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XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'
by Eugen Leitl 31 Jul '13

31 Jul '13

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-… XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet' • XKeyscore gives 'widest-reaching' collection of online data • NSA analysts require no prior authorization for searches • Sweeps up emails, social media activity and browsing history • NSA's XKeyscore program – read one of the presentations Glenn Greenwald theguardian.com, Wednesday 31 July 2013 13.56 BST XKeyscore map One presentation claims the XKeyscore program covers 'nearly everything a typical user does on the internet' A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its "widest-reaching" system for developing intelligence from the internet. The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian's earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight. The files shed light on one of Snowden's most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10. "I, sitting at my desk," said Snowden, could "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email". US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden's assertion: "He's lying. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do." But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed. XKeyscore, the documents boast, is the NSA's "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from computer networks – what the agency calls Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). One presentation claims the program covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata. Analysts can also use XKeyscore and other NSA systems to obtain ongoing "real-time" interception of an individual's internet activity. Under US law, the NSA is required to obtain an individualized Fisa warrant only if the target of their surveillance is a 'US person', though no such warrant is required for intercepting the communications of Americans with foreign targets. But XKeyscore provides the technological capability, if not the legal authority, to target even US persons for extensive electronic surveillance without a warrant provided that some identifying information, such as their email or IP address, is known to the analyst. One training slide illustrates the digital activity constantly being collected by XKeyscore and the analyst's ability to query the databases at any time. KS1 The purpose of XKeyscore is to allow analysts to search the metadata as well as the content of emails and other internet activity, such as browser history, even when there is no known email account (a "selector" in NSA parlance) associated with the individual being targeted. Analysts can also search by name, telephone number, IP address, keywords, the language in which the internet activity was conducted or the type of browser used. One document notes that this is because "strong selection [search by email address] itself gives us only a very limited capability" because "a large amount of time spent on the web is performing actions that are anonymous." The NSA documents assert that by 2008, 300 terrorists had been captured using intelligence from XKeyscore. Analysts are warned that searching the full database for content will yield too many results to sift through. Instead they are advised to use the metadata also stored in the databases to narrow down what to review. A slide entitled "plug-ins" in a December 2012 document describes the various fields of information that can be searched. It includes "every email address seen in a session by both username and domain", "every phone number seen in a session (eg address book entries or signature block)" and user activity – "the webmail and chat activity to include username, buddylist, machine specific cookies etc". Email monitoring In a second Guardian interview in June, Snowden elaborated on his statement about being able to read any individual's email if he had their email address. He said the claim was based in part on the email search capabilities of XKeyscore, which Snowden says he was authorized to use while working as a Booz Allen contractor for the NSA. One top-secret document describes how the program "searches within bodies of emails, webpages and documents", including the "To, From, CC, BCC lines" and the 'Contact Us' pages on websites". To search for emails, an analyst using XKS enters the individual's email address into a simple online search form, along with the "justification" for the search and the time period for which the emails are sought. KS2 KS3edit The analyst then selects which of those returned emails they want to read by opening them in NSA reading software. The system is similar to the way in which NSA analysts generally can intercept the communications of anyone they select, including, as one NSA document put it, "communications that transit the United States and communications that terminate in the United States". One document, a top secret 2010 guide describing the training received by NSA analysts for general surveillance under the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008, explains that analysts can begin surveillance on anyone by clicking a few simple pull-down menus designed to provide both legal and targeting justifications. Once options on the pull-down menus are selected, their target is marked for electronic surveillance and the analyst is able to review the content of their communications: KS4 Chats, browsing history and other internet activity Beyond emails, the XKeyscore system allows analysts to monitor a virtually unlimited array of other internet activities, including those within social media. An NSA tool