House Votes For USA Freedom Act By Overwhelming Margin; Now Up To The Senate

from the baby-steps dept

Showing that Congress realizes that at least something needs to be done to reform the surveillance state, the House voted overwhelmingly for the USA Freedom Act today, 338 to 88 (a significantly higher margin than when they approved last year's -- much weaker -- bill). Now, the big question is what will the Senate do? It can try to push forward with Mitch McConnell's preferred plan of just re-upping Section 215 for another few years with no changes and no restrictions. It can pass basically the same USA Freedom Act. Or, it can pass an even stronger surveillance reform bill. Chances are that it will pass the same bill that the House just passed -- but many are pushing for a stronger bill.

Senator Ron Wyden has said that he's looking to strengthen the Senate version, in particular trying to end backdoor searches under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act:

“I am working with Senate colleagues to pass additional reforms, particularly ending the warrantless backdoor searches of Americans' personal electronic communications under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. And I have made it clear I will fight any effort to extend mass surveillance of Americans’ records through a straight renewal of the Patriot Act – even a short-term one.

“Supporters of dragnet surveillance are fighting to preserve the status quo, but the American public is rightfully demanding a change. It is time for mass surveillance to end, and I will filibuster any attempt to extend this illegal surveillance, which violates core American rights without making our country any safer.

Meanwhile, Rep. Zoe Lofgren expressed similar concerns in the floor debate before the passage of the bill, noting that it could have been better. She voted for it, but hoped that her colleagues in the Senate would fix things like the backdoor loophole. As she noted, it's an important step forward, but it did not go far enough:

"The USA FREEDOM Act makes meaningful reforms to a few of our nation's surveillance programs. I applaud the bill's authors who worked to make sure these improvements were included.

"But this bill does not end all of the warrantless bulk collection of US persons' communications and data. While the legislation does not create these privacy violations, it fails to address widely reported privacy violations that occur under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act and Executive Order 12333.

"The House voted last year to close these backdoor forms of warrantless bulk surveillance by an overwhelming margin of 293-123. Reformers were blocked by Leadership and the Rules Committee from considering those much needed improvements to this bill today.

"Continuing these backdoor surveillance programs is wrong, detrimental to our economy, our competitiveness abroad, and the public's trust. It's time to end these serious privacy violations so that our government adheres to the constitution and protects electronic privacy.

"This bill is an improvement over the status quo. During Committee consideration the Judiciary Chairman and others assured reformers that once this bill passed we will quickly address backdoor surveillance loopholes under Section 702 and Executive Order 12333. If these commitments are not kept, reformers will reconsider their support for this legislation when it returns to the House from the Senate."

Again, this bill is a step forward, and the very fact that this debate is happening at all is a sign of how much impact the Snowden leaks have legitimately had on this debate. But, as most people recognize, there is still much to be done -- and the first part of that should happen over the next week in the Senate.

Filed Under: backdoor searches, bulk collection, congress, ed snowden, mass surveillance, nsa, ron wyden, section 215, section 702, senate, usa freedom act, zoe lofgren

Welcome To The New League Of Leakers -- Courtesy Of Edward Snowden

from the courage-is-contagious dept

Whistleblowers are hardly a new phenomenon -- Wikipedia lists dozens of the more famous ones, going back to the 18th century. There have also been important government whistleblowers before -- people like Daniel Ellsberg, William Binney, Thomas Drake and John Kiriakou. Chelsea Manning's leak was on a huge scale, and garnered enormous media attention. And yet there is no doubt that it is Edward Snowden who has really changed the whistleblowing world most dramatically.

Because of what he leaked, and the way he leaked it -- the fact that he has evaded arrest, and is still free, even if living a somewhat circumscribed existence in Russia -- Snowden has ignited debates at multiple levels. As well as the obvious ones about surveillance, privacy, power and democracy, there's another one around whistleblowing itself, which has already had important knock-on effects. Evidence of that comes in an interesting post by Bruce Schneier, where he tots up the likely number of leakers that have recently started to provide information about the US intelligence community. Alongside Manning and Snowden, he thinks there are probably five more:

Leaker #3: The person who leaked secret documents to Jake Appelbaum, Laura Poitras and others in Germany: the Angela Merkel surveillance story, the TAO catalog, the X-KEYSCORE rules.

...

