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Panel Urges Major NSA Spying Overhaul
wiredmikey writes "A board set up to review the NSA's vast surveillance programs has called for a wide-ranging overhaul of National Security Agency practices while preserving 'robust' intelligence capabilities. The panel, set up by President Obama, issued 46 recommendations, including reforms at a secret national security court and an end to retention of telephone 'metadata' by the spy agency. The 308-page report (PDF) submitted last week to the White House and released publicly Wednesday says the US government needs to balance the interests of national security and intelligence gathering with privacy and 'protecting democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law.' Panel members said the recommendations would not necessarily mean a rolling back of intelligence gathering, including on foreign leaders, but that surveillance must be guided by standards and by high-level policymakers."
Thank you Edward Snowden. Without your courage and patriotism we would not even have this level of change in effect.
They only make recommendations, nobody has to implement them.
Police chiefs do this all the time for police corruption. Look I'm putting a panel together to look into these problems and make recommendations. See! I'm doing something about it! Oh, the Union/Mayor/DA/etc wont agree, sad panda, I tried, vote for me again....
Playing the public like fools.
SSDD
I notice it says the goal is to "protect democracy*", but doesn't seem to mention the Bill of Rights or, specifically, the 4th amendment.
Telling, although not surprising.
* - It's possibly worth noting here that the United States is a republic, not a democracy.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Let them revamp NSA. It won't make a difference. What they will do is spill off some new top secret division that only top brass knows about. This won't change a thing.
The report is slashdotted, at the moment, but I would be willing to bet this is pretty much a white-wash, with no meaningful
changes, by insiders giving up stuff they don't need, or which no one could prove they have anyway, while protecting
everything they really want to keep, and largely ending up with the status quo.
I have no faith in an internal review in general and certainly not from this administration (the self proclaimed most transparent administration in history).
Regardless of what they say, you know this won't change till someone goes to jail. We need Judges impeached for violating their oath of office, we need career NSA brass fired 5 levels deep, we need bulldozers and wrecking balls to converge on Bluffdale Utah. We need every single request for corporations to turn over records to have a warrant issued by a non-secret court and the company empowered to notify each affected individual no later than 6 months after the request. If you can't build a case for arrest in 6 months its probably becaus they haven't done anything wrong.
This report deserves an immediate trip to the waste basket, and a "Warren Committee" empowered in its place.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
> privacy and 'protecting democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law.'
LOL. As if they give a damn about any of those things!
Obama has set the dogs on Snowden (forcing down Evo Morales's plane like a Bond villain to try and catch him), but Obama has also violated the US Constitution itself. How much more serious can you get?
On the campaign trail Obama referred to himself as "a constitutional law professor" so he can't claim ignorance. Yet there is no penalty for him violating it; After years of accumulated abuse it'll eventually weave it's way to the US Supreme Court who will say "So don't do that then." What sort of a deterrent is that?
So what does happens when you give a left-leaning spokesmodel unfettered power and no accountability? SCOTUS J Brandeis on Absolute Power: "The objections to despotism and monopoly are fundamental in human nature. They rest upon the innate and ineradicable selfishness of man. They rest upon the fact that absolute power inevitably leads to abuse."
When the US founding fathers wrote the Constitution they wisely recognised the dangers of a despotic government, having just fought a war with one. The problem the US faces today is that despots ignore the law, and face no penalty for doing so.
Snowden has offered to help Brazil investigate US intelligence. Is that the patriotism you were referring to?
Why, yes, Yes it is.
Any spying on Brazil was for economic reasons, probably at the behest of corporations, not due to any threat to the US.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Fox news? You mean the same people who complain about too much government involvement until it's their kind of government involvement?
Also, we also have to thank Glenn Greenwald and we have to not-thank the US press for failing to be trustworthy enough to be government watchdogs.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
The fact that a board was even set up to review the NSA's surveillance programs is change that would not have occurred without Snowden making a stand.
The patriotism I'm talking about is something obviously over your head. It involves sacrifice to uphold what is right, no matter who you might piss off in the process.
Recommendations 37 thru 46 all seem to be designed to prevent another Snowden
Recommendation 37
We recommend that the US Government should move toward a
system in which background investigations relating to the vetting of
personnel for security clearance are performed solely by US Government
employees or by a non-profit, private sector corporation.
Recommendation 38
We recommend that the vetting of personnel for access to classified
information should be ongoing, rather than periodic. A standard of
Personnel Continuous Monitoring should be adopted, incorporating data
from Insider Threat programs and from commercially available sources,
to note such things as changes in credit ratings or any arrests or court
proceedings.