called DNI Presenter, used to read the content of stored emails, also enables an analyst using XKeyscore to read the content of Facebook chats or private messages. KS5 An analyst can monitor such Facebook chats by entering the Facebook user name and a date range into a simple search screen. KS6 Analysts can search for internet browsing activities using a wide range of information, including search terms entered by the user or the websites viewed. KS7 As one slide indicates, the ability to search HTTP activity by keyword permits the analyst access to what the NSA calls "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet". KS8 The XKeyscore program also allows an analyst to learn the IP addresses of every person who visits any website the analyst specifies. KS9 The quantity of communications accessible through programs such as XKeyscore is staggeringly large. One NSA report from 2007 estimated that there were 850bn "call events" collected and stored in the NSA databases, and close to 150bn internet records. Each day, the document says, 1-2bn records were added. William Binney, a former NSA mathematician, said last year that the agency had "assembled on the order of 20tn transactions about US citizens with other US citizens", an estimate, he said, that "only was involving phone calls and emails". A 2010 Washington Post article reported that "every day, collection systems at the [NSA] intercept and store 1.7bn emails, phone calls and other type of communications." The XKeyscore system is continuously collecting so much internet data that it can be stored only for short periods of time. Content remains on the system for only three to five days, while metadata is stored for 30 days. One document explains: "At some sites, the amount of data we receive per day (20+ terabytes) can only be stored for as little as 24 hours." To solve this problem, the NSA has created a multi-tiered system that allows analysts to store "interesting" content in other databases, such as one named Pinwale which can store material for up to five years. It is the databases of XKeyscore, one document shows, that now contain the greatest amount of communications data collected by the NSA. KS10 In 2012, there were at least 41 billion total records collected and stored in XKeyscore for a single 30-day period. KS11 Legal v technical restrictions While the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008 requires an individualized warrant for the targeting of US persons, NSA analysts are permitted to intercept the communications of such individuals without a warrant if they are in contact with one of the NSA's foreign targets. The ACLU's deputy legal director, Jameel Jaffer, told the Guardian last month that national security officials expressly said that a primary purpose of the new law was to enable them to collect large amounts of Americans' communications without individualized warrants. "The government doesn't need to 'target' Americans in order to collect huge volumes of their communications," said Jaffer. "The government inevitably sweeps up the communications of many Americans" when targeting foreign nationals for surveillance. An example is provided by one XKeyscore document showing an NSA target in Tehran communicating with people in Frankfurt, Amsterdam and New York. KS12 In recent years, the NSA has attempted to segregate exclusively domestic US communications in separate databases. But even NSA documents acknowledge that such efforts are imperfect, as even purely domestic communications can travel on foreign systems, and NSA tools are sometimes unable to identify the national origins of communications. Moreover, all communications between Americans and someone on foreign soil are included in the same databases as foreign-to-foreign communications, making them readily searchable without warrants. Some searches conducted by NSA analysts are periodically reviewed by their supervisors within the NSA. "It's very rare to be questioned on our searches," Snowden told the Guardian in June, "and even when we are, it's usually along the lines of: 'let's bulk up the justification'." In a letter this week to senator Ron Wyden, director of national intelligence James Clapper acknowledged that NSA analysts have exceeded even legal limits as interpreted by the NSA in domestic surveillance. Acknowledging what he called "a number of compliance problems", Clapper attributed them to "human error" or "highly sophisticated technology issues" rather than "bad faith". However, Wyden said on the Senate floor on Tuesday: "These violations are more serious than those stated by the intelligence community, and are troubling." In a statement to the Guardian, the NSA said: "NSA's activities are focused and specifically deployed against – and only against – legitimate foreign intelligence targets in response to requirements that our leaders need for information necessary to protect our nation and its interests. "XKeyscore is used as a part of NSA's lawful foreign signals intelligence collection system. "Allegations of widespread, unchecked analyst access to NSA collection data are simply not true. Access to XKeyscore, as well as all of NSA's analytic tools, is limited to only those personnel who require access for their assigned tasks … In addition, there are multiple technical, manual and supervisory checks and balances within the system to prevent deliberate misuse from occurring." "Every search by an NSA analyst is fully auditable, to ensure that they are proper and within the law. "These types of programs allow us to collect the information that enables us to perform our missions successfully – to defend the nation and to protect US and allied troops abroad."

