Revelations on the French Big Brother

If the revelations about the American espionage program Prism set off a chorus of indignation in Europe, France itself protested only weakly. For two excellent reasons: Paris already knew about it – and it”s doing exactly the same thing. Le Monde is able to disclose that the General Directorate of External Security (the DGSE, or special services) systematically collects the electromagnetic signals emitted by computers and telephones in France, and the flow of signals between France and countries abroad: the entirety of our communications are being spied on. All of our email messages, SMS messages, itemised phone bills and connections to FaceBook and Twitter are then stored for years.
If this immense data base was used just by the DGSE, which operates only outside French borders, it would already be illegal. But the six other intelligence services – among them the Central Directorate of Internal Intelligence, the customs service and the Tracfin anti-money-laundering service – delve into this base daily for the data of interest to them. This takes place discreetly, on the margins of legality and and beyond any serious control. Politicians are perfectly aware of it, but secrecy is the rule.

A CLANDESTINE SYSTEM

This French Big Brother, a little brother of the American services, is clandestine. Yet its existence appears discreetly in parliamentary documents. In a report issued on April 30, the eight deputies and senators in the parliamentary intelligence delegation note that “progress has been made since 2008 in the mutualisation of capabilities, notably regarding intelligence of electromagnetic origin, effected by the DGSE for the benefit of the entire intelligence community.”

The parliamentarians propose to go still further, to “reinforce the capabilities exploited by the DGSE” and to “consolidate the access of other services to the capabilities mutualised by the DGSE.”

THE TARGET: “METADATA”

The intelligence services are not looking for the content of the messages, but rather their context. It is more interesting to know who is speaking to whom than to record what they are saying. More than phone tapping, it”s the technical data – the “metadata” – that is being combed through.

The DGSE thus collects the itemised telephone bills of millions of subscribers – the names of the callers and the called, the place, the date, the duration, the weight of the message. The same goes for email (with the possibility of reading the title of the message), SMS messages, faxes… And all activity on the Internet that takes place via Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo… It’s what the parliamentary intelligence delegation very aptly calls “intelligence of electromagnetic origin”, the equivalent of the NSA’s SigInt (signals intelligence).

This metadata may be used to draw huge graphs of links among people based on their digital activity, and it’s been going on for years. The idea is to sketch out a kind of diary of each person’s activity on both telephone and computer. When an interesting group has been identified, it then becomes the responsibility of the intelligence services to use more intrusive techniques, like wire-tapping or police tails.

A SUPERCOMPUTER ON BOULEVARD MORTIER IN PARIS

This system is obviously of great value in the fight against terrorism. But it allows spying on anyone, any time. The DGSE collects billions of billions of units of data, which are compressed and stored on three floors in the basement of the DGSE headquarters on Boulevard Mortier in Paris.

Bernard Barbier, technical director of the DGSE since 2006, has spoken publicly about this system on two occasions – in 2010 at a symposium on the security of information and communications technology, and to the Association of Reservists in Encryption and Information Security (Arsci). His comments were reported on a few specialised sites, including Bug Brother, a blog by Jean-Marc Manach on lemonde.fr. Mr. Barbier spoke of “the development of a calculator based on FPGA” – Field Programmable Gate Array, or an integrated circuit that may be programmed for logical functions – that is “probably the biggest data processing center in Europe after the English”, capable of managing dozens of petaoctets of data, in other words dozens of millions of gigaoctets. The heat emitted by the computers is sufficient to heat all the buildings of the DGSE…

France is said to be among the Top 5 in computing capacity, after the United States, Britain, Israel and China. Mr. Barbier estimated the number of connections picked up by the system at 4 billion in 2013, with a flow of about 1 billion simultaneous communications. “Today, our targets are the networks of the public at large,” the director said at the time, “because they are used by terrorists.”

The DGSE heads “the strongest team of crypto-mathematicians” in France, penetrates computer systems – and of course collects millions of units of personal data.

“MUTUALISED” INTELLIGENCE

The other French intelligence services have access to this gigantic data base, which is soberly called the “mutualisation infrastructure”. They include the DGSE of course, but also the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DRM); the Directorate of Protection and Security of Defense (DPSD); the Central Directorate of Internal Security (DCRI); the Directorate of National Intelligence and Customs Investigations (DNRED); Tracfin, the anti-money-laundering unit; and even the small intelligence service of the police headquarters in Paris.

According to Senate reports, 80% of the resources of the technical management of the DGSE are used by these other intelligence services. Each supplies the name of the target of their investigation to the DGSE, which replies “hit” or “no hit” according to whether the target appears in the data base or not. Then the services of the DGSE make the metadata intelligible with the addition of classical intelligence.

Requests for consultation go far beyond just terrorism and the defence of France’s economic property. The very vague wording – protection of national security – makes it possible notably to identify the entourage of politicians at the highest level of the state, whatever their position and the nature of the links under surveillance.

ABSENCE OF MONITORING

The system is perfectly illegal – or “a-legal”, as the chief of one of the intelligence agencies puts it. According to the National Commission for Information Technology and Freedom (CNIL), the French agency in charge of protecting personal data, “The legal system governing security interceptions forbids the establishment by the intelligence services of a procedure like Prism.” It adds : “Each request for the requisition or interception of data must be targeted and may not be carried out massively in terms of the quantity or the time period. Such practices thus have no legal foundation.” The CNIL can neither confirm or deny the existence of the French system – it moveover does not have access to the files of the DGSE or the DCRI.

To be sure, there is a strict legal framework for security interceptions, which are to be authorised by the prime minister, on the recommendation of the National Consultative Commission for Security Interceptions, but this framework did not forecess the massive stocking of technical data by the secret services. “We’ve been operating is a zone of virtual autorisation for years”, confided a former chief of one of the services. “And each agency is quite content with this freedom, which is possible thanks to the legal vagueness surrounding metadata.” A parliamentarian confirmed that “a large portion of the electronic connections in France are effectively intercepted and stocked by the DGSE.” But, officially, the “mutualisation infrastructure” does not exist.

(Translated by Meg Bortin)
LE MONDE | 04.07.2013 à 17h06 • Mis à jour le 04.07.2013 à 17h24 |
Par Jacques Follorou et Franck Johannès

Find this story at 4 July 2013

© Le Monde.fr

Auch Frankreichs Geheimdienst zapft massenhaft Daten ab

Die Briten tun es, die Amerikaner sowieso – und jetzt stellt sich heraus: Auch die Franzosen greifen laut “Le Monde” massenhaft Kommunikationsdaten ab. Der Auslandsgeheimdienst späht systematisch Telefonate, Mails und soziale Netzwerke aus.

Paris – Frankreich hat womöglich seit Donnerstag seinen eigenen Datenskandal: Die Tageszeitung “Le Monde” berichtet auf ihrer Website, der französische Auslandsgeheimdienst DGSE greife in ähnlicher Art und Weise Kommunikationsdaten ab wie der US-Geheimdienst NSA. “Enthüllungen über den französischen Big Brother”, hat das Blatt seine Geschichte überschrieben.

Der DGSE fange Signale von Computern und Telefonen in Frankreich ab, betroffen seien auch Verbindungen zwischen Frankreich und dem Ausland. Zwar würden nicht die Inhalte von Gesprächen ausgeforscht, heißt es in dem Bericht. Es gehe vielmehr darum, eine Übersicht, eine Art Karte zu erstellen, wer mit wem kommuniziere.

Laut der Zeitung, die sich auf namentlich nicht genannte Geheimdienstquellen sowie offizielle Äußerungen von Geheimdienstmitarbeitern beruft, handelt es sich um illegale Eingriffe. E-Mails, SMS, Verbindungsdaten und die Nutzung von Facebook und Twitter etwa würden über Jahre gespeichert.

Das Vorgehen ähnelt dem der NSA, das der SPIEGEL enthüllt hatte. Demnach überwacht die NSA in Deutschland monatlich rund eine halbe Milliarde Telefonate, E-Mails oder SMS – systematisch wird ein Großteil der Telefon- und Internetverbindungsdaten kontrolliert und gespeichert. Außerdem überwachen die Amerikaner offenbar gezielt EU-Vertretungen. Auch in Großbritannien sorgte ein ähnlicher Abhörskandal für Aufsehen.

Eine Stellungnahme der DGSE gibt es bisher nicht. Laut “Le Monde” zweifelt die für die Kontrolle solcher Spionagemaßnahmen zuständige Kommission den Bericht allerdings an und versicherte, der Geheimdienst arbeite im Einklang mit den Gesetzen. Die einzige Einrichtung, die Kommunikationsdaten sammle, sei eine Regierungsstelle, die dem Premierminister unterstellt sei und deren Aufgabe es sei, Sicherheitslücken aufzuspüren.

Die Vorwürfe in dem Zeitungsbericht sind allerdings sehr konkret. Der Dienst DGSE horte die Daten im Keller seines Hauptquartiers in Paris, schreibt “Le Monde”. Die Wärme, die das Rechenzentrum ausstrahle, reiche aus, um das gesamte Gebäude zu heizen.

Die übrigen sieben französischen Geheimdienste, darunter Inlandsdienste, Experten für Geldwäsche und Zollfahnder, hätten Zugriff auf die Daten. Diesen anderen Diensten sei es dann freigestellt, sich in als verdächtig aufgefallene Kommunikation einzuklinken und etwa Gespräche abzuhören.

ffr/Reuters/Mitarbeit: Valérie Wagner
04. Juli 2013, 18:25 Uhr

Find this story at 4 July 2013

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013

France ‘has vast data surveillance’ – Le Monde report

France’s foreign intelligence service intercepts computer and telephone data on a vast scale, like the controversial US Prism programme, according to the French daily Le Monde.

The data is stored on a supercomputer at the headquarters of the DGSE intelligence service, the paper says.

The operation is “outside the law, and beyond any proper supervision”, Le Monde says.

Other French intelligence agencies allegedly access the data secretly.

It is not clear however whether the DGSE surveillance goes as far as Prism. So far French officials have not commented on Le Monde’s allegations.

The DGSE allegedly analyses the “metadata” – not the contents of e-mails and other communications, but the data revealing who is speaking to whom, when and where.

Connections inside France and between France and other countries are all monitored, Le Monde reports.

The paper alleges the data is being stored on three basement floors of the DGSE building in Paris. The secret service is the French equivalent of Britain’s MI6.

The operation is designed, say experts, to uncover terrorist cells. But the scale of it means that “anyone can be spied on, any time”, Le Monde says.

There is a continuing international furore over revelations that the US has been systematically seizing vast amounts of phone and web data.

The French government has sharply criticised the US spying, which allegedly included eavesdropping on official EU communications.

The scale of surveillance by America’s National Security Agency (NSA) emerged from classified intelligence documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The UK spy agency GCHQ is reported to run a similarly vast data collection operation, co-operating closely with the NSA.
4 July 2013 Last updated at 14:11 GMT

Find this story at 4 July 2013

BBC © 2013 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

Neue Snowden-Enthüllung; NSA-Verbindung bringt deutsche Dienste in Erklärungsnot

Der deutsche Geheimdienst wusste mehr über die Umtriebe der NSA in Deutschland als bisher bekannt. “Die stecken unter einer Decke”, sagt Edward Snowden in einem Interview im SPIEGEL. Auch gegen die Briten erhebt der Whistleblower Vorwürfe.

Seit Wochen hält Edward Snowden die Geheimdienstwelt mit immer neuen Enthüllungen in Atem. Ob die amerikanische NSA oder die GCHQ aus Großbritannien, Systeme wie Prism oder Tempora: Der Whistleblower lässt wohldosiert Skandalöses über die internationalen Schnüffeldienste durchsickern. In einem Interview, das der SPIEGEL in seiner neuen Ausgabe veröffentlicht, beschreibt Snowden die Nähe zwischen US- und deutschem Geheimdienst – und die Datensammelwut der britischen Spione.

In Deutschland hatten die Berichte über die umfangreichen Spionage-Tätigkeiten der USA für Überraschung und Entsetzen gesorgt – auch unter Politkern. Die Version von der vollkommenen Unwissenheit der Deutschen will Snowden so nicht gelten lassen. Im Gegenteil: Die NSA-Leute steckten “unter einer Decke mit den Deutschen”, erklärte der Whistleblower dem amerikanischen Chiffrier-Experten Jacob Appelbaum und der Dokumentarfilmerin Laura Poitras mit Hilfe verschlüsselter E-Mails, kurz bevor er weltweit bekannt wurde.

Snowden beschreibt die Zusammenarbeit der Geheimdienste detailliert. In der NSA gebe es für solche Kooperationen mit anderen Ländern eine eigene Abteilung, das sogenannte Foreign Affairs Directorate. Dabei enthüllt er ein bemerkenswertes Detail zum Schutz von Entscheidungsträgern: Die Zusammenarbeit werde so organisiert, dass Behörden anderer Länder “ihr politisches Führungspersonal vor dem ‘Backlash’ schützen” können, falls herauskommen sollte, wie “massiv die Privatsphäre von Menschen missachtet wird”, sagt der US-Amerikaner.

Nach SPIEGEL-Recherchen ist die Zusammenarbeit zwischen der NSA und dem Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) offenbar tatsächlich deutlich intensiver als bislang bekannt. So lieferte die NSA die Analyse-Tools für den Lauschangriff des BND auf ausländische Datenströme, die durch Deutschland führen. Im Fokus des BND steht unter anderem die Nahost-Strecke, über die Datenpakete etwa aus Krisenregionen verlaufen.

BND-Chef Gerhard Schindler hat den Mitgliedern des Parlamentarischen Kontrollgremiums die Zusammenarbeit mit der NSA bestätigt. (Mehr zum Thema finden Sie hier)

Doch nicht nur die Umtriebe des BND stehen im Fokus des Gesprächs mit Snowden. Auch über den britischen Geheimdienst Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) gibt der 30-Jährige weitere neue Details preis. So läuft in Großbritannien ein Versuch der Komplettdatenspeicherung. Das Tempora-System der Briten sei “der erste ‘ich speichere alles’-Ansatz (‘full take’) in der Geheimdienstwelt”, sagt Snowden.

Daten bleiben drei Tage im Pufferspeicher

Der Umfang dieses “Full Take”-Systems ist gewaltig. Im Rahmen von Tempora werden dem Whistleblower und dem “Guardian” zufolge Verbindungsdaten bis zu 30 Tage, aber auch alle Inhalte bis zu drei Tage lang gespeichert, in einem sogenannten Pufferspeicher. “Dieser Zwischenspeicher macht nachträgliche Überwachung möglich, ihm entgeht kein einziges Bit”.

Auf Rückfrage, ob man dieser Totalerfassung aller Internetkommunikation entgehen könne, antwortet er: “Na ja, wenn man die Wahl hat, sollte man niemals Informationen durch britische Leitungen oder über britische Server schicken.”

Entgehen könne man dem Zugriff durch die GCHQ nur, wenn man keine Informationen über britische Leitungen oder britische Server schicke, so Snowden. Deutsche Internet-Experten halten dies in der Praxis allerdings für kaum durchführbar.

Metadaten liefern Orientierung im Datenmeer

Der Versuch der Komplettdatenspeicherung ist bemerkenswert, war doch bisher im Zusammenhang mit den Abhörskandalen meist von Metadaten die Rede. Auch Snowden betont in der aktuellen Ausgabe des SPIEGEL noch einmal wie wichtig die Metadaten – etwa Telefonnummern, IP-Adressen und Verbindungszeiten – eigentlich sind. Und wie sie genutzt werden. Die Metadaten seien meist “wertvoller als der Inhalt der Kommunikation”, sagt Snowden.

Wer die Metadaten hat, weiß, wer wann mit wem kommuniziert hat. Auf dieser Basis lässt sich dann entscheiden, welche Datensätze, welche Kommunikationsinhalte man sich genauer ansehen möchte. “Die Metadaten sagen einem, was man vom breiten Datenstrom tatsächlich haben will”, so Snowden im SPIEGEL.

So wird nach und nach klar, wie die Überwachungsprogramme von NSA und GCHQ, Prism, Tempora und Boundless Informant zusammenwirken:

Die Metadaten-Abfrage gibt Analysten Hinweise, für welche Kommunikationen und Inhalte sie sich vielleicht interessieren könnten, dann, sagt Snowden sinngemäß, lässt sich per Knopfdruck festlegen, dass von einer Person oder einer Gruppe alle verfügbaren Inhalte im Volltext mitgeschnitten oder anderweitig erfasst werden. Zum Zielobjekt könne man aber auch “aufgrund des eigenen Facebook-Profils oder der eigenen E-Mails” werden.

07. Juli 2013, 19:31 Uhr

Find this story at 7 July 2013

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013

Merkel: NSA spying aided our security

Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed German secret services profited from the spying and tapping operations of their USA colleagues. But whistleblower Edward Snowden says the extent of the cooperation was hidden from politicians.

Der Spiegel magazine reported over the weekend that Snowden, currently hiding in a Moscow airport, had said the US secret service was “in bed with the Germans.”

His assertion was confirmed by Merkel who said of the spying programme: “We as Germans got a lot of information.” Speaking to a Christian Democratic Union party conference on Saturday she said terrorist attacks in Germany had been foiled thanks to timely information from the Americans.

“But this does not justify bugging each other’s embassies. And that is why I say bugging really doesn’t work between friends,” she added.

Referring to Monday’s talks between the European Union and the US about free trade agreements, opposition Social Democratic Party’s parliamentary party leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he expected “clear and dependable guarantees that there will be no further spying operations – before the assumption of negotiations.”

Snowden is in Moscow avoiding American authorities who want to prosecute him for leaking details of the National Security Agency (NSA) spying operation known as Prism, the exposure of which has caused international scandal.

He told US cipher expert Jacob Appelbaum and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras that security chiefs on both sides of the Atlantic had organized their cooperation so that they could protect their “political leadership from any backlash”, Der Spiegel reported.

The pair had sent Snowden questions shortly before he revealed the Prism operation in early June, but his answers have only now been published.

“We warn the others when someone who we want to get, uses one of their airports – and they deliver then to us,” said Snowden.

“The other authorities don’t ask us where we have the evidence from, and we don’t ask them anything.” This protects politicians from having to take any responsibility should it be revealed how “massively the privacy of people is being abused,” he said.

Published: 8 Jul 13 15:00 CET
The Local/DPA/hc

Find this story at 8 July 2013

© www.thelocal.de

NSA ‘in bed’ with German intelligence says US whistleblower Edward Snowden – and GCHQ operates a ‘full take’ data monitoring system

The fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden alleged on Sunday that the National Security Agency was “in bed together” with German intelligence despite claims by politicians in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition that they were shocked by the extent of American spying in Germany.

In an interview with Der Spiegel , Snowden claimed that the NSA provided German intelligence, with analysis tools to help the organisation monitor data flowing through Germany. “The NSA people are in bed together with the Germans,”” he told the magazine.

He added that the NSA’s foreign affairs directorate, which is responsible for relations with other countries, had set up a system whereby political leaders “could be insulated” from the backlash if spying became public and helped to play down how grievously they were “violating global privacy.”

Snowden also claimed to shed further light on the extent of British spying activities saying that the UK’s GCHQ was the only organisation which operated a so-called “full take” system of information monitoring which stored all data crossing its path for a total of 30 days.

The allegations seemed certain to cause further shock waves in Germany, where the issue of NSA spying is fast turning into a thorny political campaign issue in the run up to the September general election.

German MPs have expressed outrage at the extent of British and American spying on German internet and phone traffic and NSA spying on European Union offices. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Interior Minister is scheduled to fly to Washington this week to obtain an “explanation” from the US authorities.

Ms Merkel has herself complained that the extent of US and British spying is reminiscent of the Cold War and demanded that it be brought under control. However it is well known that German intelligence has been able to prevent planned terror attacks on German soil with the help of NSA intelligence.

Snowden is believed to be still holed up in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. He has been trying to find a country to give him sanctuary since arriving there from Hong Kong on June 23. However his Russian hosts appear to be becoming irked by his continued presence.

On Sunday Alexei Pushkov, an influential Russian MP who often speaks for the Kremlin said he would encourage Snowden to accept Venezuela’s recent offer of asylum, saying it was probably his “last chance”.

Tony Paterson
Sunday, 7 July 2013

Find this story at 7 July 2013

© independent.co.uk

Snowden Claims; NSA Ties Put German Intelligence in Tight Spot

The German foreign intelligence service knew more about the activities of the NSA in Germany than previously known. “They’re in bed together,” Edward Snowden claims in an interview in SPIEGEL. The whistleblower also lodges fresh allegations against the British.

For weeks now, officials at intelligence services around the world have been in suspense as one leak after another from whistleblower Edward Snowden has been published. Be it America’s National Security Agency, Britain’s GCHQ or systems like Prism or Tempora, he has been leaking scandalous information about international spying agencies. In an interview published by SPIEGEL in its latest issue, Snowden provides additional details, describing the closeness between the US and German intelligence services as well as Britain’s acquisitiveness when it comes to collecting data.

In Germany, reports of the United States’ vast espionage activities have surprised and upset many, including politicians. But Snowden isn’t buying the innocence of leading German politicians and government figures, who say that they were entirely unaware of the spying programs. On the contrary, the NSA people are “in bed together with the Germans,” the whistleblower told American cryptography expert Jacob Appelbaum and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras in an interview conducted with the help of encrypted emails shortly before Snowden became a globally recognized name.

Snowden describes the intelligence services partnerships in detail. The NSA even has a special department for such cooperation, the Foreign Affairs Directorate, he says. He also exposes a noteworthy detail about how government decision-makers are protected by these programs. The partnerships are organized in a way so that authorities in other countries can “insulate their political leaders from the backlash” in the event it becomes public “how grievously they’re violating global privacy,” the former NSA employee says.

Intensive Cooperation with Germany

SPIEGEL reporting also indicates that cooperation between the NSA and Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, is more intensive than previously known. The NSA, for example, provides “analysis tools” for the BND to monitor signals from foreign data streams that travel through Germany. Among the BND’s focuses are the Middle East route through which data packets from crisis regions travel.

BND head Gerhard Schindler confirmed the partnership during a recent meeting with members of the German parliament’s control committee for intelligence issues.

But it’s not just the BND’s activities that are the focus of the interview with Snowden.

The 30-year-old also provides new details about Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). He says that Britain’s Tempora system is the signal intelligence community’s first “full-take Internet buffer,” meaning that it saves all of the data passing through the country.

Data Remains Buffered for Three Days

The scope of this “full take” system is vast. According to Snowden and Britain’s Guardian newspaper, Tempora stores communications data for up to 30 days and saves all content for up to three days in a so-called Internet buffer. “It snarfs everything in a rolling buffer to allow retroactive investigation without missing a single bit,” Snowden says.

Asked if it is possible to get around this total surveillance of all Internet communication, he says: “As a general rule, so long as you have any choice at all, you should never route through or peer with the UK under any circumstances.”

In other words, Snowden says, one can only prevent GCHQ from accessing their data if they do not send any information through British Internet lines or servers. However, German Internet experts believe this would be almost impossible in practice.

Metadata Provide Orientation in Sea of Data

The attempt to conduct total data retention is noteworthy because most of the leaks so far in the spying scandal have pertained to so-called metadata. In the interview, Snowden reiterates just how important metadata — which can include telephone numbers, IP addresses and connection times, for example — really are. “In most cases, content isn’t as valuable as metadata,” Snowden says.

Those in possession of metadata can determine who has communicated with whom. And using the metadata, they can determine which data sets and communications content they would like to take a closer look at. “The metadata tells you what out of their data stream you actually want,” Snowden says.

It is becoming increasingly clear to recognize the way in which surveillance programs from the NSA and GCHQ — including Prism, Tempora and Boundless Informant — cooperate. The metadata provides analysts with tips on which communications and content might be interesting. Then, Snowden says, with the touch of a button they can then retrieve or permanently collect the full content of communications that have already been stored for a specific person or group, or they can collect future communications. But a person can also be “selected for targeting based on, for example, your Facebook or webmail content.”

07/07/2013 07:30 PM

Find this story at 7 July 2013

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013

Interview mit Edward Snowden; NSA liefert BND Werkzeuge für Lauschangriff

Welche Macht hat die US-Lauschbehörde NSA? Nach SPIEGEL-Recherchen ist die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Amerikanern und BND offenbar intensiver als bislang bekannt. Geheimdienst-Enthüller Edward Snowden sagt in einem Interview: Die NSA-Leute steckten “unter einer Decke mit den Deutschen”.

Hamburg – Die NSA kontrolliert das Internet, hat Edward Snowden enthüllt. Selbst die engen Verbündeten werden von den USA ausgespäht. Doch die Deutschen wollen davon nichts gewusst haben.

Die NSA-Leute steckten “unter einer Decke mit den Deutschen”, erklärt Edward Snowden in einem Interview, das der SPIEGEL in seiner neuen Ausgabe veröffentlicht. Nach Angaben des Geheimdienst-Enthüllers gebe es in der US-Lauschbehörde NSA das “Foreign Affairs Directorate”, das zuständig für Kooperationen mit anderen Ländern sei.

Die Zusammenarbeit werde so organisiert, dass Behörden anderer Länder “ihr politisches Führungspersonal vor dem ‘Backlash’ schützen” können, falls herauskommen sollte, wie “massiv die Privatsphäre von Menschen missachtet wird”, sagt der US-Amerikaner. Und weiter: Telekommunikationsfirmen würden mit der NSA kooperieren, Personen würden normalerweise “aufgrund etwa des Facebook-Profils oder der eigenen E-Mails als Zielobjekt markiert”.

Das Interview wurde von dem amerikanischen Chiffrier-Experten Jacob Appelbaum und der Dokumentarfilmerin Laura Poitras mit Hilfe verschlüsselter E-Mails geführt, kurz bevor Snowden als Whistleblower weltweit bekannt wurde.

Snowden sitzt wahrscheinlich noch immer im Transitbereich des Moskauer Flughafens fest. Inzwischen haben ihm Venezuela und Nicaragua Asyl angeboten. Doch seit der Offerte am Samstag habe man keinen Kontakt mit Snowden gehabt, sagte der Außenminister Venezuelas Elías Jaua.

BND-Chef bestätigt Zusammenarbeit mit der NSA

Nach SPIEGEL-Recherchen ist die Zusammenarbeit zwischen der NSA und dem Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) offenbar deutlich intensiver als bislang bekannt. So lieferte die NSA die Analyse-Tools für den Lauschangriff des BND auf ausländische Datenströme, die durch Deutschland führen. Im Fokus des BND steht unter anderem die Nahost-Strecke, über die Datenpakete etwa aus Krisenregionen verlaufen.

Insgesamt zieht der BND nach SPIEGEL-Recherchen aus fünf digitalen Knotenpunkten Informationen, die in Pullach analysiert werden. BND-Chef Gerhard Schindler bestätigte den Mitgliedern des Parlamentarischen Kontrollgremiums die Zusammenarbeit mit der NSA.

Das Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, das für Spionageabwehr zuständig ist, untersucht derzeit, wo die NSA Zugriff auf den Internetverkehr nimmt, der durch Deutschland geht. Eine erste Analyse ergab keine Klarheit, sagte der Präsident des Bundesamts für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), Hans-Georg Maaßen. “Wir haben bislang keine Erkenntnisse, dass Internetknotenpunkte in Deutschland durch die NSA ausspioniert wurden”, sagte Maaßen dem SPIEGEL.

Neuer Stützpunkt in Wiesbaden

Ein neuer Stützpunkt der US-Armee auf dem Boden der Bundesrepublik, den auch die NSA nutzen soll, ist mit den deutschen Behörden abgesprochen. In Wiesbaden wird derzeit ein neues “Consolidated Intelligence Center” errichtet. Für 124 Millionen Dollar entstehen abhörsichere Büros und ein Hightech-Kontrollzentrum. Sobald die Anlage in Wiesbaden fertiggestellt ist, wird ein bislang genutzter Komplex bei Darmstadt geschlossen.

Die Amerikaner vertrauen bei dem Neubau in Wiesbaden nur auf Landsleute. Die Baufirmen müssen aus den USA stammen und sicherheitsüberprüft sein. Und selbst die Materialien sollen aus den Vereinigten Staaten importiert und auf ihrem Weg nach Deutschland überwacht werden.

07. Juli 2013, 08:17 Uhr

Find this story at 7 July 2013

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about Echelon

Q – What is Project ECHELON?

ECHELON is the term popularly used for an automated global interception and relay system operated by the intelligence agencies in five nations: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (it is believed that ECHELON is the code name for the portion of the system that intercepts satellite-based communications). While the United States National Security Agency (NSA) takes the lead, ECHELON works in conjunction with other intelligence agencies, including the Australian Defence Signals Directorate (DSD). It is believed that ECHELON also works with Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the agencies of other allies of the United States, pursuant to various treaties. (1)

These countries coordinate their activities pursuant to the UKUSA agreement, which dates back to 1947. The original ECHELON dates back to 1971. However, its capabilities and priorities have expanded greatly since its formation. According to reports, it is capable of intercepting and processing many types of transmissions, throughout the globe. In fact, it has been suggested that ECHELON may intercept as many as 3 billion communications everyday, including phone calls, e-mail messages, Internet downloads, satellite transmissions, and so on. (2) The ECHELON system gathers all of these transmissions indiscriminately, then distills the information that is most heavily desired through artificial intelligence programs. Some sources have claimed that ECHELON sifts through an estimated 90 percent of all traffic that flows through the Internet. (3)

However, the exact capabilities and goals of ECHELON remain unclear. For example, it is unknown whether ECHELON actually targets domestic communications. Also, it is apparently very difficult for ECHELON to intercept certain types of transmissions, particularly fiber communications.

Q – How does ECHELON work?

ECHELON apparently collects data in several ways. Reports suggest it has massive ground based radio antennae to intercept satellite transmissions. In addition, some sites reputedly are tasked with tapping surface traffic. These antennae reportedly are in the United States, Italy, England, Turkey, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, and several other places. (4)

Similarly, it is believed that ECHELON uses numerous satellites to catch “spillover” data from transmissions between cities. These satellites then beam the information down to processing centers on the ground. The main centers are in the United States (near Denver), England (Menwith Hill), Australia, and Germany. (5)

According to various sources, ECHELON also routinely intercepts Internet transmissions. The organization allegedly has installed numerous “sniffer” devices. These “sniffers” collect information from data packets as they traverse the Internet via several key junctions. It also uses search software to scan for web sites that may be of interest. (6)

Furthermore, it is believed that ECHELON has even used special underwater devices which tap into cables that carry phone calls across the seas. According to published reports, American divers were able to install surveillance devices on to the underwater cables. One of these taps was discovered in 1982, but other devices apparently continued to function undetected. (7)
It is not known at this point whether ECHELON has been able to tap fiber optic phone cables.

Finally, if the aforementioned methods fail to garner the desired information, there is another alternative. Apparently, the nations that are involved with ECHELON also train special agents to install a variety of special data collection devices. One of these devices is reputed to be an information processing kit that is the size of a suitcase. Another such item is a sophisticated radio receiver that is as small as a credit card. (8)

After capturing this raw data, ECHELON sifts through them using DICTIONARY. DICTIONARY is actually a special system of computers which finds pertinent information by searching for key words, addresses, etc. These search programs help pare down the voluminous quantity of transmissions which pass through the ECHELON network every day. These programs also seem to enable users to focus on any specific subject upon which information is desired. (9)

Q – If ECHELON is so powerful, why haven’t I heard about it before?

The United States government has gone to extreme lengths to keep ECHELON a secret. To this day, the U.S. government refuses to admit that ECHELON even exists. We know it exists because both the governments of Australia (through its Defence Signals Directorate) and New Zealand have admitted to this fact. (10) However, even with this revelation, US officials have refused to comment.

This “wall of silence” is beginning to erode. The first report on ECHELON was published in 1988. (11) In addition, besides the revelations from Australia, the Scientific and Technical Options Assessment program office (STOA) of the European Parliament commissioned two reports which describe ECHELON’s activities. These reports unearthed a startling amount of evidence, which suggests that Echelon’s powers may have been underestimated. The first report, entitled “An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control,” suggested that ECHELON primarily targeted civilians.

This report found that:

The ECHELON system forms part of the UKUSA system but unlike many of the electronic spy systems developed during the cold war, ECHELON is designed for primarily non-military targets: governments, organisations and businesses in virtually every country. The ECHELON system works by indiscriminately intercepting very large quantities of communications and then siphoning out what is valuable using artificial intelligence aids like Memex to find key words. Five nations share the results with the US as the senior partner under the UKUSA agreement of 1947, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia are very much acting as subordinate information servicers.

Each of the five centres supply “dictionaries” to the other four of keywords, phrases, people and places to “tag” and the tagged intercept is forwarded straight to the requesting country. Whilst there is much information gathered about potential terrorists, there is a lot of economic intelligence, notably intensive monitoring of all the countries participating in the GATT negotiations. But Hager found that by far the main priorities of this system continued to be military and political intelligence applicable to their wider interests. Hager quotes from a “highly placed intelligence operatives” who spoke to the Observer in London. “We feel we can no longer remain silent regarding that which we regard to be gross malpractice and negligence within the establishment in which we operate.” They gave as examples. GCHQ interception of three charities, including Amnesty International and Christian Aid. “At any time GCHQ is able to home in on their communications for a routine target request,” the GCHQ source said. In the case of phone taps the procedure is known as Mantis. With telexes its called Mayfly. By keying in a code relating to third world aid, the source was able to demonstrate telex “fixes” on the three organisations. With no system of accountability, it is difficult to discover what criteria determine who is not a target. (12)

A more recent report, known as Interception Capabilities 2000, describes ECHELON capabilities in even more elaborate detail. (13) The release of the report sparked accusations from the French government that the United States was using ECHELON to give American companies an advantage over rival firms. (14) In response, R. James Woolsey, the former head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), charged that the French government was using bribes to get lucrative deals around the world, and that US surveillance networks were used simply to level the playing field. (15) However, experts have pointed out that Woolsey missed several key points. For example, Woolsey neglected to mention alleged instances of economic espionage (cited in Intelligence Capabilities 2000) that did not involve bribery. Furthermore, many observers expressed alarm with Woolsey’s apparent assertion that isolated incidents of bribery could justify the wholesale interception of the world’s communications. (16)

The European Parliament formed a temporary Committee of Enquiry to investigate ECHELON abuses. (17) In May 2001, members of this committee visited the United States in an attempt to discover more details about ECHELON. However, officials from both the NSA and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) canceled meetings that they had previously scheduled with the European panel. The committee’s chairman, Carlos Coelho, said that his group was “very disappointed” with the apparent rebuffs; in protest, the Parliamentary representatives returned home a day early. (18)

Afterwards, the committee published a report stating that ECHELON does indeed exist and that individuals should strongly consider encrypting their emails and other Internet messages. (19) However, the panel was unable to confirm suspicions that ECHELON is used to conduct industrial espionage, due to a lack of evidence. (20) Ironically, the report also mentioned the idea that European government agents should be allowed greater powers to decrypt electronic communications, which was criticized by some observers (including several members of the committee) as giving further support to Europe’s own ECHELON-type system. (21) The European Parliament approved the report, but despite the apparent need for further investigation, the committee was disbanded. (22) Nevertheless, the European Commission plans to draft a “roadmap” for data protection that will address many of the concerns aired by the EP panel. (23)

Meanwhile, after years of denying the existence of ECHELON, the Dutch government issued a letter that stated: “Although the Dutch government does not have official confirmation of the existence of Echelon by the governments related to this system, it thinks it is plausible this network exists. The government believes not only the governments associated with Echelon are able to intercept communication systems, but that it is an activity of the investigative authorities and intelligence services of many countries with governments of different political signature.” (24)These revelations worried Dutch legislators, who had convened a special hearing on the subject. During the hearing, several experts argued that there must be tougher oversight of government surveillance activities. There was also considerable criticism of Dutch government efforts to protect individual privacy, particularly the fact that no information had been made available relating to Dutch intelligence service’s investigation of possible ECHELON abuses.(25)

In addition, an Italian government official has begun to investigate Echelon’s intelligence-gathering efforts, based on the belief that the organization may be spying on European citizens in violation of Italian or international law. (26)

Events in the United States have also indicated that the “wall of silence” might not last much longer. Exercising their Constitutionally created oversight authority, members of the House Select Committee on Intelligence started asking questions about the legal basis for NSA’s ECHELON activities. In particular, the Committee wanted to know if the communications of Americans were being intercepted and under what authority, since US law severely limits the ability of the intelligence agencies to engage in domestic surveillance. When asked about its legal authority, NSA invoked the attorney-client privilege and refused to disclose the legal standards by which ECHELON might have conducted its activities. (27)

President Clinton then signed into law a funding bill which required the NSA to report on the legal basis for ECHELON and similar activities. (28) However, the subsequent report (entitled Legal Standards for the Intelligence Community in Conducting Electronic Surveillance) gave few details about Echelon’s operations and legality. (29)

However, during these proceedings, Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA), who has taken the lead in Congressional efforts to ferret out the truth about ECHELON, stated that he had arranged for the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee to hold its own oversight hearings.(30)

Finally, the Electronic Privacy Information Center has sued the US Government, hoping to obtain documents which would describe the legal standards by which ECHELON operates.(31)

Q – What is being done with the information that ECHELON collects?

The original purpose of ECHELON was to protect national security. That purpose continues today. For example, we know that ECHELON is gathering information on North Korea. Sources from Australia’s DSD have disclosed this much because Australian officials help operate the facilities there which scan through transmissions, looking for pertinent material. (32) Similarly, the Spanish government has apparently signed a deal with the United States to receive information collected using ECHELON. The consummation of this agreement was confirmed by Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique, who tried to justify this arrangement on security grounds. (33)

However, national security is not Echelon’s only concern. Reports have indicated that industrial espionage has become a part of Echelon’s activities. While present information seems to suggest that only high-ranking government officials have direct control over Echelon’s tasks, the information that is gained may be passed along at the discretion of these very same officials. As a result, much of this information has been given to American companies, in apparent attempts to give these companies an edge over their less knowledgeable counterparts. (34)

In addition, there are concerns that Echelon’s actions may be used to stifle political dissent. Many of these concerns were voiced in a report commissioned by the European Parliament. What is more, there are no known safeguards to prevent such abuses of power. (35)

Q – Is there any evidence that ECHELON is doing anything improper or illegal with the spying resources at its disposal?

ECHELON is a highly classified operation, which is conducted with little or no oversight by national parliaments or courts. Most of what is known comes from whistleblowers and classified documents. The simple truth is that there is no way to know precisely what ECHELON is being used for.

But there is evidence, much of which is circumstantial, that ECHELON (along with its British counterpart) has been engaged in significant invasions of privacy. These alleged violations include secret surveillance of political organizations, such as Amnesty International. (36) It has also been reported that ECHELON has engaged in industrial espionage on various private companies such as Airbus Industries and Panavia, then has passed along the information to their American competitors. (37) It is unclear just how far Echelon’s activities have harmed private individuals.

However, the most sensational revelation was that Diana, Princess of Wales may have come under ECHELON surveillance before she died. As reported in the Washington Post, the NSA admitted that they possessed files on the Princess, partly composed of intercepted phone conversations. While one official from the NSA claimed that the Princess was never a direct target, this disclosure seems to indicates the intrusive, yet surreptitious manner by which ECHELON operates. (38)

What is even more disquieting is that, if these allegations are proven to be true, the NSA and its compatriot organizations may have circumvented countless laws in numerous countries. Many nations have laws in place to prevent such invasions of privacy. However, there are suspicions that ECHELON has engaged in subterfuge to avoid these legal restrictions. For example, it is rumored that nations would not use their own agents to spy on their own citizens, but assign the task to agents from other countries. (39) In addition, as mentioned earlier, it is unclear just what legal standards ECHELON follows, if any actually exist. Thus, it is difficult to say what could prevent ECHELON from abusing its remarkable capabilities.

Q – Is everyone else doing what ECHELON does?

Maybe not everyone else, but there are plenty of other countries that engage in the type of intelligence gathering that ECHELON performs. These countries apparently include Russia, France, Israel, India, Pakistan and many others. (40) Indeed, the excesses of these ECHELON-like operations are rumored to be similar in form to their American equivalents, including digging up information for private companies to give them a commercial advantage.

However, it is also known that ECHELON system is the largest of its kind. What is more, its considerable powers are enhanced through the efforts of America’s allies, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Other countries don’t have the resources to engage in the massive garnering of information that the United States is carrying out.

Notes

1. Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information (An appraisal of technologies for political control), Part 4/4: The state of the art in Communications Intelligence (COMINT) of automated processing for intelligence purposes of intercepted broadband multi-language leased or common carrier systems, and its applicability to COMINT targeting and selection, including speech recognition, Ch. 1, para. 5, PE 168.184 / Part 4/4 (April 1999). See Duncan Campbell, Interception Capabilities 2000 (April 1999) (http://www.iptvreports.mcmail.com/stoa_cover.htm).

2. Kevin Poulsen, Echelon Revealed, ZDTV (June 9, 1999).

3. Greg Lindsay, The Government Is Reading Your E-Mail, TIME DIGITAL DAILY (June 24, 1999).

4. PE 168.184 / Part 4/4, supra note 1, Ch. 2, para. 32-34, 45-46.

5. Id. Ch. 2, para. 42.

6. Id. Ch. 2, para. 60.

7. Id. Ch. 2, para. 50.

8. Id. Ch. 2, para. 62-63.

9. An Appraisal of Technologies for Political Control, at 20, PE 166.499 (January 6, 1998). See Steve Wright, An Appraisal of Technologies for Political Control (January 6, 1998) (http://cryptome.org/stoa-atpc.htm).

10.Letter from Martin Brady, Director, Defence Signals Directorate, to Ross Coulhart, Reporter, Nine Network Australia 2 (Mar. 16, 1999) (on file with the author); see also Calls for inquiry into spy bases, ONE NEWS New Zealand (Dec. 28, 1999).

11. Duncan Campbell, Somebody’s listening, NEW STATESMAN, 12 August 1988, Cover, pages 10-12. See Duncan Campbell, ECHELON: NSA’s Global Electronic Interception, (last visited October 12, 1999) (http://jya.com/echelon-dc.htm).

12. PE 166.499, supra note 9, at 19-20.

13. PE 168.184 / Part 4/4, supra note 1.

14. David Ruppe, Snooping on Friends?, ABCNews.com (US) (Feb. 25, 2000) (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/dailynews/echelon000224.html).

15. R. James Woolsey, Why We Spy on Our Allies, WALL ST. J., March 17, 2000. See also CRYPTOME, Ex-CIA Head: Why We Spy on Our Allies (last visited April 11, 2000) (http://cryptome.org/echelon-cia2.htm).

16. Letter from Duncan Campbell to the Wall Street Journal (March 20, 2000) (on file with the author). See also Kevin Poulsen, Echelon Reporter answers Ex-CIA Chief, SecurityFocus.com (March 23, 2000) (http://www.securityfocus.com/news/6).

17. Duncan Campbell, Flaw in Human Rights Uncovered, HEISE TELEPOLIS, April 8, 2000. See also HEISE ONLINE, Flaw in Human Rights Uncovered (April 8, 2000) (http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/6724/1.html).

18.Angus Roxburgh, EU investigators ‘snubbed’ in US, BBC News, May 11, 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1325000/1325186.stm).

19.Report on the existence of a global system for intercepting private and commercial communications (ECHELON interception system), PE 305.391 (July 11, 2001) (available in PDF or Word format at http://www2.europarl.eu.int).

20. Id.; see also E-mail users warned over spy network, BBC News, May 29, 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1357000/1357264.stm).

21. Steve Kettman, Echelon Furor Ends in a Whimper, Wired News, July 3, 2001 (http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,44984,00.html).

22. European Parliament resolution on the existence of a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications (ECHELON interception system) (2001/2098(INI)), A5-0264/2001, PE 305.391/DEF (Sept. 5, 2001) (available at http://www3.europarl.eu.int); Christiane Schulzki-Haddouti, Europa-Parlament verabsciedet Echelon-Bericht, Heise Telepolis, Sept. 5, 2001 (available at http://www.heise.de/tp/); Steve Kettman, Echelon Panel Calls It a Day, Wired News, June 21, 2001 (http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,44721,00.html).

23. European Commission member Erkki Liikanen, Speech regarding European Parliament motion for a resolution on the Echelon interception system (Sept. 5, 2001) (transcript available at http://europa.eu.int).

24. Jelle van Buuren, Dutch Government Says Echelon Exists, Heise Telepolis, Jan. 20, 2001 (available at http://www.heise.de/tp/).

25. Jelle van Buuren, Hearing On Echelon In Dutch Parliament, Heise Telepolis, Jan. 23, 2001 (available at http://www.heise.de/tp/).

26. Nicholas Rufford, Spy Station F83, SUNDAY TIMES (London), May 31, 1998. See Nicholas Rufford, Spy Station F83 (May 31, 1998) (http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/98/05/31/stifocnws01003.html?999).

27. H. Rep. No. 106-130 (1999). See Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, Additional Views of Chairman Porter J. Goss (http://www.echelonwatch.org/goss.htm).

28. Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, Pub. L. 106-120, Section 309, 113 Stat. 1605, 1613 (1999). See H.R. 1555 Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000 (Enrolled Bill (Sent to President)) http://www.echelonwatch.org/hr1555c.htm).

29. UNITED STATES NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, LEGAL STANDARDS FOR THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY IN CONDUCTING ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE (2000) (http://www.fas.org/irp/nsa/standards.html).

30. House Committee to Hold Privacy Hearings, (August 16, 1999) (http://www.house.gov/barr/p_081699.html).

31. ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER, PRESS RELEASE: LAWSUIT SEEKS MEMOS ON SURVEILLANCE OF AMERICANS; EPIC LAUNCHES STUDY OF NSA INTERCEPTION ACTIVITIES (1999). See also Electronic Privacy Information Center, EPIC Sues for NSA Surveillance Memos (last visited December 17, 1999) (http://www.epic.org/open_gov/foia/nsa_suit_12_99.html).

32. Ross Coulhart, Echelon System: FAQs and website links, (May 23, 1999).

33. Isambard Wilkinson, US wins Spain’s favour with offer to share spy network material, Sydney Morning Herald, June 18, 2001 (http://www.smh.com.au/news/0106/18/text/world11.html).

34. PE 168.184 / Part 4/4, supra note 1, Ch. 5, para. 101-103.

35. PE 166.499, supra note 9, at 20.

36. Id.

37. PE 168.184 / Part 4/4, supra note 1, Ch. 5, para. 101-102; Brian Dooks, EU vice-president to claim US site spies on European business, YORKSHIRE POST, Jan. 30, 2002 (available at http://yorkshirepost.co.uk).

38. Vernon Loeb, NSA Admits to Spying on Princess Diana, WASHINGTON POST, December 12, 1998, at A13. See Vernon Loeb, NSA Admits to Spying on Princess Diana, WASHINGTON POST, A13 (December 12, 1998) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/dec98/diana12.htm).

39. Ross Coulhart, Big Brother is listening, (May 23, 1999).

40. PE 168.184 / Part 4/4, supra note 1, Ch. 1, para. 7.

Find this story at 2000

© ACLU

24 February 2000: Link to Presentation and Analysis Volume 1/5, by Peggy Becker, October 1999. Volume 1 renumbers the reports below.

20 August 1999
Source: Hardcopy of 61 pages. Thanks to Sten Linnarsson.

Find this story at 2000 part 1
Find this story at 2000 part 2
Find this story at 2000 part 3
Find this story at 2000 part 4
Campbell’s report: http://cryptome.org/jya/ic2000.zip (981KB)
http://www.fas.org/irp/program/process/docs/98-14-01-2en.pdf

This is part 1 of 4 of “Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information (an appraisal of technologies of political control).”

