How Snowden's Disclosures Made All Our Data Safer
pardonsnowden.org
pardonsnowden.org
Aren't email and phone calls monitored anyhow since they're not encrypted (by default)? Why wouldn't the three-letter agency capture all email traffic if it can?
Of course this is not the case, many companies are invading our privacy for commercial reasons, they sell our personal data for their own financial profit (Google, Linkedin, Facebook, etc.)
We have always known private companies keep all the data they can get their hands on and use it to sell ads.
i think many people (around me) have become more privacy aware because of Snowdens disclosures, which i think is a good development, even though no matter how hard they try they are still not protected, and probably never will be, from three-letter agencies collecting their data...
I think fine grained insight into what an intelligence service looks like on the inside is enough to compel people to change their behavior. I know for me, I was skeptical of claims the NSA even could do half the things people were purporting they could do, and having confirmation like this was the real game changer.
Security efforts will get serious if state actors decide to try to escape this web.
I know a few people (non it related) that dropped gmail.
Agreed with the balkanization of the clouds/infrastructure.
I wouldn't completely rule out the idea that someone might take a shot at Snowden were he to return, but at the same time I doubt that the vast majority of people who label him a "traitor" feel strongly enough about it to personally try to kill him.
But the other side is nothing like that.
I'm not sure that's quite apples-to-apples, given: (1) US political asymmetries; (2) nobody accused him of conspiring with a clear "The Enemy"; (3) Cheney was already a multimillionaire with private security and moving in rarefied social circles.
If Cheney was once hunted by the US government, widely accused of being a communist spy, and he shopped for groceries like a regular person, I imagine the odds of an attempted attack would increase.
Only crazies and communists and white supremacists have used assassination as a political tool in America in the modern era and that hasn't even happened in forty years.
I expect Snowden would be perfectly safe under a pardon. Until then I'd advise him to avoid long sight lines; America's official enemies have a way of finding themselves exploded at a nice sterile distance.
That would allow Snowden to go mostly anywhere and do as he pleases... instead of being stuck in limbo at an airport or as it currently stands allowed some degree of freedom within Russia. I should point out that pardoning Snowden allows him to LEAVE RUSSIA; which is a thing that I believe anyone should like to allow him to do.
Snowden confirmed that we have 0 (zero) privacy and that government has unrestricted access to all of your personal data, and if needed that data could be "pulled" and used against you.
UX continues to dominate all other market factors in computing by a huge margin.
There is an inherent tension between security and UX from the perspective of designing an individual tool. But from the perspective of building good security habits and policies, good UX is essential. The only way to achieve both is to invest the resources into thoughtful system design. What drives people to invest such resources?
Security/privacy on the Internet is known for being hard, and it used to be, if you wanted privacy you had to withdraw slightly from society, and learn Linux, read about TOR, learn how to harden your web browser, or otherwise attempt to 'go dark' from the prying eyes of governments or sophisticated criminals.
Now it can be said with certainty that many of the things we take for granted, have come along leaps and bounds due to Snowden, and are a lot less complicated to Install and setup.
Now a privacy-conscious teenager can install TOR browser bundle, Signal, uBlock, or any number of things you can find on sites like PrivacyTools[1] with relatively little trouble compared to the Internet pre-Snowden.
> UX continues to dominate all other market factors in computing by a huge margin
It might come at some cost, like reduced UX, as you mention, but that's called a security tradeoff or a privacy tradeoff and it's a well-known hard fact of protecting your communications and traffic.
Another example that affects billions: after the Snowden leaks, Google scrambled to encrypt their intra-datacenter traffic. Before they did so, those billions of end-users would get the green padlock when visiting Gmail, only to have their data snooped as it travelled over Google-owned dark fiber.
You are right that UX still dominates all other factors. But I think post-Snowden, there have been many significant improvements to security that affect billions of people.
Today's encryption and security are not features, these are marketing tags like these "without chlorine" on salt packs. Thanks to guess who?
Yes, Google added encryption but only because they were afraid of losing a competitive edge. They will still gladly sell all the information they collect (by monitoring emails, texts, phone calls, etc - which their right to monitor was defended in a district court) provided you have enough money. They are first and foremost an advertising agency. All their other services and products just serve to give them more sources of information.
If you say that disclosing surveillance on US citizens was ok, how do you explain these leaks:
* """The Norwegian Intelligence Service (NIS), which cooperates with the NSA, has gained access to Russian targets in the Kola Peninsula and other civilian targets. In general, the NIS provides information to the NSA about "Politicians", "Energy" and "Armament"."""
* """In France, the NSA targeted people belonging to the worlds of business, politics or French state administration."""
* """the NSA had been monitoring telephone conversations of 35 world leaders"""
* """In an effort codenamed GENIE, computer specialists can control foreign computer networks using "covert implants," a form of remotely transmitted malware on tens of thousands of devices annually."""
