Posted on 03/21/2017 10:03:39 PM PDT by TBP
The mighty CIA has fallen victim to a major breach, with WikiLeaks revealing the true scope of the Agencys ability for cyber-espionage. Its tools seem to be aimed at ordinary citizens your phone, your car, your TV, even your fridge can become an instrument of surveillance in the hands of the CIA. How does the CIA use these tools, and why do they need them in the first place? And as WikiLeaks promises even more revelations, how is all of this going to shape the already tense relationship between new president and the intelligence community? A man who has spent over two decades in the CIAs clandestine service Gary Berntsen is on SophieCo.
Transcript:
Sophie Shevardnadze: Gary Berntsen, former CIA official, welcome to the show, great to have you with us. Now, Vault 7, a major batch of CIA docs revealed by Wikileaks uncovers the agencys cyber tools. Were talking about worlds most powerful intelligence agency how exactly did the CIA lose control of its arsenal of hacking weapons?
Gary Berntsen: First off, Id like to say that the world has changed a lot in the last several decades, and people are communicating in many different ways and intelligence services, whether they be American or Russian, are covering these communications and their coverage of those communications has evolved. Without commenting on the specific validity of those tools, it was clear that the CIA was surely using contractors to be involved in this process, not just staff officers, and that individuals decided that they had problems with U.S. policy, and have leaked these things to Wikileaks. This is a large problem, for the U.S. community, but just as the U.S. is having problems, the Russia face similar problems. Just this week you had multiple members of the FSB charged with hacking as well, and they have been charged by the U.S. government. So both services who are competitors, face challenges as weve entered a new era of mass communications.
SS: So like youre saying, the leaker or leakers of the CIA docs is presumably a CIA contractor should the agency be spending more effort on vetting its own officers? Is the process rigorous enough?
GB: Clearly. Look There have been individuals since the dawn of history. Espionage is the second oldest occupation, have conducted spying and espionage operations, and there have been people who have turned against their own side and worked for competitors and worked for those opposing the country or the group that theyre working with. Its been a problem from the beginning, and it continues to be a problem, and the U.S. clearly is going to have to do a much better job at vetting those individuals who are given security clearances, without
SS: The CIA studied the flaws in the software of devices like iPhones, Androids, Smart TVs, apps like Whatsapp that left them exposed to hacking, but didnt care about patching those up so, in essence the agency chose to leave Americans vulnerable to cyberattacks, rather than protect them?
GB: I think you have to understand, in this world that were operating and the number one target of our intelligence community are terrorists. Since the attacks of 9\11, 16 years ago, the obsession of the American intelligence community is to identify those planning terrorist attacks, collecting information on them and being able to defeat them. These individuals are using all these means of communication. I have spoken with many security services around the world, since my retirement back in 2005-2006, a lot of them have had problems covering the communications of somebodys very devices and programs that youve talked about whether they be narcotraffickers or salafist jihadists, they are all piggybacking off of commercial communications. Therefore the need for modern intelligence services to sort of provide coverage of all means of communications. And theres a price that you pay for that.
SS: One of the most disturbing parts of the leaks is the Weeping Angel program CIA hacking into Samsung Smart TVs to record whats going on even when the TV appears to be turned off. Why are the CIAs tools designed to penetrate devices used by ordinary Western citizens at home?
GB: Look, I wouldnt say it has anything to do with Western homes, because the CIA doesnt do technical operations against American citizens thats prohibited by the law. If the CIA does anything in the U.S., it does it side-by-side with the FBI, and it does it according to FISA the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act laws. Its gotta go to the judge to do those things. Those tools are used primarily against the individuals and terrorists that are targeting the U.S. or other foreign entities that we see as a significant threat to the U.S. national security, which is the normal functioning of any intelligence service.
SS: Just like you say, the CIA insists it never uses its investigative tools on American citizens in the US, but, were wondering, exactly how many terrorist camps in the Middle East have Samsung Smart TVs to watch their favorite shows on? Does it seem like the CIA lost its direction?
GB: Plenty of them.
SS: Plenty?
GB: Ive travelled in the Middle East, Samsungs are sold everywhere. Sophie, Samsung TVs are sold all over the world. Ive spent a lot of time in the Middle East, Ive seen them in Afghanistan, Ive seen them everywhere. So, any kind of devices that you can imagine, people are using everywhere. Were in a global economy now.
SS: The CIA has tools to hack iPhones but they make up only around 15 % of the worlds smartphone market. IPhones are not popular among terrorists, but they are among business and political elites so are they the real target here?
