The Government Has Been Binging On Classification. Senators Say It's Time To Start Purging.

from the affected-agencies:-hey-if-it's-not-working-don't-fix-it dept

Senators Ron Wyden and Jerry Moran have published an op-ed at Just Security detailing the government's overuse of classification (and distaste for declassification) -- a practice that uses our tax dollars to keep secrets from us. Overclassification is a problem. It has been a problem for decades, but it keeps getting worse. Multiple government agencies spend billions every year marking things "classified" and then forgetting the documents they've classified still exist.

Under the current system, costly resources are used to hold on to records that no longer require classification resulting in an unnecessary waste of taxpayer dollars. The cost of the government’s classification system now exceeds $18 billion annually. Additionally, when records are kept classified for reasons that have nothing to do with national security, historians, journalists, public watchdogs and all Americans are denied their right to research historical events or examine the actions of their government to hold it accountable. As the line between classification for national security and pointless secrecy is blurred, public trust in government erodes.

What should be classified? That's anyone's guess. Most federal agencies err on the side of caution/obfuscation. Back when he was still president, Barack Obama tried to explain this in layman's terms. Unfortunately, his explanation -- handed out after some selective prosecution by the DOJ -- was not the paragon of clarity... although it did inform taxpaying laymen the government alone would decide what the public gets to see.

“There’s classified, and then there’s classified,” the president said.

Both are still classified. In some cases, the sharing of classified information is forgiven. In other cases, it's a prosecution. But the underlying fact remains: the government classifies too much stuff too often. The op-ed notes the Information Security Oversight Office has warned of a "deluge" of classified info in the federal document pipeline. What's already a catastrophe will become cataclysmic as more documents are created more often and classified more frequently.

If it costs us $18 billion a year just to classify documents, imagine the cost of declassifying info once it reaches its expiration date. At this point, the federal government is still saving us a few bucks by ignoring the stockpile of documents slated for declassification. This isn't making the public any more knowledgeable, but it is, in its own way, somewhat efficient.

The Senators say it's time for the declassification system to be overhauled and modernized. Sooner would be better, considering the "deluge" that's worrying the ISOO. They aren't just complaining about an ongoing -- and growing -- problem. The two Senators actually want to do something about it.

Records can be “tagged” so that when information is no longer suitable for classification, the records which include that information are easily identified for release. AI and machine learning can be used to find buried records appropriate for declassification. And when it is time to declassify records that include information from multiple government agencies, those agencies can be connected electronically rather than having to rely on couriers physically walking paper copies around Washington.

But will Congress or whatever president is in office like this solution? The government likes its secrets. So do its many employees, especially the powerful ones who don't like embarrassing or horrifying information coming to light, even if it's years after the fact. But they have an obligation to the public to be more open about the things they're doing -- and have done -- with the implicit blessing of taxpayers via their tax dollars.

Thanks to op-eds like these, we're aware we're paying $18 billion a year to have information hidden from us, sometimes for decades. And we know the government's obligations to the public are being ignored by government agencies more willing to throw money at classifying documents than digging through their archives for stuff that can be released. This needs to change. The fix might not be easy or cheap, but ignoring the problem isn't going to make it go away.

Filed Under: classification, declassification, government, jerry moran, overclassification, ron wyden, secrecy, secrets, transparency

Judge Tells Prosecutors They Need To Prove Contractor Knew He Had Classified Docs In His 50-Terabyte Stash

from the go-big-AND-go-home dept

The federal judge presiding over the prosecution of a government contractor who took home 50 terabytes of sensitive national security documents home with him has sent a message. And the message is this: collect it all.

Harold Martin did what surveillance agencies do best. He built himself a haystack of government documents, some of them designated "top secret." The prosecution is counting on this haystack to put Harold Martin in prison on espionage charges. But the judge has just ordered prosecutors to prove the few "top secret" needles justify a conviction for the entire haystack. Josh Gerstein at Politico has the details.

Baltimore-based U.S. District Court Judge Marvin Garbis suggested in his Feb. 16 order that the sheer volume of information may be a problem for prosecutors because their case is based on 20 felony charges that Martin illegally retained individual classified documents without permission.

Garbis asked the prosecution and defense to explain whether the government must prove that Martin knew he had those specific documents in his possession or whether he could be convicted of the claimed Espionage Act violations without such proof.

