How NSA Spying On Angela Merkel May Scuttle TAFTA/TTIP Trade Agreement

from the another-good-deed-by-Snowden dept

There's been plenty of attention paid to the news of the past week or so about the NSA spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone. While some still insist this is no big deal, the eventual consequences could be a very big deal. First off, remember that it was just a few months ago that (in the wake of the initial Snowden leaks), the US and Germany had made a silly pledge, which no one believed, that they wouldn't spy on each other. That "agreement" is already being put to the test.

As we discussed last week, the real "casualty" from all of these discussions may actually be that America can't get away with being a massive hypocrite anymore, despite so much of its foreign and domestic policy being built around being able to get away with just that. And, a large part of that is how the US pushes other countries into very questionable trade agreements -- another thing that we've been following for years. And those two things may be on a collision course. For quite some time now, we've been discussing the big trade agreement that the EU and the US are working towards, called TAFTA or TTIP. But one of the lesser noticed points about the revelations of the spying on Merkel is that many people in Germany are saying that negotiations on this agreement should be put on hold:

The chancellor's office is also now considering the possibility that the much-desired trans-Atlantic free trade agreement could fail if the NSA affair isn't properly cleared up. Since the latest revelations came out, some 58 percent of Germans say they support breaking off ongoing talks, while just 28 percent are against it. "We should put the negotiations for a free-trade agreement with the US on ice until the accusations against the NSA have been clarified," says Economy Minister Ilse Aigner, a member of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrats.

There are many reasons why TAFTA/TTIP is looking like a bad deal anyway, having nothing to do with the NSA spying, but if the Snowden docs lead to that agreement being put "on ice" for a while, that seems like another useful outcome.

Filed Under: angela merkel, nsa, nsa surveillance, tafta, trade agreements, trust, ttip

If All These Countries Are So Outraged By Revelations Of US Spying On Them, Why Aren't They Offering Snowden Asylum?

from the telling... dept

Glenn Greenwald makes some really good points in a Guardian column (one of his last) discussing the reactions to the latest revelations about the NSA surveillance on citizens and (mainly) top politicians in other countries. The key one being, if these countries are really so outraged by these revelations, shouldn't they be offering Ed Snowden asylum, since they appear to be admitting that these revelations are important?

All of these governments keep saying how newsworthy these revelations are, how profound are the violations they expose, how happy they are to learn of all this, how devoted they are to reform. If that's true, why are they allowing the person who enabled all these disclosures – Edward Snowden – to be targeted for persecution by the US government for the "crime" of blowing the whistle on all of this?

If the German and French governments – and the German and French people – are so pleased to learn of how their privacy is being systematically assaulted by a foreign power over which they exert no influence, shouldn't they be offering asylum to the person who exposed it all, rather than ignoring or rejecting his pleas to have his basic political rights protected, and thus leaving him vulnerable to being imprisoned for decades by the US government?

Of course, when put in the context of how it's really just about cutting off the power of American hypocrisy, this situation makes more sense, even as it highlights the hypocrisy of those other countries.

The reality is that none of these leaders expressing outrage are actually shocked by this. Everyone knew this was going on. They're reacting this way because it's all part of the theater, in which they have to act shocked and to condemn the US, but it's really just about the information being revealed. When looked at under that light, of course they have no interest in offering Snowden asylum. He's the one who created the "shock" by revealing this information which all those officials almost certainly knew about, while pretending not to.

Filed Under: asylum, ed snowden, france, germany, ialy, nsa, nsa surveillance, spain

Rep. Alan Grayson: I Learn Much More About The NSA From The Press Than From Intelligence Briefings

from the and-that's-important dept

Rep. Alan Grayson has been among the most outspoken members of Congress about the NSA's surveillance efforts, and his latest is an op-ed in the Guardian, in which he notes that Congressional "oversight" is really Congressional "overlook," and that he learns much more about the NSA from the press than from the House intelligence briefings:

Despite being a member of Congress possessing security clearance, I've learned far more about government spying on me and my fellow citizens from reading media reports than I have from "intelligence" briefings. If the vote on the Amash-Conyers amendment is any indication, my colleagues feel the same way. In fact, one long-serving conservative Republican told me that he doesn't attend such briefings anymore, because, "they always lie".