Part 2: “The legality of the interception of electronic communications: A concise survey of the principal legal issues and instruments under international, European and national law,” by Prof. Chris Elliott: http://cryptome.org/dst-2.htm

Part 3: “Encryption and cryptosystems in electronic surveillance: a survey of the technology assessment issues,” by Dr. Franck Leprévost: http://cryptome.org/dst-3.htm

Part 4: “The state of the art in Communications Intelligence (COMINT) of automated processing for intelligence purposes of intercepted broadband multi-language leased or common carrier systems, and its applicability to COMINT targeting and selection, including speech recognition,” by Duncan Campbell: http://www.iptvreports.mcmail.com/stoa_cover.htm [dead]

Campbell’s report: http://cryptome.org/jya/ic2000.zip (981KB)

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL OPTIONS ASSESSMENT
STOA
DEVELOPMENT OF SURVEILLANCE
TECHNOLOGY AND RISK OF ABUSE
OF ECONOMIC INFORMATION
(An appraisal of technologies of political control)

Part 1/4

The perception of economic risks arising from the potential vulnerability
of electronic commercial media to interception

Survey of opinions of experts
Interim Study

Working document for the STOA Panel

Luxembourg, May 1999 PE 168.184/Int.St./part 1/4
Directorate General for Research

Cataloguing data:

Title:

Part 1/4 of:
DEVELOPMENT OF SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY AND
RISK OF ABUSE OF ECONOMIC INFORMATION
(An appraisal of technologies of political control)

Workplan Ref.: EP/IV/B/STOA/98/1401

Publisher: European Parliament
Directorate General for Research
Directorate A
The STOA Programme

Author: Mr Nikos BOGONIKOLOS – ZEUS E.E.I.G.

Editor: Mr Dick HOLDSWORTH, Head of STOA Unit

Date: May 1999

PE number: PE 168. 184/Int.St./1/4

This document is a working Document for the ‘STOA Panel’. It is not an official publication of STOA.

This document does not necessarily represent the views of the European Parliament.

CONTENTS
PART A: OPTIONS
Introduction
General overview of the outcome of the survey (interim stage)
Views on privacy collected from the survey
General privacy issue
The market for privacy
The role of industry
The need for European legislation

Options for action on surveillance and privacy
PART B: ARGUMENTS AND EVIDENCE
General
Examples of Abuse of Economic Information
PART C: TECHNICAL FILE
1. INTRODUCTION
Surveillance and Privacy
Dataveillance Techniques
Risks Inherent in Data Surveillance
Controls

2. SURVEILLANCE: TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES – Current technologies
1. Visual Surveillance
2. Audio Surveillance
3. Phone Tapping and Encryption
4. Voice and Word Pattern Recognition
5. Proximity Smart Cards
6. Transmitter Location
7. E-mail at Workplace
8. Electronic Databases
9. The Internet

3. THE USE OF SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS FOR THE TRANSMISSION AND COLLECTION OF ECONOMIC INFORMATION
3.1 CALEA System
3.2 ECHELON Connection
3.3 Inhabitant identification Schemes

4. THE NATURE OF ECONOMIC INFORMATION SELECTED BY SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS
A. From telecommunication systems
B. From new information technologies (Internet)
C. Some examples of data collection on the Internet

5. PROTECTION FROM ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE
A. Encryption (Cryptography)
Private sector initiatives

B. Key – recovery
Encryption and the global information infrastructure
Key-Recovery: Requirements and proposals

6. SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS IN LEGAL AND REGULATORY CONTEXT
A. Privacy regulation
Multinational data protection measures
Data protection directive in Europe
Privacy regulation in the United States

B. Protection of Privacy in the telecommunications sector

C. Cryptography
Cryptography policy in USA
Cryptography policy guidelines from OECD
E. U. cryptography policy
Other national and international activities related to cryptography policy

D. Key recovery

E. European Initiatives
DLM-FORUM- Electronic Records
Promoting Safe Use of Internet
REFERENCES

PART A: OPTIONS

Introduction

The present study, ‘Development of surveillance technology and risk of abuse of economic information’ presents the interim results from a survey of the opinions of experts, together with additional research and analytical material by the authors. It has been conducted by ZEUS E.E.I.G. as part of a technology assessment project on this theme initiated by STOA in 1998 at the request of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs of the European Parliament. This STOA project is a follow-up to an earlier one entitled: “An appraisal of technologies of political control” conducted for the same Committee. The earlier project resulted in an Interim Study (PE 166.499) written by OMEGA Foundation, Manchester, and published by STOA on January 1998 and later updated (September 1998).

In the earlier study it was reported that within Europe all fax, e-mail and telephone messages are routinely intercepted by means of what is called the ECHELON global surveillance system. The monitoring was said to be “routine and indiscriminate”. The ECHELON system formed part of the UKUSA system, but unlike many of the electronic spy systems developed during the cold war, ECHELON was said to be designed for primarily non-military targets: governments, organisations and businesses in virtually every country.

In the present study the authors were requested to investigate the use of surveillance technology systems, for the collection and possible abuse of sensitive economic information.

The principal method selected was a procedure of data collection and processing based on a modified DELPHI method (to be referred to here as “the survey”). Under this method, a list of potential sources of data was prepared. These were some 49 experts from universities, industrial and commercial undertakings in the informations and telecommunications technology sector, as well as a smaller number of persons in international or governmental organisations. The experts were drawn from 11 Member States of the European Union, plus Cyprus, Norway and Switzerland.

The next step was the collection of the data. This was mostly achieved by direct interviews of the experts, with the use of a questionnaire. The views (data) were processed and a convergence examination performed. The convergence procedure was based on a recursive approach for the exclusion of the non-reliable data. The last step was the drawing of the analytical results.

General overview of the outcome of the survey

The predominant view among the experts was that since nowadays almost all economic information is exchanged through electronic means (telephone, fax, e-mail), and, in addition, all digital telecommunication devices and switches have enhanced wiretapping capabilities, for these reasons they suggested that we must focus on the protection of the data when transmitted (using encryption products), on the use of government-approved encryption products and on the adoption of common standards concerning encryption and key-recovery products. The position could be summed up in the statement that ‘since it is difficult to prove that economic information has been captured by ECHELON system and passed on by the NSA, we have to consider privacy protection in a global international networked society’.

In summary, therefore, we see that two perceptions of this question emerge: (1) a concern about the possible threat to privacy and economic and civil rights potentially posed by global clandestine electronic surveillance systems operated by large and powerful secret government agencies, and (2) anxiety about the problems of commercial and personal privacy which arise now that so much commercial and other communications traffic is conducted over the Internet. Managers of businesses engaged in electronic commerce may perhaps be concerned about global clandestine surveillance systems: what is certain is that they are worried in a more familiar way about threats to commercial security posed by the nature of the new electronic business media and their possible vulnerability to interception by competitors and fraudsters.

Reflecting the feedback from the survey, the present study tends to reflect Perception 2, whereas the earlier one of 1998 tended to reflect Perception 1.

Advances in information and communication technologies have fostered the development of complex national and international networks which enable thousands of geographically dispersed users to distribute, transmit, gather and exchange all kinds of data. Transborder electronic exchanges — private, professional, industrial and commercial — have proliferated on a global scale and are bound to intensify among businesses and between businesses and consumers, as electronic commerce develops.

At the same time developments in digital computing have increased the capacity for accessing, gathering, recording, processing, sorting, comparing and linking alphanumeric, voice and image data. This substantial growth in international networks and the increase in economic data processing have arisen the need at securing privacy protection in transborder data flows.

Today, it is not necessary to define new principles for the protection of data (and privacy) in an expanding global electronic environment. It is necessary to define the appropriate means of putting the established principles into practice, particularly on the information and communication networks.

An active education strategy may be one of the ways to help achieve on-line and privacy protection and to give all actors the opportunities to understand their common interests.

Common technological solutions can assist in implementing privacy and data protection guidelines in global information networks. The general optimism about technological solutions, the pressure to collect economic information and the need for political and social policy decisions to ensure privacy must be considered.

The growth in international networks and the increase in economic data processing have arisen the need at securing privacy protection in transborder data flows and especially the use of contractual solutions. Global E-Commerce has changed the nature of retailing. There were great cultural and legal differences between countries affecting attitudes to the use of sensitive data (economic or personal) and the issue of applicable law in global transaction had tope resolved. Contracts might bridge the gab between those with legislation and the others.

Since Internet symbolised global commerce, faced with a rapid expansion in the numbers of transactions, there is a need to define a stable lasting framework for business. Internet is changing profound the markets and adjusting new contracts. To that reality is a complex problem.

Views on privacy collected from the survey

In this section the experts’ views on the various privacy issues are reported. The information was mostly collected by direct interviews of the experts, based on a predefined questionnaire.

General privacy issues

Privacy can be a contentious subject because it means different things to different people. The definition given is: “Privacy is the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves how, when and to what extent information about them is communicated to others”
A clear problem expressed is that in an electronic environment, it becomes hard to differentiate between a private and public place and therefore what should be protected and what should not.
It was argued that is unreasonable for the society to subsidise the cost of individuals to maintain their privacy, pointing out that most people will choose utility over security (and consequently privacy)
It was suggested that privacy in many ways sacrifices other goods (time, effort and energy among them) in order to obtain it.
Three basic tools necessary for privacy protection were outlined: notice (to the data supplier), consent (to the consumer), and accountability.
Although accountability may be essential to ensuring privacy, it unfortunately conflicts with the anonymity, privacy implies. For any commerce to take place on the Internet, therefore, some level of anonymity and therefore privacy must be sacrificed. The question to be answered is ” how much and who will decide”.

The market for privacy

When the European Commission adopted the privacy directive (95/46/EC), it stated that privacy protection is a central precondition to consumers’ acceptance of electronic commerce. Accordingly, a critical issue experts argued, was whether there was a “market failure’ in the electronic environment that required some sort of government intervention to ensure data privacy.
Some experts responded that data privacy is not purely a public good, and so at some point someone will have a market incentive to protect it. Some corporations that have tried to market their strong privacy protection have yet to see any results and have concluded that: “privacy doesn’t sell”. Other industries have marketed privacy successfully (such as the cellular telephone industry) which could mean that the public demands for privacy are forthcoming and will eventually be profitable.
They feel that a question to be answered is: Who governs the responsibility of the information collector, or does society have to impose a sense of responsibility?”

The role of industry

Most experts expressed the view that the information industry should be primarily self-regulated: the industry is changing too rapidly for government legislative solutions, and most corporations are not simply looking at National or European but at global markets, which national governments cannot regulate.
Indeed several experts expressed the fear that any European attempt to allow USA to oversee (via global surveillance systems) data would lead to abuses by the government or other competitive companies.
They noted that many companies (such as Citibank) already inform consumers and clients that, unless told otherwise, they will disclose information to their affiliates. They suggested that a simple seal on the home page of a Web site, declaring that a company adheres to certain industry privacy standards might cease the fears of the public and offer some level of accountability.
Alternatively, they suggested that the media could act as an effective watchdog, informing consumers and companies of what information is being collected about them and how that information is being used.
They also noted that multinational companies could better negotiate for themselves across national boundaries than governments can. Electronic commerce is unlikely to gain popularity until the issues of notice, consent and recourse have been resolved. The market will force companies wishing to participate in this medium to address and solve these concerns.

The need for European legislation

Experts took the view that the European Parliament must now ask how, in a world of the Internet, one reconciles the objectives of protecting both: privacy and free flow of information.
In recent years there have been disclosures that unauthorised individuals have examined financial information from the Internal Revenue Service in USA. Several experts pointed to the flap over the decision by the Social Security Administration in USA to provide companies account information on-line. Each of these examples suggests that protecting data privacy may be a great challenge for the European Parliament.
Experts agreed that the European Parliament should play a role in creating a standard for disclosure. Several experts went further and argued the need of a privacy agency within the European Union to act as an ombudsman and to represent privacy interests, so that in debates between European Union and USA there is someone whose responsibility would be to protect privacy.
Whatever several experts believe the appropriate role for national governments to be in ensuring privacy in an electronic environment, some “private regulation” is already occurring on the Internet by the computer engines, who write code and decide computer standards. In fact experts suggested that when encryption software becomes ubiquitous it will push Internet commerce because it allows for potentially anonymous transactions, which will solve privacy issues by default.
It was pointed out that a group of high-tech companies in co-operation with standardisation organisations should agree on a web-based standard that would allow companies and consumers to interact with data collectors and inform them of what information they would be comfortable having disclosed to other parties.

Options for action on surveillance and privacy

The policy options for consideration by the committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs of the European Parliament which emerged from the survey are:

Authorities in the EU and Member States should:

engage in a dialogue involving the private sector and individual users of networks in order to learn about their needs for implementing the privacy guidelines in the global network;

undertake an examination of private sector technical initiatives;

encourage the development of applications within global networks, of technological solutions that implement the privacy principles and uphold the right of users, businesses and consumers for protection of their privacy in the electronic environment.
Drafting methods for enforcing codes of conduct and privacy statements ranging from standardisation, labelling and certification in the global environment through third-party audit to formal enforcement by a regulatory body.
Definitions of the transactions which must remain anonymous, and technical capabilities for providing anonymity need to be specified.
Enforcement for the adoption of adequate standards (cryptography and key encryption) from all E.U. member states. Multilateral agreements with other countries could then be negotiated.
Drafting of common guidelines of credit information use (in each member state of the E.U. different restriction policies exist). It must be dear how those restrictions could apply to a globally operating credit reference agency.
Drafting of common specifications for cryptography systems and government access key recovery systems, which must be compatible with large scale, economical, secure cryptographic systems.
Enforcement for the adoption of special authorisation schemes for Information Society Services and supervision of their activities by National Authorisation Bodies.
Drafting of a common responsibilities framework for on-line service providers, who transmit and store third party information. This could be drafted and supervised by National PTTs.
The European Parliament should examine critically proposals from the US for the elimination of cryptography and the adoption of encryption controls supervised by US Agencies.
Annual statistics and reporting on abuse of economic information by any means must be reported to the Parliament of each member state of the E.U.
Measures for encouraging the formal education systems of each member state of the E.U. or the appropriate European Training Institute/Organisation to take up the general task of educating users in the technology and their rights.

PART B: ARGUMENTS AND EVIDENCE

General

Nowadays almost all economic information is exchanged through electronic means (telephone, fax, e-mail). In addition, all digital telecommunication devices and switches have enhanced wiretapping capabilities. As a conclusion we have to consider privacy protection in a global international networked society. And when we speak about electronic protection and privacy in the exchange of economic information, we actually speak for electronic commerce over the Internet.

The information society promises economic and social benefits for all: citizens, companies and governments. Advances in information and communication technologies have fostered the proliferation of private, professional, industrial and commercial transborder electronic exchanges on a global scale which are bound to intensify among businesses and between businesses and consumers as electronic commerce develops. New methods for processing the vast accumulation of data -such as data mining techniques- make it possible, on the basis of demographic data, credit information, details of on-line transactions etc, to identify new kinds of purchasing patterns or unusual relationships.

Indeed, compliance with rules governing the protection of privacy and personal data is crucial to establishing confidence in electronic transactions, and particularly in Europe, which has traditionally been heavily regulated in this area. The development of the global information society makes the convergence of government policies, the transparency of rules and regulations and their effective implementation on economic and social life. In particular, in the context of electronic commerce, the development of on-line commercial activities hinges to a large extent, not only on the faith consumers have in business in terms of guaranteed product delivery or security payment systems, but also on the confidence that users and consumers will have in the ways that businesses handle their personal data.

To operate with confidence on the global networks, most consumers need assurance that their on-line activities and electronic transactions will not be collected or used without their knowledge or made available to parties other than their initial correspondents. Neither linked to other data about them in order to compile behavioural profiles without their consent.

The importance of information and communication systems for society and the global economy is intensifying with the increasing value and quantity of data that is transmitted and stored on those systems. At the same time those systems and data are also increasingly vulnerable to a variety of threats such as unauthorised access and use, misappropriation, alteration and destruction. Proliferation of computers, increased computing power, interconnectivity, decentralisation, growth of networks and the number of users, as well as the convergence of information and communication technologies, while enhancing the utility of these systems, also increase system invulnerability.

Cryptography is an important component of secure information and communication systems and a variety of application have been developed that incorporate cryptographic methods to provide data security.

Although there are legitimate governmental, commercial and individual needs and uses for cryptography, it may also be used by individuals or entities for illegal activities, which can affect public safety, national security, the enforcement of laws, business interests, consumers interests or privacy. Governments together with industry and the general public, are challenged to develop balanced policies to address these issues.

Cryptography uses an algorithm to transform data in order to render it unintelligible to anyone who does not possess certain secret information (the cryptographic “key”), necessary for decryption of the data. Within the new concept of cryptography, rather than sharing one secret key, the new design uses two mathematically related keys for each communication party: a “public key” that is disclosed to the public and a corresponding “private key”, that is kept secret. A message that is encrypted with a public key can only be decrypted by the corresponding private key.

An important application for public key cryptography is “digital signature”, which can be used to verify the integrity of data or the authenticity of the sender of data. In this case, the private key is used to “sign” a message, while the corresponding public key is used to verify a “signed” message.

Public key cryptography plays an important role in developing information infrastructure. Much of the interest in information and communication networks and technologies centres on their potential to accommodate electronic commerce; however open networks such as the Internet present significant challenges for making enforceable electronic contracts and secure payments.

Since Electronic Commerce on one hand is one of the key strategies of the European Union and the privacy protection on the other hand, one of its main principles, E.U. in 1998 released three “key” working documents:

Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on certain legal aspects of Electronic Commerce in the internal market [ COM(1998) 586 final].
Proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on a common framework for electronic signatures [COM (1998)297 final].
Ensuring security and trust in electronic communication: “Towards a European framework for digital signatures and Encryption” [COM(1997) 503 final].

Increasing the number of people with authorised access to the critical infrastructure and to business data, will increase the likelihood of attack, whether through technical means, by exploitation of mistakes or through corruption. Further “key-recovery” requirements to the extent that they made encryption can have the effect of discouraging or delaying the deployment of cryptography in increasingly vulnerable computing and communication networks.

As the Internet and other communications systems reach further into everyday lives, national security, law enforcement and individual privacy have become perilously intertwined. Governments want to restrict the free flow of information; software producers are seeking ways to ensure consumers are not bugged from the very moment of purchase. The US is behind a world-wide effort to limit individual privacy and enhance the capability of its intelligence services to eavesdrop on personal conversations. The campaign has had two legal strategies: the first made it mandatory for all digital telephone switches, cellular and satellite phones and all developing communication technologies to build in surveillance capabilities; the second sought to limit the dissemination of software that contains encryption, a technique which allows people to scramble their communications and files to prevent others from reading them. The first effort to heighten surveillance opportunities was to force telecommunications companies to use equipment designed to include enhanced wiretapping capabilities. The end goal was to ensure that the US and its allied intelligence services could easily eavesdrop on telephone networks anywhere in the world. In the late 1980s, in a programme known internally as ‘Operation Root Canal’, US law enforcement officials demanded that telephone companies alta their equipment to facilitate the interception of messages. The companies refused but, after several years of lobbying, Congress enacted the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) in 1994.

CALEA requires that terrestrial carriers, cellular phone services and other entities ensure that all their ‘ equipment, facilities or services’ are capable of expeditiously. . . enabling the government…to intercept… all wire and oral communications carried by the carrier…concurrently with their transmission.’ Communications must be interceptable in such a form that they could be transmitted to a remote government facility.

Manufacturers must work with industry and law enforcement officials to ensure that their equipment meets federal standards. A court can fine a company US$10,000 per day for each product that does not comply.

The passage of CALEA has been controversial but its provisions have yet to be enforced due to FBI efforts to include even more rigorous regulations under the law. These include the requirement that cellular phones allow for location-tracking on demand and that telephone companies provide capacity for up to 50,000 simultaneous wiretaps.

While the FBI lobbied Congress and pressured US companies into accepting a tougher CALEA, it also leaned on US allies to adopt it as an international standard. In 1991, the FBI held a series of secret meetings with EU member states to persuade them to incorporate CALEA into European law. The plan, according to an EU report, was to ‘call for the Western World (EU, US and allies) to agree to norms and procedures and then sell their products to Third World countries. Even if they do not agree to interception orders, they will find their telecommunications monitored by the UK-USA signals intelligence network the minute they use the equipment.’ The FBI’s efforts resulted in an EU Council of Ministers resolution that was quietly adopted in January 1995, but not publicly released until 20 months later. The resolution’s text is almost word for word identical to the FBI’s demands at home. The US government is now pressuring the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to adopt the standards globally.

The second part of the strategy was to ensure that intelligence and police agencies could understand every communication they intercepted. They attempted to impede the development of cryptography and other security measures, fearing that these technologies would reduce their ability to monitor the emissions of foreign governments and to investigate crime.

These latter efforts have not been successful. A survey by the Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC) found that most countries have either rejected domestic controls or not addressed the issue at all. The GILC found that ‘many countries, large and small, industrialised and developing, seem to be ambivalent about the need to control encryption technologies’.

The FBI and the National Security Agency (NSA) have instigated efforts to restrict the availability of encryption world-wide. In the early 1970s, the NSA’s pretext was that encryption technology was ‘born classified’ and, therefore, its dissemination fell into the same category as the diffusion of A-bomb materials. The debate went underground until 1993 when the US launched the Clipper Chip, an encryption device designed for inclusion in consumer products. The Clipper Chip offered the required privacy, but the government would retain a ‘pass-key’ – anything encrypted with the chip could be read by government agencies.

Behind the scenes, law enforcement and intelligence agencies were pushing hard for a ban on other forms of encryption. In a February 1993 document, obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), they recommended ‘Technical solutions, such as they are, will only work if they are incorporated into all encryption products’.

To ensure that this occurs, legislation mandating the use of government-approved encryption products, or adherence to government encryption criteria, is required.’ The Clipper Chip was widely criticised by industry, public interest groups, scientific societies and the public and, though it was officially adopted, only a few were ever sold or used.

From 1994 onwards, Washington began to woo private companies to develop an encryption system that would provide access to keys by government agencies. Under the proposals – variously known as ‘key escrow’, ‘key recovery’ or ’trusted third parties’ – the keys would be held by a corporation, not a government agency, and would be designed by the private sector, not the NSA. The systems, however, still entailed the assumption of guaranteed access to the intelligence community and so proved as controversial as the Clipper Chip. The government used export incentives to encourage companies to adopt key escrow products: they could export stronger encryption, but only if they ensured that intelligence agencies had access to the keys.

Under US law, computer software and hardware cannot be exported if it contains encryption that the NSA cannot break. The regulations stymie the availability of encryption in the USA because companies are reluctant to develop two separate product lines — one, with strong encryption, for domestic use and another, with weak encryption, for the international market. Several cases are pending in the US courts on the constitutionality of export controls; a federal court recently ruled that they violate free speech rights under the First Amendment.
(… The NSA is one of the shadowiest of the US intelligence agencies. Until a few years ago, it existence was a secret and its charter and any mention of its duties are still classified. However, it does have a Web site (www.nsa.gov:8080) in which it describes itself as being responsible for the signals intelligence and communications security activities of the US government. One of its bases, Menwith Hill, was to become the biggest spy station in the world. Its ears — known as radomes — are capable of listening in to vast chunks of the communications spectrum throughout Europe and the old Soviet Union

In its first decade the base sucked data from cables and microwave links running through a nearby Post Office tower, but the communications revolutions of the Seventies and Eighties gave the base a capability that even its architects could scarcely have been able to imagine. With the creation of Intelsat and digital telecommunications, Menwith and other stations developed the capability to eavesdrop on an extensive scale on fax, telex and voice messages. Then, with the development of the Internet, electronic mail and electronic commerce, the listening posts were able to increase their monitoring capability to eavesdrop on an unprecedented spectrum of personal and business communications.

This activity has been all but ignored by the UK Parliament. When Labour MPs raised questions about the activities of the NSA, the Government invoked secrecy rules. It has been the same for 40years…. )

(Simon Davis report: http://www.telegraph.co.uk)

The FBI has not let up on efforts to ban products on which it cannot eavesdrop. In mid-1997, it introduced legislation to mandate that key-recovery systems be built into all computer systems. The amendment was adopted by several congressional Committees but the Senate preferred a weaker variant. A concerted campaign by computer, telephone and privacy groups finally stopped the proposal; it now appears that no legislation will be enacted in the current Congress.

While the key escrow approach was being pushed in the USA, Washington had approached foreign organisations and states. The linchpin for the campaign was David Aaron, US ambassador to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), who visited dozens of countries in what one analyst derided as a programme of ‘laundering failed US policy through international bodies to give it greater acceptance’.

Led by Germany and the Scandinavians, the EU has been generally distrustful of key escrow technology. In October 1997, the European Commission released a report which advised: ‘Restricting the use of encryption could well prevent law-abiding companies and citizens from protecting themselves against criminal attacks. It would not, however, totally prevent criminals from using these technologies.’ The report noted that ‘privacy considerations suggest limit the use of cryptography as a means to ensure data security and confidentiality’.

Some European countries have or are contemplating independent restrictions. France had a longstanding ban on the use of any cryptography to which the government does not have access. However, a 1996 law, modified the existing system, allowing a system of “tiers du confidence”, although it has not been implemented, because of EU opposition. In 1997, the Conservative government in the UK introduced a proposal creating a system of trusted third parties.

It was severely criticised at the time and by the new Labour government, which has not yet acted upon its predecessor’s recommendations. The debate over encryption and the conflicting demands of security and privacy are bound to continue. The commercial future of the Internet depends on a universally-accepted and foolproof method of on-line identification; as of now, the only means of providing it is through strong encryption. That put the US government and some of the world’s largest corporations, notably Microsoft, on a collision course. (Report of David Banisar, Deputy director of Privacy International and Simon Davies, Director General of Privacy International).

The issue of encryption divides the member states of the European Union. Last October the European Commission published a report entitled: “Ensuring security and Trust in Electronic Commerce”, which argued that the advantages of allowing law enforcement agencies access to encrypted messages are not clear and could cause considerable damage to the emerging electronic industry. It says that if citizens and companies “fear that their communications and transactions are being monitored with the help of key access or similar schemes unduly enlarging the general surveillance possibility of government agencies, they may prefer to remaining in the anonymous off-line world and electronic commerce will just not happen”.

However, Mr Straw said in Birmingham (JHA Informal JHA Ministers) that: “It would not be in the public interest to allow the improper use of encryption by criminals to be totally immune from the attention of law enforcement agencies”. The UK, along with France (which already has a law obliging individuals to use “crackable” software) and the USA, is out on a limb in the EU. “The UK presidency has a particular view and they are one of the access hard-liners. They want access: “them and the French”, commented an encryption expert. They are particularly about “confidential services” which ensure that a message can only be read by the person for whom it is intended who has a “key” to access it. The Commission’s report proposes “monitoring” Member States laws’ on “confidential services” to ensure they do not contravene the rules of the single market.

Examples of Abuse of Economic Information

In the course of collecting the data for and preparing this Interim Study various examples were cited of abuse of privacy via global surveillance telecommunication systems. A number of them is given in [54]. For the final version of the study, we shall see whether the experts have further comments to make on these examples, or whether they have new examples to suggest.

The consultation of experts in our survey so far yielded the following comments:

Since Internet has come to play a significant role in global commerce, then (as in Examples 1, 2, 3 and 4 cited below) Internet also became a tool of misleading information and a platform for deceitful advertisement.
On the positive side, Internet is a “golden highway” for those interested in the process of information.
However, apart from global surveillance technology systems, additional tools have been developed for surveillance. The additional tool used for information transferred via Internet or via Digital Global telecommunication systems is the capture of data with Taiga software. Taiga software has the possibility to capture, process and analyse multilingual information in a very short period of time (I billion characters per second), using key-words.

The examples given below are taken from the sources named:

Example 1

On January 15, 1990, the telephone network of AT&T company, in all the North-east part of USA faced serious difficulties. The network NuPrometheus had illegally owned and distributed the key-code of the operational system of AT&T Macintosh computer (Apple company).
J.P. Barlow: “A not terribly brief history of the Electronic Frontier Foundation,” 8 November 1990

Example 2

On January 24, 1990, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in USA, accused a huge police operation under the encoded name “Sun Devil”, in which 40 computers and 23,000 diskettes were seized from teenagers, in 15 towns within USA. Teenager Craig Neidorf supported by EFF, not to be punished in 60 years prison and 120,000 USD penalty. Craig Neidorf had published in Phrack (a hackers magazine) part of the internal files of a telephone company.
M. Godwin: “The EFF and virtual communities,” 1991

Example 3

On June 25, 1998, in Absheim, an aircraft A-320 of the European Company “Airbus Industries” crashed during a demonstration flight. The accident was reportedly caused by dangerous manoeuvres. One person died and 20 were injured.

Very soon afterwards, and before the announcement of the official report, in the aerospace and transport Internet newsgroups there appeared many hostile messages against the Airbus undertaking and against the French company Aerospatiale as well, with which Airbus had close cooperation. Messages declared that the accident was to be expected because European engineers are not so highly qualified as American engineers. It was also clearly stated, that in the future similar accidents were to be expected.

Aerospatiale’s representatives took these hostile messages very seriously. They tried to discover the sources of messages and they finally realised that senders’ identification data, addresses and nodes were false. The source messages came from USA, from computers with misleading identification data and transferred from anonymous servers in Finland.
B. Martnet and Y.M. Marti: “L’intelligence econimique. Les yeux et les oreilles de 1′ enterprise, Editions d’organisation”. Paris 1995

Example 4

In October 31, 1994, in USA, an accident occurred to an ATR aircraft (of the European Consortium Aeritalia and Aerospatiale). Owing to this accident, a ban on ATR flights for two months was imposed. This decision became catastrophic on a commercial level for the company, because ATR was obliged to carry out test flights in fog conditions.

During this period, in Internet newsgroups (and especially in the AVSIG forum, supported by Compuserve), the exchange of messages was of vital significance. The messages supporting the European company were few, while the messages against ATR were many.

At the beginning of January 1995, there appeared a message from a journalist in this forum asking the following: “I have heard that ATR flights will begin soon. Can anybody confirm this information?” The answer came very soon. Three days after, unexpectedly, permission to continue ATR flights was given. The company learned this, as soon as the permission announced. But if they had actively participated in the newsgroups, they would have gained some days to inform their offices and their clients.
“Des langages pour analyser la poussiere d’ info”, Liberation, 9 June 1995

Example 5

The government of Brasil in 1994, announced its intention to assign an international contract (Amazonios). This procurement was of great interest since the total amount available for the contract was 1,4 billion USD. From Europe, the French companies Thomson and Alcatel expressed their interest and from USA, the huge weapon industry Raytheon. Although the offer of the French companies was technically excellent and allegedly better documented, the contract was eventually assigned to the USA company. It was reported in the press that this was achieved with a new offensive strategy used by USA. When the government of Brazil was about to assign the contract to the French companies, American Officials (allegedly with the personal involvement of President Bill Clinton) readjusted their offer, according to the offer of the European companies, and asserted that French companies influenced the committee, an accusation which was never proved. On the other hand, the European companies were reported to have indications that the intention of the government of Brazil to assign the contract to the European companies became known to Americans with the use of FBI’s surveillance technologies.
“La nouvelle machine de querre americaine”, LeMonde du reseingnement no 158, 16 February 1995

Example 6

In January 1994 Edouard Balladur, French Prime Minister, went to Ryadh (Saudi Arabia), feeling certain to bring back a historic contract for more than 30 million francs in sale of weapons and, especially, Airbus. He returned disappointed. The contract went to the McDonnell-Douglas American company, rival of Airbus. The French were report to believe that this was at least in part due to electronic surveillance by the ECHELON system, which had given to the Americans the financial conditions and incentives authorised by Airbus.

French press reports said the National Security Agency is the most secret and most significant of the thirteen secret agencies of the United States. It receives about a third of the appropriations allocated with clandestine intelligence: 8 of the 26,6 billion dollars (160 18 billion francs) registered appropriations in the 1997 budget. With its 20.000 employees in United States and some thousands of agents throughout the world, the NSA (which forms part of ministry for Defence since its creation in 1956) is more important than the CIA, even if the latter is better known to the public. Its site at Fort Meade contains, according to sources familiar with the place, the greatest concentration of data processing power and mathematicians in the world. They are employed to sort and analyse the flood of data acquired by ECHELON on the networks of international telecommunications.
“Echelon est au service des interets americains”, Liberation, 21 April 1998

PART C: TECHNICAL FILE
1. INTRODUCTION

Surveillance and Privacy

Surveillance is the systematic investigation or monitoring of the actions or communications of one or more persons. It has traditionally been undertaken by physical means (e.g. prison guards on towers). In recent decades it has been enhanced through image amplification devices such as binoculars and high-resolution satellite cameras.

The basic born [sic] physical surveillance comprises watching (visual surveillance) and listening (aural surveillance). Monitoring may be undertaken remotely in space, with the aid of image amplification devices like field glasses, infrared binoculars, light amplifiers and satellite cameras and sound amplification devices like directional microphones; and remotely in time with the aid of image and sound recording devices.

Electronic devices have been developed to augment physical surveillance and offer new possibilities such as closed-circuit TV (CCTV), VCR, telephone bugging, Proximity cards, Electronic Database, etc.

In addition to physical surveillance, several kinds of communications surveillance are practiced, including mail covers and telephone interception.

The popular term electronic surveillance refers to both augmentations to physical surveillance (such as directional microphones and audio bugs) and to communication surveillance, particularly telephone taps.

The recent years have seen the emergence and refinement of a new form of surveillance no longer of the real person, but of the person’s data shadow or digital persona. Data surveillance or Dataveillance is the systematic use of personal data systems in the investigation or monitoring of the actions or communications of one or more persons. Dataveillance is significantly lees expensive than physical and electronic surveillance, because it can be automated. As a result, the economic constraints on surveillance are diminished and more individuals and larger populations are capable of being monitored. Like surveillance, more generally, Dataveillance is of two kinds: “personal Dataveillance”, where a particular person has been previously identified as being of interest, “mass Dataveillance”, where a group or large population is monitored, in order to detect individuals of interest, and / or to deter people from stepping out of line.

Surveillance technology systems are mechanisms, which can identify, monitor and track movements and data. During the last few decades since information technology has become immensely sophisticated real benefits have been achieved in the development of surveillance technology systems.

On the other hand, negative impacts have been considerable:
The application of IT to the surveillance of people through their data.

IT technology may have substantial implications in privacy.

People often think of privacy as some kind of right. Unfortunately, the concept of a “right” is a problematic way to start, became a right seems to be some kind of absolute standard. What’s worse, is very easy to get confused between legal rights on one hand and natural or moral rights on the other. It turns out to be much more useful to think about privacy as one kind of thing (among many kinds of things) that people like to have lots of.

Privacy the interest that individuals have in sustaining a “personal space” free from interference by other people and organizations.

To a deeper level privacy turns out not to be a single interest but rather has several dimensions:

privacy of the person
privacy of personal behavior
privacy of personal communications
privacy of personal data

With the close coupling that has occurred between computing and communications, particularly since the 1980’s the last two aspects have become closely linked, and are commonly referred as information privacy.

Information privacy is the interest an individual has in controlling, or at least significantly influencing the handling of data about themselves.

The term ‘data privacy’ is sometimes used in the same way. ‘Data’ refers to inert numbers, where information implies the use of data by humans to extract meaning; hence ‘information privacy’ is arguably the more descriptive way of the two alternatives.

‘Confidentiality’ is an incidental and wholly inadequate substitute for proper information privacy, protection, where:
‘Confidentiality is the legal duty of individuals who come into the procession of information about others, especially in the course of particular kinds of relationships with them’.

Dataveillance Techniques

A variety of Dataveillnce techniques exists. Front-end verification (FEV), for example, comprises the checking of data supplied by an applicant (e.g. for a loan or government benefit) against data from a variety of additional sources, in order to identify discrepancies.

FEV may be applied as a person dataveillance tool where responsible grounds exist for suspecting that the information the person has provided may be unreliable; where, on the other hand, it is applied to every applicant, mass dataveillance is being undertaken. Data matching is a facilitative mechanism of particular value in mass dataveillance. It involves trawling through large volumes of data collected for different purposes, searching for discrepancies and drawing influences from them.
Personal dataveillance of previously identified individuals

integration of data hitherto stored in various locations within a single organization
screening or authentication of transactions against internal norms
front-end verification of transactions that appear to be exceptional, against data relevant to the matter at hand. and sought from other databases or from third parties.
front-end audit of individuals who appear to be exceptional against data related to other databases or from third parties.
cross-system enforcement against individuals, where a third party reports that the individual has committed a transgression in his or her relationship with the third party.

Mass dataveillance of groups of people.

screening or authentication of all transactions, where or not they appear to be exceptional, against internal norms
front-end verification of all transactions, whether or not they appear to be exceptional against data relevant to the matter at hand, as sought from other internal databases or from third parties.
front-end audit of individuals, whether or not they appear to be exceptional against data relevant to the matter at hand, as sought from other internal databases or from third parties.
single-factor file analysis of all data held or able to be acquired, whether or not they appear to be exceptional, variously involving transaction data compared against a norm, permanent data or other transaction data.
profiling or multi-factor file analysis of all data held or able to acquire, whether or not they appear to be exceptional, variously involving singular profiling of data held at a point in time, or aggregative profiling of transaction trails over time.

Facilitative mechanisms could be:

computer data matching, in which personal data records relating to many people are compared in order to identify cases of interest
data concentration, homely the combination of personal data interchange networks and hub systems.

Risks inherent in Data Surveillance

Data surveillance’s broader social impacts can be grouped as follows:
In personal dataveillance

low data quickly decisions [sic]
lack of subject knowledge of, and consent to, data flows
blacklisting
denial of redemsion [sic]

In mass surveillance
a. Risks to the individuals:

arbitrariness
a contextual data merger
complexity and incomprehensibility of data
witch hunts
ex-ante discrimination and guilt prediction
selective advertising
inversion of the onus of proof
covert operations
unknown accusations and accusers
denial of due process

b. Risks to society:

prevailing climate of suspicion
adversarial relationships
focus of law enforcement on easily detectable and provable offences
inequitable application of the law
decreased respect for the law and low enforcers
reduction in the meaningfulness of individual actions
reduction in self-reliance and self-determination
stultification of originality
increased tendency to opt out of the official level of society
weakening of society’s moral fibre and cohesion
destabilization of the strategic balance of
power repressive potential for the totalitarian government.

By way of example, individuals can suffer as a result of misunderstandings about the meaning of data on the file, or because the file contains erroneous data, which the individual does not understand and against which he / she has little or not chance of arguing without the help of a specialized lawyer.

Such seemingly small, but potentially very frustrating and infuriating personal problems can escalate into widespread distrust by people of government agencies and the legal system as a whole

Of course, many of the risks referred are diffuse. On the other hand, there is a critical economic difference between conventional forms of surveillance and Dataveillance.

Physical surveillance is expensive because it requires the application of considerable resources. Although (with few exceptions), this expense has been sufficient to restrict the use of surveillance. Admittedly the selection criteria used by the surveillance agencies have not always accorded with what the citizenry might have preferred, but at least its extent was limited. The effect was that in most countries the abuses affected particular individuals who had attracted the attention of the state, but were not so pervasive that artistic and potential freedoms were widely constrained.

Dataveillance changes all that. Dataveillance is relatively very cheap and getting cheaper all the time, thanks to progress in information technology. The economic limitations are overcome and the digital persona can be monitored with thoroughness and frequency and surveillance extended to whole populations. Nowadays, a number of particular populations have attracted the bulk of the attention, because the state already processed substantial data – holdings about them. There are social welfare recipients and employers of the state. Now that techniques have been refined, they are being pressed into more general usage, in the private as well in the public sector.

Controls

If dataveillance is burgeoning, controls are needed to ensure that its use is not excessive or unfair. There is a variety of natural or intrinsic controls, such as self-restraint and morality. Unfortunately morality has been shown many times to be an entirely inadequate influence over people’s behaviour. There is also the economic constraint, whereby work that isn’t worth doing tends not to get done, because people perceive better things to do with the same scarce resources. Regrettably this too is largely ineffective. Cost/benefit analysis of dataveillance measures is seldom performed, and when it has been the quality has generally been appalling. This reflects the dominance of political over economic considerations — both politicians and public servants want action to be seen to be being taken, and are less concerned about its effectiveness than its visibility.

If intrinsic controls are inadequate, extrinsic measures are vital. For example, the codes of ethics of professional bodies and industry associations could be of assistance. Regrettably, these are generally years behind the problems, and largely statements of aspiration rather than operational guidelines and actionable statements of what is and is not acceptable behaviour. Over twenty years after the information privacy movement gathered steam, there are few and very limited laws which make dataveillance activities illegal, or which enable regulatory agencies or the public to sue transgressing organisations. A (limited) statute exists at national level, but none at all at the level of State Governments. In any case, statutory regimes are often weak due to the power of data-using lobbies, the lack of organisation of the public, and the lack of comprehension and interest by politicians. The public has demonstrated itself as being unable to focus on complex issues; public apathy is only overcome when a proposal is presented simply and starkly, such as ’the State is proposing to issue you with a plastic card. You will need to produce it whenever anyone asks you to demonstrate that you have Permission to breathe’.

There is a tendency for dataveillance tools to be developed in advanced nations, which have democratic traditions and processes (however imperfect). There is a further tendency for the technology to be exported to less developed countries.

Many of these have less well-developed democratic traditions, more authoritarian and even repressive regimes. The control mechanisms in advanced western democracies are inadequate to cope with sophisticated dataveillance technologies; in third world countries there is very little chance indeed of new extrinsic controls being established to ensure balance in their application. It appears that some third-world countries may be being used as test-beds for new dataveillance technologies.

2. SURVEILLANCE: TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES – Current technologies

Surveillance is using some of the most advanced and sophisticated technology to keep track of individuals; where they go, what they do and even what they say.

Visual and audio surveillance are almost everywhere, and, modern electronic technology gives the possibility of keeping track of individual’s moments without cameras or microphones, just with surveillance of their data (Dataveillance )

1. Visual Surveillance

Closed-circuit TV (CCTV) is the most common electronic visual surveillance technique.

Recording can be in two modes: real-time or time-lapse. Real-time is regular TV (at 30 frames (second) showing full motion). Time-lapse selects only a few frames per time period, perhaps one or two per second, to record. The advantage of time-lapse is that it allows one tape to record for a much longer time than real time recording

Video electronics can be very sophisticated indeed and the recent trend is digital video. This allows using the QUAD recording system, a method of compressing four separate camera images into a single frame, so that the guard could see all four views on the monitor screen and record them on a VCR (Video Cassette Recorder) at the same time. These systems allow detailed surveillance and plant monitoring, so that responsibles can observe everything happening within the facility.

In the previous years may be, only the entrance (or specific spaces) would be under video surveillance. Now it is possible to have surveillance everywhere. Using hard disks instead of videotape allows keeping a record of several month’s worth of time-lapse video.

Cameras also are much more sophisticated today than years ago. New circuits allow the camera to ignore bright, light-emitting objects within their fields of view. Miniaturization allows easier concealment, infra-red cameras allow surveillance in darkness. Video surveillance is portable as well. The old days of concealing a camcorder in a briefcase or duffel bag have given way to subminiature cameras concealed in neckties and other items. Decoy items (items containing the surveillance equipment) include baseball caps, belt buckles, briefcases, eyeglasses and wristwatches.

CCTV is very quickly becoming an internal part of crime control policy, social control theory and Community consciousness. It is promoted by police and politicians as primary solution for urban dysfunction.

They are now used in many areas, including roads, trains, railway platforms, car parks, loading docks, shopping centers, individual retail stores, banks, automatic teller machines, petrol stations, lifts, lobby areas, cash handling and storage areas and employee recreation rooms.

Within the aims of the contract, this study looks at its usage in five main industrial contexts: retail stores, financial services, manufacturing, warehousing and distribution, larger office buildings and leisure and entertainment complexes.

Video surveillance is used in these industries for several reasons:

to minimize the risk of theft, especially in the retail industry for purposes of deterring and detecting crime
protect premises from threats to property such as sabotage, arson and vandalism
to monitor individual employee work performance
to improve customer service by observing peak periods and planning the allocation of staff throughout the day
to assist in staff training
to enhance health and safety standards
to ensure that employees comply with legal obligations
to protect employers from liability claims
to monitor production processes.

Most surveillance systems are being installed to prevent theft, either by outsiders or employees, but, video surveillance systems often are used for a range of purposes beyond what was originally intended. Surveillance systems which are initially installed for the purpose of protecting property against an external security threat can be used for other purposes, such as to monitor employees’ productivity and work behavior.

The routine use of video surveillance has the potential to undermine employees’ sense of privacy and dignity in the workplace. Surveillance is associated with increased levels of stress, undermining morale and creating distrust and suspicion between employees and management. While it may be an effective instrument to protect an employer from external security threats, it is not appropriate as a means of monitoring individual employee performance.

Covert surveillance with a smaller number of hidden cameras may in fact be a much popular and at the same time cheaper option than a general security system.

Some of the justifications offered for covert video surveillance are:

employers have a right to protect their business interests
covert surveillance affect fewer employees than overt surveillance and is much cheaper
if employees are unaware of surveillance, there is less risk of individual disputation
covert surveillance is often the most effective means of detecting unlawful activity.

2. Audio Surveillance

Audio surveillance is no longer merely an arcane art practiced by spies and private detectives. Today, it’s common place and spreading. Tape recorders are a fact of life, and they’re often used to document a transaction. Trying to telephone some companies and some government agencies there is a recording sign says: “This transaction is being recorded to help us assure …”.

In some companies the real purpose of tape recording conversation is to check how may the handle an hour, and to have evidence in case the customer says something that can used against him.

In prisons, officials often use electronic equipment to record all telephone conversations. Some of these are between lawyer and client, but all they go onto tape. It depends on the ethics of the guards whether they listen or not.

They are “high tech voice recorders” that put every conversation on a CD disk. A model made for correctional use is the “Laser voice”, using optional disk voice recording.

“Tube mike” is an electric device for “bugging” a room, motor vehicle, or other premises. It is a plastic tube passed through a small hole in a wall to conduct sound from the room to a small microphone at the other end.

This could be characterized as “non- access surveillance”.

“Tube microphones” come in all sizes. Some are relatively large plastic tubes (about 1/2” in diameter), but for tight spaces or maximum concealment there are “needle microphones” pressed against a wall to hear sounds in the next room.

If there is access to a room, a bug could be planted almost anywhere, even in the subject’s clothing. “Radio mikes” transmit whatever they pick up to a nearby receiver eliminating the need for tell-tale wires. Their only drawback, if they’re totally self-contained, is battery life. Other models fit into wall plugs, and take their power from the house current

One type of portable radio mike is the size and shape of a credit card, with a range of several hundred feet and a 30-hour battery life. Placed into the beast pocket of the subjects jacket, it permits monitoring a conversation held outdoors. The value of this is that many people think its possible to overhear a conversation held on the street or in a park, and that walking will defeat any prospect of a bug planted nearby.

In the open market there are several models of “gimmicked telephones” that use in the built in microphone to pick up any conversation in the room even when the telephone is not in use.

All the types of audio surveillance with miscellaneous bugging devices described before, are used today mainly in police and internal security agencies (such as FBI, NSA etc) or in companies security departments.

Telephone tapping still exists, but with today’s Electronic Switching System (ESS) its no longer necessary to go out and physically tap a person’s telephone line.

3. Phone Tapping and Encryption

Whenever a telephone line is tapped the privacy of the persons at both ends of the line is invaded and all conversations between them upon any subject and although proper, confidential and privileged ma be overheard.

The phone tapping normally used for surveillance of communications to combat “serious crime” and to protect “national security”.

On the other hand often companies keep records of phone numbers calls and the duration of such calls. In some companies these records are used to gauge job performance, while in others it simply allows employees to review calls and reimburse the employer for calls of a purely personal nature.

