Your selling kit and service to the US gov that makes savings on real world investigations. In the past real US gov agents, cleared and extremely skilled would go out into the USA and track down the entire life story of staff to be cleared. Every family member of interest, school, sealed physical state/court document, friends, lovers, mailing lists, holidays...up and down the family tree.. until all had been found and fully understood.
This ensured most US staff where of a cleared nature and could be trusted with the nations secret work with ongoing tracking.
A lot of private groups, their political friends and others saw a huge amount of cash in doing the same work. They now have the same US gov work load but its more via a sit down 'test' and digital database search. Your cleared new boss trusts you too. So your internet log is looked over, your digital reading habits and then you get the test with the machine. How you wait, sit, read, present, the post and after test 'questions' 'chat' , called back for more testing sounds: its all so sciencey. Ideological and faith based traitors fool the digital system just fine. Skilled staff have that one bad day and are lost.
The problem with CALEA is:
Its not a closed US telco only US police only software like connection. Its just telco software, layers, codes, settings that any country, contractor, group servicing the US telco network might see anytime that its requested.
Sounds good on paper, legally smart: weak codes, junk encryption sold to the "consumer" - but many others are getting the same insights into ongoing US law enforcement operations that it becomes a very open secret in real time.
The US has traded quicker and far less expensive for the security that the classic "climb a pole or enter a junction box to manually tap the line" always offered.
i.e. a lot of extra eyes are seeing the numbers of interest the second they are requested. Some in the USA, some very distant.
The US and UK at a mil and police level knew what happens. You had crime tracking fail as the criminal community had total insight into their countries larger telephone networks and the domestic computing power to track all calls.
You had different NATO groups, NSA and factions in the cell networks of different NATO countries over the years via junk software.
If the contractors, police and mil can get in, so can anyone with the cash, press contacts or any other gov backing.
Once telco codes and methods are shared, passing via many mil, police, govs, 'trusted' contractors its just codes for sale.
For years the GCHQ and NSA where happy to let UK political leaders chat away. Where was the skilled UK tech insight into been secure from Russia, the press, other motivated foreigners or groups? The same understanding of the secure UK telco networks could be seen and sold by any US/NATO contractor.
Only now does the UK gov understand what 'their' junk Enigma like cell network encryption can really be used for. The UK security staff willing, knowingly and over generations offered their countries political leadership junk encryption and told them its 'safe' to use it.
Now the reality of having some of your skilled UK tech more in touch with the NSA, NATO and other groups in the USA sets in. Who are your trusted security staff really working for and who are they promoting internally over the years? Two spy bosses? One in the US? One for contractors in the US? One in the UK? Would they do a modern MI5 and work for Russia too? China? Cash from the press? Cash from just about anyone or group? Some other faith?
All that UK policy about political issues, commercial deals, crime, oil, gas, weapons sales is not ending up in a safe in the Soviet Union - its been used in near real time thanks to sloppy UK staff.
Mercenaries, contractors, banks, arms sales, drug dealers, support companies, regional areas with contracts/zero bid weapons manufacturing, political types showing their leadership skills.
Then you have all the new cleared gov staff, their pay, rank and social status. The understanding of putting gov years in and getting a that mercenaries, contractors "taxpayer" wage soon.
This ongoing war on a tactic is a big win for many. The other question is the cost of the junk encryption and reality of rushed bulk clearances.
A good interview to ~spy "masters have won the game" http://cryptome.org/2013/11/cryptome-la-repubblica.htm
People are now aware of junk encryption, the gov standards groups that set it, the academics that taught it, the developers that promoted it, the brands that sold/rented it.
The trust in the US/UK is gone. Enjoy the products for fun. Staff will be looking to new domestic solutions where real quality is needed.
The sock puppets can no longer have equal standing with 'no surveillance", surveillance is not legal, domestic surveillance is never done, the stock market would correct surveillance, lawyers would notice surveillance, the press would write about surveillance, political leaders would expose surveillance by the other parties, surveillance hardware would never work at that scale...over generations..
So we have won against the sock puppets, the rest is with good people in many different govs to work out if they like junk encryption and their local staff that maintains it.
The big problem for the European spy agencies is who is working for the US/UK on projects, who is working for the US/UK and who is beholden to the US/UK or Russia, China... or just likes cash.
What can the limited national counter surveillance teams do?
Thats Ok, they are working with the US - who in the US?
Thats Ok, they are working with the UK - - who in the UK?
