Cyberattacks use National Security Agency tech.

In Baltimore and Beyond, a Stolen N.S.A. Tool Wreaks Havoc - The New York Times - Nicole Perlroth & Scott Shane:

May 25, 2019 - "For nearly three weeks, Baltimore has struggled with a cyberattack by digital extortionists that has frozen thousands of computers, shut down email and disrupted real estate sales, water bills, health alerts and many other services. But here is what frustrated city employees and residents do not know: A key component of the malware that cybercriminals used in the attack was developed at taxpayer expense a short drive down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway at the National Security Agency, according to security experts briefed on the case.

"Since 2017, when the N.S.A. lost control of the tool, EternalBlue, it has been picked up by state hackers in North Korea, Russia and, more recently, China, to cut a path of destruction around the world, leaving billions of dollars in damage. But over the past year, the cyberweapon has boomeranged back and is now showing up in the N.S.A.’s own backyard. It is not just in Baltimore. Security experts say EternalBlue attacks have reached a high, and cybercriminals are zeroing in on vulnerable American towns and cities, from Pennsylvania to Texas, paralyzing local governments and driving up costs.

"The N.S.A. ... has refused to discuss or even acknowledge the loss of its cyberweapon, dumped online in April 2017 by a still-unidentified group calling itself the Shadow Brokers.... Thomas Rid, a cybersecurity expert at Johns Hopkins University, called the Shadow Brokers episode 'the most destructive and costly N.S.A. breach in history,' more damaging than the better-known leak in 2013 from Edward Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor....

"Before it leaked, EternalBlue was one of the most useful exploits in the N.S.A.’s cyberarsenal. According to three former N.S.A. operators who spoke on the condition of anonymity, analysts spent almost a year finding a flaw in Microsoft’s software and writing the code to target it. Initially, they referred to it as EternalBluescreen because it often crashed computers — a risk that could tip off their targets. But it went on to become a reliable tool used in countless intelligence-gathering and counterterrorism missions....

"North Korea was the first nation to co-opt the tool, for an attack in 2017 ... that paralyzed the British health care system, German railroads and some 200,000 organizations around the world. Next was Russia, which used the weapon in an attack ... aimed at Ukraine but spread across major companies doing business in the country.... In the past year, the same Russian hackers who targeted the 2016 American presidential election used EternalBlue to compromise hotel Wi-Fi networks. Iranian hackers have used it to spread ransomware and hack airlines in the Middle East....

"One month before the Shadow Brokers began dumping the agency’s tools online in 2017, the N.S.A. — aware of the breach — reached out to Microsoft and other tech companies to inform them of their software flaws. Microsoft released a patch, but hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide remain unprotected."

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/25/us/nsa-hacking-tool-baltimore.html
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Data the National Security Agency didn't collect

Reports Find Waste and Mismanagement at Intelligence Agency - Pursuit - Bryan Berky:

April 18, 2019 - "It’s been awhile since we’ve seen an Inspector General report on the National Security Agency (NSA). But we have received two in the last two months. And they show how the top-secret agency is clandestinely wasting our money.

"The first report released in March was about NSA’s travel program ... which spent $69.4 million on 43,579 travel claims in Fiscal Year 2017. The IG found ... $900,000 in questionable transactions over a 9-month period, of which $285,000 were determined to be inappropriate. These inappropriate charges include $2,392 for personal cruise line tickets, $1,568 for Walt Disney World tickets, and $1,011 spent at a yacht marina.

"The report also found that 15 employees took out a total of $200,000 in cash advances on government travel cards for which there was no corresponding government travel. One person had taken out 210 different advances totaling $37,529 in cash. The report also found 162 instances of purchases for third-party merchants (i.e. Amazon, Paypal, etc.) totaling $81,000.

"The NSA’s Government Travel Charge Card office has difficulty catching these instances of travel card abuse because they utilize a manual review system rather than an electrically matching protocol with the charge card companies that would help them identify wrong-doing. That’s right, the agency that is known for its capabilities in reviewing communications around the globe doesn’t have the technology to analyze their own travel card expenditures for abuse.

"The other report from the NSA IG found systemic problems with the agency’s ... use of award fee contracts. An award fee contract provides payment 'based upon periodic evaluations of ongoing contractor performance' which are subjective and unilateral rather than based on any targets or formula ... and necessitate a ton of oversight to ensure they are being utilized properly. The OIG found that the necessary oversight is not in place....

"Federal regulations dictate that an agency is supposed to get sign off from a contracting officer before proceeding with an award fee contract.... Of the 54 contracts that the IG looked at, 54 percent (29 of 54) did not have the proper sign-off. Regulations also require a cost-benefit analysis.... Ninety-four percent (51 of 54) lacked the required cost-benefit analysis. NSA also failed to document the justification for the fee percentage used on all 54 contracts examined....

"78 percent (42 of 54) of the contracts received 90% or more of the available award fee, and only one contractor earned less than 75%. It’s possible that the high rate of award fees being paid are worth it to the taxpayer. But NSA has no way of knowing what kind of value they are getting. The IG determined that 'despite paying hundreds of millions in award fees, the Agency has no comprehensive metrics to support whether or not its use of award fees has improved contractor performance and acquisition outcomes'....

"NSA famously has a $1 billion server farm to store huge amounts of personal data. Apparently, the only data they don’t collect are the types that could save taxpayer dollars."

Read more: https://www.ourpursuit.com/reports-find-waste-and-mismanagement-at-intelligence-agency/
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Libertarian makes SCOTUS case for Kavanaugh

Here’s The Libertarian Case For Brett Kavanaugh’s Nomination | The Federalist - Ilya Shapiro:

July 29, 2018 - "While Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court has been warmly received on the Right, libertarians haven’t been uniformly thrilled. The night of the announcement, Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) tweeted that it was a '[d]isappointing pick, particularly with respect to his #4thAmendment record,' also mentioning 'government surveillance' as an area where Americans can’t afford a 'rubber stamp.'