4. Voice and Word Pattern Recognition

Since it is no possible for an Agency or organization to employ a staff large enough to listen to all telephone conversations, read all faxes, etc, word recognition has to be computerized.

In this case a central computer could monitor all (or a group) of telephone conversations and recognize those in which the agency had an interest by using voice patterns and key words.

A wide variety of techniques are used to perform speech recognition. Typically speech recognition starts with the digital sampling of speech. The next stage is acoustic signal processing. Most techniques include spectral analysis e.g. LPC (Linear Predictive Coding), MFCC (Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients) cochlea modeling and many more.

The next stage is recognition of phonemes, groups of phonemes and words. This stage can be achieved by many processes such as DTW (Dynamic Time Warping), HMM (Hidden Markov modeling), expert systems and combination of techniques.

Most systems utilize some knowledge of the language to aid the recognition process. Some systems try to “understand” speech. That is try to convert the words into a representation of what the speaker intended to mean or achieve by what they said.

Voice and pattern recognition used as an advanced tool and a helpful technique (thanks to the IT) for surveillance of communications to combat “serious crime” or to protect “national security”

5. Proximity Smart Cards

Originally, electronic cards were substitutes for keys, which were too easy to reproduce. A metal key blank and a file where all that were necessary to duplicate a key, but more sophisticated equipment is necessary to duplicate even the simplest sort of electronic card.

The first type of electronic card used barium ferrite as magnetic dots embedded in the magnetic layer. This was a significant advance over punched cards, that were relatively easy to duplicate.

In the early 1970s, magnetic stripe cards were produced (by IBM), which are still used in credit cards and are somewhat more secure. However, they’re still too easy to forge and should pass through a magnetic stripe reader.

In the early 1980s, the advent of Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) technology, resulted in what quickly become known as “smart card” which could hold a variety of codes and information to make misuse or duplication almost impossible. This was the first “proximity card”, which did not require direct contact through a card recorder.

The proximity card is basically a “transponder” an electronic device that replies to a radio signal that “interrogates” it. The extended range model doesn’t require even placing it near the card reader, as it transmits to a receiver several feet away.

Use of proximity smart card as Transport card / E-purse

Transportation companies use the proximity smart cards to replace metro, bus, train tickets and boarding cards, etc.
The proximity smart card results in considerable time saving by greatly increasing passenger flow without diminishing security
With the contact part of the card, the proximity smart card is perfectly suited to financial transactions involving small amounts of money: automatic vending cafeterias, local shops, parking fees, cinemas, recreation / amusement parks, cultural and sports centers etc.

Use of proximity smart card as Access control / ID card

The company Proximity smart card contains data used to identify cardholders, as well as his own different access rights. The contactless part of the card is used to access building and other protected areas.
The contact portion can be used for network access, such as the Internet. With the electronic purse function it can be used in the company restaurant, at automatic vending machines, just like a traditional multi-service card.

One application, although, extends the proximity card’s usefulness by turning it into a tracking device. Proximity readers installed along the walls of a building allow tracking each card within the facility. If somebody is carrying one of these cards within a building so equipped, the central computer can sense exactly where he (she is at all times). There is a record of which area the employee (or visitor) is in, when he leaves, and where else within the building he may go. If the employee goes to the cafeteria, the computer will log when he lefts his work station, how long it took him to get to the cafeteria, which root he took, how long he remained in the cafeteria, when he started back and by which route, and when he arrived back in his work area. Likewise if he went to the bathroom. The computer can record whether he/she went to the men’s room or the ladies’ room.

Many countries are actively considering adopting national ID cards for the variety of functions. These include the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

There are ID cards (credit cards) used for digital cash service which is supposed to be “anonymous”. But, it appears that the bank and the merchants could find the identity of the users.

The customer is identified to the trader and ultimate to the bank by the 300 previous transactions. Each of these will soon be superseded by further transactions and drop off end of the list.

These can be monitored by the bank and could be used for marketing purposes. This is the audit trail and could be sold to business users for third party marketing.

6. Transmitter Location

When a telephone or mobile phone used, the location of the user could be identified. The science of location radio uses three methods of finding a transmitter. The oldest is triangulation, in which several receiving stations with directional antennas take bearing on a transmission and communicate the bearing to a central plotting room.

Technicians trace each bearing on a map of the area and the intersection of the bearing pinpoints the location of the transmitter.

The second method requires several receives as well, and works by measuring the relative strengths of signals received. A computer analyses the strengths and determines the location of the transmitter

The third method also requires a computer-controlled chain of receives and measures the minute differences in the time the signal arrives at each receiver.

Formerly classified, these techniques are now available on the civilian market for law enforcement and private security. One application is locating stolen cars by pinpointing radio transmitters installed in the vehicle for this purpose.

Location of cellular phones in another application. Police today are using (in some countries) this application to pinpoint the location of cellphone users. Purportedly, this is to speed emergency response when a citizen calls for help (at home or in the road). Once the equipment is in place, it can, and must, serve other purposes. Criminal investigators will be able to pinpoint a specific cellphone each time the caller uses it, this will help an investigation into a stolen cellphone, or help locate wanted persons unwise enough to use cellphone or mobile phone.

Another device, sold only to police, is the “cellphone ESN Reader”, which reads the numbers of the targeted cellphone. This detects and records the cellular phone number, called number and ESN of the target phone of a ranges of up to two miles.

Theoretically, the technology can locate every cellphone and every mobile phone in the country every time someone makes a call on it (for cellphones) or just open it (for mobile phones).

7. E-mail at workplace

Personal messages the employee sent over his company’s e-mail are not private. They are not, and court decisions have held that they’re not.

It is a safe assumption that companies will keep an increasingly watchful eye on their internal email, and scrutinize what employees are saying to each other. It is easy to see that some companies may find that scrutinising staff e-mail can have more than one advantage for a company management. Originally instigated to avoid liability, reading employee’s e-mail can also serve to alert management of dishonesty, disloyalty or even matters like union activity.

8. Electronic Databases

The computer age has brought surveillance into a new era in which information about almost anybody is available to almost anybody.

Databases from Human Identification

There are a lot of government databases containing information about almost every resident in United States and in many European Countries as well.

A variety of person identification techniques are available, which can assist in associating data with them. Important examples of these techniques are:

names (what the person is called by other people)
codes (what the person is called by the organization)
knowledge (what the person knows)
biometrics (what the person is, does, or looks like e.g. appearance, natural physiography, etc.)

Data bases for financial surveillance

Financial records are gathered privately by several giant companies that specialize in this sort of information. These “credit reporting bureaus” purportedly maintain credit records, but in fact keep far more than credit information in their databases.

Other databases for human identification

There exist specialized databases available mainly to private investigators. These call information from telephone directories, city directories, voter registration records and many other public and private records to provide a profile of the person being investigated.

9. The Internet

The Internet, which began as a Computer communication network between Universities and laboratories decades ago, has turned into a vast public forum accessible to anyone with a computer.

International organizations, Public authorities, Companies, Universities, Research centers and individuals have access and exploit the Internet.

On the other hand Internet became:

an entertainment tool
a huge Information source
an important marketing tool
a big virtual electronic market with a considerable number of economic transactions every second

IT technology at the same time, restricted the individuals’ right to privacy since they could be identified through their ID number or through their records or transactions.

The growing rift between the needs of Internet Commerce and the individual’s right to privacy gave rise to the development of new tools.

In January 1999 Intel announced its plans for the development of a microchip containing embedded electronic serial numbers that allow individual computers to be readily identified.

The identities, similar to the unique vehicle identification numbers on cars and trucks would be a caller ID technology for computer.

But critics see it is on an ominous development, ushering in a new period of electronic surveillance. Privacy experts fear the new Intel chip could mean the death of anonymity on the Internet.

But this would appear to really variously endanger privacy on the Internet by creating a permanent ID number for every Intel user on the Net.

3. THE USE OF SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS FOR THE TRANSMISSION AND COLLECTION OF ECONOMIC INFORMATION

As the Internet and other communication systems reach further into the everyday lives, national security, low enforcement and individual privacy have become perilously intertwined. Governments want to restrict the free flow of information and software producers are seeking ways to ensure consumers are not bugged from the moment of purchases.

All developing communication technologies, digital telephone switches cellular and satellite phones HAVE SURVEILLANCE CAPABILITIES. On the other hand the development of software that contains encryption, a telephone which allows people to scramble their communications and files to prevent others from reading them gourd earth [sic].

3.1 CALEA system

The first effort to heighten surveillance opportunities (made by USA) was to force telecommunication companies to use equipment desired to include enhanced wiretapping capabilities.

In the late 1980s in a program known internally as “Operation Root Canal” US low enforcement officials demanded that telephone companies alter their equipment to facilitate the interception of messages. The companies refused but, after several years of lobbying, Congress enacted the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement ACT (CALEA) in 1994.

CALEA requires that terrestrial cellular phone services and other entities ensure that all their equipment, facilities or services are capable of expeditiously, enabling the government to intercept all wire and oral communications varied by the carrier concurrently with their transmission.

Communications must be interceptable in such a form that they could be transmitted to a remote government facility. Manufactures must work with industry and low enforcement officials to ensure that their equipment meets federal standards.

The passage of CALEA has been controversial, but its provisions have yet to be enforced due to FBI efforts to include even more rigorous regulations under the law. These include: the requirement, the cell phones allow for location – tracking on demand and that telephone companies provide capacity for up to 50.000 simultaneous wiretaps.

CALEA finally has been accepted as an International standard in US. In 1991 the FBI contacted EU member states in order to propose to them do incorporate CALEA into European Law. This plan according to an EU report, was to call for the Western World (EU, US and allies) to agree to norms and procedures and then sell their products to Third World countries. There is a council resolution that was adopted on 17 January 1997 on the lawful interception of communications (961C329/a). The US government is now in negotiations with the International Telecommunications Unit (ITU) to adopt the standards globally.

3.2 ECHELON Connection

The previous STOA Interim Study (PE 166.499) entitled “An Appraisal of technologies of political control” made certain statements concerning the ECHELON global surveillance system. This is reported to be a world-wide surveillance system designed and coordinated by the US NSA (National Security Agency) that intercepts e-mail, fax, telex and international telephone communications carried via satellites and has been operating since the early 1980s – it is part of the post Cold War developments based on the UK-USA agreement signed between the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in 1948.

The five agencies said to be involved are: the US National Security Agency (NSA), the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) in New Zealand, Government Communications Headquarters Signals Directorate (DSD) in Australia. The system was brought to light by the author Nicky Hager in his 1996 book Secret Power: New Zealand’s role in the International Spy Network. For this, he interviewed more than 50 people who work or have worked in intelligence who are concerned at the uses of ECHELON. It is said that “The ECHELON system is not designed to eavesdrop on a particular individual’s e-mail or fax link. Rather, the system works by indiscriminately intercepting very large quantities of communications and using computers to identify and extract messages from the mass of unwanted ones”.

According to Interim Study (PE 166.499) of 1998, there are reported to be three components to ECHELON:
1. The monitoring of Intelsats, international telecommunications satellites used by phone companies In most countries. A key ECHELON station is at Morwenstow in Cornwall monitoring Europe, the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean.

2. ECHELON interception of non-Intelsat regional communication satellites. Key monitoring stations are Menwith Hill in Yorkshire and Bad Aibling in Germany.

3. The final element of the ECHELON system is the surveillance of land-based or under-sea systems, which use cables or microwave tower networks.

At present it is thought ECHELON’s effort is primarily directed at the “written form” (e-mails, fixes, and telexes) but new satellite telephones system which take over from old land-based ones will be as vulnerable as the “written word”.

Each of the five centres supply to the other four “Dictionaries” of keywords, phrases, people and places to ‘stag” and tagged intercept is forwarded straight to the requesting country.

It is the interface of the ECHELON system and its potential development on phone calls combined with the standardisation of”tappable” telecommunications centres and equipment being sponsored by the EU and the USA which presents a truly global threat over which there are no legal or democratic controls.

The earlier study (PE 166.499) identified a number of options for the European Union, centred round the proposition that:
“All surveillance technologies, operations and practices should be subject to procedures to ensure democratic accountability and there should be proper codes of practice to ensure redress if malpractice or abuse takes place. Explicit criteria should be agreed for deciding who should be targeted for surveillance and who should not, how such data is stored, processed and shared. Such criteria and associated codes of practice should be made publicly available.”

Other points included:
– All requisite codes of practice should ensure that new surveillance technologies are brought within the appropriate data protection legislation.

– Given that data from most digital monitoring systems can be seamlessly edited, new guidance should be provided on what constitutes admissible evidence. This concern is particularly relevant to automatic identification systems which will need to take cognizance of the provisions of Article 15, of the 1995 European Directive on the Protection of Individuals and Processing of Personal Data.

– Regulations should be developed covering the provision of electronic bugging and tapping devices to private citizens and companies, so that their sale is governed by legal permission rather than self regulation.

– Use of telephone interception by Member states should be subject to procedures of public accountability referred to in (1) above. Before any telephone interception takes place a warrant should be obtained in a manna prescribed by the relevant parliament. In most cases, law enforcement agencies will not be permitted to self-authorise interception except in the most unusual of circumstances which should be reported back to the authorising authority at the earliest opportunity.

– Annual statistics on interception should be reported to each member states’ parliament. These statistics should provide comprehensive details of the actual number of communication devices intercepted and data should be not be aggregated. (This is to avoid the statistics only identifying the number of warrants, issued whereas organisations under surveillance may have many hundreds of members, all of whose phones may be subject to interception).

– Technologies facilitating the automatic profiling and pattern analysis of telephone calls to establish friendship and contact networks should be subject to the same legal requirements as those for telephone interception and reported to the relevant member state parliament.

– The European Parliament should reject proposals from the United States for making private messages via the global communications network (Internet) accessible to US Intelligence Agencies. Nor should the Parliament agree to new expensive encryption controls without a wide ranging debate within the EU on the implications of such measures. These encompass the civil and human rights of European citizens and the commercial rights of companies to operate within the law, without unwarranted surveillance by intelligence agencies operating in conjunction with multinational competitors.

3. Inhabitant identification Schemes

Inhabitant identification schemes are schemes, which provide all, or most people in the country with a unique code and a token (generally a card) containing the code.

Such schemes are used in many European Countries for a defined set of purposes, typically the administration of taxation, natural superannuation and health insurance. In some countries, they are used for multiple additional purposes.

4. THE NATURE OF ECONOMIC INFORMATION SELECTED BY SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS

A. From telecommunication systems

Concerning public authorities and organizations:

secret telephone conversations, fax messages and electronic mail
sensitive information concerning taxation
information concerning various fund transfers especially from one service to the other and financial transactions
data used in the critical banking infrastructure systems

Concerning business:

private business communication, including telephone conversations, fax messages and electronic mail
order from fund transfers and other financial transactions (e.g. payments by credit cards by fax)
sensitive business information and trade secrets

Concerning individuals:

private conversations, fax messages, e-mail
payments by credit cards
secret information concerning taxation

B. From new information technologies (Internet)

Concerning public authorities and organizations:

sensitive information and state secrets
tele-banking
tax records and other financial information
data used in the operation of critical infrastructure systems
public contracts received by electronic mail

Concerning business:

contracts
invoices and other official documents
secret electronic transactions
risk of international property and license in secret transactions
payment orders by credit cards
payments received on-line

Concerning consumers and individuals:

payment by credit cards
payment on-line
contracts and agreements
electronic financial transactions (e.g. tele-banking).

C. Some examples of data collection on tSe Internet

Data can be collected over the Internet either directly or indirectly; in other words, it can be collected either at the time of contact with a correspondent or without the knowledge of the person concerned, often automatically. The nature of the data collected varies according to the protocol used on the network i.e. according to the type of service. In practice, different protocols are very often used in combination to augment the profitability or quality of exchanges. For example, a Web page may propose an exchange of correspondence or a transfer of documents via links with the e-mail protocol and the protocol used for transferring files, which is more powerful.

When electronic messaging is used (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol — SMTP, and Network News Transfer Protocol — NNTP), communication is established from one personal mailbox to another, or between a personal mailbox and a mailbox common to a number of correspondents. The information transmitted consists of the name and e-mail address, the server address and the signature file (sig.file) if created by the user of the machine. If a communication is addressed to a joint mailbox, this information is given out to an indeterminate number of correspondents, participation in a discussion group being theoretically free. As a result, any person listed on a distribution list can at the very least obtain the e-mail addresses of all other listed parties, since this information is provided automatically for purposes of communication on a given topic.

While most downloading (File Transfer Protocol — FTP) is done anonymously, with only the network’s Internet Protocol — IP — address being revealed, the same cannot be said for document presentation (World Wide Web — WWW, Hyper Text Transfer Protocol — HTTP). The minimum information revealed at each step in the Web is the name of the network machine making the request and the type of browser being used. Browsers contain an identification — ID — file which, is configured by the user or at the user’s request, stores various personal data such as the user’s name or e-mail address. If a Web server requests this information, it can be automatically given out.

A Web server can also send out information, which is stored by the user’s navigator (so-called ‘cookies’) and retrieved at a subsequent connection to the server. This system indicates that a visitor has been there before, but without revealing his identity: identification requires matching with other information. As a result, when linked to the ID file incorporated into the browser and transmitted to a server, the information recorded in cookies c-an yield valuable user profiles. It can be noted, however, that some navigations — to a varying and often inadequate extent — allow use of these cookies to be blocked.

5. PROTECTION FROM ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE

A. Encryption (Cryptography)

Finally, new information technologies include the privacy of individuals, the security of data in the computer or on the network, and the availability of encryption software to protect data in the event they are intercepted. In this context, privacy refers to controlling the dissemination and use of data, including information that are unintentionally revealed as a by-product of the use of the information technologies themselves.

Security refers to the integrity of the data storage, processing, and transmitting systems and includes concerns about the reliability of the hardware and software, the protections against intrusion into the theft of the computer equipment, and the resistance of computer systems to infiltration by unpermitted users, that is, “hacking”. Encryption is the practice of encoding data so that even if a computer or network is compromised, the data’s content will remain secret. Security and encryption issues are important because they are central to public confidence in networks and to the use of the systems for the sensitive or secret data, such as the processing of information touching on national security. These issues are surpassingly controversial because of governments’ interest in preventing digital information from being impervious to official interception and decoding for low enforcement and other purposes.

Private sector initiatives

A large number of private sector interests, in the United States in particular, are attempting, a view to fostering electronic commerce, to promote technological solutions that will provide a a1 practical response to consumers concerns while still preserving business interests. In other words, they are starting to explore ways and means of making privacy work in communication networks. These initiatives go in the right direction and it would be worthwhile for governments to engage in a dialogue on the basis.

As an example, Netscape joined by Microsoft, is leading an industry initiative (40 companies) to cope with privacy issues and proposes standard software intended to enable computer users to control what personal information is obtained when they visit Internet sites and how the information is used, as well as avoid unwanted e-mail. The proposal, called the OPS — Open Profiling Standard –, which has been submitted to the World Wide Web Consortium — W3C, provides the users with a way to pre-package the personal registration information Web sites may require. At the same time, OPS lets users control when and how much of their personal profiles can be passed to a third party. OPS would have users fill out profiles and preference information in a standard that could be identified by a digital certificate (that would give a guarantee from a trusted third party that the person is really who they say they are). The standardized format and brand names associated with the profile forms would be incorporated, in the case of Netscape, into the Communicator browser. According to some specialists, OPS is an addition to rather than replacement for the intrusive cookie method of tracking user information.

Another project is the new W3C Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3) Project developed by the W3C. The P3 Project is a platform on which other technological, market and regulatory solutions can interoperate and build. The P3 prototype allows Web sites to easily describe their privacy practices as well as users to set policies about the collection and use of their personal data. A flexible ‘negotiation’ between the Web site’s practices and the user’s preferences allows service to offer the preferred level of service and data protection to the user. If there is a match, access to the site is seamless; otherwise the user is notified of the difference and is offered other access options to proceed. With P3, users can download ‘recommended’ settings established by organizations such as industry associations and consumer advocacy groups. According to some privacy specialists, P3 requires users to disclose privacy preferences when good privacy policies should provide meaningful information for users about Web site practices and not require users to disclose personal information.

Techniques to provide users with more information about privacy practices are also being developed. For instance, a number of companies and service operators have a privacy Icon which appears either when the user enters a site, or when the user starts to provide information. The Icon can either lead by hyper-link to a sophisticated service providing details of the company’s (service operator) data protection policies and a tick box(es) allowing the user to opt out of having his/her data used foe specific purposes, or the icon can lead to page referring the user, for example, to an address from which further details are available.

Another example is the development of services and branding techniques, which intend to provide, dear meaningful designations for privacy practices such as TRUSTe, formerly eTRUST.

The TRUSTe program will focus on addressing privacy issues concerning data collection on the Internet. With an emphasis on analysing consumer fears surrounding electronic commerce, the program will utilise Web site icons (trustmarks) to alert online consumers to the uses of their personal information.

To further consumer privacy the TRUSTe program will utilise a standardised method of informed consent. A branded system of ’trustmarks’ or logos, representing the Web site’s information privacy policy for users’ personal information, will alert consumers to how the information they reveal online will be used.

The three trustmarks will be:

No Exchange – no personally identifiable information is used by the site.
One-to-one Exchange is collected only for the site owner’s use.
Third Party Exchange – data is collected and provided to specified third parties but only with the user’s knowledge and consent.

The TRUSTe initiative was launched in July 1996 by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a group of pioneering Internet companies. CommerceNet and the EFF then partnered in October 1996 to move forward in implementing the initiative.

TRUSTe is a global, non-profit initiative to establish trust and confidence in electronic communication by creating an infrastructure to address online privacy issues. Comprised of premier members from the electronic commerce industry, the program assures consumer privacy through a progressive policy of informed consent utilising a branded system of ’trustmarks’, which represent a company’s online information privacy policy.

Finally, systems for implementing on-line E-mail Preference Services (EPS) or ‘E-mail Robinson Lists’ are also under consideration (EPS allow consumers who do not wish to receive e-mails to be excluded from lists, the common database used to register opt out demands being then used to clean marketing lists). As an example, a software package is being developed in the USA which would allow consumers to register on-line; would be secure from intruders, and yet user-friendly for industry to clean their E-mail marketing lists; and which could be serviced easily by the operator (the Direct Marketing Association (DMA-US)). A similar system will be developed in the United Kingdom, and it is planned that these two countries would then spearhead a Global Convention on EPS inviting other DMSs to join. Another proposal, which has yet to be fully considered by industry, comes from the UK data protection Registrar, which has suggested a mechanism enabling the consumers to indicate if they do not wish to be contacted be e-mail in their e-mail address. A universally agreed character (a marker) would indicate that the user does not want to receive any marketing solicitations. The user would also be free to make different choices: i.e. to use the marker when visiting one site and not to use it when visiting another. This system should be combined with others, such as the proposed E-mail Preference Service.

B. Key-recovery

Cryptography is a complex area, with scientific, technical, political, social, business, and economic dimensions.

For the purpose of this report, ‘key recovery’ systems are characterized by the presence of some mechanism for obtaining exceptional access to the plain text of encrypted traffic. Key recovery might serve a wide spectrum of access requirements, from a backup mechanism that ensures a business’ continued access to its own encrypted archive in the event keys are lost, to providing covert law enforcement access to wiretapped encrypted telephone conversations. Many of the costs, risks, and complexities inherent in the design, implementation, and operation of key recovery systems depend on the access requirements around which the system is designed.

We focus specifically on key recovery systems designed to meet government access specifications. These specifications diverge in important ways from the needs of commercial or individual encryption users:

Access without end-user knowledge or consent — Few commercial users need (or want) covert mechanisms to recover keys or plain text data they protect. On the contrary, business access rules are usually well known, and audit is a very important safeguard against fraud and error. Government specifications require mechanisms that circumvent this important security practice.

Ubiquitous adoption — Government seeks the use of key recovery for all encryption, regardless of whether there is benefit to the end-user or whether it makes sense in context. In fact, there is little or no demand for key recovery for many applications and users. For example, the commercial demand for recovery of encrypted communications is extremely limited, and the design and analysis of key recovery for certain kinds of communications protocols is especially difficult.

Fast paths to plain text — Law enforcement demands fast (near real-time), 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year access to plain text, making it impossible to employ the full range of safeguards that could ameliorate some of the risks inherent in commercial key recovery systems.

Encryption and the global information infrastructure

The Global Information Infrastructure promises to revolutionize electronic commerce, reinvigorate government, and provide new and open access to the information society. Yet this promise cannot be achieved without information security and privacy. Without a secure and trusted infrastructure, companies and individuals will become increasingly reluctant to move their private business or personal information online.

The need for information security is widespread and touches all of us, whether users of information technology or not. Sensitive information of all kinds is increasingly finding its way into electronic form. Examples include:

Private personal and business communications, including telephone conversations, fax messages, and electronic mail;
Electronic funds and other financial transactions;
Sensitive business information and trade secrets;
Data used in the operation of critical infrastructure systems such as air traffic control, the telephone network or the power grid; and
Health records, personnel files, and other personal information.

Electronically managed information touches almost every aspect of daily life in modern society. This rising tide of important yet unsecured electronic data leaves our society increasingly vulnerable to curious neighbors, industrial spies, rogue nations, organized crime, and terrorist organizations.

Paradoxically, although the technology for managing and communicating electronic information is improving at a remarkable rate, this progress generally comes at the expense of intrinsic security. In general, as information technology improves and becomes faster, cheaper, and easier to use, it becomes less possible to control (or even identify) where sensitive data flows, where documents originated, or who is at the other end of the telephone. The basic communication infrastructure of our techniques more and more frequently will become the only visible approach to assuring the privacy and safety of sensitive information as these trends continue.

Encryption is an essential tool in providing security in the information age. Encryption is based on the use of mathematical procedures to scramble data so that it is extremely difficult — if not virtually impossible — for anyone other than authorized recipients to recover the original ‘plain text’. Properly implemented encryption allows sensitive information to be stored on insecure computers or transmitted across insecure networks. Only parties with the correct decryption ‘key’ (or keys) are able to recover the plain text information.

Highly secure encryption can be deployed relatively cheaply, and it is widely believed that encryption will be broad}y adopted and embedded in most electronic and communications products and applications for handling potentially valuable data. Applications of cryptography include protecting files from theft or unauthorized access, securing communications from interception, and enabling secure business transactions. Other cryptographic techniques can be used to guarantee that the contents of a file or message have not been altered (integrity), to establish the identity of a party (authentication), or to make legal commitments (non-repudiation).

In making information secure from unwanted eavesdropping, interception, and theft, strong encryption has an ancillary effect: it becomes more difficult for law enforcement to conduct certain kinds of surreptitious electronic surveillance (particularly wiretapping) against suspected criminals without the knowledge and assistance of the target. This difficulty is at the core of the debate over key recovery.

Key-Recovery: Requirements and proposals

The United States and other national governments have sought to prevent widespread use of cryptography unless ‘key recovery’ mechanisms guaranteeing law enforcement access to plain text are built into these systems. The requirements imposed by such government-driven key recovery systems are different from the features sought by encryption users, and ultimately impose substantial new risks and costs.

Key recovery encryption systems provide some form of access to plain text outside of the normal channel of encryption and decryption. Key recovery is sometimes also called ‘key escrow’. The term ‘escrow’ became popular in connection with the U.S. government’s Clipper Chip initiative, in which a master key to each encryption device was held ‘in escrow’ for release to law enforcement. Today the term ‘key recovery’ is used as generic term for these systems, encompassing the various ‘key escrow’, ’trusted third party’, ‘exceptional access’, ‘data recovery’, and ‘key recovery’ encryption systems introduced in recent years. Although there are differences between these systems, the distinctions are not critical for our purposes. In this report, the general term ‘key recovery’ is used in a broad sense, to refer to any system for assuring third-party (government) access to encrypted data.

Key recovery encryption systems work in a variety of ways. Early ‘key escrow’ proposals relied on the storage of private keys by the U. S. government, and more recently by designated private entities .

Other systems have ‘escrow agents’ or ‘key recovery agents’ that maintain the ability to recover the keys for a particular encrypted communication session or stored file; these systems require that such ‘session keys’ be encrypted with the key known by a recovery agent and included with the data. Some systems split the ability to recover keys among several agents.

Many interested parties have sought to draw sharp distinctions among the various key recovery proposals. It is certainly true that several new key recovery systems have emerged that they can be distinguished from the original ‘Clipper’ proposal by their methods of storing and recovering keys. However, our discussion takes a higher-level view of the basic requirements of the problem rather than the details of any particular scheme; it does not require a distinction between ‘key escrow’, ’trusted third-party’, and ‘key recovery’. All these systems share the essential elements that concern us for the purposes of this study:

A mechanism, external to the primary means of encryption and decryption, by which a third party can obtain covert access to the plain text of encrypted data.
The existence of a highly sensitive secret key (or collection of keys) that must be secured for an extended period of time.

Taken together, these elements encompass a system of ‘ubiquitous key recovery’ designed to meet law enforcement specifications. While some specific details may change, the basic requirements most likely will not: they are the essential requirements for any system that meets the stated objective of guaranteeing law enforcement agencies timely access, without user notice, to the plain text of encrypted communications traffic.

6. SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS IN LEGAL AND REGULATORY CONTEXT

As a conclusion from this present Interim Study is the principle that WE HAVE TO CONSIDER PRIVACY PROTECTION IN THE CONTEXT OF A GLOBAL NETWORKED SOCIETY. And when we speak about electronic privacy in the exchange of economic information, we are speaking about one single thing above all others: Electronic Commerce over the Internet.

A. Privacy regulation

Multinational data protection measures

Enactment of data protection laws by individual European nations has been paralleled and, in some cases anticipated, by multinational actions. In 1980 the Committee of Ministers of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) issued Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data (guidelines). The guidelines outline basic principles for both data protection and the free flow of information among countries that have laws conforming with the protection principles. The guidelines, however, have no blinding force and permit broad variation in national implementation.

One year after the OECD issued its guidelines, the Council of Europe promulgated a convention, For the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data. The convention, which took effect in 1985, is similar to the guidelines, although it focuses more on the importance of data protection to protect personal privacy. The convention specifies that data must be obtained and processed fairly; used and stored only for legal purposes; adequate, relevant, and not excessive in relation to the purpose for which they are processed; accurate and up-to-date; and stored no longer than necessary. The document gives individuals the right to inquire about the existence of data files concerning them; obtain a copy of that data; and have false or improperly processed data corrected or erased.

The convention requires each of the member countries (now twenty-six) to enact conforming national laws. By 1992, however, when debate over the more detailed European Union data protection directive, discussed below, overtook the convention, only ten countries — Austria, Denmark France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain Sweden and the United Kingdom — had ratified the convention, while eight — Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Island, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Turkey — had signed without ratification. The Council of Europe subsequently urged all European Union member states to ratify and implement the convention when it endorsed the European Commission’s proposal for a data protection directive. By 1997, all of the fifteen EU member states (except Greece, which is currently considering a privacy bill) and Switzerland have national legislation consistent with the convention.

Nevertheless, the resulting protection for personal privacy is far from uniform, for at least three reasons. First, some of the national data protection legislation existed before the adoption of the convention. Second, the convention was not self-executing and therefore permitted each country to implement its national laws conforming to the government’s terms in very different ways. Finally, the convention did not include definitions for important terms, such as what constitutes an ‘adequate’ level of data protection; as result, member countries were left free to adopt their own, inconsistent definitions in their national legislation.

Data protection directive in Europe

Although, legal protection for a ‘right of privacy’ originated in the United States, Europe was the site of the first privacy legislation and has been the source of most comprehensive privacy regulation.

Europe is the site of the first privacy legislation, the earliest national privacy statute, and now the most comprehensive protection for information privacy in the world. That protection reflects on apparent consensus within Europe that privacy is a fundamental human right which few in any other rights equal. In the context of European history and civil law culture, that consensus makes possible extensive, detailed regulation of virtually all activities concerning ‘any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person’. It is difficult to imagine a regulatory regime offering any greater protection to information privacy, or greater contrast to U.S. law.

As a result of the variation and uneven application among national laws permitted by both the guidelines and the convention, in July 1990 the commission of the then-European Community (EC) published a draft Council Directive on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on Free Movement of Such Data The draft directive was part of the ambitious program by the countries of the European Union to create not merely the ‘common market’ and ‘economic and monetary union’ contemplated by the Treaty of Rome, but also the potential union embodied in the Treaty on European Union signed in 1992 in Maastricht.

The shift from economic to broad-based political union brought with it new attention to the protection of information privacy. On March 1 1, 1992, the European Parliament amended the commission’s proposal to eliminate the distinction in the 1990 draft between public and private sector data protection and then overwhelmingly approved the draft directive. On October 15, 1992, the commission issued its amended proposal; on February 20, 1995, the Council of Ministers adopted a Common Position with a View to Adopting Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data. The directive was formally approved on October 24, 1995, and took effect three years later.

Privacy regulation in the United States

The protection for the information privacy in the United States is disjoined, inconsistent, and limited by conflicting interests. There is no explicit constitutional guarantee of a right to privacy in the United States. Although the Supreme Court has fashioned a variety of rights out of the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment, ‘information privacy’ has received little protection, primarily based on the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. In the Fourth Amendment arena, the Court has found constitutional violations when the police have searched for or seized records without a warrant or meeting one of the exceptions to the warrant requirement. The Court, however, has written that the Fourth Amendment privacy right has little application outside of the context of the investigation and prosecution of criminal activity. Moreover, this protection against such searches does not extend to information controlled by a third person. Under the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court has recognized a constitutional right restricting the government from compelling individuals to disclose certain personal information. This right protects only the interest of an individual in not disclosing certain information, and that right is evaluated under intermediate scrutiny, as opposed to the strict scrutiny required when fundamental rights are at stake

As with all constitutional rights, these apply only against the government, not private actors. The requirement for state action and the ‘negative’ nature of constitutional rights require only that the government refrain from taking actions that impermissibly invaded individuals’ information privacy rights, not that the government take steps to affirmatively protect those rights. The Constitution also requires, however, that the government avoid actions that infringe other rights enumerated therein, such as the protection for expression in the Fifth Amendment, the government cannot take private property, whether by physical occupation or extensive regulation, without according due process and paying just compensation to the owner.

Outside of the constitutional arena, protection for information privacy relies on hundreds of federal and state laws and regulations, each of which applies only to a specific category of information user (such as the government or retailers of videotapes), context (applying for credit or subscribing to cable television), type of information (criminal records or financial information), or use for that information (computer matching or impermissible discrimination). PrivacY laws in 49 the United States most often prohibit certain disclosures, rather than collection, use, or storage, of personal information. When those protections extend to the use of personal information, it is often as a by-product of legislative commitment to another goal, such as eliminating discrimination. And the role provided for the government in most U. S. privacy laws is often limited to providing a judicial form for resolving disputes.

Passage of the privacy provisions in the Cable Communications Policy Act, and recent passage of the Consumer Credit Reporting Reform Act and the CPNI provision of the Telecommunications Act, demonstrate that Congress can enact serious privacy protection, even if limited to narrow sectoral environments. The later two acts and the expanding debate in Washington over the privacy evince the growing attention to the development of laws and regulations to protect privacy.

However, as the limits and exceptions within existing privacy laws indicate, privacy protection in the United States is fundamentally in tension with other cherished values. The legal regulation of privacy is significantly influenced by the importance placed by society on the prevention of crime and prosecution of criminals, free expression and an investigatory press, the acquisition and use of property, and a limited role for government involvement in daily life. A comparison of the legal regimes of the EU and the United States suggests that the Europe privacy is more valued and less in conflict with other widely shared values.

B. Protection of Privacy in the telecommunications sector

Directive 97/66/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of the 15 December 1997 concerns the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the telecommunications sector.

This directive provides for the harmonisation of the provisions of the member states required to ensure an equivalent level of protection of fundamental rights and freedom, and in particular the right to privacy, with respect to the processing of personal data in the telecommunications sector and to ensure the free movement of such data and telecommunications equipment and services in the Community.

The provision of this directive particularises and complements the directive 95/46/EC for the purpose mentioned above. Moreover they provide for protection and legitimate interests of subscribers who are legal persons.

This directive shall not apply to the activities which fall outside the scope of Community law, such as those provided for by titles V and VI of the treaty on European Union, and in any case to activities concerning public security, defence, state security (including the economic well being of the state when the activities relate to state security matters) and the activities of the state in areas of criminal law.

C. Cryptography

Cryptography policy in USA

It is part of the strategy to ensure that police and intelligence agencies could understand every communication they intercepted.

They attempted to impede the development of cryptography and other security measures, fearing that these technologies would reduce their ability to monitor the emissions of foreign governments and to investigate crime.

A survey by the Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC) found that most countries either rejected domestic controls or not addressed the issue at all. The GILC found that many countries, large and small, industrialised and developing, seem to be ambivalent about the need to control encryption technology.

The FBI and the National Security Agency (NSA) have instigated efforts to restrict the availability of encryption world-wide, in the early 1970s, the NSA’s pretext was that encryption technology was ‘born classified’ and, therefore, it dissemination fell into the same category as the diffusion of A-bomb materials. The debate went underground until 1993 when the US launched the Clipper Chip, an encryption device designed for inclusion in consumer products. The Clipper Chip offered the required privacy, but the government would remain a ‘pass- key’ — anything encrypted with the chip could be read by government agencies.

Behind the scenes, law enforcement and intelligence agencies were pushing hard for a ban on other forms of encryption. In a February 1993 document, obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC), recommended ‘Technical solutions, such as they are, will only work if they are incorporated into all encryption products. To ensure that this occurs, legislation mandating the use of government-approved encryption products, or adherence to government encryption criteria’. The Clipper Chip was widely criticised by industry, public interest groups, scientific societies and the public and, though it was officially adopted, only a few were ever sold or used.

From 1994 onwards, USA began to woo private companies to develop an encryption system that would provide access to keys by government agencies. Under the proposals — variously known as ‘key recovery’ or ’trusted third parties’ — the key would be held by a corporation, not a government agency, and would be designed by the private sector, not the NSA. The systems, however, still entitled the assumption of guaranteed access to the intelligence community and so proved as controversial used export incentives to encourage companies to adopt key escrow products: they could export stronger encryptions but only if they ensured that intelligence agencies had access to the keys.

Under US law, computer software and hardware cannot be exported if it contains encryption that the NSA cannot break. The regulations stymie the availability of encryption in the USA because companies are reluctant to develop two separate product lines – one, with strong encryption, for domestic use and another, with weak encryption, for the international market. Several cases are pending in the US courts on the constitutionality of export controls; a federal court recently ruled that they violate free speech rights under the First Amendment.

The FBI has not let up on efforts to ban products on which it cannot eavesdrop. In mid-1997, it introduced legislation to mandate that key-recovery systems be built into all computer systems. Several congressional committees adopted the amendment but the Senate preferred a weaker variant. A concerted campaign by computer, telephone and privacy groups finally stopped the proposal; it now appears that no legislation will be enacted in the current Congress.

Cryptography policy guidelines from OECD

The organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1997 issued a report on cryptography policy entitled: CRYPTOGRAPHY POLICY: THE GUIDELINES AND THE ISSUES (OCOE / GD (97) 204). The basic principles (each of which addresses an important policy concern) are independent and should be considered as a whole so as to balance the various interests. The principles are:

Trust in cryptographic methods: Users should be trustworthy in order to generate confidence in the use of information and commercial data.
Choice of Cryptographic methods: Users should have a right to choose any cryptographic method, subject to applicable law.
Market driven development of cryptographic methods: Cryptographic methods should be developed in response to the needs, demands and responsibilities of individuals, business and governments.
Standards for cryptographic methods: Technical standards, criteria and protocols for cryptographic methods should be developed and promulgated at the national and international law.
Protection of privacy and Personal data: the fundamental rights of individuals, to privacy, including secrecy of communications and protection of personal data, should be respected in national cryptography policies and in the implementation and use of cryptographic methods.
Lawful access: National cryptography policies may allow lawful access to plain text, or cryptographic keys, of encrypted data. These policies must respect the other principles contained in the guidelines to the greatest extent possible.
Liability: whether established by contract on legislation, the liability of individuals and entities that offer cryptographic services or hold or access cryptographic keys should be clearly stated.
International co-operation: Governments should cooperate to coordinate cryptography policies. As part of this effort, governments should remove, or avoid creating in the name of cryptography policy, unjustified obstacles to trade.

Given the role of cryptography in the information and communications infrastructure and in developing electronic commerce, cryptography policy has the broader perspective to overlap with economic, legal and political aspects of a number of information systems, protection of privacy and personal data and intellectual property protection.

E.U. cryptography policy

Led by the Germany and the Scandinavians, the EU has been generally distrustful of key escrow technology. In October 1997, the European Commission released a report entitled: ‘Towards a European Framework of Digital Signatures and Encryption’, ensuring security and trust in electronic communications (COM (97)503 final) which advised: ‘Restricting the use of encryption could well prevent law-abiding companies and citizens from protecting themselves against criminal attacks. It would not, however, totally prevent criminals from using these technologies’. The report noted that ‘privacy considerations suggest limit the use of cryptography as a means to ensure data security and confidentiality’.

Some European countries have or are contemplating independent restrictions. France had a longstanding ban on the use of any cryptography to which the government does not have access. However, a 1996 law, modifying the existing system, allows a system of tiers du confidence, although it has not been implemented because of EU opposition. In 1997, the Conservative government in the UK introduced a proposal creating a system of trusted third parties. It was severely criticised at the time and by the new Labour government, which has not yet acted upon its predecessor’s recommendations.

0 The debate over encryption and the conflicting demands of security and privacy are bound to continue. The commercial future of the Internet depends on a universally-accepted and foolproof method of on-line identifications; as of now, the only means of providing it is through strong encryption. This put the US government and some of the world’s largest corporations, notably Microsoft, on a collision course.

Other national and international activities related to cryptography policy

Cryptographic products and technologies have historically been subject to export controls. The current basis for export controls in the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies (agreed on 13 July 1996), which includes cryptography products on its control lists for export. The Agreement is implemented in national regulations. Regulation [(EC) 3381/94] and Decision [94/942/PESC] of the Council of the European Union of 19 December 1994 on the control of the export of dual-use goods are also applicable to the export of cryptographic products.

The Council of Europe has developed considerable resources to studying the subject of computer-related crime, issuing the Recommendation [R(95)13] of the Council of Europe of 11 September 1995 concerning problems of criminal procedural law connected with information technology, and is considering suggesting an international convention to address the issue. Such a convention could address matters such as exchange of information among government agencies in case involving the use of cryptography.

At the G7 Summit meeting on anti-terrorism in July 1996, G7 governments announced that consultations would be accelerated, ‘in appropriate bilateral or multilateral for a, on the use of encryption that allows, when necessary, lawful government access to data and communication in order, inter alia, to prevent or investigate acts of terrorism, while protecting the privacy of legitimate communications’.

In May 1996 the US National Research Council’s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board published the report ‘Cryptography’s Role in Securing the Information Society’. This interagency study assesses the effect of cryptographic technologies on US national security, law enforcement, commercial and privacy interests, and reviews the impact of export controls on cryptographic technologies. This authoritative report provides a comprehensive review of the cryptography policy issues faced by the US Government.

C. Key recovery

As of mid-1998 a wide range of government, industry, and academic efforts toward specifying, prototyping, and standardising key recovery system that meet government specifications have been implemented. Some of industry’s efforts were stimulated by U.S. government policies that offer more favorable export treatment to companies that commit to designing key recovery features into the future products, and by U.K. government moves to link the licensing of certification authorities to the use of key recovery software.

Yet despite these incentives, and the intense interest and effort by research and development teams, neither industry nor government has yet produced a key recovery architecture that universally satisfies both the demands of government and the security and cost requirements of encryption users.

The commercial key recovery products in existence today do not reconcile the conflict between commercial requirements and government specifications. In the absence of government pressure, commercial key recovery features are by their nature of interest primarily to business operations willing to pay a significant premium to ensure continued access to stored data maintained only in applications of encryption (such as communication traffic) are known in advance not to require recoverability and therefore would not be designed to use a key recovery system.

Another problem is that the most secure and economical commercial key recovery do not support the real-time, third-party, covert access sought by governments in order to support surveillance. In particular, ‘self-escrow’ by an individual does not meet government access demands. The third-party nature and global reach implied by these government demands make key recovery systems a much more difficult, expensive, and risky proposition than a facility for internal, off-line recovery in business enterprise. For example, most organizations keep backups in the form of plain text on magnetic media in physically protected premises. Similarly, organizations that keep encrypted data might naturally be best served by storing backup keys in a bank safe deposit box. A requirement for near-real-time access would preclude this approach, however prudent or appropriate.

Any access-time requirement carries with it special risks. In particular, some sort of network technology will generally be required. Such a network, which must link a large number of law enforcement agencies with different key recovery centers, would be extraordinarily difficult to secure. The current attention in the U.S. on the problem of securing critical infrastructure, such as telephone networks, power grids, national banking networks and air traffic control systems, underscores the problem of managing risk in key recovery. The system that support critical infrastructure, which are increasingly reliant on open networks and information systems, are among the most important current and future applications of cryptography. The complexity and increased risk introduced with key recovery would make critical infrastructure protected by cryptography more vulnerable to the kinds of sophisticated attackers that pose the most serious threats to these systems.

Government specifications for key recovery systems for export approval are focused on the easier problem of ensuring that keys are recoverable when authorized. They do not address or give techniques for the far harder problem of ensuring against unauthorized disclosure of data. The design and construction of prototype key recovery systems that satisfy government specifications for export, therefore, are not sufficient to demonstrate that these systems can be operated securely, in an economical manner, on a large scale, or without introducing unacceptable new risks. Any assessment of a proposed system must take into account a broad range of design, implementation, operation, and policy considerations.

As of mid-1998, we are aware of no key recovery proposals that have undergone analysis of the kind required. On the other hand, as our report notes, there are compelling reasons to believe that, given the state of the art in cryptography and secure systems engineering, government-access key recovery is not compatible with large scale, economical, secure cryptography systems.

D. European Initiatives

DLM-FORUM — Electronic Records

The first multidisciplinary European DLM-Forum (DLM-Forum’96) on electronic records which took place in Brussels between the 18th and 20th December 1996 was a major event in the investigation of possibilities for wider co-operation in this area both between Member States and at Community level. It was initiated by the experts’ report Archives in the European Union (Report of the Group of Experts on the Coordination of Archives. Brussels – Luxembourg: OPOCE 1994) and confirmed by the EU-Council Conclusions of June 1994 (94/C 235/03).

Organised by the European Commission in close co-operation with the EU member states it hosted more than 300 experts and decision-makers from public administration, archives, industry (hard- and software suppliers) and research. The multidisciplinary approach and the aim to publish guidelines on machine readable data as a concrete result as well as the high quality of the presentations were the attractions that turned this inaugural event into a European forum of international interest in the field of electronic records administration and storage. Participants came from all the EU member states, from other European countries (including the Russian Federation and Poland), as well as from Canada and the USA.

First reviews that have been published by specialised journals are unanimously enthusiastic. The forum’s success owed a lot to the Programme Committee’s preparations and should also be attributed to the undivided and continuous support of the Irish and Dutch presidencies of the EU-Council.

The forum was opened by the Secretary General of the European Commission, David Williamson who emphasised that archives, including increasingly electronic documents, are our collective memory and how important it is to retain that memory and to insure that it remains accessible in the future. In their keynote addresses the Deputy Director General of the Directorate General for Science, Research and Development, Hendrik Tent and the Permanent Representative of Ireland to the European Union, H.E. Ambassador Denis O’Leary laid out the political and technical framework of the DLM-Forum’96. Mr Tent described the importance of the forum with respect to innovation in the digital era and the Commission’s approach towards this challenge. Mr O’Leary stressed the role of archives in our society and the citizens’ right of access to information. In his closing speech the Head of Commissioner Bangemann’s Cabinet, Paul Weissenberg, pointed to the importance of electronic archives in the European Union’s concept of the Information Society as set out in the Bangemann report and subsequent documents. He stressed the necessity of concrete measures as an immediate consequence to the DLM-Forum.