Espionage prosecutions are a mess. This mess usually works in the government's favor. The rules surrounding these prosecutions severely restrict the defenses the accused can raise and the evidence they can submit. The sensitivity of the underlying documents results in plenty of ex parte submissions seen only by the judge and the government. In this case, though, the judge is asking the government to prove Martin knowingly took top secret documents, rather than just ending up with some in his massive collection of government paperwork. If it can't, Martin might walk away from charges on the premise he had no idea what was in the 50 terabytes in his possession. Here's law prof Steve Vladeck's take on the order:

"There has not been a lot of really sophisticated litigation about the awkwardness of treating piles of information as being subject to the Espionage Act because of one piece of that pile," said University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck. "It's a rare situation where the defendant has a plausible argument that he grabbed the wrong pile of documents."

Prosecutors aren't happy with this order. Their response says they have no obligation to prove Martin knew he had sensitive documents in his stash. This is a questionable assertion, considering the accusing party carries the burden of proof in all criminal cases. The government apparently believes it can secure a conviction without this key evidence.

But prosecutors also make a solid point: a requirement like this encourages people exfiltrating government documents to take as many as possible. The more you grab, the harder it is for prosecutors to prove you knowingly possessed classified material.

If this proves to be a sticking point, prosecutors may decide to go after Martin for theft. It probably won't net them the sentence a 20-count indictment normally would, but probably looks more palatable than accepting Martin's unsolicited offer to plead guilty to a single count of the charges brought against him.

Hopefully, the judge won't back down from this demand. The government's track record with espionage prosecutions is terrible. They've severely harmed people who've done nothing more than try to be a good employee. Lots of people take work home with them. Only a very small percentage of those do anything more nefarious with government documents than work off the clock.

Filed Under: data, harold martin, hoarding, nsa, secrets, top secret

Government Exposes Documents Detailing Sensitive NSA Software, Surveillance Programs

from the password:-passw0rd dept

Another leak is causing some headaches for the NSA. Still reeling from the worldwide exposure of one of its exploit hoards, along with documents handed over to journalists by Ed Snowden (and unnamed others), the NSA's latest embarrassment is an unsecured intelligence system the NSA shares with the military.

The exposed data was discovered by security researcher Chris Vickery, who informed the government about the leak back in October.

On September 27th, 2017, UpGuard Director of Cyber Risk Research Chris Vickery discovered an Amazon Web Services S3 cloud storage bucket configured for public access. Set to allow anyone entering the URL to see the exposed bucket’s contents, the repository, located at the AWS subdomain “inscom,” contained 47 viewable files and folders in the main repository, three of which were also downloadable. The subdomain name provides some indication as to the provenance of the data: INSCOM, an intelligence command overseen by both the US Army and the NSA.

The three downloadable files contained in the bucket confirm the highly sensitive nature of the contents, exposing national security data, some of it explicitly classified.

The largest file is an Oracle Virtual Appliance (.ova) file titled “ssdev,” which, when loaded into VirtualBox, is revealed to contain a virtual hard drive and Linux-based operating system likely used for receiving Defense Department data from a remote location. While the virtual OS and HD can be browsed in their functional states, most of the data cannot be accessed without connecting to Pentagon systems - an intrusion that malicious actors could have attempted, had they found this bucket.

Included in the exposed data were files marked "Top Secret" and "NOFORN," the latter denoting information considered too sensitive to even be shared with foreign allies. Some of the exposed software could conceivably allow malicious actors to access sensitive (and live) Pentagon systems. Considering the sensitivity of this information, one has to wonder why no attempt was made to secure it.

Regrettably, this cloud leak was entirely avoidable, the likely result of process errors within an IT environment that lacked the procedures needed to ensure something as impactful as a data repository containing classified information not be left publicly accessible. Given how simple the immediate solution to such an ill-conceived configuration is - simply updated the S3 bucket’s permission settings to only allow authorized administrators access - the real question is, how can government agencies keep track of all their data and ensure they are correctly configured and secured?

Perhaps part of the reason this was overlooked was the software's relative uselessness. The military spent $93 million attempting to build a scalable solution for shared intelligence, but a 2014 memo called the software (known as "Red Disk") "a major hindrance to operations." Even though this may be all but abandoned, other files left exposed contained plenty of sensitive information.

Vickery noted that the disk image also contains other sensitive files, including private keys used for the system to access other servers on the intelligence community's network. The keys belong to a third-party firm, Invertix, a working partner of INSCOM and a key developer of Red Disk.

On top of that, the exposed files provided more information about NSA collection program Ragtime, which allowed (allows?) the agency to collect info on US persons.

