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As a US citizen, and given how things like 9/11 were funded, this is exactly what I want NSA to be doing. This is thier job. What I don't want them doing is ho

by rdxm 9y ago

As a US citizen, and given how things like 9/11 were funded, this is exactly what I want NSA to be doing. This is thier job. What I don't want them doing is hoovering up internal comms traffic without a warrant and passing it to people like DEA. That is exactly not thier job. Frankly, it's a bit bizarre to me that US citizens don't understand how to draw the distinction between those two sceanrios...

HeavenBanned 9y ago
Why can't they do both? They're not throwing people in jail for free speech, so there's no harm in them monitoring everything. It's when you monitor AND create political prisoners is when shit hits the fan. That's not happened yet.
pgaddict 9y ago
A lot of the people on HN are not US citizens, and we don't give a fu*k about that distinction. All we see is an intelligence agency of our ally breaking into our companies/institutions, siphoning private data and wreaking havoc.
- rdxm 9y ago
  so two things: 1) yes of course I know about HN demographics 2) you should care about that distinciton because this is true for any nation/state. until such time as we evolve dramtically as a species these types of organizations have a place. it's distasteful perhaps, but a necessary thing. getting emotional about it impedes a rational consideration.
  - trendia 9y ago
    Do you think spy agencies should be able to collect data on foreigners? e.g. US can collect foreigners and UK can collect foreigners? Do you think spy agencies should be able to swap data about those foreigners? Because the two in combination allows the UK to spy on US citizens and give it to the US, without the US needing to spy on its citize s
    - rdxm 9y ago
      in response to your first question, yes of course. it's thier job. w.r.t. your second question, this is where things start to get grippy. see my response to another question referencing "realpolitik". in this context, then whether or not they should becomes a secondary consideration at the policy level.
      - deleted 9y ago
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    - GauntletWizard 9y ago
      Yes, I think spy agencies should be able to spy on foreigners, and swap data. I don't think it's insane for the laws against collection of citizens data to include not trading for citizens data with foreign powers, such that the set of people that the UK and US spy agencies share data on is the disunion of their respective citizens. As with many things that involve crimes of thought or information, it's very hard to implement, and as such you should be careful how you phrase and prosecute, but that's a risk that has to be taken... And the penalties for when it's discovered should be appropriately severe to make up for that.
  - pgaddict 9y ago
    I'm not particularly emotional about this, at least not in the "getting irrational" sense. And I'm not against intelligence agencies in principle, I acknowledge that we need them to some level. The difference is that I come from a country where secret service (both domestic and from other USSR-friendly countries) used to be almost almighty ~25 years ago. And I've seen the damage it inflicted on the society (including some family members) by eliminating any form of dissent or sign of disagreement with the government. Considering how much cheaper and easier dragnet-like surveillance got over the past few years ... well. You may point out this particular case (compromising SWIFT bureau) is different, i.e. it's the type of action you'd expect from NSA-type intelligence agencies. But it's a mistake to see the agencies as independent / isolated entities. The rest of the leak is however interesting as it shows how hoarding of NOBUS 0days fails, because it's never really NOBUS.
- shouldbworking 9y ago
  If all the leaks in the past decade have shown anything it's that everyone spies on everyone. It's been like that forever too. You can take some solace in knowing your country is almost definitely spying on the US as well. With the internet, I have never been surprised by US govt shenanigans. The internet is largely a product of the US military. It was originally designed for government communications in nuclear war. I say the same when people mention GPS. It's very civilian appearing but make no mistake it's very much connected to military.
  - rdxm 9y ago
    +1 edit to add: I re-read this piece by Scneier every now and then.... http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-surveillance/ http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-surv...
    - emmelaich 9y ago
      Excellent link. Somewhat similar: NSA's Dan Geer on how we are all intelligence officers now. https://www.theinternetpatrol.com/security-expert-dan-geer-we-are-all-intelligence-officers-now-full-text-here/ https://www.theinternetpatrol.com/security-expert-dan-geer-w...
  - terrestrial 9y ago
    > If all the leaks in the past decade have shown anything it's that everyone spies on everyone. It's been like that forever too. It may have been like that for a long time, but it's not entirely true anymore. The leaks show an emergent trend of cooperation between the western intelligence agencies, i.e. the "fourteen eyes". This is the most worrying part IMO. Now you have a small elite sitting on enough power to take out anyone or control pretty much all information on the internet. We laugh at Baidu and Yandex, but if these people want something they'll have it.
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    This "every one is doing it argument" fails to address the difference in scale between the US and the of the world. As if I took a knife and stabbed someone with it, and say well it's not that bad, look those kids over there they fight all the time, see right here the one in shorts here kicked the other one with the baseball cap who's crying. I mean you can't be seriously suggesting that Namibia can engage in spying as the US does, and this is true for the large majority of the countries around the globe.
bogomipz 9y ago
I read that article, what in there suggests to you that U.S. citizens don't understand how to draw a distinction between "hoovering up internal comms traffic without a warrant and passing it to people like DEA" and hacking the SWIFT system? Also some of those countries that were hacked namely Qatar, Dubai, Abu Dhabi are allies of the U.S in the region and in the "war on terror." For instance Qatar allows the U.S to use Al Udeid Air Base for conducting operations into Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you not see a problem with NSA hacking U.S. allies?