The ‘life-cycle’-concept of electronic records guided the three parallel sessions. Thus the speakers in those sessions reflected on electronic documents in the different phases of their administrative life. The multitude of topics ranged from discussions of norms and standards for data interchange to the presentation of new electronic storage material. Surveys on the ‘state of the art’ in Europe completed this first interdisciplinary approach to retaining the collective memory of the Information Society.

It was the balance between working sessions and spontaneous and informal discussions outside those sessions that produced a most agreeable working atmosphere in which experts’ debates led to the kind of mutual understanding and the establishment of personal ties and relations needed to solve problems that concern all the disciplines represented at the forum. Thus the catalyst effect, which was hoped for, was achieved: experts from industry and research became sensitive to the concerns of archives and administrations.

The forum will lead, as foreseen, to amendments to the first draft of multidisciplinary guidelines Best practices for using Machine Readable Data which had been distributed to the participants.

Furthermore a document for follow-up measures, the so-called ’10 points’, was agreed on by the participants. One major topic for follow-up activities is the establishment of national focal points to improve co-ordination and networking and to establish functional requirements for electronic records management in the public and private sectors. Another topic concerns the urge for establishing training programmes for archivists and administrators.

In a world of continuous and rapid change modern archives services are an element of continuity, stability and a solid base for essential information and indispensable records. Modern management in public and private institutions has to be dynamic, active and innovative, and above all has to cover the entire continuum of the life of documents. ‘The DLM-Forum’96 demonstrated that the issues posed by the preservation and re-use of electronic records are central not only to the work of archivists, but also form the cornerstone of future economic growth and development within the European Union.’ as Seamus Ross points out in his presentation. In short: the problem of preserving electronic records concerns even more people and areas than have been covered by the forum’s participants. Further activities should include among others legal advisors, system designers and application developers, auditors and insurance providers. Contacts with existing working groups (e.g. the European Commission’s Legal Advisory Board for the information market) have to be established or intensified. A first step to co-ordinate these activities is the installation of the DLM-Monitoring Committee in April 1997.

Promoting safe Use of Internet

To prevent illegal and harmful content being distributed on the Internet the European Commission is promoting initiatives which are aimed at increasing the general awareness among parents, teachers, public sector and the information industry about how to deal with the issue in practical terms.

This action accompanies the Green Paper on Protection of Minors and Human Dignity in Audiovisual and Information Services, the Communication on Illegal and Harmful Content on the Internet, and the Action plan on promoting safe use of the Internet.

REFERENCES

1. STOA, PE 166499: “An appraisal of technologies of political control”, 1998.

2. R. Clarke: Dataveillance: Delivering “1984”, Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, February 1993.

3. R. Clarke: Introduction to Dataveillance and Information Privacy and Definitions of Terms, Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, October 1998.

4. R. Clarke: A Future Trace on Dataveillance: Trends in the Anti-Utopial Science Fiction Genre, Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd. March 1993.

5. T. Dixon: Workplace video surveillance – controls sought, Privacy law and Policy Reporter, 2 PLPR 141, l995.

6. T. Dixon: Privacy charter sets new benchmark in privacy protection, Privacy law and Policy Reporter, 2 PLPR 41. 1995.

7. D. Banisar and S. Davies: The code war, Index online, News Analysis, issue 1998.

8. T. Lesce: They’re Watching You! The Age of Surveillance, Breakout Productions, 1998.

9. W.G. Staples: The Culture of Surveillance, St. Martin’s Press, 1997.

10. D. Lyon and E. Zureik: Computers, Surveillance and privacy, University of Minnesota Press, 1996.

11. D. Lyon: The Electronic Eye – The rise of Surveillance Society, University of Minnesota Press. 1994.

12. F.H. Cate: privacy in the Information Age, Brookings Institution Press, 1997.

13. P. Brookes: Electronic Surveillance Devices, Newnes, 1998.

14. O.E.C.D.: Privacy Protection in a Global Networked Society, DSTI/ICCPAREG(98)5/FINAL, July 1998.

15. O.E.C.D.: Implementing the OECD “Privacy Guidelines” in the Electronic Environment: Focus on the Internet, DSTI/ICCP/REG(97)6/FINAL, September 1998.

16. O.E.C.D.: Cryptography policy: The Guidelines and the issues, OCDE/GD(97)204, 1997.

17. Report By an Ad Hoc Group of Cryptographers and Computer Scientists: The Risks of Key Recovery, Key Escrow, and Trusted Third Party Encryption, 1998.

18. COM(98) 586 final: Legal framework for the Development of electronic Commerce.

19. COM(98) 297 final: Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on a common framework for electronic signatures, OJ C325, 23/10/98.

20. A. Troye-Walker, European Commission: Electronic Commerce: EU policies and SMEs, August 1998.

21. COM(97) 503 final: Ensuring security and trust in electronic communications – Towards a European Framework for Digital Signatures and Encryption.

22. Directive 97/7/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of May 1997 on the protection of Consumers in respect of Distance Contracts. OJ L 144. 14/6/1997.

23. ISPO: Electronic Commerce – Legal Aspects. http://www.ispo.cec.be .

24. Privacy International: http://www.privacy.org .

25. Newton and Mike: Picturing the future of CCTV, Security Management, November 1994.

26. Gips and A. Michael: Tie Spy, Security Management, November 1996.

27. Clarke and Barry: Get Carded With Confidence, Security Management, November 1994.

28. Horowitz and Richard: The Low Down on Dirty Money, Security Management, October 1997.

29. Cellular E-911 Technology Gets Passing Grade in NJ Tests, Law Enforcement News, July – August 1997.

30. Shannon and Elaine: Reach Out and Waste Someone, Time Digital, July August 1997.

31. Thompson, Army, Harowitz, and Sherry: Taking a Reading on E-mail Policy, Security Management, November 1996.

32. Trickey and L. Fried: E-mail Policy by the Letter, Security Management, April 1996.

33. Net Proceeds, Law Enforcement News, January 1997.

34. Burrell, and Cassandra: Lawmen Seek Key to Computer Criminals, Associated Press, July 10, 1997, Albuquerque Journal.

35. Gips and A. Michael: Security Anchors CNN, Security Management, September 1996.

36. Bowman and J. Eric: Security Tools up for the Future, Security Management, January 1996.

37. E. Alderman and C. Kennedy: The right to Privacy, Knopf 1995.

38. Bennet and J. Colin: Regulating Privacy — Data protection and public Policy in Europe and the United States, Cornell University Press, 1992

39. BeVier and R Lillian: Information about Individuals in the Hands of Government — Some reflections on Mechanisms for Privacy Protection, William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal 4, Winter 1995.

40. Branscomb and A. Well: Who owns Information? From Privacy to Public Access, Basic Books 1994

41. Branscomp: Global Governance of Global Networks, Indiana Journal of Global Legal studies, Spring 1994.

42. Network Wizards, Internet Domain Survey, January 1997, http://www.nw.com/zone/WWW/report.html .

43. Network Wizards, Internet Domain Survey, January 1997, http://nw.com/zone/WWW/lisybynum.html .

44. Simon Davis: report, December 1997, http://www.telegraph.co.uk .

45. Francis S. Chlapowski: The Constitutional Protection of Information Privacy: Boston University Law Review, January 1991.

46. Ibid., p. 35.

47. Ibid., p. 45.

48. Ibid., p. 48.

49. Ibid., p. 57

50. Ibid., p. 82.

51. Ibid., p. 276.

52. Ibid., p. 267.

53. J. Guisnel: Guerres dans le cyberspace, Editions la decouverte, 1995.

54. http://www.dis.org .

55. http://www.telegraph.co.uk .

STOA PROGRAMME

European Parliament
Directorate-General for Research
Directorate A
SCH 4/61

L-2929 Luxembourg

Tel: +352 4300 22511
Fax:+352 4300 22418
rholdsworth@europarl.eu.int

LEO 6 D46
Rue Wiertz 60
B-1047 Bruxelles

Tel: +32 2 284 3962
Fax:+32 2 284 9059
msosa@europarl.eu.int

Digitization and HTML by JYA/Urban Deadline.

FORMER CIA DIRECTOR WOOLSEY DELIVERS REMARKS AT FOREIGN PRESS CENTER

SPEAKER: JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER DIRECTOR, CIA

(+)

WOOLSEY: Let me just informally say one or two things.

First of all, I am five years out of office, and so much of what I say is — indeed virtually all of it is heavily governed by my views and practices when I was DCI. I do continue to hold security clearances and confer with the government from time to time, but I am not up to speed on things like current intelligence operations, and if I were, I wouldn’t talk to you about them anyway.

I do have, however, a set of views about this set of issues and they were ones that I expressed in rather substantially the same terms when I was DCI that I’m going to express today. But in the context of the [European Parliament, Duncan] Campbell report and the current European interest, particularly in the overall subject of alleged American industrial espionage, I thought it was a perfectly reasonable thing to respond to the State Department’s request that I be available to answer your questions.

If you look at the Aspin-Brown Commission report of some four years ago, chaired by the late former secretary of defense and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Les Aspin, it states quite clearly that the United States does not engage in industrial espionage in the sense of collecting or even sorting intelligence that it collects overseas for the benefit of and to be given to American corporations. And although he does so with a double negative, Mr. Campbell essentially confirms that in his report.

In the Campbell report there are only two cases mentioned in which, allegedly, American intelligence some years — several years ago obtained information — secret information regarding foreign corporations. One deals with Thomson-CSF in Brazil, one deals with Airbus in Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Campbell’s summation of those issues in one case is five lines long, in the other case it’s six lines long, and he is intellectually honest enough that in both cases he devotes one line in each to the fact that the subject of American intelligence collection was bribery. That’s correct. Not technological capabilities, not how to design wing struts, but bribery. And it is impossible to understand American intelligence collection, for my period of time anyway, with respect to foreign corporations and foreign government who sometimes assist them without realizing that that issue is front and center.

Now, the Aspin-Brown Commission also said that approximately 95 percent of U.S. intelligence collection with respect to economic matters, which itself is only one of a reasonable number of U.S. intelligence targets — but with respect to economic matters, 95 percent of our intelligence collection is from open sources. Five percent is essentially secrets that we steal. We steal secrets with espionage, with communications, with reconnaissance satellites.

Why do we focus, even to that 5 percent degree, on foreign corporations and foreign governments’ assistance to them in the economic area? It is not to provide secrets — technological secrets to American industry.

In the first place, in a number of these areas, if I may be blunt, American industry is technologically the world leader. It is not universally true. There are some ares of technology where American industry is behind those of companies in other countries. But by and large American companies have no need nor interest in stealing foreign technology in order to stay ahead.

Why then do we or have we in the past from time to time targeted foreign corporations and government assistance to them?

WOOLSEY: There are really three main areas. One is that, with respect to countries that are under sanctions — Libya, Serbia, Iraq and the rest — important economic activity is sometimes hidden and it is important for the U.S. government to understand how sanctions are functioning, if they’re functioning successfully, whether Iraq is able to smuggle oil out and if so how much, how Mr. Milosevic does his country’s banking and so on.

Those types of sanctions-related subjects and economics are the subject of efforts by the United States to steal secrets by various methods — have been in the past.

Second, with respect to dual-use technology, there are some legitimate products, a number of types of chemicals that are useful in pharmaceuticals and in fertilizers and the like, super-computers are useful for predicting the weather and other purposes, that also have use in designing or producing weapons of mass destruction. So particularly where there are efforts around the world to hide the transportation and sale of certain types of materiel and products that can be used in the production of weapons of mass destruction, yes, there is a big incentive and an important reason why the United States government has in the past felt it important to steal secrets.

The third area is bribery. We have the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. It is a statute under which I have practiced as a lawyer. I have done investigations of major American companies on behalf of their boards of directors to detect Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations. I have sat as a board member of American publicly owned corporations and questioned management about whether there had been any foreign corrupt practices.

It is a vigorously enforced statute and an important one. And as a result of it, American industry is again not perfect, but as a general proposition it does not try and certainly does not succeed in winning contracts and international commerce by bribery.

This is not true of the practices of some of our friends and allies and some of our adversaries around the world. Some of our oldest friends and allies have a national culture and a national practice such that bribery is an important part of the way they try to do business in international commerce.

We have spied on that in the past. I hope, although I have no immediate verification, that the United States government continues to spy on bribery.

But whether it does or not, it seems to me that it should be understandable to anyone who reads the Campbell report, to anyone who thinks at all about whether American corporations need to steal technological secrets from foreign corporations, and anyone who is at all sophisticated about the way international trade and commerce works, that bribery is — or should be in any case and certainly was in my time at the heart of U.S. intelligence’s need to collect secret intelligence regarding foreign corporations and foreign governments’ assistance to them.

And with that I’m prepared to take your questions.

MODERATOR: OK, it’s fairly crowded today. Please wait for the microphone, identify yourself and your news organization. We will go right up here in the front.

Yes, we might as well start.

QUESTION: Then I take it that all the hubbub from Brussels and the European parliament with accusations that the NSA is being fed this information, all that is false?

WOOLSEY: Well, in far as the hubbub in Europe and in Brussels doesn’t mention that if there is any targeting of European corporations, if the past is any guide, it’s likely to be about bribery, then the journalists who are reporting it are hiding the ball. Because Mr. Campbell himself makes it quite clear, in both of the cases he mentions, that bribery is the issue.

So if people are inventing out of whole cloth in spite of what’s said in the Aspin-Brown report, in spite of what I said when I was DCI, as far as I know, I believe what is being said publicly and officially on the record by the U.S. government today, that the United States does not conduct industrial espionage, it doesn’t steal secrets of foreign companies to give them to American companies for purposes of competitions and so forth — if the hubbub in Brussels ignores that, then those who are creating the hubbub are intentionally looking away from the major issue.

WOOLSEY: If this were Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” to discuss the issue without talking about bribery, is like talking about it without talking about the prince of Denmark. It’s the central thing.

QUESTION: Mr. Woolsey, in spite of all that you said, it seems to me that espionage per se was two kinds — the Cold War kind, which you do against your political and ideological adversaries, and the industrial kind that you’re talking about.

Now there’s a general feeling throughout the world, that this industrial espionage is sort of open house, and everybody does it to everybody else. And there have been some reports of American agents being expelled from Germany, or France, or somewhere.

So in spite of all that, you’re saying except for bribery, the United States is not doing it at all.

WOOLSEY: The other two areas — at least in my time — that we thought were quite important to follow, I did mention. One has to do with sanctions. If companies in countries that are friends and allies of the United States are busting sanctions by what they’re selling to a country like Libya or Iraq, that might be the subject of secret collection. If there are efforts to hide the sales of dual-use technology that can be used with respect to weapons of mass destruction.

But I generally — and I think most of us who talk about this issue — reserve the term industrial espionage to mean espionage for the direct benefit of an industry. That is, I don’t call it industrial espionage if the United States spies on a European corporation to find out if it is bribing its way to contracts in Asia or Latin America that it can’t win honestly.

I would — and especially when it is not the practice of the U.S. government — it certainly didn’t occur in my time, and I’m not aware that it ever has — that the U.S. government gives this information about bribery, when we find it, to an American company. That’s not what happens. The information about bribery is not given to the American corporation that may be the victim.

What happens is that the State Department is informed, and then an ambassador, or in some substantial cases perhaps a very senior official in the State Department, goes to the country where the government official is being bribed, and says, You know, we really don’t — we know about this, and we really don’t think this is the way you ought to make decisions about awarding contracts.

Now what then typically happens, is that the contract award either is made on the merits — sometimes an American company wins, sometimes not. Or sometimes the host government will split the contract. And the American company, if it wins all or a share of it, doesn’t know that the reason it won was because the U.S. government uncovered bribery and went to the host government, and said, We don’t think you should be engaged in awarding contracts this way. But I don’t call that industrial espionage.

So in the post-Cold War era, how big a focus is this sort of thing for the United States? I’d say it’s rather modest, in the overall model — at least in my time as DCI — of our intelligence — of our secret intelligence collection.

Economic intelligence is important, but as I said, it’s about 95 percent from open sources. What our major focus is, is on rogue states, weapons of mass destruction, whether Russia is going to turn into a non-democratic country. We focus on major issues that could directly affect the security of the whole country.

But there is some increased emphasis on economics — 95 percent of it from open sources. The part that’s from covert sources is as I described.

QUESTION: You answered part of my question with your statement just now that, if in fact, U.S. intelligence were to uncover attempts at bribery by a corporation from another country, they would not inform the U.S. corporation.

But while we’re on, sort of the issue of process, presumably U.S. intelligence inadvertently perhaps, runs across technologically interesting information — technologically valuable information — even in the course of investigations predicated on the three areas that you laid out — technologically valuable information that would be commercially useful. What happens to that information? Does it sit mouldering on a shelf, or is there a means by which that information does wind up in the hands, either of U.S. government corporations, or U.S. corporations?

WOOLSEY: I don’t think so, realistically. Given the fact that the problem for the U.S. intelligence community is that there’s a great deal of data that goes unanalyzed — the problem is sorting through all this material. It is a substantial commitment of time and effort to devote an able analyst to sorting something out. And in the important high-tech areas — computers, telecommunications, software, and the like — these are areas — again, I don’t want to sound nationalistic about this. But bluntly, these are areas in which the United States is the world leader.

And it is — it would be a substantial misuse, I think, of the time of valuable analysts to go through technological analysis of material from other trading countries, you know, that we have cordial relations with, and deal with all the time, and where there’s a great deal out in the open anyway, in order to do an analytical piece that can’t be given to anybody. I mean, it could not be given to an American corporation.

There’s a separate problem here, which is, what’s an American corporation? Is it a company that’s headquartered in New York, but does most of its manufacturing in Canada — an American corporation? Is it a Canadian corporation that manufactures largely in Kentucky? Who knows. We have a terrible time sorting this sort of thing out in trade issues, generally. And it’s just a morass that the U.S. intelligence community has no particular instinct or reason to get into.

And so, can one absolutely guarantee that nothing is ever leaked, that shouldn’t have leaked? I suppose one can never absolutely guarantee anything. But would, in the normal routine business, somebody do a technological analysis of something from a friendly country, which had no importance, other than a commercial use, and then let it sit on the shelf because it couldn’t be given to the American company? I think that would be a misuse of the community’s resources. I don’t think it would be done.

QUESTION: There was a specific case which involved a radar system that was installed in Brazil, and involving a European company and an American company. Both companies found out what the government had found out, that the European company was trying to bribe the Brazilian companies…

WOOLSEY: Is this the Thompsen C.S.F. case…

QUESTION: Yes.

WOOLSEY: … in the report?

QUESTION: Yes. I have two questions on that. One is, if you are spying on a company because you think it might be bribing its way to a contract, you can — in this case for example, everyone knew exactly what technology was being sold. So, it isn’t like that you have to get a special analyst to analyze the system, because everyone knew exactly it was radar system.

So going back to Paul’s question. In the case — knowing that you’re analyzing radars, if you did have some information that, let’s say the European company had a special system, or something, would that just sit on a shelf? That’s one thing.

And the other thing is, could you use that — if you pass some information to the State Department, but it could be used in commercial negotiations, like let’s say you’re spying on companies or something.

QUESTION: And then you find out that in a WTO negotiation or a WTO panel something will come up related to that that still is information that can be used by the government commercially or not.

WOOLSEY: I can’t exclude the possibility that at times in the past, information that would come to the attention of the U.S. intelligence community would be used in a circumstance like the second one you mentioned, for U.S. government purpose. Something like that would not be the focus of collection or the focus of even the sorting of intelligence. But it’s just too far down the food chain of interests, frankly.

But I think the — you can’t exclude the possibility that if a report including information about something technological were disseminated inside the United States government, it would be used for a government-wide purpose by someone who knew about it in the State Department or elsewhere.

What wouldn’t be done, is that it wouldn’t be given to the American company in question. But intelligence community’s main problem over the course of the last several years has been that as the Cold War has ended, it’s relatively speaking, its resources are insufficient in its eyes and in mine to do a lot of what is necessary. I’ve often said that it’s as if we were fighting with a dragon for some 45 years and slew the dragon and then found ourselves in a jungle full of a number of poisonous snakes. And that in many ways, the snakes are a lot harder to keep track of than the dragon ever was. The snakes are rogue states and terrorists and the like. We have now six or eight major issues we have to watch instead of just the workings of the Soviet Union and its various manifestations in the world.

And that has meant that on these crucial issues for U.S. intelligence, rogue states, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, narcotics smuggling, the community has found itself very strapped. And you know, to spend time trying to figure out whether some technological fact about some friendly country’s part of their technology is relevant to some trade negotiation is — got to be something — I can’t believe anybody would be focusing on or spending any time on.

MODERATOR: OK, let’s start from the back and we’ll work our way forward.

QUESTION: I have a question about a definition. If the American company hires a local consultant in China, or Brazil or Afghanistan, who bribes at his own expense and his own account with or without knowledge of the American company, and he pays bribes. Is that as far as you are concerned, is that bribery or it is not?

WOOLSEY: It probably depends on the facts. But if the American employer had reason to believe from the past behavior of this individual or from the overall circumstances or from his expenses or from the fact that an award was given that didn’t seem understandable or justified by the bids, if for any reason, the American employer including a foreign individual who was directly employed by the United States, the gut (ph) company, had reason to believe that a bribe had occurred, it would be a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. This is the sort of thing — there are things under the FCPA called red flags.

There’s a rather long list of behavior and circumstances which should raise suspicions. And the American companies and their boards of directors, are charged not just to report to the SEC or the Justice Department when they clearly and definitely know that someone overseas has been bribed. They are charged with conducting investigations and being on top of what all of their commercial agents and the like are doing. It’s a very demanding statute.

QUESTION: My question is not about industrial espionage specifically. I hope that’s all right. Sorry, Charlie.

There was a report in the New York Times a few weeks ago that said the Jordanian secret service had surpassed the Mossad, the Israeli Mossad in terms of how much they helped the U.S. in fighting terrorists and things like that. And I’m wondering if you could speak at all about how much — and that in fact, even in Jordan that the U.S. identifies its spies to the Jordanian government, a practice it doesn’t do in other places. So I was wondering if you would comment on that.

But also, if you could describe in any way how much the Israeli intelligence service and the U.S. intelligence service work together in terms of even finding out things about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction and those kinds of things.

WOOLSEY: Even if I were current — and I have not been current on this subject for the last five years since I left the government — I wouldn’t answer that question. I will say this. Both Jordan and Israel have very fine intelligence services. Both countries are friends of the United States. The countries under a lot of circumstances today are friends of one another. And a number of friendly countries in the Mideast cooperate with intelligence and otherwise, in dealing with rogue states and aggressive states in the Mideast. And I would certainly count Iraq as first and foremost in that later category.

MODERATOR: Far be it for me to ever try to control the topic of a conversation, but we are — I’ll go across the Sinai Peninsula to Thomas, if he’s on the economic topic?

OK, Thomas?

QUESTION: Trying to figure out what you said about (inaudible) and jungle of the snakes. Definitely, in the golden age of espionage there was spying and counter spying. And you cannot say that you are just a victim of the others and you don’t want to try to get information about the others. Definitely there is a kind of a spying, you know, to counter attack his espionage. This is my first question.

My second question is…

WOOLSEY: Let me see if I understand. Does the United States spy on countries that are trying to conduct industrial espionage against American corporations?

QUESTION: Yes.

WOOLSEY: In my time, yes. I don’t know whether we still do or not. But I would have considered it a useful, although not perhaps actually top priority for the United States to understand the workings of a foreign intelligence service that at the behest of its government was conducting espionage against American corporations to steal say technological secrets. What counter espionage it really is in the international context is essentially intelligence services spying abroad on foreign intelligence services that are in turn spying on their country.

And that is part of the warp and woof of international intelligence collection for the United States, for Egypt and for the countries represented by essentially everybody in this room.

QUESTION: My second part of the same question was that what about the privatized economic espionage?

QUESTION: I mean which is more than related to the industries and the firms and the — in general because always even the regular espionage were asking, for all of the human factor of intelligence collected. It’s important or just…

WOOLSEY: Well, with respect to some types of intelligence targets, particularly in the post-Cold War era — terrorism is one very good example — human intelligence, the human factor, espionage is distinct from technical intelligence collection, has really got to be first and foremost.

Terrorism is not something you learn a lot about from plants, to the contrary, notwithstanding from looking at terrorist camps through reconnaissance satellites. You need spies.

But with respect to you know economic espionage against the United States…

QUESTION: I mean in general from your perspective, economic espionage doesn’t get more human intelligence or rely on…

WOOLSEY: It’s hard to say. Again, these three areas that I mentioned that were salient in my time, again for this 5 percent of economic intelligence that’s secret, 95 percent being you pick up newspapers and surf the Web and whatever. But for the 5 percent that involves needing to steal secrets, I would say yes, that human intelligence if you’re talking about bribery, if you’re talking about finding out about companies that are shipping material around sanctions, if you’re talking about companies that are selling super computers to institutions in other countries, that can use them to design nuclear weapons, a lot of that, I would say a rather high proportion of it would typically have to come from human agents, from human sources.

QUESTION: With all of the other sources can you state why you’re failing and as dragon you mention the snakes? Secondly, recently it was deserved (ph) by India and the United States to cooperate more on international terrorism? Do you expect the intelligence agencies of the two countries to cooperate in order to track international terrorism and cooperate (ph)?

WOOLSEY: Well, the dragon was the Soviet Union and the last time I looked we won the Cold War. I don’t think we failed against the dragon. I would comment to your Mr. Matrokin (ph) and Mr. Andrews recent book, “The Sword and the Shield,” based on the KGB archives that Matrokin (ph) stole from essentially 1917 to 1985. And it’s a complicated story.

There were some things the KGB were very successful at such as technical intelligence collection against American corporations actually. But after the demise essentially of the American communist party’s vibrant life, right after the end of World War II and after the end of the American Soviet Alliance in ’45, beginning in ’47 or ’48, the playing field tended to move in an American direction. And Matrokin (ph) and Andrew would say that particularly in the ’60s and ’70s and into the ’80s, probably American intelligence collection against the Soviet Union across the board particularly against the government, was substantially superior to a rather dismal KGB performance against the United States.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) country?

WOOLSEY: The dragon that we fought for 45 years and slew, was the Soviet empire in my analogy.

QUESTION: That isn’t what I had in mind…

WOOLSEY: Well, but you — it was my analogy so I get to say what I had in mind.

(LAUGHTER)

Now with respect to the United States and India, India is a friendly country and we cooperate on a number of things and we’re — both diplomatically and from time to time in intelligence areas, and I would hope that it would continue.

At least that was true with I was DCI. For the last five years you would have to ask somebody else.

QUESTION: I know it’s hard to quantify, but what region of the world, if you can break it down, is most afflicted by this — if I can use the word — by this U.S. espionage, especially bribery?

Is it Middle East? Is it South Asia? Is it Europe? Is it…

WOOLSEY: Well, you have the bribers and the bribees. OK. Now in a number of parts of the world although some are struggling against it, there has been a tradition of public officials accepting bribes and it occurs in a number of places.

The part of the world that where this culture of getting contracts through bribery, that actually has a great deal of money, and is active in international contracting is to a first approximation Europe. And indeed if you look at the recent negotiations that deal with implementing the OECD convention on bribery that was signed, I think in late 1997, there have been a number of parliamentary acts passed.

WOOLSEY: The Germans, for example, have gotten rid of the provision of German tax law that permitted bribes to be deducted from income taxes. France is debating it; hasn’t gotten rid of it yet.

But there has been a general history — both because it’s been relatively prosperous, because it’s companies export — that I would say the principle offenders, from the point of view of paying bribes in major international contracts in the world, are Europe. And indeed, they are some of the very same companies — the companies are in some of the very same countries where the most recent flap has arisen about alleged American industrial espionage.

It leads me to wonder whether the next major international investigation on this sort of subject coming from Europe is going to be charging that there needs to be a major look at the problem of rude American maitre d’s.

I’ll leave it at that.

QUESTION: I have two questions, the first one regarding the peace process. In case of the peace process in the Middle East, do you believe the CIA will be able to change the way handling the cases in the region? And the second question regarding how did you handle the espionage against you, United States, from your allies, like Israel and the other famous cases in that?

WOOLSEY: Second one first. Certainly the United States, often for reasons for learning about technology, is the target of espionage from some very good friends and allies. It happens. Normally we try to work it out. We try not to make a major public fuss about it. But where prosecution is necessary and where it does occur, we are generally of the view that one should impose penalties consistent with the seriousness of the espionage and the amount of material that was turned over, not the degree of friendliness with the country.

I’m going to use a clear example, one that I’ve spoken on publicly a number of times, Jonathan Pollard. The question has come up, since Israel is a friend of the United States, shouldn’t the United States pardon Mr. Pollard? Both I, and I think almost anybody connected with the American intelligence community and law enforcement community has said no, because of the volume and seriousness of what he stole.

Now, you’re first question was about?

QUESTION: It was about the peace process…

(CROSSTALK).

WOOLSEY: The peace process, yes. CIA officers in a number of negotiating situations — and here we’re largely talking about analysts — are extremely helpful. I was an ambassador and arms control negotiator for the United States. I negotiated the CFE Treaty in Vienna in 1989 to ’91. And I had several CIA analysts on my delegation and they functioned very much like other U.S. government officials.

WOOLSEY: We didn’t formally call them CIA officials, but our Soviet and other counterparts knew that they worked for the CIA. And they chaired working groups for me on verification. They negotiated provisions with other countries, dealing with verification. They were valuable members of the team.

And they had very cordial relations with Soviet counterparts. Sometimes we would even have parties with the American CIA people, and the Soviet KGB people, you know. It was an odd time.

But nonetheless, this tradition of American intelligence officers being involved in negotiations is one that I think can be entirely positive. There is one aspect of the CIA officers’ involvement in the negotiations in the Mideast that I couldn’t tell from the public statements whether it was taking place or not, but I was concerned that it might, because it seemed to me it put the intelligence officers in the middle, between the negotiating parties, and led them to have to try to assess whether one party was violating the accords, and then explain it to the other party, going both ways. And I thought that was a bad position to put an intelligence officer in.

I thought the U.S. intelligence officers should collect intelligence for the United States. And if an American official had to go to one party or the other in the negotiations, and say, “You haven’t turned in all your weapons, and we know it,” or, “You haven’t done this, and we know it.” It ought to be a diplomat. It ought to be an official from the State Department, not an intelligence officer.

But with that footnote, with that, you know — and I can’t tell still, from the public statements, exactly what the role of the CIA officers in the Mid-Eastern — in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations has been. With that footnote, I think that for the CIA, and for intelligence officers from other countries, there are a number of circumstances in which they can have a quasi-open, and professional, and very useful role on issues such as verifying agreements.

QUESTION: Mr. Woolsey, I understand that the U.S. is for — to promote democracies around the world, compared to dictatorships — number one. Number two — how much — and also CIA briefs president on a regular basis — on a daily basis on intelligence matters. How much president listen to the CIA reports, or their advice, including now, this report here in India Globe, and around the world in newspapers that he should not visit Pakistan? That’s according to the CIA intelligence reports. Should he visit Pakistan or not, in your guess?

WOOLSEY: Well, my — I’m not going to bite on that substantive recommendation. But I will say this. I think the CIA got a little bit spoiled in President Bush’s presidency, because having been a director of Central Intelligence himself, he was, and remains absolutely fascinated by intelligence, by the CIA. The CIA headquarters is now named after him. He had the intelligence briefer in every day, and so forth.

President Clinton is a speed reader. And he rather frequently reads the morning intelligence briefing, and annotates it, and sends it back with questions, rather than having the CIA briefer in. And if you’ll pardon me a moment of humor, when in 1994, in the autumn, after I’d been in the CIA job for a little over a year and a half, a small plane crashed into the south front of the White House. The White House staff joke, at the time, was, That must be Woolsey still trying to get an appointment.

(LAUGHTER)

So, I may not be the best individual to ask with respect to daily interactions of that sort. But whether a president absorbs information by a daily meeting, or by reading — as at least in my time, was principally President Clinton’s method of absorbing intelligence — presidents normally pay a great deal of attention to what U.S. intelligence as a whole — not just the CIA — communicates to them. And sometimes they discount it and do something else. And sometimes they have a right to discount it. And sometimes they were wrong. But on that particular issue, I’m going to stay away from that with a 10-foot pole.

QUESTION: Sir, you mentioned about the dual technology transfer. I believe, you know, that’s from the other side of the story. This is a — maybe that’s falling into the term of an FBI, but given your experience, I’d like to have your comment on that. That is, what are those countries involved the most, in terms of stealing U.S. industry secrets here?

When you’re talking about rogue states, I consider that — do you consider China as a rogue state, or what? I mean, according to a lot of report that it is China, it is Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Israel involved most in those case.

QUESTION: But maybe you can tell us what exactly…

WOOLSEY: I’m not going to get in the business of talking about individual countries that way.

I would say this. With respect to technology theft from American corporations especially, the Soviet Union and the KGB were very good at this. The Metrokin (ph) book explains how and why. Happily, the Soviet Union was unable to take advantage of much of the technology because of their incredibly decrepit and terribly inefficient economy. But they were very vigorously involved in this.

It has also been the case, because of American technological leadership in a number of high-technology areas, that some of our old friends and allies are in this business as well, not only by putting microphones in the head rests of their airliners which cross the Atlantic, in first class seats, but in other ways as well.

There are European countries where one wants to — if you leave your briefcase when you go to dinner, if you’re a businessman and there’s anything sensitive in it, you should have your head examined. There are a number of parts of the world where American companies and individuals when they travel where there’s intelligence collection against them. And there’s some in this country, including from some friends — old friends of the United States.

We try to discourage this. We work hard at it. We talk privately with the countries and companies involved. We exert a good deal of effort to try to keep this from happening. But it is something that is rather substantially, in this country, principally on the mind of the FBI not the CIA. Because the only way it comes up for U.S. intelligence is if we learn overseas, in conducting an intelligence operation or collection, that that foreign country’s intelligence service is going to be doing something inside the U.S. Anything that actually takes place here, 99.9 percent of the time the relevant people are the FBI not the CIA.

I don’t know what to say other than I don’t really want to get into accusing individual countries. This waxes and wanes. No one is as involved in it as deeply as the KGB used to be on the behalf of the Soviet Union. But a number of countries still do it.

MODERATOR: And on that note, I’d like to say thank you. Thank you ladies and gentlemen.

WOOLSEY: Thank you for having me.

8 March 2000. Thanks to anonymous.

TRANSCRIPT
March 07, 2000
NEWS BRIEFING
JAMES WOOLSEY
FORMER CIA DIRECTOR
WASHINGTON, D.C.
JAMES WOOLSEY HOLDS BRIEFING AT THE FOREIGN PRESS CENTER
EVENT DATE: 03-07

MARCH 7, 2000

Find this story at 8 March 2000

HTML by Cryptome.

Wie Geheimdienste spionieren; Amerikas Top-Spion aus der Tiefe – das mysteriöse Atom-U-Boot „USS Jimmy Carter“

Die jüngsten Enthüllungen zeigen, wie umfassend das weltweite Internet überwacht wird. Einer der erfolgreichsten Kundschafter soll ein geheimnisumwittertes Atom-U-Boot der US-Amerikaner sein – die „USS Jimmy Carter“.
Am Meeresboden entlang sausen gigantische Datenmengen in Glasfaserkabeln um die Welt. Doch sicher sind sie dort keineswegs. Einer der Gründe dafür: das Atom-U-Boot „USS Jimmy Carter“. Der 138 Meter lange Koloss soll in der Lage sein, die Leitungen in der Tiefe anzuzapfen. In allen Ozeanen dieser Erde – und damit in Gebieten, die außerhalb der Hoheit der Vereinigten Staaten liegen.

Das nach dem früheren US-Präsidenten Jimmy Carter benannte U-Boot unterliegt höchster Geheimhaltung. 140 Mann Besatzung steuern das Boot durch die Ozeane, daneben kann es noch bis zu 50 Spezialkräfte aufnehmen. Von einer Multi-Mission-Platform können Taucher und Mini-U-Boote starten. Seit Anfang 2005 ist die „USS Jimmy Carter“ in den Weltmeeren unterwegs.

Angriffe auf Unterseekabel
Wie aber kommt das U-Boot überhaupt an die Daten heran? Darüber gibt es nur Gerüchte, doch mehrere Szenarien sind denkbar. So könnten die Tiefseespione in Glasfaserleitungen so genannte „Splitter“ einklinken. Diese elektronischen Bauteile schicken Kopien aller erfassten Daten über eine eigene Leitung direkt zum US-Militärgeheimdienst NSA.

Bei einer anderen möglichen Variante müssen die Unterseekabel nicht einmal aufgetrennt werden: „Es genügt, die Kabel leicht zu biegen, um an die Daten zu kommen“, erklärt der IT-Journalist Peter Welchering. Spezielle „Biegekoppler“ fangen die Lichtsignale ab und lesen sie aus. „Moderne Lauschgeräte benötigen weniger als nur zwei Prozent der optischen Leistung der Glasfaser, um dann das komplette Signal abzugreifen und in Bits umzuwandeln“, fügt Welchering hinzu.

Radarkuppeln und Satellitenspäher
Wirklich neu ist die Tatsache, dass Amerikaner, Engländer und andere Staaten internationale Kommunikationswege ausspähen, allerdings nicht. „Ich verstehe die ganze Aufregung nicht“, sagt Welchering. „Mit Echelon verhält es sich doch nicht anders, nur dass die jetzt in den Fokus geratenen Lauschangriffe in digitaler Form stattfinden.“

„Echelon“ heißt ein weltweites Spionagenetz, das mutmaßlich weit in die Zeit des Kalten Krieges zurückreicht. Seit den 1970er-Jahren gab es Gerüchte über seine Existenz. Abhörstationen und Weltraumsatelliten überwachen angeblich Telefongespräche, Faxverbindungen und Internet-Daten, die über Satellit geleitet werden. Auch Handygespräche und Funkverbindungen sollen abgehört werden. Kugelförmige Radarkuppeln wölben sich über die Antennen, die die Signale erfassen. Eine wichtige Anlage stand im bayerischen Bad Aibling. 2004 wurde sie geschlossen, nachdem bekannt geworden war, dass sie nach Ende des Kalten Krieges vor allem europäische Unternehmen ausspioniert hatte.
Betrieben wird „Echelon“ von Nachrichtendiensten der USA, Großbritanniens, Kanadas, Australiens und Neuseelands. Genau die fünf Staaten also, die auch bei der digitalen Datenspionage zusammenarbeiten.
Feind und „Freund“ hören mit
Auch Computer und Telefone anzuzapfen ist für Geheimdienste kein Problem. Um an die Daten zu kommen, bedarf es einfach einer entsprechenden Spionagesoftware. Zwar lassen sich nicht derartige Informationsmengen wie an Unterseekabeln abschöpfen, doch die Spione können gezielter attackieren. Und zum Beispiel ein bestimmtes Unternehmen ins Visier nehmen.

Der volkswirtschaftliche Schaden durch Industriespionage lässt sich schwer schätzen, weil die Dunkelziffern hoch sind. Das Beratungsunternehmen Corporate Trust geht von mindestens 4,2 Milliarden Euro pro Jahr allein in Deutschland aus.

Total verwanzt
Unter Verbündeten sollte das eigentlich ein Tabu sein: Trotzdem spähen US-Geheimdienstler auch die Europäische Union aus. Das berichtet zumindest das Nachrichtenmagazin „Der Spiegel“. Die diplomatischen Vertretungen der EU in Washington und bei den Vereinten Nationen in New York seien verwanzt worden, heißt es in dem Blatt unter Berufung auf Geheimdokumente des NSA-Enthüllers Edward Snowden. Darin würden die Europäer als „Angriffsziel“ benannt.

Die Methode, die Räume – angeblich oder tatsächlich – gegnerischer Nationen zu verwanzen, war schon im Kalten Krieg sehr beliebt. Der sowjetische Geheimdienst KGB entwickelte zum Beispiel so genannte passive Wanzen, die keine Batterie brauchten, sondern ihre Energie durch von außen eingestrahlte Mikrowellen erhielten. Die Sowjets konnten den US-Botschafter in Moskau auf diese Weise jahrelang abhören, ohne dass dies entdeckt wurde.

Der Mann mit dem Schlapphut hat noch nicht ausgedient
Trotz aller Hightech-Methoden, auf die Geheimdienste heute setzen: Nach wie vor ist der klassische Spion nicht aus der Mode gekommen. Für Aufsehen sorgt derzeit in Deutschland der Prozess gegen ein russisches Agentenehepaar, das 25 Jahre lang ein filmreifes Doppelleben geführt hatte. Jetzt müssen beide für mehrere Jahre hinter Gitter. Das Oberlandesgericht Stuttgart verurteilte den Ehemann zu sechseinhalb Jahren und seine Frau zu fünfeinhalb Jahren Haft.
Auch im Bereich der Wirtschaftsspionage sind Informanten ein wesentlicher Faktor. Denn in vielen Fällen sind es die eigenen Mitarbeiter einer Firma, die Betriebsgeheimnisse verkaufen.

Dienstag, 02.07.2013, 18:51 · von FOCUS-Online-Autor Harald Wiederschein

Find this story at 2 July 2013

© FOCUS Online 1996-2013

NSA-Abhörskandal; Die Datenräuber von der USS “Jimmy Carter”

Der US-Geheimdienst NSA überwacht den weltweiten Internetverkehr. Dafür zapfen die Schnüffler auch Glasfaserkabel an, die am Meeresboden zwischen den Kontinenten verlaufen. Eine Schlüsselrolle soll dabei das U-Boot “Jimmy Carter” spielen.

Berlin – Jimmy Carter inszeniert sich gern als Freiheitskämpfer. Mit seinem Carter Center für Menschenrechte vermittelt der ehemalige US-Präsident in internationalen Konflikten, beobachtet Wahlen und setzt sich für transparente Regierungsführung in Entwicklungsländern ein. Für seine Arbeit wurde er mehrfach ausgezeichnet: Unter anderem erhielt er 1998 den Menschenrechtspreis der Vereinten Nationen und 2002 den Friedensnobelpreis.

2005 wurde ihm eine besondere Ehre zuteil: Die US-Marine benannte ein U-Boot nach Carter. Es ist das erste amerikanische Militär-U-Boot, das nach einem lebenden Ex-Präsidenten benannt wurde – und es ist nicht irgendeines. Die 138 Meter lange “Jimmy Carter” ist für Spezialoperationen ausgerüstet und nach Einschätzung von Geheimdienstexperten in der Lage, Unterwasserkabel anzuzapfen. Ein Boot also, das ausgerechnet von Carter hochgehaltene bürgerliche Freiheiten wie das Post- und Fernmeldegeheimnis zu verletzen sucht.

Bau und Ausrüstung des knapp 2,5 Milliarden Euro teuren U-Boots unterlagen strengster Geheimhaltung. “Sie werden niemanden finden, der mit Ihnen darüber spricht”, sagte Marinesprecher Kevin Sykes, als die “Jimmy Carter” Anfang 2005 in Dienst gestellt wurde.

Nur wenige Monate zuvor, im August 2004, hatte das US-Militär die USS “Parche” eingemottet. Dieses U-Boot hatte während des Kalten Kriegs Unterseekabel angezapft und galt als eine der wichtigsten Waffen im Spionagekrieg. Die Besatzung des Boots ist bis heute die höchstdekorierte Einheit der Marine. Das Militär nimmt ein solches Schiff nur dauerhaft außer Betrieb, wenn ein Nachfolger bereitsteht.

Das am stärksten bewaffnete U-Boot

140 Mann Besatzung leisten auf der USS “Jimmy Carter” Dienst. Sie verfügt über eine sogenannte Multi-Missions-Plattform, die wie ein Unterwasser-Hangar funktioniert. Von dort aus können Mini-U-Boote und Kampftaucher ins Wasser gelassen werden. 50 Spezialkräfte, etwa Navy Seals, kann das Atom-U-Boot aufnehmen. Für feindliches Sonar ist es kaum zu orten, weil seine Motoren extrem leise sind und der Bootskörper kaum elektromagnetische Strahlung abgibt.

Das Schiff ist mit Torpedos sowie Flugkörpern der Typen “Harpoon” und “Tomahawk” ausgerüstet, die feindliche Ziele sowohl zu Wasser als auch an Land ausschalten können – auch mit Nuklearsprengköpfen. Außerdem ist die Besatzung in der Lage, Seeminen zu legen. Damit sei die “Jimmy Carter” das am stärksten bewaffnete U-Boot, das jemals gebaut wurde, jubelte “Undersea Warfare”, das offizielle Magazin der amerikanischen U-Boot-Flotte.

Seit die “Jimmy Carter” vom Stapel lief, haben US-Medien mehrfach darüber spekuliert, dass das Schiff Glasfaserkabel zwischen den Kontinenten anzapfen könnte. Das Pentagon hat diesen Berichten nie widersprochen. Im vom Whistleblower Edward Snowden enthüllten Prism-Spähprogramm bestätigt der US-Militärgeheimdienst NSA sogar die “Sammlung der Kommunikation über Glasfaserkabel, während die Daten hindurchfließen”. Die Marine teilt lediglich mit, dass das U-Boot mit “fortschrittlicher Technologie für spezielle Marinekriegsführung und taktische Überwachung” ausgestattet sei.

Unklar ist bislang jedoch, wie die so abgefangenen Daten dann zu den Analysten des US-Militärgeheimdienstes gelangen. In den siebziger Jahren mussten regelmäßig U-Boote zu den Kabeln herabtauchen, um die Bänder einzusammeln. Diese Mission wurde schließlich von einem sowjetischen Spion verraten – das Aufnahmegerät befindet sich seither im Moskauer KGB-Museum. Sollten auch heutzutage die Kommunikationsdaten aus den Unterseekabeln nur zeitversetzt bei den Geheimdienstlern ankommen, wären akute Warnungen vor Terrorwarnungen kaum möglich.

Wahrscheinlicher ist daher, dass die Besatzung der “Jimmy Carter” an den Glasfaserkabeln einen Splitter installiert und eine eigene Faserleitung in ein Rechenzentrum des Geheimdienstes gelegt hat. Peter Franck, Sprecher des Chaos Computer Clubs, hält es außerdem für möglich, dass IT-Experten an Bord des U-Boots die Daten bereits vor Ort vorfiltern und verdichten und über die normale Funkkommunikation zur Basisstation zurückfunken könnten.

In beiden Fällen würden die NSA-Agenten praktisch in Echtzeit den Internetverkehr überwachen können.

01. Juli 2013, 18:02 Uhr
Von Christoph Sydow

Find this story at 1 July 2013

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013

Interaktive Karte zum Überwachungsskandal; Kabel, die die Welt verbinden

Über 200 Tiefseekabel verbinden die Kontinente und machen moderne Kommunikation erst möglich. stern.de zeigt, wo die wichtigsten Leitungen liegen – und welches deutsche Kabel angezapft wurde. Von Alexander Sturm

Wenn Sie den Mauszeiger über die Kabel bewegen, öffnen sich Info-Kästen zu den jeweiligen Tiefseekabeln.