The document seen by ZDNet, dated November 2011, shows the Ragtime program has eleven variants, including the four that were already known. The document alludes to Ragtime-BQ, F, N, PQ, S, and T.

The eleventh version refers to Ragtime-USP. "USP" is a common term used across the intelligence community to refer to "US person," like a US citizen or lawful permanent resident.

Ragtime is more than a decade old, but apparently still in use. It was part of the Stellar Wind warrantless surveillance bundle put together by the agency and the Bush administration shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. While Stellar Wind is no longer in use thanks to domestic surveillance concerns (it's actually just been offshored to dodge FISA obligations), Ragtime appears to still be running, although there's little publicly-available information discussing its use in surveilling American citizens. An undated document leaked by Snowden in 2013 discusses Ragtime collection in the context of thwarting Congressional oversight.

What is known is Ragtime's super-secret status. It's a "need to know" program that only certain analysts can access. Collections from this program are considered so sensitive they aren't shared with foreign allies, with the exception of the Ragtime-C variant, which allows UK intelligence agency access.

With the Section 702 renewal deadline fast approaching, another leak showing possible domestic surveillance can't be helpful. Then again, serious reform of the expiring collection authorities doesn't seem to be in the cards this year, what with both House and Senate committees offering uninspiring legislation that won't do much to rein in surveillance abuses.

Filed Under: aws, chris vickery, inscom, nsa, secrets
Companies: upgard

Whether Or Not You Believe Russia Interfered In The Election, We Should All Be Worried About Escalation Based On Secret Info

from the be-concerned dept

So, we just wrote about Obama administration's tepid response to claims that Russians "interfered" with the Presidential election. In that post, we noted our concerns about the fact that we seem to be escalating a situation based on claims where we're not allowed to see any of the actual evidence. I've seen a bunch of people arguing that anyone who won't automatically accept that Russia interfered in the election should be dubbed either Putin supporters or, at the very least, "useful idiots" but we should be very, very careful about where this leads. I certainly think that there's a tremendous possibility that Russian forces did intend to interfere with our election, but I'd certainly like to see some actual evidence -- and the "evidence" provided so far shows no such thing.

And this should scare you. Not because it means that anyone is lying, but because it's setting the stage for very dangerous things. If we're setting the precedent that the US government can escalate situations based on purely secret knowledge, what's to stop them from doing so over and over again? Put another way: for those who dislike Trump, but are happy about the White House calling out and sanctioning Russia, how will you feel when President Trump makes similar claims about some other country (perhaps one blocking a new Trump hotel?), and proceeds to issue US government sanctions on that country -- but without releasing any actual evidence of wrongdoing beyond "government agencies say they did bad things." Won't that be concerning too?

Matt Taibbi, over at Rolling Stone, has an excellent article comparing this to when we started the war in Iraq -- noting the similarities, in that the government (and the press) kept insisting that because certain government agencies said something ("Iraq has WMDs"), it must be true:

This dramatic story puts the news media in a jackpot. Absent independent verification, reporters will have to rely upon the secret assessments of intelligence agencies to cover the story at all.

Many reporters I know are quietly freaking out about having to go through that again. We all remember the WMD fiasco.

And, as he later notes:

The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect. Nothing quite adds up.

If the American security agencies had smoking-gun evidence that the Russians had an organized campaign to derail the U.S. presidential election and deliver the White House to Trump, then expelling a few dozen diplomats after the election seems like an oddly weak and ill-timed response. Voices in both parties are saying this now.

And this is a big part of the problem. Because none of the evidence is public, beyond just statements of attribution, we're left with no way to know what are actually reasonable responses. There's a big spectrum of possibilities that might be described as "Russian interference" from merely helping some independent hackers release information (as some have charged) to using actual intelligence agencies to run a serious hacking operation (as others have charged), all the way up to actively tampering in voting systems (which some in the public now claim, but which no official has suggested actually happened).

The problem isn't so much a question of whether or not the Russians did something. Maybe they did. It certainly wouldn't surprise me at all if they did. At the very least, Russian officials seem to be laughing at everything going on now. The real issue is the danger of having the force and power of the US government responding to "actions" by stating things as true, without providing any evidence to back it up. In that space, a lot of mischief can and will occur. Looking back at the invasion of Iraq based on faulty reports is just one example. We should be learning from that lesson, not repeating it.

