Reporters Fall For CIA Director Brennan's Non-Denial Denial Over Senate Spying Scandal

from the bad-reporters dept

On Tuesday morning, Senator Dianne Feinstein finally got angry about the intelligence community, revealing much of the back story behind the CIA spying on Senate Intelligence Committee staffers who were investigating the CIA's torture program from the early 2000s. About an hour after her speech, CIA director John Brennan was set to give an interview to NBC's Andrea Mitchell at the Council on Foreign Relations, and of course, she asked about Feinstein's claims, leading Brennan to do what the intelligence community does best: give an answer that appears to say one thing, while really saying something entirely different, and never actually answering the question. Here's exactly what he said:

Andrea Mitchell: First of all, the topic of the morning, which you have addressed here. You said that you want to get the interrogation and detention past practices behind you. But Senator Feinstein today went to the floor. She said she did this reluctantly, that she has been dealing with you privately trying to resolve this since January and only went public today because of events, because of the referral from the inspector general of the CIA to Justice because a lawyer in CIA had referred a crimes report separately accusing the Senate of going in improperly into CIA computers.

Her claim in this scathing speech, frankly, was that the CIA has hacked into the Senate Intelligence Committee staff computers to thwart an investigation by the committee into those past practices. She also alleges that the Panetta-era report was very similar to the Senate’s conclusions about those past practices, but that you were involved in that era in the program itself and that CIA currently was trying to thwart the full review of the harshness of the detention and interrogation practices. Can you respond to that?

John Brennan: Yes. Well, first of all, we are not in any way, shape or form trying to thwart this report’s progression, release. As I said in my remarks, we want this behind us. We know that the committee has invested a lot of time, money and effort into this report, and I know that they’re determined to put it forward.

We have engaged with them extensively over the last year. We have had officers sit down with them and go over their report and point out where we believe there are factual errors or errors in judgment or assessments. So we are not trying at all to prevent its release.

As far as the allegations of, you know, CIA hacking into, you know, Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth. I mean we wouldn’t do that. I mean that’s just beyond the -- you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we would do.

First of all, note that he is the one who is describing it as "hacking into." But that's not at all what Feinstein alleged. In fact, she said she gave her speech, in part to dispel the claims in the media that the CIA had "hacked" into their computers. Instead, the issue was that the CIA had simply been looking into what the Senate staffers had access to and what they'd been doing with it -- and also that they'd been "deleting" files that those staffers had previously been given access to. The agreement between the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee had been that the CIA would not interfere with the investigation, and it seems quite clear that they did that.

But instead of responding to that claim, Brennan just says "well, we didn't hack their computers." He then went on, as he did last week, to imply that the Senate staffers themselves were somehow the problem here, and that the Justice Department may find they violated the law.

But, of course, the media isn't known for its ability to handle nuance, and many interpreted Brennan's non-denial denial exactly the way he intended them to interpret it: as a denial of what Feinstein claimed, even though he said nothing of the sort. First Look Media's Dan Froomkin looked at the way different media outlets covered the story, noting that Politico, the NY Times, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal all misleadingly claimed that Brennan denied Feinstein's allegations. The Associated Press and the LA Times, on the other hand, actually informed their readers of Brennan's word games. The AP stated: "He denied that the CIA 'hacked' into the computer network in remarks on Tuesday but did not address the question of a search" (though I've found other versions of the AP report that don't have that qualification, and instead suggest Brennan denied Feinstein's claims). The LA Times gave the most accurately worded description of Brennan's statements, noting that Brennan "offered carefully worded remarks that did not dispute the actions Feinstein said had taken place, but did deny that they constituted 'spying' on the Senate."

In looking at some other sources, I see the International Business Times actually took on the issue, directly asking whether or not Brennan denied Feinstein's claims and concluding that Brennan's "statements have been vague enough to avoid addressing specific accusations by Feinstein," and further pointing out that Feinstein never actually accused the CIA of hacking, so the response was clearly misleading. That article goes so far as to highlight that "Brennan’s language, then, is somewhat troubling, as it doesn’t address exactly what he and the CIA have been accused of...." Furthermore, that report notes that in a later interview, when asked directly about the CIA deleting files, "Brennan didn’t comment on it directly, instead assuring that the matter is being dealt with." Kudos to the IB Times.