Gäbe es die vielen tausend Kilometer Tiefseekabel nicht, die auf dem Grund der Weltmeere liegen, unser Alltag wäre ein anderer: All die Telefongespräche, E-Mails oder Online-Bankgeschäfte über Kontinente hinweg wären nicht vorstellbar. Knapp 20 der wichtigsten Kabel sind in der Grafik abgebildet. Moderne Leitungen können gut ein Terabit Daten pro Sekunde übertragen; das entspricht dem Inhalt von rund 120 Stunden Spielfilm. Das einzige transatlantische Kabel, das in Deutschland landet, das TAT-14 (im Bild gefettet), schafft laut dem US-Marktforscher Telegeography 1,87 Terabit pro Sekunde – und wurde vom britischen Geheimdienst abgehört.
Verlegung dauert bis zu drei Jahren

Eigentümer der Kabel sind Konsortien aus internationalen Telekommunikationsfirmen, die die Leitungen gemeinsam verlegen und betreiben. Staaten haben keinen Anteil, kaufen aber oft Datenkapazitäten, um Botschaften oder Militäreinrichtungen zu verknüpfen. Die Verlegung von Tiefseekabeln ist aufwendig: Je nach Länge, Zahl der Landungspunkte und Wetter dauert es bis zu drei Jahren (etwa für die Strecke Kalifornien-Japan und zurück über Hawaii), denn auf hoher See können nur zehn Kilometer Kabel pro Stunde ins Meer gelassen werden. Wartung ist dagegen kaum nötig: “Wenn die Kabel einmal im Wasser liegen, werden sie in der Regel nicht mehr angefasst”, sagt Alan Mauldin, Forschungsdirektor beim Marktforscher Telegeography.

1858 gelang die Verlegung des ersten transatlantischen Kabels zwischen Großbritannien und Neufundland, damals ein Kupfer-Eisen-Draht. Moderne Seekabel aus Glasfasern gibt es erst seit 1988. Sie haben einen Durchmesser von rund sieben Zentimetern und bestehen aus Hunderttausenden hauchdünnen Fasern, die von einem Kupferrohr, Aluminium, Stahlseilen und mehreren Schichten Kunststoff geschützt werden. Viele Tiefseekabel enden an sechs großen Knotenpunkten: New York, Cornwall, Alexandria, Hongkong, Singapur und Tokio. Das längste Tiefseekabel der Welt könnte man übrigens beinahe um den Äquator legen. Das 36.500 Kilometer lange EAC-C2C verbindet China und Japan mit den Philippinen, Taiwan, Hongkong, Südkorea und Singapur.

6. Juli 2013, 14:11 Uhr

Find this story at 6 July 2013

© stern.de

Tapping the world’s fiber optic cables

Data surveillance: how much is too much?

Huge masses of data flash around the world along thousands of miles of fiber optic cables. They are regularly tapped – sometimes legally, mostly secretly. While this technology is simple, filtering is a huge challenge.

Almost all the countries in the world expect their foreign intelligence services to tap and sift through international telecommunications. For that reason, network operators whose lines cross international borders are legally obliged to make certain intersection points available to the authorities. Britain’s Tempora program, for instance, had perfectly legal access to the information it obtained – at least when it passed through British territory.

From electricity to light, and back

But fiber-optic cables can also be tapped secretly, without the knowledge of the operators – though this is not exactly easy. To understand how it works, one has to look more closely at how the data actually passes through the cables.

A standard fiber-optic cable laid across land consists of 144 individual glass fibers, while undersea cables consist of a maximum of eight individual fibers. Using laser technology, the electronic data is initially turned into ultra-short flashes of light. These flashes represent the zeros and ones that all digital information is comprised of. A photodiode at the end of the cable turns the light flashes back into electrical signals.

Around 10 billion such flashes of light run through these cables every second, and each one can also transfer between 1.2 and 5 gigabytes of data per second. But since the capacity of fiber optics is never completely used up, in practice the data flow is usually equivalent to between one and five standard CDs.

Fiber optics need amplifiers
Thousands of miles of fiber optic cables are laid across the ocean floor

But after a certain distance, the data signal drops. Every 80 kilometers or so, the signals have to be re-amplified, explained Klaus-Dieter Langer of the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institute in Berlin.

This is done with the help of a “regenerator.” Undersea cables also have regenerators, which are supplied with electricity by copper cables laid across the ocean floor, together with the fiber optics.

These regenerators are the system’s weak point. At these spots, the fiber optics can be more easily tapped, because they are no longer bundled together, rather laid out individually (since each fiber must be amplified separately). At these points, data piracy is not necessarily easy – but that, as Langer puts it, is “just a technical hurdle.”

A vigilant network operator can spot such hacking attempts. “You need very sensitive measuring instruments,” said Langer, “then you can see when the signal strength suddenly dips.”

Order in the data chaos

Once a spy has succeeded in hacking into a cable, the bigger challenge emerges – sifting through the immense mass of data. This needs to be done quickly. Even if a single glass cable is operating only at 50 percent capacity, it can still deliver 10 terabytes of data in an hour. “Since storage capacity is finite, the trick is to analyze these 10 terabytes within an hour, and filter out what you’re looking for,” said Langer.

A lot of the data needs to be decrypted – which also means being temporarily stored. At the same time, intelligence agencies must proceed very selectively so as not to get bogged down in the flood of data. Langer believes that agents probably concentrate on single fibers belonging to certain operators of particular interest. “It makes more sense to search for certain content, rather than, for example, email conversations, telephone connections and the like.

Wire-tapping contest under the ocean
Huge server capacity must be immediately available to sift data

Hacking a cable only makes sense if you have large server capacity immediately available, which is why Langer is skeptical of recent media speculation about the USS Jimmy Carter, a nuclear submarine said to be on a mission to tap underwater cables. “It seems bizarre,” said Langer.

But Peter Franck, spokesman for the Chaos Computer Club digital rights collective, considers the submarine reports “absolutely believable.” Though tapping underwater cables is so secret “that it would never be publicly talked about,” so far reports in the American media have not been denied by the government.

Franck can imagine a number of ways in which data could be moved from the submarine to servers on shore. He speculates, for instance, that the data could be pre-filtered on board and then broadcast to a base via the normal radio communication. Or a device that records the data could be left on the ocean floor. “An extra vehicle could then come and pick it up,” Franck suggested.

Such underwater cables are certainly of considerable interest to intelligence agencies, since a huge part of international communication travels through them. It could certainly be the case that a lot of the world’s fiber optic cables are being tapped – and not only in countries where respective intelligence agencies are based.

Date 30.06.2013
Author Fabian Schmidt / bk
Editor Sonya Diehn

Find this story at 30 June 2013

© 2013 Deutsche Welle

Germany fears NSA stole industrial secrets

The NSA espionage scandal has unsettled German companies. They are concerned that industrial secrets may have been stolen by US intelligence agencies.

Trust between Washington and Berlin has been shaken by the scandal over the alleged bugging of German government and EU buildings by US intelligence agencies. Reacting angrily to the apparent widespread surveillance of telephone and email communications, German politicians have demanded a speedy explanation from Washington. The EU and Germany do, after all, see themselves as partners of the US.

While the outrage may be exaggerated, there are legitimate, unanswered questions. For example: Why is the National Security Agency (NSA) collecting such large amounts of data, and for what end is that data being used?

The Trojan horse

The chairman of the conservative Christian Social Union’s small business group, Hans Michelbach, sees the surveillance of EU institutions by US intelligence agencies as a cause for alarm.

“The EU is not a supporter of terrorism, but is indeed a strong competitor in the global economy,” Michelbach said. He fears that not only European institutions, but also European and German firms may have been spied on, giving the US “dishonest advantages.”

Germany’s consumer protection minister, Ilse Aigner, warns that the joint fight against terrorism could be turned into a “Trojan horse” that “covers up espionage against governments and companies.”

Meanwhile, German companies have expressed both concern and astonishment at the extent of the spying.

“There was speculation in the past that conversations and Internet activity were being recorded by foreign intelligence agencies,” Volker Wagner, chairman of the Working Group for Economic Security, told DW. “But if the media reports are true, then the dimensions are alarming.”

Opportunity makes a thief

Other economic and industrial groups have reacted in a similar fashion. They want to know what kind of data was recorded and how it was used. At the moment, the European business community only has suspicions that industrial secrets were stolen by US intelligence agencies. Typically, stolen technologies and products show up in the hands of competitors or foreign countries years after they were originally taken.

But according to Wagner, the amount of data collected creates an incentive for abuse.

“One has to consider that American security services employ many freelancers, contractors and consultants,” Wagner said. “It’s estimated that in Washington alone, up to 1.5 million contractors work for the security services.”
Rösler said US espionage hurts prospects for a trade agreement

It’s uncertain whether all of these contractors respect the law. Rainer Glatz of the German Engineering Federation calls for the creation of an international treaty that clearly regulates data protection and intellectual property. Glatz believes that the private sector has to become more proactive and avoid relying on the state to protect corporate secrets. Countermeasures, such as firewalls, are being implemented by the companies the federation represents.

“In addition, we have to school the employees in the sales department and the service technicians on how to protect corporate information,” Glatz told DW.

EU-US trade agreement jeopardized

Germany’s IT small business association is pursuing a different approach. The group has suggested the creation of Europe-wide corporate consortiums as a counterbalance to the economic power of the US.

But the American and European economies are supposed to become even more integrated in the future. The EU and US hope to implement a free trade agreement. German Economy Minister Philipp Rösler has said that while Berlin still has an interest in such a partnership with the US, the espionage scandal has negatively impacted the project.

“The US now has to quickly clarify the allegations and provide transparency,” Rösler said.

Industrial espionage causes billions of euros in economic damage in Germany. The security consultancy Corporate Trust estimates that it cost 4.2 billion euros ($5.4 billion) in 2012.

Date 03.07.2013
Author Jennifer Fraczek / slk
Editor Andreas Illmer

Find this story at 3 July 2013

© 2013 Deutsche Welle

Germany, UK breaching human rights with NSA spy link-up

Echelon system identified as “legislation-free zone”

In a major report to be published this week, the Echelon committee of the European Parliament has found that the conduct of electronic surveillance activities by US intelligence breaches the European Convention of Human Rights even when conducted, allegedly, for law enforcement purposes. It concludes that if the British and German governments fail to prevent the improper use of surveillance stations sited on their territory to intercept private and commercial communications, they may be in breach both of community law and of human rights treaties.

Composite Signals Organisation Station Morwenstow, run by Britain’s GCHQ, was the first station built to intercept civil commercial satellite communications as part of the ECHELON system

Two drafts of the proposed EP report, prepared by rapporteur and MEP Gerhard Schmidt, were leaked earlier this month. The form and wording of the committee’s final report is due to be settled by the full committee in a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday 29 May.

Comparison of the two drafts shows that the committee was waiting to question American government and trade officials about their use of economic intelligence before making its final comments. But, two weeks ago, the American government decided to snub them after members had already arrived in Washington, abruptly cancelling a series of planned meetings.

The declared policy of the US government, as explained last year by former CIA director James Woolsey, is to use the U.S. intelligence system spy on European companies in order to gather evidence of bribery and unfair trade practices. Woolsey said “Yes, my continental European friends, we have spied on you. And it’s true that we use computers to sort through data by using keywords”. “We have spied on you because you bribe”, he wrote in the Wall Street Journal[1].

US economic intelligence policies in support of business and trade were exposed four months ago in a detailed new report to the Echelon committee. That report on “COMINT impact on international trade”[2] is published here exclusively for the first time today. The report traces in detail how U.S. intelligence gathering priorities shifted dramatically after the end of the Cold War, with the result that “about 40 percent of the requirements” of U.S. intelligence collection became “economic, either in part or in whole”.

Echelon committee vice-chairman Neil MacCormick (Scotland) wants to see legal changes to protect private communications; meanwhile “people should treat their e-mails like seaside postcards” that anyone else can read.

The new priorities for economic intelligence were approved by the first President Bush in a document called NSD-67 (National Security Directive 67), issued by the White House on 20 March 1992. By using the CIA and NSA to spy on foreign rivals of American companies, the declared U.S. objective was to “level the playing field” in foreign trade.

After the new policies came into force, the incoming Clinton administration set up a new Trade Promotion co-ordinating committee, with direct intelligence inputs from the CIA and direct links to U.S. business through a new “Advocacy Center”. Intelligence from NSA and CIA was supplied to the U.S. government department of Commerce through an “Office of Intelligence Liasion”, which was equipped to handle intercepted communications such as those supplied by the Echelon network.

According to documents provided to the Echelon Committee and now published here, the CIA team in the Commerce Department proposed gathering information on “primary competitors” of American business in a major Asian market. One document shows that, of 16 U.S. government officials attending a meeting on winning contracts in Indonesia, 5 were from the CIA (see Annexe 2-3[3]).

Two of the NSA’s largest electronic intelligence stations are located at Bad Aibling, Bavaria and Menwith Hill, in England. Both stations intercept satellite communications and use surveillance satellites to collect communications from the ground, anywhere in the western hemisphere.

The U.S. congress was recently told that, as a result of “levelling the playing field”, American companies gained $145 billion worth of business during the 1990s, after intelligence agencies claimed to have detected and defeated bribery or unfair conduct by foreign competitors. Many such contracts were listed in dossiers of cases publicised during the 1990s.

According to reports of “success stories” published by the Advocacy Center, European countries have lost out massively. France lost nearly $17 billion dollars worth of trade, and Germany $4 billion out of a total of about $40 billion. Sweden lost $386 million worth of business, the Netherlands $184 million. Not all “successes” necessarily involved allegations of bribery, but many did.

Despite the huge number of cases in which it claims to have detected bribery, the U.S. government has never published any evidence to substantiate its claims. Nor has it instigated any prosecutions. Equally hard to substantiate has been evidence in specific cases where secret interception activities are alleged to have affected a major contract. All of the specific accounts of European business losses, such as the lost of an $8 billion Airbus contract in 1994, were published by the American press, at a time when the Clinton administration wanted to publicise that it was doing its best for business.

The clear motive was to tell the Americans that their government and intelligence agencies were now helping with the economy. But when Europe became concerned about the Echelon system, such stories stopped appearing in the U.S. media, and information dried up.

The job of the US Department of Commerce’s Advocay Center is to “aggressively support U.S. bidders in global competitions where advocacy is in the national interest”.

Many MEPs suspect that the American claim only to use their secret listening systems, including the Echelon network, to prevent bribery are a smoke screen to cover straightforward spying for business and trade purposes.

The report on “COMINT impact on international trade” sets out, with many detailed sources, the case that from 1992 to date Europe is likely to have sustained significant employment and financial loss as a result of the U.S. government policy of “levelling the playing field”. The report does not address whether the U.S. position that such interventions were and are justified by corrupt and or unfair behaviour by foreign competitors or governments are reasonable or, in fact, are true.

But it is not necessary to show that intelligence information has been given directly to U.S. corporations for major economic damage to be assessed to have occurred. The boundaries of such estimates could lie between $13 billion and $145 billion. The only certain observation is that the exact figure will never be known.

Although failing to find new reports of European business losses beyond those appearing in the American media in 1994-1996, the Echelon committee has found that even if it were proven that bribery was involved, this does not make NSA activities of this kind legal in Europe. The draft report points out that:

“The American authorities have repeatedly tried to justify the interception of telecommunications by accusing the European authorities of corruption and taking bribes. It should be pointed out to the Americans that all EU Member States have properly functioning criminal justice systems. If there is evidence that crimes have been committed, the USA must leave the task of law enforcement to the host countries. If there is no such evidence, surveillance must be regarded as unproportional, a violation of human rights and thus inadmissible.”

Just a week ago, former CIA director Woolsey repeated his claims of European bribery at a meeting in New York. In the context of any such activities conducted at NSA’s British and German stations, this now appears to be an admission of unlawful conduct.

According to the draft report, “under the terms of the ECHR, interference in the exercise of the right to privacy must be proportional and, in addition, the least invasive methods must be chosen. As far as European citizens are concerned, an operation constituting interference carried out by a European intelligence service must be regarded as less serious than one conducted by an American intelligence service”.

Not least, this is because European citizens or companies could only get legal redress for such misconduct in national courts, not American courts.

“Operations constituting interference must therefore be carried out, as far as possible, by the German or UK authorities, particularly when investigations are being conducted for law enforcement.”

The draft committee report concludes that “there would seem to be good reason … to call on Germany and the United Kingdom to take their obligations under the ECHR seriously and to make the authorisation of further intelligence activities by the NSA on their territory contingent on compliance with the ECHR”.

The IC2001 papers

Four new studies on “Interception Capabilities – Impact and Exploitation” were commissioned by the Temporary Committee on the Echelon Interception System of the European Parliament in December 2000. The new studies update and extend the previous EP report, “Interception Capabilities 2000″[4], which was prepared in 1999. They cover the use of communications intelligence (COMINT) for economic purposes, legal and human rights issues, and recent political and technological developments. Among the key topics covered are the documentary and factual evidence for the existence of the COMSAT (communications satellite) intercept system known as “ECHELON”.

These studies were presented to the Echelon Committee at its Brussels meeting on 22 and 23 January 2001. The fourth study, on new political and technical developments, was presented only in the form of a slideshow. These studies are published with permission from the secretariat of the Echelon Committee.

ECHELON and its role in COMINT

IC2001, paper 1[5]

This paper summarises the evidence for the existence of ECHELON as a global interception system. It records official admissions about the secret UKUSA agreement that links English-speaking signals intelligence organisations. The paper also provides detailed answers to questions put by the Committee. It points out that very few media reports have provided original new information about Echelon, and that many press reports have enlarged on the nature of the interception systems and their capabilities, without evidence.

COMINT impact on international trade

IC2001, paper 2[6]

Paper 2 sets out, with detailed sources, the case that from 1992 to date Europe is likely to have sustained significant employment and financial loss as a result of the U.S. government policy of “levelling the playing field”, introduced in 1991. It also refers to:

Annexe 2-1[7] Background papers about the U.S. Trade Promotion Co-ordinating Committee (TPCC) and the Advocacy Center, including statements of purpose

Annexe 2-2[8] A questionaire for U.S. companies to answer in order to determine whether or not they are deemed “American” and thus qualify for official assistance. The questionnaire is also on the internet[9].

Annexe 2-3[10] Documents revealing the CIA’s role in U.S. trade promotion, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Annexe 2-4[11] U.S. trade “Success stories” affecting Europe – financial and geographical analysis Many of the stories can be viewed online[12] For example, this report[13] concerns the controversial power plant at Dabhol, India.

COMINT, privacy and human rights

IC2001, paper 3[14]

This paper reveals that Britain undertakes to protect the rights of Americans, Canadians and Australians against interception that would not comply with their own domestic law, while offering no protection of any kind to other Europeans. This and other background papers provided to the Echelon committee have prompted them to observe that “possible threats to privacy and to businesses posed by a system of the ECHELON type arise not only from the fact that is a particularly powerful monitoring system, but also that it operates in a largely legislation-free area.”

Other Reports

The committee were also given copies of three key articles about US intelligence and economic activity:

“Why We Spy on Our Allies”[15], by James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, Wall Street Journal, 17 March 2000.

“It’s true that we use computers to sort through data by using keywords. Have you stopped to ask yourselves what we’re looking for?”

“U.S. spying pays off for business” by Bob Windrem, NBC News Online, 15 April 2000 Originally published at MSNBC[16] This link is broken, but an alternative copy is here[17] and on other sites.

“U.S. companies have benefited when U.S. intelligence redirected its Cold War assets towards economic intelligence.”

“U.S. steps up commercial spying[18] – Washington gives companies an advantage in information”, by Bob Windrem, NBC News Online, 7 May 2000. Again, the link has recently been broken, but an alternative copy is at www.gn.apc.org/cndyorks/caab/articles/spying.htm[19].

“Documents, all published during the Clinton administration, appear to confirm reports that America’s electronic eavesdropping apparatus was involved in commercial espionage.”

Duncan Campbell 27.05.2001

Find this story at 27 May 2001

Copyright © Telepolis, Heise Zeitschriften Verlag

How the NSA Targets Germany and Europe

Top secret documents detail the mass scope of efforts by the United States to spy on Germany and Europe. Each month, the NSA monitors a half a billion communications and EU buildings are bugged. The scandal poses a threat to trans-Atlantic relations.

At first glance, the story always appears to be the same. A needle has disappeared into the haystack — information lost in a sea of data.

For some time now, though, it appears America’s intelligence services have been trying to tackle the problem from a different angle. “If you’re looking for a needle in the haystack, you need a haystack,” says Jeremy Bash, the former chief of staff to ex-CIA head Leon Panetta.

An enormous haystack it turns out — one comprised of the billions of minutes of daily cross-border telephone traffic. Add to that digital streams from high-bandwidth Internet cables that transport data equivalent to that held in Washington’s Library of Congress around the world in the course of a few seconds. And then add to that the billions of emails sent to international destinations each day — a world of entirely uncontrolled communication. And also a world full of potential threats — at least from the intelligence services’ perspective. Those are the “challenges,” an internal statement at the National Security Agency (NSA), the American signals intelligence organization, claims.

Four-star General Keith Alexander — who is today the NSA director and America’s highest-ranking cyber warrior as the chief of the US Cyber Command — defined these challenges. Given the cumulative technological eavesdropping capacity, he asked during a 2008 visit to Menwith Hill, Britain’s largest listening station near Harrogate in Yorkshire, “Why can’t we collect all the signals all the time?”

All the signals all the time. Wouldn’t that be the NSA’s ideal haystack? So what would the needle be? A trail to al-Qaida, an industrial facility belonging to an enemy state, plans prepared by international drug dealers or even international summit preparations being made by leading politicians of friendly nations? Whatever the target, it would be determined on a case by case basis. What is certain, however, is that there would always be a haystack.

A Fiasco for the NSA

Just how close America’s NSA got to this dream in cozy cooperation with other Western intelligence services has been exposed in recent weeks by a young American who, going by outward appearances, doesn’t look much like the hero he is being celebrated as around the world by people who feel threatened by America’s enormous surveillance apparatus.

The whole episode is a fiasco for the NSA which, in contrast to the CIA, has long been able to conduct its spying without drawing much public attention. Snowden has done “irreversible and significant damage” to US national security, Alexander told ABC a week ago. Snowden’s NSA documents contain more than one or two scandals. They are a kind of digital snapshot of the world’s most powerful intelligence agency’s work over a period of around a decade. SPIEGEL has seen and reviewed a series of documents from the archive.

The documents prove that Germany played a central role in the NSA’s global surveillance network — and how the Germans have also become targets of US attacks. Each month, the US intelligence service saves data from around half a billion communications connections from Germany.

No one is safe from this mass spying — at least almost no one. Only one handpicked group of nations is excluded — countries that the NSA has defined as close friends, or “2nd party,” as one internal document indicates. They include the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. A document classified as “top secret” states that, “The NSA does NOT target its 2nd party partners, nor request that 2nd parties do anything that is inherently illegal for NSA to do.”

‘We Can, and Often Do Target Signals’

For all other countries, including the group of around 30 nations that are considered to be 3rd party partners, however, this protection does not apply. “We can, and often do, target the signals of most 3rd party foreign partners,” the NSA boasts in an internal presentation.

According to the listing, Germany is among the countries that are the focus of surveillance. Thus, the documents confirm what had already been suspected for some time in government circles in Berlin — that the US intelligence service, with approval from the White House, is spying on the Germans — possibly right up to the level of the chancellor. So it comes as little surprise that the US has used every trick in the book to spy on the Washington offices of the European Union, as one document viewed by SPIEGEL indicates.

But the new aspect of the revelations isn’t that countries are trying to spy on each other, eavesdropping on ministers and conducting economic espionage. What is most important about the documents is that they reveal the possibility of the absolute surveillance of a country’s people and foreign citizens without any kind of effective controls or supervision. Among the intelligence agencies in the Western world, there appears to be a division of duties and at times extensive cooperation. And it appears that the principle that foreign intelligence agencies do not monitor the citizens of their own country, or that they only do so on the basis of individual court decisions, is obsolete in this world of globalized communication and surveillance. Britain’s GCHQ intelligence agency can spy on anyone but British nationals, the NSA can conduct surveillance on anyone but Americans, and Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency can spy on anyone but Germans. That’s how a matrix is created of boundless surveillance in which each partner aids in a division of roles.

The documents show that, in this situation, the services did what is not only obvious, but also anchored in German law: They exchanged information. And they worked together extensively. That applies to the British and the Americans, but also to the BND, which assists the NSA in its Internet surveillance.

Unimaginable Dimensions

SPIEGEL has decided not to publish details it has seen about secret operations that could endanger the lives of NSA workers. Nor is it publishing the related internal code words. However, this does not apply to information about the general surveillance of communications. They don’t endanger any human lives — they simply describe a system whose dimensions go beyond the imaginable. This kind of global debate is actually precisely what Snowden intended and what motivated his breach of secrecy. “The public needs to decide whether these policies are right or wrong,” he says.

The facts, which are now a part of the public record thanks to Snowden, disprove the White House’s line of defense up until now, which has been that the surveillance is necessary to prevent terrorist attacks, as President Barack Obama said during his recent visit to Berlin. NSA chief Alexander has sought to justify himself by saying that the NSA has prevented 10 terrorist attacks in the United States alone. Globally, he says that 50 terrorist plots have been foiled with the NSA’s help. That may be true, but it is difficult to verify and at best only part of the truth.

Research in Berlin, Brussels and Washington, as well as the documents that have been reviewed by the journalists at this publication, reveal how overreaching the US surveillance has been.

Germany, for its part, has a central role in this global spying system. As the Guardian newspaper, which is working together with Snowden, recently revealed, the NSA has developed a program for the incoming streams of data called “Boundless Informant.” The program is intended to process connection data from all incoming telephone calls in “near real time,” as one document states. It doesn’t record the contents of the call, just the metadata — in other words, the phone numbers involved in the communication.

It is precisely the kind of data retention that has been the subject of bitter debate in Germany for years. In 2010, the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe even banned the practice.

“Boundless Informant” produces heat maps of countries in which the data collected by the NSA originates. The most closely monitored regions are located in the Middle East, followed by Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. The latter two are marked in red on the NSA’s map of the world. Germany, the only country in Europe on the map, is shown in yellow, a sign of considerable spying.

Spying on the European Union
An NSA table (see graphic), published for the first time here by SPIEGEL, documents the massive amount of information captured from the monitored data traffic. According to the graph, on an average day last December, the agency gathered metadata from some 15 million telephone connections and 10 million Internet datasets. On Dec. 24, it collected data on around 13 million phone calls and about half as many Internet connections.

On the busiest days, such as Jan. 7 of this year, the information gathered spiked to nearly 60 million communications processes under surveillance. The Americans are collecting metadata from up to half a billion communications a month in Germany — making the country one of the biggest sources of streams of information flowing into the agency’s gigantic sea of data.

Another look at the NSA’s data hoard shows how much less information the NSA is taking from countries like France and Italy. In the same period, the agency recorded data from an average of around 2 million connections, and about 7 million on Christmas Eve. In Poland, which is also under surveillance, the numbers varied between 2 million and 4 million in the first three weeks of December.

But the NSA’s work has little to do with classic eavesdropping. Instead, it’s closer to a complete structural acquisition of data. Believing that less can be extrapolated from such metadata than from intercepted communication content would be a mistake, though. It’s a gold mine for investigators, because it shows not only contact networks, but also enables the creation of movement profiles and even predictions about the possible behavior of the people participating in the communication under surveillance.

According to insiders familiar with the German portion of the NSA program, the main interest is in a number of large Internet hubs in western and southern Germany. The secret NSA documents show that Frankfurt plays an important role in the global network, and the city is named as a central base in the country. From there, the NSA has access to Internet connections that run not only to countries like Mali or Syria, but also to ones in Eastern Europe. Much suggests that the NSA gathers this data partly with and without Germany’s knowledge, although the individual settings by which the data is filtered and sorted have apparently been discussed. By comparison, the “Garlick” system, with which the NSA monitored satellite communication out of the Bavarian town of Bad Aibling for years, seems modest. The NSA listening station at Bad Aibling was at the center of the German debate over America’s controversial Echelon program and alleged industrial espionage during the 1990s.

“The US relationship with Germany has been about as close as you can get,”American journalist and NSA expert James Bamford recently told German weekly Die Zeit. “We probably put more listening posts in Germany than anyplace because of its proximity to the Soviet Union.”

Such foreign partnerships, one document states, provide “unique target access.”

‘Privacy of Telecommunications’ Is ‘Inviolable’

But the US does not share the results of the surveillance with all of these foreign partners, the document continues. In many cases, equipment and technical support are offered in exchange for the signals accessed. Often the agency will offer equipment, training and technical support to gain access to its desired targets. These “arrangements” are typically bilateral and made outside of any military and civil relationships the US might have with these countries, one top secret document shows. This international division of labor seems to violate Article 10 of Germany’s constitution, the Basic Law, which guarantees that “the privacy of correspondence, posts and telecommunications shall be inviolable” and can only be suspended in narrowly defined exceptions.

“Any analyst can target anyone anytime,” Edward Snowden said in his video interview, and that includes a federal judge or the president, if an email address is available, he added.

Just how unscrupulously the US government allows its intelligence agencies to act is documented by a number of surveillance operations that targeted the European Union in Brussels and Washington, for which it has now become clear that the NSA was responsible.

A little over five years ago, security experts discovered that a number of odd, aborted phone calls had been made around a certain extension within the Justus Lipsius building, the headquarters of the European Council, the powerful body representing the leaders of the EU’s 27 member states. The calls were all made to numbers close to the one used as the remote servicing line of the Siemens telephone system used in the building. Officials in Brussels asked the question: How likely is it that a technician or service computer would narrowly misdial the service extension a number of times? They traced the origin of the calls — and were greatly surprised by what they found. It had come from a connection just a few kilometers away in the direction of the Brussels airport, in the suburb of Evere, where NATO headquarters is located.

The EU security experts managed to pinpoint the line’s exact location — a building complex separated from the rest of the headquarters. From the street, it looks like a flat-roofed building with a brick facade and a large antenna on top. The structure is separated from the street by a high fence and a privacy shield, with security cameras placed all around. NATO telecommunications experts — and a whole troop of NSA agents — work inside. Within the intelligence community, this place is known as a sort of European headquarters for the NSA.

A review of calls made to the remote servicing line showed that it was reached several times from exactly this NATO complex — with potentially serious consequences. Every EU member state has rooms at the Justus Lipsius building for use by ministers, complete with telephone and Internet connections.

Unscrupulous in Washington

The NSA appears to be even more unscrupulous on its home turf. The EU’s diplomatic delegation to the United States is located in an elegant office building on Washington’s K Street. But the EU’s diplomatic protection apparently doesn’t apply in this case. As parts of one NSA document seen by SPIEGEL indicate, the NSA not only bugged the building, but also infiltrated its internal computer network. The same goes for the EU mission at the United Nations in New York. The Europeans are a “location target,” a document from Sept. 2010 states. Requests to discuss these matters with both the NSA and the White House went unanswered.

Now a high-level commission of experts, agreed upon by European Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding and US Attorney General Eric Holder, is to determine the full scope of the routine data snooping and discuss the legal protection possibilities for EU citizens. A final report is expected to be released in October.

The extent of the NSA’s systematic global surveillance network is highlighted in an overview from Fort Meade, the agency’s headquarters. It describes a number of secret operations involving the surveillance of Internet and international data traffic. “In the Information Age, (the) NSA aggressively exploits foreign signals traveling complex global networks,” an internal description states.

Details in a further, previously unpublished document reveal exactly what takes place there. It describes how the NSA received access to an entire bundle of fiber-optic cables, which have a data-transfer capacity of several gigabytes per second. It is one of the Internet’s larger superhighways. The paper indicates that access to the cables is a relatively recent development and includes Internet backbone circuits, “including several that service the Russian market.” Technicians in Fort Meade are able to access “thousands of trunk groups connected worldwide,” according to the document. In a further operation, the intelligence organization is able to monitor a cable that collects data flows from the Middle East, Europe, South America and Asia (see graphic).

But it is not just intelligence agencies from allied nations that have willingly aided the NSA. Revelations related to the Prism program make it clear that agents likewise access vast quantity of data from US Internet companies.

NSA ‘Alliances With Over 80 Major Global Corporations’
Heads of these companies have vociferously denied that the NSA has direct access to their data. But it would seem that, outside of the Prism program, dozens of companies have willingly worked together with the US intelligence agency.

According to the documents seen by SPIEGEL, a particularly valuable partner is a company which is active in the US and has access to information that crisscrosses America. At the same time, this company, by virtue of its contacts, offers “unique access to other telecoms and (Internet service providers).” The company is “aggressively involved in shaping traffic to run signals of interest past our monitors,” according to a secret NSA document. The cooperation has existed since 1985, the documents say.

Apparently, it’s not an isolated case, either. A further document clearly demonstrates the compliance of a number of different companies. There are “alliances with over 80 major global corporations supporting both missions,” according to a paper that is marked top secret. In NSA jargon, “both missions” refers to defending networks in the US, on the one hand, and monitoring networks abroad, on the other. The companies involved include telecommunications firms, producers of network infrastructure, software companies and security firms.

Such cooperation is an extremely delicate issue for the companies involved. Many have promised their customers data confidentiality in their terms and conditions. Furthermore, they are obliged to follow the laws of the countries in which they do business. As such, their cooperation deals with the NSA are top secret. Even in internal NSA documents, they are only referred to using code names.

“There has long been a very close and very secret relationship between a number of telecoms and the NSA,” Bamford, the expert on the NSA, told Die Zeit. “Every time it gets discovered it stops for a while and then starts up again.”

The importance of this rather peculiar form of public-private partnership was recently made clear by General Alexander, the NSA chief. At a technology symposium in a Washington, DC, suburb in May, he said that industry and government must work closely together. “As great as we have it up there, we cannot do it without your help,” he said. “You know, we can’t do our mission without the great help of all the great people here.” If one believes the documents, several experts were sitting in the audience from companies that had reached a cooperation deal with the NSA.

In the coming weeks, details relating to the collaboration between Germany’s BND and the NSA will be the focus of a parliamentary investigative committee in Berlin responsible for monitoring the intelligence services. The German government has sent letters to the US requesting additional information. The questions that need to be addressed are serious. Can a sovereign state tolerate a situation in which half a billion pieces of data are stolen on its territory each month from a foreign country? And can this be done especially when this country has identified the sovereign state as a “3rd party foreign partner” and, as such, one that can be spied on at any time, as has now become clear?

So far, the German government has made nothing more than polite inquiries. But facts that have now come to light will certainly increase pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel and her government. Elections, after all, are only three months away, and Germans — as Merkel well knows — are particularly sensitive when it comes to data privacy.

The NSA’s Library of Babel

In a story written by the blind writer Jorge Luis Borges, the Library of Babel is introduced as perhaps the most secretive of all labyrinths: a universe full of bookshelves connected by a spiral staircase that has no beginning and no end. Those inside wander through the library looking for the book of books. They grow old inside without ever finding it.

If an actual building could really approach this imaginary library, it is the structure currently being erected in the Utah mountains near the city of Bluffdale. There, on Redwood Road, stands a sign with black letters on a white background next to a freshly paved road. Restricted area, no access, it reads. In Defense Department documents, form No. 1391, page 134, the buildings behind the sign are given the project No. 21078. It refers to the Utah Data Center, four huge warehouses full of servers costing a total of €1.2 billion ($1.56 billion).

Built by a total of 11,000 workers, the facility is to serve as a storage center for everything that is captured in the US data dragnet. It has a capacity that will soon have to be measured in yottabytes, which is 1 trillion terabytes or a quadrillion gigabytes. Standard external hard drives sold in stores have a capacity of about 1 terabyte. Fifteen such hard drives could store the entire contents of the Library of Congress.

The man who first made information about the Utah center public, and who likely knows the most about the NSA, is James Bamford. He says: “The NSA is the largest, most expensive and most powerful intelligence agency in the world.”

Since the 9/11 terror attacks, the NSA’s workforce has steadily grown and its budget has constantly increased. SPIEGEL was able to see confidential figures relating to the NSA that come from Snowden’s documents, though the statistics are from 2006. In that year, 15,986 members of the military and 19,335 civilians worked for the NSA, which had an annual budget of $6.115 billion. These numbers and more recent statistics are officially confidential.

In other words, there is a good reason why NSA head Keith Alexander is called “Emporer Alexander.” “Keith gets whatever he wants,” says Bamford.

Still, Bamford doesn’t believe that the NSA completely fulfills the mission it has been tasked with. “I’ve seen no indications that NSA’s vastly expanded surveillance has prevented any terrorist activities,” he says. There is, however, one thing that the NSA managed to predict with perfect accuracy: where the greatest danger to its secrecy lies. In internal documents, the agency identifies terrorists and hackers as being particularly threatening. Even more dangerous, however, the documents say, is if an insider decides to blow the whistle.

An insider like Edward Joseph Snowden.

07/01/2013 11:11 AM
By Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach, Fidelius Schmid, Holger Stark and Jonathan Stock

Find this story at 1 July 2013

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013

NSA Accused of Spying on EU; President of the European Parliament demands “Full Clarification” From the U.S.

BRUSSELS—Senior European politicians demanded explanations from Washington of allegations that the National Security Agency spied on European Union institutions, risking a corrosion of trust as the EU and U.S. embark on negotiations over a free-trade accord.

The German weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported over the weekend that the U.S. placed listening devices in EU offices in Washington, infiltrated computers there and electronically spied on EU bodies elsewhere. It cited secret documents obtained by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden as the basis for its report.

Reuters

A former NSA base in Germany. A German politician criticized allegations the U.S. spied on European officials.

The allegations come at a sensitive time. The EU in June gave the go-ahead for the start of trade negotiations with the U.S., which are likely to start soon. Though the talks are expected to take at least two years, the European Parliament, where many lawmakers are highly sensitive to privacy issues, will need to approve any accord.

“Partners do not spy on each other,” EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said at a public forum in Luxembourg. “We cannot negotiate over a big trans-Atlantic market if there is the slightest doubt that our partners are carrying out spying activities on the offices of our negotiators. The American authorities should eliminate any such doubt swiftly.”

Snowden on the Run

U.S. authorities sought to catch Edward Snowden before he reached his next goal: political asylum in Ecuador.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said his country had formally requested clarification from Washington. “These facts, if confirmed, would be absolutely unacceptable,” he said.

Germany’s Justice Ministry also called for the U.S. to clarify the matter, and for European Commission President José Manuel Barroso to act. “If the media reports are true, it’s reminiscent of the approaches of enemies during the Cold War. It’s beyond any stretch of the imagination that our friends in the U.S.A. see the Europeans as enemies,” German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said in a statement.

“Comprehensive spying by the Americans on Europeans cannot be allowed,” she said, adding that it is unlikely the U.S. could justify bugging European diplomacy offices as part of the global fight on terrorism.

The European External Action Service, the foreign policy arm of the EU whose premises were an alleged target of U.S. surveillance, said the issue “is clearly a matter of concern.” It said the U.S. authorities “have told us they are checking on the accuracy of the information…and will come back to us as soon as possible.”

The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the U.S. is responding to the European Union privately about the allegations.

The U. S. “will respond appropriately to the European Union through our diplomatic channels,” the office said. “We will also discuss these issues bilaterally with EU member states.”

The office’s statement didn’t address the specific allegations but said, “We have made clear that the United States gathers foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations.”

In a separate report Sunday, the Guardian newspaper in Britain said an NSA document lists 38 embassies and missions as “targets” for the agency’s spying, among them the French, Italian and Greek embassies. The article cited information leaked by Mr. Snowden as it source.

The allegations are the latest to emerge in U.S. and European media about surveillance activities by the U.S. and its closest allies based on Mr. Snowden’s disclosures. Mr. Snowden is at a Moscow airport, arriving there from Hong Kong in a bid to travel to Ecuador, where he has applied for political asylum.

The lead author of Der Spiegel’s report was Laura Poitras, an American documentary filmmaker who created a video interview with Mr. Snowden, distributed online, in which he described why he released information from some of the NSA documents.

Ms. Poitras also was co-author of an article in the Washington Post, based on Mr. Snowden’s leaks, about an NSA program to gain access to U.S. Internet companies’ computers in an effort to track online activities of foreigners suspected in terrorist activity.

Julian Assange, founder of the antisecrecy site WikiLeaks, said Sunday there would be no halting future disclosures from Mr. Snowden. “Look, there is no stopping the publishing process at this stage. Great care has been taken to make sure that Mr. Snowden can’t be pressured by any state to stop the publication process,” he said in an interview with the ABC network from the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he is seeking refuge.

According to intelligence specialists, the activities alleged in Der Spiegel’s report are similar to previously reported spying efforts among friendly countries. While allies have no intention of attacking one another, they seek information on decision-making within each other’s governments, and as a way to tell whether those governments might be spying on them.

The NSA raised concerns in 2006 about the merger of French-owned phone-equipment company Alcatel with U.S.-based Lucent because U.S. officials feared the deal would provide the French extraordinary access to U.S. telecommunications systems.

The NSA raised similar issues more recently over Chinese telecom-gear company Huawei Technologies’ efforts to expand in the U.S.

The president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, said in a statement he was “deeply worried and shocked about the allegations of U.S. authorities spying on EU offices.”

The statement added: “If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-U.S. relations…on behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the U.S. authorities with regard to these allegations.”

A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the allegations.

According to Der Spiegel, an NSA document dated September 2010 showed that the Washington embassy of the European Union was bugged and its computer network infiltrated. Similar measures were taken at the European mission to the United Nations in New York. The document described the Europeans as “targets.”

In addition, the U.S. bugged EU conversations in Brussels, spying on theJustus Lipsius building, headquarters of the Council of the European Union, according to the report.

The magazine reported that the NSA saves information on about a half billion phone or Internet connections from Germany every year through its “Boundless Informant” program.

Only a few countries labeled as close friends by the NSA are largely exempt from its monitoring: the U.K., Australia, Canada and New Zealand, the magazine said. An additional 30 countries are classified as “third party,” with an internal NSA presentation saying the agency is able to intercept signals from these countries and often does, Der Spiegel reported.

The controversy over the new allegations is reminiscent of the furor ignited in Europe in 2000 by disclosures about the NSA’s so-called Echelon project, which included commercial organizations among its alleged targets, prompting an investigation and report from the European Parliament.

The report drew a distinction between spying for national-security reasons and for commercial advantage, saying the latter could breach EU law.

European lawmakers have also expressed disquiet about the sharing of European financial data with U.S. authorities.

The reports about the NSA’s alleged activities already have prompted Ms. Reding, the EU justice commissioner, to organize, together with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, a panel of experts to find out how much data about Europeans was shared.
—Stacy Meichtry in Paris and Siobhan Gorman in Washington contributed to this article.

Write to Stephen Fidler at stephen.fidler@wsj.com, Frances Robinson at frances.robinson@dowjones.com and Laura Stevens at laura.stevens@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared July 1, 2013, on page A4 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Officials Slam Alleged NSA Spying on the EU.

Updated June 30, 2013, 7:26 p.m. ET
By STEPHEN FIDLER, FRANCES ROBINSON and LAURA STEVENS

Find this story at 30 June 2013

Copyright 2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

New NSA leaks show how US is bugging its European allies

Exclusive: Edward Snowden papers reveal 38 targets including EU, France and Italy

Berlin accuses Washington of cold war tactics

One of the bugging methods mentioned is codenamed Dropmire, which according to a 2007 document is ‘implanted on the Cryptofax at the EU embassy, DC’. Photograph: Guardian

US intelligence services are spying on the European Union mission in New York and its embassy in Washington, according to the latest top secret US National Security Agency documents leaked by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.

One document lists 38 embassies and missions, describing them as “targets”. It details an extraordinary range of spying methods used against each target, from bugs implanted in electronic communications gear to taps into cables to the collection of transmissions with specialised antennae.

Along with traditional ideological adversaries and sensitive Middle Eastern countries, the list of targets includes the EU missions and the French, Italian and Greek embassies, as well as a number of other American allies, including Japan, Mexico, South Korea, India and Turkey. The list in the September 2010 document does not mention the UK, Germany or other western European states.

One of the bugging methods mentioned is codenamed Dropmire, which, according to a 2007 document, is “implanted on the Cryptofax at the EU embassy, DC” – an apparent reference to a bug placed in a commercially available encrypted fax machine used at the mission. The NSA documents note the machine is used to send cables back to foreign affairs ministries in European capitals.

The documents suggest the aim of the bugging exercise against the EU embassy in central Washington is to gather inside knowledge of policy disagreements on global issues and other rifts between member states.

The new revelations come at a time when there is already considerable anger across the EU over earlier evidence provided by Snowden of NSA eavesdropping on America’s European allies.

Germany’s justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, demanded an explanation from Washington, saying that if confirmed, US behaviour “was reminiscent of the actions of enemies during the cold war”.

The German magazine Der Spiegel reported at the weekend that some of the bugging operations in Brussels targeting the EU’s Justus Lipsius building – a venue for summit and ministerial meetings in the Belgian capital – were directed from within Nato headquarters nearby.

The US intelligence service codename for the bugging operation targeting the EU mission at the United Nations is “Perdido”. Among the documents leaked by Snowden is a floor plan of the mission in midtown Manhattan. The methods used against the mission include the collection of data transmitted by implants, or bugs, placed inside electronic devices, and another covert operation that appears to provide a copy of everything on a targeted computer’s hard drive.

The eavesdropping on the EU delegation to the US, on K Street in Washington, involved three different operations targeted on the embassy’s 90 staff. Two were electronic implants and one involved the use of antennas to collect transmissions.

Although the latest documents are part of an NSA haul leaked by Snowden, it is not clear in each case whether the surveillance was being exclusively done by the NSA – which is most probable as the embassies and missions are technically overseas – or by the FBI or the CIA, or a combination of them. The 2010 document describes the operation as “close access domestic collection”.

The operation against the French mission to the UN had the covername “Blackfoot” and the one against its embassy in Washington was “Wabash”. The Italian embassy in Washington was known to the NSA as both “Bruneau” and “Hemlock”.

The eavesdropping of the Greek UN mission was known as “Powell” and the operation against its embassy was referred to as “Klondyke”.

Snowden, the 30-year-old former NSA contractor and computer analyst whose leaks have ignited a global row over the extent of US and UK electronic surveillance, fled from his secret bolthole in Hong Kong a week ago. His plan seems to have been to travel to Ecuador via Moscow, but he is in limbo at Moscow airport after his US passport was cancelled, and without any official travel documents issued from any other country.

Ewen MacAskill in Rio de Janeiro and Julian Borger
The Guardian, Sunday 30 June 2013 21.28 BST

Find this story at 30 June 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

NSA-Spähprogramm in Deutschland; Dame, König, As, Spion

Europa und Deutschland sind Hauptziele der Überwachung durch den US-Geheimdienst NSA. Millionen von Daten werden hierzulande von Obamas Spionen gesammelt. Doch Angela Merkels Regierung wirkt erstaunlich passiv. Warum?

Berlin – Als Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger kürzlich am Brandenburger Tor der Rede von Barack Obama lauschte, sah man sie in bester Stimmung. Sie winkte mit einem US-Fähnchen, die Worte des Präsidenten zu Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit gefielen der Liberalen sehr.

Knapp zwei Wochen später ist von der guten Stimmung der Ministerin nichts mehr übrig. Selten hat man sie so verärgert vernommen wie an diesem Sonntag. “Es sprengt jede Vorstellung, dass unsere Freunde in den USA die Europäer als Feinde ansehen”, sagt sie. Sie fühle sich “an das Vorgehen unter Feinden während des Kalten Krieges” erinnert.

Anlass des Aufschreis der Justizministerin ist ein SPIEGEL-Bericht, der unter Berufung auf Dokumente des Whistleblowers Edward Snowden neue Details der Spähprogramme des US-Geheimdiensts NSA offenlegt. Ob Wanzen in EU-Vertretungen, Lauschangriffe auf Brüsseler Behörden oder das flächendeckende Abschöpfen deutscher Telekommunikationsdaten – der Geheimdienst scheint vor nichts zurückzuschrecken.

Unter Parlamentariern macht sich Entsetzen über das Ausmaß der Spähattacken aus Übersee breit. Als “Riesenskandal” bezeichnet der Präsident des Europaparlaments, Martin Schulz (SPD), die Vorwürfe. Von einer “unvorstellbar umfassenden Spionageaktion” spricht Grünen-Fraktionschefin Renate Künast, von einer “ernsthaften Erschütterung des Vertrauensverhältnisses” der FDP-Innenexperte Jimmy Schulz.