"A few days later, my Cato Institute colleague Matthew Feeney did a critical dive into Klayman v. Obama, where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit rejected ... a 2015 challenge to the National Security Agency’s telephony-metadata collection. Kavanaugh wrote separately to say the program passed constitutional muster.... But should this be that big a worry?... this ... has likely been superseded by Carpenter v. United States, where the Supreme Court this past term ruled that police need a warrant to access cellphone location data....

"Kavanaugh has both rejected executive supremacy in favor of judicial review and praised Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), which argued that the military can’t detain U.S. citizens absent a congressional suspension of habeas corpus.

"Kavanaugh [has also] lauded Scalia’s role as the court’s 'most tireless advocate for the right to trial by jury [under the Sixth Amendment].' Accordingly, in United States v. Moore (2011), Kavanaugh found that a criminal defendant’s Confrontation Clause rights had been violated when the government introduced Drug Enforcement Agency reports at trial without allowing the defendant to confront the report’s author....

"Kavanaugh has also been a leading advocate of interpreting statutes to incorporate robust mens rea requirements, protecting individuals from criminal sanction unless the government establishes a 'guilty mind'.... [I]n United States v. Burwell (2012) ... he argued that a defendant could not face a mandatory 30-year sentence for carrying a machine gun during a crime because the government had not proven that he knew the weapon to be a machine gun.... [In]  United States v. Williams (2016) ... he commended a majority opinion that reversed the conviction of a gang member involved in a hazing ritual 'to underscore the critical importance of accurate instructions to the jury on mens rea requirements'....

"Kavanaugh dissented from a decision upholding the Securities and Exchange Commission’s broad theory of liability in enforcing fraud laws against a broker who transmitted a fraudulent statement dictated by his boss. Last month, the Supreme Court agreed to review the case (although of course Kavanaugh will be recused from it if he is confirmed).

"All this goes without mentioning other issues ... from the Second Amendment — he would’ve struck down DC’s gun-registration requirement and ban on semi-automatic rifles, using an historical rather than a 'tiers of scrutiny' approach — to a skepticism of broad judicial deference (Chevron, Auer, etc.) to executive agencies. As he repeated at his nomination ceremony, 'the Constitution’s separation of powers protects individual liberty.'"

Read more: https://thefederalist.com/2018/07/29/heres-libertarian-case-brett-kavanaughs-supreme-court-nomination/
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See also: Brett Kavanaugh and due process

NSA deleting millions of unwarranted call records

NSA Purging Millions of Improperly Collected Call Records Is Important (and Not About Trump) - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Scott Shackford:

July 3, 2018 - "The National Security Agency (NSA) has announced that it is deleting millions of phone and text records it has gathered since 2015, because it is holding a bunch of records it was not supposed to have....

"In this case, Congress passed the USA Freedom Act in 2015 to better control (and potentially limit) the NSA's access to the metadata (that is, everything but the conversations' actual content) of Americans' communications. This reform was part of a backlash against the mass surveillance exposed by Edward Snowden, and the bill was passed after some privacy-minded lawmakers, such as Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), forced a part of the Patriot Act to expire that was being used to justify mass amounts of domestic snooping.

"Under the USA Freedom Act, the NSA no longer collects and combs through our communications metadata itself. Instead it now has to request records from telecommunications companies using strictly defined search terms....

"The problem, as Charlie Savage of The New York Times uncovered, is that the telecom companies were accidentally sending too many records in response to NSA requests. And so the agency was receiving private personal information about Americans' communications data that it neither asked for nor had the right to examine:

"As a result, when the agency then fed those phone numbers back to the telecoms to get the communications logs of all of the people who had been in contact with its targets, the agency also gathered some data of people unconnected to the targets. And so the agency was receiving private personal information about Americans' communications data that it neither asked for nor had the right to examine.... 'If the first information was incorrect, even though on its face it looked like any other number, then when we fed that back out, by definition we'd get records back on the second hop that we did not have authority to collect,' [an NSA spokesman] said....

"The NSA requested more than 500 million telecom records just last year. It is unable to determine which records it has the authorization to collect, so it is purging all of them....

"Many of the same privacy-minded lawmakers who managed to force some of the surveillance authorities of the Patriot Act to expire also opposed the USA Freedom Act. Congressmen like Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) voted against the bill because they believed it still gave the government too much power to collect our records without warrants. Sen. Paul rejected the USA Freedom Act for the same reason....

"Unfortunately, Trump has shown that he's perfectly fine with snooping on Americans  ... [as he] happily signed a bill in January renewing and expanding the government's authority to secretly spy on Americans under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments."

Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/03/nsa-purging-millions-of-improperly-colle
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Let FISA surveillance law expire, says Sarwark

US Libertarian Party Wants Key Surveillance Law to Elapse Without Renewal - Sputnik International:

September 13, 2017 - "The US Libertarian Party (LP) does not want the controversial US surveillance law empowering authorities to carry out warrantless surveillance of foreign targets, to be reauthorized and instead suggests that it simply end ... by the start of 2018, the chairman of the party's executive body, the Libertarian National Committee, told Sputnik on Wednesday.

"In a letter dated September 7, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions and National Intelligence Director Dan Coats called on US Congressmen to permanently reauthorize Section 702 of a 2008 package of amendments to the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is set to expire at the end of the year....

"'We would like the bill to elapse completely and sunset and not to be renewed at all — not permanently, not for five years, not for even one year,' Nicholas Sarwark said, stressing that the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the country's law enforcement agencies had abused powers granted to them....