That's about the best I've seen from any of the larger "mainstream" news outlets. Time Magazine quotes Brennan out of context to imply that he's actually addressing Feinstein's allegations, rather than dancing around them -- and even worse, it did so in two separate articles. ABC News also pretends that Brennan denied Feinstein's claims even though he did not. The Boston Globe also claims Brennan's denial was about Feinstein's allegations, rather than Brennan's own made up "hacking" standard.

The Voice of America amazingly gets the story wrong on both ends. First, it claims that Feinstein said the CIA "hacked" the staffers' computers, when she explicitly stated it wasn't a hack. Second, it claims that Brennan said the CIA "did not improperly search lawmakers' computers" when he very carefully did not deny that particular claim.

All in all, if you're not following the story closely (i.e., reading the actual source materials), it appears that the vast majority of the mainstream press absolutely misled its readers in implying that Feinstein said the CIA hacked her staffers' computers and that Brennan then denied her allegations.

Filed Under: cia, dianne feinstein, hacking, john brennan, journalism, non-denial denial, reporting, senate intelligence committee, spying

You Know Who Else Collected Metadata? The Stasi

from the compare-and-contrast dept

Republished from ProPublica under a Creative Commons license.

The East German secret police, known as the Stasi, were an infamously intrusive secret police force. They amassed dossiers on about one quarter of the population of the country during the Communist regime.

But their spycraft — while incredibly invasive — was also technologically primitive by today's standards. While researching my book Dragnet Nation, I obtained the above hand drawn social network graph and other files from the Stasi Archive in Berlin, where German citizens can see files kept about them and media can access some files, with the names of the people who were monitored removed.

The graphic shows forty-six connections, linking a target to various people (an "aunt," "Operational Case Jentzsch," presumably Bernd Jentzsch, an East German poet who defected to the West in 1976), places ("church"), and meetings ("by post, by phone, meeting in Hungary").

Gary Bruce, an associate professor of history at the University of Waterloo and the author of "The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi," helped me decode the graphic and other files. I was surprised at how crude the surveillance was. "Their main surveillance technology was mail, telephone, and informants," Bruce said.

Another file revealed a low-level surveillance operation called an IM-vorgang aimed at recruiting an unnamed target to become an informant. (The names of the targets were redacted; the names of the Stasi agents and informants were not.) In this case, the Stasi watched a rather boring high school student who lived with his mother and sister in a run-of-the-mill apartment. The Stasi obtained a report on him from the principal of his school and from a club where he was a member. But they didn't have much on him — I've seen Facebook profiles with far more information.

A third file documented a surveillance operation known as an OPK, for Operative Personenkontrolle, of a man who was writing oppositional poetry. The Stasi deployed three informants against him but did not steam open his mail or listen to his phone calls. The regime collapsed before the Stasi could do anything further.

I also obtained a file that contained an "observation report," in which Stasi agents recorded the movements of a forty-year-old man for two days — September 28 and 29, 1979. They watched him as he dropped off his laundry, loaded up his car with rolls of wallpaper, and drove a child in a car "obeying the speed limit," stopping for gas and delivering the wallpaper to an apartment building. The Stasi continued to follow the car as a woman drove the child back to Berlin.

The Stasi agent appears to have started following the target at 4:15 p.m. on a Friday evening. At 9:38 p.m., the target went into his apartment and turned out the lights. The agent stayed all night and handed over surveillance to another agent at 7:00 a.m. Saturday morning. That agent appears to have followed the target until 10:00 p.m. From today's perspective, this seems like a lot of work for very little information.

And yet, the Stasi files are an important reminder of what a repressive regime can do with so little information. You can view the complete files at ProPublica.

Filed Under: germany, metadata, privacy, spying, stasi

CIA: We Only Spied On Senate Intelligence Committee Because They Took Classified Documents That Prove We're Liars

from the good-luck-with-that dept

Earlier this week, we wrote about the accusations that the CIA was spying on Senate staffers on the Senate Intelligence Committee as they were working on a massive $40 million, 6,300-page report condemning the CIA's torture program. The DOJ is apparently already investigating if the CIA violated computer hacking laws in spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee computers. The issue revolved around a draft of an internal review by the CIA, which apparently corroborates many of the Senate report's findings -- but which the CIA did not hand over to the Senate. This internal report not only supports the Senate report's findings, but also shows that the CIA has been lying in response to questions about the terror program.