Innenminister Friedrich im Wartemodus

Kritik gibt es aber nicht nur an der Regierung in Washington. Auch das Agieren der Kanzlerin rückt plötzlich in den Fokus. Angela Merkel müsse “den Sachverhalt schnellstens klären”, fordert ihr Herausforderer Peer Steinbrück. Wenn die Kanzlerin nun noch immer behaupte, das Thema gehöre in bilaterale und geheime Gespräche, “dann gibt sie sich der Lächerlichkeit preis”, sagt Künast.

Es ist Wahlkampf, klar. Aber über die Kritik kann sich die Bundesregierung kaum beschweren. Mit Ausnahme der Justizministerin macht Merkels Mannschaft nicht den Eindruck, als habe das Thema oberste Priorität.

Vom CSU-Bundesinnenminister ist seit dem Auffliegen des ersten Spähprogramms vor einigen Wochen kaum etwas zu hören. Hans-Peter Friedrich hat kürzlich ein paar Fragen über den Atlantik geschickt und befindet sich seitdem im Wartemodus. Die Kanzlerin besprach das Thema mit dem US-Präsidenten bei dessen Besuch in Berlin. Aber viel mehr als ein paar mahnende Worte, bei modernen Überwachungstechniken stets die Verhältnismäßigkeit im Blick zu haben, sprang dabei nicht heraus.

Es ist – gerade in der Sicherheitspolitik – nicht ganz einfach, auf Konfrontation mit den USA zu gehen, deutsche Behörden haben zuletzt immer wieder von den Informationen ihrer amerikanischen Partner profitiert. Aber angesichts der neuen Enthüllungen stellt sich die Frage, wie viel Zurückhaltung sich die Bundesregierung eigentlich leisten kann.

Wie Verwanzungen und flächendeckende Lauschangriffe in Partnerländern noch mit Terrorabwehr rechtfertigt werden sollen, erscheint fraglich. Wenn von einem ausländischen Nachrichtendienst derart systematisch die Privatsphäre der Bürger unterlaufen wird, sind ein paar offene Worte sicher nicht zu viel erwartet. Manche sind man da weiter. Frankreichs Außenminister Laurent Fabius drängte die USA am Sonntag zu einer Stellungnahme, die Brüsseler Kommission ebenso, auch der Generalbundesanwalt schaltete sich in die Spähaffäre ein.

Wie lässt sich Druck auf die USA ausüben?

Fragen gibt es genug. Kann es wirklich sein, dass deutsche Dienste von der großflächigen Vorratsdatenspeicherung nichts wussten, wo doch gerade im Sicherheitsbereich zwischen Berlin und Washington ein reger Austausch herrscht? Werden deutsche Bürger aktuell überwacht, und welche Bereiche der Kommunikation sind betroffen? Und was tut die Bundesregierung eigentlich konkret, um das Recht auf informationelle Selbstbestimmung der Bürger hierzulande gegen Angriffe von außen zu schützen?

Die Zurückhaltung von Merkel und Co. macht inzwischen auch die eigenen Reihen ungeduldig. Als die Bundesregierung im Parlamentarischen Kontrollgremium kürzlich über die Details der US-Überwachung in Deutschland Bericht erstatten sollte, konnten dem Vernehmen nach dazu weder Friedrichs Staatssekretär etwas sagen noch Merkels Geheimdienstkoordinator. Man warte noch auf Antworten aus Washington, hieß es. Auch unter Abgeordneten von Union und FDP machte sich daraufhin Ärger breit. Bis Mitte August soll die Bundesregierung jetzt ihre Hausaufgaben nachholen. Dann tagt das geheime Gremium erneut.

Schon jetzt wünscht sich mancher aber, dass die Koalition mehr Druck auf die Amerikaner ausübt. Besonders im EU-Parlament gibt es dazu einen Strauß an Überlegungen. Die einen denken darüber nach, Whistleblower Snowden einen Preis zu verleihen. Die anderen wollen die Abkommen zur Übermittlung von Bank- und Fluggastdaten aufkündigen. Und dann ist da noch die Idee, die seit einiger Zeit laufenden Verhandlungen für eine gemeinsame Freihandelszone zwischen Brüssel und Washington zu überdenken.

Auch in der Union gibt es dafür Sympathien – wohlwissend, dass es sich dabei um ein Lieblingsprojekt der Kanzlerin handelt. “Wie soll man”, fragt Elmar Brok, Chef des Auswärtigen Ausschusses für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten des Europaparlaments, “noch verhandeln, wenn man Angst haben muss, dass die eigene Verhandlungsposition vorab abgehört wird?”

30. Juni 2013, 18:53 Uhr
Von Veit Medick

Find this story at 30 June 2013

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013

Snowden case not the first embarrassment for Booz Allen, or D.C. contracting industry

When allegations of improper contracting behavior hit Booz Allen Hamilton, the national security consulting firm in McLean bounced back stronger than ever.

In 2008, a Booz Allen employee at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida was granted the highest-level “top secret” security clearance even though he had been convicted a few months earlier of lying to government officials in order to sneak a South African woman he had met on the Internet into the country.

Last year, the Air Force temporarily suspended the San Antonio division of the company from future contracts because it had obtained and distributed confidential Pentagon bidding data for its own competitive advantage. In 2006, the Justice Department said the company overbilled travel expenses, and the agency initially recommended that Booz Allen be barred from federal contracting.

Those incidents had little or no impact on Booz Allen’s success in recent years or on its ability to compete for federal contracts, which last year provided 99 percent of the company’s $5.8 billion in revenue.

Booz Allen now faces a greater test: Lawmakers and other officials are asking whether the company should be held to account for Edward Snowden, a former employee who had obtained national security documents and leaked them to the news media while at the firm.

But if the past is a guide, the government is not likely to scale back its reliance on Booz Allen or other large contractors soon, industry officials and policymakers agree. Although intelligence agency reliance on outside firms has declined some in recent years, the latest available estimates still show that about 70 percent of the U.S. intelligence budget is spent on contractors. And big, well-established companies continue to have outsize influence.

That is particularly true for Booz Allen, one of the most powerful firms within the government’s defense and national security structure. Nearly half of the company’s 24,500 workers have top-secret clearance.

The company also has deep connections within the defense and intelligence communities, including James R. Clapper Jr., a former Booz Allen executive who is the director of national intelligence, and R. James Woolsey, a former CIA director who was a senior vice president at the firm until 2008.

The man now heading Booz Allen’s intelligence operations, retired Vice Adm. John Michael McConnell, was the head of the National Security Agency in the mid-1990s and was appointed in 2007 by President George W. Bush to lead the government’s newly established Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which was set up to coordinate domestic and foreign intelligence gathering.

Those relationships and the sheer volume of work Booz Allen does for the federal government may have given the firm and others like it leverage when they face disciplinary actions, watchdog groups say.

The Project on Government Oversight testified in June that since 2000, there have been tens of thousands of suspension and debarment actions levied against companies and individuals. But its chief counsel said the number of large name-brand contractors, such as Booz Allen, that have been sanctioned can be counted on two hands.

“The government’s reliance on large contractors is often difficult to overcome,” said Scott Amey, general counsel to the nonprofit watchdog group, which maintains a contractor misconduct database. “Therefore, large contractors are in a powerful position to avoid suspension or debarment actions.”

There is no indication that Booz Allen faced penalties when its employee at MacDill received top-secret clearance despite his criminal record. The travel-overbilling case was settled with the payment of a fine.

Only the case concerning the San Antonio office resulted in an actual suspension. That action, taken by the Air Force, did not affect ongoing work and lasted two months.

The company declined comment on the past cases. But a spokesman, James Fisher, said, “Booz Allen is proud of our reputation for the highest ethical standards, built over nearly 100 years of service to our government and commercial clients.”

As the Snowden story continued to generate front-page news, Booz Allen chief executive Ralph Shrader predicted that his company would overcome the bad publicity from the Snowden leaks.

In remarks to employees at a “town hall” meeting late last month, Shrader said, “I think the important thing to understand is we cannot and will not let Snowden define us.”

“You define us. The work we do for our clients defines us, not the occasional aberrant in our midst,” he added. “There is nothing here for us to hang our heads about. We are a fine, fine firm. We stand on the list of Fortune’s Most Admired Companies. I plan to be on the list year after year.”

Past complaints

The disclosures by Snowden represent one of the most grievous breaches of security in the history of the super-secret NSA. Snowden, 30, who worked for just three months at Booz Allen, managed to obtain top-secret documents detailing broad government surveillance of telephone records and Internet traffic.

Little is known about how Snowden, a former security guard without a college degree, was able to get top-secret clearance and position himself at Booz Allen to obtain national security secrets.

“My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked,” he told the South China Morning Post on June 12. “That is why I accepted that position about three months ago.”

Booz Allen has accepted responsibility for past complaints of wrongdoing but continued to win contracts.

In 2006, the Justice Department proposed barring the company, along with four other major consultants, from participating in contracts for having received rebates from airlines, credit card companies and hotel chains while billing the government for the full undiscounted cost of the travel. The government dropped its lawsuits against the firms after they agreed to monetary settlements, with Booz Allen submitting nearly $3.4 million to the Treasury.

A few years later, the company received unwanted attention in a federal court prosecution of the MacDill employee working as a “counter threat analyst” at U.S. Central Command’s Joint Intelligence Operation Center in Tampa.

The employee, Scott Allan Bennett, had received one of the highest-level security clearances available in late 2008, even though a few months earlier he had been convicted of making “willful false and misleading representations” to the U.S. government.

The case, raised in Senate correspondence last week by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), concerned an effort Bennett made on behalf of a South African woman he had met on the Internet who wanted to visit the United States. According to court documents, Bennett sought to get her a visa by falsely claiming that she would be working with the White House and the State Department while in the United States. He was sentenced to three years of probation.

In 2010, Bennett was arrested again after appearing intoxicated at the gate to MacDill Air Force Base, home to U.S. Central Command. He was subsequently charged and convicted on weapons charges and charges of making additional false statements to the government.

At the trial in Tampa, U.S. District Court Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington asked how Bennett could receive a top-secret clearance after his conviction. The U.S. attorney’s office in Florida was unable to answer the question, according to news reports.

The judge’s concern was echoed in a letter written by Nelson to the Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) in June. “Serious quality-control questions have been raised here,” Nelson wrote, asking that the committee investigate such cases. “We may need legislation to limit or prevent certain contractors from handling highly classified and technical data.”

Now in prison at the Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institution in Minersville, Pa., Bennett could not be reached for comment. His Washington attorney, Jeffrey O’Toole, declined to comment.

In 2012, the Air Force proposed barring the San Antonio office of Booz Allen from bidding on future contracts. The division had hired a Pentagon official who brought with him on his first day of work “non-public information,” which he shared with the company to help it win an information technology contract.

The Air Force lifted a temporary suspension on Booz Allen in April 2012 when the firm agreed to implement ethics and other reforms and pay $65,000. At the time, Booz Allen issued a statement saying that the company “accepts responsibility for that incident and related matters and agrees to implement firm-wide enhancements to its ethics and compliance program.”

Although the 2006 and 2012 requests for barring the company from bidding for certain contracts surprised those who follow intelligence contracting, those cases did not seem to damage the firm’s overall reputation.

“The company did have a few instances of misconduct,” said Steven Aftergood, who follows intelligence contracting for the Federation of American Scientists. “But that number is not terribly surprising for a company of that size.”

Yet the problems, in particular those raised by Snowden and other employees with improper access to confidential materials, suggests a broader systemic problem, Aftergood said.

“The current situation didn’t come about by accident,” he said. “It is the product of economic and political incentives that favor it. Those incentives continue to exist, so there is a serious question about how much it is going to change.”

Future of contracting

Booz Allen is hardly the only company touched by allegations of mishandled government contracts. In 2011, 1,094 individual and corporate contractors were suspended or barred by the departments of Defense and Homeland Security alone, according the latest available federal data. There were probably more, but transgressions by firms that contract intelligence work are not released publicly by the federal government.

Michael Birmingham, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said the intelligence community has lessened its reliance on private-sector contractors.

In 2008, about 27 percent of intelligence-community security clearances had been granted to private-sector workers, he said. Today, that number has declined to about 18 percent.Overall, as of late 2012, 4.9 million people have been granted security clearances, about one-fifth of them work in the private sector, according to data made public by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

But the growth in contracting in defense and homeland security work continues. That has been fueled by several factors — ongoing public worry about terrorism, antipathy toward big government and an evolution in Washington’s revolving-door culture that provides extraordinary rewards to top government officials who go private, experts say.

Yet even outsourcing’s most vocal skeptics agree contractors are here to stay, despite what they contend are illusory savings.

“Curbing the use of contractors would be difficult or impossible,” said Chuck Alsup, a retired Army intelligence officer and vice president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, an Arlington County-based association of private companies and individual experts. “It would be, frankly, unwise.”

By Tom Hamburger and Robert O’Harrow Jr., Published: July 8
Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Find this story at 8 July 2013

© The Washington Post Company

Company allegedly misled government about security clearance checks

Federal investigators have told lawmakers they have evidence that USIS, the contractor that screened Edward Snowden for his top-secret clearance, repeatedly misled the government about the thoroughness of its background checks, according to people familiar with the matter.

The alleged transgressions are so serious that a federal watchdog indicated he plans to recommend that the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees most background checks, end ties with USIS unless it can show it is performing responsibly, the people said.

Cutting off USIS could present a major logistical quagmire for the nation’s already-jammed security clearance process. The federal government relies heavily on contractors to approve workers for some of its most sensitive jobs in defense and intelligence. Falls Church-based USIS is the largest single private provider for government background checks.

The inspector general of OPM, working with the Justice Department, is examining whether USIS failed to meet a contractual obligation that it would conduct reviews of all background checks the company performed on behalf of government agencies, the people familiar with the matter said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation has not yet been resolved.

After conducting an initial background check of a candidate for employment, USIS was required to perform a second review to make sure no important details had been missed. From 2008 through 2011, USIS allegedly skipped this second review in up to 50 percent of the cases. But it conveyed to federal officials that these reviews had, in fact, been performed.

The shortcut made it appear that USIS was more efficient than it actually was and may have triggered incentive awards for the company, the people briefed on the matter said. Investigators, who have briefed lawmakers on the allegations, think the strategy may have originated with senior executives, the people said.

Ray Howell, director of corporate communications at USIS, declined to comment on Thursday.

In a statement last week, USIS said it received a subpoena from the inspector general of OPM in January 2012. “USIS complied with that subpoena and has cooperated fully with the government’s civil investigative efforts,” the statement said. The company would not comment on the Snowden case.

It is not known whether USIS did anything improper on its 2011 background check of Snowden, the 30-year-old who leaked documents about the inner workings of the NSA and is now the subject of a global drama. He gained access to those documents after he was cleared to work at NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.

Last week, Patrick E. McFarland, the inspector general of OPM, said he has concerns about Snowden’s background check. “We do believe that there may be some problems,” he said.

The broader concerns about background checks are not limited to USIS. McFarland’s office has 47 open investigations into alleged wrongdoing by individuals in the background checks industry, according to a statement from the inspector general’s office. Separately, since 2006, the watchdog has won convictions in 18 cases in which employees claimed to have verified information that ultimately turned out to be false or not even checked.

“There is an alarmingly insufficient level of oversight of the federal investigative-services program,” McFarland said last week in congressional testimony. “A lack of independent verification of the organization that conducts these important background investigations is a clear threat to national security.”

McFarland’s office declined to comment on the details of the investigation. “We have never indicated whether the case was criminal, civil, or administrative,” a statement from the office said.

Last week, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said USIS is the subject of a criminal probe as a result of a “systematic failure” to conduct background checks. She did not elaborate. A spokesperson said Thursday that the senator stands by her statement.

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who chairs a Homeland Security subcommittee, said he plans to introduce legislation within two weeks to increase oversight of the security clearance process, including giving inspectors general more power to audit funding and other aspects of the massive effort to provide 4.9 million Americans with authorized access to classified and other sensitive government information.

“I cannot believe that this is handled in such a shoddy and cavalier manner,” Tester said in an interview Thursday. “I personally believe that if you are under criminal investigation, you should be suspended from the process until it is resolved.”

Tester added: “We have spent hundreds of billions in this country trying to keep classified information classified and to keep people from outside coming in. And what we see here is that we have a problem from the inside.”

USIS, which was spun off from the federal government in the 1990s, has become the dominant player in the background checks business. It does about 45 percent of all background checks for OPM, according to congressional staffers. USIS has 7,000 employees.

USIS has been under financial pressure in recent years because of federal cutbacks and less generous contracts from the government, according to financial analysts working at Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. The firm’s parent company, Altegrity, is owned by Providence Equity Partners, a private equity firm. USIS has two main competitors, KeyPoint Government Solutions and CACI.

By Tom Hamburger and Zachary A. Goldfarb, Published: June 28

Find this story at 28 June 2013

© The Washington Post Company

Berlin accuses Washington of cold war tactics over snooping

Reports of NSA snooping on Europe go well beyond previous revelations of electronic spying

Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger: ‘If the media reports are true, it is reminiscent of the actions of enemies during the cold war’. Photograph: Ole Spata/Corbis

Transatlantic relations plunged at the weekend as Berlin, Brussels and Paris all demanded that Washington account promptly and fully for new disclosures on the scale of the US National Security Agency’s spying on its European allies.

As further details emerged of the huge reach of US electronic snooping on Europe, Berlin accused Washington of treating it like the Soviet Union, “like a cold war enemy”.

The European commission called on the US to clarify allegations that the NSA, operating from Nato headquarters a few miles away in Brussels, had infiltrated secure telephone and computer networks at the venue for EU summits in the Belgian capital. The fresh revelations in the Guardian and allegations in the German publication Der Spiegel triggered outrage in Germany and in the European parliament and threatened to overshadow negotiations on an ambitious transatlantic free-trade pact worth hundreds of billions due to open next week.

The reports of NSA snooping on Europe – and on Germany in particular – went well beyond previous revelations of electronic spying said to be focused on identifying suspected terrorists, extremists and organised criminals.

Der Spiegel reported that it had seen documents and slides from the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden indicating that US agencies bugged the offices of the EU in Washington and at the UN in New York. They are also accused of directing an operation from Nato headquarters in Brussels to infiltrate the telephone and email networks at the EU’s Justus Lipsius building in the Belgian capital, the venue for EU summits and home of the European council.

Citing documents it said it had “partly seen”, the magazine reported that more than five years ago security officers at the EU had noticed several missed calls apparently targeting the remote maintenance system in the building that were traced to NSA offices within the Nato compound in Brussels.

Less than three months before a German general election, the impact of the fresh disclosures is likely to be strongest in Germany which, it emerged, is by far the biggest target in Europe for the NSA’s Prism programme scanning phone and internet traffic and capturing and storing the metadata.

The documents reviewed by Der Spiegel showed that Germany was treated in the same US spying category as China, Iraq or Saudi Arabia, while the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were deemed to be allies not subject to remotely the same level of surveillance.

Germany’s justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, called for an explanation from the US authorities. “If the media reports are true, it is reminiscent of the actions of enemies during the cold war,” she was quoted as saying in the German newspaper Bild. “It is beyond imagination that our friends in the US view Europeans as the enemy.”

France later also asked the US for an explanation. The foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said: “These acts, if confirmed, would be completely unacceptable.

“We expect the American authorities to answer the legitimate concerns raised by these press revelations as quickly as possible.”

Washington and Brussels are scheduled to open ambitious free-trade talks next week after years of arduous preparation. Senior officials in Brussels are worried that the talks will be setback by the NSA scandal. “Obviously we will need to see what is the impact on the trade talks,” said a senior official in Brussels.

A second senior official said the allegations would cause a furore in the European parliament and could then hamper relations with the US.

However, Robert Madelin, one of Britain’s most senior officials in the European commission, tweeted that EU trade negotiators always operated on the assumption that their communications were listened to.

A spokesman for the European commission said: “We have immediately been in contact with the US authorities in Washington and in Brussels and have confronted them with the press reports. They have told us they are checking on the accuracy of the information released yesterday and will come back to us.”

There were calls from MEPs for Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European council – who has his office in the building allegedly targeted by the US – and José Manuel Barroso, president of the European commission, to urgently appear before the chamber to explain what steps they were taking in response to the growing body of evidence of US and British electronic surveillance of Europe through the Prism and Tempora operations.

Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister and leader of the liberals in the European parliament, said: “This is absolutely unacceptable and must be stopped immediately. The American data-collection mania has achieved another quality by spying on EU officials and their meetings. Our trust is at stake.”

Luxembourg’s foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, told Der Spiegel: “If these reports are true, it’s disgusting.” Asselborn called for guarantees from the highest level of the US government that the snooping and spying be halted immediately.

Martin Schulz, the head of the European parliament, said: “I am deeply worried and shocked about the allegations of US authorities spying on EU offices. If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations.

“On behalf of the European parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard to these allegations.”

There were also calls for John Kerry, the US secretary of state on his way back from the Middle East, to make a detour to Brussels to explain US activities.

“We need to get clarifications and transparency at the highest level,” said Marietje Schaake, a Dutch liberal MEP. “Kerry should come to Brussels on his way back from the Middle East. This is essential for the transatlantic alliance.”

The documents suggesting the clandestine bugging operations were from September 2010, Der Spiegel said.

Der Spiegel quoted the Snowden documents as revealing that the US taps half a billion phone calls, emails and text messages in Germany a month. “We can attack the signals of most foreign third-class partners, and we do,” Der Spiegel quoted a passage in the NSA document as saying.

It quoted the document from 2010 as stating that “the European Union is an attack target”.

On an average day, the NSA monitored about 15m German phone connections and 10m internet datasets, rising to 60m phone connections on busy days, the report said.

Officials in Brussels said this reflected Germany’s weight in the EU and probably also entailed elements of industrial and trade espionage. “The Americans are more interested in what governments think than the European commission. And they make take the view that Germany determines European policy,” said one of the senior officials.

Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German Green party MEP and a specialist in data protection, told the Guardian the revelations were outrageous. “It’s not about political answers now, but rule of law, fundamental constitutional principles and rights of European citizens,” he said.

“We now need a debate on surveillance measures as a whole looking at underlying technical agreements. I think what we can do as European politicians now is to protect the rights of citizens and their rights to control their own personal data.”

Germany has some of the toughest data privacy laws in Europe, with the issue highly sensitive not least because of the comprehensive surveillance by the Stasi in former communist east Germany as well as the wartime experience with the Gestapo under the Nazis.

Der Spiegel noted that so far in the NSA debacle, the chancellor, Angela Merkel, had asked only “polite” questions of the Americans but that the new disclosures on the sweeping scale of the surveillance of Germany could complicate her bid for a third term in September.

Ian Traynor in Brussels
The Guardian, Sunday 30 June 2013 21.55 BST

Find this story at 30 June 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Anglo-Saxon Spies; German National Security Is at Stake

Overzealous data collectors in the US and Great Britain have no right to investigate German citizens. The German government must protect people from unauthorized access by foreign intelligence agencies, and it must act now. This is a matter of national security.

“Germany’s security is also being defended in the Hindu Kush, too,” Peter Struck, who was Germany’s defense minister at the time, said in 2002. If that’s true, then the government should also be expected to defend the security of its people at their own doorstep. Because the massive sniffing out and saving of data of all kinds — that of citizens and businesses, newspapers, political parties, government agencies — is in the end just that: a question of security. It is about the principles of the rule of law. And it is a matter of national security.

We live in changing times. At the beginning of last week, we thought after the announcement of the American Prism program, that US President Barack Obama was the sole boss of the largest and most extensive control system in human history. That was an error.

Since Friday, we have known that the British intelligence agency GCHQ is “worse than the United States.” Those are the words of Edward Snowden, the IT expert who uncovered the most serious surveillance scandal of all time. American and British intelligence agencies are monitoring all communication data. And what does our chancellor do? She says: “The Internet is uncharted territory for us all.”

That’s not enough. In the coming weeks, the German government needs to show that it is bound to its citizens and not to an intelligence-industrial complex that abuses our entire lives as some kind of data mine. Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger hit the right note when she said she was shocked by this “Hollywood-style nightmare.”

An Uncanny Alliance

We have Edward Snowden to thank for this insight into the interaction of an uncanny club, the Alliance of Five Eyes. Since World War II, the five Anglo-Saxon countries of Great Britain, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have maintained close intelligence cooperation, which apparently has gotten completely out of control.

It may be up to the Americans and the British to decide how they handle questions of freedom and the protection of their citizens from government intrusion. But they have no right to subject the citizens of other countries to their control. The shoulder-shrugging explanation by Washington and London that they have operated within the law is absurd. They are not our laws. We didn’t make them. We shouldn’t be subject to them.

The totalitarianism of the security mindset protects itself with a sentence: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. But firstly, that contains a presumption: We have not asked the NSA and GCHQ to “protect” us. And secondly, the sentence is a stupid one: Because we all have something to hide, whether it pertains to our private lives or to our business secrets.

No Agency Should Collect So Much Data

Thus the data scandal doesn’t pertain just to our legal principles, but to our security as well. We were lucky that Edward Snowden, who revealed the spying to the entire world, is not a criminal, but an idealist. He wanted to warn the world, not blackmail it. But he could have used his information for criminal purposes, as well. His case proves that no agency in the world can guarantee the security of the data it collects — which is why no agency should collect data in such abundance in the first place.

That is the well-known paradox of totalitarian security policy. Our security is jeopardized by the very actions that are supposed to protect it.

So what should happen now? European institutions must take control of the data infrastructure and ensure its protection. The freedom of data traffic is just as important as the European freedom of exchange in goods, services and money. But above all, the practices of the Americans and British must come to an end. Immediately.

It is the responsibility of the German government to see to it that the programs of the NSA and GCHQ no longer process the data of German citizens and companies without giving them the opportunity for legal defense. A government that cannot make that assurance is failing in one of its fundamental obligations: to protect its own citizens from the grasp of foreign powers.

Germans should closely observe how Angela Merkel now behaves. And if the opposition Social Democrats and Green Party are still looking for a campaign issue, they need look no further.

06/24/2013 05:07 PM

A Commentary by Jakob Augstein

Find this story at 24 June 2013

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013

Elusive Snowden Could Cause New Hitch in U.S.-Russia Ties

Ecuador’s flag flying above its coat of arms at the country’s embassy in Moscow on Monday. Snowden is seeking asylum in the South American nation.

Journalists flocked to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport on Monday to board a flight to Cuba that supposedly would also contain fugitive Edward Snowden, who is attempting to escape arrest by U.S. authorities for revealing highly classified surveillance programs.

According to a widely distributed statement by an unidentified Aeroflot employee, Snowden should have been on flight SU150 direct to Havana leaving Moscow on Monday afternoon. The Aeroflot employee even said which seat he was to occupy, 17A.

But reporters, whose news organizations shelled out about $2,000 per ticket to get them on board at the last minute, found no Snowden anywhere on board — increasing suspicions that Russia could be helping to stymie U.S. efforts to catch him amid a low point in bilateral relations.

After Snowden supposedly arrived at Sheremetyevo from Hong Kong on Sunday, Washington pressured Moscow to detain him, apparently to no avail. Russian officials said that given poor ties between the countries, which have split in recent months over issues including the civil war in Syria and the U.S. Magnitsky Act, they are in no rush to help their former Cold War foes.

“Ties are in a rather complicated phase, and when ties are in such a phase, when one country undertakes hostile action against another, why should the United States expect restraint and understanding from Russia?” Alexei Pushkov, the head of the State Duma’s International Affairs Committee, repeated Reuters.

A former technical contractor with the U.S. National Security Agency, Snowden is reportedly seeking to travel to Ecuador, which is considering his asylum request. His current whereabouts are unknown.

Ecuador has already equipped Snowden with refugee papers that could allow him safe passage to his destination, according to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whose organization has assisted Snowden. The U.S. government said earlier that Snowden’s American passport had been revoked.

Assange told the Guardian on Monday that he was aware of Snowden’s whereabouts but that he was unable to reveal them due to “bellicose threats coming from the U.S. administration.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking on Monday at a news conference in New Delhi, implored Russia to assist in efforts to apprehend Snowden, recalling that over the last two years, the U.S. had extradited seven prisoners requested by Russia. “Reciprocity and the enforcement of the law is pretty important,” he said.

“I suppose there is no small irony here. I mean, I wonder if Mr. Snowden chose China and Russia’s assistance in his flight from justice because they are such powerful bastions of Internet freedom, and I wonder if while he was in either of those countries he raised the question of Internet freedom, since that seems to be what he champions,” Kerry said.

The cooperation described by Kerry is a drop in the bucket compared to the disputes between the countries, however.

Following some successes during a “reset” in ties kicked off in 2009 at the behest of U.S. President Barack Obama, relations took a sharp downward turn with the return of Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin last year.

Under Putin, the Russian government has undertaken what critics call a harsh crackdown on the opposition and on civil society, including kicking out the U.S. Agency for International Development, while the U.S. last year passed the Magnitsky Act, which imposes economic and travel restrictions on Russian officials implicated in human rights abuses. Russia retaliated by outlawing U.S. adoptions of Russian orphans.

More recently, the two nations have argued bitterly over what tack to take in seeking a solution to the civil war in Syria, with Russia backing President Bashar Assad and the U.S. supporting the rebels.

Now, the fate of Snowden, a 30-year-old former employee of a U.S. security contractor whose exposure of government phone and Internet surveillance has provoked public outrage, is becoming another point of contention.

According to Andrei Soldatov, a leading expert in Russia’s security agencies, the Russian government itself has an extensive system to monitor almost any kind of communication between its citizens.

Pushkov said Russia had no obligation to help the U.S. in this situation, given the recently passed Magnitsky Act. It was unclear whether Russian authorities had had contact with Snowden — Putin’s spokesman said Monday that the Kremlin was unaware of any such contact — but it seemed unlikely that the government could be unaware of Snowden’s whereabouts if he had entered Russia.

“All these flights carried out by Aeroflot via Moscow, as though there is no other route, are emblematic of Russia’s involvement in the process,” said Valery Garbuzov, deputy director of the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies in Moscow.

Ecuador’s foreign minister also said his government was in “respectful” contact with Russia over Snowden’s asylum application.

Nonetheless, Washington appears to be holding out hope for assistance from Moscow.

Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the U.S. National Security Council, mentioned “intensified cooperation after the Boston marathon bombings and our history of working with Russia on law enforcement matters” as grounds for Russia “to look at all options available to expel Mr. Snowden back to the U.S. to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged.”

25 June 2013 | Issue 5154
By Ivan Nechepurenko

Nikolay Asmolovskiy / Reuters

Find this story at 25 June 2013

© Copyright 1992-2013. The Moscow Times

The top secret rules that allow NSA to use US data without a warrant

Fisa court submissions show broad scope of procedures governing NSA’s surveillance of Americans’ communication

• Document one: procedures used by NSA to target non-US persons
• Document two: procedures used by NSA to minimise data collected from US persons

The documents show that discretion as to who is actually targeted lies directly with the NSA’s analysts. Photograph: Martin Rogers/Workbook Stock/Getty

Top secret documents submitted to the court that oversees surveillance by US intelligence agencies show the judges have signed off on broad orders which allow the NSA to make use of information “inadvertently” collected from domestic US communications without a warrant.

The Guardian is publishing in full two documents submitted to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (known as the Fisa court), signed by Attorney General Eric Holder and stamped 29 July 2009. They detail the procedures the NSA is required to follow to target “non-US persons” under its foreign intelligence powers and what the agency does to minimize data collected on US citizens and residents in the course of that surveillance.

The documents show that even under authorities governing the collection of foreign intelligence from foreign targets, US communications can still be collected, retained and used.

The procedures cover only part of the NSA’s surveillance of domestic US communications. The bulk collection of domestic call records, as first revealed by the Guardian earlier this month, takes place under rolling court orders issued on the basis of a legal interpretation of a different authority, section 215 of the Patriot Act.

The Fisa court’s oversight role has been referenced many times by Barack Obama and senior intelligence officials as they have sought to reassure the public about surveillance, but the procedures approved by the court have never before been publicly disclosed.

The top secret documents published today detail the circumstances in which data collected on US persons under the foreign intelligence authority must be destroyed, extensive steps analysts must take to try to check targets are outside the US, and reveals how US call records are used to help remove US citizens and residents from data collection.

However, alongside those provisions, the Fisa court-approved policies allow the NSA to:

• Keep data that could potentially contain details of US persons for up to five years;

• Retain and make use of “inadvertently acquired” domestic communications if they contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity;

• Preserve “foreign intelligence information” contained within attorney-client communications;

• Access the content of communications gathered from “U.S. based machine[s]” or phone numbers in order to establish if targets are located in the US, for the purposes of ceasing further surveillance.

The broad scope of the court orders, and the nature of the procedures set out in the documents, appear to clash with assurances from President Obama and senior intelligence officials that the NSA could not access Americans’ call or email information without warrants.

The documents also show that discretion as to who is actually targeted under the NSA’s foreign surveillance powers lies directly with its own analysts, without recourse to courts or superiors – though a percentage of targeting decisions are reviewed by internal audit teams on a regular basis.

Since the Guardian first revealed the extent of the NSA’s collection of US communications, there have been repeated calls for the legal basis of the programs to be released. On Thursday, two US congressmen introduced a bill compelling the Obama administration to declassify the secret legal justifications for NSA surveillance.

The disclosure bill, sponsored by Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, and Todd Rokita, an Indiana Republican, is a complement to one proposed in the Senate last week. It would “increase the transparency of the Fisa Court and the state of the law in this area,” Schiff told the Guardian. “It would give the public a better understanding of the safeguards, as well as the scope of these programs.”

Section 702 of the Fisa Amendments Act (FAA), which was renewed for five years last December, is the authority under which the NSA is allowed to collect large-scale data, including foreign communications and also communications between the US and other countries, provided the target is overseas.

FAA warrants are issued by the Fisa court for up to 12 months at a time, and authorise the collection of bulk information – some of which can include communications of US citizens, or people inside the US. To intentionally target either of those groups requires an individual warrant.
One-paragraph order

One such warrant seen by the Guardian shows that they do not contain detailed legal rulings or explanation. Instead, the one-paragraph order, signed by a Fisa court judge in 2010, declares that the procedures submitted by the attorney general on behalf of the NSA are consistent with US law and the fourth amendment.

Those procedures state that the “NSA determines whether a person is a non-United States person reasonably believed to be outside the United States in light of the totality of the circumstances based on the information available with respect to that person, including information concerning the communications facility or facilities used by that person”.

It includes information that the NSA analyst uses to make this determination – including IP addresses, statements made by the potential target, and other information in the NSA databases, which can include public information and data collected by other agencies.

Where the NSA has no specific information on a person’s location, analysts are free to presume they are overseas, the document continues.

“In the absence of specific information regarding whether a target is a United States person,” it states “a person reasonably believed to be located outside the United States or whose location is not known will be presumed to be a non-United States person unless such person can be positively identified as a United States person.”

If it later appears that a target is in fact located in the US, analysts are permitted to look at the content of messages, or listen to phone calls, to establish if this is indeed the case.

Referring to steps taken to prevent intentional collection of telephone content of those inside the US, the document states: “NSA analysts may analyze content for indications that a foreign target has entered or intends to enter the United States. Such content analysis will be conducted according to analytic and intelligence requirements and priorities.”

Details set out in the “minimization procedures”, regularly referred to in House and Senate hearings, as well as public statements in recent weeks, also raise questions as to the extent of monitoring of US citizens and residents.

NSA minimization procedures signed by Holder in 2009 set out that once a target is confirmed to be within the US, interception must stop immediately. However, these circumstances do not apply to large-scale data where the NSA claims it is unable to filter US communications from non-US ones.

The NSA is empowered to retain data for up to five years and the policy states “communications which may be retained include electronic communications acquired because of limitations on the NSA’s ability to filter communications”.

Even if upon examination a communication is found to be domestic – entirely within the US – the NSA can appeal to its director to keep what it has found if it contains “significant foreign intelligence information”, “evidence of a crime”, “technical data base information” (such as encrypted communications), or “information pertaining to a threat of serious harm to life or property”.

Domestic communications containing none of the above must be destroyed. Communications in which one party was outside the US, but the other is a US-person, are permitted for retention under FAA rules.

The minimization procedure adds that these can be disseminated to other agencies or friendly governments if the US person is anonymised, or including the US person’s identity under certain criteria.
Holder’s ‘minimization procedure’ says once a target is confirmed to be in the US, interception of communication must stop. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

A separate section of the same document notes that as soon as any intercepted communications are determined to have been between someone under US criminal indictment and their attorney, surveillance must stop. However, the material collected can be retained, if it is useful, though in a segregated database:

“The relevant portion of the communication containing that conversation will be segregated and the National Security Division of the Department of Justice will be notified so that appropriate procedures may be established to protect such communications from review or use in any criminal prosecution, while preserving foreign intelligence information contained therein,” the document states.

In practice, much of the decision-making appears to lie with NSA analysts, rather than the Fisa court or senior officials.

A transcript of a 2008 briefing on FAA from the NSA’s general counsel sets out how much discretion NSA analysts possess when it comes to the specifics of targeting, and making decisions on who they believe is a non-US person. Referring to a situation where there has been a suggestion a target is within the US.

“Once again, the standard here is a reasonable belief that your target is outside the United States. What does that mean when you get information that might lead you to believe the contrary? It means you can’t ignore it. You can’t turn a blind eye to somebody saying: ‘Hey, I think so and so is in the United States.’ You can’t ignore that. Does it mean you have to completely turn off collection the minute you hear that? No, it means you have to do some sort of investigation: ‘Is that guy right? Is my target here?” he says.

“But, if everything else you have says ‘no’ (he talked yesterday, I saw him on TV yesterday, even, depending on the target, he was in Baghdad) you can still continue targeting but you have to keep that in mind. You can’t put it aside. You have to investigate it and, once again, with that new information in mind, what is your reasonable belief about your target’s location?”

The broad nature of the court’s oversight role, and the discretion given to NSA analysts, sheds light on responses from the administration and internet companies to the Guardian’s disclosure of the PRISM program. They have stated that the content of online communications is turned over to the NSA only pursuant to a court order. But except when a US citizen is specifically targeted, the court orders used by the NSA to obtain that information as part of Prism are these general FAA orders, not individualized warrants specific to any individual.

Once armed with these general orders, the NSA is empowered to compel telephone and internet companies to turn over to it the communications of any individual identified by the NSA. The Fisa court plays no role in the selection of those individuals, nor does it monitor who is selected by the NSA.

The NSA’s ability to collect and retain the communications of people in the US, even without a warrant, has fuelled congressional demands for an estimate of how many Americans have been caught up in surveillance.

Two US senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall – both members of the Senate intelligence committee – have been seeking this information since 2011, but senior White House and intelligence officials have repeatedly insisted that the agency is unable to gather such statistics.

Glenn Greenwald and James Ball
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 20 June 2013 23.59 BST

Find this story at 20 June 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Web’s Reach Binds N.S.A. and Silicon Valley Leaders

WASHINGTON — When Max Kelly, the chief security officer for Facebook, left the social media company in 2010, he did not go to Google, Twitter or a similar Silicon Valley concern. Instead the man who was responsible for protecting the personal information of Facebook’s more than one billion users from outside attacks went to work for another giant institution that manages and analyzes large pools of data: the National Security Agency.

Mr. Kelly’s move to the spy agency, which has not previously been reported, underscores the increasingly deep connections between Silicon Valley and the agency and the degree to which they are now in the same business. Both hunt for ways to collect, analyze and exploit large pools of data about millions of Americans.

The only difference is that the N.S.A. does it for intelligence, and Silicon Valley does it to make money.

The disclosure of the spy agency’s program called Prism, which is said to collect the e-mails and other Web activity of foreigners using major Internet companies like Google, Yahoo and Facebook, has prompted the companies to deny that the agency has direct access to their computers, even as they acknowledge complying with secret N.S.A. court orders for specific data.

Yet technology experts and former intelligence officials say the convergence between Silicon Valley and the N.S.A. and the rise of data mining — both as an industry and as a crucial intelligence tool — have created a more complex reality.

Silicon Valley has what the spy agency wants: vast amounts of private data and the most sophisticated software available to analyze it. The agency in turn is one of Silicon Valley’s largest customers for what is known as data analytics, one of the valley’s fastest-growing markets. To get their hands on the latest software technology to manipulate and take advantage of large volumes of data, United States intelligence agencies invest in Silicon Valley start-ups, award classified contracts and recruit technology experts like Mr. Kelly.

“We are all in these Big Data business models,” said Ray Wang, a technology analyst and chief executive of Constellation Research, based in San Francisco. “There are a lot of connections now because the data scientists and the folks who are building these systems have a lot of common interests.”

Although Silicon Valley has sold equipment to the N.S.A. and other intelligence agencies for a generation, the interests of the two began to converge in new ways in the last few years as advances in computer storage technology drastically reduced the costs of storing enormous amounts of data — at the same time that the value of the data for use in consumer marketing began to rise. “These worlds overlap,” said Philipp S. Krüger, chief executive of Explorist, an Internet start-up in New York.

The sums the N.S.A. spends in Silicon Valley are classified, as is the agency’s total budget, which independent analysts say is $8 billion to $10 billion a year.

Despite the companies’ assertions that they cooperate with the agency only when legally compelled, current and former industry officials say the companies sometimes secretly put together teams of in-house experts to find ways to cooperate more completely with the N.S.A. and to make their customers’ information more accessible to the agency. The companies do so, the officials say, because they want to control the process themselves. They are also under subtle but powerful pressure from the N.S.A. to make access easier.

Skype, the Internet-based calling service, began its own secret program, Project Chess, to explore the legal and technical issues in making Skype calls readily available to intelligence agencies and law enforcement officials, according to people briefed on the program who asked not to be named to avoid trouble with the intelligence agencies.

Project Chess, which has never been previously disclosed, was small, limited to fewer than a dozen people inside Skype, and was developed as the company had sometimes contentious talks with the government over legal issues, said one of the people briefed on the project. The project began about five years ago, before most of the company was sold by its parent, eBay, to outside investors in 2009. Microsoft acquired Skype in an $8.5 billion deal that was completed in October 2011.

A Skype executive denied last year in a blog post that recent changes in the way Skype operated were made at the behest of Microsoft to make snooping easier for law enforcement. It appears, however, that Skype figured out how to cooperate with the intelligence community before Microsoft took over the company, according to documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden, a former contractor for the N.S.A. One of the documents about the Prism program made public by Mr. Snowden says Skype joined Prism on Feb. 6, 2011.

Microsoft executives are no longer willing to affirm statements, made by Skype several years ago, that Skype calls could not be wiretapped. Frank X. Shaw, a Microsoft spokesman, declined to comment.

In its recruiting in Silicon Valley, the N.S.A. sends some of its most senior officials to lure the best of the best. No less than Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the agency’s director and the chief of the Pentagon’s Cyber Command, showed up at one of the world’s largest hacker conferences in Las Vegas last summer, looking stiff in an uncharacteristic T-shirt and jeans, to give the keynote speech. His main purpose at Defcon, the conference, was to recruit hackers for his spy agency.

N.S.A. badges are often seen on the lapels of officials at other technology and information security conferences. “They’re very open about their interest in recruiting from the hacker community,” said Jennifer Granick, the director of civil liberties at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society.

But perhaps no one embodies the tightening relationship between the N.S.A. and the valley more than Kenneth A. Minihan.

A career Air Force intelligence officer, Mr. Minihan was the director of the N.S.A. during the Clinton administration until his retirement in the late 1990s, and then he ran the agency’s outside professional networking organization. Today he is managing director of Paladin Capital Group, a venture capital firm based in Washington that in part specializes in financing start-ups that offer high-tech solutions for the N.S.A. and other intelligence agencies. In effect, Mr. Minihan is an advanced scout for the N.S.A. as it tries to capitalize on the latest technology to analyze and exploit the vast amounts of data flowing around the world and inside the United States.

The members of Paladin’s strategic advisory board include Richard C. Schaeffer Jr., a former N.S.A. executive. While Paladin is a private firm, the American intelligence community has its own in-house venture capital company, In-Q-Tel, financed by the Central Intelligence Agency to invest in high-tech start-ups.

Many software technology firms involved in data analytics are open about their connections to intelligence agencies. Gary King, a co-founder and chief scientist at Crimson Hexagon, a start-up in Boston, said in an interview that he had given talks at C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va., about his company’s social media analytics tools.

The future holds the prospect of ever greater cooperation between Silicon Valley and the N.S.A. because data storage is expected to increase at an annual compound rate of 53 percent through 2016, according to the International Data Corporation.

“We reached a tipping point, where the value of having user data rose beyond the cost of storing it,” said Dan Auerbach, a technology analyst with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an electronic privacy group in San Francisco. “Now we have an incentive to keep it forever.”

Social media sites in the meantime are growing as voluntary data mining operations on a scale that rivals or exceeds anything the government could attempt on its own. “You willingly hand over data to Facebook that you would never give voluntarily to the government,” said Bruce Schneier, a technologist and an author.

James Risen reported from Washington, and Nick Wingfield from Seattle. Kitty Bennett contributed reporting.

June 19, 2013
By JAMES RISEN and NICK WINGFIELD

Find this story at 19 June 2013

© 2013 The New York Times Company

Skype’s secret Project Chess reportedly helped NSA access customers’ data

Scheme – set up before firm was purchased by Microsoft – allegedly eased access for US law enforcement agencies

Prosecutors in Zhu Yufu’s trial for subversion cited text messages that he sent using Skype. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Skype, the web-based communications company, reportedly set up a secret programme to make it easier for US surveillance agencies to access customers’ information.

The programme, called Project Chess and first revealed by the New York Times on Thursday, was said to have been established before Skype was bought by Microsoft in 2011. Microsoft’s links with US security are under intense scrutiny following the Guardian’s revelation of Prism, a surveillance program run by the National Security Agency (NSA), that claimed “direct” access to its servers and those of rivals including Apple, Facebook and Google.

Project Chess was set up to explore the legal and technical issues involved in making Skype’s communications more readily available to law enforcement and security officials, according to the Times. Only a handful of executives were aware of the plan. The company did not immediately return a call for comment.

Last year Skype denied reports that it had changed its software following the Microsoft acquisition in order to allow law enforcement easier access to communications. “Nothing could be more contrary to the Skype philosophy,” Mark Gillett, vice president of Microsoft’s Skype division, said in a blog post.

According to the Prism documents, Skype had been co-operating with the NSA’s scheme since February 2011, eight months before the software giant took it over. The document gives little detail on the technical nature of that cooperation. Microsoft declined to comment.

The news comes as the tech firms are attempting to distance themselves from the Prism revelations. All the firm’s listed as participating in the Prism scheme have denied that they give the NSA “direct” access to their servers, as claimed by the slide presentation, and said that they only comply with legal requests made through the courts.

But since the story broke a more nuanced picture of how the tech firms work with the surveillance authorities has emerged. The US authorities have become increasingly interested in tech firms and its employees after initially struggling to keep up with the shift to digital communications. NSA officials have held high level talks with executives in the tech firms and are actively recruiting in the tech community.
‘That information is how they make their money’

Shane Harris, author of The Watchers: The Rise of America’s Surveillance State, said the NSA had a crisis in the late 1990s when it realised communication was increasingly digital and it was falling behind in its powers to track that data. “You can not overstate that without this data the NSA would be blind,” he said.

The NSA employs former valley executives, including Max Kelly, the former chief security officer for Facebook, and has increasingly sought to hire people in the hacker community. Former NSA director lieutenant general Kenneth Minihan has taken the opposite tack and is helping create the next generation of tech security firms. Minihan is managing director of Paladin Capital, a private equity firm that has a fund dedicated to investing in homeland security. Paladin also employs Dr Alf Andreassen, a former technical adviser for naval warfare who was also for classified national programmes at AT&T and Bell Laboratories.