"'The US government has shown that it is unwilling to abide by rules laid out in legislation, while Congressmen have demonstrated that they are unwilling to exercise meaningful oversight, Sarwark continued. Therefore, the only sensible solution to the situation at this point is "to let the law elapse and start over if there are in fact legitimate intelligence gathering tools that can be done in a constitutional manner....

"'Law enforcement would always like to have more tools and the Constitution does not make law enforcement easier, it makes it harder. That is the point of our Constitution and it is exactly backward to say "well, can we make law enforcement’s job easier at the costs of individuals’ privacy,"' the politician suggested....

"Mass surveillance by US authorities in the United States and other countries was revealed in classified US documents published by former NSA employee turned whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, prompting criticism from governments, as well as human right advocates and activist groups across the globe."

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/us/201709131057355378-us-libertarians-surveillance-laws-end/
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Deep state terminated Trump security adviser

The Political Assassination of Michael Flynn - Bloomberg View - Eli Lake:

February 14, 2017 - "If we are to believe the Trump White House, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn just resigned because he lied about his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the vice president....  That sounds about as credible as when the president told CIA employees that the media had invented the story about his enmity toward the spy agency, not even two weeks after he had taken to Twitter to compare the CIA to Nazis.... It doesn't add up.

"It's not even clear that Flynn lied. He says in his resignation letter that he did not deliberately leave out elements of his conversations with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak when he recounted them to Vice President Mike Pence. The New York Times and Washington Post reported that the transcript of the phone call reviewed over the weekend by the White House could be read different ways. One White House official with knowledge of the conversations told me that the Russian ambassador raised the sanctions to Flynn and that Flynn responded that the Trump team would be taking office in a few weeks and would review Russia policy and sanctions. That's neither illegal nor improper....

"A better explanation here is that Flynn was just thrown under the bus. His tenure as national security adviser, the briefest in U.S. history, was rocky from the start. When Flynn was attacked in the media for his ties to Russia, he was not allowed by the White House to defend himself. Over the weekend, he was instructed not to speak to the press when he was in the fight for his political life. His staff was not even allowed to review the transcripts of his call to the Russian ambassador.

"There is another component to this story as well -- as Trump himself just tweeted. It's very rare that reporters are ever told about government-monitored communications of U.S. citizens, let alone senior U.S. officials. The last story like this to hit Washington was in 2009.... Normally intercepts of U.S. officials and citizens are some of the most tightly held government secrets. This is for good reason. Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of anonymity. This is what police states do....

"The fact that the intercepts of Flynn's conversations with Kislyak appear to have been widely distributed inside the government is a red flag.

"Representative Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, ... saw the leaks about Flynn's conversations with Kislyak as part of a pattern. 'There does appear to be a well orchestrated effort to attack Flynn and others in the administration,' he said. 'From the leaking of phone calls between the president and foreign leaders to what appears to be high-level FISA Court information, to the leaking of American citizens being denied security clearances, it looks like a pattern.'"

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-14/the-political-assassination-of-michael-flynn
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Obama guts 4th Amendment on way out

President Obama's Parting Shot at Personal Freedom - Reason.com - Andrew Napolitano:

January 19, 2017 - "On Jan. 3, outgoing Attorney General Loretta Lynch secretly signed an order directing the National Security Agency — America's 60,000-person-strong domestic spying apparatus — to make available raw spying data to all other federal intelligence agencies, which then can pass it on to their counterparts in foreign countries and in the 50 states.... Yet in doing this, she violated basic constitutional principles that were erected centuries ago to prevent just what she did.

"Here is the back story.

"In the aftermath of former President Richard Nixon's abusive utilization of the FBI and CIA to spy on his domestic political opponents in the 1960s and '70s ... Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which created a secret court that was charged with being the sole authority in America that can authorize domestic spying.... The standard for a FISA court authorization was that the subject of the spying needed to be a foreign person in the United States who was an agent of a foreign power....

"The Patriot Act permitted FBI agents to write their own search warrants for business records (including medical, legal, postal and banking records), and amendments to FISA itself changed the wording from probable cause 'of foreign agency' to probable cause of being 'a foreign person' to all Americans who may 'communicate with a foreign person.'

"The recent USA Freedom Act permits the NSA to ask the FISA court for a search warrant for any person — named or unnamed — based on the standard of 'governmental need.' One FISA court-issued warrant I saw authorized the surveillance of all 115 million domestic customers of Verizon.... The NSA can use data from your cellphone to learn where you are, and it can utilize your cellphone as a listening device to hear your in-person conversations, even if you have turned it off....

"Notwithstanding all of the above gross violations of personal liberty and constitutional norms, the NSA traditionally kept its data ... to itself. So if an agency such as the FBI or the DEA or the New Jersey State Police, for example, wanted any of the data acquired by the NSA for law enforcement purposes, it needed to get a search warrant from a federal judge based on the constitutional standard of 'probable cause of crime.'

"Until now. Now, because of the Lynch secret order, revealed by The New York Times late last week, the NSA may share any of its data with any other intelligence agency or law enforcement agency that has an intelligence arm based on ... the non-standard of governmental need.....

"Obama, in the death throes of his time in the White House, has delivered perhaps his harshest blow to constitutional freedom by permitting his attorney general to circumvent the Fourth Amendment, thereby enabling people in law enforcement to get whatever they want about whomever they wish without a showing of probable cause of crime as the Fourth Amendment requires. That amendment expressly forbids the use of general warrants — search where you wish and seize what you find — and they had never been a lawful tool of [American] law enforcement until Lynch's order."

