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> We really don't know how "legitimate" those descriptions of people hacking equipment in transit were. That's actually a perfect example of what I was talking

> We really don't know how "legitimate" those descriptions of people hacking equipment in transit were. That's actually a perfect example of what I was talking about. When Greenwald initially published the short blurb talking about intercepting routers, he didn't say who they were being used against, implying that anyone's router might be intercepted and backdoored - maybe even your own! When the full document was released sometime later, it was revealed that the NSA only used it for hard targets; in this case, targets in Syria[1]. Greenwald does this all the time - he cuts down documents to just a sentence, paragraph or picture. When the full documents come out later on, it turns out that he was selectively quoting to fit with the message he wanted to convey. [1] http://www.spiegel.de/media/media-35669.pdf http://www.spiegel.de/media/media-35669.pdf

toyg 11y ago
> implying that anyone's router might be intercepted and backdoored - maybe even your own! But that's exactly the point -- it could be. We now know that a body with almost no oversight not just can but does backdoor US-produced equipment. This is not conspiracy-theory territory anymore, it's hard fact and anyone making decisions on procurement from now on will have to deal with it, not just "hard targets" -- because you never know when you will become a "hard target" for a body with basically no oversight. So in that sense, there is nothing wrong with Greenwald's reporting.
- pekk 11y ago
  There is something wrong with reporting that is misleading, especially if that is intentional. If you report that a specific thing is being done, that isn't the same as reporting that it "could be" done. If you don't know what I'm doing in my basement, it doesn't make it responsible to report that I am making bombs on the grounds that I "could be" doing so as far as you know.
- csandreasen 11y ago
  Yes, it could be done, just like the police could go door-to-door shooting everyone they see. They have guns, after all. The military could take over the White House if a presidential candidate is elected that the Joint Chiefs of Staff don't like. None of these things are actually happening, though...
  - toyg 11y ago
    The difference is that police and military have very well-defined protocols for oversight, carried out mostly in the open, with multiple authorities being involved and clear chains of responsibility. If a policeman shoots an unarmed man, there will be investigations and trials, and somebody will have to say why it happened as it did (maybe the policeman, maybe his bosses, maybe a mayor, etc). Punishment may or may not happen, but there will be a process carried out mostly in the open. For the NSA, that's not the case. Do you think cracking Google networks and the likes were "legitimate actions"? Who decided about that? Why did they need to do it, considering Google was already cooperating? Why did they lie about what they were doing even to the authorities they supposedly answer to? They basically dished "network brutality" with impunity, and now there is no process to hold anyone accountable. With the NSA, we now know that what they "could" do, they actually did do, and unlike all those other corps, now there is no way to hold anyone accountable.
    - csandreasen 11y ago
      > The difference is that police and military have very well-defined protocols for oversight, carried out mostly in the open, with multiple authorities being involved and clear chains of responsibility. So does the NSA through both the FISC court and the Congressional Intelligence and Judicial Committees. As much as people like to gloss over them and brush them off as rubber stamps, if you actually read the released FISC opinions you'd see there was a good deal of pushback (see [1] as an example of the NSA overstepping their bounds and being forced to stop by the court). Likewise, you can look at the in-fighting between Sen Feinsein and former Sen Rogers on one side with Sen Wyden and former Sen Udall on the other. Right now we also have a major disagreement between the Judges on the FISC and the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on the legality of the phone records program, which likely won't be resolved unless the law is renewed and it's appealed to the Supreme Court. There is oversight. Yes, it is done in secret for the sake of protect intelligence sources, but it does in fact exist. And, frankly, I think the Snowden disclosures themselves show that they largely work. Before the Church/Pike reforms back in the 70s, the NSA was specifically targeting anti-war protesters, civil rights activists and even congressmen[2]. Now, despite his best efforts, Greenwald has yet to show evidence of a single American that was targeted by the NSA. > Do you think cracking Google networks and the likes were "legitimate actions"? I would probably be really pissed off if that's actually what they did. I'm assuming you're referring to this[3], in which the authors start off trying to suggest that the NSA is breaking into Google and Yahoo data centers, but when you read further and look at the source documents it becomes apparent that what was actually happening was that Google and Yahoo were sending their international data-center traffic across the globe unencrypted, and GCHQ was picking it up on one of their fiber taps. Now stop and consider that every other country that those leased fiber lines passed through was probably doing the exact same thing. I don't see this as NSA abuse, I see this as Google getting caught not protecting its customers' information. And in line with my complaint in my above comment, the article finishes with "It is not clear how much data from Americans is collected and how much of that is retained." So what kind of data is collected? Who is being targeted? Why are they being targeted? What is the data being used for? Am I being targeted? Are other Americans being targeted? The article doesn't answer any of these questions, nor does it give me any indication as to who else might be listening in and what data they're collecting. If the NSA is using that access to gather information on, say, Russian targets, I don't care - good for them. If the NSA was using that access to collect data on the Russian government, and now that intelligence source has dried up, then the Washington Post has just done disservice to the American people. If the NSA is using it to collect American data, or if the Russians are listening in on American communications using similar techniques, now that's newsworthy. [1] http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/08/the-nsa-documents-part-ii-the-october-2011-fisc-opinion/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/08/the-nsa-documents-part-ii... [2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/09/25/secret-cold-war-documents-reveal-nsa-spied-on-senators/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/09/25/secret-cold-war-documen... [3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-in...
jellicle 11y ago
But it's only you presuming a limitation on the NSA's actions with no basis for making that assumption. The fact that certain documents X have come out showing that Y happened in place Z does not mean that Y isn't happening elsewhere as well. Indeed, the document you link to says "our targets throughout the world". Your characterization of the program/document as "only used for hard targets in Syria" is just an outright lie.