Thats Ok, they are working with the UK/US and like taking work home...
Thats Ok, they are working with the UK and US and like taking work home and have debts, habits...
Thats Ok, they are working with our political encryption, the US and UK have cleared them.....
The internal struggle will be between the "we are fine" generational supporters of NATO and the UK/USA vs the more smarter people in domestic counter surveillance.
Staff willing serving two or more countries might just add to their sharing at any time for any reason.
Cold during EU history the "spy agencies"/police have often willingly worked for Germany (WW2) the US/UK or Soviet Union (post WW2) against their own citizens and gov over generations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_of_tension
So ordinary citizens most in the EU have a very good understanding of where their mil, gov, telco, contractors and academics loyalties can historically take them.
Junk encryption sets in, if your helping the US or UK or Russians - who else would your nations top cleared staff sell out to?
What price or 'gifts'?
The EU understands the boondoggle US mil spending, contractors cleared fast and without much background work. The same conflicted staff is now deep in their own mil/telco networks. Happily putting their political leaders on junk encryption over many years for distant foreign powers:)
Well the German gov works well with the GCHQ and NSA keeping the NSA linked telco data splitters in good working order and provide insights into German political cell phone encryption updates.
Some other German contractors work to keep the German telco network secure and buy the best possible German encryption for the German leaderships phones.
If Germany wanted to fix their encryption and secure their own telco networks they would have to "question" their top military, civil servants and spies as to their real loyalties and then fully understand ongoing infrastructure upgrades.
Surveillance, exciting and new
Contractors Aboard. We're rewarding you.
Data, life's sweetest via a telephone cord.
Let it split, it tunnels back to you.
The Spy Boat soon will be making another splice
The Spy Boat promises to link every optical telco device
Set a course for legality,
Your mind on a new locality.
Domestic spying won't be illegal anymore
It's on open source offshore.
Yes Surveillance! It's Surveillance!
You need both computers infected. The air gap computer may never get on a network or infected usb again so you try and really keep your code in the computers safe.
The networked computer is easy. The non networked computer needs to be listening for new data/code and to send small amounts of data back out.
The amount of application data needed to sniff passwords, hide the passwords, get them ready to send, the sound sending software and hide from new AV detect might not leave much room for better spoof options.
Hope the user just blames a faulty consumer grade motherboard and reboots as normal vowing never to buy that brand again?
Also the skill set needed to spoof whatever the user sees might get too cute and give the creators origins away. You go from any very skilled global coder to *some* state sponsor. Better to keep the target guessing.
One computer is infected networked or was networked, the other is the infected ready target computer never on any network.
Sound becomes your update modem between two computers you control but one is no longer on any network.
This is a great way to get to the secure 'air gapped' computer that is used to usb drive a lot of data/software to a clean network computer.
You can infect and *update* the safe computer via the networked one. You can outpace any AV daily cleaning on both computers.
The burst of data would only need to be in the few megabytes. A very selective keylogger could send the few password strings back up from the non networked computer to the networked computer and a distant server.
Whats a few packets more when surfing on a 'clean' computer already infected?
Its not about the amount of data, its just enough passwords in plain text to make any encryption junk.
The hard part is getting both computers infected and set up. After that it would be just staying hidden and off and behaviour detecting AV products.
Not a great challenge on a few consumer OS brands. Some smart ethernet packet sniffing might show the control link or data upload if not careful crafted.
The problem is the weakened junk encryption. Thats really no fun and has to be fixed. Most in the academic, crypto and developer community where still giving the sock puppets the benefit before Snowden. Its a bit like 1946 commercial/gov use of ENIGMA - the extra rotor does nothing. The world was foolish for ~60 years vs few months of reality?
Yes the 'You can't get into the information circuits and play information warfare successfully unless you're into the communications of the higher commands in [the] various countries in our neighbourhood" is the fun story not the older sat or known Cold War mil communication or fancy drone flying networks.
This is the US in Australian domestic telco hardware and the software code.
You would just mirror the data like room http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A.
Australia is full of public, totally private, commercial and banking networks, splitters - who would notice another cleared contractor on site?
A lot of brands for local exchange backhaul but very little actual state wide or international.
The data could end up at any secure location for filtering and long term storage. Lots of different optical was rolled out over the years under many brands.
The tech is now so cheap national or state police can even have a go for some types of data within bulk internet traffic.
Well GIT it gets a bit complex.
