Posted on 06/09/2013 11:41:17 AM PDT by sunmars
I don’t understand all the technical details being claimed. Was this guy a system manager for NSA? When NSA was allowed to have access to servers for Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc, was that administrative access, so that he could “read, write, delete, create files under anyone’s user-id, install and remove software, the whole gamut” on the NSA’s system, on the computers who connected to Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc, or what?
I am a techno-moron and don’t understand what capabilities this guy is claiming that he and/or others at the NSA had. Can you or somebody else put it in layman’s terms that I can understand?
I also think he's disrespecting himself by leaving the country.
Obviously, you will decide for yourself whether you thinks he deserves your admiration or worship, but I would suggest that folks be cautious about embracing him too closely. I think he seems a bit nutty.
1. Snowden worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, a contractor to the NSA.
2. He worked for the CIA in Berne, Switzerland before that, managing their secured network. His access was to those servers/networks where he was working at the CIA and then at Booz.
3. In both jobs, it appears he had access to the surveillance tools the NSA (and others) have created and was familiar with how the system was used.
4. The NSA doesn’t have “direct” access into Google/FB/Microsoft/etc systems. The NSA doesn’t want write/delete/etc access. All the NSA wants to do it read. Think of the NSA as the biggest elephant there is - all ears.
5. This is what people need to understand just now: The intel community, like much of our military, has been outsourced into the private domain. There’s scads of private contractors doing the bidding of the intel agencies now. They people doing this sort of stuff aren’t always government employees; increasingly, they’re employed in the private sector.
I could try to put the technical issues into layman’s terms, but it would require writing a novel to do so. This actually highlights a huge problem in this debate: Most “conservatives” (and indeed, even more “liberals”) are technologically illiterate and, to put it quite bluntly, utterly ignorant of what can be and is being done.
Conservatives arguing “for” this type of program under what they think they understand about the capabilities could (and should) be compared to people who argue that the Second Amendment recognizes the right of every person to own a tactical nuke: They think they’re arguing for something that’s targeted in direction, limited in scope and subject to checks and balances, when in fact it’s much more far-reaching, global in scope and indiscriminate in targeting - about like using a tactical nuke to take out one guy because they’re too lazy to learn how to shoot a rifle.
What he’s effectively leaked is a dirty little secret that there are no more checks and balances on surveillance. It used to be that the FISA system required justification for this level of surveillance of ONE individual or a group.
As of the Boston bombing, the administration got the phone records of ALL Verizon customers. ALL of them. That’s millions upon millions of people who aren’t connected with the Boston bomber in any way.
Just brilliant....
Maybe we should just let the illegals do the”jobs our military won’t do”( cause they keep cutting our military. )
Just brilliant..bet you China ,Russia and Iran don’t “outsource” thier intel.
Well, in fact, much of the corporate named companies in the PRC are actually run by the People’s Liberation Army. In other words, the ChiComs are sort of doing the same thing - with the exception that the PLA are the investors and directors of the companies.
bm
Why are so many commentators on Foxnews perfectly okay with this and are hoping he is prosecuted to the “fullest extent of the law” because he broke the law. THE GOVERNMENT THE LAW; THAT IS THE ISSUE!
It’s like living in the Bizarro world.
It’s perfectly understandable given that Fox is a Council on Foreign Relations member, like all the major media.
No one has any idea what is discussed by CFR members internally.
CFR membership is by invitation only.
So what’s CFR all about ?
Well, that’s where we have to do a little studying to find out what we can.
Or, we can jump up and down and scream and insist that CFR just doesn’t matter ! What difference does it make ! It’s a wild conspiracy theory !
Indeed. In fact, part of the ways in which Bush has squandered the advantage the political Right has enjoyed between ~1995-2005 was over the Patriot Act, which he allowed to take the life of its own, -- and here are the fruits of it.
You saw this, right? Lackeys and Provocateurs at the New Yorker.
Be careful.
LOL!
What Snowden revealed was an illegal and ongoing NSA intelligence operation that was obviously not used to “identify terrorists” or benefit “National Security” at all.
Else it WOULD have highlighted the Boston bombers.
Kind of like a man under intense enemy fire on the roof of a building in Benghazi...painting the target for the military assets that never came...
I do detest people who attempt to actively provide fog cover for enemies, both foreign and domestic.
I’m on your side, really. I fully agree that what they were doing before Boston was illegal.
They were casting an absurdly wide net before the Boston bombing.
After Boston, they dropped any and all pretenses of any selectivity in their FISA applications. They just said “everyone.”
Now, in most courts in the US, that would have been laughed out of court. But the FISC denies less than 1% of all applications - like 0.05% of applications, so it’s obviously a rubber stamp.
Now, if they had any real purpose, they would have headed off Boston, as they had intel handed to them on a silver platter, and they presumably would have had the communications to off-shore known groups. But they didn’t stop those two twerps.
So, in the net:net, I agree with you: Their purpose isn’t to enhance “public safety” or “fight terrorism” or any other such thing. That’s a complete charade, and they have to know it.
The trouble is, we have so many badge bunnies and holster-sniffers in the GOP who give “law enforcement” any damn fool thing they want.
The 3 month “renewal” of the “program” had absolutely nothing to do with the Boston Bombings or terrorists.
No change, at all, was made to the parameters.
What changes were made in the years 2007-2013, if any?
There were two renewals of the legislation - one in 2008, and again in 2012. These changes in the law in 2008 allowed the NSA (and others) to work around the need for “probable cause” when applying for warrants from the FISC.
Not sure he violated the oath he took after passing his background check to get his clearance. I do believe that the constitution is mentioned as the only thing that has to be followed 100 percent during that oath. So....
The NSA is an agency that engages in intelligence, surveillance and other electronic techniques as part of the conduct of a war that is occurring on American soil and elsewhere. The constitution vests the federal government with the conduct of war and national defense.
You’re incredible - well, maybe not, since your type is always ever present when tyranny stalks the land.
Claus von Stauffenberg was executed for the attempted assassination of Hitler. Since Hitler was the legal head of the German state, this of course was treason.
History judges otherwise.
And only an idiot would compare the NSA to Hitler or the Nazis. The NSA is an agency dominated by honorable patriots vested with using intelligence, surveillance and other electronic techniques to fight a war against Islamic terrorism that is occurring on American soil and elsewhere.
The constitution vests the federal government with the conduct of war and national defense. To NOT use the techniques NSA uses to conduct the war would be the crime and a violation of the constitution.
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