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> Not at all. I mean that any number of people inside the intelligence organizations could have opted to "wiretap" Trump This is not true. The system will not

> Not at all. I mean that any number of people inside the intelligence organizations could have opted to "wiretap" Trump This is not true. The system will not allow you to just query a US Person, and will automatically flag such requests for review if you try to do so. Even if an analyst conducted "reverse targeting" (Querying a foreign person who the US Person was communicating with), the US Person's information within the intercept(s) is automatically minimized and specific approval would be needed to de-anonymize it, including solid proof that the US Person was actually acting as a foreign adversary, such as a spy. I have no ability to argue that there is not a conspiracy involving multiple people in NSA approving these and OGC turning a blind eye to it and the senate intel committee ignoring it and so on, that is not impossible I suppose, but the reality is very far from simply having the ability to go ahead and wiretap Trump with ease. > and there would have been no audit trail and no warrant. There is absolutely an audit trail, including non-repudation for the analyst who performed the query (They must use their smartcard or "PKI"). This is good, because if you do believe that something awry is going on, you can push for a very specific cause: Put together an independent committee of representatives, have them go through the security clearance process (for those who have not already done so) to be read-in on any necessary SCI compartments to review the data, and conduct a thorough investigation regarding the audit trails of any query regarding Trump and/or associates. I personally find this to be far-fetched, but it is at least a tangible action which you and anyone who shares the belief can push for.

bjelkeman-again 10y ago
How do you know this?
grandalf 10y ago
> There is absolutely an audit trail, including non-repudation for the analyst who performed the query (They must use their smartcard or "PKI"). What do you make of Snowden's assertion that he could have eavesdropped on anyone he wanted? Was he failing to mention that his actions could be audited? Was he failing to mention that he had access to someone else's PKI with which to do the surveillance? Other? Assuming you have knowledge of how the intelligence agencies work: - Which agency is the process you described applicable to? - Are you certain it is the same in other agencies? - Are you aware of any loopholes (or might Snowden have been?) which would have allowed it to happen without consent from higher level officials? I do not have a belief one way or another about whether Trump was "wiretapped". My intent was to apply the logical consequence of the Snowden revelations to the issue being discussed, and flag the FISA warrant argument as a straw man.
- squallviii 10y ago
  Here's another perspective on Snowden's claims https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/exclusive/first-cipher-brief-snowdens-boss-shares-lessons-learned-1095 https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/exclusive/first-ciphe... He was a Sharepoint admin with access to Office type files. This is why you don't see raw intelligence from his leaks. From my own experiences working at the agency, GP is correct in that very few people can task FISA data.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    > He was a Sharepoint admin with access to Office type filesHe was a Sharepoint admin with access to Office type files. I wish he were a participant on HN so he could chime in here and defend himself. My impression is that he held several jobs over a few years which gave him access to more of the breadth of what was going on. Surely after the revelations more security checks would have been implemented. But the other instances of large caches of leaked material suggest that there are not effective internal controls. As a thought experiment, I'd suggest that the small size of teams required to maintain security, combined with a 'need to know' rule, results in an environment where creating an internal audit trail puts operational security at risk, and so it is avoided. All the anti-Trump leaks suggest that this is true, since surely Trump would have asked who had access to the leaked information, and the list would have been small enough (b/c of need-to-know) that he could have made a spectacle of the leaker.
    - irishcoffee 10y ago
      > My impression is that he held several jobs over a few years which gave him access to more of the breadth of what was going on. This is your impression because it's the impression people want you to have.
      - grandalf 10y ago
        > people want you to have. Well, putting aside the observation that the documents speak for themselves, and ignoring the inaccurate claims made by leaders to the American people about surveillance, what impression should I have?
fnordfnordfnord 10y ago
Any oversight of the NSA is entirely voluntary. Queries may well get flagged but then what? Does every flagged query get reviewed? We have to trust the NSA, who have clearly demonstrated that they are not to be trusted. Now in the probably very rare event that the NSA decides to tell on itself to the oversight committees, tell me just exactly what you think they are going to do about it. Nothing, that's what.
- willstrafach 10y ago
  I think this is a misconception, but I totally do understand where it comes from. The OGC and IC IG genuinely do care a lot about these things but due to the classified nature of the NSA's work any disputes and arguments about all the nuances are occurring behind closed doors. The specific big case which the public knows about would be the domestic telephony metadata collection. Nobody knows about the discussions related to this or any pushback, or how exactly this was deemed to be a legal practice, and so on. This looks very bad as it causes the assumption to be that there is no proper oversight rather than seeing this as a bad interpretation. Instead of the learned helplessness and assumptions about NSA, it would probably be far better to have an aggressive push for declassified briefings regarding these kinds of decisions. After the Snowden leaks I recall ODNI declassified and published a good amount of documentation in order to demonstrate the IC"s side of the matter, so it is known that declassification reviews for very sensitive subjects can occur when they put ample resources into it. The IC is very sensitive regarding sources and methods, so that's why most declassified information usually comes from FOIAs and specific "IC On The Record" releases. If they would declassify and publicize information regarding these decisions, there can at least be more of a dialogue on the topic using concrete facts versus assumptions.
  - fnordfnordfnord 10y ago
    It takes a lot of chutzpah to make that kind of defense of the IC in 2017. It is also incredibly insulting to imply that nobody was aware of or upset about any of this before Snowden. What's clear to see is that when these concerns were being hashed out, the Tom Drakes and Bill Binneys lost. What won was so bad that we haven't even discovered the bounds of their malfeasance. The mistrust that the IC has rightly earned won't go away with such a trite dismissal. There is no proper oversight, not for any reasonable definition of the word. We wouldn't be here today if there had been.
solotronics 10y ago
yes I am sure there is NO WAY you could possibly have it get you information on anyone inside the US. just everyone else on the planet.
hackuser 10y ago
On what basis can you state these things with such authority? (Apologies if there is something obvious that I'm overlooking.) Also, do you mean that these are the stated rules, or that these are the practices? I don't mean that in a conspiratorial sense. In any institution, the actual practices vary from the rules, sometimes significantly.
- lern_too_spel 10y ago
  What he's stated matches what was in Snowden's leaks. The big problem with Greenwald's reporting is that the leaked documents disagree with Snowden and Paul, but Greenwald believes Snowden and Paul instead of the leaks.