Read more: http://reason.com/archives/2017/01/19/a-parting-shot-at-personal-freedom
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Gary Johnson would pardon Edward Snowden

Gary Johnson: I Would Pardon Edward Snowden | The Texas Tribune - Patrick Svitek:

September 24, 2016 - "Amid a renewed debate about Edward Snowden, Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson said Saturday he would pardon the whistleblower based on his knowledge of the case.

"In an interview at The Texas Tribune Festival, Johnson, the former New Mexico governor, was deeply skeptical of how the United States is using the kind of intelligence capabilities brought to light by Snowden. Snowden, a former government contractor, faces charges under the Espionage Act for leaking classified information about the National Security Agency to reporters in 2013.

"'I would like to see ... these satellites turned away from 110 million Verizon users,' Johnson said. 'I'd like to see the satellites turned away from you and I as U.S. citizens, recognizing that there is due process out there for anyone that's suspected of crime or harm against the rest of us.'

"A new campaign is underway to persuade President Barack Obama to pardon Snowden, the subject of a biographical movie released last week. Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders recently added his name to the list of those pushing for a pardon.

"Johnson has previously said he would be inclined to pardon Snowden but appeared to go further Saturday.

"'Based on what I know about Edward Snowden, I would pardon Edward Snowden,' Johnson said.

"The Libertarian nominee is considered a long-shot candidate for the White House, especially after missing the cut to make the first debate ... held Monday. Acknowledging the importance of qualifying — 'The only way to have a chance at winning is to be in the presidential debates' — Johnson noted that he has only failed to make the first debate and that there are three in total.

"He also voiced doubt that voters would have their minds made up following Monday night's debate between the two polarizing major-party nominees, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump."

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2016/09/24/gary-johnson-i-would-pardon-edward-snowden/
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Oliver Stone's Snowden a 'gripping docudrama' (video)

Hacker or hero? Oliver Stone sides with Snowden: review | Toronto Star - Peter Howell:

September 15, 2016 - "With his gripping new docudrama Snowden, which just had its world premiere at TIFF, Stone is totally on the side of Edward Snowden, painting the fugitive ex-CIA and National Security Agency whistleblower as an American patriot, not the evil 'hacker' that U.S. President Obama dismissed Snowden as when it all blew open in 2013.

"Yet Stone does so with a good measure of restraint, a quality rare for him. Joseph Gordon-Levitt sympathetically portrays the bespectacled title cipher, a Rubik’s Cube champ with an IBM brain. He breathes life into the complicated motivations behind a former soldier’s decision to air his country’s dirty laundry to the world, turning himself into a wanted man in the process, his U.S. passport revoked by Washington.

"Dubbed 'Snow White' by a cynical co-worker soon after he arrives with noble intentions at the CIA, Snowden discovers to his dismay that politics, economic advantage and good old-fashioned ambition are the main driving forces behind his new employer — which also routinely tramples on civil liberties by liberally spying on anyone and everyone, even in their bedrooms, publicly denying it all the while....

"Scripted by writer/director Stone with co-writer Kieran Fitzgerald, the movie also gives a fair hearing to the 'war on terror' counter-argument, with Snowden’s boss and mentor Corbin O’Brian (Rhys Ifans, superb) emerging as an intelligent pragmatist who sincerely believes — as do many Americans — that preserving safety and security requires the necessary evil of invading personal privacy.

"Snowden would make a great double bill with Citizenfour, the Oscar-winning 2014 doc by Laura Poitras, which featured the real Edward Snowden as he prepared to reveal his identity to the world."

Read more: https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2016/09/15/hacker-or-hero-oliver-stone-sides-with-snowden-review.html
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Johnson would end National Security Agency, IRS

Libertarian Gary Johnson: I'd eliminate NSA, IRS if elected | TheHill - Tim Devaney:

June 6, 2016 - "Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson says he would abolish the National Security Agency (NSA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and other federal agencies if elected.

In an interview with The Hill on Monday, Johnson said he would sign an executive order as president eliminating the NSA, which sparked controversy with its domestic surveillance programs.

"The NSA is a complete executive order as it [was] under [President Harry] Truman,' Johnson said. 'We could turn those satellites on what is supposed to be the enemy. The fact that they’re pointed on us right now, doesn’t that cause everyone a bit of concern? It should. Look, there’s due process for spying, but due process is not blanket collection of all of our data.'

"Asked whether he could actually eliminate the NSA simply through executive order, Johnson responded: 'Apparently. I’m waiting for someone to prove me wrong. This is what I’ve been told.'

"Johnson also said he would eliminate the IRS and lower taxes. 'If I could wave a magic wand, we would eliminate income tax; we would eliminate corporate tax; we would abolish the IRS; and we could replace all of it with one federal consumption tax,' Johnson said. 'If we had zero corporate tax in this country, tens of millions of jobs would get created in this country'....

"Johnson also suggested he would eliminate numerous other federal agencies — including the Department of Commerce, Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Department of Education — if presented with legislation to do so.....  'I’ll sign legislation to eliminate any federal agency that they present me with,' Johnson said. 'Any one'....

"Johnson said the Commerce Department fuels 'crony capitalism,' which he called 'all about giving those that have money more money, as opposed to leveling the playing field.'"

Read more: http://thehill.com/regulation/282381-libertarian-gary-johnson-id-eliminate-nsa-irs-if-elected

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Rand Paul suspends presidential campaign

GOP Race Loses Rand Paul's Tech, Privacy Cred - US News - Tom Risen:

February 3, 2016 - "The Republican presidential campaign lost its biggest privacy advocate on Wednesday when Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky dropped out of the race, leaving doubt about whether the remaining candidates can resonate with the tech community or voters concerned about government surveillance.

"Taking a libertarian stance on Internet issues including encryption and the National Security Agency's snooping has been a key part of Paul's campaign effort to attract tech savvy younger voters, while other Republican candidates make hawkish statements in favor of mass surveillance.