Say your Australia and have sent a group of special forces soldiers on a drunken gap year "tour" of the world. Fit, bright, accents, real "fake" passports and they blend in perfectly. Australia did not tell any other nation about such missions.
30, 20, 10 years ago some Australian telco/crypto expert shares upgrade details with the NSA and GCHQ.
Australian military encryption is good but not really hardened in many places via unique networks.
That phone home safe house in suburbia is now not so safe.
So what happens when the GCHQ and NSA, contractors and their 'staff' some with other loyalties to distant faiths or nations stumble over this 'gem' in their region?
Thats why most nations really think about who gets to set their deep domestic networking hardware and software.
What's best for an entire country is simple - keep your codes, telco system safe. Once other nations and their "cleared" contractors know - thats getting to be a long list.
AC its not legal from an insider trending point of view. At lot of people are seeing luctrative deals in the making before they reach the press.
Exposing this is very relevant as where the NSA can get "in" so can Russia, China, other 'friendly' countries, wealthy multinationals, ex staff (lost job), former staff (private sector for hire), then down to telco 'staff' and finally crime groups with cash to buy skilled people.
All this hardware and software does not exist as some 'secure' base in the middle of Australia air gapped under a dome. The encryption is now out as a joke and installed Australia wide.
In the rush to help the USA, Australia has set some very low crypto telco standards.
Not really. Australia had its own views post ww2 after learning the fine art of radio and codes alone and at war. Some suggested going alone and protecting Australia in 1945. Senior Australian mil staff recalled the mess Australia was left before and during ww2 with poor weapons, poor equipment and no good intel or code breaking help.
Australia had the skill sets and staff after ww2. Canada was the same after ww2 and took years to really come around the requests of GCHQ and NSA to finally totally sell out.
Each nation understood the pact, the deal, the loss of any privacy vs a dreamy peace time "guarantor". They sold it to their countries and staff as an outward looking system to "defend" their nations but the individuals doing the negotiations at the time knew exactly what they had signed away.
Years later Snowden and may other whistleblower filling in the gaps with crypto history.
The US and UK where to get everything telco from Australia, NZ...Australia, NZ got most of the rest of the world back;)
You can read the classic sock puppets out on any NSA story on slashdot. I think they still try and post about "fear" and 'not' looking at global finance for insider trading in some desperate struggle for legitimacy.
With every Snowden news report they look more and more lost. The world now understands the reach and fascination the NSA has with all calls, faxes, emails, chats, logs, junk encryption. Now they also understand how their own govs staff and contractors subvert their own govs over generations.
What was sold as looking outward at the Soviet Union only was also always inward too. Everybody understands now and many crypto developers will be much smarter. US tech brands will be enjoyed but never trusted again.
The problem for Australia is the legality of 20 years of 'privacy' laws and gifting Australian only data to the USA.
Australia was great for Rhyolite satellite ground station back in 1970 and no encryption was added to save weight. Australia traded its location over generations for US hardware, staff and a constant flow of data. Australia is also on a network that was once Intelink-C so you have a lot of chatter world wide bringing staff/contractors generational closer to each other than to any elected Australian government.
We saw that with Germany where one branch of the gov 'gives' a German cleared encrypted phone while another German group works with the US gov to subvert all German encryption.
The "revelation" should be of a wake up call to old and new Australian political parties and their relationship with 'expert' gov security staff. Who's side are they really on long term?
How safe is that fast optical internet per politicians office?
Gone are the days of 'just for' watching Japan, China, the Middle East or Soviet Union. Australia always watched inwards and in the digital age everybody is in on the big privacy joke. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/12/telstra-deal-america-government-spying
Slashdot Mirror
Your selling kit and service to the US gov that makes savings on real world investigations. In the past real US gov agents, cleared and extremely skilled would go out into the USA and track down the entire life story of staff to be cleared.
Every family member of interest, school, sealed physical state/court document, friends, lovers, mailing lists, holidays...up and down the family tree.. until all had been found and fully understood.
This ensured most US staff where of a cleared nature and could be trusted with the nations secret work with ongoing tracking.
A lot of private groups, their political friends and others saw a huge amount of cash in doing the same work. They now have the same US gov work load but its more via a sit down 'test' and digital database search.
Your cleared new boss trusts you too. So your internet log is looked over, your digital reading habits and then you get the test with the machine. How you wait, sit, read, present, the post and after test 'questions' 'chat' , called back for more testing sounds: its all so sciencey.
Ideological and faith based traitors fool the digital system just fine. Skilled staff have that one bad day and are lost.