toyg 11y ago

> implying that anyone's router might be intercepted and backdoored - maybe even your own! But that's exactly the point -- it could be. We now know that a body with almost no oversight not just can but does backdoor US-produced equipment. This is not conspiracy-theory territory anymore, it's hard fact and anyone making decisions on procurement from now on will have to deal with it, not just "hard targets" -- because you never know when you will become a "hard target" for a body with basically no oversight. So in that sense, there is nothing wrong with Greenwald's reporting.

pekk 11y ago
There is something wrong with reporting that is misleading, especially if that is intentional. If you report that a specific thing is being done, that isn't the same as reporting that it "could be" done. If you don't know what I'm doing in my basement, it doesn't make it responsible to report that I am making bombs on the grounds that I "could be" doing so as far as you know.
csandreasen 11y ago
Yes, it could be done, just like the police could go door-to-door shooting everyone they see. They have guns, after all. The military could take over the White House if a presidential candidate is elected that the Joint Chiefs of Staff don't like. None of these things are actually happening, though...
- toyg 11y ago
  The difference is that police and military have very well-defined protocols for oversight, carried out mostly in the open, with multiple authorities being involved and clear chains of responsibility. If a policeman shoots an unarmed man, there will be investigations and trials, and somebody will have to say why it happened as it did (maybe the policeman, maybe his bosses, maybe a mayor, etc). Punishment may or may not happen, but there will be a process carried out mostly in the open. For the NSA, that's not the case. Do you think cracking Google networks and the likes were "legitimate actions"? Who decided about that? Why did they need to do it, considering Google was already cooperating? Why did they lie about what they were doing even to the authorities they supposedly answer to? They basically dished "network brutality" with impunity, and now there is no process to hold anyone accountable. With the NSA, we now know that what they "could" do, they actually did do, and unlike all those other corps, now there is no way to hold anyone accountable.
  - csandreasen 11y ago
    > The difference is that police and military have very well-defined protocols for oversight, carried out mostly in the open, with multiple authorities being involved and clear chains of responsibility. So does the NSA through both the FISC court and the Congressional Intelligence and Judicial Committees. As much as people like to gloss over them and brush them off as rubber stamps, if you actually read the released FISC opinions you'd see there was a good deal of pushback (see [1] as an example of the NSA overstepping their bounds and being forced to stop by the court). Likewise, you can look at the in-fighting between Sen Feinsein and former Sen Rogers on one side with Sen Wyden and former Sen Udall on the other. Right now we also have a major disagreement between the Judges on the FISC and the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on the legality of the phone records program, which likely won't be resolved unless the law is renewed and it's appealed to the Supreme Court. There is oversight. Yes, it is done in secret for the sake of protect intelligence sources, but it does in fact exist. And, frankly, I think the Snowden disclosures themselves show that they largely work. Before the Church/Pike reforms back in the 70s, the NSA was specifically targeting anti-war protesters, civil rights activists and even congressmen[2]. Now, despite his best efforts, Greenwald has yet to show evidence of a single American that was targeted by the NSA. > Do you think cracking Google networks and the likes were "legitimate actions"? I would probably be really pissed off if that's actually what they did. I'm assuming you're referring to this[3], in which the authors start off trying to suggest that the NSA is breaking into Google and Yahoo data centers, but when you read further and look at the source documents it becomes apparent that what was actually happening was that Google and Yahoo were sending their international data-center traffic across the globe unencrypted, and GCHQ was picking it up on one of their fiber taps. Now stop and consider that every other country that those leased fiber lines passed through was probably doing the exact same thing. I don't see this as NSA abuse, I see this as Google getting caught not protecting its customers' information. And in line with my complaint in my above comment, the article finishes with "It is not clear how much data from Americans is collected and how much of that is retained." So what kind of data is collected? Who is being targeted? Why are they being targeted? What is the data being used for? Am I being targeted? Are other Americans being targeted? The article doesn't answer any of these questions, nor does it give me any indication as to who else might be listening in and what data they're collecting. If the NSA is using that access to gather information on, say, Russian targets, I don't care - good for them. If the NSA was using that access to collect data on the Russian government, and now that intelligence source has dried up, then the Washington Post has just done disservice to the American people. If the NSA is using it to collect American data, or if the Russians are listening in on American communications using similar techniques, now that's newsworthy. [1] http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/08/the-nsa-documents-part-ii-the-october-2011-fisc-opinion/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/08/the-nsa-documents-part-ii... [2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/09/25/secret-cold-war-documents-reveal-nsa-spied-on-senators/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/09/25/secret-cold-war-documen... [3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-in...

jellicle 11y ago

But it's only you presuming a limitation on the NSA's actions with no basis for making that assumption. The fact that certain documents X have come out showing that Y happened in place Z does not mean that Y isn't happening elsewhere as well. Indeed, the document you link to says "our targets throughout the world". Your characterization of the program/document as "only used for hard targets in Syria" is just an outright lie.