- azernik 9y ago
  No, not really. It's a trade-off between putting the relationship at risk, and uncovering bad behavior on their part. For example, most or all (don't remember) of the 9/11 hijackers were from allied countries, and some states (notably Qatar and Kuwait) are extremely lax in preventing money from flowing through their banking system to terrorist groups.
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    >".. and some states (notably Qatar and Kuwait) are extremely lax in preventing money from flowing through their banking system to terrorist groups." And the UK's HSBC has also been shown to be quite keen on doing business with terrorists and drug cartels: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/11/hsbc-us-money-laundering-george-osborne-report https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/11/hsbc-us-mon... As did the U.S's Wachovia Bank - now part of Wells Fargo: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico... As did the U.S's Bank of America and Western Union: http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/03/20/291934724/awash-in-cash-drug-cartels-rely-on-big-banks-to-launder-profits http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/03/20/291934724/a...
    - azernik 9y ago
      And we prosecute those banks. But our courts do not have jurisdiction in Qatar.
moyix 9y ago
Note that they already had "front door" access negotiated: > One of the most contentious Snowden revelations — first reported on September 8, 2013 by Globo and then repeated a week later by Der Spiegel — was that NSA’s Tailored Operations group was hacking SWIFT, the international financial transfer messaging system. It was contentious because when the servers moved to Europe, the US and EU negotiated access for the US, access with protections for Europeans that happened to be oversold. [...] > A number of people have been arguing that the mostly Middle Eastern financial institutions that seem to be the focus here — things like the Al Quds Bank for Development and Investment — are legitimate intelligence targets. And they are, within the framework of NSA’s spying in the US. But that ignores that the US had an agreement in place about what legitimate targets were (which, according to MEPs who tried to oversee the agreement, were violated anyway). Also, a number of our Arab allies may not be too happy to see their own banks targeted. https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/04/14/nsa-continued-double-dipping-at-swift-even-after-it-was-exposed/ https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/04/14/nsa-continued-double-d...
biktor_gj 9y ago
I'm sorry, I guess that me not being American makes me unable to stand by your position, but I don't get it. I'm an European citizen and I don't think it's Ok for any agency to spy in others' banking systems (or in anthing for that matter). If it was Iran doing this the US would go to war with them. If it was Palestine who was spying on US banking systems the US military would be killing left and right until nothing but corpses would remain, but is it OK for the NSA to shit on International laws to make America "safe"? The NSA is out of control of the American people, as all the other agencies. It seems like the US government and ther agencies feel they can do whatever they want, wherever they want and however they please, and no, that's not OK for the rest of the world. And about that 9/11 funding thing... It was proven that the CIA had knowledge about the attack before it happened... Do you really think they need to spy on the entire world to stop another one? And given the recent events, do you even think they need banks to attack the US, France or any other place? Gathering this information seem to have much more to do with controlling foreign goverments than with preventing terrorism. Please stop using 9/11 as an excuse for everything, there are lots of countries which have suffered many more terrorist attacks in the last 5 years and don't use it ad an excuse to fuck with everyone else in the planet.
- rdxm 9y ago
  Which European state do you live in? Because, UK, France and Germany are knee deep in this as participants. Hell, France has the most invasive internal surveillance of any country at last check. I continue to find it odd that folks in the EU have some reality distortion mechanism when it comes to what's going on in thier home countires..and yes it's not all that are wired into the 5-Eye's thing, but its most.
  - socmag 9y ago
    According to Sir Googalot.... Europe includes 51 independent states. Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey are the transcontinental countries, partially located in both Europe and Asia. Armenia and Cyprus politically are considered European countries, though geographically they are located in the West Asia territory. Also, there are 28 member states in the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden ... Granted, five eyes is more like fifteen these days, but still, doesn't make it right or just because everyone is doing it we should just tow the line, doff our caps and cry for more. Some of us have been fans of Dickens and Kafka far too long to know that. [Edit] - Going to try and update this post here because I'm not allowed by HN to post very often currently... --- snip --- First of all I don't see any comments here that say that the US are the only country that spies. I mention this since it seems to be a straw man that is stuck on repeat. Secondly, surveillance done right takes a heck of a lot of resources and infrastructure; and even though all countries and humans partake, some have rather more resources and connections to accomplish these goals than others. It's kind of like the 1% - there's nothing wrong "technically" with 1% having half the cash (given that it is ultimately reinvested), the problem is abuse of power that comes with it and lack of oversight. Ultimately, we have seen stories repeatedly regarding US and Western technologies for surveillance, not Palestinian, Iranian or Luxembourgian... and this is another one. How many is that this week/month/year/decade? My family has been in and around SIGINT/COMINT for decades so I'm hardly surprised, although it is a bit surprising how comedic it is seeing people comparing the capabilities of the NSA to that of nations with less GDP than Luxembourg. I think it is good to "Have the conversation", whether it be right or wrong to infiltrate SWIFT et al.
deleted 9y ago
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belorn 9y ago