* """According to Edward Snowden, the NSA has established secret intelligence partnerships with many Western governments."""
* """revealed NSA spying on multiple diplomatic missions of the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Headquarters in New York."""
How are these matters relevant to the citizens of the United States? Aren't these things exactly what spy agencies are supposed to do? Why should Snowden get a pardon for disrupting normal intelligence work?
Their NSA spies on us, our NSA spies on them, they trade to subvert their local laws.
That is maybe the most important disclosure that Snowden helped make happen.
Disclosing the things I listed is not required to tell us that.
Unfortunately, dumping juicy tidbits is the only way to get the attention needed to change things. The bad guys are spending our money lying to our politicians about it. Without showing them to be liars again and again (with the release) of these tidbits, they'd simply spin their way out of it.
None of this came as a surprise to any Congressman with interactions with Intel Agencies. Hell, none of this should have come as a surprise if you know anything about security/cybersecurity. As long as there are systems which hide info, there will be backdoors and people trying to break them.
The exact same things are being done by every "first world" government on the planet. And sadly, what they do is FAR less intrusive than what Google does. They make text documents out of your phone calls to try and find new products to sell you... They have copies of every text you ever made on an Android device, every site you have visited, every e-mail you wrote or received on Gmail... All the info the NSA gathered that Snowden was "abhorred" by, was less than 1% of what Google has on you. What's the difference? Google will sell it. The NSA may look through it, but they won't sell it to the highest bidder.
Every device Google makes is just another way to gather info on their users. They are, first and foremost, an advertising company. And they are the best in the world at that because of all the info they have on all their users.
It is even more treasonous to lie in such a circumstance. It would be better to refuse to answer the question if you are unable to speak in an open session (though better still is being able to not lie about how you protect the country).
This is why I've long pushed for people to push for a reform of our classification system. Last I checked, it couldn't be used to hide illegal information as that couldn't be classified in the first place. However, they were operating in a bunch of grey areas related to the Patriot Act, Executive Orders, and the FISC. So, these aren't obviously illegal. Needless to say, I'm for canceling that crap too.
But it wasn't required. It's not like Clapper was being tortured and had to say something. He should have simply shut up and refused to answer. By lying to congress when he didn't have to, he broke the law.
Moreover, by doing/ordering the illegal things we was already a criminal before the investigation. Even if allowed to lie, he's not allowed to violate the constitution. (And such permission could never be granted by anyone chartered by the constitution. Our president can't authorize this, for instance.)
> operating in a bunch of grey areas
There isn't a grey area.
If you're part of government and your actions are outside of what the constitution enumerates, you're breaking the law. If you're a citizen and your actions are outside those forbidden by law, you're not doing anything illegal. It's very clear.
As a part of government, he is clearly doing things the people don't think the constitution covers and as such, is a traitor. (It doesn't matter that he can spin a justification, it matter that citizens don't accept it.)
I know you aren't arguing that it should be legal, etc. I'm just pointing out that this isn't questionable. It's clearly illegal. Powerful incumbents never get charged for breaking the law but that doesn't make it legal.
It would help people on your side a lot if you studied how the defense sector & classification rules actually work when trying to get people to work within that in a different way. Clapper's job is to basically do exactly what he was doing since Executive branch and Congress's intelligence committee both authorized it. That's how our system is set up by Congress. There's lots of Americans that were supporting a surveillance state, too. So, he's gotta do the surveillance stuff while keeping it a secret by law.
Now, we get to this interview. Wyden knows about these programs. The Speech and Debate Clause implies he could just tell us himself with probable immunity. Clapper could in theory. Instead of telling us, Wyden asks a guy that legally has to keep it secret from public to deliver classified information to the public on the spot. Clapper's was squirming around trying to figure out how to deal with it. He was obviously lying & didn't want to be there. He simultaneously looks like a piece of shit... which he is that I can tell... with Wyden being the hero despite fact Wyden could've just announced it himself. So, Clapper decided to hide the information.
Now, how to hide the information? You incorrectly determined he should've just stayed silent. That's the right we Americans have. They have additional one if it's a Special Access Program to lie & are expected to in many cases. The reason is saying yes to specific questions then getting silent on others implies that what they're asking is probably true. Clapper's was perfect example because it was worded so a no comment would make them look guilty as hell. Instead, as with other SAP's, he was supposed to have a cover story (probably metadata diversion) to push as their activity while saying no about Wyden's question. That's what Alexander did showing off some great lying skills. It's also what military people did for about every spy plane, middle east strategy, SIGINT advance (esp Ultra)... you name it. Anything considered a major advantage is often in a black program with members required to end an interview immediately so nothing can be inferred or lie with a cover story. The phone numbers and mailing addresses don't even go to the same geographical location.