Recommendation 39
We recommend that security clearances should be more highly
differentiated, including the creation of “administrative access”
clearances that allow for support and information technology personnel
to have the access they need without granting them unnecessary access to
substantive policy or intelligence material.
Recommendation 40
We recommend that the US Government should institute a
demonstration project in which personnel with security clearances
would be given an Access Score, based upon the sensitivity of the
information to which they have access and the number and sensitivity of
Special Access Programs and Compartmented Material clearances they
have. Such an Access Score should be periodically updated.
Recommendation 41
We recommend that the “need-to-share” or “need-to-know” models
should be replaced with a Work-Related Access model, which would
ensure that all personnel whose role requires access to specific
information have such access, without making the data more generally
available to cleared personnel who are merely interested.
Recommendation 42
We recommend that the Government networks carrying Secret and
higher classification information should use the best available cyber
security hardware, software, and procedural protections against both
external and internal threats. The National Security Advisor and the
Director of the Office of Management and Budget should annually
report to the President on the implementation of this standard. All
networks carrying classified data, including those in contractor
corporations, should be subject to a Network Continuous Monitoring
Program, similar to the EINSTEIN 3 and TUTELAGE programs, to record
network traffic for real time and subsequent review to detect anomalous
activity, malicious actions, and data breaches.
Recommendation 43
We recommend that the President’s prior directions to improve the
security of classified networks, Executive Order 13587, should be fully
implemented as soon as possible.
Recommendation 44
We recommend that the National Security Council Principals
Committee should annually meet to review the state of security of US
Government networks carrying classified information, programs to
improve such security, and evolving threats to such networks. An
interagency “Red Team” should report annually to the Principals with an
independent, “second opinion” on the state of security of the classified
information networks.
Recommendation 45
We recommend that all US agencies and departments with
classified information should expand their use of software, hardware,
and procedures that limit access to documents and data to those
specifically authorized to have access to them. The US Government
should fund the development of, procure, and widely use on classified
networks improved Information Rights Management software to control
the dissemination of classified data in a way that provides greater
restrictions on access and use, as well as an audit trail of such use.
Recommendation 46
We recommend the use of cost-benefit analysis and riskmanagement
approaches, both prospective and retrospective, to orient
judgments about personnel security and network security measures.
It does f-all to the NSA spying outside the USA, which includes me. So I will continue to do my damndest to make things difficult for them. There is no law that commands a foreigner to submit to foreign gubmint spying.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Yup, and as a consequence, Boeing just lost a 5 billion Dollar Brazillian aircraft order to the Swede SAAB.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Yup, and as a consequence, Boeing just lost a 5 billion Dollar Brazillian aircraft order to the Swede SAAB.
Well, if the US government is spying on behalf of US companies, those companies cannot be trusted.
It's violation of the free market forces and clearly illegal. Their bids are obviously invalid.
The rest of the world owns Snowden a big thanks for exposing organized crime at this level.
And people in the US shouldn't worry about the money (from state-sponsored organized crime), but be ashamed of their country for the crimes you are committing against other (smaller) countries that considered the US to be their ally.
Be glad that Snowden exposed this, you have a chance to fix it now... otherwise what's next state-sponsored bribery, theft, sabotage of competitors, why not just invade a foreign country take all their gold? Laws must also apply when dealing with foreign citizens, countries and cooperations...
LOL Brazil can buy whatever it feels it can afford on the international market. The upfront price and ongoing software, hardware maintenance costs are about all Brazil has to worry about. :)
The Brazilian nuclear work and advanced aerospace efforts are well known and very well understood by the USA - no nuclear weapons system but the US "let" Brazil keep working on nuclear subs and aerospace
As for links with China, Russia most countries will buy up any mil systems for sale gov to gov at any good price and with ongoing tech support, upgrades.
So no reason at all to be interested there, Brazil like any nation can buy into what ever it feels like unless bound by some international treaty e.g. nuclear.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The GP never said anything about ratings or popularity, he made a observation about changing their stance, on the border of hypocricy.
As for popularity, billions of flies eat shit. Does that mean that you start thinking eating shit is good for you too?
This organization has proven that they have no regard at all for the law. One of the fuckers actually told a reporter a few days ago that he thinks the first amendment should be "revised" to make the NSA's job easier.
NSA apparatchiki have committed billions of felonies, and continue to do so as we speak. The only remedy that will make them stop is to disband them altogether.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
So the stupid outnumber the smart?