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[FoRK] Functional encryption, or "Computer scientists develop 'mathematical jigsaw puzzles' to encrypt software"
by Eugen Leitl 31 Jul '13

31 Jul '13

----- Forwarded message from Noon Silk <noonslists(a)gmail.com> ----- Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 21:18:45 +1000 From: Noon Silk <noonslists(a)gmail.com> To: Friends of Rohit Khare <fork(a)xent.com> Subject: [FoRK] Functional encryption, or "Computer scientists develop 'mathematical jigsaw puzzles' to encrypt software" Reply-To: Friends of Rohit Khare <fork(a)xent.com> http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-computer-scientists-develop-24752… Looks interesting. -- UCLA computer science professor Amit Sahai and a team of researchers have designed a system to encrypt software so that it only allows someone to use a program as intended while preventing any deciphering of the code behind it. This is known in computer science as "software obfuscation," and it is the first time it has been accomplished. [...] "You can inspect everything, you can turn it upside-down, you can look at it from different angles and you still won't have any idea what it's doing," he added. "The only thing you can do with it is put it together the way that it was meant to interlock. If you tried to do anything else — like if you tried to bash this piece and put it in some other way — you'd just end up with garbage." *Functional encryption* The new technique for software obfuscation paved the way for another breakthrough called functional encryption. With functional encryption, instead of sending an encrypted message, an encrypted function is sent in its place. This offers a much more secure way to protect information, Sahai said. Previous work on functional encryption was limited to supporting very few functions; the new work can handle any computable function. For example, a single message could be sent to a group of people in such a way that each receiver would obtain different information, depending on characteristics of that particular receiver. In another example, a hospital could share the outcomes of treatment with researchers without revealing details such as identifying patient information. "Through functional encryption, you only get the specific answer, you don't learn anything else," Sahai said. -- -- Noon Silk Fancy a quantum lunch? https://sites.google.com/site/quantumlunch/ "Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy — the joy of being this signature." _______________________________________________ FoRK mailing list http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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[tahoe-dev] press release: LeastAuthority.com announces Spy-Proof Backup
by Eugen Leitl 31 Jul '13