The 2008 financial crisis also happened in rather recent times and was possible the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. How should people be positive to agencies like NSA when they are messing around in the bank systems that have such a large impact of peoples lives? Imagine if we had this news article in 2008 and instead of NSA and the middle east banks it was some hostile country to the USA sitting there in the US bank system. Would we have given them the benefit of the doubt?
pokemongoaway 9y ago
Not understanding why we have checks and balances and transparency is very unamerican.
616c 9y ago
As an american citizen who lived abroad in that area for working a US institution, screw that. People who support this stuff support it so long as the other guy is the one extralegally monitored.
mirimir 9y ago
Yes, I agree. Each nation spies on all others, no matter what sort of relations there are, to the best of their ability. That's just how it is. And 9/11 certainly made the Middle East the new top target. So there's nothing unexpected here.
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  How come so many of you are parroting the same argument based on assumptions and fails to account for the difference of scale. Belgium cannot match the US for example. From here it seems like a bunch of brainwashed by propaganda people repeating something without taking a minute to think about it.
  - willstrafach 9y ago
    It probably is not very fair to assume people are brainwashed due to not having the same opinion as you on this.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    But if Belgium could match the US, do you believe that it wouldn't? And if so, why not?
pier25 9y ago
Breaking safety in the name of safety is like going to war in the name of peace.
- emmelaich 9y ago
  And of course it works. Well. Some of the Middle East countries want to be spied on. Imagine if a Saudi prince started embezzling. Who inside SA would even attempt to investigate. With US spying on SWIFT, the Americans can leak a few juicy details to a few people of power in Saudi Arabia and the prince gets told to stop it. No embarrassment for anyone, no convictions.
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    Nice hypothetical scenario. According to Saudi prince status in the US and US usual use of such insider information I sincerely doubt this is what would happen or that's the reason why the NSA hacked SWIFT.
CapacitorSet 9y ago
What's so special about American citizens that makes you think they are not to be spied by NSA? Why is it that eg. Europeans can be spied at will, but it takes a mandate to spy an American citizen?
- phil21 9y ago
  Because it's the NSA? And it's an American agency? I really don't understand why this is a difficult concept for people to understand. I pretty much assume MI6 is spying on me as well, but I don't care - because they don't have jurisdiction over me. The NSA or CIA spying on me? That's an entirely different story. It's incredibly naive to think nation states will not spy on each other - allied or not. Alliances change on a whim, if you have a spy agency it'd be criminally negligent not to spy on your allies. When that intelligence is redirected and used to control internal politics? Now it's a problem.
  - deleted 9y ago
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  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    You don't have to assume the UK agencies are spying on you, you should know that they do because they do it for the NSA in return for the NSA spying on UK citizen as a work around national laws forbidding them doing so. In Europe this agreement is famously known since at least Echelon and Carnivore times, maybe even before that. Has been reported in the newspapers and proven by Snowden documents. Along with the NSA unilaterally breaking the no spying agreement with the UK.
    - phil21 9y ago
      > they do it for the NSA in return for the NSA spying on UK citizen as a work around national laws forbidding them doing so. Absolutely, and this is highly problematic. If it was British intelligence hoovering up my info and using it for their own government use I wouldn't see a problem with it. Or rather, I wouldn't see it nearly as much of a problem as an American agency doing it to me. Them sharing that data with the US is where I have an extreme problem with it. It's an obvious end-around the constitution. This is where US agencies can now use that data to put US citizens under their jurisdiction into prison. That is unacceptable. I think a lot of my posts last night come off as me defending the NSA/CIA but that support is limited to a very narrow mission. Intelligence gathering on foreign powers. > Along with the NSA unilaterally breaking the no spying agreement with the UK. Meh. Those agreements are political grandstanding and nothing else, all participants understand that fact. No one actually believes the US and UK will not spy on each other as much as possible.
finid 9y ago
and given how things like 9/11 were funded... I must be missing something. How was 9/11 funded?
- 3131s 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandar_bin_Sultan_Al_Saud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandar_bin_Sultan_Al_Saud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_28_Pages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_28_Pages
  - finid 9y ago
    I wonder what would have happened if that level of connection had been made between 9/11 and the Iranian govt...
hl5 9y ago
The US emits some strange message of equality, privacy, rights, freedom, justice, a shining beacon of hope...mixed in with secret police forces that operate with impunity. I think that is an incompatibility that will eventually need to be worked out.
- mistermann 9y ago
  It will be worked out eventually, maybe 20 to 50 years from now, when China says "ok that's enough young man, now go sit down and behave yourself".
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  Words are a thing, actions are another that speak much louder. The words are a mix of propaganda, historical but now obsolete, projected image, biased self-perception and even party true but only when applied to the US not to the rest of the world. Other countries also engage in a similar propaganda, but only a few have the nuisance potential of the US, such as China.
rajathagasthya 9y ago
So it's okay as long as NSA is spying on citizens of other countries, but you're up in arms if they spy on US citizens?
- tomschlick 9y ago
  Yes. Because that is exactly their purpose. To gain SIGINT on others. Every major nation does this kind of thing to each other to keep the others in check. Trust but verify.