"Tech policy generates less excitement from voters in presidential elections than issues like national security or the economy, however, which in part explains how Paul struggled below 10 percent in most election polls this past year....

"Paul's stance in favor of encryption and limits on government surveillance reflected the positions of numerous companies like Facebook, Apple and Google, and promised to attract funding if his campaign gained traction.

"Paul sparred during debates with candidates including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on the issue of warrantless surveillance, countering his argument for an expansion of the NSA's spying powers. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and the state's former governor, Jeb Bush, have also supported expanding the NSA's powers.

"The Kentucky senator has called for more accountability and limits to the spying powers of the NSA , but he opposed USA Freedom Act in protest because he and other privacy advocates argued that it did not go far enough to restrict surveillance....

"Less vocal critics of surveillance in the Republican race remain, however, and now have an opportunity to appeal to Paul's libertarian base by speaking more about privacy rights. These include Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who ... voted for the Freedom Act, and neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who has spoken in favor of requiring security agencies to collect data using court orders."

Read more: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/gop-race-loses-rand-pauls-tech-privacy-cred
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Blaming Snowden for Paris massacre: "How dumb do they think people are?"

Exploiting Emotions About Paris to Blame Snowden, Distract from Actual Culprits Who Empowered ISIS - The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald:

"Whistleblowers are always accused of helping America’s enemies... So it’s of course unsurprising that ever since Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing enabled newspapers around the world to report on secretly implemented programs of mass surveillance, he has been accused by 'officials' and their various media allies of Helping The Terrorists™....

"I was a bit surprised just by how quickly and blatantly — how shamelessly — some of them jumped to exploit the emotions prompted by the carnage in France to blame Snowden: doing so literally as the bodies still lay on the streets of Paris.... But now ... credible news sites are regurgitating the claim that the Paris Terrorists were enabled by Snowden leaks — based on no evidence or specific proof of any kind, needless to say, but just the unverified, obviously self-serving assertions of government officials....

"The implicit premise of this accusation is that The Terrorists didn’t know to avoid telephones or how to use effective encryption until Snowden came along and told them. Yet we’ve been warned for years and years before Snowden that The Terrorists are so diabolical and sophisticated that they engage in all sorts of complex techniques to evade electronic surveillance....

"Any terrorist capable of tying his own shoe — let alone carrying out a significant attack — has known for decades that speaking on open telephone and internet lines was to be avoided due to U.S. surveillance.... The Snowden revelations weren’t significant because they told The Terrorists their communications were being monitored; everyone — especially The Terrorists — has known that forever. The revelations were significant because they told the world that the NSA and its allies were collecting everyone else’s internet communications and activities.

""As but one of countless examples, here’s a USA Today article from February 2001 — more than 12 years before anyone knew the name 'Edward Snowden' — warning that al Qaeda was able to 'outfox law enforcement' by hiding its communications behind sophisticated internet encryption... The Christian Science Monitor similarly reported on February 1, 2001, that 'the head of the U.S. National Security Agency has publicly complained that al Qaeda’s sophisticated use of the internet and encryption techniques have defied Western eavesdropping attempts'.... All the way back in the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration exploited the fears prompted by Timothy McVeigh’s Oklahoma City attack to demand backdoor access to all internet communications.

"How dumb do they think people are to count on them forgetting all of this, and to believe now that The Terrorists only learned to avoid telephones and use encryption once Snowden came along? Ironically, the Snowden archive itself is full of documents from NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ, expressing deep concern that they cannot penetrate the communications of Terrorists because of how sophisticated their surveillance-avoidance methods are (obviously, those documents pre-date Snowden’s public disclosures)....

"U.S officials are eager here to demonize far more than just Snowden. They want to demonize encryption generally as well as any companies that offer it. Indeed, as these media accounts show, they’ve been trying for two decades to equate the use of encryption — anything that keeps them out of people’s private online communications — with aiding and abetting The Terrorists. It’s not just Snowden but also their own long-time Surveillance State partners — particular Apple and Google — who are now being depicted as Terrorist Lovers for enabling people to have privacy on the internet through encryption products.

"Then there’s the blame-shifting benefit. For most major terror attacks, the perpetrators were either known to Western security agencies or they had ample reason to watch them. All three perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo massacre 'were known to French authorities,' as was the thwarted train attacker in July and at least one of the Paris attackers. These agencies receive billions and billions of dollars every year and radical powers, all in the name of surveilling Bad People and stopping attacks.

"So when they fail in their ostensible duty, and people die because of that failure, it’s a natural instinct to blame others: Don’t look to us; it’s Snowden’s fault, or the fault of Apple, or the fault of journalists, or the fault of encryption designers, or anyone’s fault other than ours. If you’re a security agency after a successful Terror attack, you want everyone looking elsewhere, finding all sorts of culprits other than those responsible for stopping such attacks."

Read more: https://theintercept.com/2015/11/15/exploiting-emotions-about-paris-to-blame-snowden-distract-from-actual-culprits-who-empowered-isis/
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Paul vs. Christie in the first Republican debate

Rand Paul and Chris Christie Clash on NSA Spying in the Republican Debate - The Atlantic - Conor Friedersdorf:

August 7, 2015 - "One of the biggest clashes in the Republican debate Thursday night came after New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was asked about his past attacks on Senator Rand Paul. The two men disagree about an NSA program that spied on tens of millions of innocent Americans by logging all phone calls they dialed and received. Paul, a leading critic of the phone dragnet, has argued that it flagrantly violates the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures....

