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."

Comments

Privacy concerns now outweigh terrorism in polls

[bonch]

The NSA scandal has been so earth-shattering with regards to raising awareness of government surveillance that concerns over civil liberties now outweigh concerns over protecting the country. The shift is across party lines as well. It's no wonder politicians of either party have been decrying a rising trend of libertarianism. Whether or not it's accurate to classify today's anti-government fears as such, the fact that the U.S. has become the kind of country to seek asylum from is staggeringly insane. The "trust us" defense isn't good enough.

Not much of a defense

[MrEricSir]

Alexander's defense seems to amount to "See? We stopped terrorist plots using these programs!"

That's not really much of a defense, since it doesn't claim that these programs are the ONLY way to stop the terrorist plots in question. At least FTA, it seems he did not make any attempt to argue that a less invasive program would have been unsuccessful.

Re:Not much of a defense

[MightyMartian]

I don't think anyone but the crazy wingnuts think that governments should be deprived of intelligence. The issue here isn't really that the NSA has these vast powers. After all, we've known this was likely long before 9-11, and historians have even pointed out that the Lincoln Administration had moved to gather information from all telegraph transmissions, so this has been around for a helluva lot longer than the Internet.

The issue is accountability. If you're going to do this level of data gathering, then the citizens have the right to know. Not only do they have the right to know it's going on, but they have the right to expect a reasonable level of accountability.

What has happened here is a vast program that was largely secret, where even Congress was fed marginal information, and which is overseen by a judicial entity (FISA court) that almost never says "No". There has been no accountability. The Executive has simply taken an insanely liberal reading of the Patriot Act and FISA and ran with it, and Congress hasn't even cared enough to bother asking any real questions until Edward Snowden had the balls to hand a British newspaper some internal documents detailing the level and capacity of surveillance.

Re:Not much of a defense

[amicusNYCL]

If you read the article it states that General Alexander addressed the legal basis.

I did read the article, thanks.

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.

Maybe that's true, for some people. For me, I don't ignore the legal basis. I question it. I question the rubber-stamp court which claims that these are legal, and I question the decisions that court makes and the fact that their decisions, the legal basis for these programs, are classified. I hear the claims that there is a legal basis for these programs that somehow does not violate the 4th amendment, and I read the 4th amendment, and I reject the claim that these programs are legal. I welcome a public discourse with the classified courts on the legal basis for these programs. In fact, I would like this case to go to the Supreme Court, in public, with the full arguments on both sides out in the open for everyone to see and judge for themselves. I want to see the legal basis that they claim exists, and I want the public to judge the merits of it. I also want the public to judge the character and qualifications of the people who authorized these programs in the first place, starting with the Patriot Act.

For upon Secrecy, success depends in most Enterprises of the kind, & for want of it, they are generally defeated, however, well planned....

Obviously secrecy is necessary in intelligence-gathering operations. Secrecy has no place, however, in the legal basis and authorization for those operations. I will counter your quote from George Washington with a quote from Benjamin Franklin, which you can find in my signature line. If you want to talk about ignoring wisdom at one's peril, let's start with the idea of trading liberty for security.

For some mind numbingly stupid reason people keep wanting to reveal US intelligence operations to all, citizen or noncitizen alike.

Allow me to reveal the mind-numbingly stupid reason: people don't feel that their government has the right to blanket surveillance of everything they do with their communications when there is no indication that the person is a criminal. If the government is authorizing blanket surveillance of its entire population, warrantless or otherwise, and they say this somehow does not violate the fourth amendment, then it sounds like the government assumes that its entire population is composed of criminals.

Re:Not much of a defense

[amicusNYCL]

Still, I keep seeing people writing comments as if there is a lengthy file on them, or there could be at a moment's notice. I call bullshit on that for most people. Yes, they could look at Facebook and get information on you. So can I.

Can you get my Facebook chat logs, private messages, all of my HTTP traffic, web searches, files I upload or email, VPN traffic, VOIP traffic, Google Earth traffic, my usernames, buddy lists, etc? Because the NSA can, and does. Their training materials show how to query that data. Can you find an encrypted VPN, decrypt the traffic, and determine who is using the VPN? The NSA can. Can you get a list of all IP addresses that visit a website? The NSA can.

I think it is fair to ask, "are they actually using it in the way that we fear", as opposed to simply assuming the worst.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It doesn't matter how they are using it, it matters what they are collecting. It is a violation of my rights, plain and simple, for the government to intercept and store all of my electronic communications when I am not even suspected of committing a crime. That is a violation, how they use that data is not relevant to the question of whether or not it is a violation. You might be willing to hand over your rights whenever the government scares you, but I'm not. You can probably use a little wisdom from Benjamin Franklin also, see my signature line.

Dude's got brass ones

[Robert Goatse]

Agree or disagree with what the NSA is doing, Alexander has some set of cojones to speak in front of an unfriendly mob. Hell hath no fury like a room of sweaty nerds!

