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NSA Director Defends Surveillance To Unsympathetic Black Hat Crowd
Trailrunner7 writes "NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander's keynote today at Black Hat USA 2013 was a tense confessional, an hour-long emotional and sometimes angry ride that shed some new insight into the spy agency's two notorious data collection programs, inspired moments of loud applause in support of the NSA, and likewise, profane heckling that called into question the legality and morality of the agency's practices. Loud voices from the overflowing crowd called out Alexander on his claims that the NSA stands for freedom while at the same time collecting, storing and analyzing telephone business records, metadata and Internet records on Americans. He also denied lying to Congress about the NSA's capabilities and activities in the name of protecting Americans from terrorism in response to such a claim from a member of the audience."
If you read the article it states that General Alexander addressed the legal basis.
The problem isn't always that they answer the questions they wish you had asked, but rather that people prefer to ignore the answers that are given if they aren't the preferred answer. Some people don't want intelligence surveillance to be legal at all, so they ignore the legal basis for doing it and chant about violations of the 4th amendment.
That is before you get to the problem of some people being willing to "defend freedom" to the last drop of blood from their neighbor, or the next city over, just so long as no surveillance passes anywhere near them. All it takes to ethically satisfy them is to chant, 'Die well, my countryman! Die bravely! Make us proud!" So much for the right to life as the basis for the other rights and liberties.
People disregard General Washington's wisdom at their peril.
In a letter to one of his officers written in 1777, Washington wrote that secrecy was key to the success of intelligence activities:
"The necessity of procuring good intelligence is apparent and need not be further urged-All that remains for me to add is, that you keep the whole matter as secret as possible. For upon Secrecy, success depends in most Enterprises of the kind, & for want of it, they are generally defeated, however, well planned...." [letter to Colonel Elias Dayton, 26 July 1777]
For some mind numbingly stupid reason people keep wanting to reveal US intelligence operations to all, citizen or noncitizen alike. That isn't likely to end well. There is no putting the genie back into the bottle once it has escaped. You generally have to find a new genie, and that can take years, or decades.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Have you been to any of the classified sessions in Congress? I would assume the more juicy, more direct information is provided there.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
When your surveillance program is not only immoral, but ineffective, then there's not a lot you can do to defend it.
It seems pretty likely to me that you'll do nothing to defend effective or even vital intelligence. In fact it seems to be quite the opposite.
...Alexander said, adding that of 54 different terrorist-related activities identified through PRISM, 42 of which were disrupted, including 13 in the U.S., and 25 in Europe. “ -- Gen. Keith Alexander
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
.... for the crime of causing the Surveillance State a little trouble.
NSA chief says leak damage 'irresponsible and irreversible'
National Security Agency chief Keith Alexander said Thursday the damage from recently leaked information is "irresponsible and irreversible" because it has given terrorist groups the intelligence community's "playbook."
Snowden leaks give edge to U.S. rivals, officials say
Among the disclosures from Snowden that were published in the Washington Post and the Guardian was that Skype, the Internet calling service, was among the systems that provided data to the NSA's secret PRISM database. That disclosure contradicted a widespread belief that calls made via Skype were difficult or impossible to intercept.
Some suspected terrorists the NSA was tracking are no longer using Skype, U.S. officials said. Others have stopped using email, said one U.S. official who has been briefed on the damage.
"The Skype thing was really bad," the official said.
You don't think you're downplaying this just a little, do you?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
No, more like this:
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 27, 2012
Denver: Man Arrested for Providing Material Support to a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization
Jamshid Muhtorov was arrested by members of the FBI’s Denver and Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Forces on a charge of providing and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic Jihad Union, a Pakistan-based designated foreign terrorist organization.
Baltimore: Man Pleads Guilty to Attempted Use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction in Plot to Attack Armed Forces Recruiting Center
U.S. citizen Antonio Martinez, aka Muhammad Hussain, pled guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction against federal property in connection with a scheme to attack an armed forces recruiting station in Catonsville, Maryland.
Washington Field: Man Pleads Guilty to Shootings at Pentagon, Other Military Buildings
Yonathan Melaku, of Alexandria, Virginia, pled guilty to damaging property and to firearms violations involving five separate shootings at military installations in northern Virginia between October and November 2010, and to attempting to damage veterans’ memorials at Arlington National Cemetery.
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 13, 2012
1.Tampa: Florida Resident Charged with Plotting to Bomb Locations in Tampa
A 25-year-old resident of Pinellas Park, Florida was charged in connection with an alleged plot to attack locations in Tampa with a vehicle bomb, assault rifle, and other explosives.
2.Baltimore: Former Army Solider Charged with Attempting to Provide Material Support to al Shabaab
A man who secretly converted to Islam days before he separated from the Army was charged with attempting to provide material support to al Shabaab, a foreign terrorist organization, and was arrested upon his return to Maryland after traveling to Africa.
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending December 9, 2011
Seattle: Man Pleads Guilty in Plot to Attack Military Processing Center
A former Los Angeles man pled guilty in connection with the June 2011 plot to attack a military installation in Seattle.
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending December 2, 2011
San Diego: Woman Guilty of Conspiring to Provide Material Support to al Shabaab
Nima Yusuf, 25, a resident of San Diego, pled guilty to conspiring to provide material support to al Shabaab, a foreign terrorist organization.
More here.
The world won't be running short of terrorists any time soon.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
So in short you see no harm whatsoever in warning terrorists to avoid means of communication that leave them vulnerable and help to protect the rest of us? Is there any limit to that indifference? Is there any consequence that might make you think that view was a bad idea?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
It seems clear that they're doing it to us non-Americans even more. While that might be no immediate problem to US representatives who only have their own electorates to worry about, the damage to the US reputation abroad has already started.
Already started? The US's reputation in the rest of the world has been taking considerable damage for years now. This recent stuff has certainly been doing a lot more damage, but their reputation being damaged isn't exactly a new development.
Horse shit. The US reputation has been considerably restored. What's taking damage is the fact that the entire G20 is spying on its citizenries because you a-hole terrorist factions, no matter where you are and your asinine religious zealotry abounds like to blow shit up and take innocent people with you as if that some how is going to stop any G20 nation from taking the one commodity you possess: Oil. I personally can't wait for Green Tech to take over. We can all move onward without having to spend trillions on fuel from people who can't stand us as much as we can't stand them. Perhaps then people can honestly come to peace accords and start to learn from one another, instead of wasting the patience of nations just to toot around town wherever they live.