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Greenwald: Low-Level NSA Analysts Have Powerful and Invasive Search Tool [video]

169 points by dfc 13y ago

api 13y ago
Nope, no chance anyone will abuse that.
northwest 13y ago
“I was back out at NSA just last week, spent a couple hours out there with high and low level NSA officials,” Chambliss said. “And what I have been assured of is that there is no capability at NSA for anyone without a court order to listen to any telephone conversation or to monitor any e-mail.” How _dumb_ must one be to continue to trust these agencies for just about anything, now? After they blatantly lie in Congress and then dare to "apologize" for lying in Congress, how much more do these "politicians" really need to start thinking for themselves? Have they already been lobotomized? Are they lizards? Or what else exactly is going on?
- hga 13y ago
  Errr, given how easy it appears to be to get a "court order" (note, that's not as high a bar as a "search warrant"), I don't have as much difficultly believing that's the case. The case today, that is; tomorrow.... (Technical note: right now I gather the NSA et. al. are making a distinction between Hoovering up "everything", like all of Verizon Business's call records in that blanket warrant we've seen, and actually looking at them. Infamously, "collection" only referrers to the latter act. Just like how inside a decrease from an automatically increased baseline, even an increase after inflation, is called a "cut".)
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- a3n 13y ago
  Another possibility is that Chambliss is either lying, or acting as a PR functionary for the NSA.
  - malandrew 13y ago
    Actually I would suspect a third possibility. It's the same problem that happens when a general visits a military base and makes rounds. Everything that is dirty will be swept under the carpet ahead of his visit so that he only sees what those on the base want him to see. This is such a common social phenomena that it should be obvious to everyone, especially those in positions of power and administration. If he showed up unannounced at the NSA, with a bunch of pointed questions and could talk to any NSA employee at will one on one, then he would be much more likely to learn the truth. But to show up announced, meeting with specific people on a predetermined schedule with a previously announced goal, he will only be told what they want him to know. credit: Hanlon's Razor.
    - a3n 13y ago
      Certainly. And I'm sure Chambliss was not fooled.
    - vidarh 13y ago
      Or he sees only what he wants to see. "You don't do any of X, do you, because if you did that'd be embarrassing?". "No sir, of course not. Not right this instant".
- falk 13y ago
  It's all in the language they use. They are scooping up all the phone calls, emails, etc. they possibly can. They then go get a warrant to process that information or so they can use it in court and what have you. And like you said, getting a warrant is a joke. Especially through the FISA court.
  - danenania 13y ago
    But Greenwald is claiming that there is nothing technical stopping low level analysts from snooping on anyone without any form of authorization. This directly counters the line put forth by the national security establishment and its apologists since the revelations began.
    - Amadou 13y ago
      What Chambliss said in that quote does not contradict Greenwald's claim. When Chambliss uses the word "capability" he means legal capability. Greenwald is arguing that the enforcement of that requirement is trivial - equivalent to a checkbox that says "Do you have a warrant Yes/No?" I am entirely willing to believe that Chambliss is simply technologically naive enough that he doesn't even know how to ask the NSA if the enforcement is meaningful. He's also probably quite happy to take them at their word, despite all their history of using their own dictionary to define their words.
      - zaroth 13y ago
        I think you're right, which of course makes the entire statement a tautology. "The NSA has assured me it's not legal to do anything that's not legal." Thanks for sharing. Never mind that it's not legal to read emails, except with a single court order saying that it's legal to read EVERYONE'S emails. Which I believe they have. The main problem is the "business records" clause in PATRIOT must be found unconstitutional. If it is somehow constitutional, then there is no privacy.
        mpyne 13y ago
