person:edward j. snowden

The NSA Report:
Liberty and Security in a Changing World
The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies: Richard A. Clarke, Michael J. Morell, Geoffrey R. Stone, Cass R. Sunstein & Peter Swire
(December 2013)

The Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology, set up by President Obama in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations of NSA spying, published a 300-page report outlining 46 recommendations that could serve as a blueprint for a reconfigured spy agency.

▻http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10296.html

This is the official report that is helping shape the international debate about the unprecedented surveillance activities of the National Security Agency. Commissioned by President Obama following disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden, and written by a preeminent group of intelligence and legal experts, the report examines the extent of NSA programs and calls for dozens of urgent and practical reforms. The result is a blueprint showing how the government can reaffirm its commitment to privacy and civil liberties—without compromising national security.

▻https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2013/12/18/liberty-and-security-changing-world

The comprehensive report, unclassified in its entirety, sets forth forty-six recommendations designed to protect national security and advance our foreign policy while respecting our longstanding commitment to privacy and civil liberties. The Review Group’s product recognizes the need to maintain the public trust – including the trust of our friends and allies abroad – and proposes steps to reduce the risk of unauthorized disclosures.

In particular, the report highlights the need to develop principles designed to create sturdy foundations for the future, safeguarding liberty and security amidst a changing world. The recommendations emphasize risk management and the need to balance a wide range of potential consequences, including both costs and benefits, in considering potential reforms.

▻https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2013-12-12_rg_final_report.pdf

The initial request of that report by Obama in August 2013

▻https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/08/12/presidential-memorandum-reviewing-our-global-signals-intel

What’s in the report?

Highlights of the Report of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies
(Marty Lederman)
▻https://www.justsecurity.org/4903/highlights-prgict

Comment on the report by one of the writers

▻http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/inside-the-presidents-rev_b_4485016.html

A review of that report

Inside the White House N.S.A. report: the good and the bad
(John Cassidy, December 2013)
▻http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/inside-the-white-house-n-s-a-report-the-good-and-the-bad
I have some doubts about whether the report is as radical as these reactions might suggest. Ultimately, it is more about preserving the essentials of the current system, and making them more palatable rather than knocking them down. Still, it’s a fair bet to say that when the White House recruited the Review Group, in August, it didn’t expect their conclusions to be hailed by the A.C.L.U. The fact that they were says two things: the critics of the N.S.A., Snowden included, were right; and the members of the Review Group tackled a serious subject in a serious manner.

A critique of that report:
(Fred Fleiz, Clare Lopez, January 2014)

▻https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/011413RecordSub-Sessions.pdf

#NSA
#privacy
#Snowden_revelations

Russia Considers Returning Snowden to U.S. to ’Curry Favor’ With Trump : Official - NBC News

▻http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/russia-eyes-sending-snowden-u-s-gift-trump-official-n718921

Je ne sais pas si c’est vrai, mais ça mérite d’être vérifié.

http://media3.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2017_06/1609201/160706-federal-cases-cr_02_b2a62018901cd2e55c5ec64cc0f6b6f8.nbcnews-fp-1200-800.jpg

U.S. intelligence has collected information that Russia is considering turning over Edward Snowden as a “gift” to President Donald Trump — who has called the NSA leaker a “spy” and a “traitor” who deserves to be executed.

#snowden #trump
That’s according to a senior U.S. official who has analyzed a series of highly sensitive intelligence reports detailing Russian deliberations and who says a Snowden handover is one of various ploys to “curry favor” with Trump. A second source in the intelligence community confirms the intelligence about the Russian conversations and notes it has been gathered since the inauguration.

NSA Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

The contractor, Harold T. Martin, 51 y.o. worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, the same company as Edward Snowden.

▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/us/nsa-leak-booz-allen-hamilton.html

The F.B.I. secretly arrested a former National Security Agency contractor in August and, according to law enforcement officials, is investigating whether he stole and disclosed highly classified computer code developed by the agency to hack into the networks of foreign governments.

[...]

According to court documents, the F.B.I. discovered thousands of pages of documents and dozens of computers or other electronic devices at his home and in his car, a large amount of it classified. The digital media contained “many terabytes of information,” according to the documents. They also discovered classified documents that had been posted online, including computer code, officials said. Some of the documents were produced in 2014.

But more than a month later, the authorities cannot say with certainty whether Mr. Martin leaked the information, passed them on to a third party or whether he simply downloaded them.

#NSA

Snowden to Receive Truth-Telling Prize - NYTimes.com

▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/07/business/media/snowden-to-receive-truth-telling-prize.html?emc=edit_th_20140407&nl=todaysh

The Ridenhour prize for truth-telling will be given to Edward J. Snowden and Laura Poitras, the filmmaker and journalist who helped Mr. Snowden disclose his trove of documents on government surveillance.

The award, named for the Vietnam veteran who helped expose the My Lai massacre and later became an investigative journalist, is expected to be announced on Monday morning. It’s the latest honor for the reporting based on the top-secret material leaked by Mr. Snowden, who was a contractor for the National Security Agency.

snowden #prism

Unlocking Private Communications - Graphic - NYTimes.com

▻http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/05/us/unlocking-private-communications.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_201309

Unlocking Private Communications

Below are encryption tools the N.S.A. has had some success in cracking, according to documents provided by Edward J. Snowden describing the agency’s code-breaking capabilities.