31 Jul '13

----- Forwarded message from Zooko Wilcox-OHearn <zooko(a)leastauthority.com> ----- Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 11:36:52 +0000 From: Zooko Wilcox-OHearn <zooko(a)leastauthority.com> To: Tahoe-LAFS development <tahoe-dev(a)tahoe-lafs.org> Subject: [tahoe-dev] press release: LeastAuthority.com announces Spy-Proof Backup Folks: We're really happy to be offering our LAFS-based ciphertext storage service to the public! Please spread the word. Thank you very much to everyone in our little community for making things like this possible. Regards, Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn Founder, CEO, and Customer Support Rep https://LeastAuthority.com LeastAuthority.com Announces A Spy-Proof Storage Service Wednesday, July 31, 2013 [1]LeastAuthority.com today announced “Simple Secure Storage Service (S4)”, a backup service that encrypts your files to protect them from the prying eyes of spies and criminals. “People deserve privacy and security in the digital data that make up our daily lives.” said the company's founder and CEO, Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn. “As an individual or a business, you shouldn't have to give up control over your data in order to get the benefits of cloud storage.” verifiable end-to-end security The Simple Secure Storage Service offers verifiable end-to-end security. It offers “end-to-end security” because all of the customer's data is encrypted locally — on the customer's own personal computer — before it is uploaded to the cloud. During its stay in the cloud, it cannot be decrypted by LeastAuthority.com, nor by anyone else, without the decryption key which is held only by the customer. S4 offers “verifiable end-to-end security” because all of the source code that makes up the Simple Secure Storage Service is published for everyone to see. Not only is the source code publicly visible, but it also comes with Free (Libre) and Open Source rights granted to the public allowing anyone to inspect the source code, experiment on it, alter it, and even to distribute their own version of it and to sell commercial services. Wilcox-O'Hearn says “If you rely on closed-source, proprietary software, then you're just taking the vendor's word for it that it actually provides the end-to-end security that they claim. As the PRISM scandal shows, that claim is sometimes a lie.” The web site of LeastAuthority.com proudly states “We can never see your data, and you can always see our code.”. trusted by experts The Simple Secure Storage Service is built on a technology named “Least-Authority File System (LAFS)”. LAFS has been studied and used by computer scientists, hackers, Free and Open Source software developers, activists, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the U.S. National Security Agency. The design has been published in a peer-reviewed scientific workshop: Wilcox-O'Hearn, Zooko, and Brian Warner. “Tahoe: the least-authority filesystem.” Proceedings of the 4th ACM international workshop on Storage security and survivability. ACM, 2008. [2]http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/524.pdf It has been cited in more than 50 scientific research papers, and has received plaudits from the U.S. Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, which stated: “Systems like Least-Authority File System are making these methods immediately usable for securely and availably storing files at rest; we propose that the methods be further reviewed, written up, and strongly evangelized as best practices in both government and industry.” Dr. Richard Stallman, President of the Free Software Foundation ([3]https://fsf.org/) said “Free/Libre software is software that the users control. If you use only free/libre software, you control your local computing — but using the Internet raises other issues of freedom and privacy, which many network services don't respect. The Simple Secure Storage Service (S4) is an example of a network service that does respect your freedom and privacy.” Jacob Appelbaum, Tor project developer ([4]https://www.torproject.org/) and WikiLeaks volunteer ([5]http://wikileaks.org/) said “LAFS's design acknowledges the importance of verifiable end-to-end security through cryptography, Free/Libre release of software and transparent peer-reviewed system design.” The LAFS software is already packaged in several widely-used operating systems such as Debian GNU/Linux and Ubuntu. [6]https://LeastAuthority.com References Visible links 1. https://leastauthority.com/ 2. http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/524.pdf 3. https://fsf.org/ 4. https://www.torproject.org/ 5. http://wikileaks.org/ 6. https://leastauthority.com/ _______________________________________________ tahoe-dev mailing list tahoe-dev(a)tahoe-lafs.org https://tahoe-lafs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tahoe-dev ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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Re: [linux-elitists] Evil in certain broadband marketsa isn't really evil
by Eugen Leitl 31 Jul '13