        > I think you're right, which of course makes the entire statement a tautology. "The NSA has assured me it's not legal to do anything that's not legal." Thanks for sharing. That's true for the vast majority of law enforcement though. The police have the technical ability to pepper spray you, or arrest you, or shoot you. It is compliance with policy and legal requirements that (generally...) prevent them from not shooting you, not a technical safeguard. It's policy/legal safeguards that prevent the local health inspector from arbitrarily shutting down your restaurant. NSA analysts get held to policy as well; there have been analysts caught looking up information on ex-wives, for example, and fired for cause, so while an analyst may have the technical ability to task PRISM inappropriately, it's not an unlimited ability. Do I think that PRISM should have better technical safeguards on it? Absolutely, if only because it's easy enough to do, and the system is way more powerful than what a random county sheriff might have available to them. But I wouldn't read any more sinister connotation into the current level of safeguards; even nuclear weapons can be disabled by only 2 compromised missile techs, so this level of protection seems pretty ordinary for government work.
- drewcrawford 13y ago
  > How _dumb_ must one be to continue to trust these agencies Taking a deep breath for a moment, if you look at TFA it contains two contradicting allegations, from sources that appear to me to be roughly similarly credible. On what evidentiary basis have you decided one source is more reliable than the other? And why are the people who believe the other source "lobotomized"? I am not really sure what is going on here, but I do not feel that this article alone presents a sufficient basis for a reasonable person to form an opinion.
  - D9u 13y ago
    On what evidentiary basis have you decided one source is more reliable than the other? When one of those sources is caught in multiple lies, the prudent will tend to discount that source as untrustworthy.
- dakotasmith 13y ago
  We could also suspect that the giant spying apparatus has compromised our government officials with intelligence gathered on anyone in a position to oppose it.
falk 13y ago
This is how I think the Congressional committee hearing will go down Wednesday. Or perhaps some variation of this. 1. Greenwald testifies and talks about all the awful things the NSA has been up to. 2. NSA offials will deny any and all claims made by Greenwald. 3. Greenwald will release documents that directly refute the NSA's testimonial.
- pvnick 13y ago
  This seems to have been the plan all along, and it's working brilliantly. As Greenwald said in the recent Majority Report interview [1] we are still "near the beginning of the revelations," so I think we're going to continue catching high officials in the middle of lies. [1] http://majority.fm/2013/07/25/725-glenn-greenwald-the-impact-of-the-nsa-revelations/ http://majority.fm/2013/07/25/725-glenn-greenwald-the-impact...
- lukeschlather 13y ago
  Please, take the time to read the article. > “In fact, we don’t monitor emails. That’s what kind of assures me is that what the reporting is is not correct. Because no emails are monitored now,” [Senator] Chambliss said. “They used to be, but that stopped two or three years ago. So I feel confident that there may have been some abuse, but if it was it was pure accidental.” They've essentially admitted that Greenwald's information is accurate, they're just claiming that Greenwald is late to the party and they've already dealt with the problem in secret. It's interesting, because if you go back over the testimony I'm very sure that all of the NSA denials will be in the present tense. So it's quite possible that the NSA has not been lying at all, they've just been counting on us to fill in "That has never happened" when all they've said is "we do not [currently] do that."
  - manmal 13y ago
    But, "two or three years ago" is a strangely broad phrase to use for something as huge as monitoring emails. Why did they not say "that stopped in the middle of 2011" or something like that?
  - malandrew 13y ago
monsterix 13y ago
I have a feeling that everyone having this tool is a better situation than only few-at-the-top having it. Older people who sit at the top tend to elicit a different and often machine-like behaviour [1] on emotional or privacy matters. Their decisions are likely to be blind to what people in their privacy want - that is emotional freedom. And their micro-decisions could be worse. Rather I'd suggest that the PRISM search tool be made available to every individual on the planet. Perhaps in competition to Google (If we don't get rid of snooping in its entirety that is.). At least we can weed out Weiners which are on one end of porn-spectrum to Camerons who say they are on the other end of porn-spectrum. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677442/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677442/
- northwest 13y ago