Many of us worry that Congressional Intelligence Committees are more loyal to the "intelligence community" that they are tasked with policing, than to the Constitution. And the House Intelligence Committee isn't doing anything to assuage our concerns.

We've covered in detail how House Intelligence chair Mike Rogers had blocked other Reps. from learning information about the spying program, refusing to answer questions or provide more access to certain Congressional Reps, as well as generally making sure that curious Reps can't find out the answers to their questions. Grayson goes into more detail:

I've requested classified information, and further meetings with NSA officials. The House Intelligence Committee has refused to provide either. Supporters of the NSA's vast ubiquitous domestic spying operation assure the public that members of Congress can be briefed on these activities whenever they want. Senator Saxby Chambliss says all a member of Congress needs to do is ask for information, and he'll get it. Well I did ask, and the House Intelligence Committee said "no", repeatedly. And virtually every other member not on the Intelligence Committee gets the same treatment.

Recently, a member of the House Intelligence Committee was asked at a town hall meeting, by his constituents, why my requests for more information about these programs were being denied. This member argued that I don't have the necessary level of clearance to obtain access for classified information. That doesn't make any sense; every member is given the same level of clearance. There is no legal justification for imparting secret knowledge about the NSA's domestic surveillance activities only to the 20 members of the House Intelligence Committee. Moreover, how can the remaining 415 of us do our job properly, when we're kept in the dark – or worse, misinformed?

This is even more important than just a few concerned Congressional Reps. Just recently, we wrote about the FISA Court's defense of its latest renewal on the bulk metadata collection of phone records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. A very key piece of that decision had to do with the FISA Court's belief that Congress was well-informed about the programs when it voted to renew Section 215 -- thus, arguing that Congress approves of such things. Grayson's comments (along with those of many other House Representatives -- not to mention the 207 Reps who voted for the Amash Amendment against such bulk collection) suggest that the FISA Court is simply wrong on this, but doesn't seem to care enough to find out the truth.

Filed Under: alan grayson, congress, house intelligence committee, mike rogers, nsa, nsa surveillance, oversight

While Congress Looks Set To Push Back On NSA Surveillance, Sen. Feinstein Wants To Codify Current Practices

from the of-course-she-does dept

At this point, it's no secret that Senator Dianne Feinstein is one of the biggest cheerleaders for the NSA -- she exhibits the signs of a co-dependent with the NSA. Now, with a powerful coalition in Congress getting set to introduce meaningful reform to limit the NSA's efforts, Feinstein is going in the other direction, preparing a counter-attack bill that serves to codify current practices:

"I do not want to leave the United States in a position where we are open to another major attack because we can't ferret out who terrorists might be calling in this country to put it together," Feinstein said in an interview.

Her committee is drafting legislation to codify the phone records program, the existence of which was leaked in June by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. The legislation would grant the agency explicit authority to gather records listing the numbers, duration and time of all U.S. telephone calls, but not their content.

Of course, since the very beginning of this, Feinstein has been insisting at every opportunity that everything done was perfectly legal. If that's truly the case, why would she need to "codify" current practices? The political reality is that she needs to do this to have "something" to push people to support instead of the USA Freedom Act being supported by Senator Patrick Leahy. Basically, these two bills are likely to be a referendum on who believes in the 4th Amendment, and who thinks the US should cower in fear and spy on everyone.