Harris said the ties were only likely to deepen as technology moves ever more of our communications on line. He warned the move was likely to present more problems for the tech firms as their consumers worry about their privacy. “It’s been fascinating for me listening to the push back from the tech companies,” said Harris.

Christopher Soghoian, a senior policy analyst studying technological surveillance at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the relationship between the tech giants and the NSA has a fundamental – and ironic – flaw that guarantees the Prism scandal is unlikely to be the last time tensions surface between the two.

The US spying apparatus and Silicon Valley’s top tech firms are basically in the same business, collecting information on people, he said. “It’s a weird symbiotic relationship. It’s not that Facebook and Google are trying to build a surveillance system but they effectively have,” he said. “If they wanted to, Google and Facebook could use technology to tackle the issue, anonymizing and deleting their customers’ information. But that information is how they make their money, so that is never going to happen.”

Dominic Rushe in New York
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 20 June 2013 17.37 BST

Find this story at 20 June 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Skype calls’ immunity to police phone tapping threatened

Skype calls’ immunity to police phone tapping threatened
Suspicious phone conversations on Skype could be targeted for tapping as part of a pan-European crackdown.

Suspicious phone conversations on Skype could be targeted for tapping as part of a pan-European crackdown on what law authorities believe is a massive technical loophole in current wiretapping laws, allowing criminals to communicate without fear of being overheard by the police.

The European investigation could also help U.S. law enforcement authorities gain access to Internet calls. The National Security Agency (NSA) is understood to believe that suspected terrorists use Skype to circumvent detection.

While the police can get a court order to tap a suspect’s land line and mobile phone, it is currently impossible to get a similar order for Internet calls on both sides of the Atlantic.

Skype insisted that it does cooperate with law enforcement authorities, “where legally and technically possible,” the company said in a statement.

“Skype has extensively debriefed Eurojust on our law enforcement program and capabilities,” Skype said.

Eurojust, a European Union agency responsible for coordinating judicial investigations across different jurisdictions announced Friday the opening of an investigation involving all 27 countries of the European Union.

“We will bring investigators from all 27 member states together to find a common approach to this problem,” said Joannes Thuy, a spokesman for Eurojust based in The Hague in the Netherlands.

The purpose of Eurojust’s coordination role is to overcome “the technical and judicial obstacles to the interception of Internet telephony systems”, Eurojust said.

The main judicial obstacles are the differing approaches to data protection in the various E.U. member states, Thuy said.

The investigation is being headed by Eurojust’s Italian representative, Carmen Manfredda.

Criminals in Italy are increasingly making phone calls over the Internet in order to avoid getting caught through mobile phone intercepts, according to Direzione Nazionale Antimafia, the anti-Mafia office in Rome.

Police officers in Milan say organized crime, arms and drugs traffickers, and prostitution rings are turning to Skype and other systems of VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) telephony in order to frustrate investigators.

While telecommunications companies are obliged to comply with court orders to monitor calls on land lines and mobile phones, “Skype’ refuses to cooperate with the authorities,” Thuy said.

In addition to the issue of cooperation, there are technical obstacles to tapping Skype calls. The way calls are set up and carried between computers is proprietary, and the encryption system used is strong. It could be possible to monitor the call on the originating or receiving computer using a specially written program, or perhaps to divert the traffic through a proxy server, but these are all far more difficult than tapping a normal phone. Calls between a PC and a regular telephone via the SkypeIn or SkypeOut service, however, could fall under existing wiretapping regulations and capabilities at the point where they meet the public telephone network.

The pan-European response to the problem may open the door for the U.S. to take similar action, Thuy said.

“We have very good cooperation with the U.S.,” he said, pointing out that a U.S. prosecutor, Marylee Warren, is based in The Hague in order to liaise between U.S. and European judicial authorities.

The NSA (National Security Agency) is so concerned by Skype that it is offering hackers large sums of money to break its encryption, according to unsourced reports in the U.S.

Italian investigators have become increasingly reliant on wiretaps, Eurojust said, giving a recent example of customs and tax police in Milan, who overheard a suspected cocaine trafficker telling an accomplice to switch to Skype in order to get details of a 2kg drug consignment.

“Investigators are convinced that the interception of telephone calls have become an essential tool of the police, who spend millions of euros each year tracking down crime through wiretaps of land lines and mobile phones,” Eurojust said.

The first meeting of Eurojust’s 27 national representatives is planned in the coming weeks but precise details of its timing and the location of the meeting remain secret, Thuy said.

“They will exchange information and then we will give advice on how to proceed,” he said. Bringing Internet telephony into line with calls on land lines and mobile phones “could be the price we have to pay for our security,” he said.

Paul Meller (IDG News Service)
— 23 February, 2009 09:47

Find this story at 23 February 2009

Copyright 2013 IDG Communications

Obama and His Allies Say the Govt Doesn’t Listen to Your Phone Calls — But the FBI Begs to Differ

Today, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) insisted [3] the NSA has not been recording Americans’ phone calls under any surveillance program, and that any claim to the contrary was “misinformation.” Rogers’ comments countered remarks from Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who said he was told in a House Judiciary Committee briefing [4] by FBI Director Robert Mueller that private firms contracted by the NSA could listen to phone calls made by American citizens.

Since Nadler’s comments were reported by CNET [4], he has issued a subsequent statement backtracking [5] on his original remarks: “I am pleased that the administration has reiterated that, as I have always believed, the NSA cannot listen to the content of Americans’ phone calls without a specific warrant.”

The full transcript of Nadler’s exchange with Mueller shows the FBI director claiming that “a particularized order from the FISA court directed at that particular phone and that particular individual” is required for the FBI to retrieve the content of any American’s call.

However, in a May 1 interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett– well before the scandal over NSA spying sent the White House and its allies into damage control mode – a former FBI agent named Tim Clemente made a startling revelation. According to Clemente, an April 18 phone call between Boston bombing perpetrator Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his wife was retrieved by the FBI as part of its surveillance of bulk US telecom data.

Here is the relevant section of Burnett and Clemente’s exchange [6]:

BURNETT: Tim, is there any way, obviously, there is a voice mail they can try to get the phone companies to give that up at this point. It’s not a voice mail. It’s just a conversation. There’s no way they actually can find out what happened, right, unless she tells them?

CLEMENTE: No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It’s not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her. We certainly can find that out.

BURNETT: So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is incredible.

CLEMENTE: No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not.

Clemente’s comments completely undermine Rep. Rogers’ claim that the government is not recording Americans’ phone calls, and seem to contradict Mueller’s claim that any surveillance that exists is “particularized” according to court orders. Unfortunately, the remarkable statement was buried under the Boston bombings media frenzy, and seems to have been forgotten amidst the latest revelations of NSA domestic spying.

During a March 11, 2011 briefing [7] to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the FBI’s Mueller offered another clue that his bureau was seeking broad access to American phone records. Towards the end of his testimony, Mueller complained that, “our investigations can be stymied by the records preservations practices of private communications providers. Current law does not require telephone companies and Internet service providers to retain customer subscriber information and source and destination data for any set period of time.”

A year later, the FBI formally requested that Congress expand the 1994 Communications for Law Enforcement Assistance Act (CLEA) to ensure that instant messaging, VoIP, and email servers were “wiretap friendly [8].” FBI general counsel Andrew Weissman began the process by drafting legislation requiring online servers to add extra coding to their programs providing the FBI a backdoor into consumer data, including emails and online chats.

This April, at a luncheon for the American Bar Association, the FBI’s Weissman declared [9] that the bureau’s “top priority this year” was to enhance its ability to monitor web based services like Gmail, Google Voice, and Dropbox.

According to Bill Binney, a former high-ranking NSA official who resigned in protest of the agency’s domestic surveillance operations, the FBI depends on the NSA for data on Americans’ phone calls and online communications.

“The FBI is asking for data on Americans – just look at the Verizon court order [10] – and FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act special court] is ordering data to be sent to the NSA,” Binney told me. “So the NSA is becoming the central processor and storage facility for government surveillance. That means they are going into emails and chats. They are absolutely involved in collecting data the FBI uses to spy on Americans.”

Given open FBI acknowledgment that it monitors American phone calls on a massive scale, and that it almost certainly relies on the NSA to do so, it is hard to understand the denials by the White House and its allies. Perhaps, like Groucho Marx, they hope we will believe them instead of our own two lying eyes.

See more stories tagged with:
fbi [11],
nsa [12],
surveillance [13]

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/obama-and-his-allies-say-govt-doesnt-listen-your-phone-calls-fbi-begs-differ

Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/max-blumenthal
[3] http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/16/rogers-nsa-is-not-listening-to-americans-phone-calls/
[4] http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-spying-flap-extends-to-contents-of-u.s-phone-calls/
[5] http://news.yahoo.com/jerrold-nadler-does-not-think-nsa-listen-u-163036644.html
[6] http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1305/01/ebo.01.html
[7] http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/pdf/11-3-30%20Mueller%20Testimony.pdf
[8] http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57428067-83/fbi-we-need-wiretap-ready-web-sites-now/
[9] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/28/fbi-surveillance_n_2970691.html
[10] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order
[11] http://www.alternet.org/tags/fbi-0
[12] http://www.alternet.org/tags/nsa
[13] http://www.alternet.org/tags/surveillance
[14] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B

Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
June 16, 2013

Find this story at 16 June 2013

NSA spying flap extends to contents of U.S. phone calls; National Security Agency discloses in secret Capitol Hill briefing that thousands of analysts can listen to domestic phone calls. That authorization appears to extend to e-mail and text messages too.

NSA Director Keith Alexander says his agency’s analysts, which until recently included Edward Snowden among their ranks, take protecting “civil liberties and privacy and the security of this nation to their heart every day.”
(Credit: Getty Images)

The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls, a participant in the briefing said.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed on Thursday that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed “simply based on an analyst deciding that.”

If the NSA wants “to listen to the phone,” an analyst’s decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. “I was rather startled,” said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee.

Not only does this disclosure shed more light on how the NSA’s formidable eavesdropping apparatus works domestically, it also suggests the Justice Department has secretly interpreted federal surveillance law to permit thousands of low-ranking analysts to eavesdrop on phone calls.

James Owens, a spokesman for Nadler, provided a statement on Sunday morning, a day after this article was published, saying: “I am pleased that the administration has reiterated that, as I have always believed, the NSA cannot listen to the content of Americans’ phone calls without a specific warrant.” Owens said he couldn’t comment on what assurances from the Obama administration Nadler was referring to, and said Nadler was unavailable for an interview. (CNET had contacted Nadler for comment on Friday.)

Because the same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages, being able to listen to phone calls would mean the NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications without going before a court and seeking approval.

Nadler’s initial statement appears to confirm some of the allegations made by Edward Snowden, a former NSA infrastructure analyst who leaked classified documents to the Guardian. Snowden said in a video interview that, while not all NSA analysts had this ability, he could from Hawaii “wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president.”

There are serious “constitutional problems” with this approach, said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who has litigated warrantless wiretapping cases. “It epitomizes the problem of secret laws.”

The NSA declined to comment to CNET. (This is unrelated to the disclosure that the NSA is currently collecting records of the metadata of all domestic Verizon calls, but not the actual contents of the conversations.)

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released a statement on Sunday saying: “The statement that a single analyst can eavesdrop on domestic communications without proper legal authorization is incorrect and was not briefed to Congress.” Clapper’s statement did not elaborate, however, on what “proper” authorization would be. Some reports have suggested that permission from a “shift supervisor” would also be required.

The Washington Post disclosed Saturday that the existence of a top-secret NSA program called NUCLEON, which “intercepts telephone calls and routes the spoken words” to a database. Top intelligence officials in the Obama administration, the Post said, “have resolutely refused to offer an estimate of the number of Americans whose calls or e-mails have thus made their way into content databases such as NUCLEON.”

A portion of the NSA’s mammoth data center in Bluffdale, Utah, scheduled to open this fall.
(Credit: Getty Images)

Earlier reports have indicated that the NSA has the ability to record nearly all domestic and international phone calls — in case an analyst needed to access the recordings in the future. A Wired magazine article last year disclosed that the NSA has established “listening posts” that allow the agency to collect and sift through billions of phone calls through a massive new data center in Utah, “whether they originate within the country or overseas.” That includes not just metadata, but also the contents of the communications.

William Binney, a former NSA technical director who helped to modernize the agency’s worldwide eavesdropping network, told the Daily Caller this week that the NSA records the phone calls of 500,000 to 1 million people who are on its so-called target list, and perhaps even more. “They look through these phone numbers and they target those and that’s what they record,” Binney said.

Brewster Kahle, a computer engineer who founded the Internet Archive, has vast experience storing large amounts of data. He created a spreadsheet this week estimating that the cost to store all domestic phone calls a year in cloud storage for data-mining purposes would be about $27 million per year, not counting the cost of extra security for a top-secret program and security clearances for the people involved.

NSA’s annual budget is classified but is estimated to be around $10 billion.

Documents that came to light in an EFF lawsuit provide some insight into how the spy agency vacuums up data from telecommunications companies. Mark Klein, who worked as an AT&T technician for over 22 years, disclosed in 2006 (PDF) that he witnessed domestic voice and Internet traffic being surreptitiously “diverted” through a “splitter cabinet” to secure room 641A in one of the company’s San Francisco facilities. The room was accessible only to NSA-cleared technicians.

AT&T and other telecommunications companies that allow the NSA to tap into their fiber links receive absolute immunity from civil liability or criminal prosecution, thanks to a law that Congress enacted in 2008 and renewed in 2012. It’s a series of amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, also known as the FISA Amendments Act.

That law says surveillance may be authorized by the attorney general and director of national intelligence without prior approval by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, as long as minimization requirements and general procedures blessed by the court are followed.

A requirement of the 2008 law is that the NSA “may not intentionally target any person known at the time of acquisition to be located in the United States.” A possible interpretation of that language, some legal experts said, is that the agency may vacuum up everything it can domestically — on the theory that indiscriminate data acquisition was not intended to “target” a specific American citizen.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, an attorney and member of the House Judiciary committee, who said he was “startled” to learn that NSA analysts could eavesdrop on domestic calls without court authorization.
(Credit: Getty Images)

Rep. Nadler’s statement that NSA analysts can listen to calls without court orders came during a House Judiciary hearing on June 13 that included FBI director Robert Mueller as a witness.

Mueller initially sought to downplay concerns about NSA surveillance by claiming that, to listen to a phone call, the government would need to seek “a special, a particularized order from the FISA court directed at that particular phone of that particular individual.”

Is information about that procedure “classified in any way?” Nadler asked.

“I don’t think so,” Mueller replied.

“Then I can say the following,” Nadler said. “We heard precisely the opposite at the briefing the other day. We heard precisely that you could get the specific information from that telephone simply based on an analyst deciding that…In other words, what you just said is incorrect. So there’s a conflict.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the head of the Senate Intelligence committee, separately acknowledged that the agency’s analysts have the ability to access the “content of a call.”

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the head of the House Intelligence committee, told CNN on Sunday that the NSA “is not listening to Americans’ phone calls” or monitoring their e-mails, and any statements to the contrary are “misinformation.” It would be “illegal” for the NSA to do that, Rogers said.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence committee, acknowledged this week that NSA analysts have the ability to access the “content of a call.”
(Credit: Getty Images)

Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell indicated during a House Intelligence hearing in 2007 that the NSA’s surveillance process involves “billions” of bulk communications being intercepted, analyzed, and incorporated into a database.

They can be accessed by an analyst who’s part of the NSA’s “workforce of thousands of people” who are “trained” annually in minimization procedures, he said. (McConnell, who had previously worked as the director of the NSA, is now vice chairman at Booz Allen Hamilton, Snowden’s former employer.)

If it were “a U.S. person inside the United States, now that would stimulate the system to get a warrant,” McConnell told the committee. “And that is how the process would work. Now, if you have foreign intelligence data, you publish it [inside the federal government]. Because it has foreign intelligence value.”

McConnell said during a separate congressional appearance around the same time that he believed the president had the constitutional authority, no matter what the law actually says, to order domestic spying without warrants.

Former FBI counterterrorism agent Tim Clemente told CNN last month that, in national security investigations, the bureau can access records of a previously made telephone call. “All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not,” he said. Clemente added in an appearance the next day that, thanks to the “intelligence community” — an apparent reference to the NSA — “there’s a way to look at digital communications in the past.”

NSA Director Keith Alexander said on June 12 that his agency’s analysts abide by the law: “They do this lawfully. They take compliance oversight, protecting civil liberties and privacy and the security of this nation to their heart every day.”

But that’s not always the case. A New York Times article in 2009 revealed the NSA engaged in significant and systemic “overcollection” of Americans’ domestic communications that alarmed intelligence officials. The Justice Department said in a statement at the time that it “took comprehensive steps to correct the situation and bring the program into compliance” with the law.

Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU’s Center for Democracy, says he was surprised to see the 2008 FISA Amendments Act be used to vacuum up information on American citizens. “Everyone who voted for the statute thought it was about international communications,” he said.

Update, June 16 at 10:45 p.m. PT: Adds one paragraph with a statement provided by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

Update, June 16 at 11:15 a.m. PT: The original headline when the story was published Saturday was “NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants,” which was changed to “NSA spying flap extends to contents of U.S. phone calls,” to better match the story. The first paragraph was changed to add attribution to Rep. Nadler. Also added was an additional statement that the congressman’s aide sent this morning, an excerpt from a Washington Post story on NSA phone call content surveillance that appeared Saturday, and remarks that Rep. Rogers made on CNN this morning.

by Declan McCullagh | June 15, 2013 4:39 PM PDT

Find this story at 15 June 2013

© CBS Interactive Inc.

Most Analysis of Spy Data is Done by Private Contractors

The controversy involving Edward Snowden and the National Security Agency (NSA) leaks has drawn attention to the fact that most analysis of the government’s intelligence data is performed by private contractors, not government employees.

When it comes to examining and deciphering the enormous volumes of communications collected by the NSA, it’s companies like SAIC, CSC and Booz Allen Hamilton that do much of the work.

Snowden was just one of thousands of private contractor employees helping operate the NSA’s vast operation of finding threats before they manifest.

Tim Shorrock, author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, estimates that about 70% of the federal government’s intelligence budgets are spent on the private sector.

Shorrock says if the 70% figure is applied to the NSA’s estimated budget (the official figure is classified) of $8 billion a year (the largest in the intelligence community), NSA could be spending as much as $6 billion on contractors.

Michael V. Hayden, former director of both the NSA and the Central Intelligence Agency, has said that “the largest concentration of cyber power on the planet” is located just down the street from NSA headquarters in Maryland. More specifically, he meant at the intersection of the Baltimore Parkway and Maryland Route 32, which is where all of NSA’s major contractors, from Booz to Northrop Grumman, carry out their surveillance and intelligence work for the agency.

With so many companies taking part in America’s spying activity, it is no wonder that private sector workers hold about 22% of all U.S. government security clearances and about 29% of top secret security clearances.

The Obama administration promised four years ago to substantially reduce this figure and put more of this highly sensitive work back in the hands of federal employees.

That hasn’t happened yet.

June 15, 2013 – Nth America – Tagged: 1984, corporatocracy, NSA, PRISM, US

By allgov.com

Find this story at 15 June 2013

Digital Blackwater: How the NSA Gives Private Contractors Control of the Surveillance State

As the Justice Department prepares to file charges against Booz Allen Hamilton employee Edward Snowden for leaking classified documents about the National Security Agency, the role of private intelligence firms has entered the national spotlight. Despite being on the job as a contract worker inside the NSA’s Hawaii office for less than three months, Snowden claimed he had power to spy on almost anyone in the country. “I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge, to even the president, if I had a personal email,” Snowden told The Guardian newspaper. Over the past decade, the U.S. intelligence community has relied increasingly on the technical expertise of private firms such as Booz Allen, SAIC, the Boeing subsidiary Narus and Northrop Grumman. About 70 percent of the national intelligence budget is now spent on the private sector. Former NSA Director Michael V. Hayden has described these firms as a quote “digital Blackwater.” We speak to Tim Shorrock, author of the book “Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Outsourced Intelligence.”
Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AARON MATÉ: The U.S. government has begun the process of charging Edward Snowden with disclosing classified information after he leaked a trove of secret documents outlining the NSA’s surveillance programs. The FBI has already questioned Snowden’s relatives and associates. Snowden is a 29-year-old computer technician who formerly worked for the CIA. He reportedly turned over thousands of documents to Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian newspaper, as well as to The Washington Post. Only a few have been published so far. His current whereabouts are unknown. Snowden flew from Hawaii to Hong Kong on May 20th. On Monday, he reportedly checked out of his Hong Kong hotel one day after The Guardian posted a video of him explaining his decision to leak the information.

AMY GOODMAN: Response to Edward Snowden’s actions has been mixed. On Capitol Hill, Senator Dianne Feinstein accused Snowden of committing treason. Meanwhile, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg called Snowden a hero, writing, quote, “In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden’s release of NSA material—and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago,” he said. The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has also praised Edward Snowden.

JULIAN ASSANGE: Edward Snowden is a hero who has informed the public about one of the most serious, serious events of the decade, which is the creeping formulation of a mass surveillance state that has now coopted the courts, corrupted the courts in the United States, made them secret, made them produce orders which violate U.S. constitutional protections to nearly the entire population, and then, if that wasn’t enough, has embroiled U.S. high-tech companies like Google, Yahoo!, Skype, Facebook, etc., to extend that surveillance all across the world—the amount of collections from the United States alone revealed to be more than 2.4 billion in the month of March alone. And that is something that I and John Perry Barlow and many other journalists and civil libertarians have been campaigning on for a long time, so it’s very pleasing to see such clear and concrete proof presented to the public.

AMY GOODMAN: Julian Assange speaking on Sky News. Up until a few weeks ago, Edward Snowden worked as a systems administrator inside the NSA’s office in Hawaii. His employer was not the U.S. government, but a military contractor called Booz Allen Hamilton. Over the past decade, the U.S. intelligence community has relied increasingly on the technical expertise of private firms such as Booz Allen, SAIC, the Boeing subsidiary Narus and Northrop Grumman. Former NSA director Michael V. Hayden has described these firms as a, quote, “digital Blackwater.” According to the journalist Tim Shorrock, about 70 percent of the national intelligence budget is spent on the private sector.

AARON MATÉ: The leaks by Edward Snowden have also raised questions over who has access to the nation’s biggest secrets. According to The Washington Post, authorities are unsure how a contract employee at a distant NSA satellite office was able to obtain a highly classified copy of an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. During his interview with The Guardian, Edward Snowden claimed he had the power to spy on anyone, including the president.

EDWARD SNOWDEN: Any analyst at any time can target anyone, any selector anywhere. Where those communications will be picked up depends on the range of the sensor networks and the authorities that that analyst is empowered with. Not all analysts have the ability to target everything. But I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge, to even the president, if I had a personal email.

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about Edward Snowden and the privatized world of intelligence, we’re joined by Tim Shorrock, author of the book Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Outsourced Intelligence . He has just written a piece for Salon.com entitled “Meet the Contractors Analyzing Your Private Data: Private Companies Are Getting Rich Probing Your Personal Information for the Government. Call It Digital Blackwater.” In fact, Tim Shorrock, explain who exactly called it “digital Blackwater.”

TIM SHORROCK: Well, this was said by Michael V. Hayden, who used to be the director of the NSA and was the director of the NSA when President Bush began the warrantless surveillance program back in 2001 right after 9/11. He has moved on from intelligence, the intelligence agencies, to become an executive with Chertoff Group, which is a large consulting company in Washington that works very closely with intelligence agencies and corporations advising them on cybersecurity and advising them on just basically security issues. And so, you know, he has cashed himself in and is making lots of money himself in this industry.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to the former NSA and CIA director, General Michael Hayden, who, as you said, oversaw much of the privatization of the NSA from 1999 to 2005. This is him speaking in 2011.

MICHAEL HAYDEN: We may come to a point where defense is more actively and aggressively defined even for the—even for the private sector and what is permitted there is something we would never let the private sector do in physical space.

UNIDENTIFIED: That’s interesting.

MICHAEL HAYDEN: I mean, you look—well, I mean, let me really throw out a bumper sticker for you here: How about a digital Blackwater? OK? I mean, we have privatized certain defense activities, even in physical space. And now you’ve got a new domain in which we don’t have any paths trampled down in the forest in terms of what it is we expect the government or will allow the government to do. And in the past, in our history, when that has happened, private sector expands to fill the empty space. I’m not quite an advocate for that, but these are the kinds of things that are going to be put into play here very, very quickly.

AMY GOODMAN: That was the former head of the CIA and the NSA, General Michael Hayden. Tim Shorrock, talk about Booz Allen, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Edward Snowden and what this relationship is all about between Booz Allen and the NSA.

TIM SHORROCK: Well, the most astonishing thing I found in the articles in The Guardian and the revelation that he was from Booz Allen was that, in fact, Booz Allen Hamilton is involved at the—basically the darkest levels, the deepest levels of U.S. intelligence. If Mr. Snowden had access to these kinds of documents, such as these PRISM documents about surveillance on the Internet, as well as this FISA court order, that means practically anyone in Booz Allen who is in intelligence working for the NSA has access to the same kinds of documents. And American people should really know that now we have conclusive proof that these private-sector corporations are operating at the highest levels of intelligence and the military. I think that’s the bottom line here. It’s not curious—you know, the question is not why this low-level person at Booz Allen got these documents; the question is: Why is Booz Allen involved at this level of intelligence?

AARON MATÉ: Tim Shorrock, so, according to The New York Times, it’s gone so far that even the process of granting security clearances is often handled by contractors. So, can you talk about the duties that contractors are performing for the government on these intelligence matters?

TIM SHORROCK: Well, first of all, I want to comment on some of these stories in The New York Times and other newspapers. I mean, that’s an old story. Everyone knows that, you know, the security clearances is done by contractors. That’s been true for a decade or more. And, you know, Booz Allen has been around for years and years and years. The question is: Why haven’t these newspapers covered this? They cover intelligence as if there’s no private-sector involvement at all. And suddenly, they hear that Booz Allen is involved, and suddenly we have all these stream of articles about privatized intelligence. Well, welcome to the world of “digital Blackwater,” as Hayden calls it.

And, you know, specifically on Booz Allen and what these companies do, I mean, you know, they—as I wrote in my book, Spies for Hire, they do everything from, you know, CIA intervention in other countries; JSOC, you know, when it does raids, contractors are involved in finding out where people they attack are and determining the mapping and all that and the imagery to make sure that pilots and drones can hit the right people—or the wrong people. And they’re involved in the Defense Intelligence Agency. They’re involved in all military agencies that do intelligence. They do everything. They do everything that the government does.

AMY GOODMAN: What’s wrong with that?

TIM SHORROCK: What’s wrong with that is that it’s a for-profit operation. Many times, you have—inside these agencies, you have contractors overseeing other contractors, contractors, you know, giving advice to the agency about how to set its policies, what kind of technology to buy. And, of course, they have relationships with all the companies that they work with or that they suggest to the leaders of U.S. intelligence.

And I think, you know, a terrible example of this is, you know, a few months ago, I wrote a cover story for The Nation magazine about the NSA whistleblowers that you’ve had on this show a few times—Tom Drake, Bill Binney and the other two—and, you know, they blew the whistle on a huge project called Trailblazer that was contracted out to SAIC that was a complete failure. And this project was designed, from the beginning, by Booz Allen, Northrop Grumman and a couple other corporations who advised the NSA about how to acquire this project, and then decided amongst themselves to give it to SAIC, and then SAIC promised the skies and never produced anything, and the project was finally canceled in 2005.

And it’s very ironic that Michael Hayden says he’s not sure about, you know, this privatization. I mean, he’s the one who set this whole privatization in place. He’s the one who did it. He’s the one who pulled the trigger on it. And he’s responsible for this vast privatization of NSA, which, I have to say, began before 9/11.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about Booz Allen Hamilton in terms of its other clients? Here it has this remarkable access to information. You know, as Edward Snowden said in his video statement, which we ran yesterday on Democracy Now!, he could wiretap almost anyone, at his level, and that a lot of people could. The information that people like Snowden get, can Booz Allen then share this information with other corporate clients it has?

TIM SHORROCK: Well, I don’t know that for sure, because it’s very difficult to penetrate these companies, but I don’t think so. I think what they do is they operate just like the intelligence community does, like the—you know, the NSA shares the information with other agencies. Of course, the NSA collects, is the main collector for the government in terms of signals intelligence, what comes over the Internet and telephone and cellphones and all that, and they pass that on to other agencies that request it. It goes to the president of the United States. It goes—it goes to all the high levels of the State Department and other agencies that need to know what’s going on both around the world and inside the United States. And so, I doubt that they would pass it to other corporations, but they certainly have their hands in it.

And I think if Booz Allen Hamilton is doing this and has access to such high-level documents, then you know that these other companies do, too—SAIC, Northrop Grumman, all of the companies you named at the top of the show. They have the same kinds of access, and they do—they do very much the same kinds of work that Booz Allen does. And I think it’s—like I said before, it’s just about time we recognized that this is really, you know, Intelligence Inc. This is a—you know, 70 percent of it is a for-profit operation. It’s a joint venture between government agencies and the private sector, and the private sector makes money off of it. They make big profits from this.

AARON MATÉ: Tim, I’m wondering if you can talk about some more—about these companies, specifically Narus and Palantir.

TIM SHORROCK: Well, Narus is the company that basically makes the technology that allows agencies, as well as corporations and telecom companies, to intercept traffic coming in, telecom traffic coming in, you know, from the outside, from other countries, on fiber-optic cables. And they have this incredible capacity to process information. And, you know, a few year—right after—you know, when this story started blowing up in the—after The New York Times blew the story on surveillance, warrantless surveillance, you know, there was this whistleblower at AT&T, this technician, who found that Narus equipment had been attached to AT&T’s switching center in San Francisco, and they were using this equipment to divert the entire—the entire traffic, all the whole—the whole—everything that was coming in, they diverted that to a secret room, and that went right into the NSA’s servers.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Mark Klein.

TIM SHORROCK: And those—that’s what Narus—that’s what Narus technology does. And so, you know, that’s the key—

AMY GOODMAN: And Narus is owned by Boeing?

TIM SHORROCK: Boeing. It was bought by Boeing. It was actually—the company originated, actually, in Israel. You know, Israel has a very powerful equivalent to the National Security Agency. And it came out of—it came out of Israel, and then they brought their technology here, and they were very involved in the wiretapping right after—right after 9/11. And then Boeing bought them. And, of course, Boeing itself is a major intelligence contractor, through that company, and, you know, they used to—they own a company that used to transport a lot of these prisoners around that the CIA captured overseas.

AMY GOODMAN: And Palantir?

TIM SHORROCK: And you asked about—you asked about Palantir. It’s a Silicon Valley company that basically does data mining and mapping out relationships. I mean, all this—as I said in the Salon article yesterday, all this information and all this data that comes into the NSA has to be analyzed, and that’s what these companies they do that they hire. You know, they take—you know, NSA stores all this data. We know the story about this big Utah data center that’s just about to open. And they download it all there, and then they can go back to it. They can go back to it a day later, or they can go back to it months later or years later. And that’s one of the things that Mr. Snowden talked about in his interviews, was how they go back and analyze this data.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about The Guardian in its reports calling the NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who fed them information, “whistleblower.” But the Associated Press says it would instead use terms like “source” or “leaker.” In a memo sent to reporters, it said, quote, “A whistle-blower is a person who exposes wrongdoing. It’s not a person who simply asserts that what he has uncovered is illegal or immoral. Whether the actions exposed by Snowden and [Bradley] Manning constitute wrongdoing is hotly contested. … Sometimes whether a person is a whistle-blower can be established only some time after the revelations, depending on what wrongdoing is confirmed or how public opinion eventually develops,” unquote. What do you make of what the AP is saying? I mean, of course, they change their—their definitions over time. We just saw them drop the word “illegal” when it comes to describing people.

TIM SHORROCK: Well, I think it’s kind of semantics. I mean, you know, he has blown the whistle on some actions that the NSA is doing, some programs the NSA is doing, that may be unconstitutional. And I think, you know, that’s why Daniel Ellsberg has had so much praise for him. I mean, he’s showing the underside of the war on terror, the underside of the surveillance state. And I think, in that sense, he’s a real whistleblower. You know, perhaps the difference between him and, say, the NSA Four—Tom Drake and Bill Binney and the others—is that, you know, the NSA Four did not leak information. I mean, they reported it through the chain of command, or they tried to. And what’s unfortunate was, you know, they tried to do this, and then they were caught up in an investigation of who leaked to The New York Times about the NSA surveillance program, and they were persecuted and investigated, and Tom Drake was actually indicted under the Espionage Act and charged with being a spy. Those charges were ridiculous, and the case completely collapsed, but nevertheless, that’s what happened to them. So, Snowden maybe looked at that and decided, you know, he’s just—you know, why go through channels? I mean, I think if we had a system where people could actually expose wrongdoing and without fear of being persecuted, that he may not have broken the law. And I think we need to look very carefully at that, because we need to protect people like this who want to expose wrongdoing.

AARON MATÉ: Tim Shorrock, is it harder for Snowden, as a private contractor, to try to blow the whistle than it would have been had he been working directly for the government?

TIM SHORROCK: Well, perhaps so. I’m not sure what the difference in how they might prosecute somebody like this, but clearly, from what’s being said, you know, today and what was said yesterday, they’re going after him. In fact, I’ve heard they may charge him under the Espionage Act. So, that’s what they would do to a government official, as well, or an intelligence officer who leaked the same kind of thing. So, I don’t really think it’s that much different. And like I said at the top of the show, you know, what really—what really amazed me was the fact that Booz Allen Hamilton, as a corporation, is involved at this level of intelligence. It’s not that this guy was just a low-level employee. It’s that this company is involved, and you have the private sector at that level of NSA.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think should be done differently? I mean, there’s two different issues here: One is the level of privatization of the military and intelligence, and the other is what Edward Snowden has actually revealed about what the U.S. government is doing with our information.

TIM SHORROCK: Well, what should we do about specifically what?

AMY GOODMAN: In terms of these private intelligence contractors and the access they have.

TIM SHORROCK: Well, you know, there’s been a process underway where the agencies are supposed to be doing, you know, inventories of the contractors and who they—what they do. And I think—you know, there was a report I saw recently from the inspector general of the Pentagon that looked at the Special Operations Command, which is—you know, Jeremy Scahill has been writing about it. It’s the most secretive part of the U.S. military, does these raids all over the world. And they looked at their contracts, and they found that a lot of JSOC and special operations contractors were doing inherently governmental work; in other words, they were doing things that, by law, should only be done by the government. And there was—at that level, there was very loose oversight.

And I think that we need to look, as a country, and the government certainly needs to do this, and Congress certainly needs to do this—you know, OK, it’s fine to buy technology from corporations, if they need it, but using corporations to fill your ranks, you know, to provide personnel—I mean, you go to these agencies, and it’s—you know, it’s not exactly like this, but it’s very much like a NASCAR race where they have logos, corporate logos, all over themselves. I mean, that’s what it’s like inside the NSA. You’ve got CSC over here. You’ve got Northrop Grumman over here, Lockheed Martin and so on.

Do we need to have the private sector doing all this analysis? I think that’s a very critical question to be asked. Do we want to have private corporations at the highest levels? And again, you know, if that’s something—that’s something that Congress, I believe, should really look at. And in the time that I’ve been covering this, as far as I recall, there’s only been one single hearing in Congress on this issue of intelligence contractors, and it was three years ago, and it was a pathetic hearing. They actually called me in for some advice, and they actually called Tom Drake in for advice, too. I didn’t know it at the time. And they—of course they didn’t use any of our suggestions. I—

AMY GOODMAN: The man they charged with espionage?

TIM SHORROCK: The man they—the man that was—had been charged earlier with espionage.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, the U.S. government had been charged with espionage, who, of course, ultimately—

TIM SHORROCK: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: —those charges were dropped—

TIM SHORROCK: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: —and has been called by many a whistleblower.

TIM SHORROCK: Right. He’s a true whistleblower. And—but the point—you know, I said, “You know, you ought to call in the chief executives of Booz Allen Hamilton and all these companies, so the American people can meet the secret leaders of the intelligence community.” We know who Clapper is. We knew—you know, when Hayden was director, we knew who he was. But we don’t know these people running the corporations.

AMY GOODMAN: McConnell?

TIM SHORROCK: McConnell, Michael McConnell, used to be the director of national intelligence. Before that, he was NSA director. And, you know, in between, he was at Booz Allen Hamilton running their military intelligence programs. Now he’s back at Booz Allen Hamilton. So there’s this continuous flow of people in and out of the private sector back into government. It’s not even a revolving door; it’s just a spending door. But basically, what we have is an intelligence ruling class, public and private, that hold the secrets. And I think, you know, when Bill Binney talks about the Stasi, the East German police that listened to everybody, you know, look at, we have hundreds of thousands of contractors with security clearances. We have hundreds of thousands of federal workers in, you know, Homeland Security and intelligence. We have a massive number of people that are monitoring other Americans. I think it’s a very dangerous situation.

AMY GOODMAN: Tim Shorrock, I want to thank you for being with us, investigative reporter who covers national security. His most recent piece at Salon.com is “Meet the Contractors Analyzing Your Private Data: Private Companies Are Getting Rich Probing Your Personal Information for the Government. Call It Digital Blackwater.” He is author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Outsourced Intelligence.

This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’ll look at the Wal-Mart shareholders’ meeting and what happened outside and in. Stay with us.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Find this story at 11 June 2013

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

About 500,000 private contractors have access to top-secret info

One of the big questions raised after Edward Snowden exposed the NSA’s secret surveillance programs is how a private contractor working at Booz Allen Hamilton had access to such sensitive information in the first place.

We still don’t know the precise answer, though here’s a bit of broader context: As our Washington Post colleagues report Tuesday, top-secret clearances for outside contractors aren’t necessarily unusual. In fact, roughly 500,000 private contractors had security clearance to handle top-secret material in 2012:

But there’s an important caveat here: Clearance doesn’t mean all these workers get to see every classified document out there. And, as various analysts have pointed out, Snowden likely would have needed even higher clearance than “top secret” to gain access to PRISM and other surveillance programs. (One former NSA official told the Post that “maybe 30 or maybe 40″ people would have access to the secret court orders that Snowden leaked.) So this chart still isn’t the full story.

Meanwhile, Booz Allen Hamilton, where Snowden worked, is only one private contractor of many here:

There’s a lot more detail in this Post story about the outsourcing of intelligence work, which notes that one in four intelligence workers has been a contractor, and 70 percent of the intelligence budget goes to private firms. “But,” the caveat goes, “in the rush to fill jobs, the government has relied on faulty procedures to vet intelligence workers, documents and interviews show.”

In a related vein, The Atlantic’s Jordan Weissman compiles some of the evidence that outsourcing key functions doesn’t always save the government money. For instance: “The Senate Intelligence Committee has stated that while the average civilian federal employee costs $125,000 per year (with overhead included), an equivalent contractor comes out to about $250,000.”

This phenomenon isn’t confined to military and intelligence. Since 1999, the number of civilian workers directly employed by the entire federal government has stayed roughly constant at about 2.7 million. But the number of private contractors across the board has ballooned, from 4.4 million to an estimated 7.6 million in 2005 — that’s everything from defense contractors and auditors to food inspectors and groundskeepers. And there’s no ready way to tell whether this outsourcing boom has actually saved taxpayers money.

By Brad Plumer, Updated: June 11, 2013

Find this story at 11 June 2013

© The Washington Post Company

More Intrusive Than Eavesdropping? NSA Collection of Metadata Hands Gov’t Sweeping Personal Info

As the American Civil Liberties Union sues the Obama administration over its secret NSA phone spying program, we look at how the government could use phone records to determine your friends, medical problems, business transactions and the places you’ve visited. While President Obama insists that nobody is listening to your telephone calls, cybersecurity expert Susan Landau says the metadata being collected by the government may be far more revealing than the content of the actual phone calls. A mathematician and former Sun Microsystems engineer, Landau is the author of the book “Surveillance or Security?: The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies.”
Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Obama administration on Tuesday over the National Security Agency’s secret program to vacuum up the phone records of millions of Americans. The lawsuit comes less than one week after The Guardian and The Washington Post revealed the existence of a secret court ruling ordering Verizon to hand over records of its business customers. This is ACLU attorney Alex Abdo.

ALEX ABDO: This program is a massive and unprecedented grab of information by the intelligence agencies. They’re sweeping up or they’re tracking literally every call made in this country. And the Constitution simply doesn’t allow the government to do that. If it has a reason to suspect a particular American of wrongdoing, then the government should target that American for investigation or surveillance, but they shouldn’t indiscriminately sweep up the calls of millions of innocent Americans.

AMY GOODMAN: The disclosure of the secret NSA surveillance program was based on information leaked by Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who most recently worked inside the NSA’s Hawaii office for the private firm Booz Allen Hamilton. On Friday, President Obama confirmed the existence of the surveillance program.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: When it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That’s not what this program’s about. As was indicated, what the intelligence community is doing is looking at phone numbers and durations of calls. They are not looking at people’s names, and they’re not looking at content. But by sifting through this so-called metadata, they may identify potential leads with respect to folks who might engage in terrorism. If these folks—if the intelligence community then actually wants to listen to a phone call, they’ve got to go back to a federal judge, just like they would in a criminal investigation. So, I want to be very clear—some of the hype that we’ve been hearing over the last day or so—nobody is listening to the content of people’s phone calls.

AMY GOODMAN: While President Obama insisted nobody is listening to your telephone calls, many cybersecurity experts say the metadata being collected by the government may be far more revealing than the actual content of the phone calls.

Joining us now from Washington, D.C., is Susan Landau, mathematician and former Sun Microsystems engineer, author of the book Surveillance or Security?: The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2012.

Susan Landau, welcome to Democracy Now! This may surprise many people, this point that metadata—just, you know, the fact of a phone call, who you called, perhaps where you made the call—can be more revealing than a transcript of the conversation itself.

SUSAN LANDAU: That’s right. That’s because a phone call—the metadata of a phone call tells what you do as opposed to what you say. So, for example, if you call from the hospital when you’re getting a mammogram, and then later in the day your doctor calls you, and then you call the surgeon, and then when you’re at the surgeon’s office you call your family, it’s pretty clear, just looking at that pattern of calls, that there’s been some bad news. If there’s a tight vote in Congress, and somebody who’s wavering on the edge, you discover that they’re talking to the opposition, you know which way they’re vote is going.

One of my favorite examples is, when Sun Microsystems was bought by Oracle, there were a number of calls that weekend before. One can imagine just the trail of calls. First the CEO of Sun and the CEO of Oracle talk to each other. Then probably they both talk to their chief counsels. Then maybe they talk to each other again, then to other people in charge. And the calls go back and forth very quickly, very tightly. You know what’s going to happen. You know what the announcement is going to be on Monday morning, even though you haven’t heard the content of the calls. So that metadata is remarkably revealing.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, John Negroponte, the nation’s first director of national intelligence under President George W. Bush, has defended the surveillance program and the collection of metadata. He described metadata as, quote, “like knowing what’s on the outside of an envelope.” Susan Landau, your response to that?

SUSAN LANDAU: That’s not really true. That was the case when we had black telephones that weighed several pounds and sat on the living room table or the hall table, and you knew that there was a phone call from one house to another house. Now everybody carries cellphones with them. And so, the data is, when I call you, I know that I’m talking to you, but I have no idea where you are. It’s the phone company who has that data now. And that data is far more revealing than what’s on the outside of an envelope. As I said earlier, it’s what you do, not what you say. And because we’re carrying the cellphones with us and making calls all during the day, that it’s very, very revelatory.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Could you explain, Susan, the significance of location data? Can the government map a person’s whereabouts through this metadata?

SUSAN LANDAU: Of course. In fact, all it takes is four data points to be 95 percent sure who the person is. I noticed President Obama said no names, but in fact, if you know four locations, because home and work are often unique pairs for most people, 95 percent location of—of times when you have four location points, you know who it is you’re listening to. So, you follow somebody, and they make calls from work every day, and then one day you notice they’ve made some calls from a bar at the end of the day. And then you discover somebody in middle age, somebody who ought to be working, is now making calls only from home. You know they’ve been fired, even though you haven’t listened to any of the content of the calls.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about the comments of the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, coming under increasing scrutiny over comments he made to the Senate over the government’s surveillance program. In March, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden questioned Clapper about the NSA.

SEN. RON WYDEN: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?

JAMES CLAPPER: No, sir.

SEN. RON WYDEN: It does not?

JAMES CLAPPER: Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.

AMY GOODMAN: Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is holding his head as he’s responding to questions from Senator Ron Wyden in March. Well, during an interview this week with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, James Clapper defended his response, saying he had answered the question in the, quote, “least untruthful manner,” unquote. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Senator Wyden called for public hearings to investigate the scope of the NSA’s surveillance of Americans. Wyden said, quote, “One of the most important responsibilities a Senator has is oversight of the intelligence community. [This] job cannot be done responsibly if Senators [aren’t] getting straight answers to direct questions.” Susan Landau, translate what James Clapper said.

SUSAN LANDAU: Well, he said that we’re not getting—that the NSA was not getting data on millions of Americans. But given that Verizon and the other telecos presumably were also sending this information, and they were sending it daily, that does not appear to be true.

Now, what we don’t know, we don’t know a lot of things. One of the things we don’t know is the kind minimization that the NSA did on the data. When you do a criminal wiretap, you’re required to do what’s called minimization. You can listen to the call, but if it’s not the target of the investigation, if it’s not the criminal him or herself, but let’s say their teenage daughter, then you have to shut down the wiretap, and you can pick it up again in a couple of minutes. If it’s the criminal, but they’re talking about going out to buy milk, let’s say, unless you think that’s code for going out to pick up some heroin, you have to shut it down. That’s minimization.

We don’t know several things. First of all, of course, there was a secret interpretation of a law, and that has no place in a democracy. That’s tantamount to secret laws. But we also don’t know what kind of data minimization the NSA was doing, and that’s something that ought to come out in public hearings. That’s very different from exposing sources and methods.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, the secret court order to obtain Verizon phone records was sought by the FBI under a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that was expanded by the PATRIOT Act. In 2011, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden warned about how the government was interpreting its surveillance powers under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act.

SEN. RON WYDEN: When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the PATRIOT Act, they are going to be stunned, and they are going to be angry. And they’re going to ask senators, “Did you know what this law actually permits? Why didn’t you know before you voted on it?” The fact is, anyone can read the plain text of the PATRIOT Act, and yet many members of Congress have no idea how the law is being secretly interpreted by the executive branch, because that interpretation is classified. It’s almost as if there were two PATRIOT Acts, and many members of Congress have not read the one that matters. Our constituents, of course, are totally in the dark. Members of the public have no access to the secret legal interpretations, so they have no idea what their government believes the law actually means.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Susan Landau, that was Democratic Senator Ron Wyden. Could you comment on what he said? He was speaking in 2011.

SUSAN LANDAU: Yes. No, I actually had members of the press call me after his speech and say, “What is he talking about in Section 215?” And I literally had no idea, because it did not occur to me, and maybe that’s my naïveté. It did not occur to me that the government would be collecting the metadata under a secret interpretation.

So what Senator Wyden is talking about is that collection of metadata, and what he’s alluding to is how extremely powerful it is. Currently, our laws, our wiretapping laws, which were passed when phones didn’t move, back in the 1960s and ’70s, those wiretap laws protect content, very strongly. You need a wiretap warrant to get at content. But they protect the metadata—the who, the when, the what time, how long a call was for, the location—much less strongly. That needs to be changed. And, in fact, a bill was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act—an updated version of the bill was reported out earlier this year. That’s what Senator Wyden is alluding to. The fact that that metadata, now that we carry cellphones, now that payphones essentially don’t exist—there are far fewer payphones than a decade ago, and so one has to rely on cellphones—Senator Wyden is saying that information is very private information. It reveals a remarkable amount about what a person is doing, who they are, whom they associate with, who they spend their nights with, where they are when they travel. All that kind of information is very private, deserves constitutional protection. And yet, under a secret interpretation of the law, it’s in fact being handed over to the government. And that’s what Senator Wyden is saying.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Susan Landau, people like Senator Feinstein are calling for an investigation into what Edward Snowden has done. We’re about to have a debate on whether he is a traitor or a hero. What do you think of what Snowden has done? And what do you think needs to be done? Where should the investigation take place?