Leaker #4: "A source in the intelligence community," according to the Intercept, who leaked information about the Terrorist Screening Database, the "second leaker" from the movie Citizen Four

...

Leaker #5: Someone who is leaking CIA documents.

...

Leaker #6: The person who leaked secret information about WTO spying to The Intercept and the New Zealand Herald

...

Leaker #7: The person who just leaked secret information about the U.S. drone program to The Intercept and Speigel.

Schneier's post gives links for all those stories, as well as his reasons for thinking they are likely to be separate people (although he notes numbers 3 and 7 might be the same person.) As he concludes:

Way back in June 2013, Glenn Greenwald said that "courage is contagious." He seems to be correct.

It's almost as if people taking extremely high risks to leak important information about dubious activities by the US intelligence community has become normal. That's really pretty remarkable, and show just how big Snowden's impact has been.

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

Filed Under: ed snowden, leakers, leaking, whistleblower, whistleblowers, whistleblowing

Wall Street Journal Suggests Snowden Gave China Its 'Great Cannon' Software... Based On Pure Random Speculation

from the journalism! dept

There's been lots of talk lately about China's "Great Cannon" -- the DDoS tool that China used to launch a massive attack on GitHub a few weeks ago. Much of the research on this tool was provided by Citizen Lab. That report is great and interesting. And then, the Wall Street Journal -- still a respected news source -- jumps in to speculate wildly based on nothing in particular, that Ed Snowden gave China NSA source code to build the Great Cannon.

Edward Snowden sabotaged the intelligence capabilities of the U.S. and its allies, and now we learn he may have given the Chinese regime a weapon to spread Internet censorship across the planet. The Great Firewall, the unofficial name for a suite of blocking tools, stops Chinese citizens from accessing outside information. In the past few weeks Beijing has deployed a new offensive capability, dubbed the Great Cannon.

First of all, Snowden didn't "sabotage" any intelligence capabilities at all. He revealed to journalists how the NSA and its partners were abusing certain powers, likely breaking the law. That's not "sabotage." Second, the "we learn" is not based on anything the WSJ's nameless author of the opinion piece actually "learned." It's based on wild speculation by stringing some misleading and unrelated ideas together. So we're already off to an inauspicious start to the piece.

According to a report from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, the Great Cannon is similar to Quantum, a tool developed by the U.S. to track potential terrorists and criminals abroad. Snowden, a former system administrator for the U.S. National Security Agency, revealed the existence of Quantum for the first time in 2013 when he fled to Hong Kong and then Moscow.

Loose connection #1.

Did Snowden give the Chinese the code for the Great Cannon? He denies sharing anything with foreign governments. But then he’s an admitted liar, and we don’t know what the Chinese and Russian spy services have been able to copy from what he stole. In any event he alerted them to a weakness that could be exploited.

Wait, what? How is he "an admitted liar?" That seems like a stretch already, and seems like the kind of line you'd find in a conspiracy website, not the pages of the Wall Street Journal. Second, the idea that the Chinese didn't already recognize how to do online attacks via such methods until Snowden revealed it seems especially questionable. Among the other things that Snowden revealed: the NSA knows that the Chinese are among the most sophisticated in building tools for mounting online attacks. The idea that they would be totally ignorant of methods like these until Snowden's revelations came out seems difficult to believe.

A South China Morning Post report that the Great Cannon has been under development for about a year is suggestive. This means China’s hacking bureaucracy geared up to produce this new product soon after the Snowden leaks.

Loose connection #2. Also, notice that the WSJ doesn't actually link to the SCMP story, so we'll do that for you. It actually doesn't say it was in development for a year. It says that it's "been in operation for about one year." I guess the timing still sorta works if you're making loose connections, but it seems like a pretty big leap to argue that's somehow evidence that Snowden gave the info to the Chinese during his brief stay in Hong Kong.

It also means that in the name of “transparency,” Snowden and his media accomplices may have empowered one of the world’s worst censors.

Uh, no, it doesn't. If the WSJ's editorial board knew the first thing about technology, they'd know that it didn't require Ed Snowden to teach the Chinese how to build a giant DDoS machine.

This is another example of how the Western left fails to distinguish between the secrecy and surveillance required by democracies to preserve freedom and that used by dictators to quash it.

Huh? That sentence doesn't even make sense.