Filed Under: dianne feinstein, nsa, nsa surveillance, pat leahy

Rep. Mike Rogers Says France Should Be 'Popping Chamagne Bottles' To Celebrate That We Spy On Them

from the both-tone-deaf-and-culturally-insensitive dept

You have to hand it to Rep. Mike Rogers. Not only is he politically tone deaf to why people are so pissed off about NSA surveillance and privacy violations, but he appears to be culturally insulting as well. His latest is to defend last week's story about the NSA collecting information on 70 million calls in France to claim that the French ought to be "popping champagne bottles" to cheer on the NSA spying on them. Honestly, it would be difficult to make up a comment this clueless.

“If the French citizens knew exactly what that was about, they would be applauding and popping champagne corks. It’s a good thing. it keeps the French safe. It keeps the US safe. It keeps our European allies safe,” he added.

“This whole notion that we’re going to go after each other on what is really legitimate protection of nation-state interest, I think is disingenuous.”

At least he didn't suggest they should also enjoy some cheese. Of course, that presumes the only reason the US is spying on the French is to protect them against terrorists. But, if that were actually true, they wouldn't also be bugging the phones of leadership and politicians. To date, there is no indication that the spying on all of those calls was limited to "protecting" the French -- and Rogers' own next statement more or less confirms that this has always been about protecting US interests, not the French.

So, here's a simple question for Mike Rogers: would he be okay with sharing all of his phone and email records with the French? After all, perhaps they'll use it to protect him from harm. Even better, yet, why not release that information publicly. If it's just metadata, then there's no expectation of privacy, right? If Rogers releases all of his phone and email metadata for the past five years, I'll stop by his office the next time I'm in DC with a bottle of champagne.

Filed Under: france, mike rogers, nsa, nsa surveillance

More Leaks: NSA Collecting Millions Of Phone Records From Italy And Spain

from the next-up:-NSA-building-out-telco-infrastructure-in-developing-nations dept

The NSA has a majority of Europe under its surveillance. The latest revelations detail the agency grabbed the data on 60 million Spanish phone calls during roughly the same 30-day period it grabbed data on 70 million French calls. Add to that 46 million calls from Italy and you've got something that resembles the NSA's domestic surveillance (via the Section 215 bulk records collections) deployed abroad, according to Paul Hamilos' writeup for The Guardian.

An NSA graphic, entitled "Spain – last 30 days", reportedly shows the daily flow of phone calls within Spain, and that on one day alone – 11 December 2012 – the NSA monitored more than 3.5m phone calls. It appears that the content of the calls was not monitored but the serial and phone numbers of the handsets used, the locations, sim cards and the duration of the calls were. Emails and other social media were also monitored.

More specifically, there's an untold number of European officials receiving more intense scrutiny from the agency (Merkel and 35 others, according to the numbers being thrown around), with German Chancellor Angela Merkel being the most notable, or at least, the most publicly outraged (although, as Glenn Greenwald points out, largely silent when news broke that the NSA was spying on German citizens). Whether Obama did or didn't know about this surveillance of Merkel, which went on for more than a decade, is hardly worth determining. If he did, it's the acceptable lying face of international diplomacy. But if he truly didn't, it just shows how completely secretive the NSA has been. The NSA constantly points to "rigorous oversight" when defending its actions, but there's no one person or group in the government that seems to have been fully apprised of its activities.

Spain has reacted to this news much like France did and has summoned the US Ambassador for an explanation and (presumably) a bit of yelling. Despite the fact that nations spy on other nations all the time, the public outcry surrounding these leaks has prompted a unified European front demanding answers and changes from the US. This may not all be a diversion, however. While nations are completely expected to spy on other state agencies and officials (like Merkel, etc.), the collection of data on millions of private phone calls isn't.

The outcry has also helpfully diverted attention away from these nations' own domestic surveillance programs. France apparently has domestic surveillance that rivals the NSA's, but that's being buried by the pushback against the NSA's bulk collections. According to a commentary piece in eldiaro.es, Spain has its own domestic surveillance program that is roughly aligned with the bulk records collections in the US. And, unsurprisingly, there's very little oversight governing these activities, as is explained here by Hamilos.