In response to all of this, it appears that the CIA is attempting, weakly, to spin this as being the Senate staffers' fault, arguing that the real breach was the fact that the Senate staffers somehow broke the rules in obtaining that internal review. CIA boss John Brennan's statement hints at the fact that he thinks the real problem was with the way the staffers acted, suggesting that an investigation would fault "the legislative" branch (the Senate) rather than the executive (the CIA).

In his statement on Wednesday Brennan hit back in unusually strong terms. “I am deeply dismayed that some members of the Senate have decided to make spurious allegations about CIA actions that are wholly unsupported by the facts,” Brennan said.

“I am very confident that the appropriate authorities reviewing this matter will determine where wrongdoing, if any, occurred in either the executive branch or legislative branch,” Brennan continued, raising a suggestion that the Senate committee itself might have acted improperly.

A further report detailed what he's talking about. Reporters at McClatchy have revealed that the Senate staffers working on this came across the document, printed it out, and simply walked out of the CIA and over to the Senate with it, and the CIA is furious about that. Then, in a moment of pure stupidity, the CIA appears to have confronted the Senate Intelligence Committee about all of this... directly revealing that they were spying on the Committee staffers.

Several months after the CIA submitted its official response to the committee report, aides discovered in the database of top-secret documents at CIA headquarters a draft of an internal review ordered by former CIA Director Leon Panetta of the materials released to the panel, said the knowledgeable person.

They determined that it showed that the CIA leadership disputed report findings that they knew were corroborated by the so-called Panetta review, said the knowledgeable person.

The aides printed the material, walked out of CIA headquarters with it and took it to Capitol Hill, said the knowledgeable person.

“All this goes back to what is the technical structure here,” said the U.S. official who confirmed the unauthorized removal. “If I was a Senate staffer and I was given access to documents on the system, I would have a laptop that’s cleared. I would be allowed to look at these documents. But with these sorts of things, there’s generally an agreement that you can’t download or take them.”

The CIA discovered the security breach and brought it to the committee’s attention in January, leading to a determination that the agency recorded the staffers’ use of the computers in the high-security research room, and then confirmed the breach by reviewing the usage data, said the knowledgeable person.

There are many more details in the McClatchy report, which I highly recommend reading. And, yes, perhaps there's an argument that Senate staffers weren't supposed to take such documents, but the CIA trying to spin this by saying it was those staffers who were engaged in "wrongdoing" is almost certainly going to fall flat with Congress. After all, the intelligence committee is charged with oversight of the CIA, not the other way around. "You stole the documents we were hiding from you which proved we were lying, so we spied on you to find out how you did that" is not, exactly, the kind of argument that too many people are going to find compelling.

Still, the latest is that the CIA has successfully convinced the DOJ to have the FBI kick off an investigation of the Senate staffers, rather than of the CIA breaking the law and spying on their overseers.

Of course, the CIA may still have one advantage on its side: there are still some in Congress who are so supportive of the intelligence community itself that even they will make excuses for the CIA spying on their own staff. At least that seems to be the response from Senate Intelligence vice chair Senator Saxby Chambliss, one of the most ardent defenders of the intelligence community he's supposed to be watching over. When asked about all of this, he seemed to be a lot more concerned about the staffers supposedly taking "classified" documents than about the CIA spying on those staffers:

“I have no comment. You should talk to those folks that are giving away classified information and get their opinion,” Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said when asked about the alleged intrusions.

Filed Under: cia, doj, john brennan, senate intelligence committee, spying

More Details Revealed Concerning CIA's Spying On Senate Intelligence Committee

from the oh-and-back-to-those-questions dept

Earlier today we covered reports of the CIA spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee as it tried to prevent the committee from releasing a supposedly "devastating" report about the CIA's torture program. That was based on a NY Times article. It appears that reporters at McClatchy were digging into the same issue and rushed out their version, which includes more details, including the fact that the CIA's inspector general has already asked the DOJ to investigate the situation.