“'Do you really believe you can assign blame to Senator Paul just for opposing the bulk collection of people's phone records in the event of a terrorist attack?” a moderator asked Thursday.... 'Yes, I do,' [Christie] said. 'And I'll tell you why: because I'm the only person on this stage who's actually filed applications under the Patriot Act, who has gone before the Foreign Intelligence Service court, who has prosecuted, investigated, and jailed terrorists in this country after September 11th.... And I will make no apologies, ever, for protecting the lives and safety of the American people. We have to give more tools to our folks to be able to do that, not fewer, and then trust those people and oversee them to do it the right way.' In fact, the phone dragnet has never stopped a single terrorist attack, during Chris Christie’s tenure as a U.S. attorney or at any other time....

"Paul responded to Thursday’s attack by expressing his preference for targeted surveillance rather than an expansive dragnet that sweeps up everyone’s metadata. 'I want to collect more records from terrorists, but less records from innocent Americans,” he said. 'The Fourth Amendment was what we fought the Revolution over! John Adams said it was the spark that led to our war for independence. I'm proud of standing for the Bill of Rights. I will continue to stand for the Bill of Rights.'

"Christie was ready with a retort.... 'You know, that's a completely ridiculous answer: "I want to "collect more records from terrorists, but less records from other people." How are you supposed to know?' 'Get a warrant!' Paul said. 'Get a judge to sign the warrant!'

“Listen, Senator, you know, when you're sitting in a subcommittee, just blowing hot air about this, you can say things like that,' he said. 'When you're responsible for protecting the lives of the American people, then what you need to do is to make sure –– to make sure that you use the system the way that it’s supposed to work.'

"In fact, 'get a judge to sign a warrant' is a rather succinct description of how 'the system' is 'supposed to work,' if we define 'the system' as the Constitution rather than national-security officials following their gut instincts. It’s hardly 'blowing hot air' for a senator to call on the executive branch to follow the law....

"On Fox News after the debate, a couple of commentators suggested that Christie won his exchange with Paul. I cannot comment on the style preferences of a GOP voter base that presently prefers Donald Trump to all other candidates. But on substance, Paul easily bested Christie in this exchange.... Christie seems oblivious to the basic logic of the Bill of Rights. The constraints it places on government are not suspended in the aftermath of a terrorist attack –– they are, in fact, most important precisely when a polity is panicked and officials are unusually able to seize excessive power without criticism. His praise for leaders unapologetically jettisoning such constraints in the name of protecting us is more dangerous than any terrorist plot in U.S. history."

Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/rand-paul-and-chris-christie-clash-on-nsa-spying/400718/
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Rand Paul goes on offensive in first GOP debate

In GOP Debate, Rand Paul Goes on Offense - US News - David Catanese:

August 7, 2015 - "Donald Trump may have wanted to avoid a fight in the first Republican presidential primary debate of the season.

"But Rand Paul had other ideas....

"An energized Paul seized on Trump's answer to the first question of the evening, when the real estate mogul refused to pledge not to run a third-party candidacy if he failed to attain the Republican nomination.

"'He's already hedging his bets because he's used to buying politicians,' Paul interjected in a moment that kick-started a highly charged debate.

"Almost 50 minutes later, Paul interrupted Trump again when the bombastic businessman tried to explain away his past support for a Canadian-style health care system.

"'News flash: The Republican Party has been fighting against a single-payer health system for a decade,' Paul charged.

"Trump mostly shrugged off the slight, telling Paul, 'You're having a hard time tonight.'

"He could have gone back at Paul much harder in typical Trump bluster. But the national leader in GOP primary polling wasn't too hot or too cold. He didn't provide many specifics on issues. He also didn't launch any over-the-top attacks....

"If anything, the debate highlighted how difficult it is to stand out in a field of 10, which is why Paul appeared to take the biggest risk of the evening by going on the offensive.

"His other tussle came with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie over national security.

"When Paul said he wanted the National Security Agency to 'collect more records from terrorists but less records from innocent Americans,' Christie called the answer 'completely ridiculous.'

"Paul subsequently stressed that those seeking records should obtain a warrant.

"'Senator, you know, when you're sitting in a subcommittee just blowing hot air about this, you can say things like that,' Christie said as the two began talking over each other.

"Paul then delivered his most effective blow of the night.

"'I don't trust President Obama with our records. I know you gave him a big hug,' he said, referring to Christie's embrace of the president following Hurricane Sandy but right before the 2012 election.

"The audience of about 4,500 burst into roaring gasps and applause in response to the line. That embrace of President Barack Obama has haunted Christie for three years, sowing distrust among the conservative base, and Paul pulled off the scab."

Read more: http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2015/08/07/in-gop-debate-rand-paul-goes-on-offense
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USA FREEDOM Act: Meet the new law, same as the old law

USA FREEDOM Act: Small step for post-Snowden reform, giant leap for Congress - Dan Froomkin, The Intercept:

June 2, 2015 - "Exactly two years after journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras traveled to Hong Kong to meet an NSA [National Security Agency] whistleblower named Edward Snowden, Congress has finally brought itself to reform one surveillance program out of the multitude he revealed — a program so blatantly out of line that its end was a foregone conclusion as soon as it was exposed.

"The USA Freedom Act passed the House in an overwhelming, bipartisan vote three weeks ago. After hardliner Republicans lost a prolonged game of legislative chicken, the Senate gave its approval Tuesday afternoon as well, by a 67 to 32 margin. The bill officially ends 14 years of unprecedented bulk collection of domestic phone records by the NSA, replacing it with a program that requires the government to make specific requests to the phone companies....

"At the same time, the Freedom Act explicitly reauthorizes — or, rather, reinstates, since they technically expired at midnight May 31 — other programs involving the collection of business records that the Bush and Obama administrations claimed were authorized by Section 215 of the Patriot Act. In fact, even the bulk collection of phone records, which was abruptly wound down last week in anticipation of a possible expiration, may wind up again, because the Freedom Act allows it to continue for a six-month transition period.