Under Spanish law a judge must give permission before a phone can be tapped, and is then required to permanently supervise the execution of that legal order. According to Boye, there are around one million phone lines currently being monitored in Spain, and given the number of judges, he says that works out at an average 600 wiretaps supposedly being supervised by each judge. That's a lot of work. As he suggests, it is impossible that this monitoring is really receiving any proper judicial oversight.

While it may seem odd for the NSA to be viewed a scapegoat, there's plenty of evidence out there that the countries making the most noise about US spying are deploying plenty of intrusive domestic surveillance of their own.

As we discussed last week, the UK's GCHQ has been covering up its activities for years in order to avoid being "held back" by the country's laws. The GCHQ has also enjoyed a mutually advantageous relationship with the NSA over the years, receiving "tens of millions of dollars" to fund surveillance programs that feed directly or indirectly into the US agency's intel.

In recent weeks, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has gone on record to condemn The Guardian's decision (and to urge the opening of an investigation) to publish leaked documents and claimed that its decision to do so has harmed the security of the nation. Despite these bursts of pro-spying rhetoric, Cameron has now added his signature to a EU memorandum expressing concern about the NSA's foreign spying. Somewhere between hypocrisy and desperation lies Cameron, a man who vigorously defends his nation's domestic spying apparatus (and by extension, the NSA's activities) but feels compelled by forces beyond his control to present a unified front with Europe's more powerful nations.

To those outside the diplomatic bubble, the statement might seem anodyne, but it is already being interpreted as a slap in the face to Washington because it talks of the US-EU partnership being "based on respect and trust, including as concerns the work and co-operation of secret services".

The line in the memorandum warning that "a lack of trust could prejudice" counter-terrorism operations is particularly wounding for Cameron, seeing as Downing Street is desperate to claim that Edward Snowden's leaked documents – not the behaviour of the NSA or GCHQ – have been a gift to terrorists and criminals.

UK intelligence agencies have definitely benefited from the NSA's actions, actions which are now being decried all over Europe. Cameron may be in a bad position at the moment (but he's also on the way out the door...), but his signature delivered out of obligation will have little effect on the cozy relationship between the US and UK intelligence agencies. Neither country's intelligence agencies are willing to give up this two-way flow of information. If anything, the NSA will be receiving information it can't get elsewhere, even with the programs it's deployed all over Europe. The laws governing the GCHQ have given the agency a very exploitable phrase (on par with the NSA's interpretation of the word "relevant") which gives the agency the legal authority to pursue other nation's officials even more extensively than the NSA can, as the Guardian's Nick Hopkins points out.

When the Intelligence Services Act was passed in 1994 it included a line – inserted at the last minute – that Britain's spy agencies could legitimately seek intelligence that would support the "economic wellbeing" of the country. This provision is one of the most opaque in the legislation and could be interpreted to justify espionage on just about any head of state or company chief executive, though this would require ministerial approval.

If "ministerial approval" equates roughly with the approval process of the FISA court, then there's effectively no limit to who the GCHQ can pursue. Earlier reporting suggests this is the case.

So, while Europe is being hit with details of foreign spying, European leaders are keeping the focus on the NSA while their own domestic surveillance programs continue unabated. As more details surface, this convenient facade is likely to crumble. If the US is working with the GCHQ to spy on citizens of the UK, there's no doubt it has set up data-sharing surveillance programs in other countries as well.