Also, the McClatchy report ties this spying by the CIA back to some questions that Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall had asked John Brennan back in January. We had written about it at the time, noting that the two were clearly hinting at something having to do with the CIA spying on Americans, but it wasn't entirely clear where the questions were coming from. Reading the questions now, in light of the report of what the CIA was doing, makes the story a hell of a lot clearer. Here was Wyden's exchange with Brennan, concerning whether or not the CFAA -- the federal "anti-hacking" law -- applies to the CIA itself:

Wyden: Does the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act apply to the CIA?

Brennan: I would have to look into what that act actually calls for and its applicability to CIA’s authorities. I’ll be happy to get back to you, Senator, on that.

Wyden: How long would that take?

Brennan: I’ll be happy to get back to you as soon as possible but certainly no longer than–

Wyden: A week?

Brennan: I think that I could get that back to you, yes.

We had thought it was a slightly odd question, since the CFAA clearly states that it "does not prohibit any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity of a law enforcement agency of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State, or of an intelligence agency of the United States." But, that's because we figured that Wyden must be talking about how the CIA was running an "authorized investigation." However, if it was illegally examining the Senate Intelligence Committee staffers' computers, that clause almost certainly doesn't apply -- meaning that the CFAA certainly could now apply. We've put a request to find out if Brennan ever did get back to Senator Wyden. Update: Brennan did reply and admitted that, yes, the CFAA does apply to the CIA, which may explain why the DOJ is now involved in this issue....

Then there's Senator Mark Udall's question to Brennan, which we assumed was connected to Wyden's. Again, in light of the new revelations, that seems likely to be the case as well:

Udall: I want to be able to reassure the American people that the CIA and the Director understand the limits of its authorities. We are all aware of Executive Order 12333. That order prohibits the CIA from engaging in domestic spying and searches of US citizens within our borders. Can you assure the Committee that the CIA does not conduct such domestic spying and searches?

Brennan: I can assure the Committee that the CIA follows the letter and spirit of the law in terms of what CIA’s authorities are, in terms of its responsibilities to collect intelligence that will keep this country safe. Yes Senator, I do.

I guess he meant "except and until we're scared shitless that you're going to expose how ridiculous, useless and illegal our torture program was."

The McClatchy report also details how the CIA accomplished this. Apparently, it had insisted that the Intelligence Committee staffers who were investigating the torture program had to work on computers at the CIA's headquarters, to make sure that classified information didn't leave the building:

The committee determined earlier this year that the CIA monitored computers – in possible violation of an agreement against doing so – that the agency had provided to intelligence committee staff in a secure room at CIA headquarters that the agency insisted they use to review millions of pages of top-secret reports, cables and other documents, according to people with knowledge.

I have to imagine that if you're folks at the CIA, knowing that the computers were in the same damn building, it was just too damn tempting not to go spy on them. After all, the situation was that the CIA had this internal study, which is apparently also fairly devastating and (worse) which showed that the CIA lied to the Intelligence Committee. Furthermore, it appears that the CIA had worked hard to make sure the Intelligence Committee never saw that study. Then, suddenly, in December, Senator Udall claims to have that study -- and the CIA has no idea how he got it. Given who they are, it must have been just way too tempting not to then spy on those computers in their own building. Of course, that further highlights a point we've been making for quite some time. Spies are human too -- and the temptations to abuse their power will always be there. The idea that they're immune to abuse, as put forth by some (including Senate Intelligence boss Dianne Feinstein) is just laughable. And this story just further supports that claim.

Filed Under: cia, dianne feinstein, john brennan, mark udall, ron wyden, senate intelligence committee, spying, torture

CIA Accused Of Spying On Senate Intelligence Committee Staffers

from the biting-the-hand-that-oversees-you dept

While at times, it's appeared that the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Dianne Feinstein, serves more to prop up the intelligence community than to handle oversight, it has actually clashed quite a bit with the CIA. We've discussed a few times how the Committee has been pushing to release a supposedly devastating 6,000 page report about the CIA's torture program, which cost taxpayers an equally astounding $40 million to produce. However, the CIA has been fighting hard to block the release of the report, arguing that it misrepresents the CIA's actions.

However, things are getting even more bizarre, as the NY Times is reporting that the CIA is now accused of spying on the Intelligence Committee and its staffers in its attempt to keep that report from being released.