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    How many US sockpuppets parroting the same baseless argument are there in these HN comments ? UK and US intelligence have a bilateral agreement to spy on each other population and swap the collected data as a workaround of national law forbidding them to do so. This single fact shows that those agencies go the extra mile to do things out of their supposed purpose, that agencies are not in check by their respective government and that not every major nation is SIGINTing each other. The reality is that intelligence agencies have a motto along the lines of "we can do anything we want in any way we want as long we don't get caught".
    - willstrafach 9y ago
      > workaround of national law forbidding them to do so Citizen data is still minimized, regardless of who collected it. There has never been evidence of this often-repeated "workaround" theory.
      - ionised 9y ago
        > There has never been evidence of this often-repeated "workaround" theory. I mean, it was pretty clear from the Snowden leaks that this is what was happening.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
bigbugbag 9y ago
So basically you are saying that you want the European agencies to break into the US banking system and spy on every US financial transactions because of how the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan were funded ? Or how the contra were funded, or any other of the many unacceptable thing the US did and/or funded. Sorry but your position is only acceptable to you because you're not on the receiving end and living on the bully. Rest assured that when law forbids them from spying on their own citizen they instantly find a loophole by asking and giving free way to a foreign agency to spy on US citizen for them in exchange for them spying on their citizens and swapping the collected data.
Zigurd 9y ago
You'll have to have a new breed of law enforcement and intel people to not pass along that kind of data, in the name of stopping those dreadfully non-specific drug money funded terrorists.
pksadiq 9y ago
> As a US citizen, and given how things like 9/11 were funded, this is exactly what I want NSA to be doing. This is thier job. Do you know what 9/11 really is (the intentions, terrorist involvements, etc)? Never. Neither do I. We just (have to) believe what the main stream media says about it. That's it. Given that the ThinThread project (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinThread https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinThread) was discontinued 3 weeks before 9/11, I suspect that there is a high probability for NSA to be involved in 9/11. To get yourself motivated, I would suggest you to see Person Of Interest, the complete series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_%28TV_series%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_%28TV_serie... Thanks
- 3131s 9y ago
  There is a lot of evidence that certain elements within the US government had foreknowledge of 9/11. Nothing conclusive, but enough to begin an investigation into people like Dick Cheney. Is it really so hard to believe that the same war criminals who manufactured the Iraq war might also turn a blind eye to a terror attack that spurred trillions in weapons and "defense" spending?
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    Why so much incertitude in your words for documented facts ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_intelligence_before_the_attacks#Bush_era_reports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_intelligence_befo... Also the french journalist that has authored the article “September 11: the French had long known” got prosecuted for breaching state secret by exposing that France services had prior knowledge and had passed the information in january of 2011. The probe against Dasquié stems from his April 16 article in Le Monde, titled “September 11: the French had long known,” which said French intelligence services, the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE), had warned their U.S. counterparts of a possible terrorist plot that involved the hijacking of planes and crashing them into buildings some eight months before 9/11, according to international news reports. The article contained excerpts from a DGSE file titled “Aircraft hijack plan by radical Islamists”—part of a 328-page classified report on al-Qaeda activities, which Le Monde said it possessed. One excerpt from the report, dated January 5, 2001, said al-Qaeda had a list of potential airline targets, which included the United and American Airlines carriers used in the 9/11 attacks, the AP said. Le Monde said the DGSE files in its possession contained maps, analyses, graphics, and satellite photos, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported. https://cpj.org/2007/12/french-journalist-investigated-over-intelligence-l.php https://cpj.org/2007/12/french-journalist-investigated-over-...
grandalf 9y ago
I agree that it's reasonable in theory to have some of this stuff going on. I also agree that it's reasonable in theory to do incidental collection. But the problem is that the NSA began doing a lot of this stuff without democratic oversight, and officials lied to the American people about it. The deception and lack of democratic oversight makes the programs not OK. The secrecy and lack of auditability create way too much potential for abuse. The intelligence services would never tolerate a system that offered a complete, unalterable log of all surveillance so that courts could decide in hindsight if agents needed jail time for breach of protocol or inappropriate use of the tools. So instead we get this utterly backward system where there is great ceremony around the FISA warrants which are issued (and once in a while denied) but meanwhile any agent in the midst of an investigation can easily enough cast the net over whomever he/she chooses using incidental collection. Police states are bad/dangerous because they make it possible for the regime to intimidate and persecute political enemies. We've seen so many hints of this lately that I'm shocked anyone can support continuing the status quo.
syrrim 9y ago
This is how we get five eyes spying. If it's immoral for one country to spy, it's immoral for all of them. If there isn't a law against one country spying on you, there might as well not be a law against any of them spying on you, as we've seen.
bitslave 9y ago
hoovering... Nice one
visarga 9y ago
> Frankly, it's a bit bizarre to me that US citizens don't understand how to draw the distinction between those two sceanrios... It's also bizarre to make that distinction in the first place. If you're OK with mixing in other people's business, why would it be forbidden to mess with your own?