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/v5em5wwxwg761uo/cryptage.png

In Secret, [ FISA ] Court Vastly Broadens Powers of N.S.A. - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/us/in-secret-court-vastly-broadens-powers-of-nsa.html?hp

La « Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court » est pratiquement devenue une « Cour Suprême parallèle »,

The 11-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISA court, was once mostly focused on approving case-by-case wiretapping orders. But since major changes in legislation and greater judicial oversight of intelligence operations were instituted six years ago, it has quietly become almost a parallel Supreme Court, serving as the ultimate arbiter on surveillance issues and delivering opinions that will most likely shape intelligence practices for years to come, the officials said.

une cour qui a décidé que dans de nombreux cas le quatrième amendement ne peut s’appliquer,

Last month, a former National Security Agency contractor, Edward J. Snowden, leaked a classified order from the FISA court, which authorized the collection of all phone-tracing data from Verizon business customers. But the court’s still-secret decisions go far beyond any single surveillance order, the officials said.

“We’ve seen a growing body of law from the court,” a former intelligence official said. “What you have is a common law that develops where the court is issuing orders involving particular types of surveillance, particular types of targets.”

In one of the court’s most important decisions, the judges have expanded the use in terrorism cases of a legal principle known as the “special needs” doctrine and carved out an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of a warrant for searches and seizures, the officials said.

The special needs doctrine was originally established in 1989 by the Supreme Court in a ruling allowing the drug testing of railway workers, finding that a minimal intrusion on privacy was justified by the government’s need to combat an overriding public danger. Applying that concept more broadly, the FISA judges have ruled that the N.S.A.’s collection and examination of Americans’ communications data to track possible terrorists does not run afoul of the Fourth Amendment, the officials said.

une cour qui a une interprétation très étendue de ses prérogatives...

That legal interpretation is significant, several outside legal experts said, because it uses a relatively narrow area of the law — used to justify airport screenings, for instance, or drunken-driving checkpoints — and applies it much more broadly, in secret, to the wholesale collection of communications in pursuit of terrorism suspects. “It seems like a legal stretch,” William C. Banks, a national security law expert at Syracuse University, said in response to a description of the decision. “It’s another way of tilting the scales toward the government in its access to all this data.”

... notamment une interprétation très étendue de ce qui relève de l’étranger,

“The definition of ‘foreign intelligence’ is very broad,” another former intelligence official said in an interview. “An espionage target, a nuclear proliferation target, that all falls within FISA, and the court has signed off on that.”

une cour qui n’auditionne que l’accusation (ce qui ressemble fortement aux frappes de drones basées sur le comportement- « signature strike »-, la victime pouvant être innocentée à titre posthume)

Unlike the Supreme Court, the FISA court hears from only one side in the case — the government — and its findings are almost never made public. A Court of Review is empaneled to hear appeals, but that is known to have happened only a handful of times in the court’s history, and no case has ever been taken to the Supreme Court. In fact, it is not clear in all circumstances whether Internet and phone companies that are turning over the reams of data even have the right to appear before the FISA court.

une cour qui a été créée a l’origine pour surveiller les abus du gouvernement en matière d’écoute...

Created by Congress in 1978 as a check against wiretapping abuses by the government, the court meets in a secure, nondescript room in the federal courthouse in Washington.

... mais qui ne refuse jamais rien à la NSA,

None of the requests from the intelligence agencies was denied, according to the court.

une cour qui s’insurge qu’on dise d’elle qu’elle n’est pas une cour mais une simple couverture...

The FISA judges have bristled at criticism that they are a rubber stamp for the government, occasionally speaking out to say they apply rigor in their scrutiny of government requests.

Why Snowden Asked Visitors in Hong Kong to Refrigerate Their Phones - NYTimes.com
▻http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/why-snowdens-visitors-put-their-phones-in-the-fridge

Before a dinner of pizza and fried chicken late Sunday in Hong Kong, Edward J. Snowden insisted that a group of lawyers advising him in the Chinese territory “hide their cellphones in the refrigerator of the home where he was staying, to block any eavesdropping,” as my colleague Keith Bradsher reported.

Why a refrigerator? The answer does not, as some might assume, have anything to do with temperature. In fact, it does not matter particularly if the refrigerator was plugged in. It is the materials that make up refrigerator walls that could potentially turn them into anti-eavesdropping devices.

“What you want to do is block the radio signals which could be used to transmit voice data, and block the audio altogether,” Adam Harvey, a designer specializing in countersurveillance products explained. Refrigerators made from metal with thick insulation could potentially do both, he says, regardless of whether it is mild or icy within.

Booz Allen Grew Rich on Government Contracts - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/10/us/booz-allen-grew-rich-on-government-contracts.html

#privatisation #porte_tournante et #conflit_d’intérêt

Edward J. Snowden’s employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, has become one of the largest and most profitable corporations in the United States almost exclusively by serving a single client: the government of the United States.

...

As evidence of the company’s close relationship with government, the Obama administration’s chief intelligence official, James R. Clapper Jr., is a former Booz Allen executive. The official who held that post in the Bush administration, John M. McConnell, now works for Booz Allen.

“The national security apparatus has been more and more privatized and turned over to contractors,” said Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group that studies federal government contracting. “This is something the public is largely unaware of, how more than a million private contractors are cleared to handle highly sensitive matters.”

It has gone so far, Ms. Brian said, that even the process of granting security clearances is often handled by contractors, allowing companies to grant government security clearances to private sector employees.