Re:Privacy concerns now outweigh terrorism in poll

[MightyMartian]

And yet they still want to hang Snowden from the highest tree they can find.

What's really happened is that Congress, which has spent the last decade after the Patriot Act was passed jacking off and doing piss all to keep the Executive in check, is now suddenly been embarrassed by the revelations, and wants to look all huffy-and-puffy. But make no mistake, they want Snowden disemboweled just as much as the Administration, if for no other reason than having the audacity to interrupt that partisan circle jerk with some meaningful and critical to the national interest.

Re:Privacy concerns now outweigh terrorism in poll

[flaming error]

> The "trust us" defense isn't good enough
It's not, because we are unsatisfied.

But it is enough, because what do they even need a defense for? What threat must they defend themselves from?

Congress? If Congress does anything, it will expand NSA powers, not reduce them.

SCOTUS? Somebody has to sue the gov first and prove harm. But it's all secret, so nobody can do that. If anyone managed to get proof, they'd end up in a jail cell with Bradley Manning.

Re:Privacy concerns now outweigh terrorism in poll

[HermMunster]

The man lied to Congress and is participating in illegal unconstitutional mass surveillance and seizure of every American's private data, all for the very limited success of saving less lives than that lost by slipping in the tub during a bath/shower. He's a criminal. He's abused the people's trust and has flat out lied to every American as well as those American's that sit in Congress. He needs to be in jail for a very long time along with all his compatriots.

You can't debate the goodness of violating the Constitution. We can't have our government (and the associated military) making decisions of what part, and when, to uphold the Constitution. No, the Executive Branch is not responsible for determining what should or should not be upheld nor are they even responsible for defending the American people. The President's primary duty is to defend and uphold the Constitution.

Re:Privacy concerns now outweigh terrorism in poll

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The man lied to Congress and is participating in illegal unconstitutional mass surveillance and seizure of every American's private data

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. I imagine it will only get worse as people start to realise how much control and monitoring of the Internet and the wider technology industry one country has been allowed to have for so long. The catalyst for this might have been Snowden, and the fall guy might be the NSA, but no organisation could have achieved all of this alone.

The persistent trivialisation of the US spying abroad, even in public statements by very senior officials, is not going to do any favours for allied governments who are found to have been complicit in the whole deal or whose own questionable monitoring practices come to light, either. Angela Merkel could be in a lot of trouble, with Germany for obvious reasons being culturally more sensitive about this sort of thing than most. I'm a little surprised there hasn't been a more overt backlash against it here in the UK, particularly given the key role of The Guardian in recent disclosures, but I wonder how much of this is just the chilling effect at work and/or the media here taking a bit longer to realise that the tides of public opinion are shifting and playing their collective cards close to their chests after some rough arguments with government in recent years.

Ultimately the US government can defend that mass surveillance of foreign citizens as if it's somehow defending its people. Maybe in a few cases that is even true; after all, there obviously are some actually bad people in the world, and security services were formed for a reason, so it's important to keep a level head and not to lose context and perspective when debating these issues. However, I think we can all imagine what the same US officials would be calling it if the tables were turned, though I suppose they might flip between "cyber-terrorism" and "act of war" depending on the strength of the other party.

Re:Privacy concerns now outweigh terrorism in poll

[stoploss]

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?

Precisely. Who watches the watchers? Life is inherently risky, and freedom requires risk.

The insane part is that we have built this surveillance state in response to the deaths of 0.001% of our population. I would far rather run the risk of me and my family being killed by terrorist action than to have our country destroyed by our own twisted government (as they seem hell-bent upon accomplishing in the shortest possible time).

Let PRISM proceed to log this for future reference / character assassination purposes.

Re:Privacy concerns now outweigh terrorism in poll

[0111 1110]

Stop being such a frightened coward. Be a man and accept that there are risks in life. You simply cannot stop suicide bombers. Most of them don't have a Facebook page for your friends to monitor. They may not have an internet connection at all and certainly don't have a smartphone.

Some of us value liberty, value not being watched by law enforcement agents every second of our lives to see if we might be breaking some law or might secretly be planning to blow up the white house. Do you have no understanding of the sort of freedom this country was founded on?

Re:Privacy concerns now outweigh terrorism in poll

[MightyMartian]

Life is full of risks. I suspect more lives could be saved by increasing highway patrols or passing laws requiring rubber tread on bathtubs or increasing funding for CPR training than will be saved by spying on who I talk to on Skype.

Let me turn your question on its head. Is there are any level of surveillance you would be unable to tolerate in the quest for safety?

USA cloud providers

[dutchwhizzman]

USA cloud providers are going to feel the hurt of this for a long time in the future. Even if they promise to keep your data outside of the USA, they'll still not be trusted, since there is no way to be certain data isn't handed over anyway.