by rdxm 9y ago

HeavenBanned 9y ago

Why can't they do both? They're not throwing people in jail for free speech, so there's no harm in them monitoring everything. It's when you monitor AND create political prisoners is when shit hits the fan. That's not happened yet.

pgaddict 9y ago

A lot of the people on HN are not US citizens, and we don't give a fu*k about that distinction. All we see is an intelligence agency of our ally breaking into our companies/institutions, siphoning private data and wreaking havoc.

rdxm 9y ago
so two things: 1) yes of course I know about HN demographics 2) you should care about that distinciton because this is true for any nation/state. until such time as we evolve dramtically as a species these types of organizations have a place. it's distasteful perhaps, but a necessary thing. getting emotional about it impedes a rational consideration.
- trendia 9y ago
  Do you think spy agencies should be able to collect data on foreigners? e.g. US can collect foreigners and UK can collect foreigners? Do you think spy agencies should be able to swap data about those foreigners? Because the two in combination allows the UK to spy on US citizens and give it to the US, without the US needing to spy on its citize s
  - rdxm 9y ago
    in response to your first question, yes of course. it's thier job. w.r.t. your second question, this is where things start to get grippy. see my response to another question referencing "realpolitik". in this context, then whether or not they should becomes a secondary consideration at the policy level.
    - deleted 9y ago
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  - GauntletWizard 9y ago
    Yes, I think spy agencies should be able to spy on foreigners, and swap data. I don't think it's insane for the laws against collection of citizens data to include not trading for citizens data with foreign powers, such that the set of people that the UK and US spy agencies share data on is the disunion of their respective citizens. As with many things that involve crimes of thought or information, it's very hard to implement, and as such you should be careful how you phrase and prosecute, but that's a risk that has to be taken... And the penalties for when it's discovered should be appropriately severe to make up for that.
- pgaddict 9y ago
  I'm not particularly emotional about this, at least not in the "getting irrational" sense. And I'm not against intelligence agencies in principle, I acknowledge that we need them to some level. The difference is that I come from a country where secret service (both domestic and from other USSR-friendly countries) used to be almost almighty ~25 years ago. And I've seen the damage it inflicted on the society (including some family members) by eliminating any form of dissent or sign of disagreement with the government. Considering how much cheaper and easier dragnet-like surveillance got over the past few years ... well. You may point out this particular case (compromising SWIFT bureau) is different, i.e. it's the type of action you'd expect from NSA-type intelligence agencies. But it's a mistake to see the agencies as independent / isolated entities. The rest of the leak is however interesting as it shows how hoarding of NOBUS 0days fails, because it's never really NOBUS.
shouldbworking 9y ago
If all the leaks in the past decade have shown anything it's that everyone spies on everyone. It's been like that forever too. You can take some solace in knowing your country is almost definitely spying on the US as well. With the internet, I have never been surprised by US govt shenanigans. The internet is largely a product of the US military. It was originally designed for government communications in nuclear war. I say the same when people mention GPS. It's very civilian appearing but make no mistake it's very much connected to military.
- rdxm 9y ago
  +1 edit to add: I re-read this piece by Scneier every now and then.... http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-surveillance/ http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-surv...
  - emmelaich 9y ago
    Excellent link. Somewhat similar: NSA's Dan Geer on how we are all intelligence officers now. https://www.theinternetpatrol.com/security-expert-dan-geer-we-are-all-intelligence-officers-now-full-text-here/ https://www.theinternetpatrol.com/security-expert-dan-geer-w...
- terrestrial 9y ago
  > If all the leaks in the past decade have shown anything it's that everyone spies on everyone. It's been like that forever too. It may have been like that for a long time, but it's not entirely true anymore. The leaks show an emergent trend of cooperation between the western intelligence agencies, i.e. the "fourteen eyes". This is the most worrying part IMO. Now you have a small elite sitting on enough power to take out anyone or control pretty much all information on the internet. We laugh at Baidu and Yandex, but if these people want something they'll have it.
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  This "every one is doing it argument" fails to address the difference in scale between the US and the of the world. As if I took a knife and stabbed someone with it, and say well it's not that bad, look those kids over there they fight all the time, see right here the one in shorts here kicked the other one with the baseball cap who's crying. I mean you can't be seriously suggesting that Namibia can engage in spying as the US does, and this is true for the large majority of the countries around the globe.

bogomipz 9y ago

I read that article, what in there suggests to you that U.S. citizens don't understand how to draw a distinction between "hoovering up internal comms traffic without a warrant and passing it to people like DEA" and hacking the SWIFT system? Also some of those countries that were hacked namely Qatar, Dubai, Abu Dhabi are allies of the U.S in the region and in the "war on terror." For instance Qatar allows the U.S to use Al Udeid Air Base for conducting operations into Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you not see a problem with NSA hacking U.S. allies?