The details are still a little cloudy, but in December, Senator Mark Udall revealed that the Senate Intelligence Committee had come across an internal CIA study that apparently corroborated the information that is in the big Senate report -- and which directly contradicted claims by the CIA to the Committee about how the report was inaccurate -- suggesting that, on top of everything else, the CIA lied to the Intelligence Committee. Udall quizzed CIA boss John Brennan about that internal report. And according to the NY Times, it appears that CIA folks freaked out that the Intelligence Committee somehow got access to that internal study, and responded the way the CIA knows best: by starting to spy on Intelligence Committee staffers:

The agency’s inspector general began the inquiry partly as a response to complaints from members of Congress that C.I.A. employees were improperly monitoring the work of staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to government officials with knowledge of the investigation.

The committee has spent several years working on a voluminous report about the detention and interrogation program, and according to one official interviewed in recent days, C.I.A. officers went as far as gaining access to computer networks used by the committee to carry out its investigation.

On Tuesday, Udall sent a strongly worded letter to President Obama, pushing for the declassification and release of the big 6,300 page report, but also that internal CIA study, which would highlight how the CIA lied. On top of that, he made an oblique reference to this spying activity by the CIA:

As you are aware, the CIA has recently taken unprecedented action against the Committee in relation to the internal CIA review, and I find these actions to be incredibly troubling for the Committee's oversight responsibilities and for our democracy. It is essential that the Committee be able to do its oversight work -- consistent with our constitutional principle of the separation of powers -- without the CIA posing impediments or obstacles as it is today.

In many ways, the idea that the CIA is directly spying on the Senate Committee charged with its own oversight is a bigger potential scandal than many of the Snowden NSA revelations so far. Even more importantly, it may finally lead to Congress taking action against an out-of-control intelligence community.

Filed Under: cia, dianne feinstein, john brennan, mark udall, senate intelligence committee, spying, torture

Finally: Senior UK Politicians Start To Call For Review Of GCHQ's Spying Activities

from the about-time dept

One of the most disappointing aspects of the NSA and GCHQ revelations is the almost total lack of outrage in the UK. The government there has simply stuck to its line that everything was done in accordance with the law, and has refused to consider a formal review of British spying in light of what we have learned. This has led Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister and head of the junior coalition party, to announce his own inquiry:

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, has commissioned a review into the new intrusive capabilities of British intelligence agencies and the legal framework in which they operate, after failing to persuade David Cameron that the coalition government should act now to tighten the accountability of Britain's spies.

Specifically:

The review, to be chaired by [the intelligence and military thinktank the Royal United Services Institute]'s director general, Michael Clarke, is in part modelled on the work commissioned in January by Obama from John Podesta, Bill Clinton's former chief of staff, into big data and privacy. Clegg says the aim of the review, due to report after the general election, will be to bring the issue into the mainstream of public debate, noting the "quality of the debate in the US provides an unflattering contrast to the muted debate on this side of the Atlantic".

The same week, the UK's main opposition party, Labour, finally broke its silence on the Snowden leaks and the running of the UK's spy agencies, with a major speech from its spokesperson on the subject. As The Guardian reported:

The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, is preparing to argue that the current arrangements are unsustainable for the government, and that it is damaging to trust in the agencies if ministers continue to hide their heads in the sand.

In a speech that represents Labour's most serious intervention since the controversy about the scale of state surveillance broke last summer, she will say: "The oversight and legal frameworks are now out of date. In particular that means we need major reforms to oversight and a thorough review of the legal framework to keep up with changing technology."

One reason for Labour's reticence here is because of its past record. Under Tony Blair, it was Labour that gave police sweeping anti-terrorism powers that severely damaged civil liberties in the UK. And it was Labour that tried to bring in identity cards, and the Conservatives and Lib Dems who threw them out when they came into power in 2010. That makes Labour's sudden embrace of enhanced oversight to protect freedom and privacy somewhat unconvincing.

