dagblog - Comments for "Edward Snowden, former CIA employee, comes forward as source of NSA leaks (with video interview)"

He explains more @ 11:55 am,

artappraiser — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:50:51 +0000

In reply to They talked about the access

He explains more @ 11:55 am, about the problem with the filters:

Question:

MonaHol

17 June 2013 4:37pm

Ed Snowden, I thank you for your brave service to our country.

Some skepticism exists about certain of your claims, including this:

I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email.

Do you stand by that, and if so, could you elaborate?

Answer:

Yes, I stand by it. US Persons do enjoy limited policy protections (and again, it's important to understand that policy protection is no protection - policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens) and one very weak technical protection - a near-the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the "widest allowable aperture," and can be stripped out at any time. Even with the filter, US comms get ingested, and even more so as soon as they leave the border. Your protected communications shouldn't stop being protected communications just because of the IP they're tagged with.

More fundamentally, the "US Persons" protection in general is a distraction from the power and danger of this system. Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it's only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%. Our founders did not write that "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal."

They talked about the access

artappraiser — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:43:08 +0000

In reply to Probably not, because he uses

They talked about the access problem in the Guardian chat today. Sounds to me like he is claiming that the system was set up lousy as to security of privacy rights and therefore 1) is invaded without good authority all the time "by accident" and 2) when "warrants" are involved they are not much more than just rubber stamped forms:

@ 11:27 am and @ 11:40am

Question:

Anthony De Rosa

17 June 2013 2:18pm

1) Define in as much detail as you can what "direct access" means.

2) Can analysts listen to content of domestic calls without a warrant?

Answer:

1) More detail on how direct NSA's accesses are is coming, but in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same. The restrictions against this are policy based, not technically based, and can change at any time. Additionally, audits are cursory, incomplete, and easily fooled by fake justifications. For at least GCHQ, the number of audited queries is only 5% of those performed.

2) NSA likes to use "domestic" as a weasel word here for a number of reasons. The reality is that due to the FISA Amendments Act and its section 702 authorities, Americans’ communications are collected and viewed on a daily basis on the certification of an analyst rather than a warrant. They excuse this as "incidental" collection, but at the end of the day, someone at NSA still has the content of your communications. Even in the event of "warranted" intercept, it's important to understand the intelligence community doesn't always deal with what you would consider a "real" warrant like a Police department would have to, the "warrant" is more of a templated form they fill out and send to a reliable judge with a rubber stamp.

Glenn Greenwald follow up: When you say "someone at NSA still has the content of your communications" - what do you mean? Do you mean they have a record of it, or the actual content?

Both. If I target for example an email address, for example under FAA 702, and that email address sent something to you, Joe America, the analyst gets it. All of it. IPs, raw data, content, headers, attachments, everything. And it gets saved for a very long time - and can be extended further with waivers rather than warrants.

Surely he didn't have the

artappraiser — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 01:26:09 +0000

In reply to Probably not, because he uses

Surely he didn't have the authority to choose, on his own volition, to eavesdrop on the President's communications even if the system made it possible.

Good point. So it remains unclear what he meant by that....

Probably not, because he uses

A Guy Called LULU — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 01:10:43 +0000

In reply to He was on the job at Booz

Probably not, because he uses the words "had the authority." Hosenball's sources are implying a Systems Administrator does not have that authority.

Ever since hearing that statement by Snowden I have assumed that he misspoke when he used the word "authority". I think he must have meant that he had the ability. Surely he didn't have the authority to choose, on his own volition, to eavesdrop on the President's communications even if the system made it possible.

So does that mean he was saying that a systems administrator geek like him could hack the database without authorization?

I think that is what he was saying, that his position made it possible to access anything in the data base with, but also obviously without, authorization.