azernik 9y ago
No, not really. It's a trade-off between putting the relationship at risk, and uncovering bad behavior on their part. For example, most or all (don't remember) of the 9/11 hijackers were from allied countries, and some states (notably Qatar and Kuwait) are extremely lax in preventing money from flowing through their banking system to terrorist groups.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  >".. and some states (notably Qatar and Kuwait) are extremely lax in preventing money from flowing through their banking system to terrorist groups." And the UK's HSBC has also been shown to be quite keen on doing business with terrorists and drug cartels: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/11/hsbc-us-money-laundering-george-osborne-report https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/11/hsbc-us-mon... As did the U.S's Wachovia Bank - now part of Wells Fargo: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico... As did the U.S's Bank of America and Western Union: http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/03/20/291934724/awash-in-cash-drug-cartels-rely-on-big-banks-to-launder-profits http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/03/20/291934724/a...
  - azernik 9y ago
    And we prosecute those banks. But our courts do not have jurisdiction in Qatar.

moyix 9y ago

Note that they already had "front door" access negotiated: > One of the most contentious Snowden revelations — first reported on September 8, 2013 by Globo and then repeated a week later by Der Spiegel — was that NSA’s Tailored Operations group was hacking SWIFT, the international financial transfer messaging system. It was contentious because when the servers moved to Europe, the US and EU negotiated access for the US, access with protections for Europeans that happened to be oversold. [...] > A number of people have been arguing that the mostly Middle Eastern financial institutions that seem to be the focus here — things like the Al Quds Bank for Development and Investment — are legitimate intelligence targets. And they are, within the framework of NSA’s spying in the US. But that ignores that the US had an agreement in place about what legitimate targets were (which, according to MEPs who tried to oversee the agreement, were violated anyway). Also, a number of our Arab allies may not be too happy to see their own banks targeted. https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/04/14/nsa-continued-double-dipping-at-swift-even-after-it-was-exposed/ https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/04/14/nsa-continued-double-d...

biktor_gj 9y ago

I'm sorry, I guess that me not being American makes me unable to stand by your position, but I don't get it. I'm an European citizen and I don't think it's Ok for any agency to spy in others' banking systems (or in anthing for that matter). If it was Iran doing this the US would go to war with them. If it was Palestine who was spying on US banking systems the US military would be killing left and right until nothing but corpses would remain, but is it OK for the NSA to shit on International laws to make America "safe"? The NSA is out of control of the American people, as all the other agencies. It seems like the US government and ther agencies feel they can do whatever they want, wherever they want and however they please, and no, that's not OK for the rest of the world. And about that 9/11 funding thing... It was proven that the CIA had knowledge about the attack before it happened... Do you really think they need to spy on the entire world to stop another one? And given the recent events, do you even think they need banks to attack the US, France or any other place? Gathering this information seem to have much more to do with controlling foreign goverments than with preventing terrorism. Please stop using 9/11 as an excuse for everything, there are lots of countries which have suffered many more terrorist attacks in the last 5 years and don't use it ad an excuse to fuck with everyone else in the planet.

rdxm 9y ago
Which European state do you live in? Because, UK, France and Germany are knee deep in this as participants. Hell, France has the most invasive internal surveillance of any country at last check. I continue to find it odd that folks in the EU have some reality distortion mechanism when it comes to what's going on in thier home countires..and yes it's not all that are wired into the 5-Eye's thing, but its most.
- socmag 9y ago
  According to Sir Googalot.... Europe includes 51 independent states. Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey are the transcontinental countries, partially located in both Europe and Asia. Armenia and Cyprus politically are considered European countries, though geographically they are located in the West Asia territory. Also, there are 28 member states in the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden ... Granted, five eyes is more like fifteen these days, but still, doesn't make it right or just because everyone is doing it we should just tow the line, doff our caps and cry for more. Some of us have been fans of Dickens and Kafka far too long to know that. [Edit] - Going to try and update this post here because I'm not allowed by HN to post very often currently... --- snip --- First of all I don't see any comments here that say that the US are the only country that spies. I mention this since it seems to be a straw man that is stuck on repeat. Secondly, surveillance done right takes a heck of a lot of resources and infrastructure; and even though all countries and humans partake, some have rather more resources and connections to accomplish these goals than others. It's kind of like the 1% - there's nothing wrong "technically" with 1% having half the cash (given that it is ultimately reinvested), the problem is abuse of power that comes with it and lack of oversight. Ultimately, we have seen stories repeatedly regarding US and Western technologies for surveillance, not Palestinian, Iranian or Luxembourgian... and this is another one. How many is that this week/month/year/decade? My family has been in and around SIGINT/COMINT for decades so I'm hardly surprised, although it is a bit surprising how comedic it is seeing people comparing the capabilities of the NSA to that of nations with less GDP than Luxembourg. I think it is good to "Have the conversation", whether it be right or wrong to infiltrate SWIFT et al.