SUSAN LANDAU: So, the first thing is whether—what do I think of what Edward Snowden has done. I think of myself as a computer scientist, not a policy or legal expert. I don’t know what I would have done in his shoes, but I do know that what he’s done is opened up a public debate about something that should have been public many, many years ago. We can’t have secret interpretations of law in a democracy.

Where do I think things should go? I think there need to be two investigations. One, I think Senator Feinstein is absolutely right, although I would target things a little bit differently. We’ve developed a surveillance-industrial complex, as has been exhibited to the public now, and I think that’s where Senator Feinstein should concentrate. I think it’s time for a Church-type Committee investigation, under perhaps the aegis of the Judiciary Committee, under perhaps Senator Leahy, but we need an examination of the surveillance laws and what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, what was done illegally, and so on. And it needs to be a broad investigation, the same way it was done in the 1970s under the Church Committee.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much, Susan Landau, mathematician, former Sun Microsystems engineer, author of the book Surveillance or Security?: The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2012. When we come back, a debate on what Edward Snowden has done. Traitor or hero? Stay with us.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Find this story at 12 June 2013 
The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere

I have been asked by my superiors to give a brief demonstration of the surprising effectiveness of even the simplest techniques of the new-fangled Social Networke Analysis in the pursuit of those who would seek to undermine the liberty enjoyed by His Majesty’s subjects. This is in connection with the discussion of the role of “metadata” in certain recent events and the assurances of various respectable parties that the government was merely “sifting through this so-called metadata” and that the “information acquired does not include the content of any communications”. I will show how we can use this “metadata” to find key persons involved in terrorist groups operating within the Colonies at the present time. I shall also endeavour to show how these methods work in what might be called a relational manner.

The analysis in this report is based on information gathered by our field agent Mr David Hackett Fischer and published in an Appendix to his lengthy report to the government. As you may be aware, Mr Fischer is an expert and respected field Agent with a broad and deep knowledge of the colonies. I, on the other hand, have made my way from Ireland with just a little quantitative training—I placed several hundred rungs below the Senior Wrangler during my time at Cambridge—and I am presently employed as a junior analytical scribe at ye olde National Security Administration. Sorry, I mean the Royal Security Administration. And I should emphasize again that I know nothing of current affairs in the colonies. However, our current Eighteenth Century beta of PRISM has been used to collect and analyze information on more than two hundred and sixty persons (of varying degrees of suspicion) belonging variously to seven different organizations in the Boston area.

Rest assured that we only collected metadata on these people, and no actual conversations were recorded or meetings transcribed. All I know is whether someone was a member of an organization or not. Surely this is but a small encroachment on the freedom of the Crown’s subjects. I have been asked, on the basis of this poor information, to present some names for our field agents in the Colonies to work with. It seems an unlikely task.

If you want to follow along yourself, there is a secret repository containing the data and the appropriate commands for your portable analytical engine.

Here is what the data look like.1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 StAndrewsLodge LoyalNine NorthCaucus LongRoomClub TeaParty Bostoncommittee LondonEnemies
Adams.John 0 0 1 1 0 0 0
Adams.Samuel 0 0 1 1 0 1 1
Allen.Dr 0 0 1 0 0 0 0
Appleton.Nathaniel 0 0 1 0 0 1 0
Ash.Gilbert 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Austin.Benjamin 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Austin.Samuel 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Avery.John 0 1 0 0 0 0 1
Baldwin.Cyrus 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Ballard.John 0 0 1 0 0 0 0

The organizations are listed in the columns, and the names in the rows. As you can see, membership is represented by a “1”. So this Samuel Adams person (whoever he is), belongs to the North Caucus, the Long Room Club, the Boston Committee, and the London Enemies List. I must say, these organizational names sound rather belligerent.

Anyway, what can get from these meagre metadata? This table is large and cumbersome. I am a pretty low-level operative at ye olde RSA, so I have to keep it simple. My superiors, I am quite sure, have far more sophisticated analytical techniques at their disposal. I will simply start at the very beginning and follow a technique laid out in a beautiful paper by my brilliant former colleague, Mr Ron Breiger, called “The Duality of Persons and Groups.” He wrote it as a graduate student at Harvard, some thirty five years ago. (Harvard, you may recall, is what passes for a university in the Colonies. No matter.) The paper describes what we now think of as a basic way to represent information about links between people and some other kind of thing, like attendance at various events, or membership in various groups. The foundational papers in this new science of social networke analysis, in fact, are almost all about what you can tell about people and their social lives based on metadata only, without much reference to the actual content of what they say.

Mr Breiger’s insight was that our table of 254 rows and seven columns is an adjacency matrix, and that a bit of matrix multiplication can bring out information that is in the table but perhaps hard to see. Take this adjacency matrix of people and groups and transpose it—that is, flip it over on its side, so that the rows are now the columns and vice versa. Now we have two tables, or matrices, a 254×7 one showing “People by Groups” and the other a 7×254 one showing “Groups by People”. Call the first one the adjacency matrix A and the second one its transpose, AT. Now, as you will recall
there are rules for multiplying matrices together. If you multiply out A(AT), you will
get a big matrix with 254 rows and 254 columns. That is, it will be a 254×254 “Person by Person” matrix, where both the rows and columns are people (in the same order) and the cells show the number of organizations any particular pair of people both belonged to. Is that not marvelous? I have always thought this operation is somewhat akin to magick, especially as it involves moving one hand down and the other one across in a manner not wholly removed from an incantation.

I cannot show you the whole Person by Person matrix, because I would have to kill you. I jest, I jest! It is just because it is rather large. But here is a little snippet of it. At this point in the eighteenth century, a 254×254 matrix is what we call Bigge Data”. I have an upcoming EDWARDx talk about it. You should come. Anyway:1
2
3
4
5
6
7 Adams.John Adams.Samuel Allen.Dr Appleton.Nathaniel
Adams.John – 2 1 1
Adams.Samuel 2 – 1 2
Allen.Dr 1 1 – 1
Appleton.Nathaniel 1 2 1 –
Ash.Gilbert 0 0 0 0
Austin.Benjamin 0 1 0 0

You can see here that Mr Appleton and Mr John Adams were connected through both being a member of one group, while Mr John Adams and Mr Samuel Adams shared memberships in two of our seven groups. Mr Ash, meanwhile, was not connected through organization membership to any of the first four men on our list. The rest of the table stretches out in both directions.

Notice again, I beg you, what we did there. We did not start with a “social networke” as you might ordinarily think of it, where individuals are connected to other individuals. We started with a list of memberships in various organizations. But now suddenly we do have a social networke of individuals, where a tie is defined by co-membership in an organization. This is a powerful trick.

We are just getting started, however. A thing about multiplying matrices is that the order matters. It is not like multiplying two numbers. If instead of multiplying A(AT)
we put the transposed matrix first, and do AT(A), then we get a different result. This
time, the result is a 7×7 “Organization by Organization” matrix, where the numbers in the cells represent how many people each organization has in common. Here’s what that looks like. Because it is small we can see the whole table.1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8 StAndrewsLodge LoyalNine NorthCaucus LongRoomClub TeaParty BostonCommittee LondonEnemies
StAndrewsLodge – 1 3 2 3 0 5
LoyalNine 1 – 5 0 5 0 8
NorthCaucus 3 5 – 8 15 11 20
LongRoomClub 2 0 8 – 1 5 5
TeaParty 3 5 15 1 – 5 10
BostonCommittee 0 0 11 5 5 – 14
LondonEnemies 5 8 20 5 10 14 –

Again, interesting! (I beg to venture.) Instead of seeing how (and which) people are linked by their shared membership in organizations, we see which organizations are linked through the people that belong to them both. People are linked through the groups they belong to. Groups are linked through the people they share. This is the “duality of persons and groups” in the title of Mr Breiger’s article.

Rather than relying on tables, we can make a picture of the relationship between the groups, using the number of shared members as an index of the strength of the link between the seditious groups. Here’s what that looks like.

And, of course, we can also do that for the links between the people, using our 254×254 “Person by Person” table. Here is what that looks like.

What a nice picture! The analytical engine has arranged everyone neatly, picking out clusters of individuals and also showing both peripheral individuals and—more intriguingly—people who seem to bridge various groups in ways that might perhaps be relevant to national security. Look at that person right in the middle there. Zoom in if you wish. He seems to bridge several groups in an unusual (though perhaps not unique) way. His name is Paul Revere.

Once again, I remind you that I know nothing of Mr Revere, or his conversations, or his habits or beliefs, his writings (if he has any) or his personal life. All I know is this bit of metadata, based on membership in some organizations. And yet my analytical engine, on the basis of absolutely the most elementary of operations in Social Networke Analysis, seems to have picked him out of our 254 names as being of unusual interest. We do not have to stop here, with just a picture. Now that we have used our simple “Person by Event” table to generate a “Person by Person” matrix, we can do things like calculate centrality scores, or figure out whether there are cliques, or investigate other patterns. For example, we could calculate a betweenness centrality measure for everyone in our matrix, which is roughly the number of “shortest paths” between any two people in our network that pass through the person of interest. It is a way of asking “If I have to get from person a to person z, how likely is it that the quickest way is through person x?” Here are the top betweenness scores for our list of suspected terrorists:1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8 round(btwn.person[ind][1:10],0)
Revere.Paul Urann.Thomas Warren.Joseph Peck.Samuel
3839 2185 1817 1150
Barber.Nathaniel Cooper.William Hoffins.John Bass.Henry
931 931 931 852
Chase.Thomas Davis.Caleb
852 852

Perhaps I should not say “terrorists” so rashly. But you can see how tempting it is. Anyway, look—there he is again, this Mr Revere! Very interesting. There are fancier ways to measure importance in a network besides this one. There is something called eigenvector centrality, which my friends in Natural Philosophy tell me is a bit of mathematics unlikely ever to have any practical application in the wider world. You can think of it as a measure of centrality weighted by one’s connection to other central people. Here are our top scorers on that measure:1
2
3
4
5
6
7 > round(cent.eig$vector[ind][1:10],2)
Barber.Nathaniel Hoffins.John Cooper.William Revere.Paul
1.00 1.00 1.00 0.99
Bass.Henry Davis.Caleb Chase.Thomas Greenleaf.William
0.95 0.95 0.95 0.95
Hopkins.Caleb Proctor.Edward
0.95 0.90

Here our Mr Revere appears to score highly alongside a few other persons of interest. And for one last demonstration, a calculation of Bonacich Power Centrality, another more sophisticated measure. Here the lower score indicates a more central location.1
2
3
4
5
6
7 > round(cent.bonpow[ind][1:10],2)
Revere.Paul Urann.Thomas Warren.Joseph Proctor.Edward
-1.51 -1.44 -1.42 -1.40
Barber.Nathaniel Hoffins.John Cooper.William Peck.Samuel
-1.36 -1.36 -1.36 -1.33
Davis.Caleb Chase.Thomas
-1.31 -1.31

And here again, Mr Revere—along with Messrs Urann, Proctor, and Barber—appears towards the top or our list.

So, there you have it. From a table of membership in different groups we have gotten a picture of a kind of social network between individuals, a sense of the degree of connection between organizations, and some strong hints of who the key players are in this world. And all this—all of it!—from the merest sliver of metadata about a single modality of relationship between people. I do not wish to overstep the remit of my memorandum but I must ask you to imagine what might be possible if we were but able to collect information on very many more people, and also synthesize information from different kinds of ties between people! For the simple methods I have described are quite generalizable in these ways, and their capability only becomes more apparent as the size and scope of the information they are given increases. We would not need to know what was being whispered between individuals, only that they were connected in various ways. The analytical engine would do the rest! I daresay the shape of the real structure of social relations would emerge from our calculations gradually, first in outline only, but eventually with ever-increasing clarity and, at last, in beautiful detail—like a great, silent ship coming out of the gray New England fog.

I admit that, in addition to the possibilities for finding something interesting, there may also be the prospect of discovering suggestive but ultimately incorrect or misleading patterns. But I feel this problem would surely be greatly ameliorated by more and better metadata. At the present time, alas, the technology required to automatically collect the required information is beyond our capacity. But I say again, if a mere scribe such as I—one who knows nearly nothing—can use the very simplest of these methods to pick the name of a traitor like Paul Revere from those of two hundred and fifty four other men, using nothing but a list of memberships and a portable calculating engine, then just think what weapons we might wield in the defense of liberty one or two centuries from now.

Note: After I posted this, Michael Chwe emailed to tell me that Shin-Kap Han has published an article analyzing Fischer’s Revere data in rather more detail. I first came across Fischer’s data when I read Paul Revere’s Ride some years ago. I transcribed it and worked on it a little (making the graphs shown here) when I was asked to give a presentation on the usefulness of Sociological methods to graduate students in Duke’s History department. It’s very nice to see Han’s much fuller published analysis, as he’s an SNA specialist, unlike me.

Posted by Kieran Healy •Jun 9th, 2013 • Data, IT, Politics, R, Sociology

Find this story at 9 June 2013

U.S. surveillance architecture includes collection of revealing Internet, phone metadata

On March 12, 2004, acting attorney general James B. Comey and the Justice Department’s top leadership reached the brink of resignation over electronic surveillance orders that they believed to be illegal.

President George W. Bush backed down, halting secret foreign-
intelligence-gathering operations that had crossed into domestic terrain. That morning marked the beginning of the end of STELLARWIND, the cover name for a set of four surveillance programs that brought Americans and American territory within the domain of the National Security Agency for the first time in decades. It was also a prelude to new legal structures that allowed Bush and then President Obama to reproduce each of those programs and expand their reach.

What exactly STELLARWIND did has never been disclosed in an unclassified form. Which parts of it did Comey approve? Which did he shut down? What became of the programs when the crisis passed and Comey, now Obama’s expected nominee for FBI director, returned to private life?

Authoritative new answers to those questions, drawing upon a classified NSA history of STELLARWIND and interviews with high-ranking intelligence officials, offer the clearest map yet of the Bush-era programs and the NSA’s contemporary U.S. operations.

STELLARWIND was succeeded by four major lines of intelligence collection in the territorial United States, together capable of spanning the full range of modern telecommunications, according to the interviews and documents.

Foreigners, not Americans, are the NSA’s “targets,” as the law defines that term. But the programs are structured broadly enough that they touch nearly every American household in some way. Obama administration officials and career intelligence officers say Americans should take comfort that privacy protections are built into the design and oversight, but they are not prepared to discuss the details.

The White House, the NSA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the record for this article. A senior intelligence official agreed to answer questions if not identified.

“We have rich oversight across three branches of government. I’ve got an [inspector general] here, a fairly robust legal staff here . . . and there’s the Justice Department’s national security division,” the official said. “For those things done under court jurisdiction, the courts are intrusive in my business, appropriately so, and there are two congressional committees. It’s a belts-and-suspenders-and-Velcro approach, and inside there’s rich auditing.”

But privacy advocates, such as Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), said the intelligence committee on which he serves needs “straight answers” to do vigorous oversight.

He added: “The typical person says, ‘If I am law-abiding and the government is out there collecting lots of information about me — who I call, when I call, where I call from’ . . . I think the typical person is going to say, ‘That sure sounds like it could have some effect on my privacy.’ ”

Two of the four collection programs, one each for telephony and the Internet, process trillions of “metadata” records for storage and analysis in systems called MAINWAY and MARINA, respectively. Metadata includes highly revealing information about the times, places, devices and participants in electronic communication, but not its contents. The bulk collection of telephone call records from Verizon Business Services, disclosed this month by the British newspaper the Guardian, is one source of raw intelligence for MAINWAY.

The other two types of collection, which operate on a much smaller scale, are aimed at content. One of them intercepts telephone calls and routes the spoken words to a system called NUCLEON.

For Internet content, the most important source collection is the PRISM project reported on June 6 by The Washington Post and the Guardian. It draws from data held by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other Silicon Valley giants, collectively the richest depositories of personal information in history.

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, 29, who unmasked himself as the source behind the PRISM and Verizon revelations, said he hoped for a systematic debate about the “danger to our freedom and way of life” posed by a surveillance apparatus “kept in check by nothing more than policy.”

For well over a week, he has had his wish. Startling disclosures have poured out of the nation’s largest and arguably tightest-lipped spy agency at an unprecedented pace. Snowden’s disclosures have opened a national conversation about the limits of secret surveillance in a free society and an outcry overseas against U.S. espionage.

The debate has focused on two of the four U.S.-based collection programs: PRISM, for Internet content, and the comprehensive collection of telephone call records, foreign and domestic, that the Guardian revealed by posting a classified order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to Verizon Business Services.

The Post has learned that similar orders have been renewed every three months for other large U.S. phone companies, including Bell South and AT&T, since May 24, 2006. On that day, the surveillance court made a fundamental shift in its approach to Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which permits the FBI to compel production of “business records” that are relevant to a particular terrorism investigation and to share those in some circumstances with the NSA. Henceforth, the court ruled, it would define the relevant business records as the entirety of a telephone company’s call database.

The Bush administration, by then, had been taking “bulk metadata” from the phone companies under voluntary agreements for more than four years. The volume of information overwhelmed the MAINWAY database, according to a classified report from the NSA inspector general in 2009. The agency spent $146 million in supplemental counterterrorism funds to buy new hardware and contract support — and to make unspecified payments to the phone companies for “collaborative partnerships.”

When the New York Times revealed the warrantless surveillance of voice calls, in December 2005, the telephone companies got nervous. One of them, unnamed in the report, approached the NSA with a request. Rather than volunteer the data, at a price, the “provider preferred to be compelled to do so by a court order,” the report said. Other companies followed suit. The surveillance court order that recast the meaning of business records “essentially gave NSA the same authority to collect bulk telephony metadata from business records that it had” under Bush’s asserted authority alone.

Telephone metadata was not the issue that sparked a rebellion at the Justice Department, first by Jack Goldsmith of the Office of Legal Counsel and then by Comey, who was acting attorney general because John D. Ashcroft was in intensive care with acute gallstone pancreatitis. It was Internet metadata.

At Bush’s direction, in orders prepared by David Addington, the counsel to Vice President Richard B. Cheney, the NSA had been siphoning e-mail metadata and technical records of Skype calls from data links owned by AT&T, Sprint and MCI, which later merged with Verizon.

For reasons unspecified in the report, Goldsmith and Comey became convinced that Bush had no lawful authority to do that.

MARINA and the collection tools that feed it are probably the least known of the NSA’s domestic operations, even among experts who follow the subject closely. Yet they probably capture information about more American citizens than any other, because the volume of e-mail, chats and other Internet communications far exceeds the volume of standard telephone calls.

The NSA calls Internet metadata “digital network information.” Sophisticated analysis of those records can reveal unknown associates of known terrorism suspects. Depending on the methods applied, it can also expose medical conditions, political or religious affiliations, confidential business negotiations and extramarital affairs.

What permits the former and prevents the latter is a complex set of policies that the public is not permitted to see. “You could do analyses that give you more information, but the law and procedures don’t allow that,” a senior U.S. intelligence lawyer said.

In the urgent aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, with more attacks thought to be imminent, analysts wanted to use “contact chaining” techniques to build what the NSA describes as network graphs of people who represented potential threats.

The legal challenge for the NSA was that its practice of collecting high volumes of data from digital links did not seem to meet even the relatively low requirements of Bush’s authorization, which allowed collection of Internet metadata “for communications with at least one communicant outside the United States or for which no communicant was known to be a citizen of the United States,” the NSA inspector general’s report said.

Lawyers for the agency came up with an interpretation that said the NSA did not “acquire” the communications, a term with formal meaning in surveillance law, until analysts ran searches against it. The NSA could “obtain” metadata in bulk, they argued, without meeting the required standards for acquisition.

Goldsmith and Comey did not buy that argument, and a high-ranking U.S. intelligence official said the NSA does not rely on it today.

As soon as surveillance data “touches us, we’ve got it, whatever verbs you choose to use,” the official said in an interview. “We’re not saying there’s a magic formula that lets us have it without having it.”

When Comey finally ordered a stop to the program, Bush signed an order renewing it anyway. Comey, Goldsmith, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and most of the senior Bush appointees in the Justice Department began drafting letters of resignation.

Then-NSA Director Michael V. Hayden was not among them. According to the inspector general’s classified report, Cheney’s lawyer, Addington, placed a phone call and “General Hayden had to decide whether NSA would execute the Authorization without the Attorney General’s signature.” He decided to go along.

The following morning, when Mueller told Bush that he and Comey intended to resign, the president reversed himself.

Three months later, on July 15, the secret surveillance court allowed the NSA to resume bulk collection under the court’s own authority. The opinion, which remains highly classified, was based on a provision of electronic surveillance law, known as “pen register, trap and trace,” that was written to allow law enforcement officers to obtain the phone numbers of incoming and outgoing calls from a single telephone line.

When the NSA aims for foreign targets whose communications cross U.S. infrastructure, it expects to sweep in some American content “incidentally” or “inadvertently,” which are terms of art in regulations governing the NSA. Contact chaining, because it extends to the contacts of contacts of targets, inevitably collects even more American data.

Current NSA director Keith B. Alexander and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. have resolutely refused to offer an estimate of the number of Americans whose calls or e-mails have thus made their way into content databases such as NUCLEON.

The agency and its advocates maintain that its protection of that data is subject to rigorous controls and oversight by Congress and courts. For the public, it comes down to a question of unverifiable trust.

“The constraints that I operate under are much more remarkable than the powers that I enjoy,” said the senior intelligence official who declined to be named.

When asked why the NSA could not release an unclassified copy of its “minimization procedures,” which are supposed to strip accidentally collected records of their identifying details, the official suggested a reporter submit a freedom-of-information request.

As for bulk collection of Internet metadata, the question that triggered the crisis of 2004, another official said the NSA is no longer doing it. When pressed on that question, he said he was speaking only of collections under authority of the surveillance court.

“I’m not going to say we’re not collecting any Internet metadata,” he added. “We’re not using this program and these kinds of accesses to collect Internet metadata in bulk.”

Julie Tate and Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.

By Barton Gellman, Published: June 16

Find this story at 16 June 2013

© The Washington Post Company

Secret to Prism success: Even bigger data seizure; What makes Prism shine? National Security Agency’s megadata collection from Internet pipeline

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the months and early years after 9/11, FBI agents began showing up at Microsoft Corp. more frequently than before, armed with court orders demanding information on customers.

Around the world, government spies and eavesdroppers were tracking the email and Internet addresses used by suspected terrorists. Often, those trails led to the world’s largest software company and, at the time, largest email provider.

The agents wanted email archives, account information, practically everything, and quickly. Engineers compiled the data, sometimes by hand, and delivered it to the government.

Often there was no easy way to tell if the information belonged to foreigners or Americans. So much data was changing hands that one former Microsoft employee recalls that the engineers were anxious about whether the company should cooperate.

Inside Microsoft, some called it “Hoovering” — not after the vacuum cleaner, but after J. Edgar Hoover, the first FBI director, who gathered dirt on countless Americans.

This frenetic, manual process was the forerunner to Prism, the recently revealed highly classified National Security Agency program that seizes records from Internet companies. As laws changed and technology improved, the government and industry moved toward a streamlined, electronic process, which required less time from the companies and provided the government data in a more standard format.

The revelation of Prism this month by the Washington Post and Guardian newspapers has touched off the latest round in a decade-long debate over what limits to impose on government eavesdropping, which the Obama administration says is essential to keep the nation safe.

But interviews with more than a dozen current and former government and technology officials and outside experts show that, while Prism has attracted the recent attention, the program actually is a relatively small part of a much more expansive and intrusive eavesdropping effort.

Americans who disapprove of the government reading their emails have more to worry about from a different and larger NSA effort that snatches data as it passes through the fiber optic cables that make up the Internet’s backbone. That program, which has been known for years, copies Internet traffic as it enters and leaves the United States, then routes it to the NSA for analysis.

Whether by clever choice or coincidence, Prism appears to do what its name suggests. Like a triangular piece of glass, Prism takes large beams of data and helps the government find discrete, manageable strands of information.

The fact that it is productive is not surprising; documents show it is one of the major sources for what ends up in the president’s daily briefing. Prism makes sense of the cacophony of the Internet’s raw feed. It provides the government with names, addresses, conversation histories and entire archives of email inboxes.

Many of the people interviewed for this report insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss a classified, continuing effort. But those interviews, along with public statements and the few public documents available, show there are two vital components to Prism’s success.

The first is how the government works closely with the companies that keep people perpetually connected to each other and the world. That story line has attracted the most attention so far.

The second and far murkier one is how Prism fits into a larger U.S. wiretapping program in place for years.

___

Deep in the oceans, hundreds of cables carry much of the world’s phone and Internet traffic. Since at least the early 1970s, the NSA has been tapping foreign cables. It doesn’t need permission. That’s its job.

But Internet data doesn’t care about borders. Send an email from Pakistan to Afghanistan and it might pass through a mail server in the United States, the same computer that handles messages to and from Americans. The NSA is prohibited from spying on Americans or anyone inside the United States. That’s the FBI’s job and it requires a warrant.

Despite that prohibition, shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, President George W. Bush secretly authorized the NSA to plug into the fiber optic cables that enter and leave the United States, knowing it would give the government unprecedented, warrantless access to Americans’ private conversations.

Tapping into those cables allows the NSA access to monitor emails, telephone calls, video chats, websites, bank transactions and more. It takes powerful computers to decrypt, store and analyze all this information, but the information is all there, zipping by at the speed of light.

“You have to assume everything is being collected,” said Bruce Schneier, who has been studying and writing about cryptography and computer security for two decades.

The New York Times disclosed the existence of this effort in 2005. In 2006, former AT&T technician Mark Klein revealed that the company had allowed the NSA to install a computer at its San Francisco switching center, a spot where fiber optic cables enter the U.S.

What followed was the most significant debate over domestic surveillance since the 1975 Church Committee, a special Senate committee led by Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, reined in the CIA and FBI for spying on Americans.

Unlike the recent debate over Prism, however, there were no visual aids, no easy-to-follow charts explaining that the government was sweeping up millions of emails and listening to phone calls of people accused of no wrongdoing.

The Bush administration called it the “Terrorist Surveillance Program” and said it was keeping the United States safe.

“This program has produced intelligence for us that has been very valuable in the global war on terror, both in terms of saving lives and breaking up plots directed at the United States,” Vice President Dick Cheney said at the time.

The government has said it minimizes all conversations and emails involving Americans. Exactly what that means remains classified. But former U.S. officials familiar with the process say it allows the government to keep the information as long as it is labeled as belonging to an American and stored in a special, restricted part of a computer.

That means Americans’ personal emails can live in government computers, but analysts can’t access, read or listen to them unless the emails become relevant to a national security investigation.

The government doesn’t automatically delete the data, officials said, because an email or phone conversation that seems innocuous today might be significant a year from now.

What’s unclear to the public is how long the government keeps the data. That is significant because the U.S. someday will have a new enemy. Two decades from now, the government could have a trove of American emails and phone records it can tap to investigative whatever Congress declares a threat to national security.

The Bush administration shut down its warrantless wiretapping program in 2007 but endorsed a new law, the Protect America Act, which allowed the wiretapping to continue with changes: The NSA generally would have to explain its techniques and targets to a secret court in Washington, but individual warrants would not be required.

Congress approved it, with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in the midst of a campaign for president, voting against it.

“This administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide,” Obama said in a speech two days before that vote. “I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom.”

___

When the Protect America Act made warrantless wiretapping legal, lawyers and executives at major technology companies knew what was about to happen.

One expert in national security law, who is directly familiar with how Internet companies dealt with the government during that period, recalls conversations in which technology officials worried aloud that the government would trample on Americans’ constitutional right against unlawful searches, and that the companies would be called on to help.

The logistics were about to get daunting, too.

For years, the companies had been handling requests from the FBI. Now Congress had given the NSA the authority to take information without warrants. Though the companies didn’t know it, the passage of the Protect America Act gave birth to a top-secret NSA program, officially called US-98XN.

It was known as Prism. Though many details are still unknown, it worked like this:

Every year, the attorney general and the director of national intelligence spell out in a classified document how the government plans to gather intelligence on foreigners overseas.

By law, the certification can be broad. The government isn’t required to identify specific targets or places.

A federal judge, in a secret order, approves the plan.

With that, the government can issue “directives” to Internet companies to turn over information.

While the court provides the government with broad authority to seize records, the directives themselves typically are specific, said one former associate general counsel at a major Internet company. They identify a specific target or groups of targets. Other company officials recall similar experiences.

All adamantly denied turning over the kind of broad swaths of data that many people believed when the Prism documents were first released.

“We only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers,” Microsoft said in a statement.

Facebook said it received between 9,000 and 10,000 demands requests for data from all government agencies in the second half of last year. The social media company said fewer than 19,000 users were targeted.

How many of those were related to national security is unclear, and likely classified. The numbers suggest each request typically related to one or two people, not a vast range of users.

Tech company officials were unaware there was a program named Prism. Even former law enforcement and counterterrorism officials who were on the job when the program went live and were aware of its capabilities said this past week that they didn’t know what it was called.

What the NSA called Prism, the companies knew as a streamlined system that automated and simplified the “Hoovering” from years earlier, the former assistant general counsel said. The companies, he said, wanted to reduce their workload. The government wanted the data in a structured, consistent format that was easy to search.

Any company in the communications business can expect a visit, said Mike Janke, CEO of Silent Circle, a company that advertises software for secure, encrypted conversations. The government is eager to find easy ways around security.

“They do this every two to three years,” said Janke, who said government agents have approached his company but left empty-handed because his computer servers store little information. “They ask for the moon.”

That often creates tension between the government and a technology industry with a reputation for having a civil libertarian bent. Companies occasionally argue to limit what the government takes. Yahoo even went to court and lost in a classified ruling in 2008, The New York Times reported Friday.

“The notion that Yahoo gives any federal agency vast or unfettered access to our users’ records is categorically false,” Ron Bell, the company’s general counsel, said recently.

Under Prism, the delivery process varied by company.

Google, for instance, says it makes secure file transfers. Others use contractors or have set up stand-alone systems. Some have set up user interfaces making it easier for the government, according to a security expert familiar with the process.

Every company involved denied the most sensational assertion in the Prism documents: that the NSA pulled data “directly from the servers” of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, AOL and more.

Technology experts and a former government official say that phrasing, taken from a PowerPoint slide describing the program, was likely meant to differentiate Prism’s neatly organized, company-provided data from the unstructured information snatched out of the Internet’s major pipelines.

In slide made public by the newspapers, NSA analysts were encouraged to use data coming from both Prism and from the fiber-optic cables.

Prism, as its name suggests, helps narrow and focus the stream. If eavesdroppers spot a suspicious email among the torrent of data pouring into the United States, analysts can use information from Internet companies to pinpoint the user.

With Prism, the government gets a user’s entire email inbox. Every email, including contacts with American citizens, becomes government property.

Once the NSA has an inbox, it can search its huge archives for information about everyone with whom the target communicated. All those people can be investigated, too.

That’s one example of how emails belonging to Americans can become swept up in the hunt.

In that way, Prism helps justify specific, potentially personal searches. But it’s the broader operation on the Internet fiber optics cables that actually captures the data, experts agree.

“I’m much more frightened and concerned about real-time monitoring on the Internet backbone,” said Wolf Ruzicka, CEO of EastBanc Technologies, a Washington software company. “I cannot think of anything, outside of a face-to-face conversation, that they could not have access to.”

One unanswered question, according to a former technology executive at one of the companies involved, is whether the government can use the data from Prism to work backward.

For example, not every company archives instant message conversations, chat room exchanges or videoconferences. But if Prism provided general details, known as metadata, about when a user began chatting, could the government “rewind” its copy of the global Internet stream, find the conversation and replay it in full?

That would take enormous computing, storage and code-breaking power. It’s possible the NSA could use supercomputers to decrypt some transmissions, but it’s unlikely it would have the ability to do that in volume. In other words, it would help to know what messages to zero in on.

Whether the government has that power and whether it uses Prism this way remains a closely guarded secret.

___

A few months after Obama took office in 2009, the surveillance debate reignited in Congress because the NSA had crossed the line. Eavesdroppers, it turned out, had been using their warrantless wiretap authority to intercept far more emails and phone calls of Americans than they were supposed to.

Obama, no longer opposed to the wiretapping, made unspecified changes to the process. The government said the problems were fixed.

“I came in with a healthy skepticism about these programs,” Obama explained recently. “My team evaluated them. We scrubbed them thoroughly. We actually expanded some of the oversight, increased some of the safeguards.”

Years after decrying Bush for it, Obama said Americans did have to make tough choices in the name of safety.

“You can’t have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience,” the president said.

Obama’s administration, echoing his predecessor’s, credited the surveillance with disrupting several terrorist attacks. Leading figures from the Bush administration who endured criticism during Obama’s candidacy have applauded the president for keeping the surveillance intact.

Jason Weinstein, who recently left the Justice Department as head of its cybercrime and intellectual property section, said it’s no surprise Obama continued the eavesdropping.

“You can’t expect a president to not use a legal tool that Congress has given him to protect the country,” he said. “So, Congress has given him the tool. The president’s using it. And the courts are saying ‘The way you’re using it is OK.’ That’s checks and balances at work.”

Schneier, the author and security expert, said it doesn’t really matter how Prism works, technically. Just assume the government collects everything, he said.

He said it doesn’t matter what the government and the companies say, either. It’s spycraft, after all.

“Everyone is playing word games,” he said. “No one is telling the truth.”

Associated Press writers Eileen Sullivan, Peter Svensonn, Adam Goldman, Michael Liedtke and Monika Mathur contributed to this report.

Contact the AP’s Washington investigative team at DCinvestigations@ap.org

By Stephen Braun, Anne Flaherty, Jack Gillum and Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press | Associated Press – Sat, Jun 15, 2013

Find this story at 15 June 2013

Copyright © 2013 Yahoo! Inc

Chris Pyle, Whistleblower on Domestic Spying in 70s, Says Be Wary of Attacks on NSA’s Critics

As NSA director General Keith Alexander blasts the leaks that exposed widespread surveillance of Americans, we’re joined by Chris Pyle, a former military instructor who exposed the CIA and Army’s monitoring of millions of Americans in the 1970s. Pyle discovered the Army and CIA were spying on millions of Americans engaged in lawful political activity while he was in the Army working as an instructor. His revelations prompted Senate hearings, including Senator Frank Church’s Select Committee on Intelligence, ultimately leading to a series of laws aimed at curbing government abuses. Now teaching constitutional law and civil liberties at Mount Holyoke College, Pyle says the NSA is known for attacking its critics instead of addressing the problems they expose.
Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We want to go on to the National Security Agency director, General Keith Alexander, who testified before Congress Wednesday, a week after a trove of secret documents about his agency’s widespread surveillance program stunned the nation and sparked heated debate. During his testimony, Alexander denied claims he has personal wiretapping abilities at the agency and insisted phone data collection has helped prevent dozens of terrorist attacks. He refused to publicly answer questions about how the NSA had made the transition to collecting phone records of Americans. Alexander also said he hoped for greater transparency around the surveillance programs, but he argued some secrecy helps the agency’s mission. He was also asked about the impact of the NSA leaks. This was his response.

GEN. KEITH ALEXANDER: Great harm has already been done by opening this up. And the consequence, I believe, is our security is jeopardized. There is no doubt in my mind that we will lose capabilities as a result of this and that not only the United States, but those allies that we have helped, will no longer be as safe as they were two weeks ago. And so, I am really concerned about that. I’m also concerned that, as we go forward, we now know that some of this has been released. So what does it make sense to explain to the American people so they have confidence that their government is doing the right thing? Because I believe we are, and we have to show them that.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The disclosure of the secret NSA surveillance program was based on information leaked by Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who most recently worked inside the NSA’s Hawaii office for the private firm Booz Allen Hamilton. In an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post, Snowden said, quote, “I’m neither traitor nor hero, I’m an American.” He also said he intends to stay in Hong Kong until he’s asked to leave, and he intends to fight any extradition attempts by the U.S. government. Snowden also told the paper, quote, “People who think I made a mistake in picking [Hong Kong] as a location misunderstand my intentions. I am not here to hide from justice; I am here to reveal criminality.”

AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we’re joined by Christopher Pyle, who first exposed domestic spying in the 1970s here in the U.S. Pyle discovered the CIA was spying on millions of Americans engaged in lawful activity while he was in the Army and worked as an instructor. After he left, he wrote about the Army’s vast and growing spy operations. His article from 1971 began, quote, “For the past four years, the U.S. Army has been closely watching civilian political activity within the United States.” Pyle’s story prompted Senate hearings, including Senator Frank Church’s Select Committee on Intelligence. These ultimately led to a series of laws aimed at curbing government abuse. Chris Pyle is the co-author of Military Surveillance of Civilian Politics, Getting Away with Torture and The Constitution Under Siege. He now teaches constitutional law and civil liberties at Mount Holyoke College and recently wrote a piece headlined, “Edward Snowden and the Real Issues.” He joins us from Chicopee, Massachusetts.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Professor Pyle. Talk about what you feel those real issues are. But before you do, explain what happened to you, how it was you revealed in the early ’70s what was going on in the military.

CHRISTOPHER PYLE: I received a briefing at the U.S. Army Intelligence Command that showed me the extent of the surveillance system. There were about 1,500 Army agents in plain clothes watching every demonstration in the United States of 20 people or more. There was also a records system in a giant warehouse on about six million people. I disclosed the existence of that surveillance and then recruited 125 of the Army’s counterintelligence agents to tell what they knew about the spying to Congress, the courts and the press. As a result of those disclosures and the congressional hearings, the entire U.S. Army Intelligence Command was abolished. This was before Watergate.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor Pyle, did you, at that time, suffer any repercussions from your willingness to step forward and reveal what was going on to Congress?

CHRISTOPHER PYLE: Well, two things happened. The Army created a 50-man unit in the Pentagon whose sole job was to discredit my disclosures. That effort failed: The disclosures were all quite accurate. I was also put on President Nixon’s enemies list, which resulted in a tax audit.

AMY GOODMAN: Christopher Pyle, let’s turn for a minute to the Church Committee’s special Senate investigation of government misconduct, which you played a key role in the mid-’70s, U.S. Senate committee chaired by Democratic Senator Frank Church of Idaho, who conducted a massive investigation of the CIA and FBI’s misuse of power at home and abroad, the multi-year investigation examining domestic spying, the CIA’s attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, the FBI and CIA’s efforts to infiltrate and disrupt leftist organizations, and a lot more. This is Senator Frank Church speaking during one of the committee’s hearings.

SEN. FRANK CHURCH: You have seen today the dark side of those activities, where many Americans who were not even suspected of crime were not only spied upon, but they were harassed, they were discredited and, at times, endangered.

AMY GOODMAN: And this is another clip from the Church Committee Senate hearing. This is CIA Director William Colby testifying. He was asked if he found the work of the committee unwelcome.

WILLIAM COLBY: No, I do not. I’ve—as I’ve said to the chairman, I welcome the chance to try to describe to the American people what intelligence is really about today. It’s a—it is an opportunity to show how we Americans have modernized the whole concept of intelligence.

AMY GOODMAN: That was then-CIA Director William Colby. So, if you would, Chris Pyle, take this forward, from what came out of the Church Committee hearings, that started with your exposé from being a military whistleblower, to what you’re seeing today with Edward Snowden.

CHRISTOPHER PYLE: Well, what we’ve seen in the ensuing years has been a vast explosion in intelligence-gathering capabilities. But the most significant part of that is the fact that civilian corporations are now doing the government’s work. Seventy percent of the intelligence budget of the United States today goes to private contractors like Booz Allen, which employed Edward Snowden. This is a major change in the power of surveillance. It now goes not only to the government, but to private corporations.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, you seem—in a recent article, you seem to raise what you think are the real issues in these Snowden leaks. You mention, one, the inability of Congress to actually do legitimate oversight over intelligence. You say that the secrecy system is out of control. And you also say that the system is also profoundly corrupt because of all this use of private contractors who make huge amounts of money that no one can actually hold them accountable for. Could you talk about those issues?

CHRISTOPHER PYLE: Yes. The forerunner of the PRISM system that Snowden disclosed was called Trailblazer. It wasted $1 billion on private contracts. It replaced a much less expensive system called ThinThread, which had more privacy protections and had been developed inside the government. Now, the reason that private contractors get this business is because members of Congress intercede with them with government agencies. And we now have a situation where members of the Intelligence Committee and other committees of Congress intercede with the bureaucracy to get sweetheart contracts for companies that waste taxpayers’ money and also violate the Constitution and the privacy of citizens. This is a very serious situation, because it means that it’s much more difficult to get effective oversight from Congress.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to the Senate Appropriation Committee hearing with the NSA director, General Keith Alexander, defending the phone surveillance practices exposed by Edward Snowden.

GEN. KEITH ALEXANDER: I thought the great part about this program was that we brought Congress, the administration and the courts all together. We did that. That’s what our government stands for, under the same Constitution. We follow that Constitution. We swear an oath to it. So I am concerned, and I think we have to balance that. I will not—I would rather take a public beating and people think I’m hiding something than to jeopardize the security of this country.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Pyle, could you respond?

CHRISTOPHER PYLE: Well, we all want to protect the security of the country. We all want to protect the Constitution. But when government agencies are totally unaccountable, we can’t do that. Members of Congress do not go to those briefings, even if they’re offered, because once you go to the briefing, then you can’t talk about what you’ve been told, because it’s classified. So the briefing system is designed to silence Congress, not to promote effective oversight.

Members of Congress don’t want to spend time on oversight. They’re too busy raising money. New members of the House of Representatives this winter were told by the Democratic Campaign Committee that they should spend between four and six hours a day dialing for dollars. They have no time to do the public’s business. They’re too busy begging for money. President Obama himself attended 220 fundraisers last year. Where does he get the time to be president when he’s spending so much time asking wealthy people for money to support his campaign?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Chris Pyle, in Wednesday’s Senate hearing, Senator Dick Durbin asked NSA director, General Keith Alexander, why someone like Booz Allen employee Edward Snowden was in a position in which he had access to the classified information he leaked.

SEN. DICK DURBIN: He was a high school dropout. He was a community college dropout. He had a GED degree. He was injured in training for the U.S. Army and had to leave as a result of that. And he took a job as a security guard for the NSA in Maryland. Shortly thereafter, he took a job for the CIA in what is characterized as IT security in The Guardian piece that was published. At age 23, he was stationed in an undercover manner overseas for the CIA and was given clearance and access to a wide—a wide array of classified documents. At age 25, he went to work for a private contractor and most recently worked for Booz Allen, another private contractor working for our government. I’m trying to look at this résumé and background—it says he ended up earning somewhere between $122,000 and $200,000 a year. I’m trying to look at the résumé background for this individual who had access to this highly classified information at such a young age, with a limited educational and work experience, part of it as a security guard, and ask you if you’re troubled that he was given that kind of opportunity to be so close to important information that was critical to the security of our nation?

GEN. KEITH ALEXANDER: I do have concerns about that, over the process, Senator. I have grave concerns over that, the access that he had, the process that we did. And those are things that I have to look into and fix from my end, and that across the intel community, Director Clapper said we’re going to look across that, as well. I think those absolutely need to be looked at. I would point out that in the IT arena, in the cyber-arena, some of these folks have tremendous skills to operate networks. That was his job, for the most part, from the 2009-’10, was as an IT, a system administrator within those networks. He had great skills in that areas. But the rest of it, you’ve hit on—you’ve hit on the head. We do have to go back and look at these processes, the oversight in those—we have those—where they went wrong, and how we fix those.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was NSA director, General Keith Alexander, speaking before the Senate on Wednesday. Well, in 2012, General Alexander spoke at DEF CON, the annual hacker convention. During his speech, Alexander tried to court hackers to work at the National Security Agency. The third bullet on his PowerPoint presentation that he refers to is privacy and civil liberties must be protected.

GEN. KEITH ALEXANDER: I think the third bullet down is what we really want to do is innovate freedom, how we’re going to look at where we take this next. This is a great opportunity for not only our nation, but for the world. And, you know, one of the things that I’m really proud of saying is, when you look at Vint Cerf and the others, we’re the ones who helped develop, we’re the ones who built this Internet. And we ought to be the first ones to secure it. And I think you folks can help us do that.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was General Keith Alexander speaking in 2012 at DEF CON. For our radio listeners, I should note that he was in a black T-shirt and wearing jeans as he spoke to the hackers. Chris Pyle, your response?

CHRISTOPHER PYLE: Well, it’s true. NSA doesn’t want to hire people like you and me. We don’t know enough about the Internet. That said, it’s important to note that the vice chairman of Booz Allen happens to be Mike McConnell, who was former director of NSA and of national intelligence. There is a revolving door between high government positions and private corporations, and this revolving door allows these people to make a great deal more money upon leaving the government, and then being rented back to the government in a contractor capacity. And that’s part of the corruption of the system.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, one of the things you’ve also said is that the top-secret designation is a way to—is more of a way for the government officials, the bureaucrats and the contractors not to be held accountable than it is to actually protect secrets that the government needs to protect. Could you expand on that?

CHRISTOPHER PYLE: Well, yes. The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures, only binds the government, doesn’t bind corporations. That’s a serious problem. The reason we have privatization of prisons, in some ways, is for governments to escape liability. They put the liability on the private corporations that run the prisons, and they just charge their liabilities as an operating cost.

AMY GOODMAN: Chris Pyle, the attack on Edward Snowden—I mean, you’ve got the pundits. What Jeffrey Toobin, the legal pundit, quickly blogged: Snowden is “a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison.” Thomas Friedman writes, “I don’t believe [that] Edward Snowden, the leaker of all this secret material, is some heroic whistle-blower.” David Brooks says, “Though obviously terrifically bright, he could not successfully work his way through the institution of high school. Then he failed to navigate his way through community college.” That’s the pundits. And then, of course, there’s the NSA. Can you talk about the attack on the whistleblower today and back when you were blowing the whistle?

CHRISTOPHER PYLE: Well, when I was blowing the whistle and they couldn’t get any dirt on me—I had led a very uninteresting life—they made up dirt and tried to peddle it on Capitol Hill in order to discredit me and prevent me from testifying before Senator Ervin’s Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights. Every bureaucracy hates dissenters. They must expel dissenters and discredit dissenters, because dissenters force them to reconsider what it is they’re doing, and no bureaucracy wants anybody to interrupt what they’re doing. And so, this is the natural, organic response of any bureaucracy or any establishment.

Now, I think it is inappropriate and quite irrelevant to analyze Ed Snowden’s motivations. It doesn’t matter much—except in court, to prove that he either did or did not intend to aid a foreign power or hurt the United States. But separate from that motivation, whether he’s a narcissist, like many people on television are, no, I don’t think that’s relevant at all. He’s neither a traitor nor a hero, and he says this himself. He’s just an ordinary American. He’s trying to start a debate in this nation over something that is critically important. He should be respected for that, taken at face value, and then we should move on to the big issues, including the corruption of our system that is done by massive secrecy and by massive amounts of money in politics.

AMY GOODMAN: Chris Pyle, we want to thank you for being with us, co-author of Military Surveillance of Civilian Politics, Getting Away with Torture and The Constitution Under Siege. In 1970, Christopher Pyle disclosed the military’s spying on civilians and worked for three congressional committees to end it, including Frank Church’s Select Committee on Intelligence. He now teaches constitutional law and civil liberties at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Find this story at 13 June 2013

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.