Either way, as one commenter noted, you'd think that the WSJ might realize that even if China modeled the Great Cannon on the NSA's Quantum, it really says something that we're building tools that can be used to censor the internet. And they should realize that's a problem. Instead, they try to blame the whole thing on Snowden, because... well, actually not for any actual reason that I can see -- just pure speculation. That's the kind of thing we'd expect to see on conspiracy theory websites. Not the Wall Street Journal.

Filed Under: china, ddos, ed snowden, great cannon, nsa, quantum, rumors, speculation
Companies: wall street journal

DEA Phone Tracking Program Would Have Continued If Not For Snowden

from the thank-you-snowden dept

We already covered the fact that the DEA had a phone tracking program similar to the NSA's that we've been debating. As we noted in our post, that DEA phone tracking program was actually revealed years ago in a NY Times report, though it didn't get that much attention at the time. Yesterday, USA Today's Brad Heath did a much more detailed report on the details of the program -- including how massive it was, how little oversight there was (basically none) and how widely it was used (all the time). But there was one element that seemed important enough to call out separately: this program has been ended and it's entirely because of Ed Snowden. While there's still a fight going on over whether or not the NSA program will continue after June 1st (when Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act expires), Heath's reporting notes that the DOJ realized the DEA program could not continue -- once it realized how similar it was to the NSA program:

Holder pulled the plug on the phone data collection in September 2013.

That summer, Snowden leaked a remarkable series of classified documents detailing some of the government's most prized surveillance secrets, including the NSA's logging of domestic phone calls and Internet traffic. Reuters and The New York Times raised questions about the drug agency's own access to phone records.

Officials said the Justice Department told the DEA that it had determined it could not continue both surveillance programs, particularly because part of its justification for sweeping NSA surveillance was that it served national security interests, not ordinary policing. Eight months after USTO was halted, for example, department lawyers defended the spy agency's phone dragnet in court partly on the grounds that it "serves special governmental needs above and beyond normal law enforcement."

Three months after USTO was shut down, a review panel commissioned by President Obama urged Congress to bar the NSA from gathering telephone data on Americans in bulk. Not long after that, Obama instructed the NSA to get permission from the surveillance court before querying its phone data collection, a step the drug agency never was required to take.

The DEA stopped searching USTO in September 2013. Not long after that, it purged the database.

"It was made abundantly clear that they couldn't defend both programs," a former Justice Department official said. Others said Holder's message was more direct. "He said he didn't think we should have that information," a former DEA official said.

Think about this, though: the program lasted for more than two decades before anyone bothered to even consider this idea. And it was only once the other database (which actually had a lot more strict access controls) started getting negative press that Justice Department officials realized they had no real legal basis for the DEA program.

Who, again, is watching the watchers? While some have argued that Snowden's revelations have not (yet) resulted in the NSA's surveillance programs being stopped, it seems pretty clear that he was directly responsible for this DEA program being shut down completely and the data purged.

Filed Under: dea, ed snowden, eric holder, metadata, phone calls, surveillance, usto

John Oliver Takes On Government Surveillance With Help From Ed Snowden And... Some Dick Pics

from the put-it-in-terms-of-your-junk dept

Once again, it seems that John Oliver is doing a show on topics that we regularly talk about in these parts. And he's pretty damn good at it. Last night's episode was all about government surveillance, focused mainly on Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act and the fact that it's set to sunset on June 1st if Congress doesn't renew it (and, of course, there's been no debate at all on it, meaning that late in May you'll see a frantic, crazed and fact-free "debate" in which fearmongers will insist that we're all going to die if it's not extended). Oliver actually flew to Moscow and interviewed Ed Snowden as part of the episode: Believe it or not, Oliver actually challenged Snowden a lot more than most of Snowden's interviews, which is pretty interesting (but perhaps not that surprising -- given that Oliver also gave former NSA boss Keith Alexander his most challenging interview in Oliver's very first episode). Oliver challenged Snowden on whether or not journalists could do a good enough job keeping some of the information in the documents secret (pointing to one particular fuck up in which there was a bad redaction). He also questioned how carefully Snowden reviewed all of the info before handing it over.