Filed Under: escalation, hacking, president obama, president trump, russia, secrecy, secrets, white house

FBI Hides Its Surveillance Techniques From Federal Prosecutors Because It's Afraid They'll Become Defense Lawyers

from the code-of-silence dept

We know the FBI isn't willing to share its investigative techniques with judges. Or defendants. Or the general public. Or Congress. The severely restrictive NDAs it forced law enforcement agencies to sign before allowing them to obtain IMSI catchers is evidence of the FBI's secrecy. Stingray devices were being used for at least a half-decade before information starting leaking into the public domain.

The FBI doesn't want to hand over details on its hacking tools. Nor does it want to discuss the specifics of the million-dollar technique that allowed it to break into a dead terrorist's phone (which held nothing of interest).

USA Today's Brad Heath has obtained documents showing the FBI's tech secrecy extends even further than its nominal opponents (judges, defense lawyers, defendants). Its secrecy even involves freezing out other players on the same team.

A supervisor also cautioned the bureau’s “technically trained agents” in a 2003 memo not to reveal techniques for secretly entering and bugging a suspect’s home to other agents who might be forced to reveal them in court. “We need to protect how our equipment is concealed,” the unnamed supervisor wrote.

The records, released this year as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, offer a rare view of the extent to which the FBI has sought to keep its most sensitive surveillance capabilities secret, even from others within federal law enforcement.

Yes, the FBI is so determined to keep its techniques secret that it won't even share it with high-ranking prosecutors, like Assistant US Attorneys (AUSAs). But it gets even better. The reason stated in the memo for locking out AUSAs is schadenfreuderiffic.

In case you can't see or read the picture above, here's what the memo says:

Over the past few months, ERF [Engineering Research Facility] has expressed concern about Tech Agents revealing technical details to Case Agents and especially to AUSAs. There have been several instances of AUSAs becoming familiar with our techniques, then resigning and becoming defense lawyers. There also is concern about retiring Agents performing investigative work for defense counsel (i.e. right here in MP).

One conclusion that could be drawn from AUSAs "becoming familiar" with FBI surveillance techniques, then switching sides to work as defense lawyers, is that the FBI's techniques are so intrusive and pervasive that AUSAs no longer find it conscionable to act on the behalf of the FBI.

That's not the only damning paragraph in the two-page set of responsive documents. There's also this, which again shows the FBI openly encourages obfuscation and omission in federal courtrooms.

Over the past week, I have received two ECs [electronic communications] form the field which describe in GREAT detail surreptitious entries and special project concealments installed in the target locations. These ECs describe the equipment concealed, item in which the equipment was concealed, and where the concealments were placed. These ECs were drafted by case agents, uploaded in ACS, and placed in the case file.

TTAs [technically trained agents] should not be providing such detail to case agents. One reason TTAs do not testify is to protect our trade craft. If the case agents have this information, they will be required to reveal it during cross examination at trial. Also, an AUSA may require the EC be turned over during discovery before trial. We need to protect how our equipment is concealed and where our is concealed.

It is sufficient for the case agent to simple state that, pursuant to a court order, equipment was installed in the target location.

So, the FBI will hide information from their own case agents in order to prevent defendants from obtaining the details of the surveillance used to build a case against them. Needless to say, preventing the defense from obtaining these details also prevents judges and juries from hearing them and using those to weigh the Constitutionality of the techniques.

This secrecy undercuts defendants' rights by denying them the opportunity to challenge the evidence or the methods used to obtain it. It also blows right by the Fourth Amendment by obfuscating the techniques used, a process that begins with search warrant affidavits that deliberately leave out essential details in order to protect the FBI's surveillance secrets. The FBI's cavalier attitude towards the rights of Americans traces back to the days of J. Edgar Hoover. While the agency has moved ahead in terms of technical prowess, the underlying "ends justifies the means" attitude appears unchanged.

Filed Under: defense lawyers, fbi, prosecutors, secrets, surveillance

Appeals Court Says Secret Drone Memos Can Stay Secret

from the for-the-good-of-the-uninformed-nation dept

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that certain legal memos justifying the government's drone strikes can remain secret. The long-running FOIA lawsuit involving the New York Times and the ACLU has been covered previously here. At the center of this FOIA lawsuit are more than 100 legal opinions from the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that provide the legal argument for the extrajudicial killing of suspected terrorists.

A few of these documents have made their way into the public's hands, thanks to the two plaintiffs, aided in no small part by government officials citing the memos in other documents and commenting publicly about the drone strike program.