The real outcome is we need reform of the classification system where they can't mislead Americans like this. Also, to treat both Clapper and Wyden as self-serving liars in this situation. You might also try to consider why it would be risky for Wyden to tell the truth but none for Clapper to be honest. There's definitely risk. Clapper knows Congress might forgive but Executive branch might use Espionage Act in retaliation. Our rules need to change so that people can be honest for huge discrepencies between perception and intelligence work without being nailed to a cross.
"If you're part of government and your actions are outside of what the constitution enumerates, you're breaking the law. If you're a citizen and your actions are outside those forbidden by law, you're not doing anything illegal. It's very clear."
Once again, I recommend some deep study of law in general and regarding national security before talking about what's legal. The Constitution set the baseline. Congress then passes laws which may or may not go with that. Courts with their case law then interpret that in general plus many specific situations. The combination of Constitutional basics, laws Congress passes, and court interpretations (esp Supreme Court) make up the actual law that is enormously more complex & inconsistent than the Constitution. Three of those laws include the National Security Act, Espionage Act, and Patriot Act. They collectively let the intelligence community do about whatever it wants where it even has a special court... Congress outsourced the law to secret judges... to decide what it can do and directors running violations don't get prosecuted. I.C. might even have criminal immunity but I can't remember. Do in practice... Hell, even Congress is not legally allowed to know what they're doing in SAP's where only the Defense-related committees have to be briefed & OK it. In USAP's, it's just the heads of the committees. Congress not only allows this but also puts tens of billions of dollars into such programs annually.
Far as the voters, where's the mass exodus of votes going away from surveillance state supporters toward strong constitutionalists? Didn't happen. They didn't give a shit past another subject to shout about. Right now the majority of them are pushing two candidates that both support surveillance states, have criminal/fraudulent history, and mocked the First Amendment. There was also no push of any significance to arrest all the people on the top involved in this stuff post-Snowden. I think that describes the voter support of this stuff pretty well. They either support it or don't give a shit while putting surveillance & defense supporters in Congress who keep re-authorizing all these Defense laws (esp Patriot & Espionage Acts).
If I thought America would act, I'd say Clapper should've told them the truth after asking for immunity under Speech and Debate Clause. These days I'm thinking he should've lied given what America has done with others' sacrifices. They're just not worth it. I try to avoid getting in such situations so I can do right thing on principle but I doubt I'd help them if they're legally enabling villains all the time or putting all their activist activity into warning about the dangers of clown attacks.
Yes. But they don't have the authority because the actions taken greatly exceeded the authority granted to the government as a whole.
> So, he's gotta do the surveillance stuff while keeping it a secret by law.
Well, no. As Snowden showed, he didn't have to do that. Treason is just the easy choice.
> Wyden asks a guy that legally has to keep it secret from public to deliver classified information to the public on the spot. Clapper's was squirming around trying to figure out how to deal with it. He was obviously lying & didn't want to be there.
And he could have kept his mouth shut. You say he'd risk looking like a liar and giving away the secret, but he did anyways.
> So, Clapper decided to hide the information.
Right, and if I'd committed capital crimes I'd have "decided to hide the information" too. Makes perfect sense, for a criminal to do that...
> Now, how to hide the information? You incorrectly determined he should've just stayed silent.
No, I correctly determined that he could have. He had a legal alternative so he's a criminal for not taking it.
You might be right that he'd be screwed either way, but that's doesn't work as an excuse for anyone else.
> The reason is saying yes to specific questions then getting silent on others implies that what they're asking is probably true.
Right. As does getting caught in his stupid lies. By opening his mouth he enabled the newspapers to selectively publish refutations of everything he said.
He could have kept his mouth shut and looked guilty, instead he opened it and proved the guilt.
> Our rules need to change so that people can be honest for huge discrepencies between perception and intelligence work without being nailed to a cross.
Right, we need to bring Snowden home to a hero's welcome. Just before we throw the traitors in jail for the rest of their lives. He didn't perform "intelligence work", he spied on his own country for political advancement. J Edgar Hoover all over again.
> Once again, I recommend some deep study of law in general and regarding national security before talking about what's legal. The Constitution set the baseline.
Right, and anything under that baseline is granted and anything over is not. Any law that goes beyond the powers granted to the government is, by definition, unconstitutional.
> The combination of Constitutional basics, laws Congress passes, and court interpretations (esp Supreme Court) make up the actual law
Sure, but their powers flow from the constitution and thus are always subservient to it. If they go beyond, it's in error (well, intentional error, but...)
> Congress not only allows this but [...]
If I allow you to rob a bank it's still illegal because I don't have the authority the dictate that. Congress was given some authority to do some things, but not unlimited authority, and not to commit treason.
> Far as the voters, where's the mass exodus of votes going away from surveillance state supporters toward strong constitutionalists?