"And while the Freedom Act contains a few other modest reform provisions‚ such as more disclosure and a public advocate for the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, it does absolutely nothing to restrain the vast majority of the intrusive surveillance revealed by Snowden.

"It leaves untouched formerly secret programs the NSA says are authorized under section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, and that while ostensibly targeted at foreigners nonetheless collect vast amounts of American communications. It won’t in any way limit the agency’s mass surveillance of non-American communications."

Read more: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/02/one-small-step-toward-post-snowden-surveillance-reform-one-giant-step-congress/

Controversial PATRIOT Act sections expire, for now

A Gap in Surveillance, but Ways Around It - NYTimes.com - Charlie Savage:

May 31, 2015 - "For the first time since the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Americans are again free to place phone calls ... without having logs of those contacts vacuumed up in bulk by the National Security Agency. And ... government agents ... will have to subpoena phone companies for associated calling records and wait for the response to see if anyone in the United States has been in contact with that number. The N.S.A. can no longer simply query its database for the information.

"This unusual situation may last only a few days, until Congress can reach an accommodation over three counterterrorism laws that expired at 12:01 a.m. Monday....

"One of the expired laws permitted wiretap orders of 'lone wolf' terrorism suspects who are not part of a foreign group, a provision that has apparently never been used. A second permitted 'roving' wiretap orders that follow suspects who change phones, a provision that apparently has been used only rarely.

"The third permitted court orders requiring businesses to turn over records that are relevant to a national security investigation, the provision known as Section 215 of the Patriot Act. In addition to the bulk phone records program, the F.B.I. used Section 215 about 160 times last year to obtain particular business records, like suspects’ Internet activity logs.

"All three of the expired laws contained a so-called grandfather clause that permits their authority to continue indefinitely for any investigation that had begun before June 1.... A senior intelligence official recently told The New York Times that the administration was open to invoking the grandfather clause to get the records if a need arose during any lapse.

"In theory, the Obama administration could also invoke the grandfather clause to ask the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to reauthorize the bulk phone records program as well. However, the administration has vowed not to do that.... A federal appeals court recently rejected the theory that Section 215 could be used to authorize the bulk calling logs program...

"But the apparent loss of the program for now does not mean the government has no way to analyze calling records linked to a new suspect. The F.B.I. can still issue subpoenas called national-security letters to phone companies to obtain the records....

"The Bush administration started the program in October 2001, and persuaded the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to start blessing it as legal under Section 215 in 2006. Since it came to light in 2013, via leaks by the former intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden, two independent panels studied classified files and concluded that it had not been abused, but also that it had provided scant concrete benefits."

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/us/a-gap-in-surveillance-but-ways-around-it.html?_r=0
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Fix the PATRIOT Act or let it die

Editorial: Reform Patriot Act or let it expire | Chicago Sun-Times:

May 26, 2015 - "The Patriot Act has always been a bad law. Passed in a panic weeks after the 9/11 attacks, it erodes our civil liberties without adding measurably to our national security.

"Some 14 years later, cooler heads in the House, in a bipartisan effort, have approved a bill, the USA Freedom Act, that would rein in one of the Patriot Act’s most objectionable practices, the government’s dragnet of private phone records. But ... the bill fell three votes short in the Senate, where Republican leaders would rather simply extend the relevant provisions of the Patriot Act, set to expire on June 1.

"Too bad for that. The USA Freedom Act represents a bare minimum in necessary reform. We wish it went further in restoring a balance between personal freedoms and national security. But if the Senate can’t pass even this bill, so be it — let the government’s program for collecting phone records in bulk come to an end. Let Section 215 of the Patriot Act expire.

"Congress then could craft a new law, from scratch, that puts a premium on our liberties. It wouldn’t be easy, but it shouldn’t be easy.

"We’re unclear why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others defend this provision of the Patriot Act so strongly to begin with. Just three weeks ago, a federal appeals court released a blistering opinion that Section 215 does not legitimately allow for the 'sweeping surveillance' of phone records and other data in 'staggering'' volumes. And all that data collection, according to testimony and government reports, has never made the difference in thwarting a terrorist attack.... NSA overstepped its authority. The NSA relied on a radical and incorrect interpretation of the Patriot Act to launch its mass surveillance program.

"Congress will take one last shot next week at reining in the Patriot Act. If it fails to do so — if it does nothing to curb the government’s bulk collection of phone records — let the program expire."

Read more: http://chicago.suntimes.com/editorials-opinion/7/71/637072/patriot-act-editorial
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Scaremongering about PATRIOT Act sunset

Scaremongering about the Patriot Act Sunset | Just Security: Jameel Jaffer, American Civil Liberties Union:

May 24, 2015 - "In a last-ditch effort to scare lawmakers into preserving unpopular and much-abused surveillance authorities, the Senate Republican leadership and some intelligence officials are warning that allowing Section 215 of the Patriot Act to sunset would compromise national security.  (One particularly crass example from Senator Lindsey Graham: “Anyone who neuters this program is going to be partially responsible for the next attack.”)  Some media organizations have published these warnings without challenging them, which is unfortunate.  The claim that the expiration of Section 215 would deprive the government of necessary investigative tools or compromise national security is entirely without support.

"First, there’s no evidence that the call-records program is effective in any meaningful sense of the word.   The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which reviewed classified files, 'could not identify a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the telephone records program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation.'  The President’s Review Group ... determined that the call-records program had 'not [been] essential to preventing attacks,' and that, to the extent the program had contributed to terrorism investigations, the records in question 'could readily have been obtained in a timely manner' using targeted demands.