31 Jul '13

----- Forwarded message from Don Marti <dmarti(a)zgp.org> ----- Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 05:38:11 -0700 From: Don Marti <dmarti(a)zgp.org> To: linux-elitists(a)zgp.org Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] Evil in certain broadband marketsa isn't really evil User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) begin Rick Moen quotation of Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 05:07:50PM -0700: > http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/google-neutrality/ > Now That It's in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality Douglas McClendon sounds like our kind of people. http://cloudsession.com/dawg/downloads/misc/kag-draft-2k121024.pdf http://cloudsession.com/dawg/profile/ I posted this in a thread on this topic on another mailing list where some relevant Google people are also active: Thanks to the CFAA, violating your ToS is a _felony_. I understand that you want to use plain language, and not be "lawyerly", but if you're a ToS writer, Federal law has been outsourced to you, and you have to deal with it. (CFAA reform is a separate issue--I'm just talking about the law as it stands now.) How can you tell people, "you're party to a legally binding contract that can put you in Federal prison if you violate it, but go ahead and break it, off the record we're fine with that"? It's as if someone interrupted the office Nerf gun wars to take your Nerf pistol and hand you a real gun -- and you kept playing. -- Don Marti +1-510-332-1587 (mobile) http://zgp.org/~dmarti/ Alameda, California, USA dmarti(a)zgp.org _______________________________________________ Do not Cc: anyone else on mail sent to this list. The list server is set for maximum one recipient. linux-elitists mailing list linux-elitists(a)zgp.org http://zgp.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linux-elitists ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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[linux-elitists] Evil in certain broadband marketsa isn't really evil
by Eugen Leitl 31 Jul '13

31 Jul '13

----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick(a)linuxmafia.com> ----- Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 17:07:50 -0700 From: Rick Moen <rick(a)linuxmafia.com> To: linux-elitists(a)zgp.org Subject: [linux-elitists] Evil in certain broadband marketsa isn't really evil Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already. User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) (As Nixon's press secretary Ron Ziegler used to say, 'That statement is no longer operative at this time.'] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/google-neutrality/ Now That It's in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality By Ryan Singel 07.30.13 1:55 PM In a dramatic about-face on a key internet issue yesterday, Google told the FCC that the network neutrality rules Google once championed don't give citizens the right to run servers on their home broadband connections, and that the Google Fiber network is perfectly within its rights to prohibit customers from attaching the legal devices of their choice to its network. At issue is Google Fiber's Terms of Service, which contains a broad prohibition against customers attaching "servers" to its ultrafast 1 Gbps network in Kansas City. Google wants to ban the use of servers because it plans to offer a business class offering in the future. [...] _______________________________________________ Do not Cc: anyone else on mail sent to this list. The list server is set for maximum one recipient. linux-elitists mailing list linux-elitists(a)zgp.org http://zgp.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linux-elitists ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5

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Re: [tor-talk] BitMail 0.1 - p2p Email
by grarpamp 30 Jul '13

30 Jul '13

On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:48 AM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 6:07 AM, krishna e bera <keb(a)cyblings.on.ca> wrote: >> On 13-07-30 12:47 AM, Thomas Asta wrote: >>> http://bitmail.sourceforge.net/ >> >> No design, no specs, no discussion, no docs. >> A feature list that looks remarkably like GoldBug, >> minus the fraudulent EFF endorsement. >> >> Is this a sneaky attempt to catch "darknet" users with a weak email and >> messaging client/service? Or just an early launch to attract people who >> can fill in the gaps... >> >> Perhaps more relevantly, does it work with Tor out of the box? > > And source code that looks remarkably like GoldBug. > > Also being promoted on various list for crypto/privacy minded people > by parties who seem to be pretending that they just "found" it and are > curious about it. Sending this thread over to cypherpunks for now as it no longer has any relevance to Tor. Apparently we have some new friends with various projects in mind... http://mikeweber.users.sourceforge.net/ Thomas Asta <thomasasta(a)googlemail.com> Randolph D <rdohm321(a)gmail.com> > Perhaps more relevantly, does it work with Tor out of the box? At some point these people will stand up and start acting right, some respected member will evaluate it (including the binaries), or some respected group will fork and adopt it... or not. Until then, it's demonstrated itself as being mud, so who cares. People would be nuts to trust it, let alone play with it outside of a sandbox.