Paranoid much? You buy stuff from China, Brazil buys stuff from China, everybody buys stuff from China. They're cheap, what do you expect? Ditto Russia.
In addition the US has proven they're less trustworthy than was thought in the past. That changes the value equation and people are looking for alternatives.
There is no change, those are only recommendations
The panel is a dog and pony show.
It's a circus-like entity to fool us into believing that "CHANGE IS COMING" while actually there will be NO CHANGE.
They understand that the people are VERY UNHAPPY about what NSA has done to us.
They understand that they can't go on doing the same old things the same old ways - but they also know that they have to CONTINUE TO DO THE SAME OLD THING, that is why they put up this fucking dog-and-pony panel publicly stating their so-called "82 recommendations" and hope that by doing so people will be "satisfied" and will not pay so much attention to what they do anymore.
I can bet every last penny that I have that at the end of it the SAME OLD THING WILL STILL BE DON and the only difference is that THEY WILL DO THE SAME OLD THING IN A NEW METHOD.
Or to put it another way --- even after Obama approved all the 82-recommendations (even if it's 820,000 recommendations) the end result will be SAME WINE IN DIFFERENT BOTTLES.
The only effective thing that we need right now is to CHANGE THE SYSTEM.
Anything short of that --- ie., keeping the same old system --- will not work, because it's be manned (and womenned) by the same batch of fuckers, and they will be continuing what they do.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
"surveillance must be guided by standards and by high-level policymakers"
So, if I'm reading this summary correctly, the only real problem is that our chickenshit congress never tripped over its own feet in a rush to hand the executive branch these exact powers in some most-assuredly extra-patriotic piece of legislation? All the issues with this law will go away if it gets a stamp of approval?
On a second note, why is it that nobody seems to mind (or make laws against) treating the inhabitants of other countries to police-state surveillance, including the heads of sovereign states?
Then next time try to compete on the grounds of merit, not by spying of your customers and competitors. Spend more money in research and less in espionage. Isn't that what "capitalism" is all about?
Brazil is a sovereign country and they can cooperate with whoever the fuck they want. Wake up and smell the coffee. South America is no longer the United States' backyard.
I count that as a weird modification of Godwin's Law.
Maybe, but can I just make a point about Godwin's Law? If the moment somebody mentions Nazis, the STASI, Pol Pot or any other extremist regime and is immediately "Godwinned", how are we to learn anything from these terrible historical precedents? If the actions of a supposedly democratic government really can be compared to Nazism, etc, then "Godwin's" is just a way to shut down debate about that. Just how badly does somebody need to act before the comparisons are apt? How will we know?
Personally, I think with the recent revelations about the NSA et. al., I think it's high time that Godwin's Law was at least reconsidered, if not outright repealed.
Maybe that's because those other 2 suck so much. As an European that has been in the US on business several times, I find Fox News pretty amusing. I used to watch it for the laughs.
It's amazing (and scary) that so many people in the US take that sludge seriously. If you don't start doing anything about it, you're heading straight back into the Middle Ages.
Only crooks can become the POTUS.
Not entirely true. There was Jimmy Carter.
Unfortunately, it appears that crooks make better presidents, though.
Why such a weird analogy? Why not just used Bradley Manning? He's in jail for 35 years..
All governments are spying on all other governments, especially when it comes to what they consider are their vital economic interests. No doubt Brazil has a spy agency spying on US corporations too (shock!). Germany is spying on Britain. Britain is spying on France. France is spying on the US. The US is spying on Brazil. Brazil are spying on Chile. Chile is spying on Argentina. Argentina is spying on China. China is spying on absolutely everyone. Indeed, China has a MASSIVE on-going espionage operation, across corporate, governmental and military interests.
What shocks me more than spying is the fact that so many people on slashdot seem to have only become aware of it when Snowden leaked. I'm guessing you were either asleep during the Cold War or not yet born. Either that or wilfully ignorant, or just plain stupid. I suspect the latter, because frankly the naivete you and others show here is simply breathtaking.
I vote we skip directly to Chapter 7 of the United States Moral Bankruptcy Code.
The backbone tapping mechanisms that make large scale surveillance on Americans must be completely disclosed and dismantled. An egregious capital crime has been committed by NSA for which no clemency or 're-structuring' is possible.
If a new spy agency is built, it must be from pieces of the smoking wreckage of NSA.
If we can execute the Rosenbergs we can try and execute the NSA, which has done more to put us in harm's way than the Soviet's possession (and ultimate non-use) of nuclear weapons.