But, much more of the interview (and the rest of the show) actually focused on getting the public to actually care about what was going on. Oliver used the late night talk show TV trope of asking people on the street what they knew about Ed Snowden and what he revealed (the answer: basically nothing), and then flipped it around to ask them how they would feel if photos they or their loved ones took of their penises should be collected by the NSA. Then, suddenly, they were worried about the government's surveillance capabilities. That leads to Oliver coaxing Snowden into explaining the power of government surveillance -- including Section 215, Executive Order 12333, the PRISM program and even (barely) the upstream collection program under Section 702 of the FISA Act (not named in the show, though the others are) -- about how it allows the government to collect "dick picks" (which Snowden will only call "photos of your junk.")

It's an amusing segment, but I'm not convinced it's as powerful as it could have been (or as Oliver has been on other topics), in which he has been able to get people really motivated to be angry and speak out about certain injustices. And that's too bad, because this is a huge issue. I recognize it's a lot to ask of a primarily comedy show, but Oliver has been so successful at getting people worked up on issues like net neutrality, that it's almost a disappointment that he's not able to create the same level of outrage over government surveillance. In fact, most of the news coverage of Oliver's interview seems to be about the mundane aspects of his interview with Snowden, such as whether or not he misses "hot pockets."

Filed Under: ed snowden, government surveillance, john oliver, nsa, patriot act, section 215, surveillance

UK Police Can't Confirm Or Deny Investigation Of Journalists It Publicly Confirmed In 2013

from the Glomar-logic dept

If you're a UK-based journalist who's reported on the Snowden leaks, it's safe to say you're under investigation. Not only are you being investigated, but that investigation itself is so secret, it can't be discussed. The Intercept's Ryan Gallagher sent a Freedom of Information request to London's Metropolitan Police (the Met) for more information about the investigation -- something twice publicly confirmed by Met representatives.

But when asked specifically for information on the ongoing investigation, the agency had nothing to say.

[T]he Metropolitan Police... says everything about the investigation’s existence is a secret and too dangerous to disclose. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request from this reporter, the force has repeatedly refused to release any information about the status of the investigation, how many officers are working on it, or how much taxpayer money has been spent on it. The Met wrote in its response:

"to confirm or deny whether we hold any information concerning any current or previous investigations into the alleged actions of Edward Snowden could potentially be misused proving detrimental to national security.'

In this current environment, where there is a possibility of increased threat of terrorist activity, providing any details even to confirm or deny that any information exists could assist any group or persons who wish to cause harm to the people of the nation which would undermine the safeguarding of national security."

The response is hardly a response. In fact, almost the entirety of the nine-page document Gallagher received is simply reasons WHY the Met won't be responding affirmatively or negatively to his inquiry. The only new information gleaned is that control of the investigation has changed hands.

AC Mark Rowley has taken over as Head of Specialist Operations following the departure of Cressida Dick

That's the one thing the "Counter Terrorism Command" can confirm. This would be the same department within the Met that was directly involved with the detainment and questioning of Glenn Greenwald's partner, David Miranda. Everything else falls under a variety of exemptions, including the oh-so-opaque "state secrets" designation.

The Metropolitan Police Service can neither confirm nor deny whether it holds any of the information that you have requested, as the duty in S1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply, by virtue of the following exemptions:

Section 23(5) - Information supplied by, or concerning, certain security bodies
Section 24(2) - National Security
Section 30(3) Criminal Investigations
Section 31(3) - Law Enforcement
Section 40(5) - Personal information

There's more detail later, when the response details the agency's decision to declare the request to be "not in the public interest."

The security of the country is of paramount importance and the Police service will not divulge whether information is or is not held if to do so would undermine National Security or law enforcement. Whilst there is a public interest in the transparency of policing operations and providing assurance that the police service is appropriately and effectively engaging with the threats posed by groups or individuals there is a very strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of police investigations and operations in the highly sensitive area of extremism, crime prevention, public disorder and terrorism prevention.

[...]

After weighing up the competing interests I have determined that confirmation or denial of any information being held concerning whether the MPS has investigated the alleged actions of Edward Snowden or not would not be in the public interest. To confirm or deny that information is held regarding any individual or investigation that may or may not have taken place could be detrimental to any investigations that may be being conducted now or in the future.

But, of course, all of this discussion about national security, public interest and possibly compromised investigations does not confirm that there's a twice-previously-confirmed investigation of UK journalists in progress.