But there are still a few memos being held back. The "most transparent administration" has been very active in ensuring the Freedom of Information Act doesn't live up to its stated ideals. Nine of these memos have been officially buried by the Appeals Court, which apparently believes the government when it says the legal guidance memos it uses to justify its drone strike program are nothing more than "discussions" with lawyers that are exempted from disclosure. Brett Max Kaufman at Just Security points out the flaws in the court's rationale.

In an OLC memorandum published, ironically or not, the same day (July 16, 2010) and over the same signature (David Barron’s) as the targeted killing memorandum released at the Second Circuit’s behest last year, the OLC explains that its “central function” is to provide “controlling legal advice to Executive Branch officials.” And not even two weeks ago, the acting head of the OLC told the public that even informally drafted legal advice emanating from his office is “binding by custom and practice in the executive branch,” that “[i]t’s the official view of the office, and that “[p]eople are supposed to and do follow it.”

Both sides of this "discussion" (OLC, Obama administration) continue to claim there's nothing binding in these memos when fighting to keep them secret, but both treat the secret documents as binding. The court, however, has resolved these contradictory statements in favor of the government.

On top of that -- via reasoning almost completely hampered by the court's inability to disclose almost anything about the disputed documents or the government's ex parte submissions and in camera discussions -- the court has chosen to allow one of the most controversial memos to remain in the government's possession.

[T]he Second Circuit’s new opinion endorses the continued official secrecy over any discussion of a document that has supplied a purported legal basis for the targeted killing program since almost immediately after the September 11 attacks. The document — a September 17, 2001 “Memorandum of Notification” — is not much of a secret. The government publicly identified it in litigation with the ACLU eight years ago; the Senate Intelligence Committee cited it numerous times in its recent torture report; and the press frequently makes reference to it. Not only that, but the Central Intelligence Agency’s former top lawyer, John Rizzo, freely discussed it in his recent memoir.

According to Rizzo, the September 17 MON is “the most comprehensive, most ambitious, most aggressive, and most risky” legal authorization of the last decade and a half — which is saying something.

This memo apparently contains the OLC's justification for the extrajudicial killing of targets "outside of recognized battlefields." According to Kaufman, the memo also likely contains the DOJ's "workaround" to bypass the restrictions on "assassinations" contained in Executive Order 12333. If so, these justifications would very much be of public interest, while simultaneously being something the administration (this one or the last one) would have no interest whatsoever in making public.

The Freedom of Information Act wasn't passed with the intention of making the government only as transparent as it wants to be. It was a forced change. The government didn't voluntarily decide to grant the public access to its inner workings. Siding with the administration by buying into its "discussions with counsel" arguments subverts the spirit of the law by using the letter of the law against the public.

Filed Under: doj, drone memo, drones, foia, olc, second circuit, secrets
Companies: aclu

Study Confirms That Revealing Secrets, Rather Than Hoarding Info, Is Good For Inventors

from the shocking-not-shocking dept

sciamiko points us to an interesting study done by Stuart Graham, who was the first chief economist of the US Patent Office (we were initially excited about his hiring, though the only other time we reported on his work, it was to wonder why a paper hid his connection to the USPTO), looking at whether or not inventors choose to reveal the "secrets" of their invention prior to actually getting the patent. Graham and his co-author, Deepak Hegde, examined what happened after the American Inventors Protection Act (AIPA) went into effect in 2000. Part of the AIPA was that the USPTO would publish patent applications after 18 months (usually well before the patents were approved or rejected) -- rather than only making them public after they were approved. The usual suspects (patent hoarders and self-described "small inventors") screamed like crazy about how this would completely destroy American innovation, because they'd have to reveal their secrets too early. To try to appease these concerns, the bill included a loophole: patent applications could be kept secret if they didn't file for foreign patent protection -- which was the case for about half of all US patents.

That gave Graham and Hegde a nice dataset to look at, to see who chose to keep their patent applications secret until approval, and who let those applications be revealed. If those who freaked out about the publication requirement were right, it should be clear in the data that, when given the chance, businesses kept their patents secret, and the "secret" patent applications should be worth more than the non-secret ones. The reality? The exact opposite was true. Inventors chose to reveal their patent applications readily, even when they had the option of withholding them, and the more valuable patents tended to be the ones that were revealed:

They examined 1.8 million granted patents filed at the USPTO from 1995 to 2005 and analyzed the disclosure preferences of the inventors. Their analysis found that, among those not seeking foreign protection, about 85 percent of inventors filing a patent since 2000 chose to disclose information about their patents prior to their approval.