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belorn 9y ago

The 2008 financial crisis also happened in rather recent times and was possible the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. How should people be positive to agencies like NSA when they are messing around in the bank systems that have such a large impact of peoples lives? Imagine if we had this news article in 2008 and instead of NSA and the middle east banks it was some hostile country to the USA sitting there in the US bank system. Would we have given them the benefit of the doubt?

pokemongoaway 9y ago

Not understanding why we have checks and balances and transparency is very unamerican.

616c 9y ago

As an american citizen who lived abroad in that area for working a US institution, screw that. People who support this stuff support it so long as the other guy is the one extralegally monitored.

mirimir 9y ago

Yes, I agree. Each nation spies on all others, no matter what sort of relations there are, to the best of their ability. That's just how it is. And 9/11 certainly made the Middle East the new top target. So there's nothing unexpected here.

bigbugbag 9y ago
How come so many of you are parroting the same argument based on assumptions and fails to account for the difference of scale. Belgium cannot match the US for example. From here it seems like a bunch of brainwashed by propaganda people repeating something without taking a minute to think about it.
- willstrafach 9y ago
  It probably is not very fair to assume people are brainwashed due to not having the same opinion as you on this.
- mirimir 9y ago
  But if Belgium could match the US, do you believe that it wouldn't? And if so, why not?

pier25 9y ago

Breaking safety in the name of safety is like going to war in the name of peace.

emmelaich 9y ago
And of course it works. Well. Some of the Middle East countries want to be spied on. Imagine if a Saudi prince started embezzling. Who inside SA would even attempt to investigate. With US spying on SWIFT, the Americans can leak a few juicy details to a few people of power in Saudi Arabia and the prince gets told to stop it. No embarrassment for anyone, no convictions.
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  Nice hypothetical scenario. According to Saudi prince status in the US and US usual use of such insider information I sincerely doubt this is what would happen or that's the reason why the NSA hacked SWIFT.

CapacitorSet 9y ago

What's so special about American citizens that makes you think they are not to be spied by NSA? Why is it that eg. Europeans can be spied at will, but it takes a mandate to spy an American citizen?

phil21 9y ago
Because it's the NSA? And it's an American agency? I really don't understand why this is a difficult concept for people to understand. I pretty much assume MI6 is spying on me as well, but I don't care - because they don't have jurisdiction over me. The NSA or CIA spying on me? That's an entirely different story. It's incredibly naive to think nation states will not spy on each other - allied or not. Alliances change on a whim, if you have a spy agency it'd be criminally negligent not to spy on your allies. When that intelligence is redirected and used to control internal politics? Now it's a problem.
- deleted 9y ago
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- bigbugbag 9y ago
  You don't have to assume the UK agencies are spying on you, you should know that they do because they do it for the NSA in return for the NSA spying on UK citizen as a work around national laws forbidding them doing so. In Europe this agreement is famously known since at least Echelon and Carnivore times, maybe even before that. Has been reported in the newspapers and proven by Snowden documents. Along with the NSA unilaterally breaking the no spying agreement with the UK.
  - phil21 9y ago
    > they do it for the NSA in return for the NSA spying on UK citizen as a work around national laws forbidding them doing so. Absolutely, and this is highly problematic. If it was British intelligence hoovering up my info and using it for their own government use I wouldn't see a problem with it. Or rather, I wouldn't see it nearly as much of a problem as an American agency doing it to me. Them sharing that data with the US is where I have an extreme problem with it. It's an obvious end-around the constitution. This is where US agencies can now use that data to put US citizens under their jurisdiction into prison. That is unacceptable. I think a lot of my posts last night come off as me defending the NSA/CIA but that support is limited to a very narrow mission. Intelligence gathering on foreign powers. > Along with the NSA unilaterally breaking the no spying agreement with the UK. Meh. Those agreements are political grandstanding and nothing else, all participants understand that fact. No one actually believes the US and UK will not spy on each other as much as possible.

finid 9y ago

and given how things like 9/11 were funded... I must be missing something. How was 9/11 funded?

3131s 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandar_bin_Sultan_Al_Saud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandar_bin_Sultan_Al_Saud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_28_Pages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_28_Pages
- finid 9y ago
  I wonder what would have happened if that level of connection had been made between 9/11 and the Iranian govt...

hl5 9y ago

The US emits some strange message of equality, privacy, rights, freedom, justice, a shining beacon of hope...mixed in with secret police forces that operate with impunity. I think that is an incompatibility that will eventually need to be worked out.

mistermann 9y ago
It will be worked out eventually, maybe 20 to 50 years from now, when China says "ok that's enough young man, now go sit down and behave yourself".
bigbugbag 9y ago
Words are a thing, actions are another that speak much louder. The words are a mix of propaganda, historical but now obsolete, projected image, biased self-perception and even party true but only when applied to the US not to the rest of the world. Other countries also engage in a similar propaganda, but only a few have the nuisance potential of the US, such as China.

rajathagasthya 9y ago

So it's okay as long as NSA is spying on citizens of other countries, but you're up in arms if they spy on US citizens?