  > Rather I'd suggest that the PRISM search tool be made available to every citizen on the planet. Of course you are joking. But if you think about it: If humanity is forced to give up privacy, the only way we could achieve this would be by giving it up symmetrically: If everybody is naked, it's normal and not a problem anymore, provided we can then evolve our culture to completely drop the "judging".
  - mtgx 13y ago
    Governments should have to give up "privacy" first, since they're supposed to be public, and everything they do should be public. Then maybe we can talk about giving up some of the privacy for citizens, too - as long as it's compatible with the Constitution (and I think this program is not even close to being compatible).
    - northwest 13y ago
      Absolutely.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - manmal 13y ago
peterkelly 13y ago
Video of the interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMvFj7KeGs8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMvFj7KeGs8
hack_edu 13y ago
And if they have that, imagine what the more clever sysadmins can work they way into without proper authorization...
marze 13y ago
Regarding the "court order" mentioned as being needed to listen/read/monitor, a helpful followup question might be, what court gives the order and how many such orders are in effect on average for each of the past five years.
qwerta 13y ago
This is huge security issue. Is there a bug report? An estimate when it will be fixed?
- qwerta 13y ago
  Why downvote? When NSA steals my data I want at least secure storage. This way entire NSA database will leak sooner or latter.
  - northwest 13y ago
    Hehe, you sound like Travolta in Hunting Season, I like that :-)
lisper 13y ago
I wonder if Senator Chambliss realizes that he's being played. "I have been assured ... that there is no capability at NSA for anyone without a court order to listen to any telephone conversation or to monitor any e-mail.” Chambliss said that any monitoring of emails is purely “accidental.” You can't have it both ways. Either there is "no capability", or the monitoring is "accidental." It can't be both.
- dictum 13y ago
  Every response from the NSA and people speaking on their behalf, both before and after the Snowden leaks, has basically been 1. A denial that they have the "capability" to do [insert method of mass surveilance], leaving open the possibility that "capability" means legal authorization; 2. A quasi admission that maybe the surveillance happens (Clapper: "not wittingly"). In other words, "we're collecting everything, but we'll only inspect your data if you're not American, or have a relationship of any kind with someone who has ever contacted a terrorist suspect."
  - danenania 13y ago
    'In other words, "we're collecting everything, but we'll only inspect your data if you're not American, or have a relationship of any kind with someone who has ever contacted a terrorist suspect."' Or if a random analyst is bored and finds you interesting for some reason.
    - baconner 13y ago
      or have a relationship with someone who has a relationship with someone who has ever contacted a terrorist suspect.
    - coopdog 13y ago
      Or if your information happens to be valuable (bitcoins, passwords, stock tips, blackmail material) and can be sold without it being traced back to an analyst in any of the facilities around the world where your information is cached.
scrrr 13y ago
Greenwald and Snowden are my heroes of the year (at least). The amount of lies in .gov and Internet-industry is amazing. I hope none of the involved politicians and companies ever speak of "privacy" or "security" again. It'd be embarrassing.
junto 13y ago
I'm not sure if anyone else picked up on this, but one of the things Snowden said, now makes perfect sense. He said, “Any analyst at any time can target anyone… I, sitting at my desk, had the authority to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if I had a personal email.” What he meant was you only needed someone's email address (or IP address) as search parameters, to return all the connected data!
thufry 13y ago
Of course - Snowden was about as "low level" of a guy as they come (contractor for four months) and was able to basically access everything.
- Amadou 13y ago
  Don't assume that contractors start at the bottom. I've got personal experience doing DoD contracting and the entire reason I was there was because I was a systems expert. Even if they had not given me root access, I could have had it at any time because I knew the systems better than they did. The details are fuzzy due to incomplete reporting, but it seems Snowden had worked for the CIA for many years before going to Booz Allen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Career_in_the_U.S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Career_in_the_U....