GB: No. The CIA in relative terms to the size of the world is a small organisation. It is an organisation that has roughly 20 or more thousand people its not that large in terms of covering a planet with 7 billion people. We have significant threats to the U.S. and to the Western world. We live in an age of super-terrorism, we live in an age when individuals, small groups of people, can leverage technology at a lethal effect. The greatest threats to this planet are not just nuclear, they are bio. The U.S. needs to have as many tools as possible to defend itself against these threats, as does Russia want to have similar types of tools to defend itself. You too, Russian people have suffered from a number of terrible terrorist acts.
SS: Wikileaks suggest the CIA copied the hacking habits of other nations to create a fake electronic trace why would the CIA need that?
GB: The CIA, as any intelligence service, would look to conduct coverage in the most unobtrusive fashion as possible. It is going to do its operations so that they can collect and collect again and again against terrorist organisations, where and whenever it can, because sometimes threats are not just static, they are continuous.
SS: You know this better, so enlighten me: does the he CIA have the authorisation to create the surveillance tools it had in the first place? Who gives it such authorisation?
GB: The CIA was created in 1947 by the National Security Act of the U.S. and does two different things it does FI (foreign intelligence) collection and it does CA covert action. Its rules for collection of intelligence were enshrined in the law that created it, the CIA Act 110, in 1949, but the covert action part of this, where it does active measures, when it gets involved in things all of those are covered by law. The Presidential finding had to be written, it had to be presented to the President. The Presidents signs off on those things. Those things are then briefed to members of Congress, or the House Permanent Subcommittee for Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee for Intelligence. We have a very rigorous process of review of the activities of our intelligence communities in the U.S.
SS: But youre talking about the activities in terms of operations. Im just asking does CIA need any authorisation or permission to create the tools it has in its arsenal? Or it can just go ahead
GB: Those tools and the creation of collection tools falls under the same laws that allowed the CIA to be established. And that was the 1949 Intelligence Act. And also, subsequently, the laws in 1975. Yes.
SS: So, the CIA programme names are quite colourful, sometimes wacky Weeping Angel, Swamp Monkey, Brutal Kangaroo is there a point to these, is there any logic, or are they completely random? I always wondered
GB: Theres absolutely no point to that, and its random.
SS:Okay, so how do you come up with those names? Who like, one says: Monkey and another one says: Kangaroo?
GB: Im sure they are computer-generated.
SS: Trump accused Obama of wiretapping him during the campaign Could the CIA have actually spied on the president? It seems like the agency doesnt have the best relationship with Donald Trump how far can they go?
GB: Let me just say this: the President used the word wiretapping but I think it was very clear to us that have been in the intelligence business, that this was a synonym for surveillance. Because most people are on cellphones, people arent using landlines anymore, so theres no wiretapping, okay. These all fall under the Intelligence Surveillance Act, as I stated earlier, this thing existing in the U.S.. It was clear to President Trump and to those in his campaign, after they were elected, and they did a review back that the Obama Administration sought FISA authorisation to do surveillance of the Trump campaign in July and then in October. They were denied in July, they were given approval in October, and in October they did some types of surveillance of the Trump campaign. This is why the President, of course, tweeted, that he had been wiretapped of course wiretapping being a synonym for the surveillance against his campaign, which was never heard of in the U.S. political history that I can remember, I cant recall any way of this being done. Its an outrage, and at the same time, Congressional hearings are going to be held and they are going to review all of these things, and they are going to find out exactly what happened and what was done. Its unclear right now, but all we do know and it has been broken in the media that there were two efforts, and at the second one, the authorisation was given. That would never have been done by the CIA, because they dont do that sort of coverage in the U.S.. That would either be the FBI or the NSA, with legal authorities and those authorities the problem that the Trump administration had is they believed that the information from these things was distributed incorrectly. Any time an American and this is according to the U.S. law any time an American is on the wire in the U.S., their names got to be minimized from this and it clearly wasnt done and the Trump administration was put in a bad light because of this.
SS: If what youre saying is true, how does that fall under foreign intelligence? Is that more of the FBI-NSA expertise?
GB: It was FBI and NSA it was clearly the FBI and the NSA that were involved, it would never have been the CIA doing that, they dont listen to telephones in the U.S., they read the product of other agencies that would provide those things, but clearly, there were individuals on those phone calls that they believed were foreign and were targeting those with potential communications with the Trump campaign. Lets be clear here General Clapper, the DNI for President Obama, stated before he left office, that there was no, I repeat, no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. This has been something that has been dragged out again, and again, and again, by the media. This is a continuing drumbeat of the mainstream, left-wing media of the U.S., topaint the President in the poorest light, to attempt to discredit Donald Trump.
SS: With the intelligence agencies bringing down Trumps advisors like Michael Flynn and you said the people behind that were Obamas loyalists can we talk about the intelligence agencies being too independent from the White House, playing their own politics?