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Re: Python Random Number Generator for OTP
by David Honig 30 Jul '13

30 Jul '13

> > > On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 7:27 PM, Andy Isaacson <adi(a)hexapodia.org> wrote: > > > My /dev/random generates a few hundred kilobytes a day. I exchange OTPs A long time ago I bought a geiger counter for crypto exploration. Problem is, you can't buy rad sources strong enough to generate enough entropy (which is *still* subject to conditioning of course, despite the hype, and any way a GM tube will saturate..). Even if you take your smoke detector apart and use an alpha-windowed tube. But a detuned FM radio card seemed to do quite well. Admittedly, no white vans driving my amps. Are these sources not supported as entropy sources? (Pardon my linux randomness being out of date) Also, why u no trust Intel's RNG? :-) Physical otp key exchange can't be beaten... unless your correspondent is beaten.. silk burns clean, cyanide terminates the session "..trying to avoid sinning in the von Neumann sense.." I wish to God these calculations could be done by a steam engine," Babbage complained

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OpenPGP adoption post-PRISM
by Tony Arcieri 30 Jul '13

30 Jul '13

Interesting chart: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BQYA_qWCEAIoUFT.png -- Tony Arcieri

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Bradley Manning Verdict
by Shelley 30 Jul '13

30 Jul '13

-Convicted of multiple Espionage Act violations -Acquitted of 'aiding the enemy' charge http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/30/bradley-manning-wikileaks-judg… Ed Pilkington at Fort Meade theguardian.com, Tuesday 30 July 2013 13.30 EDT Bradley Manning has already spent 1,157 days in detention since his arrest in May 2010. Bradley Manning, the source of the massive WikiLeaks trove of secret disclosures, faces a possible maximum sentence of more than 130 years in military jail after he was convicted of most charges on which he stood trial. Colonel Denise Lind, the military judge presiding over the court martial of the US soldier, delivered her verdict in curt and pointed language. "Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty," she repeated over and over, as the reality of a prolonged prison sentence for Manning – on top of the three years he has already spent in detention – dawned. The one ray of light in an otherwise bleak outcome for Manning was that he was found not guilty of the single most serious charge against him – that he knowingly "aided the enemy", in practice al-Qaida, by disclosing information to the WikiLeaks website that in turn made it accessible to all users including enemy groups. Lind's decision to avoid setting a precedent by applying the swingeing "aiding the enemy" charge to an official leaker will invoke a sigh of relief from news organisations and civil liberties groups who had feared a guilty verdict would send a chill across public interest journalism. The judge also found Manning not guilty of having leaked an encrypted copy of a video of a US air strike in the Farah province of Aghanistan in which many civilians died. Manning's defence team had argued vociferously that he was not the source of this video, though the soldier did admit to later disclosure of an unencrypted version of the video and related documents. Lind also accepted Manning's version of several of the key dates in the WikiLeaks disclosures, and took some of the edge from other less serious charges. But the overriding toughness of the verdict remains: the soldier was found guilty in their entirety of 17 out of the 22 counts against him, and of an amended version of four others. Manning was also found guilty of "wrongfully and wantonly" causing to be published on the internet intelligence belonging to the US, "having knowledge that intelligence published on the internet is accesible to the enemy". That guilty ruling could still have widest ramifications for news organisations working on investigations relating to US national security. Once the counts are added up, the prospects for the Manning are bleak. Barring reduction of sentence for mitigation, which becomes the subject of another mini-trial dedicated to sentencing that starts tomorrow, Manning will face a substantial chunk of his adult life in military custody. He has already spent 1,157 days in detention since his arrest in May 2010 – most recently in Fort Leavenworth in Kansas – which will be deducted from his eventual sentence. A further 112 days will be taken off the sentence as part of a pre-trial ruling in which Lind compensated him for the excessively harsh treatment he endured at the Quantico marine base in Virginia between July 2010 and April 2011. He was kept on suicide watch for long stretches despite expert opinion from military psychiatrists who deemed him to be at low risk of self-harm, and at one point was forced to strip naked at night in conditions that the UN denounced as a form of torture. Lind has indicated that she will go straight into the sentencing phase of the trial, in which both defence and prosecution lawyers will call new witnesses. This is being seen as the critical stage of the trial for Manning's defence: the soldier admitted months ago to being the source of the WikiLeaks disclosures, and much of the defence strategy has been focused on attempting to reduce his sentence through mitigation. With that in mind, the soldier's main counsel, David Coombs, is likely to present evidence during the sentencing phase that Manning was in a fragile emotional state at the time he began leaking and was struggling with issues over his sexuality. In pre-trial hearings, the defence has argued that despite his at times erratic behaviour, the accused was offered very little support or counselling from his superiors at Forward Operating Base Hammer outside Baghdad. The outcome will now be pored over by government agencies, lawyers, journalists and civil liberties groups for its implications for whistleblowing, investigative reporting and the guarding of state secrets in the digital age. By passing to WikiLeaks more than 700,000 documents, Manning became the first mass digital leaker in history, opening a whole new chapter in the age-old tug-of-war between government secrecy and the public's right to information in a democracy. Among those who will also be closely analysing the verdict are Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who has disclosed the existence of secret government dragnets of the phone records of millions of Americans, who has indicated that the treatment of Manning was one reason for his decision to seek asylum in another country rather than face similar aggressive prosecution in America. The British government will also be dissecting the courtroom results after the Guardian disclosed that Manning is a joint British American citizen. Another party that will be intimately engaged with the verdict is WikiLeaks, and its founder, Julian Assange. They have been the subject of a secret grand jury investigation in Virginia that has been looking into whether to prosecute them for their role in the Manning disclosures. WikiLeaks and Assange were mentioned repeatedly during the trial by the US government which tried to prove that the anti-secrecy organisation had directly steered Manning in his leaking activities, an allegation strongly denied by the accused. Prosecutors drew heavily on still classified web conversations between Manning and an individual going by the name of "Press Association", whom the government alleges was Assange.