The problem with CALEA is:
Its not a closed US telco only US police only software like connection. Its just telco software, layers, codes, settings that any country, contractor, group servicing the US telco network might see anytime that its requested.
Sounds good on paper, legally smart: weak codes, junk encryption sold to the "consumer" - but many others are getting the same insights into ongoing US law enforcement operations that it becomes a very open secret in real time.
The US has traded quicker and far less expensive for the security that the classic "climb a pole or enter a junction box to manually tap the line" always offered.
i.e. a lot of extra eyes are seeing the numbers of interest the second they are requested. Some in the USA, some very distant.
The US and UK at a mil and police level knew what happens. You had crime tracking fail as the criminal community had total insight into their countries larger telephone networks and the domestic computing power to track all calls.
You had different NATO groups, NSA and factions in the cell networks of different NATO countries over the years via junk software.
If the contractors, police and mil can get in, so can anyone with the cash, press contacts or any other gov backing.
Once telco codes and methods are shared, passing via many mil, police, govs, 'trusted' contractors its just codes for sale.
For years the GCHQ and NSA where happy to let UK political leaders chat away. Where was the skilled UK tech insight into been secure from Russia, the press, other motivated foreigners or groups? The same understanding of the secure UK telco networks could be seen and sold by any US/NATO contractor.
Only now does the UK gov understand what 'their' junk Enigma like cell network encryption can really be used for. The UK security staff willing, knowingly and over generations offered their countries political leadership junk encryption and told them its 'safe' to use it.
Now the reality of having some of your skilled UK tech more in touch with the NSA, NATO and other groups in the USA sets in. Who are your trusted security staff really working for and who are they promoting internally over the years? Two spy bosses? One in the US? One for contractors in the US? One in the UK? Would they do a modern MI5 and work for Russia too? China? Cash from the press? Cash from just about anyone or group? Some other faith?
All that UK policy about political issues, commercial deals, crime, oil, gas, weapons sales is not ending up in a safe in the Soviet Union - its been used in near real time thanks to sloppy UK staff.
Mercenaries, contractors, banks, arms sales, drug dealers, support companies, regional areas with contracts/zero bid weapons manufacturing, political types showing their leadership skills.
Then you have all the new cleared gov staff, their pay, rank and social status. The understanding of putting gov years in and getting a that mercenaries, contractors "taxpayer" wage soon.
This ongoing war on a tactic is a big win for many. The other question is the cost of the junk encryption and reality of rushed bulk clearances.
A good interview to ~spy "masters have won the game" http://cryptome.org/2013/11/cryptome-la-repubblica.htm
People are now aware of junk encryption, the gov standards groups that set it, the academics that taught it, the developers that promoted it, the brands that sold/rented it.
The trust in the US/UK is gone. Enjoy the products for fun. Staff will be looking to new domestic solutions where real quality is needed.
The sock puppets can no longer have equal standing with 'no surveillance", surveillance is not legal, domestic surveillance is never done, the stock market would correct surveillance, lawyers would notice surveillance, the press would write about surveillance, political leaders would expose surveillance by the other parties, surveillance hardware would never work at that scale...over generations..
So we have won against the sock puppets, the rest is with good people in many different govs to work out if they like junk encryption and their local staff that maintains it.
The big problem for the European spy agencies is who is working for the US/UK on projects, who is working for the US/UK and who is beholden to the US/UK or Russia, China... or just likes cash.
What can the limited national counter surveillance teams do?
Thats Ok, they are working with the US - who in the US?
Thats Ok, they are working with the UK - - who in the UK?
Thats Ok, they are working with the UK/US and like taking work home...
Thats Ok, they are working with the UK and US and like taking work home and have debts, habits...
Thats Ok, they are working with our political encryption, the US and UK have cleared them.....
The internal struggle will be between the "we are fine" generational supporters of NATO and the UK/USA vs the more smarter people in domestic counter surveillance.
Staff willing serving two or more countries might just add to their sharing at any time for any reason.
Cold during EU history the "spy agencies"/police have often willingly worked for Germany (WW2) the US/UK or Soviet Union (post WW2) against their own citizens and gov over generations. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_of_tension
So ordinary citizens most in the EU have a very good understanding of where their mil, gov, telco, contractors and academics loyalties can historically take them.
Junk encryption sets in, if your helping the US or UK or Russians - who else would your nations top cleared staff sell out to?
What price or 'gifts'?