bjelkeman-again 10y ago

How do you know this?

grandalf 10y ago

> There is absolutely an audit trail, including non-repudation for the analyst who performed the query (They must use their smartcard or "PKI"). What do you make of Snowden's assertion that he could have eavesdropped on anyone he wanted? Was he failing to mention that his actions could be audited? Was he failing to mention that he had access to someone else's PKI with which to do the surveillance? Other? Assuming you have knowledge of how the intelligence agencies work: - Which agency is the process you described applicable to? - Are you certain it is the same in other agencies? - Are you aware of any loopholes (or might Snowden have been?) which would have allowed it to happen without consent from higher level officials? I do not have a belief one way or another about whether Trump was "wiretapped". My intent was to apply the logical consequence of the Snowden revelations to the issue being discussed, and flag the FISA warrant argument as a straw man.

squallviii 10y ago
Here's another perspective on Snowden's claims https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/exclusive/first-cipher-brief-snowdens-boss-shares-lessons-learned-1095 https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/exclusive/first-ciphe... He was a Sharepoint admin with access to Office type files. This is why you don't see raw intelligence from his leaks. From my own experiences working at the agency, GP is correct in that very few people can task FISA data.
- grandalf 10y ago
  > He was a Sharepoint admin with access to Office type filesHe was a Sharepoint admin with access to Office type files. I wish he were a participant on HN so he could chime in here and defend himself. My impression is that he held several jobs over a few years which gave him access to more of the breadth of what was going on. Surely after the revelations more security checks would have been implemented. But the other instances of large caches of leaked material suggest that there are not effective internal controls. As a thought experiment, I'd suggest that the small size of teams required to maintain security, combined with a 'need to know' rule, results in an environment where creating an internal audit trail puts operational security at risk, and so it is avoided. All the anti-Trump leaks suggest that this is true, since surely Trump would have asked who had access to the leaked information, and the list would have been small enough (b/c of need-to-know) that he could have made a spectacle of the leaker.
  - irishcoffee 10y ago
    > My impression is that he held several jobs over a few years which gave him access to more of the breadth of what was going on. This is your impression because it's the impression people want you to have.
    - grandalf 10y ago
      > people want you to have. Well, putting aside the observation that the documents speak for themselves, and ignoring the inaccurate claims made by leaders to the American people about surveillance, what impression should I have?

fnordfnordfnord 10y ago

Any oversight of the NSA is entirely voluntary. Queries may well get flagged but then what? Does every flagged query get reviewed? We have to trust the NSA, who have clearly demonstrated that they are not to be trusted. Now in the probably very rare event that the NSA decides to tell on itself to the oversight committees, tell me just exactly what you think they are going to do about it. Nothing, that's what.

willstrafach 10y ago
I think this is a misconception, but I totally do understand where it comes from. The OGC and IC IG genuinely do care a lot about these things but due to the classified nature of the NSA's work any disputes and arguments about all the nuances are occurring behind closed doors. The specific big case which the public knows about would be the domestic telephony metadata collection. Nobody knows about the discussions related to this or any pushback, or how exactly this was deemed to be a legal practice, and so on. This looks very bad as it causes the assumption to be that there is no proper oversight rather than seeing this as a bad interpretation. Instead of the learned helplessness and assumptions about NSA, it would probably be far better to have an aggressive push for declassified briefings regarding these kinds of decisions. After the Snowden leaks I recall ODNI declassified and published a good amount of documentation in order to demonstrate the IC"s side of the matter, so it is known that declassification reviews for very sensitive subjects can occur when they put ample resources into it. The IC is very sensitive regarding sources and methods, so that's why most declassified information usually comes from FOIAs and specific "IC On The Record" releases. If they would declassify and publicize information regarding these decisions, there can at least be more of a dialogue on the topic using concrete facts versus assumptions.
- fnordfnordfnord 10y ago
  It takes a lot of chutzpah to make that kind of defense of the IC in 2017. It is also incredibly insulting to imply that nobody was aware of or upset about any of this before Snowden. What's clear to see is that when these concerns were being hashed out, the Tom Drakes and Bill Binneys lost. What won was so bad that we haven't even discovered the bounds of their malfeasance. The mistrust that the IC has rightly earned won't go away with such a trite dismissal. There is no proper oversight, not for any reasonable definition of the word. We wouldn't be here today if there had been.

solotronics 10y ago

yes I am sure there is NO WAY you could possibly have it get you information on anyone inside the US. just everyone else on the planet.

hackuser 10y ago

On what basis can you state these things with such authority? (Apologies if there is something obvious that I'm overlooking.) Also, do you mean that these are the stated rules, or that these are the practices? I don't mean that in a conspiratorial sense. In any institution, the actual practices vary from the rules, sometimes significantly.

lern_too_spel 10y ago
What he's stated matches what was in Snowden's leaks. The big problem with Greenwald's reporting is that the leaked documents disagree with Snowden and Paul, but Greenwald believes Snowden and Paul instead of the leaks.