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Max Blumenthal on Security Forum
by Eugen Leitl 30 Jul '13

30 Jul '13

(it's Alternet, so caveat lector) http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/shocking-extermination-fantasie… Shocking 'Extermination' Fantasies By the People Running America's Empire on Full Display at Aspen Summit Security Forum participants expressed total confidence in American empire, but could not contain their panic at the mention of Snowden. July 25, 2013 | Seated on a stool before an audience packed with spooks, lawmakers, lawyers and mercenaries, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer introduced recently retired CENTCOM chief General James Mattis. “I’ve worked with him and I’ve worked with his predecessors,” Blitzer said of Mattis. “I know how hard it is to run an operation like this.” Reminding the crowd that CENTCOM is “really, really important,” Blitzer urged them to celebrate Mattis: “Let’s give the general a round of applause.” Following the gales of cheering that resounded from the room, Mattis, the gruff 40-year Marine veteran who once volunteered his opinion that “it’s fun to shoot some people,” outlined the challenge ahead. The “war on terror” that began on 9/11 has no discernable end, he said, likening it to the “the constant skirmishing between [the US cavalry] and the Indians” during the genocidal Indian Wars of the 19th century. “The skirmishing will go on likely for a generation,” Mattis declared. Mattis’ remarks, made beside a cable news personality who acted more like a sidekick than a journalist, set the tone for the entire 2013 Aspen Security Forum this July. A project of the Aspen Institute, the Security Forum brought together the key figures behind America’s vast national security state, from military chieftains like Mattis to embattled National Security Agency Chief General Keith Alexander to top FBI and CIA officials, along with the bookish functionaries attempting to establish legal groundwork for expanding the war on terror. Partisan lines and ideological disagreements faded away inside the darkened conference hall, as a parade of American securitocrats from administrations both past and present appeared on stage to defend endless global warfare and total information awareness while uniting in a single voice of condemnation against a single whistleblower bunkered inside the waiting room of Moscow International Airport: Edward Snowden. With perhaps one notable exception, none of the high-flying reporters junketed to Aspen to act as interlocutors seemed terribly interested in interrogating the logic of the war on terror. The spectacle was a perfect window into the world of access journalism, with media professionals brown-nosing national security elites committed to secrecy and surveillance, avoiding overly adversarial questions but making sure to ask the requisite question about how much Snowden has caused terrorists to change their behavior. Jeff Harris, the communications director for the Aspen Institute, did not respond to questions I submitted about whether the journalists who participated in the Security Forum accepted fees. (It is likely that all relied on Aspen to at least cover lodging and travel costs). CNN sponsored the forum through a special new website called CNN Security Clearance, promoting the event through Twitter and specially commissioned op-eds from participating national security figures like former CIA director John McLaughlin. Another forum sponsor was Academi, the private mercenary corporation formerly known as Blackwater. In fact, Academi is Blackwater’s third incarnation (it was first renamed “Xe”) since revelations of widespread human rights abuses and possible war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan threw the mercenary firm into full damage control mode. The Aspen Institute did not respond to my questions about whether accepting sponsorship from such an unsavory entity fit within its ethical guidelines. 'Exterminating People' John Ashcroft, the former Attorney General who prosecuted the war on terror under the administration of George W. Bush, appeared at Aspen as a board member of Academi. Responding to a question about U.S. over-reliance on the “kinetic” approach of drone strikes and special forces, Ashcroft reminded the audience that the U.S. also likes to torture terror suspects, not just “exterminate” them. “It's not true that we have relied solely on the kinetic option,” Ashcroft insisted. “We wouldn't have so many detainees if we'd relied on the ability to exterminate people…We've had a blended and nuanced approach and for the guy who's on the other end of a Hellfire missile he doesn't see that as a nuance.” Hearty laughs erupted from the crowd and fellow panelists. With a broad smile on her face, moderator Catherine Herridge of Fox News joked to Ashcroft, “You have a way with words.” But Ashcroft was not done. He proceeded to boast about the pain inflicted on detainees during long CIA torture sessions: “And maybe there are people who wish they were on the end of one of those missiles.” Competing with Ashcroft for the High Authoritarian prize was former NSA chief Michael Hayden, who emphasized the importance of Obama’s drone assassinations, at least in countries the U.S. has deemed to be Al Qaeda havens. “Here's the strategic question,” Hayden said. “People in Pakistan? I think that's very clear. Kill 'em. People in Yemen? The same. Kill 'em.” “We don’t smoke [drug] cartel leaders but personally I’d support it,” remarked Philip Mudd, the former deputy director of Bush’s Counterterrorism Center, earning more guffaws from his fellow panelists and from Herridge. Ironically, Mudd was attempting to argue that counter-terror should no longer be a top U.S. security priority because it poses less of a threat to Americans than synthetic drugs and child obesity. Reflection was not on the agenda for most of the Security Forum’s participants. When asked by a former US ambassador to Denmark the seminal question “This is a great country, why are we always the bad guy?,” Mudd replied, “They think that anything the U.S. does [in the Middle East], even though we helped Muslim communities in Bosnia and Kuwait, everything is rewritten to make us the bad guys.” The clamoring about U.S. invasions, drone strikes, bankrolling of Israel’s occupation, and general political meddling, could all be written off as fevered anti-Americanism borne from the desert canyons of the paranoid Arab mind. And the wars could go on. Delusions of Empire Throughout the three days of the Security Forum, the almost uniformly white cast of speakers were called on to discuss recent geopolitical developments, from "Eye-rak" and "Eye-ran" to Egypt, where a military coup had just toppled the first elected government in the country’s history. Mattis carefully toed the line of the Obama administration, describing the overthrow of Egypt’s government not as a coup, but as “military muscle saddled on top of this popular uprising.” Warning that using terms like “coup” could lead to a reduction in U.S. aid to Egypt, where the military controls about one-third of the country’s economy, Mattis warned, “We have to be very careful about passing laws with certain words when the reality of the world won’t allow you to.” Wolf Blitzer mentioned that Egypt’s new military-imposed foreign minister, Nabil Fahmy, had been a fixture in Washington during the Mubarak days. “These are people the West