The EU understands the boondoggle US mil spending, contractors cleared fast and without much background work. The same conflicted staff is now deep in their own mil/telco networks. Happily putting their political leaders on junk encryption over many years for distant foreign powers
Cold we are seeing the boasting about successes getting smaller and smaller.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/2/nsa-chief-figures-foiled-terror-plots-misleading/
As for tactics every State run group of freedom fighters usually gets some support as in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_airlift
or http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10311007/Syria-nearly-half-rebel-fighters-are-jihadists-or-hardline-Islamists-says-IHS-Janes-report.html
Snowden's leaks are from material given to people entering the system as contractors, of great use to historians and for getting global crypto usable again
The "freedom' fighters seem o be doing just fine with their own gov supporters.
So cold the the public is hearing about junk encryption, the brands that help with little worry about legality and vast domestic surveillance nets.
Well the German gov works well with the GCHQ and NSA keeping the NSA linked telco data splitters in good working order and provide insights into German political cell phone encryption updates.
Some other German contractors work to keep the German telco network secure and buy the best possible German encryption for the German leaderships phones.
If Germany wanted to fix their encryption and secure their own telco networks they would have to "question" their top military, civil servants and spies as to their real loyalties and then fully understand ongoing infrastructure upgrades.
Surveillance, exciting and new
Contractors Aboard. We're rewarding you.
Data, life's sweetest via a telephone cord.
Let it split, it tunnels back to you.
The Spy Boat soon will be making another splice
The Spy Boat promises to link every optical telco device
Set a course for legality,
Your mind on a new locality.
Domestic spying won't be illegal anymore
It's on open source offshore.
Yes Surveillance! It's Surveillance!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambling_ship of the coastline to avoid "constitutional" interference.
You need both computers infected. The air gap computer may never get on a network or infected usb again so you try and really keep your code in the computers safe.
The networked computer is easy. The non networked computer needs to be listening for new data/code and to send small amounts of data back out.
The amount of application data needed to sniff passwords, hide the passwords, get them ready to send, the sound sending software and hide from new AV detect might not leave much room for better spoof options.
Hope the user just blames a faulty consumer grade motherboard and reboots as normal vowing never to buy that brand again?
Also the skill set needed to spoof whatever the user sees might get too cute and give the creators origins away. You go from any very skilled global coder to *some* state sponsor. Better to keep the target guessing.
One computer is infected networked or was networked, the other is the infected ready target computer never on any network.
Sound becomes your update modem between two computers you control but one is no longer on any network.
This is a great way to get to the secure 'air gapped' computer that is used to usb drive a lot of data/software to a clean network computer.
You can infect and *update* the safe computer via the networked one. You can outpace any AV daily cleaning on both computers.
The burst of data would only need to be in the few megabytes. A very selective keylogger could send the few password strings back up from the non networked computer to the networked computer and a distant server.
Whats a few packets more when surfing on a 'clean' computer already infected?
Its not about the amount of data, its just enough passwords in plain text to make any encryption junk.
The hard part is getting both computers infected and set up. After that it would be just staying hidden and off and behaviour detecting AV products.
Not a great challenge on a few consumer OS brands. Some smart ethernet packet sniffing might show the control link or data upload if not careful crafted.
The problem is the weakened junk encryption. Thats really no fun and has to be fixed. Most in the academic, crypto and developer community where still giving the sock puppets the benefit before Snowden. Its a bit like 1946 commercial/gov use of ENIGMA - the extra rotor does nothing. The world was foolish for ~60 years vs few months of reality?
Yes the 'You can't get into the information circuits and play information warfare successfully unless you're into the communications of the higher commands in [the] various countries in our neighbourhood" is the fun story not the older sat or known Cold War mil communication or fancy drone flying networks.
This is the US in Australian domestic telco hardware and the software code.
You would just mirror the data like room http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A .
Australia is full of public, totally private, commercial and banking networks, splitters - who would notice another cleared contractor on site?
A lot of brands for local exchange backhaul but very little actual state wide or international.
The data could end up at any secure location for filtering and long term storage. Lots of different optical was rolled out over the years under many brands.
The tech is now so cheap national or state police can even have a go for some types of data within bulk internet traffic.
Well GIT it gets a bit complex.
Say your Australia and have sent a group of special forces soldiers on a drunken gap year "tour" of the world. Fit, bright, accents, real "fake" passports and they blend in perfectly. Australia did not tell any other nation about such missions.
30, 20, 10 years ago some Australian telco/crypto expert shares upgrade details with the NSA and GCHQ.