But at least the party feels it has to make the right noises on the issue, rather than ducking it completely. Coupled with Clegg's unofficial inquiry into how the UK's spies should operate, these are welcome signs that UK politicians are finally starting to ask some serious questions about the massive scale of surveillance revealed by Snowden's leaks, and the harm it causes. It's not much, but it's a start; now we just need David Cameron and the UK government to do the same.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: gchq, nick clegg, nsa, privacy, spying, surveillance, uk

New NSA Leakers Reveal NSA Switched From Spying On Merkel... To All Her Chief Advisors

from the well,-of-course dept

It's long forgotten now, but back in August, the US and Germany were said to be working on an agreement not to spy on each other's governments. As we noted at the time, such an agreement would almost certainly be meaningless. Of course, that news came out after the initial Snowden leaks, but prior to the high profile news in October that the NSA was monitoring German Chancellor Angela Merkel's calls. While President Obama (after first claiming he had no idea it was happening) promised Merkel that the NSA would stop spying on her phone calls, by January, those plans for a big "bilateral no-spy deal" were basically dead.

And, indeed, over the weekend, German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported that the NSA may have stopped bugging Merkel's phone, but instead it had started bugging the phones of basically everyone around her, including pretty much every senior government official who reported to her. The report quotes a "high-ranking NSA employee in Germany" explaining what's going on:

"We have had the order not to miss out on any information now that we are no longer able to monitor the chancellor's communication directly," it quoted the NSA employee as saying.

This shouldn't be that surprising. This is what the NSA is going to do, after all. But what amazes me about this story is the fact that it's already leaked out, and that despite all the talk of cracking down on future leaks out of the NSA, the NSA already has another leaker releasing information that is clearly politically sensitive. So many folks like to point to Snowden as if he's the only leaker the NSA ever had or ever will have. But it's increasingly looking like there are others within the NSA who are equally uncomfortable with what's become of the intelligence community.

Filed Under: angela merkel, germany, nsa, spying

U.S.: We Have No Evidence Or Credibility On This Whatsoever, But Don't Use Huawei Because China Might Spy On You

from the inconsistent-standards dept

Even before the NSA scandal broke, I've been endlessly entertained watching the blistering hypocrisy toward Chinese network hardware vendor Huawei. For years Huawei has been accused of being a Chinese spy, even if investigations seem to repeatedly show no actual evidence of Chinese spying. We're not talking about superficial inquiries, we're talking about eighteen month, in-depth reviews by people with every interest in exposing them. Despite no evidence, every few months or so somebody in the government trots out Huawei as a bogeyman they can toss about for one political reason or another.

Never mind that almost all network gear is made in China (whether the company is Chinese or not). Never mind that obviously NSA allegations show the United States spies on almost everyone, constantly. Never mind that reports have emerged that a lot of the spy allegations are originating with their competitor Cisco. Huawei is a spy. We're sure of it. And covert network snooping is bad. When China does it.

The constant allegations ultimately scuttled Huawei's attempt to bring more gear competition to the United States market, blocked Huawei's potential bid on a nationwide U.S. first responder network, and the United States has since been working hard to ensure that other countries don't use Huawei gear either. According to the Wall Street Journal, after convincing Australia to ditch Huawei gear, the United States is also warning South Korea that Huawei might just be a spy, apparently citing all of the non-existent evidence already mentioned:

"In meetings with their South Korean counterparts in recent months, senior U.S. officials pointed to what Washington sees as a risk that Huawei's equipment could be used for spying on communications among the close partners, as well as compromise secure networks used by American military personnel and intelligence officers in South Korea, U.S. officials said."

The idea that somebody would indiscriminately spy using network gear sure sounds terrifying. Fortunately, United States to South Korea communications will instead rely on gear from any number of network hardware vendors, whose equipment is also built in China -- in many instances in the exact same factories by the exact same workers. Not to say China is an angel or doesn't spy (though I should note their gear is considered good enough to filter UK porn), but at this juncture the United States giving lectures on network privacy is like Lindsay Lohan giving advice on balanced and healthy living. Gosh, one would hate to think that years of trotting Huawei out as a political bogeyman pinata was all just an elaborate song and dance put on simply to sell more Cisco and Juniper routers.

Filed Under: china, nsa, spying
Companies: china, huawei

Chaos Computer Club Files Criminal Complaint Against German Government Over Mass Spying Revealed By Snowden

from the power-to-the-people dept

As governments around the world refuse to act in the wake of revelations about global spying, more and more people are launching legal actions to force them to address the problem. Back in December we wrote about several that had been filed in the UK, and now the well-known Chaos Computer Club (CCC) in Germany is launching its own legal challenge, in conjunction with the International League for Human Rights:

After months of press releases about mass surveillance by secret services and offensive attacks on information technology systems, we now have certainty that German and other countries' secret services have violated the German criminal law. With this criminal complaint, we hope to finally initiate investigations by the Federal Prosecutor General against the German government. The CCC has learned with certainty that the leaders of the secret services and the federal government have aided and abetted the commission of these crimes.

