Federal Snooping Exposed / What Now?

For John, BLUF:  The Congress needs to fix the Administration and that may mean we need to fix Congress.

The initial news item from The [Manchester] Guardian on the US Federal Government snooping on American phone calls, an apparent leak, is becoming a flood of items.

Here is a time line provided by The Associated Press.  It starts in 1978, with the creation of the FISA Court (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and runs down to today.

The Wall Street Journal tell us "The NSA's 'metadata' surveillance is legal and necessary".

At The New York Times we have an article that says "Administration Says Mining of Data Is Crucial to Fight Terror".

On the other hand, Reporter Ben Smith, over at BuzzFeed we have an article that disputes that.  "Public Documents Contradict Claim Email Spying Foiled Terror Plot Defenders of “PRISM” say it stopped subway bombings. But British and American court documents suggest old-fashioned police work nabbed Zazi."  As my buddy Juan would say, "What's a boy to think?"

This is the same New York Times that had an editorial decrying the snooping, which I referenced here.♠

And again from New York Times we have an article on the "Global Netizens Worried About U.S. Spying".

Tangentially, The Huffington Post notes that "Sprint Taps Mike Mullen To Oversee 'National Security Agreement'".

Along that theme is this item from The New York Times, "Tech Companies Concede to Surveillance Program".  The article has a very artistic graphic.  I like it.

The The New York Times is getting a big play here today.  Not my idea, but a friend in Connecticut forwarded a bunch of them.  I am guessing he is in the Near East and awake early.  This item is "U.S. Internet Spying Draws Anger, and Envy".  The lede:

SERRAVAL, France — Europe’s reaction Friday to news of a sweeping international digital surveillance program by the U.S. government ranged from the outrage of citizens and politicians to the muted envy of some law enforcement agencies on this side of the Atlantic.

From The New Yorker we have "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Data".  From the second paragraph:

The National Security Agency, we now know, collects detailed calling records from the three largest wireless carriers in the country and has intimate access to user data from Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Skype, Yahoo, YouTube, and others.  That data can include e-mails, chats, videos, photos, “stored data,” Internet phone calls, file transfers, “online social networking details,” and “special requests.”  On Thursday, Senator Dianne Feinstein♥ said that the N.S.A.’s collecting of phone records “has been the case for the past seven years.”  According to PowerPoint slides for an internal N.S.A. briefing, which were leaked to the Washington Post and the Guardian, Microsoft, the first company to partner with the N.S.A. for the user-data-gathering program known as Prism,♦ joined on September 11, 2007.  The Obama Administration has acknowledged the existence of Prism, though it claims that the program is targeting only foreigners, and that any data from American users has been “incidentally acquired.”

Speaking of California, and PRISM, here is an article by Ken Dilanian, Washington Bureau, from The LA Times.  The title is "NSA program part of a larger effort to target Internet.  PRISM appears to be a response to overseas data centers and Internet services' increasing encryption of email".

There is someone leaking to Reporter Glenn Greenwald♣ and The [Manchester] Guardian.  The Administration seems willing to go after The Associated Press and Fox News.  Are they also taking on The Guardian and its reporters?  The recent offering is "Obama orders US to draw up overseas target list for cyber-attacks."  The subheadline is "Exclusive: Top-secret directive steps up offensive cyber capabilities to 'advance US objectives around the world'".

Reporters Bart Gellman and Robert O'Harrow, Jr, at The Washington Post cover the same story as "Secret Documents Called For The Development Of Cyberwar Plans—Policy outlined government perception of growing cyberthreat".  I am told, reliably, that "[i]n the print edition, it is accompanied by a photograph of Presidential Policy Directive 20 that clearly shows its Top Secret marking."

Speaking to the last item, someone has commented:

...and, it would seem the story is that the Obama administration seems to embrace the Bush doctrine of unilateral war, and not requiring Congressional approval to undertake offensive attacks - if I read the document directly.  Where is the Constitutional authority of the President to carry out offensive cyber attack?

Also, it shows deep dilemma in not acting with restraint in the world.  We are now lecturing China on this very thing, on what grounds do we have to do that?

Finally, I think in context, it shows a cumulation of thinking about a desire for American primacy - global contingencies and global interests that date back to the 1992 Wolfowitz defense guidance, were embraced (including unilateral war) by Clinton in the PDD25.  It suggests that the idea that the Bush adminsitration was some kind of abberation on these issues is historically inaccurate, rather we have seen 20 years of expansive thinking, capabilities, technology, and so on - with little Congressional oversight, little due regard for Constitutional authority, and little opportunity for voices - like Powell tried to be in the early 1990s, to make the strong case for restraint.

I would say this national security state approach actually goes back to the early days of nuclear weapons.  That argument has been made by Pulitzer Prize winning Author Garry Wills, in his book Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State.  It was intensified under the G H W Bush Administration (Secretary of Defense Dick Chaney and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz).

As for the Obamas Administration and its promises of change.  Meet the new boss—same as the old boss.

To sense how this has changed, I refer back to a post from yesterday on this Blog.

Yes, this is about the idea of "the surveillance state".  We don't wish to have the DHS and the other agencies of the Federal Government becoming like the Stasi.  It was bad for East Germany and it would be bad for us.  To judge the situation, yesterday Talkmeister Rush Limbaugh was quoting, favorably, Julian Assange on this issue.  Rush was quoting from a review of The New Digital Age, in, wait for it, The New York Times.

UPDATE:  This was out there, but I hadn't gotten to it yet.  From Reporter Mark Hosenball, from Reuters, "U.S. likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks -officials".  The humorous thing is that this is Government officials leaking about the Federal Government going after leakers.  I guess it is just "authorized" vs "unauthorized" leaks.

WASHINGTON, June 7 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's administration is likely to open a criminal investigation into the leaking of highly classified documents that revealed the secret surveillance of Americans' telephone and email traffic, U.S. officials said on Friday.

The law enforcement and security officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly, said the agencies that normally conduct such investigations, including the FBI and Justice Department, were expecting a probe into the leaks to a British and an American newspaper.

That would be, I am guessing, The [Manchester] Guardian and The Washington Post.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  I must say that it probably caused a lot of angst in the Times building to actually change an editorial.  And, it was weak on their part.
♥  What is it with Democratic Party Senators.  Ms Feinstein seems to think that this is no big deal.  It is a big deal.  Is she covering for someone?  Is she part of some conspiracy?  Is she just tired, too tired to protect her fellow citizens?
♦  PRISM per Wikipedia.
♣  Frankly, I don't think of Mr Greenwald as a member of the Republican opposition.