Australian military encryption is good but not really hardened in many places via unique networks.
That phone home safe house in suburbia is now not so safe.
So what happens when the GCHQ and NSA, contractors and their 'staff' some with other loyalties to distant faiths or nations stumble over this 'gem' in their region?
Thats why most nations really think about who gets to set their deep domestic networking hardware and software.
What's best for an entire country is simple - keep your codes, telco system safe. Once other nations and their "cleared" contractors know - thats getting to be a long list.
AC its not legal from an insider trending point of view. At lot of people are seeing luctrative deals in the making before they reach the press.
Exposing this is very relevant as where the NSA can get "in" so can Russia, China, other 'friendly' countries, wealthy multinationals, ex staff (lost job), former staff (private sector for hire), then down to telco 'staff' and finally crime groups with cash to buy skilled people.
All this hardware and software does not exist as some 'secure' base in the middle of Australia air gapped under a dome. The encryption is now out as a joke and installed Australia wide.
In the rush to help the USA, Australia has set some very low crypto telco standards.
The next step is the NSA news about politicians, finance and religious leaders.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-30/nsa-tapped-pope-spied-vatican-prevent-threats-financial-system
and e.g. MUSCULAR http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-30/how-nsa-spies-your-google-and-yahoo-accounts
"You can't get into the information circuits and play information warfare successfully unless you're into the communications of the higher commands in [the] various countries in our neighbourhood" is the real news, i.e. the US is 'in' the Australian telecommunications system - hardware and software vs the classic 'base' or just the international optical submarine "site".
Not really. Australia had its own views post ww2 after learning the fine art of radio and codes alone and at war. Some suggested going alone and protecting Australia in 1945. Senior Australian mil staff recalled the mess Australia was left before and during ww2 with poor weapons, poor equipment and no good intel or code breaking help. ...Australia, NZ got most of the rest of the world back ;)
Australia had the skill sets and staff after ww2. Canada was the same after ww2 and took years to really come around the requests of GCHQ and NSA to finally totally sell out.
Each nation understood the pact, the deal, the loss of any privacy vs a dreamy peace time "guarantor". They sold it to their countries and staff as an outward looking system to "defend" their nations but the individuals doing the negotiations at the time knew exactly what they had signed away.
Years later Snowden and may other whistleblower filling in the gaps with crypto history.
The US and UK where to get everything telco from Australia, NZ
You can read the classic sock puppets out on any NSA story on slashdot. I think they still try and post about "fear" and 'not' looking at global finance for insider trading in some desperate struggle for legitimacy.
With every Snowden news report they look more and more lost. The world now understands the reach and fascination the NSA has with all calls, faxes, emails, chats, logs, junk encryption. Now they also understand how their own govs staff and contractors subvert their own govs over generations.
What was sold as looking outward at the Soviet Union only was also always inward too. Everybody understands now and many crypto developers will be much smarter. US tech brands will be enjoyed but never trusted again.
The problem for Australia is the legality of 20 years of 'privacy' laws and gifting Australian only data to the USA.
Australia was great for Rhyolite satellite ground station back in 1970 and no encryption was added to save weight. Australia traded its location over generations for US hardware, staff and a constant flow of data.
Australia is also on a network that was once Intelink-C so you have a lot of chatter world wide bringing staff/contractors generational closer to each other than to any elected Australian government.
We saw that with Germany where one branch of the gov 'gives' a German cleared encrypted phone while another German group works with the US gov to subvert all German encryption.
The "revelation" should be of a wake up call to old and new Australian political parties and their relationship with 'expert' gov security staff. Who's side are they really on long term?
How safe is that fast optical internet per politicians office?
Gone are the days of 'just for' watching Japan, China, the Middle East or Soviet Union. Australia always watched inwards and in the digital age everybody is in on the big privacy joke.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/12/telstra-deal-america-government-spying
Thats the question, how to get down past all that messy 'atmosphere' stuff. Too low and the Soviet era weapons get lucky, too high and you need a larger system.
Some form of heavy lift blimp with solar, a big energy system and big laser double tapping regional targets 24/7?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/outrage-at-cias-deadly-double-tap-drone-attacks-8174771.html
The US aspect of "raise some civil liberties issues" is well known over a few cases going back many years (say mid 1980's) DNS.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/warrantless-gps-monitoring-scotus/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/08/gps-tracking-unconstitutional/
Its not bias, its just reality, the English language used to describe objects, actions, physics and past US legal history.