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Officials Say U.S. May Never Know Extent of Snowden’s Leaks
- suprgeek 13y agoWhich is why there is some talk of offering him Amnesty - to find out exactly how much and what he leaked (Among other things) http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/report-nsa-mulls-snowden-amnesty-but-it-probably-wont-happen/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/report-nsa-mulls-...
- ceejayoz 13y agoMy understanding was he doesn't have the files at this point - they're all in possession of the journalists. Snowden can't put the genie back in the bottle, and the NSA wouldn't ever trust that all copies had been destroyed. I'd be pretty dubious about taking amnesty if I were him, too. Contracts under duress aren't legitimate. Chances are decent they'd get him here, claim duress, and throw him in Guantanamo.
- lettergram 13y agoTalk about the riots that would cause.
- greenyoda 13y agoForget Guantanamo. He's dealing with a government that has killed U.S. citizens with drone-fired missiles without due process. If I were Snowden, I'd be concerned that if I came anywhere near the reach of the U.S. government, I'd be secretly declared an "enemy combatant" and an "unfortunate accident" would happen to me.
- sigkill 13y agoIn a perverse despotic dictatorial way, killing US citizens is okay because "they're my slaves" kind of thing. He's dealing with a government that has killed a group of Yemeni family folks in Yemen who were allegedly attending a wedding accidentally with a drone strike. It is my imagination where they just say "Oops".
- pekk 13y agoWhen did this ever happen? al-Aulaki's case is not at all as you described
- dalke 13y agoAt least 4 US citizens have been killed by US drones. Anwar al-Awlaki is the only one who was specifically targeted. His son Abdulrahman, also a US citizen, was killed two weeks later by drone, but was not specifically targeted, according to the US. The US lawyers argued "Mr. Awlaki was a lawful target because he was participating in the war with Al Qaeda and also because he was a specific threat to the country... And while the Constitution generally requires judicial process before the government may kill an American, the Supreme Court has held that in some contexts — like when the police, in order to protect innocent bystanders, ram a car to stop a high-speed chase — no prior permission from a judge is necessary; the lawyers concluded that the wartime threat posed by Mr. Awlaki qualified as such a context, and so his constitutional rights did not bar the government from killing him without a trial. ... it is not unlawful “murder” when the government kills an enemy leader in war or national self-defense [so] the foreign-killing statute would not impede a strike" [NYT, March 9, 2013]. greenyoda wrote: "He's dealing with a government that has killed U.S. citizens with drone-fired missiles without due process." It therefore comes down to what you mean by "due process." I hold with greenyoda that the circumstances around Awlaki's deliberate killing were insufficient as to allow the exception to the judicial process, and that he therefore did not receive due process owed him by birthright. You may think otherwise, but even in that case the situation as described is very close to to what greenyoda wrote. Why do you think it's "not at all" as described?
- rhizome 13y agoKeep in mind that amnesty could simply be a ruse to bring him into the country, after which they can say, "he's not telling us everything!" (see: Salim Hamdan) and arrest him based on that.
- asn0 13y ago... or all the other people who have taken data from the NSA, that we don't know about (yet).
- fidotron 13y agoExactly. If Snowden managed this with a full on media storm it's a given that a good number of US antagonists already had access to everything he copied.
- Bahamut 13y agoI found this line interesting: "Six months since the investigation began, officials said Mr. Snowden had further covered his tracks by logging into classified systems using the passwords of other security agency employees, as well as by hacking firewalls installed to limit access to certain parts of the system." On its face, this sounds unethical for someone who made his decision on morality. Has anything more been published about this aspect anywhere (rationales, details, etc.)?
- crazygringo 13y agoWhat, why? Are you saying there's inherently something "immoral" about covering your tracks, using other passwords, or hacking firewalls? On what basis? If the guy is already copying documents he's not allowed to have access to, what difference does it make using passwords he's not allowed to have access to?
- nitrogen 13y agoCould "using passwords" be PR-speak for the su command?
- softbuilder 13y agoYes. IIRC, earlier stories said specifically "impersonating other users", not using other users' passwords.
- maxerickson 13y agohttp://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/08/net-us-usa-security-snowden-idUSBRE9A703020131108 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/08/net-us-usa-securit... "Snowden persuaded other NSA workers to give up passwords - sources"
- GVIrish 13y agoTo me the hilarious/horrifying thing is that if these guys with access to the most powerful spying apparatus in the world would simply give their passwords to a coworker, that well and truly means we cannot trust them with access to the most powerful spying apparatus in the world. So if the intelligence community is lying about how he got access, it is an extremely stupid lie that makes them look like idiots. If they're telling the truth, then it clearly makes the case that their operation is a humongous liability and should be shut down. Either way that explanation/story is bad for the NSA.