"Second, there’s no evidence that other forms of collection under Section 215 have been any more effective.... [A] report by the Inspector General released this past week states that FBI personnel were 'unable to identify any major case developments that resulted from use of the records obtained through use of Section 215 orders'...

"Third, the sunset of Section 215 wouldn’t affect the government’s ability to conduct targeted investigations of terrorist threats.... It can use administrative subpoenas or grand jury subpoenas.  It can use pen registers. It can use national security letters. It can use orders served under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.  If Section 215 sunsets, it can use the provision that Section 215 amended, which will allow it to collect business records of hotels, motels, car and truck rental agencies, and storage rental facilities.

"The sunset of Section 215 would undoubtedly be a significant political loss for the intelligence community ... but there’s no support for the argument that the sunset of Section 215 would compromise national security."

Read more: http://justsecurity.org/23196/scaremongering-patriot-act-sunset/
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PATRIOT Act extension blocked in U.S. Senate

Randstand: Republican Presidential Candidate Leads Bipartisan Opposition to PATRIOT Act - Bloomberg Politics: David Weigel, with Derek Wallbank & Terence Dopps:

May 23. 2015 - "Saturday morning, Rand Paul set off a few parliamentary explosions in the Senate.... Paul used a range of parliamentary maneuvers to block the Senate from extending the Patriot Act, the contentious anti-terror law that expires June 1, and forced his Kentucky colleague, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to call senators back for a rare Sunday session on May 31....

"Saturday during a marathon session in which senators hustled to wrap up matters before their vacation, ... McConnell failed to marshal enough votes to pass the Patriot Act extension.... He then asked for unanimous consent to approve an extension of the law until June 8, a move which would have given the Senate a week after returning from vacation to craft a deal.

"Paul stood up. 'Reserving the right to object: We have entered into a momentous debate,' Paul said.  South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, sitting a row in front of him, rolled his eyes....

"Before this, Paul and his allies — especially Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat — had been trying to negotiate for roll call votes on amendments that they wanted to add [to] the Patriot Act. According to a Senate staffer who had knowledge of the talks but who is not permitted to discuss them publicly, they foundered, with opponents and supporters wanting to see where the votes were before they really negotiated. On the floor, Paul proposed that the six amendments he'd been advocating could be boiled down to votes on 'two amendments on a simple majority vote.'

"That didn't happen, so Paul and his across-the-aisle allies dug in. 'I renew my request with an amendment to extend the provisions until June 5,' said McConnell. Wyden objected. 'I renew my request with an amendment to extend the provisions until June 3,' said McConnell. New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich, a Democrat who, like Wyden, had joined Paul in a 10-1/2-hour speaking marathon against the bill on Wednesday, objected.

"The upshot was that the Senate will return on May 31, a Sunday, the day before the Patriot Act is due to expire. Instead of a vote one week before the deadline, there would be a vote hours before the deadline. Backers of the bill hope the coming week will be used to work out a deal to extend the law.... But Paul signaled via social media that he'll also be using the time to build opposition to the Patriot Act....

"In Philadelphia, on Monday, Paul acknowledged that he did not have the votes to win the amendments he wants, but hoped he had enough support outside the Capitol to make the process infamous.... In Philadelphia he repeated a common make-my-day anecdote about just how ready he was to go beyond the Patriot Act's renewal deadline, if it meant he could have a debate and end the bulk data collection.

"'One senator came up to me and said, "If you defeat the Patriot Act, what will happen? How could we possibly survive?"’ Paul recalled. 'And I said maybe, just maybe, we could rely on the Constitution for a few hours.'"

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-23/rand-paul-blocks-patriot-act-with-help-from-democratic-friends

USA FREEDOM Act does not end NSA spying

No, Congress did not just vote to end NSA spying | TheHill - Jeff Lyon & Danny Shaw:

May 21, 2015 -  "The USA Freedom Act is being hyped as a prohibition of the N.S.A.’s controversial mass surveillance practices, but it actually extends the PATRIOT Act for years and opens up new avenues for more invasive forms of government spying. Its passage into law would be more damaging to civil rights than if Congress did nothing at all. To understand why, it’s important to note that the N.S.A.’s practices were never lawful to begin with.

"Indeed, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that the N.S.A.’s phone metadata surveillance program was never actually authorized by Congress. In a lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union, the N.S.A. sought to justify its dragnet surveillance practices by pointing to Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, which allows the government to collect records 'relevant to an authorized investigation.' But the court (and even Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, the PATRIOT Act’s original author) rejected this argument, saying the law was never meant to authorize such wide-scale data collection.

"All of this should be a moot point, because Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act is set to expire on June 1 if Congress does nothing. But USA Freedom would extend this provision until 2019, and, crucially, it would tweak the language to allow the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs to continue, with only minor limitations....

"The bill expands the type of data the government [can] access from landline call data to VoIP calls, video chats and smartphone activity. The government will still be able to use broad search terms to target large portions of the population, and they can collect even more information from contacts “connected” to those targets. Companies that hand customer data over to the government will be rewarded with blanket immunity from lawsuits, even when they violate their own privacy agreements with customers. The N.S.A. will share information with the F.B.I., which can then use the information for investigations unrelated to counterterrorism. And the government can block the F.I.S.C. advocate from seeing anything they want to keep secret....

"What Congress says and what Congress does are two very different things. The USA Freedom Act is a perfect example — it took a stunning act of bipartisanship for so many lawmakers in the House to say that N.S.A. surveillance went too far. But what they did is pass a bill that would do little to change the status quo, while skillfully packaging it as a victory for American privacy. The U.S. public and news media should not be fooled so easily."

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/242736-no-congress-did-not-just-vote-to-end-nsa-spying

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