169 points by dfc 13y ago

api 13y ago

Nope, no chance anyone will abuse that.

“I was back out at NSA just last week, spent a couple hours out there with high and low level NSA officials,” Chambliss said. “And what I have been assured of is that there is no capability at NSA for anyone without a court order to listen to any telephone conversation or to monitor any e-mail.” How _dumb_ must one be to continue to trust these agencies for just about anything, now? After they blatantly lie in Congress and then dare to "apologize" for lying in Congress, how much more do these "politicians" really need to start thinking for themselves? Have they already been lobotomized? Are they lizards? Or what else exactly is going on?

hga 13y ago
Errr, given how easy it appears to be to get a "court order" (note, that's not as high a bar as a "search warrant"), I don't have as much difficultly believing that's the case. The case today, that is; tomorrow.... (Technical note: right now I gather the NSA et. al. are making a distinction between Hoovering up "everything", like all of Verizon Business's call records in that blanket warrant we've seen, and actually looking at them. Infamously, "collection" only referrers to the latter act. Just like how inside a decrease from an automatically increased baseline, even an increase after inflation, is called a "cut".)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
a3n 13y ago
Another possibility is that Chambliss is either lying, or acting as a PR functionary for the NSA.
- malandrew 13y ago
  Actually I would suspect a third possibility. It's the same problem that happens when a general visits a military base and makes rounds. Everything that is dirty will be swept under the carpet ahead of his visit so that he only sees what those on the base want him to see. This is such a common social phenomena that it should be obvious to everyone, especially those in positions of power and administration. If he showed up unannounced at the NSA, with a bunch of pointed questions and could talk to any NSA employee at will one on one, then he would be much more likely to learn the truth. But to show up announced, meeting with specific people on a predetermined schedule with a previously announced goal, he will only be told what they want him to know. credit: Hanlon's Razor.
  - a3n 13y ago
    Certainly. And I'm sure Chambliss was not fooled.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    Or he sees only what he wants to see. "You don't do any of X, do you, because if you did that'd be embarrassing?". "No sir, of course not. Not right this instant".
falk 13y ago
It's all in the language they use. They are scooping up all the phone calls, emails, etc. they possibly can. They then go get a warrant to process that information or so they can use it in court and what have you. And like you said, getting a warrant is a joke. Especially through the FISA court.
- danenania 13y ago
  But Greenwald is claiming that there is nothing technical stopping low level analysts from snooping on anyone without any form of authorization. This directly counters the line put forth by the national security establishment and its apologists since the revelations began.
  - Amadou 13y ago
    What Chambliss said in that quote does not contradict Greenwald's claim. When Chambliss uses the word "capability" he means legal capability. Greenwald is arguing that the enforcement of that requirement is trivial - equivalent to a checkbox that says "Do you have a warrant Yes/No?" I am entirely willing to believe that Chambliss is simply technologically naive enough that he doesn't even know how to ask the NSA if the enforcement is meaningful. He's also probably quite happy to take them at their word, despite all their history of using their own dictionary to define their words.
    - zaroth 13y ago
      I think you're right, which of course makes the entire statement a tautology. "The NSA has assured me it's not legal to do anything that's not legal." Thanks for sharing. Never mind that it's not legal to read emails, except with a single court order saying that it's legal to read EVERYONE'S emails. Which I believe they have. The main problem is the "business records" clause in PATRIOT must be found unconstitutional. If it is somehow constitutional, then there is no privacy.
      - mpyne 13y ago
        > I think you're right, which of course makes the entire statement a tautology. "The NSA has assured me it's not legal to do anything that's not legal." Thanks for sharing. That's true for the vast majority of law enforcement though. The police have the technical ability to pepper spray you, or arrest you, or shoot you. It is compliance with policy and legal requirements that (generally...) prevent them from not shooting you, not a technical safeguard. It's policy/legal safeguards that prevent the local health inspector from arbitrarily shutting down your restaurant. NSA analysts get held to policy as well; there have been analysts caught looking up information on ex-wives, for example, and fired for cause, so while an analyst may have the technical ability to task PRISM inappropriately, it's not an unlimited ability. Do I think that PRISM should have better technical safeguards on it? Absolutely, if only because it's easy enough to do, and the system is way more powerful than what a random county sheriff might have available to them. But I wouldn't read any more sinister connotation into the current level of safeguards; even nuclear weapons can be disabled by only 2 compromised missile techs, so this level of protection seems pretty ordinary for government work.
drewcrawford 13y ago
> How _dumb_ must one be to continue to trust these agencies Taking a deep breath for a moment, if you look at TFA it contains two contradicting allegations, from sources that appear to me to be roughly similarly credible. On what evidentiary basis have you decided one source is more reliable than the other? And why are the people who believe the other source "lobotomized"? I am not really sure what is going on here, but I do not feel that this article alone presents a sufficient basis for a reasonable person to form an opinion.
- D9u 13y ago
  On what evidentiary basis have you decided one source is more reliable than the other? When one of those sources is caught in multiple lies, the prudent will tend to discount that source as untrustworthy.
dakotasmith 13y ago
We could also suspect that the giant spying apparatus has compromised our government officials with intelligence gathered on anyone in a position to oppose it.

falk 13y ago

This is how I think the Congressional committee hearing will go down Wednesday. Or perhaps some variation of this. 1. Greenwald testifies and talks about all the awful things the NSA has been up to. 2. NSA offials will deny any and all claims made by Greenwald. 3. Greenwald will release documents that directly refute the NSA's testimonial.

pvnick 13y ago
This seems to have been the plan all along, and it's working brilliantly. As Greenwald said in the recent Majority Report interview [1] we are still "near the beginning of the revelations," so I think we're going to continue catching high officials in the middle of lies. [1] http://majority.fm/2013/07/25/725-glenn-greenwald-the-impact-of-the-nsa-revelations/ http://majority.fm/2013/07/25/725-glenn-greenwald-the-impact...
lukeschlather 13y ago
Please, take the time to read the article. > “In fact, we don’t monitor emails. That’s what kind of assures me is that what the reporting is is not correct. Because no emails are monitored now,” [Senator] Chambliss said. “They used to be, but that stopped two or three years ago. So I feel confident that there may have been some abuse, but if it was it was pure accidental.” They've essentially admitted that Greenwald's information is accurate, they're just claiming that Greenwald is late to the party and they've already dealt with the problem in secret. It's interesting, because if you go back over the testimony I'm very sure that all of the NSA denials will be in the present tense. So it's quite possible that the NSA has not been lying at all, they've just been counting on us to fill in "That has never happened" when all they've said is "we do not [currently] do that."
- manmal 13y ago
  But, "two or three years ago" is a strangely broad phrase to use for something as huge as monitoring emails. Why did they not say "that stopped in the middle of 2011" or something like that?
- malandrew 13y ago

