real oversight, and most people are now comfortable with the general idea of phone taps following a specific warrant and oversight. The point here is that you don't have to keep the fact that you tap these things a secret if you have sufficient oversight and controls to make sure they're not abused. But that's not what anyone did here.

But, really, these stories of doom and gloom are pretty laughable given that there's been almost no evidence that these surveillance techniques have ever actually stopped terrorist attacks in the first place.

Filed Under: andrew parker, blame, ed snowden, gchq, mi5, nsa, surveillance

Former NSA Director Jokes About Putting Snowden On A 'Kill List,' Says He 'Hopes' NSA Is Involved In Targeted Killings

from the Elmer-FUD-declares-it-'HUMAN-SEASON' dept

Former NSA director Michael Hayden may be a sociopath. Actually, his behavior (and the NSA in general) is slightly more aligned with Antisocial Personality Disorder, defined as such:

Antisocial personality disorder is a mental health condition in which a person has a long-term pattern of manipulating, exploiting, or violating the rights of others. This behavior is often criminal.

So far, compliant courts, lax and compliant oversight and secret interpretations of the law have made sure Hayden's actions never strayed into "criminal" territory during his tenure at the NSA. Now that he's no longer in charge (but still relevant!), his mouth is running overtime.

In a panel discussion about cybersecurity hosted by the Washington Post, Hayden attempted to make a lighthearted joke about killing someone.

Hayden noted that Snowden has been nominated for a European human rights award.

"I must admit, in my darker moment over the past several months, I'd also thought of nominating Mr. Snowden, but it was for a different list"

This list would be the one where the government decides you need to die. Just a little dark humor, certainly not completely inappropriate, given Hayden's limited powers as the former head of the NSA. Of course, the head of the House Intelligence Committee couldn't help but chime in and make it totally inappropriate.

The audience laughed, and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who was also on the panel, responded, "I can help you with that."

Hilarity ensued, as they say. Yes, Mike Rogers, the man who has transformed himself into Chief Flack and Shill for the NSA during his tenure as the head of House Intelligence Committee, had to try and top it, and now comes out looking even more venal and misanthropic than usual.

Hayden followed up this "punchline" to offer even more approval of government-ordained killing.

Michael Hayden, a former director of the National Security Agency, defended the government's use of targeted killings on Thursday.

"Yes, we do targeted killings, and I certainly hope they make full use of the capacities of the National Security Agency when we do that..."

Hayden made the comment in response to a question from the audience about an investigation by journalists Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill into the NSA's alleged role in assassinations.

Fantastic. Hayden pointed out that the US government doesn't do assassinations (let's see what Greenwald's investigation turns up, shall we?), but is perfectly entitled to do "targeted killings" because the nation is "at war." Interesting justification, seeing as the nation has been "at war" with both drugs and terrorism for years now, which means that targeted killings have been and will continue to be "fully justified" for as long as those "battles" rage. These "wars" have already been used to excuse all sorts of behavior US citizens object to, like mass domestic surveillance and inland "border" checkpoints.

As for "targeted," the bodies of dozens of civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan would beg to differ. Except they can't.

So, while the leaks keep leaking on and documents keep being pried from the grasp of government agencies by non-governmental agencies actually interested in protecting Americans' rights, the justifications are wearing thinner and thinner.

And if Hayden's statements are indicative of the mindset of those in the upper echelon of US intelligence, it's more than simply chilling. It's horrifying.

Filed Under: ed snowden, michael hayden, mike rogers, nsa, nsa surveillance, targeted killing