tomschlick 9y ago
Yes. Because that is exactly their purpose. To gain SIGINT on others. Every major nation does this kind of thing to each other to keep the others in check. Trust but verify.
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  How many US sockpuppets parroting the same baseless argument are there in these HN comments ? UK and US intelligence have a bilateral agreement to spy on each other population and swap the collected data as a workaround of national law forbidding them to do so. This single fact shows that those agencies go the extra mile to do things out of their supposed purpose, that agencies are not in check by their respective government and that not every major nation is SIGINTing each other. The reality is that intelligence agencies have a motto along the lines of "we can do anything we want in any way we want as long we don't get caught".
  - willstrafach 9y ago
    > workaround of national law forbidding them to do so Citizen data is still minimized, regardless of who collected it. There has never been evidence of this often-repeated "workaround" theory.
    - ionised 9y ago
      > There has never been evidence of this often-repeated "workaround" theory. I mean, it was pretty clear from the Snowden leaks that this is what was happening.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

bigbugbag 9y ago

So basically you are saying that you want the European agencies to break into the US banking system and spy on every US financial transactions because of how the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan were funded ? Or how the contra were funded, or any other of the many unacceptable thing the US did and/or funded. Sorry but your position is only acceptable to you because you're not on the receiving end and living on the bully. Rest assured that when law forbids them from spying on their own citizen they instantly find a loophole by asking and giving free way to a foreign agency to spy on US citizen for them in exchange for them spying on their citizens and swapping the collected data.

Zigurd 9y ago

You'll have to have a new breed of law enforcement and intel people to not pass along that kind of data, in the name of stopping those dreadfully non-specific drug money funded terrorists.

pksadiq 9y ago

> As a US citizen, and given how things like 9/11 were funded, this is exactly what I want NSA to be doing. This is thier job. Do you know what 9/11 really is (the intentions, terrorist involvements, etc)? Never. Neither do I. We just (have to) believe what the main stream media says about it. That's it. Given that the ThinThread project (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinThread https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinThread) was discontinued 3 weeks before 9/11, I suspect that there is a high probability for NSA to be involved in 9/11. To get yourself motivated, I would suggest you to see Person Of Interest, the complete series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_%28TV_series%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_%28TV_serie... Thanks

3131s 9y ago
There is a lot of evidence that certain elements within the US government had foreknowledge of 9/11. Nothing conclusive, but enough to begin an investigation into people like Dick Cheney. Is it really so hard to believe that the same war criminals who manufactured the Iraq war might also turn a blind eye to a terror attack that spurred trillions in weapons and "defense" spending?
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  Why so much incertitude in your words for documented facts ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_intelligence_before_the_attacks#Bush_era_reports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_intelligence_befo... Also the french journalist that has authored the article “September 11: the French had long known” got prosecuted for breaching state secret by exposing that France services had prior knowledge and had passed the information in january of 2011. The probe against Dasquié stems from his April 16 article in Le Monde, titled “September 11: the French had long known,” which said French intelligence services, the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE), had warned their U.S. counterparts of a possible terrorist plot that involved the hijacking of planes and crashing them into buildings some eight months before 9/11, according to international news reports. The article contained excerpts from a DGSE file titled “Aircraft hijack plan by radical Islamists”—part of a 328-page classified report on al-Qaeda activities, which Le Monde said it possessed. One excerpt from the report, dated January 5, 2001, said al-Qaeda had a list of potential airline targets, which included the United and American Airlines carriers used in the 9/11 attacks, the AP said. Le Monde said the DGSE files in its possession contained maps, analyses, graphics, and satellite photos, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported. https://cpj.org/2007/12/french-journalist-investigated-over-intelligence-l.php https://cpj.org/2007/12/french-journalist-investigated-over-...

grandalf 9y ago

I agree that it's reasonable in theory to have some of this stuff going on. I also agree that it's reasonable in theory to do incidental collection. But the problem is that the NSA began doing a lot of this stuff without democratic oversight, and officials lied to the American people about it. The deception and lack of democratic oversight makes the programs not OK. The secrecy and lack of auditability create way too much potential for abuse. The intelligence services would never tolerate a system that offered a complete, unalterable log of all surveillance so that courts could decide in hindsight if agents needed jail time for breach of protocol or inappropriate use of the tools. So instead we get this utterly backward system where there is great ceremony around the FISA warrants which are issued (and once in a while denied) but meanwhile any agent in the midst of an investigation can easily enough cast the net over whomever he/she chooses using incidental collection. Police states are bad/dangerous because they make it possible for the regime to intimidate and persecute political enemies. We've seen so many hints of this lately that I'm shocked anyone can support continuing the status quo.

syrrim 9y ago

This is how we get five eyes spying. If it's immoral for one country to spy, it's immoral for all of them. If there isn't a law against one country spying on you, there might as well not be a law against any of them spying on you, as we've seen.

bitslave 9y ago

hoovering... Nice one

visarga 9y ago

> Frankly, it's a bit bizarre to me that US citizens don't understand how to draw the distinction between those two sceanrios... It's also bizarre to make that distinction in the first place. If you're OK with mixing in other people's business, why would it be forbidden to mess with your own?