However, this should not be taken as necessarily indicating that any information that would meet your request exists or does not exist.

This UK-style Glomar tosses the request back to The Intercept, which has tossed it to the nearest governing body..

The Intercept has filed a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office, the public body that enforces the U.K.’s freedom of information laws, about the Met’s refusal to release information about the current status of the investigation. The commissioner will now look at how the police handled the request and decide whether they should be ordered to hand over the relevant details.

Even in the UK, information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be litigated.

The Met continues to maintain its code of silence in the face of its earlier public statements about investigating those publishing the Snowden leaks. When asked how something the agency itself publicly discussed several months ago is now a "national security" issue, the Met offered a swift "no comment" -- a handy way to dodge the logic hole in its Freedom of Information request denial.

Filed Under: ed snowden, foia, investigation, metropolitan police, police, reporting, uk

Snowden Docs: New Zealand Spying On Friendly Neighboring Countries For The NSA

from the Five-Eyes-but-one-master dept

More Snowden docs have been released, covering the extent of GCSB's (New Zealand's intelligence agency) spying on supposedly "friendly" island nations. As is par for the course for intelligence programs, the documents show massive bulk collections of data and communications -- all of which are immediately shared with the other members of the "Five Eyes" club.

Since 2009, the Government Communications Security Bureau intelligence base at Waihopai has moved to "full-take collection", indiscriminately intercepting Asia-Pacific communications and providing them en masse to the NSA through the controversial NSA intelligence system XKeyscore, which is used to monitor emails and internet browsing habits.

This sort of spying -- while apparently "normal," in light of previously-released documents -- indicates many governments enjoy spying for spying's sake, rather than for the justifications they often offer in defense of untargeted surveillance.

The documents, provided by US whistleblower whistleblower Edward Snowden, reveal that most of the targets are not security threats to New Zealand, as has been suggested by the Government.

Instead, the GCSB directs its spying against a surprising array of New Zealand's friends, trading partners and close Pacific neighbours. These countries' communications are supplied directly to the NSA and other Five Eyes agencies with little New Zealand oversight or decision-making, as a contribution to US worldwide surveillance.

New Zealand's intelligence agency, along with Prime Minister John Key, have previously refused to acknowledge or deny the use of the NSA's XKeyscore system. A short blurb from the obtained documents renders this Glomar null.


The wording indicates that GCSB is indeed using this system for its collections, which are then immediately accessible to the NSA. NSA analysts must first read through an online ("iLearn") briefing on NZ law and answer a few questions correctly before they're allowed to search the collection.

The collection itself is impressive. It contains phone calls, text messages, emails and social media interactions. In the parlance of the Five Eyes intelligence agencies, this is "full-take," a far more intrusive form of surveillance than skimming metadata off the top.

Even though it's purportedly an anti-terrorism tool, the surrounding friendly nations have given New Zealand little reason to spy on them. But that's how the anti-terrorism game is played by spy agencies: everything from everyone, for as long as possible. What's not legal to "look at" in one country can always be used by another. The built-in "protections" for each nation's citizens are nearly useless, considering the breadth and depth of these untargeted collections. Incidental collections are a certainty, rather than an anomaly analysts should be wary of.

Whatever's being collected had better be doing a bang-up job keeping terrorists at bay. Prime Minister John Key has openly stated that sending his own citizens off to die is foreign warzones is just paying Five Eyes membership dues.

In his strongest hint yet that the Cabinet will approve a deployment of troops to train Iraqis alongside Australians, Mr Key in an interview with the BBC drew heavily on New Zealand pulling its weight as part of "a club".

"Ultimately are we going to say we are going to be part of a club like [we] are with Five Eyes intelligence?

"Even if the contribution is small - of course it will be proportional - there has to be some contribution," he said.

"It is the price of the club."

Of course, Key has also reassured New Zealand citizens that the GCSB isn't spying on them, betting his job against that probability.

Asked if he and GCSB chief Ian Fletcher would resign if there were mass surveillance, he said yes.

"But the facts of life are it won't happen."

For that to happen, the GCSB would have to undertake illegal activity.

He clarified later saying "both" would resign if there was mass surveillance.

"If I wholesale blatantly flout the law as Prime Minister I'm never going to survive anyway."