Filed Under: europe, nsa, nsa surveillance, spain

Feds Wait Until Late Friday To Release Details Of Criminal Case That Used NSA Surveillance, Which They'd Kept Secret

from the friday-night:-where-news-goes-to-die dept

Back in July, the NY Times made it pretty clear that United States Solicitor General Donald Verrilli almost certainly lied to the Supreme Court, concerning how evidence obtained via NSA surveillance techniques would end up in court. As you may recall, the lawsuit in question involved the ACLU, with the government arguing that the ACLU had no standing. The Supreme Court asked a basic question about whether or not anyone could possibly have standing then to challenge the law -- and Verrilli insisted (and the justices relied on) the claim that if the feds used data collected under these questionable surveillance statutes, that the defense team would be told about this, and they could challenge the constitutionality of the collection. Except... no defendant had ever been told any such thing. And then someone noticed that Senator Dianne Feinstein, in defending the NSA surveillance, had insisted that it was key in a bunch of cases -- meaning one of them was lying. This, apparently, got Verrilli quite upset at the various national security lawyers who had looked over his defense and who apparently chose not to tell him that what he was saying about the government telling defendants stuff wasn't, in fact, true. As was reported a few weeks ago, Verrilli then led a fierce debate within the administration, and said that a policy change was necessary. And, to kick it off, they were searching for a single case in which they would reveal such info was used.

Of course, this allowed the feds to cherry pick their case... and the date and time to release the "news." So, of course they chose Friday night, which is when the government always tries to release bad news. So we're taking that news and discussing it the following Monday, because this is big and it deserves serious attention. Late Friday, the government admitted that it had used information gleaned via programs under the FISA Amendments Act in the criminal case against Jamshid Muhtorov, who was charged in January 2012 with "providing material support to the Islamic Jihad Union, a designated terrorist organization based in Uzbekistan." Much of the original complaint against Muhtorov involves discussions about intercepted calls and emails, though it's unclear how many (if any) of those were done under the FAA or other law enforcement authorities.

The new notice in the case doesn't reveal very much at all, other than that the government intends to "offer into evidence or otherwise use or disclose in proceedings... information obtained or derived from acquisition of foreign intelligence information conducted pursuant to the" FAA. Basically, this case now is very likely to become the key case in testing the constitutionality of at least some aspects of the FISA Amendments Act surveillance efforts (which include the "upstream" tapping of the internet backbone via telcos, though it's not clear if that was used in this particular case).

In other words, this case just got a lot more interesting -- though it's clear that the feds tried very carefully to pick a case where the facts work strongly in their favor. I would imagine, however, that various public interest and civil liberties groups are gearing up to see how they might help out in the case.

Filed Under: dianne feinstein, donald verrilli, fisa amendments act, jamshid muhtorov, nsa, nsa surveillance, standing

President Obama Says He Had No Idea His Own NSA Was Spying On Angela Merkel

from the that-seems-like-a-problem dept

So, last week, there was the report that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had found out about the US NSA spying on her mobile phone and had made an angry call to President Obama. As we noted, US officials made perhaps the weakest response ever, insisting that they weren't monitoring her phone today and promising that they wouldn't monitor it in the future -- but absolutely refusing to comment on whether or not the NSA had done so in the past. Of course, that just called much more attention to the obvious implication that they had -- and it took just a couple days before Spiegel revealed the details. Not only had the NSA been monitoring Merkel's mobile phone, but they'd been doing it for over a decade, since before she was in power:

There are strong indications that it was the SCS that targeted the cell phone of Chancellor Angela Merkel. This is suggested by a document that apparently comes from an NSA database in which the agency records its targets. This document, which SPIEGEL has seen, is what set the cell phone scandal in motion.

The document contains Merkel's cell phone number. An inquiry to her team revealed that it is the number the chancellor uses mainly to communicate with party members, ministers and confidants, often by text message. The number is, in the language of the NSA, a "Selector Value." The next two fields determine the format ("raw phone number") and the "Subscriber," identified as "GE Chancellor Merkel."

[....] The time stamp is noteworthy. The order was transferred to the "National Sigint Requirements List," the list of national intelligence targets, in 2002. That was the year Germany held closely watched parliamentary elections and Merkel battled Edmund Stoiber of Bavaria's Christian Social Union to become the conservatives' chancellor candidate. It was also the year the Iraq crisis began heating up. The document also lists status: "A" for active. This status was apparently valid a few weeks before President Obama's Berlin visit in June 2013.

