Cybersecurity and Government Surveillance

From C-SPAN:

Senior cybersecurity officials testified on their efforts to protect the U.S. from cyber attacks. Much of the hearing focused on leaks revealing the extent of domestic phone surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA). General Alexander in his testimony defended NSA surveillance programs. He said that he favored providing the public with more information about the programs if disclosure did not damage national security, but that he was unable to explain any details due to their classified status.

Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) briefly halted the hearing to respond to a tweet from BuzzFeed reporter Rosie Gray, which read: “@SenatorBarb is trying hard to keep the other senators from asking Gen. Alexander anymore about data mining programs.”




  On a Slippery Slope 

From democracynow:  

As Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warns the recent leaks could "render great damage to our intelligence capabilities," we speak to William Binney, a former top official at the National Security Agency, and Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who has broken the NSA spying stories. Binney spent almost 40 years at the agency but resigned after Sept. 11 over concerns about growing domestic surveillance. He spent time as director of the NSA's World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group and was a senior NSA crypto-mathematician largely responsible for automating the agency's worldwide eavesdropping network. "The government is not trying to protect [secrets about NSA surveillance] from the terrorists," Binney says. "It's trying to protect knowledge of that program from the citizens of the United States."

 Domocracy Now!



James Bamford on NSA Secrets

From democracynow:

As the U.S. vows to take "all necessary steps" to pursue whistleblower Edward Snowden, James Bamford joins us to discuss the National Security Agency's secret expansion of government surveillance and cyber warfare. In his latest reporting for Wired Magazine, Bamford profiles NSA Director General Keith Alexander and connects the dots on PRISM, phone surveillance, and the NSA's massive spy center in Bluffdale, Utah. Says Bamford of Alexander: "Never before has anyone in America's intelligence sphere come close to his degree of power, the number of people under his command, the expanse of his rule, the length of his reign, or the depth of his secrecy."  The author of "The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America," Bamford has covered the National Security Agency for the last three decades after helping expose its existence in the 1980s.   

democracynow



June 15, 2013, 4:39 PM PDT NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants

The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week 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. Because the same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages, Nadler's disclosure indicates the NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications without going before a court and seeking approval.  Read more from CNET