"Overwhelmingly, those inventors patenting only in the U.S. are choosing 18 month disclosure," co-author Hegde said.

And the study appears to show that the complaints and worries of those small inventors about this increased transparency was, in fact, complete bunk:

When the AIPA was passed, one of the biggest complaints was that the publication requirement would hurt U.S. small inventors, but the researchers found that individuals and small companies still opted for disclosure during the study period.

"Small U.S. inventors are not choosing the secrecy route," Graham said. "When they patent only in the U.S., they are choosing secrecy in only about 15 percent of the cases, not statistically different than the rate among all other types of inventors."

Another major complaint of the AIPA was that disclosing patent secrets would stop the engine of innovation in the United States and that society would get less meaningful inventions. Contrary to these arguments, the researchers found that patents born out of secrecy were overall less valuable than those that opted for disclosure.

"When we examine indicators of patent value, we find consistent evidence that the least-valuable and least-impactful patents are those that opted for pre-grant secrecy," Hegde said.

This isn't particularly surprising to us -- as, contrary to the way some think, we've pointed out for years that hoarding information tends to limit innovation, while sharing it is likely to lead to greater innovation. Of course, it's the same "small inventors" who insisted the sky was falling over the AIPA who are now protesting the latest attempt at patent reform, making similar claims about how it will drive down quality and drive inventors out of business. They were totally wrong last time, and it's likely they're totally wrong again.

Filed Under: hoarding, innovation, inventors, patents, secrets, sharing, stuart graham

Intelligence Officials Can't Keep Story Straight: Snowden Both Did And Did Not Get Key NSA Secrets

from the which-is-it? dept

We've already talked about how NSA surveillance supporters are trying to claim both that Ed Snowden's links were either "nothing new" or "false" and that they "harm America." We had trouble understanding how both could be true -- but supporters were making both statements. Now intelligence officials are doing their own sort of contradictory statements, as pointed out by Glenn Greenwald. First up, we've got intelligence officials claiming that Snowden didn't get the really deep dark secrets of the NSA:

U.S. intelligence now believes Edward Snowden did not gain access to the "crown jewels" of National Security Agency programs that secretly intercept and monitor conversations around the world, CNN has learned.

Note that comes from CNN reporter Barbara Starr who is well known for basically spreading the NSA official line so much that she's been called "the Pentagon spokesperson who works for CNN." However, just a day later, another site published a quote from General Bob Kehler, who "oversees cyber warfare" and is "sort of" NSA chief Keith Alexander's boss, claiming something quite different:

He referred to the type of information Snowden released as ”the deepest of the deep secrets.”

So... he didn't get access to the "crown jewels" but has already released "the deepest of the deep secrets"? How does that work?

The reality is that these guys are basically just posturing for different audiences. They want to downplay the seriousness of the leaks, while still attacking Snowden and making it out like this action is so dangerous. The problem is that both things can't be true. But, of course, when has the NSA and the intelligence community ever cared about truth? You'd just think they'd be a bit more careful about so obviously contradicting themselves.

Filed Under: ed snowden, nsa, secrets, surveillance

NSA Now Revealing A Lot More About What It Does Than Snowden Leaks Did; So Is That Harming America?

from the just-wondering dept

One of the key refrains that has come out from those who are unhappy about the revelation of details around the NSA's surveillance efforts is that Edward Snowden's leaks are somehow harmful to America. During hearings about all of this, NSA boss Keith Alexander claimed that "Americans will die" because of these sorts of leaks. But... between those same hearings and other revelations from the administration and Congress, we're actually learning much more about the various programs directly from the government, as information is now being "declassified." And, apparently, President Obama is asking the NSA and the Justice Department to look into declassifying even more. So while the initial shove to declassify information may have come via Snowden, the stuff that we're really learning about is coming through revelations following Snowden's leaks -- revelations that never would have happened without his leaks.

So that raises a fairly basic question: if Snowden is somehow a traitor and putting lives at risk... why isn't the other information we're actually learning about the programs equally as problematic? The real answer seems to be that the information Snowden leaked does not harm us at all, but has simply revealed that the government has kept classified information from the American public that never should have been classified at all. The fact that only now are they looking to declassify it (and then doing so) shows pretty clearly that the information was improperly classified in the first place.

Filed Under: classified, edward snowden, keith alexander, nsa, nsa surveillance, overclassification, secrets