monsterix 13y ago

I have a feeling that everyone having this tool is a better situation than only few-at-the-top having it. Older people who sit at the top tend to elicit a different and often machine-like behaviour [1] on emotional or privacy matters. Their decisions are likely to be blind to what people in their privacy want - that is emotional freedom. And their micro-decisions could be worse. Rather I'd suggest that the PRISM search tool be made available to every individual on the planet. Perhaps in competition to Google (If we don't get rid of snooping in its entirety that is.). At least we can weed out Weiners which are on one end of porn-spectrum to Camerons who say they are on the other end of porn-spectrum. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677442/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677442/

northwest 13y ago
> Rather I'd suggest that the PRISM search tool be made available to every citizen on the planet. Of course you are joking. But if you think about it: If humanity is forced to give up privacy, the only way we could achieve this would be by giving it up symmetrically: If everybody is naked, it's normal and not a problem anymore, provided we can then evolve our culture to completely drop the "judging".
- mtgx 13y ago
  Governments should have to give up "privacy" first, since they're supposed to be public, and everything they do should be public. Then maybe we can talk about giving up some of the privacy for citizens, too - as long as it's compatible with the Constitution (and I think this program is not even close to being compatible).
  - northwest 13y ago
    Absolutely.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- manmal 13y ago

peterkelly 13y ago

Video of the interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMvFj7KeGs8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMvFj7KeGs8

hack_edu 13y ago

And if they have that, imagine what the more clever sysadmins can work they way into without proper authorization...

marze 13y ago

Regarding the "court order" mentioned as being needed to listen/read/monitor, a helpful followup question might be, what court gives the order and how many such orders are in effect on average for each of the past five years.

qwerta 13y ago

This is huge security issue. Is there a bug report? An estimate when it will be fixed?

qwerta 13y ago
Why downvote? When NSA steals my data I want at least secure storage. This way entire NSA database will leak sooner or latter.
- northwest 13y ago
  Hehe, you sound like Travolta in Hunting Season, I like that :-)

lisper 13y ago

I wonder if Senator Chambliss realizes that he's being played. "I have been assured ... that there is no capability at NSA for anyone without a court order to listen to any telephone conversation or to monitor any e-mail.” Chambliss said that any monitoring of emails is purely “accidental.” You can't have it both ways. Either there is "no capability", or the monitoring is "accidental." It can't be both.

dictum 13y ago
Every response from the NSA and people speaking on their behalf, both before and after the Snowden leaks, has basically been 1. A denial that they have the "capability" to do [insert method of mass surveilance], leaving open the possibility that "capability" means legal authorization; 2. A quasi admission that maybe the surveillance happens (Clapper: "not wittingly"). In other words, "we're collecting everything, but we'll only inspect your data if you're not American, or have a relationship of any kind with someone who has ever contacted a terrorist suspect."
- danenania 13y ago
  'In other words, "we're collecting everything, but we'll only inspect your data if you're not American, or have a relationship of any kind with someone who has ever contacted a terrorist suspect."' Or if a random analyst is bored and finds you interesting for some reason.
  - baconner 13y ago
    or have a relationship with someone who has a relationship with someone who has ever contacted a terrorist suspect.
  - coopdog 13y ago
    Or if your information happens to be valuable (bitcoins, passwords, stock tips, blackmail material) and can be sold without it being traced back to an analyst in any of the facilities around the world where your information is cached.

scrrr 13y ago

Greenwald and Snowden are my heroes of the year (at least). The amount of lies in .gov and Internet-industry is amazing. I hope none of the involved politicians and companies ever speak of "privacy" or "security" again. It'd be embarrassing.

junto 13y ago

I'm not sure if anyone else picked up on this, but one of the things Snowden said, now makes perfect sense. He said, “Any analyst at any time can target anyone… I, sitting at my desk, had the authority to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if I had a personal email.” What he meant was you only needed someone's email address (or IP address) as search parameters, to return all the connected data!

thufry 13y ago

Of course - Snowden was about as "low level" of a guy as they come (contractor for four months) and was able to basically access everything.

Amadou 13y ago
Don't assume that contractors start at the bottom. I've got personal experience doing DoD contracting and the entire reason I was there was because I was a systems expert. Even if they had not given me root access, I could have had it at any time because I knew the systems better than they did. The details are fuzzy due to incomplete reporting, but it seems Snowden had worked for the CIA for many years before going to Booz Allen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Career_in_the_U.S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Career_in_the_U....