Key's hedges make it almost impossible to hold him to his promise. Domestic surveillance has been confirmed, both by these documents and previous revelations. The interception points and untargeted dragnet make it inevitable that New Zealanders' communications are being swept up indiscriminately. The problem is that this is likely legal. The only way to violate New Zealand's surveillance laws (and hold PM Key to his promise) is to find proof that GCSB is intentionally targeting its countrymen. By making surveillance programs broad and untargeted, the GCSB can avoid violating the law while still collecting a great deal of domestic data and communications. Minimization comes into play post-collection, but there's nothing built into the system to prevent -- or even minimize -- these "incidental" collections.

Whatever the GCSB offers in assurances about minimization should probably be ignored. It doesn't maintain any control over the communications it grabs. The collection belongs to the NSA. GCSB analysts have to run queries through the American agency just to see what it's gathered from its neighbors.

The documents show that when GCSB staff want to access communications intercepted at Waihopai, they have to log into NSA computer databases. Minutes of a June 2009 meeting at the NSA headquarters, where a GCSB officer was present, show how integrated the GCSB is into the NSA systems. The GCSB officer, manager of an intelligence analysis unit, told the meeting that 20 per cent of GCSB's analytic workforce did not have accounts or access to key NSA databases.

Because the GCSB doesn't control the database, it really can't destroy anything it shouldn't have access to. New Zealanders caught in this dragnet now "belong" to the NSA, which has very few minimization procedures for foreign collections -- even if the actual "collection" utilized another agency and occurred under another set of laws. GCSB analysts may constrain themselves from searching or viewing New Zealanders' communications, but it can't promise to delete unlawfully-obtained "incidental" collections.

It works out this way: the New Zealand government will provide military support -- including the deployment of troops -- in exchange for whatever the NSA allows it to look at. It provides the intercepts, but the NSA enjoys the greatest share of its "partner's" collection efforts. This hardly seems like an equitable exchange. And now New Zealand is going to be dealing with irritated neighboring countries and more than a few irate New Zealanders. And for what? A massive, untargeted collection that it doesn't even control and which does very little to aid in the country's anti-terrorism efforts.

Filed Under: ed snowden, gcsb, john key, new zealand, nsa, surveillance, xkeyscore

Evidence Copy Of 'CitizenFour' Needs To Be 'Locked Up' Claims Plaintiff Suing Snowden, Filmmakers For Billions

from the is-there-someone-less-crazy-I-could-speak-to? dept

The billion-dollar lawsuit against the producers of the Edward Snowden documentary CitizenFour rolls on, gradually unraveling as it does. Since we last covered the story (where the United States of America was added as an involuntary plaintiff -- a plaintiff since forcibly removed by the court), a lot has happened. For one, CitizenFour won an Oscar for Best Documentary, something that can't be sitting too well with Horace Edwards and his legal representation, which sought to have the film removed from consideration during the early days of this lawsuit.

The film has also been put into limited release and is streaming on HBO GO -- something that makes the following developments even crazier than they would be without these key details. Over at Vice, Jason Koebler has compiled a timeline of Edwards' (and his lawyer, Jean Lamfers') descent into paranoiac craziness.

Around January 23rd, Lamfers requests that a copy of the film not be allowed to be entered as evidence, what with it being full of highly-sensitive documents, espionage and whatever. She asserts that the movie contains so much classified info that it should only be reviewed in camera.

Then, no hell at all breaks loose, although in Lamfers' and Edwards' eyes, the espionapocalypse is nigh.

Poitras and her attorney deliver a copy of the film to the Lamfers. She does not take it well.

"I said I did not want to take possession of it. This was because of my understanding the film contains classified information based on my having seen the film. I received no response to [my] request from defendants' counsel [to bar the film from being entered as evidence in court]," Lamfers wrote in an email sent to the judge presiding over the suit. "To the contrary defendant's counsel delivered a copy of the DVD to my office (which remains unopened and under lock and key)."

That time when the normal process of discovery became a cheap knockoff of a le Carré novel.

From this point on, it's a long but fast slide downhill into amateur cloak-and-dagger awkwardness.

Two DVDs and a transcript of the film are entered as evidence because this is how that process works. Lamfers immediately files a motion asking for these to be sealed. The requested injunction would have no effect on the public release of the film, as the judge notes.