Building turn-key mechanisms for a Police State is a capital crime. It provides aid and comfort to our enemies. All of them at once.
Full dissolution, full dismantling of taps, dark fiber and facilities.
That is how the Balance is kept.
Our move.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Yup, and as a consequence, Boeing just lost a 5 billion Dollar Brazillian aircraft order to the Swede SAAB.
That damned NSA, always costing Western Europe, costing the French business! Was it spying? Or just a business decision to go with the LOW BIDDER?
UPDATE 3-Saab wins Brazil jet deal after NSA spying sours Boeing bid
Dassault, for its part, said it regrets Brazil's decision and called Saab's fighter an aircraft that was inferior to its Rafale jet.
"The Gripen is a lighter, single engine aircraft that does not match the Rafale in terms of performance and therefore does not carry the same price tag," it said.
Saab says the Gripen NG has the lowest logistical and operational costs of all fighters currently in service.
France soothes nerves over Dassault jets after Brazil setback
Dassault Aviation shares fall after Brazil snubs rafale jet
The simple fact is that Saab has a very competitive fighter that has won contracts in a number of countries, both in and out of Europe in the last few years, long before the NSA controversy. I think it is quite likely that they won completely on the merits but this is just a "twist of the knife" at an opportune time, but it has little reality. If you want to claim that it was really about the NSA instead of Saab being the low bidder with its fabulous Grippen, then you need to explain how Dassault lost too. Or is it French spying to blame? Why haven't we heard about that?
Brazil is continuing to do business with Russia aren't they? If you think that Brazil isn't crawling with Russian spies that are at least as aggressive as any the US has you are crazy. The Brazilians thought that the Russians warranted being spied up, just like they spied on the US.
Report: Brazil spied on property, personnel from US, Russian, Iranian embassies
The Brazilian government confirmed Monday that its intelligence service targeted U.S., Russian, Iranian and Iraqi diplomats and property during spy activities carried out about a decade ago in the capital Brasilia.
Swedish industry has many fine products. They won contracts before the NSA scandal, they will continue to win them after the scandal. The only difference is now various people will engage in demagoguery proclaiming that every win by Sweden over the US, even if the rest of Europe competed and lost, will be because of NSA. "See! See! NSA!"
Thank goodness this isn't a food blog. Every order for Swedish lingonberries, meatballs, or aquavit would be proclaimed a victory over NSA.
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
LOL Brazil can buy whatever it feels it can afford on the international market. The upfront price and ongoing software, hardware maintenance costs are about all Brazil has to worry about.
Arms sales are rarely about "whatever it feels it can afford" and almost always about fostering political relationships.
Money is never a problem with arms sales, as the USA (or France) is happy to loan money (provide financing) for coutnries that want to spend billions on military technology.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
At least it will have Europe to break the fall.
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
He hasn't released all of it. That's the only thing keeping him alive.
Doubtful. The NSA knows what information he had access to and what he has released. They will have to take the same security measures either way because they have to assume the information will be released if it hasn't already. They also have to assume the information either is or will become public.
Then next time try to compete on the grounds of merit, not by spying of your customers and competitors. Spend more money in research and less in espionage. Isn't that what "capitalism" is all about?
Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of capital. Ownership means control, and capital means anything that can be used for production.
When government spends money, it takes public control of capital. Spending money on research, welfare, spying, bailouts, printing money and stimulus are anti-capitalist when done by governments. At this point in time, even China is more capitalist than the US (thus why they are growing and we are sinking)
You mistake "state" for "government" (that's a very usual fallacy, though).
I did not even mention the word "state"
You suggest that spying would be better if performed by privates (?!?)
No. I don't even disagree with the parent, spying is wrong either by government or private entities. However Capitalism is not about government spending money in research instead of spying as the GP implies. Capitalism is about the government not spending money at all. That was the point of my post.
China is more capitalist than the US? The Chinese State has total or partial ownership of every business in China. You just completely contradict your own initial point!
I would not say china is full fledge capitalist. And I agree the government still owns a lot of enterprises. However, in the past 20 years, China has been privitizing a lot of them, and have deregulated the economy to the point that it is easier to start a business in China than in the US. As a result, go to walmart, pick up any random item and see where it is made. The US turned its back on capitalism a long time ago, to the point that _even_ China is more capitalist than the US.
Everyone's doing it, so it's OK? No. No no no.
People have been aware of it for a long time. We all knew. Snowden's actions forced others to act, and that is a good thing.
Maybe you should insult people less and listen more.... If we're naive in wanting our government to behave, what are you for seeming to make excuses for their behavior?