It is the understanding of the CCC that these crimes are felonies pursuant to German federal laws, specifically 99 StGB (illegal activity as a foreign spy), §§ 201 ff. StGB (violation of privacy) and § 258 StGB (obstruction of justice).

That's a very specific claim about which German laws have been broken; less clear is what CCC means by "learned with certainty": does that simply refer to the information that Snowden's leaks have provided, or has CCC obtained something more -- quite likely given its contacts and past achievements? The complaint also has an important request:

In the criminal complaint, we ask to hear technical expert and whistleblower Edward Snowden as a witness, and that he be provided safe passage and protection against extradition to the US.

As a parting shot, CCC also wants to encourage others to file similar criminal complaints in order to lend weight to their demands:

We do not only want to call the Federal Prosecutor General's office to investigations but also ask you to get involved and also file a criminal complaint.

Looks like pressure is beginning to build on governments, and it will be interesting to see what other legal actions are filed in Germany and elsewhere.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: chaos computer club, germany, spying, surveillance

NSA Spying Includes Wireless Transmitters To Get Data Off 'Air Gapped' Computers

from the of-course-it-does dept

The latest report from the NY Times based on Snowden's revelations seems to jump all over the place, talking about a variety of efforts by the NSA to spy on people. Much of it seems to repeat earlier claims about the NSA's malware program, codenamed QUANTUM. It updates the earlier claims that there are 50,000 QUANTUM-infected computers to claim that the number is now 100,000. However, it also notes that most of the targets are exactly the kinds of things you'd expect the NSA to be spying on: the Chinese and Russian militaries, mainly.

Perhaps more interesting is that it builds on the reporting in Der Spiegel concerning the NSA's catalog of tech tools to infiltrate computers, to tie those back to the QUANTUM program, and note that many of the tools rely not on an internet connection, but on a secretly inserted radio transmitter, which can be picked up by a device in an "oversized suitcase" that can be placed miles away. By itself, none of this is all that surprising, but the documents certainly suggest the NSA is doing this on a larger scale than suspected in the past:

“What’s new here is the scale and the sophistication of the intelligence agency’s ability to get into computers and networks to which no one has ever had access before,” said James Andrew Lewis, the cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Some of these capabilities have been around for a while, but the combination of learning how to penetrate systems to insert software and learning how to do that using radio frequencies has given the U.S. a window it’s never had before.”

Again, these activities certainly seem more in line with what you'd expect the NSA to be doing, and raise (yet again) the question of why the NSA needs to "collect it all" when it appears that programs like these can be quite effective in doing targeted surveillance against those actually seeking to attack the US in some manner?

Separately, as the article notes, this has made the US's moral high ground concerning claims that China is doing similar surveillance on the US seem quite questionable. As the article notes, the US's attempted distinction between "national security" and "economic espionage" doesn't make much sense to many.

When the Chinese place surveillance software on American computer systems — and they have, on systems like those at the Pentagon and at The Times — the United States usually regards it as a potentially hostile act, a possible prelude to an attack. Mr. Obama laid out America’s complaints about those practices to President Xi Jinping of China in a long session at a summit meeting in California last June.

At that session, Mr. Obama tried to differentiate between conducting surveillance for national security — which the United States argues is legitimate — and conducting it to steal intellectual property.

“The argument is not working,” said Peter W. Singer of the Brookings Institution, a co-author of a new book called “Cybersecurity and Cyberwar.” “To the Chinese, gaining economic advantage is part of national security. And the Snowden revelations have taken a lot of the pressure off” the Chinese.

Of course, if the US were focused on actually increasing security on US computing systems and networks, rather than undermining them with backdoors and vulnerabilities, perhaps we'd be more protected from the Chinese. It's too bad that the NSA hasn't actually been helping on that front at all.

Filed Under: malware, nsa, quantum, spying, surveillance, wireless transmitters