- spodek 13y agoNot very intelligent for an intelligence agency, missing something so close to home -- literally within their own walls. If they can't figure out what people they vetted and hired, why would anyone expect them to do better with someone whose resume they didn't have. Not that anyone in D.C. is holding the accountable, but if someone hypothetically did want to hold them accountable, how high would their threshold for failure have to be for outcomes like this? > Mr. Snowden’s disclosures set off a national debate about the expansion of the N.S.A.’s powers to spy both at home and abroad, and have left the Obama administration trying frantically to mend relations with allies after his revelations about American eavesdropping on foreign leaders. Mending relations is probably hard to do while continuing the programs and their secrecy. It probably wouldn't be that hard to mend them if they shut down the program. It would save money and stop breaking the Constitution too.
- iwwr 13y ago>Not very intelligent for an intelligence agency, missing something so close to home -- literally within their own walls. If they can't figure out what people they vetted and hired, why would anyone expect them to do better with someone whose resume they didn't have. Would you rather these agencies be truly competent and efficient that their activities would never come to light?
- fidotron 13y agoOne of the greatest arguments against the invasions of privacy they're engaged in is such competence by government departments is absolutely impossible, and the only way around this is to not collect the information in the first place. If you create a department that knows everything about everyone then it creates such a big single point of failure that it will be attacked continuously. This is on top of the general human error leading to data dumps being left on public transport etc. A honest and competent version of the NSA would acknowledge that leaks would be going to occur (malicious or accidental) and that it would need to be very careful about what it collects in case it could be used against it when it leaks. Once more government secrecy is actually just a way of hiding incompetence.
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- salient 13y agoThis is because they want to obfuscate as much as possible what is being done within the agency. If everything was logged, and you knew exactly who did what, it would be a lot easier to audit the agency, which is what they don't want. So they have a conflict of interest here. Make everything auditable, trackable and searchable, or risk other leaks.
- belorn 13y agoIf everything is auditable, trackable and searchable, they just need to delete the tapes if someone comes looking.
- film42 13y agoOff topic kind of: It's a shame that the headlines immediately after Snowden's initial press release turned from, "The government is spying on you" to "Snowden is evading!" By this I mean, It was unfortunate to see Snowden's punch dissipate with headlines that focussed on his safety and whereabouts, instead of keeping focus on the crimes committed by the US government. Did anyone else notice that?
- rosser 13y agoThat's just basic diversionary and disinfo tactics. Make the story about anything but what it's actually about, because what it's actually about is damaging. Snowden just happened to be convenient, and, for lack of a better word, "exploitable" to that end, having hopped off to Hong Kong and then Russia like that.
- rhizome 13y agoIt's more specific than that: make the story about the person rather than the information. Change the focus, change the framing, change the questions asked by reporters. This is a mechanism employed by powerful entities over and over throughout history, especially in the Information Age.
- robbiep 13y agoThe news headlines that do as you describe seem to be solely a US phenomenon.. Much of the rest of the world continues to be outraged by the leaked information
- codex 13y agoIt doesn't help that Snowden divulged all the classified information he could get his hands on, even that unrelated to domestic spying. It comes across as a desire for fame rather than a principled action.
- Theodores 13y agoCompare and contrast Assange and Snowden. Assange was into monetizing leaks and being in control of what was leaked, to whom and when. Snowden went out of his way to not be 'in charge' of what was leaked, to whom and to when. He put trust in Greenwald and co. to do that. Snowden has not been paid, there is no ban on Paypal et al. accepting funds for him because, unlike Assange, he is not soliciting funds. He found himself employment in Russia to pay his way in the world. Clearly Snowden's work was wasted on you, just hope you have nothing to hide!
- espeed 13y agoThe official said the State Department often described the spying to foreign leaders as “business as usual” between nations. It's interesting the last line of the article says State often described it as "business as usual," an idiom sometimes used in reference to activities of the CIA (AKA "The Company").
- coldcode 13y agoGovernment Intelligence is an oxymoron. Anyone with a sense of security knows that the most dangerous people are the ones you see every day. Yet they allowed him to basically steal everything.
- spot 13y agothese are the clowns who say we should trust them with our private data?
- ihsw 13y agoJust goes to show that the NSA doesn't give a rats ass about defence other than penetrating it.
- chinpokomon 13y ago"But for all of Mr. Snowden’s technical expertise, some American officials also place blame on the security agency for being slow to install software that can detect unusual computer activity carried out by the agency’s work force..." Should we be surprised that they are ignoring the real problems? Neither Snowden, nor the lack of surveillance is the issue. What the documents revealed about the NSAs Unconstitutional programs is what should be alarming.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoWell, at least we now know the answer to Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?