GB: I think part of the problem that weve seen during the handover of power from President Obama to President Trump was that there was a number of holdovers that went from political appointee to career status that had been placed in the NatSec apparatus and certain parts of the intelligence organisations. It is clear that President Trump and his team are determined to remove those people to make sure that theres a continuity of purpose and people arent leaking information that would put the Administration into a negative light. Thats the goal of the administration, to conduct itself consistent with the goals of securing the country from terrorism and other potential threats whether they be counter-narcotics, or intelligence agencies trying to breach our you know, the information that we hold secure.
SS: Heres a bit of conspiracy theories could it be that the domestic surveillance agencies like the NSA or the FBI orchestrated the Vault 7 leaks to damage CIA, stop it from infringing on their turf?
GB :I really dont think so and that is conspiracy thinking. You have to understand something, in the intelligence communities in the U.S., whether it be the CIA and FBI, weve done a lot of cross-fertilizations. When I was in senior position in CIAs counterterrorism center, I had a deputy who was an FBI officer. An office in FBI HQ down in Washington had an FBI lead with a CIA deputy. Theres a lot more cooperation than one would think. There are individuals that do assignments in each others organisations to help foster levels of cooperation. I had members of NSA in my staff when I was at CIA, members of diplomatic security, members of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and it was run like a task force, so, theres a lot more cooperation than the media presents, they always think that there are these huge major battles between the organisations and thats rarely true.
SS: Generally speaking is there rivalry between American intel agencies at all? Competition for resources, maybe?
GB: I think, sometimes, between the Bureau and the CIA the CIA is the dominant agency abroad, and the FBI is the dominant agency in the U.S. What they do abroad, they frequently have to get cleared by us, what we do domestically, we have to get cleared by them, and sometimes theres some friction, but usually, were able to work this out. It makes for great news, the CIA fighting FBI, but the reality is that theres a lot more cooperation than confrontation. We are all in the business of trying to secure the American homeland and American interests globally.
SS: Im still thinking a lot about the whole point of having this hacking arsenal for the CIA since you talk on their behalf the possibility to hack phones, computers, TVs and cars if the actual terrorist attacks on US soil, like San Bernardino, Orlando are still missed?
GB: Look. There are hundreds of individuals, if not thousands, planning efforts against the U.S. at any time. It can be many-many things. And the U.S. security services, theres the CIA, the FBI, NSA block many-many of these things, but it is impossible to stop them all. Remember, this is an open society here, in America, with 320 million people, here. We try to foster open economic system, we allow more immigration to America than all countries in the world combined. This is a great political experiment here, but its also very difficult to police. There are times that the U.S. security services are going to fail. Its inevitable. We just have to try the best we can, do the best job that we can, while protecting the values that attract so many people to the U.S.
SS:The former CIA director John Brennan is saying Trumps order to temporarily ban travel from some Muslim states is not going to help fight terrorism in any significant way. And the countries where the terrorists have previously come from like Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan, its true arent on the list. So does he maybe have a point?
GB: John Brennan is acting more like a political operative than a former director of CIA. The countries that Mr. Trump had banned initially, or at least had put a partial, sort of a delay where states like Somalia, Libya, the Sudan, Iran places where we couldnt trust local vetting. Remember something, when someone immigrates to the U.S., we have whats called an immigration packet: they may have to get a chest X-ray to make sure they dont bring any diseases with them, they have to have background check on any place theyve ever lived, and in most of these places there are no security forces to do background checks on people that came from Damascus, because parts of Damascus are totally destroyed theres been warfare. It is actually a very reasonable thing for President Trump to ask for delay in these areas. Look, the Crown-Prince, the Deputy Crown-Prince of Saudi Arabia was just in the United States and met with Donald Trump, and he said he didnt believe it was a ban on Muslims. This was not a ban on Muslims, it was an effort to slow down and to create more opportunity to vet those individuals coming from states where theres a preponderance of terrorist organisations operating. A reasonable step by President Trump, something he promised during the campaign, something hes fulfilling. But again, I repeat America allows more immigration into the U.S., than all countries combined. So, we really dont need to be lectured on who we let in and who we dont let in.
SS: But I still wonder if the Crown-Prince wouldve had the same comment had Saudi Arabia been on that ban list. Anyways, Michael Hayden, ex-CIA
GB: Wait a second, Sophie the Saudis have a reasonable form to police their society, and they provide accurate police checks. If they didnt create accurate police checks, we wouldve given the delay to them as well.
SS: Ok, I got your point. Now, Michael Hayden, ex-CIA and NSA chief, pointed out that the US intelligence enlists agents in the Muslim world with the promise of eventual emigration to America is Trumps travel ban order going to hurt American intelligence gathering efforts in the Middle East?