"Given the inherently public nature of this film, the Court can discern absolutely no interest that could justify sealing this exhibit. Moreover, even if this DVD contained some sort of confidential information for which Plaintiff had an interest in preventing public disclosure, it has already been publicly filed…"

[Side note: For reasons only comprehensible to Cryptome, a copy of the movie is being made available at the site, apparently under the mistaken belief that publicly-filed evidence automatically enters into the public domain. This perhaps-willful misunderstanding of both the court system and copyright law may be at least partially due to Cryptome's ongoing animosity towards anyone involved with the Snowden leaks for their refusal to make every single document Snowden gave them available in one massive dump -- and without redactions.]

Undeterred by the judge's logic, Lamfers proceeds to pester the court with "emergency" phone calls in hopes of sealing the Very Dangerous DVD. The judge reminds Lamfers that there are certain ways these things are handled during court proceedings and making "emergency" phone calls isn't one of them. Lamfers reads this rebuking email and decides the judge is suggesting she pester the court with "emergency" emails.

Lamfers emails the judge, at 12:46 AM local time (according to the court record), chastising the court for endangering national security and not immediately responding to her call.

"This situation has placed the plaintiff in an untenable position regarding avoiding irreparable harm and obtaining appropriate relief sought on a serious issue in a timely manner," she wrote. "The denial of a sealing motion has furthered the irreparable harm and relief necessary to address such harm, among other things, by the continuing injury through repetition of classified, stolen information that reaches a broader constituency of extremists with each showing."

Lamfers follows this up with a filed motion stating that the DVDs and transcript should be locked up under the legal precedent of "better safe than sorry." (No, I am not making this up. If I was, it would be more credible.)


Apparently further phone calls from Lamfers ensued, because the court is forced to formally -- via a court order -- tell her to knock it off.

Plaintiffs counsel has been instructed that the Court prefers informal communications with the Court be made by e-mail, with copy to the opposing counsel. In the Court's experience, such informal communications are rarely necessary and are typically limited to coordinating hearing dates after the court has determined a hearing is necessary, or to address routine, procedural questions. The does not and will not entertain requests for relief in this manner and the Plaintiff shall refrain from this practice going forward.

Well, we'll see if that works. Nothing else has so far. The docket shows things have remained eerily quiet over the past several days, but there's no telling how many phone calls and emails have made their way to Judge Julie Robinson's court in the meantime.

Of course, the lawsuit doesn't hinge on the misguided actions of the plaintiff and his counsel but on the actual merits of the case. However, even if Edwards' suit has its legal merits, he and his counsel appear to be the worst people to argue them.

Filed Under: citizenfour, ed snowden, horace edwards, jean lamfers, laura poitras, lawsuit

Here's 140 Fully-Redacted Pages Explaining How Much Snowden's Leaks Have Harmed The Nation's Security

from the FOIA:-Freedom-Of-Ink-Act dept

If the US intelligence committee is concerned about the status of "hearts and minds" in its ongoing NSA v. Snowden battle, it won't be winning anyone over with its latest response to a FOIA request.

Various representatives of the intelligence community have asserted (sometimes repeatedly) that Snowden's leaks have caused irreparable harm to intelligence-gathering efforts and placed the nation in "grave danger." But when given the chance to show the public how much damage has been done, it declares everything on the subject too sensitive to release. EVERYTHING.

Here's the Defense Intelligence Agency's appraisal of the current situation, as released to Vice News' Jason Leopold.

On the subject of compromised information:

How about intelligence sharing and cooperation?


At least we know that -- as of January 2014 -- there were four (4) "talking points."


Every single assessment, dating back to September 2013, is fully redacted. How does that help communicate the DIA's concerns about Snowden's leaks to the general public? How does that persuade anyone about the alleged severity of the situation?

From what's not on display here, it's safe to say the general public's perception of the American intelligence apparatus doesn't matter. Those who do matter are those already on the NSA's side, and then only those with the power to guide legislation towards favorable ends. It's safe to say that there are people in Washington DC who have seen at least a portion of these reports, but that small group contains no members of the general public.

A fully-redacted report may seem logical in the eyes of the intelligence community, which despite multiple leakers, still pretends its secrets will always be secret. Page after page of redaction shows it's really not interested in the transparency it keeps promising will make everything better. It doesn't want to give the public any more information than it already has and this mess of whiteout and black ink clearly and loudly states that it believes the public has no stake in the ongoing debate over mass surveillance.

