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Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs In China and Germany
Advocatus Diaboli writes with this snippet from The Intercept: The National Security Agency has had agents in China, Germany, and South Korea working on programs that use "physical subversion" to infiltrate and compromise networks and devices, according to documents obtained by The Intercept. The documents, leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, also indicate that the agency has used under cover operatives to gain access to sensitive data and systems in the global communications industry, and that these secret agents may have even dealt with American firms. The documents describe a range of clandestine field activities that are among the agency's "core secrets" when it comes to computer network attacks, details of which are apparently shared with only a small number of officials outside the NSA.
My first instinct was to reply to you with a dismissive expletive - thus having shown in my reply as much critical thought as you did in your post.
But I realized that I too once came from the Stephan Decatur school, and should be gentle with a previous self. You see, as one grows older and the rose colored glasses begin to loose their tint, one realizes that one may be patriotic AND critical simultaneously. Couple that with the growing realization that the country which we love has almost certainly committed crimes against her own people, and it becomes a moral imperative for her citizens to wake from their stupor and attempt to regain the power over government and basic human freedoms so eloquently elucidated in our Constitution.
Did Snowden break the law? Certainly. Was the law Constitutional? Not if the Executive Orders were being used to shield malfeasance (and despite Tricky Dick's assert actions, simply because a President does it does not MAKE it legal). Should you, as a responsible citizen you loves his country stop to think on his own for once instead of making a knee jerk assessment? For the sake of the Republic, I hope so,
What is the point of US citizenship if there is no difference in treatment? If US citizenship is nearly unique in that there is a tax liability for income earned anywhere in the universe based on that nexus of citizenship, it BETTER be worth something like immunity from NSA spying.
Am I the only one that is still wondering why these "snowden leaks" are still coming out in the way that they are? I mean, are we all going to be sitting around 30 years from now, still hearing about these leaks?
The year is 2045: Snowden leaks - The NSA has been watching all of you guys' teleport activity since the early 1980's! They used physical hardware hacks that you could have never known about... and they're doing it to foreign countries too!
Seriously, it all seems like the information that we're getting is being spooled in a prefabricated way, as to serve the fear propaganda more so than it should. I'm just waiting for the "NSA actually created the universe" leak.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
SIGINT is the NSA's bailiwick and nothing in the mission statement of the NSA precludes using physical intrusion to obtain it.
What's more NSA is part of the DoD, and the DoD has been conducting physical intrusion to obtain SIGINT for years. In the Cold War American subs tapped undersea cables believed by the Soviets to be impervious. That was a joint NSA, Navy, CIA program, which makes sense.
It also makes sense that physical intrusion to obtain SIGINT would be a joint NSA/CIA operation, which means that someone with access to the NSA family jewels can also compromise CIA "assets" overseas.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.