He was on the job at Booz

artappraiser — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 22:09:42 +0000

In reply to Edward Snowden, former CIA employee, comes forward as source of NSA leaks (with video interview)

He was on the job at Booz only 4 weeks, then took the unpaid medical leave of absence, and when he did not come back from that, the Feds did go looking for him, from Mark Rosenball @ Reuters:

Snowden already had a Top Secret clearance before he joined Booz Allen in April, two sources said, adding that he likely obtained that clearance - which involves passing a polygraph exam - when he previously worked for the Central Intelligence Agency.

For his first week or two with Booz Allen, Snowden attended training sessions near Fort Meade, the Maryland military installation where NSA headquarters is located and where numerous agency contractors have offices.

After that, Snowden moved to take up his assignment with a company team based at the NSA installation in Hawaii. He was only on the job for around four weeks when he told his employers he was ill and requested leave without pay, the sources said.

When Booz Allen checked in with him, Snowden said he was suffering from epilepsy and needed more time off. When he failed to return after a longer period, and the company could not find him, it notified intelligence officials because of Snowden's high-level security clearance, one of the sources said.

Government agents spent several days in the field trying to find Snowden, according to the source, but they were unable to do so before the first news story based on Snowden's revelations appeared in the Guardian and then in the Washington Post.

The government did not know Snowden was the source for the stories until he admitted it on Sunday, the sources said.

Noted this conflict:

Several sources said that as a systems administrator, Snowden would have been unable to actively spy on people, even though he told the Guardian newspaper, "I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authority to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President."

So does that mean he was saying that a systems administrator geek like him could hack the database without authorization? Probably not, because he uses the words "had the authority." Hosenball's sources are implying a Systems Administrator does not have that authority.

"The Falcon" speaks his

artappraiser — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 04:52:12 +0000

In reply to Edward Snowden, former CIA employee, comes forward as source of NSA leaks (with video interview)

"The Falcon" speaks his thoughts to a CNN reporter,

and

NYT's Keith Bradsher, working overtime in Hong Kong , getting a lot of conflicting answers from people who ought to know wassup....

Occurs to me that bringing up

artappraiser — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 21:33:38 +0000

In reply to Mr. Snowden?s decision to

Occurs to me that bringing up U.S. hacking of Hong Kong targets in the interview with the South China Morning Post may be an attempt to affect the above government proceedings/procedures.

Mr. Snowden?s decision to

artappraiser — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 21:19:48 +0000

In reply to Edward Snowden, former CIA employee, comes forward as source of NSA leaks (with video interview)

Mr. Snowden’s decision to stay in Hong Kong came as a person with knowledge of the Hong Kong government’s work on the case said local government lawyers, working with United States government lawyers, had identified 36 offenses with which Mr. Snowden could be charged under both Hong Kong and American laws.

The United States and Hong Kong operate under a 1996 bilateral extradition agreement, and any attempt by the United States to extradite Mr. Snowden would have to cite offenses that violate the laws in both countries, are punishable by jail terms of a year or more and meet the terms of that agreement. One of the 36 offenses involves the release of official secrets, which is illegal in Hong Kong and the United States, said the person familiar with Hong Kong government efforts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate legal and diplomatic aspects of the case.

Mr. Snowden could delay extradition proceedings by requesting political asylum in Hong Kong. But he will almost certainly be taken into custody and jailed as soon as he files for asylum, because he would no longer qualify as a visitor to Hong Kong, the person said.

from

N.S.A. Leaker Vows to Fight Extradition From Hong Kong
By Keith Bradsher, New York Times, June 12, 2013

with much more on the legal details therein (Bradsher does have excellent connections/sources in both Hong Kong and China, mho.)

How the leaks went

artappraiser — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 18:17:57 +0000

In reply to Edward Snowden, former CIA employee, comes forward as source of NSA leaks (with video interview)

How the leaks went down:

Cryptic Overtures and a Clandestine Meeting Gave Birth to a Blockbuster Story,

by Charlie Savage and Mark Mazzetti @ New York Times, June 10, 2013

Ask me if I've ever done

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:49:08 +0000

In reply to I hear they call the BIG

Ask me if I've ever done anything right.