the entire "Legislative Laundry of FBI+CIA+NSA+DIA Collusion" and their enablers need to die in a fire. sole focus on NSA a smoke screen... On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 7:56 PM, <dan@geer.org> wrote:

... From the outset, I approached my responsibilities as a member of the Review Group with great skepticism about the NSA. I am a long-time civil libertarian, a member of the National Advisory Council of the ACLU, and a former Chair of the Board of the American Constitution Society. To say I was skeptical about the NSA is, in truth, an understatement.

I came away from my work on the Review Group with a view of the NSA that I found quite surprising. Not only did I find that the NSA had helped to thwart numerous terrorist plots against the United States and its allies in the years since 9/11, but I also found that it is an organization that operates with a high degree of integrity and a deep commitment to the rule of law.

my greatest fears are not about what the NSA has intended, but what the NSA has built with the best intentions, which in turn will fall into malicious hands. history tells us this is but a matter of time. as an attacker, i see the capabilities so developed as nothing short of abhorrent. they should not exist, they should not be pursued. they are means that are unethical no matter the end.

... The Review Group found that many of the programs undertaken by the NSA were highly problematic and much in need of reform. But the responsibility for directing the NSA to carry out those programs rests not with the NSA, but with the Executive Branch, the Congress, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which authorized those programs

see also, the "Legislative Laundry of FBI+CIA+NSA+DIA Collusion" to focus on NSA is to miss the underlying patterns of control at work...

It gradually became apparent to me that in the months after Edward Snowden began releasing information about the government's foreign intelligence surveillance activities, the NSA was being severely -- and unfairly -- demonized by its critics.

conflating NSA as an institutional entity, NSA tasking, and NSA staff. NSA tasking is bad and should feel bad. NSA institutional culture is less bad, yet needs correction. NSA employees individually? they have been deceived and demoralized themselves! this group is the least culpable, in my eyes. i have friends in IC and i can tell you they feel no less sucker punched by these revelations. make no mistake, they've been similarly mislead by "legal weasel words" and "exceptionally compartmentalized deceptions", etc. there are heads at the top that need severing from bodies. [wait, they've admitted that is too kind. life support in keep-away for centuries!!!!]

Of course, "I was only following orders" is not always an excuse. But in no instance was the NSA implementing a program that was so clearly illegal or unconstitutional that it would have been justified in refusing to perform the functions assigned to it by Congress, the President, and the Judiciary.

see also "compartmentalization". i have a story to tell here about physical encryption systems in surveillance satellites. you think NSA staff even knew what they were working on? that's the exception, rather than the rule. your "big data science to optimize in memory representation of sparse lattices" is just an innocuous cog in a machine cracking weak crypto to target drones to metadata targets that resulted in the loss of innocent life in some third world backwater you've never given thought to. [and tomorrow's domestic oppression of opportunity unleashed through the best intentions. if only we knew back then... if only...]

Although the Review Group found that many of those programs need serious re-examination and reform, none of them was so clearly unlawful that it would have been appropriate for the NSA to refuse to fulfill its responsibilities.

you think that's an accident? this is precision engineering! see also, the "Legislative Laundry of FBI+CIA+NSA+DIA Collusion"

Moreover, to the NSA's credit, it was always willing to engage the Review Group in serious and candid discussions about the merits of its programs, their deficiencies, and the ways in which those programs could be improved. Unlike some other entities in the intelligence community and in Congress, the leaders of the NSA were not reflexively defensive, but were forthright, engaged, and open to often sharp questions about the nature and implementation of its programs.

this means they're the least useful to question. when does CIA/DIA scrutiny begin?

In short, I found, to my surprise, that the NSA deserves the respect and appreciation of the American people. But it should never, ever, be trusted.

NSA used like a tool, just like the sysadmin and cryptographer "tools" they exploited and used so effectively...