Geoff Stone, Obama's Review Group - Part 2

[Juan Garofalo]

--On Thursday, April 03, 2014 8:09 AM -0400 John Young <jya at pipeline.com>
wrote:

> The CIA is the principal customer of NSA products outside
> the military. When global cyber spying Cybercom was proposed
> NSA did not want to do it, claiming it exceeded NSA's military
> mission. 


	That doesn't sound like something John Young would write. 

	The idea that the US military, who are the ones really running the show,
woudn't want to increase their power is just...too exceedingly naive. 


	
> However, the pols, and CIA, wanted that very excess,
> in particular for spying inside the US, ostensibly banned for the
> CIA but now needed for terrorists inside.
> 
> CIA (long FBI opponents) thought FBI could not cope with inside
> terrorists, using 9/11 as an example, and advocated NSA involvement
> with its much greater technical capability, but more importantly, its
> military-privileged secrecy not susceptible to full congressional
> oversight, courts and FOIA.
> 
> The joint CIA-NSA Special Collection Service (SCS) has
> been doing for decades what NSA is now alone accused of doing:
> CIA provided the targets, NSA did the technical collection from
> those global stations identified by xKeyscore (most in embassies
> or nearby).
> 
> What is bizarre is how little CIA is mentioned in news furor about
> NSA, as if NSA did its work in isolation from the IC and without
> oversight of the 3 branches.
> 
> SCS also does burglaries, code snatches, decrypts, doc drops,
> stings, ploys, blackmail, the panoply of CIA operations. The increased
> civilian target panoply bestowed upon NSA came from CIA demands
> channeled through ODNI.
> 
> Reviewing what little has been released of the Snowden documents
> they are quite similar to what SCS has been doing with the addition
> of the US as target. FISA had to be rejiggered for the US domain.
> 
> Most national leaders, like POTUS, are considered to be military
> commanders thus fair game for NSA along with CIA. Nothing
> exceptional about the recent revelations of spying on chiefs of
> state.
> 
> NSA technical collection capability was developed for the
> military, not civilian use. Now expanded to CIA full dominance
> territory. FISA had to be rejiggered for using it against civilians.
> And is still being rejiggered these days.
> 
> NSA's recent attempt to slough off Cybercom and return to
> its military mission, has been rejected by the civilian overseers
> following CIA guidance and fear-mongering of civilians, especially
> those inside the US. The last thing CIA and its supporters want
> is a revelation of its manipulation of civilian leaders institutionalized
> by the 1947 National Security Act (also opposed by the military).
> 
> -----
> 
> 
> At 10:56 PM 4/2/2014, DG wrote on cypherpunks:
> 
>> [ disclaimer, Geoff Stone is a friend of mine ]
>> 
>> 
>> www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/what-i-told-the-nsa_b_5065447.ht
>> ml?utm_hp_ref=technology&ir=Technology
>> 
>> What I Told the NSA
>> 
>>    Because of my service on the President's Review Group last fall,
>>    which made recommendations to the president about NSA surveillance
>>    and related issues, the NSA invited me to speak today to the NSA
>>    staff at the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, about my
>>    work on the Review Group and my perceptions of the NSA. Here,
>>    in brief, is what I told them:
>> 
>>      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.
>> 
>>      Like any organization dealing with extremely complex issues,
>>      the NSA on occasion made mistakes in the implementation of its
>>      authorities, but it invariably reported those mistakes upon
>>      discovering them and worked conscientiously to correct its
>>      errors. The Review Group found no evidence that the NSA had
>>      knowingly or intentionally engaged in unlawful or unauthorized
>>      activity. To the contrary, it has put in place carefully-crafted
>>      internal proceduresto ensure that it operates within the bounds
>>      of its lawful authority.
>> 
>>      This is not to say that the NSA should have had all of the
>>      authorities it was given. 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
>>      -- sometimes without sufficient attention to the dangers they
>>      posed to privacy and civil liberties. The NSA did its job --
>>      it implemented the authorities it was given.
>> 
>>      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. Rather
>>      than being a rogue agency that was running amok in disregard
>>      of the Constitution and laws of the United States, the NSA was
>>      doing its job.  It pained me to realize that the hard-working,
>>      dedicated, patriotic employees of the NSA, who were often
>>      working for far less pay than they could have earned in the
>>      private sector because they were determined to help protect
>>      their nation from attack, were being castigated in the press
>>      for the serious mistakes made, not by them, but by Presidents,
>>      the Congress, and the courts.
>> 
>>      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.
>>      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.
>> 
>>      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.
>> 
>>      To be clear, I am not saying that citizens should trust the
>>      NSA.  They should not. Distrust is essential to effective
>>      democratic governance. The NSA should be subject to constant
>>      and rigorous review, oversight, scrutiny, and checks and
>>      balances. The work it does, however important to the safety
>>      of the nation, necessarily poses grave dangers to fundamental
>>      American values, particularly if its work is abused by persons
>>      in positions of authority. If anything, oversight of the NSA
>>      -- especially by Congress -- should be strengthened. The future
>>      of our nation depends not only on the NSA doing its job, but
>>      also on the existence of clear, definitive, and carefully
>>      enforced rules and restrictions governing its activities.
>> 
>>      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.
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