It's a wordless insult, delivered under the pretense of "national security."

Filed Under: damage, damage assessment, defense intelligence agency, dia, doj, ed snowden, foia, nsa, surveillance

Thank Snowden: Internet Industry Now Considers The Intelligence Community An Adversary, Not A Partner

from the a-useful-level-of-distrust dept

We already wrote about the information sharing efforts coming out of the White House cybersecurity summit at Stanford today. That's supposedly the focus of the event. However, there's a much bigger issue happening as well: and it's the growing distrust between the tech industry and the intelligence community. As Bloomberg notes, the CEOs of Google, Yahoo and Facebook were all invited to join President Obama at the summit and all three declined. Apple's CEO Tim Cook will be there, but he appears to be delivering a message to the intelligence and law enforcement communities, if they think they're going to get him to drop the plan to encrypt iOS devices by default:

In an interview last month, Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said the N.S.A. “would have to cart us out in a box” before the company would provide the government a back door to its products. Apple recently began encrypting phones and tablets using a scheme that would force the government to go directly to the user for their information. And intelligence agencies are bracing for another wave of encryption.

In fact, it seems noteworthy that this whole issue of increasing encryption by the tech companies to keep everyone out has been left off the official summit schedule. As the NY Times notes (in the link above), Silicon Valley seems to be pretty much completely fed up with the intelligence community after multiple Snowden revelations revealed just how far the NSA had gone in trying to "collect it all" -- including hacking into the foreign data centers of Google and Yahoo. And, on top of that, the NSA's efforts to buy up zero day vulnerabilities before companies can find out and patch them:

“What has struck me is the enormous degree of hostility between Silicon Valley and the government,” said Herb Lin, who spent 20 years working on cyberissues at the National Academy of Sciences before moving to Stanford several months ago. “The relationship has been poisoned, and it’s not going to recover anytime soon.”

That Times article quotes White House cybersecurity boss Michael Daniel (the man who is proud of his own lacking of cybersecurity skills) trying to play down the "tensions" between Silicon Valley and Washington, followed by this anonymous quote from a Silicon Valley exec:

“A stupid approach,” is the assessment of one technology executive who will be seeing Mr. Obama on Friday, and who asked to speak anonymously.

Further, the article discusses how companies are trying to fight back against the NSA's abuse of zero days (another thing that Daniel has championed) by getting to them before the government does:

And while Silicon Valley executives have made a very public argument over encryption, they have been fuming quietly over the government’s use of zero-day flaws. Intelligence agencies are intent on finding or buying information about those flaws in widely used hardware and software, and information about the flaws often sells for hundreds of thousands of dollars on the black market. N.S.A. keeps a potent stockpile, without revealing the flaws to manufacturers.

Companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter are fighting back by paying “bug bounties” to friendly hackers who alert them to serious bugs in their systems so they can be fixed. And last July, Google took the effort to another level. That month, Mr. Grosse began recruiting some of the world’s best bug hunters to track down and neuter the very bugs that intelligence agencies and military contractors have been paying top dollar for to add to their arsenals.

They called the effort “Project Zero,” Mr. Grosse says, because the ultimate goal is to bring the number of bugs down to zero. He said that “Project Zero” would never get the number of bugs down to zero “but we’re going to get close.”

There's a lot more in the two stories ahead, but the angry feeling is real. In the past year, it's amazing how many conversations I've had with people around Silicon Valley who aren't just upset or disgusted over the intelligence community's actions, they're angry. And while the tech industry was never as buddy buddy with the government as some have tried to imply, things had undoubtedly become complacent in some circles, with little effort being made to make sure that information wasn't being misused or abused. But that's no longer the case. There are, of course, legal limits on what companies can do, but just as the NSA once explained how they play right up to the very edge of the limits that Congress puts around them (some of us believe they go beyond that...), the tech industry is rapidly learning that they, too, need to push back to the line that the law allows them to do so as well.

And, of course, none of that would likely have happened without Ed Snowden revealing to journalists the nature of the NSA's overreach.

Filed Under: cybersecurity, cybersecurity summit, ed snowden, government, surveillance, trust, white house, zero days
Companies: apple, facebook, google, yahoo