GB: No, the question here there were individuals that worked as translators for us in Afghanistan and Iraq and serving in such roles as translators, they were promised the ability to immigrate to the United States. Unfortunately, some of them were blocked in the first ban that was put down, because individuals who wrote that, didnt consider that. That has been considered in the re-write, that the Trump administration had submitted, which is now being attacked by a judge in Hawaii, and so it was taken into consideration, but the objective here was to help those that helped U.S. forces on the ground, especially those who were translators, in ground combat operations, where they risked their lives alongside American soldiers.
SS:You worked in Afghanistan you were close to capturing Bin Laden back in 2001 what kind of spying tools are actually used on the ground by the CIA to catch terrorists?
GB: The CIA as does any intelligence service in the world, is a human business. Its a business where we work with local security forces to strengthen their police and intelligence forces, we attempt to leverage them, we have our own people on the ground that speak the language, were trying to help build transportation there. Theres no secret sauce here. Theres no super-technology that changes the countrys ability to conduct intelligence collections or operations. In Afghanistan the greatest thing that the U.S. has is broad support and assistance to Afghan men and women across the country. We liberated half of the population, and for women were providing education, and when the people see what we were doing: trying to build schools, providing USAID projects all of these things this makes the population willing to work with and support the United States. Frequently, members of the insurgence groups will see this and sometimes they do actually cross the lines and cooperate with us. So, its a full range of American political power, whether its hard or soft, that is the strength of the American intelligence services because people in the world actually believe and correctly so that American more than generally a force of good in the world.
SS: Gary, thank you so much for this interesting interview and insight into the world of the CIA. Weve been talking to Gary Berntsen, former top CIA officer, veteran of the agency, talking about the politics of American intelligence in the Trump era. Thats it for this edition of SophieCo, I will see you next time.
Bump for sure. The public needs to be made suspicious and angry about this.
Even non-progressives are excessively influenced by the continual propaganda of the left.
If is obvious that the federal surveillance apparatus was used to collect information used against Donald Trump and those working with him, whether directly, or through the “trans-Atlantic Two Step” of “you spy on us and we will spy on you” which has been going on forever to get around prohibitions against domestic spying.
And misuse of government resources for private interests has always been a crime and still is. The “...and we’ll spy on you” paybacks are misuse of government resources.
BUMP
If they are listening to Trump they are listening to you.
Pray America woke
He’s lying about the names of the programs, so I presume he’s lying about the things I can’t independently verify.
‘Weeping Angel’, one of the programs, is named after a Doctor Who evil alien race. It tells me that the intelligence community has a dark and twisted sense of humor, and is fond of British television.
132 pages of transcripts of Trump Tower indicates that Trump, Trump Tower and Trump associates, have been targets since 2005. George W. Bush and Barack Obama both had security agencies watching things having no relation to the official story of why the US beefed up the NSA (and CIA, which still denies the obvious spying on U.S. citizens it did).
He is?
I have heard that there were to FISA requests and that there were no FISA requests. Which is it?
Two FISA requests that is.
>>How does the CIA use these tools, and why do they need them in the first place?<<
CONTROL! The presence of super secret equipment, people and the uses of information are the subject of countless TV shows and movies. Lately, it has been uncomfortable watching TV (Scandal, Designated Survivor, House of Cards, Alias, Person of Interest, etc.) as being too close to be fiction.
Speaking of the show House of Cards, Joe Lieberman was on Hannity’s radio show and said that 99% of what was shown was true. Except for the murders.(so he said)
bump
Speaking of this guy Gary Berntson...he’s been caught in Sid “Vicious” Blumenthal’s emails alomg with Cody Shearer
OCTOBER 29, 2009 : (SID BLUMENTHAL FORWARDS PROPOSAL FROM FORMER CIA-NOW-CONTRACTOR GARY BERNTSEN -— See CODY SHEARER) On October 29, 2009, a Clinton Foundation employee and close Clinton adviser Sid Blumenthal forwarded a proposal for a commercial contract related to improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from retired CIA officer-turned-contractor Gary Berntsen, to Clinton (copying Cheryl Mills), saying that Berntsen had been unable to break through the bureaucracy with it. Mills then forwarded the email to Jake Sullivan. Blumenthal noted that Cody [Shearer] and I are following up.
*********
>>>>see MARCH 21, 2019 : (JW ANNOUNCES DISCOVERY OF MORE CLASSIFIED HILLARY CLINTON EMAILS )
(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch today announced it received 756 pages of newly uncovered emails that were among the materials former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to delete or destroy, several of which were classified and were transmitted over her unsecure, non-state.gov email system.
Hillary Clinton repeatedly stated that the 55,000 pages of documents she turned over to the State Department in December 2014 included all of her work-related emails.* —— Judicial Watch Uncovers More Classified Emails in Hillary Clintons Unsecure Email System, www.judicialwatch.org, MARCH 21, 2019, Staff
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