Spiegel has a lot more, including some revealing information about how the NSA uses the US embassy in Berlin to intercept all kinds of communications.

But then there's this incredible claim: President Obama insists he had no idea about it when he spoke to Merkel:

Merkel spoke with Obama on Wednesday afternoon, calling him from her secure landline in her Chancellery office. Both spoke English. According to the Chancellery, the president said that he had known nothing of possible monitoring, otherwise he would have stopped it. Obama also expressed his deepest regrets and apologized.

Now, remember, this is the very same President Obama, who just a couple months ago claimed that every time more Snowden news broke, it would be the first he'd heard about some of these programs, and he'd have to go ask the NSA what they were really doing. Could this be one of those situations? It seems almost impossible to believe that the NSA would be spying on the head of state of one of our closest allies without the President being aware. As the Spiegel report notes, those kinds of orders would have to be renewed with approval from the top:

Among the politically decisive questions is whether the spying was authorized from the top: from the US president. If the data is accurate, the operation was authorized under former President George W. Bush and his NSA chief, Michael Hayden. But it would have had to be repeatedly approved, including after Obama took office and up to the present time. Is it conceivable that the NSA made the German chancellor a surveillance target without the president's knowledge?

However, after trying to avoid the question, over the weekend, the NSA admitted that Keith Alexander had never briefed the President about spying on Merkel (though, it's possible he heard about it from others).

This makes it sound, again, like the NSA has gone rogue. How can President Obama seriously allow Keith Alexander and James Clapper to remain in charge when they've just made him look like a complete fool, supposedly totally unaware of what his own intelligence apparatus is up to -- especially when it concerns programs that, once revealed, can have a serious negative impact on a variety of diplomatic fronts?

And for what benefit? The Spiegel report makes it clear that the NSA saw little value in spying on Merkel. They just did it because... reasons.

Former NSA employee Thomas Drake does not see this as a contradiction. "After the attacks of September 11, 2001, Germany became intelligence target number one in Europe," he says. The US government did not trust Germany, because some of the Sept. 11 suicide pilots had lived in Hamburg. Evidence suggests that the NSA recorded Merkel once and then became intoxicated with success, says Drake. "It has always been the NSA's motto to conduct as much surveillance as possible," he adds.

The fact that President Obama hasn't yet fired Alexander in particular is fairly incredible, given this latest revelation.

Filed Under: angela merkel, barack obama, germany, keith alexander, nsa, nsa surveillance

Thousands Rallied In DC This Weekend Against NSA Spying

from the a-change-is-gonna-come dept

Last week, we mentioned that the Stop Watching Us coalition had put together a rally against surveillance in Washington DC this weekend, and it turned out to be a massive success. USA Today had some pretty good coverage, noting that thousands attended. The official count we heard was that more than 3,000 ended up attending, which is mighty impressive. It also was the top story on the NBC evening news. Attendees also delivered a petition to Congress signed by nearly 600,000 people demanding that Congress do something about the NSA surveillance. There's a great three-minute summary video. Considering this was put together in a very short period of time and not by any of the "usual" well-connected DC organizers, it looks like a tremendous success. Congrats to everyone involved, though, as lots of people noted, this was only the beginning of a very long process. That process looks to take another big step tomorrow with the expected introduction of the USA Freedom Act, but there's still plenty of work that needs to get done.

Filed Under: dc, nsa, nsa surveillance, rally, stop watching us

Bruce Schneier On The Feudal Internet And How To Fight It

from the what-went-wrong? dept

There aren't many upsides to Snowden's revelations that NSA is essentially spying on the entire Internet, all the time, but if one good thing has already come out of that sorry state of affairs it's the emergence of security expert Bruce Schneier as a mainstream commentator on the digital world. That's largely because his core expertise has been shoved into the very center of our concerns, making his thoughts on what's going on particularly valuable.