knows, the U.S. knows,” he said of the new cabinet in Cairo. “I assume from the U.S. perspective, the United States is so much more happy with this.” Later, one of the few Arab participants in the forum, Al Jazeera DC bureau chief Abderrahim Foukara, claimed that the Arab revolts were inspired by the U.S. invasion of Iraq. “The iconic image of Saddam being pulled out of a hole did something to the dynamic between ruler and ruled in the Arab world,” Foukara claimed. With the revolts blurring the old boundaries imposed on the Arab world during the late colonial era, former CIA director John McLaughlin rose from the audience to call for the U.S. to form a secret, Sikes-Picot-style commission to draw up a new set of borders. “The American government should now have such a group asking how we should manage those lines and what should those lines be,” McLaughlin told the panelists, who dismissed the idea of a new Great Game even as they discussed tactics for preserving U.S. dominance in the Middle East. ABC’s Chris Isham asked Jim Jeffrey, the former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, why, with a recession on its hands and Middle Eastern societies spiraling out of control, should the U.S. remain militarily involved in the region. Without hesitation, Jeffrey rattled off the reasons: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, and “world oil markets.” “What could we have done better?” Isham asked the ambassador. “Probably not too much.” NSA Heroes, Saving Lives of Potential Consumers While participants in the Security Forum expressed total confidence in American empire, they could not contain their panic, outrage, and fear at the mere mention of Snowden. “Make no mistake about it: These are great people who we’re slamming and tarnishing and it’s wrong. They’re the heroes, not this other and these leakers!” NSA chief General Keith Alexander proclaimed, earning raucous applause from the crowd. Snowden’s leaks had prompted a rare public appearance from Alexander, forcing the normally imperious spy chief into the spotlight to defend his agency’s Panopticon-style programs and its dubious mechanisms of legal review. Fortunately for him, NBC’s Pete Williams offered him the opportunity to lash out at Snowden and the media that reported the leaks, asking whether the "terrorists” (who presumably already knew they were being spied on) had changed their behavior as a result of the leaks. “We have concrete proof that terrorists are taking action, making changes, and it’s gonna make our job harder,” Alexander declared, offering nothing to support his claim. Alexander appeared in full military regalia, with colorful decorations and medallions covering his left breast. Casting himself as a stern but caring father who has the best interests of all Americans at heart, even if he can't fully disclose his methods, he turned to the crowd and explained, “The bad guys…hide amongst us to kill our people. Our job is to stop them without impacting your civil liberties and privacy and these programs are set up to do that.” “The reason we use secrecy is not to hide it from the American people, but to hide it from the people who walk among you and are trying to kill you,” Alexander insisted. Corporations like AT&T, Google and Microsoft that had been compelled to hand over customer data to the NSA “know that we’re saving lives,” the general claimed. With a straight face, he continued, “And that’s good for business because there’s more people out there who can buy their products.” Self-Reporting So who were the "bad guys” who “walk among us,” and how could Americans be sure they had not been ensnared by the NSA’s all-encompassing spying regime, either inadvertently or intentionally? Nearly all the Security Forum participants involved in domestic surveillance responded to this question by insisting that the NSA had the world’s most rigorous program of oversight, pointing to Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts as the best and only means of ensuring that “mistakes” are corrected. “We have more oversight on this [PRISM] program than any other program in any government that I’m aware of,” Alexander proclaimed, ramming home a talking point repeated throughout the forum. “I can assure these are some of the judges who are renowned for holding the government to a very high standard,” John Carlin, the Assistant US Attorney General for National Security, stated. But in the last year, FISA courts received 1,856 applications for surveillance from the government. In 100 percent of cases, they were approved. As for Congress, only two senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, demanded the NSA explain why PRISM was necessary or questioned its legality. Despite the fact that the entire regime of oversight was a rubber stamp, or perhaps because of it, none of those who appeared at the Security Forum to defend it were willing to consider any forum of independent civilian review. “You have to do [domestic surveillance] within a closed bubble in order to do it effectively,” Dennis Blair, the director of National Intelligence conceded under sustained grilling from the Washington Post’s Barton Gellman, one of the reporters who broke Snowden’s leaks and perhaps the only journalist at the Security Forum who subjected participants to tough scrutiny. When Gellman reminded Alexander that none of the oversight mechanisms currently in place could determine if the NSA had improperly targeted American citizens with no involvement in terror-related activity, the general declared, “we self-report those mistakes.” “It can't be, let's just stop doing it, cause we know, that doesn't work,” Alexander maintained. “We've got to have some program like [PRISM].” The wars would go on, and so would the spying. Reinstituting Public Confidence During a panel on inter-agency coordination of counter-terror efforts, Mike Leiter, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCC), suggested that one of the best means of preserving America’s vast and constantly expanding spying apparatus was “by reinstituting faith among the public in our oversight.” Even as current NCC director Matthew Olsen conceded, “There really are limits in how transparent we can be,” Leiter demanded that the government “give the public confidence that there’s oversight. Since leaving the NCC, Leiter has become the senior counsel of Palantir Technologies, a private security contractor that conducts espionage on behalf of the FBI, CIA, financial institutions, the LAPD and the NYPD, among others. In 2011, Palantir spearheaded a dirty tricks campaign against critics of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, including journalists, compiling electronic dossiers intended to smear them. Palantir’s target list included progressive groups like Think Progress, SEIU and U.S. Chamber Watch. In the friendly confines of the Aspen Institute’s Security Forum, Leiter did his best to burnish his company’s tarnished image, and do some damage control on behalf of the national security apparatus it depends on for contracts. Like most other participants, Leiter appeared in smart casual dress, with an open collar, loafers, a loose-fitting jacket and slacks. “Just seeing us here,” he said, “that inspires [public] confidence, because we’re not a bunch of ogres.” Max Blumenthal is the author of Republican Gomorrah (Basic/Nation Books, 2009). Twitter at @MaxBlumenthal.

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