One fruitful theme that he has been developing recently is the idea of feudal computing (I imagine it could well turn out to be the subject of his next book.) Schneier first wrote about this even before the NSA story broke, back in November last year. He then revisited the idea shortly after the first Snowden story appeared, and has now returned to the theme again, in what is perhaps his best essay on the subject so far. It's called "Power in the Age of the Feudal Internet," and explores some of the implications of our new digital dystopia -- and what we can do about it. It begins by describing how things were supposed to be:

In its early days, there was a lot of talk about the "natural laws of the Internet" and how it would empower the masses, upend traditional power blocks, and spread freedom throughout the world. The international nature of the Internet made a mockery of national laws. Anonymity was easy. Censorship was impossible. Police were clueless about cybercrime. And bigger changes were inevitable. Digital cash would undermine national sovereignty. Citizen journalism would undermine the media, corporate PR, and political parties. Easy copying would destroy the traditional movie and music industries. Web marketing would allow even the smallest companies to compete against corporate giants. It really would be a new world order.

Unfortunately, as we know, that's not how it worked out. Instead, we have seen the rise of the feudal Internet:

Feudal security consolidates power in the hands of the few. These companies [like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook etc.] act in their own self-interest. They use their relationship with us to increase their profits, sometimes at our expense. They act arbitrarily. They make mistakes. They're deliberately changing social norms. Medieval feudalism gave the lords vast powers over the landless peasants; we’re seeing the same thing on the Internet.

More recently, we have witnessed the dangerous alignment of private and governmental interests and power:

Both corporations and governments want ubiquitous surveillance, and the NSA is using Google, Facebook, Verizon, and others to get access to data it couldn't otherwise. The entertainment industry is looking to governments to enforce their antiquated business models.

A key question is: how did this happen? How did things go so wrong when they seemed to start off so well? Schneier has a good answer:

The truth is that technology magnifies power in general, but the rates of adoption are different. The unorganized, the distributed, the marginal, the dissidents, the powerless, the criminal: they can make use of new technologies faster. And when those groups discovered the Internet, suddenly they had power. But when the already powerful big institutions finally figured out how to harness the Internet for their needs, they had more power to magnify. That's the difference: the distributed were more nimble and were quicker to make use of their new power, while the institutional were slower but were able to use their power more effectively.

And that's where we are today, at a point where the big institutions -- governments above all -- have finally overcome their initial cluelessness, and worked out that as well as being a threat to their power, the Internet could also be a means for them to consolidate it. Fortunately, Schneier has some practical suggestions about what we need to do now in order to tip the balance back towards the people:

In the short term, we need more transparency and oversight. The more we know of what institutional powers are doing, the more we can trust that they are not abusing their authority. We have long known this to be true in government, but we have increasingly ignored it in our fear of terrorism and other modern threats. This is also true for corporate power. Unfortunately, market dynamics will not necessarily force corporations to be transparent; we need laws to do that. The same is true for decentralized power; transparency is how we will differentiate political dissidents from criminal organizations.

Oversight is also critically important, and is another long-understood mechanism for checking power. This can be a combination of things: courts that act as third-party advocates for the rule of law rather than rubber-stamp organizations, legislatures that understand the technologies and how they affect power balances, and vibrant public-sector press and watchdog groups that analyze and debate the actions of those wielding power.

Transparency and oversight give us the confidence to trust institutional powers to fight the bad side of distributed power, while still allowing the good side to flourish. For if we are going to entrust our security to institutional powers, we need to know they will act in our interests and not abuse that power. Otherwise, democracy fails.

There's much more in Schneier's essay, including thoughts on the "security gap", and why the longer-term solution is to reduce power differences by opening up data. It's a really important piece that pulls together many of the big issues that Snowden's leaks have raised. Unusually, it not only offers a compelling analysis of what's wrong, but also some sensible, if broad-brush, thoughts on how to put it right.

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Filed Under: bruce schneier, feudal internet, nsa, nsa surveillance