Right, because the government lied to them. With the veil of authority and no conscience you could make people believe some pretty fucked up things.
> There was also no push of any significance to arrest all the people on the top involved in this stuff post-Snowden.
Having used political connections to hide the facts, threaten witnesses and judges, and make a fair trial impossible means that they're innocent! John Gotti for president!
> I think that describes the voter support of this stuff pretty well.
> Right now the majority of them are pushing two candidates
Yeah, because the first-past-the-post system is almost mathematically guaranteed to converge towards two nearly identical parties who think they're polar opposites.
But I've never heard people praising the system. They're always cynically trying to have as much say as possible when their only real choice is Kang or Kodos. Don't waste your vote or the wrong lizard may win!
If all he'd done was the first he should be pardoned. Because he did the second he should get life without parole.
If the organization had real internal controls, or was under the control of government at all, Snowden could have used those channels and could have been expected to. But as soon as he fears they won't work he must do whatever he can.
The obligation to blow the whistle doesn't end when it's hard, or when your friends get hurt.
If we want our primary security apparatus to not be diagnosed on TV we should make sure it's legal and legit.
Snowden literally had no legal choice. He is required by his oaths (as we all are morally) to reveal ongoing criminal activity, especially institutional crimes. If you ever get there, I hope you realize that the treasonous path is to keep your mouth closed.
What exactly in Snowdens leaks would increase the chance of terrorist attacks on the US ?
Wanting the country you live in to be safer and stronger is certainly not basic self-interest: that would be wanting oneself to be safer and stronger, without regard for anyone else. It is certainly nationalism, if not quite patriotism.
The parent responded to "made the US safer" and "made the US weaker". The point is that there is a bigger picture than the question of the USA's safety or strength: the effect that the Snowden's revelations have had on all humans when taken together.
> Even the least patriotic people generally prefer not to be murdered by terrorists
You seem to be saying that the desire not to be killed by terrorists is a good reason for the citizens of one nation to be want it to be safer and stronger than another nation. Perhaps the desire not to be murdered by terrorists is a good reason for all nations to be, together, safer and stronger.
I'd also like to add that wanting the country you live in to be safer and stronger against inside threats is also patriotism and self-interest. In my experience people also generally prefer to be secure in their person, property and privacy against those that would exploit them.
Of course how we each value and prioritise these things will skew our definition of patriotism and our perception of actors like Snowden.
Also, in a democracy, the current state is based on the decisions of the local ancestors. I identify with those decisions more in some places than others.
Here's an EFF.org press conference video detailing NSA wiretapping, from 10 years ago, as of writing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqEfMMUbfQw
Whilst the efforts of the NSA were known for some time, the Snowden leaks were very aggressive and a lot more information could be gleaned from them. It's not enough to casually mention Echelon and then dismiss these revelations as trivial. There is an enormous trove of details in the Snowden Archive that describes the apparatus and machinery used to spy, not just some vague reference to "Tapped Undersea Cables" which is an oft-used scene people use to describe the NSA. I just wish the leaks had more detail, like code samples, or even pictures of the facilities used to spy. (You'd be surprised how much can be gleaned from just one picture or a line of code).
You said it yourself, "The guy revealed government programs that ANYONE who cared to look knew existed decades before."
All he did was raise awareness.
> he didn't tweet out the wikipedia link
Obviously you don't know how classified data works. The Wikipedia pages in question were written based partly on earlier leaks, meaning that they count as classified for this purpose. Had Snowden sent you the WP page on the NSA and said "Read paragraph 3" it would have been an illegal disclosure, but it wouldn't have had any impact.
> The guy revealed government programs that ANYONE who cared to look knew existed
Without proof that knowledge was essentially a conspiracy theory. I knew of ECHELON but there's no way I could prove it to anyone else. Snowden gave us data we could use to prove it.
> Does anyone else think this Snowden as a hero stuff is a bit much?
No, heroism is essentially concern for others / concern for self. He put himself in much risk, for no personal gain, so he's pretty clearly a hero.
He is famous now which I think constitutes personal gain.
Clearly you all love him and believe he is a hero. Good for you... I am not impressed.
I preempted a lot of the Snowden and TAO leaks in my writing on Schneier's blog. I also studied the NSA far back as Puzzle Palace and declassified documents that existed before. The Snowden revelations were not all stuff you'd find studying NSA.
Originally, NSA revelations showed they did what they could to keep Americans out of the collection process. Echelon, for instance, mainly targeted international calls with most of the SIGINT setup outside of the U.S.. Post-9/11, the government's position on NSA and Patriot Act was NSA was getting metadata with FBI targeting individual suspects with NSL's and warrants for "people." Far as foreign spying, Americans figured it was mostly on enemies with allied stuff just keeping fair playing field. Tice leaks showed they were vacuuming up data on all Americans. The Tice and AT&T room leaks indicated they were vacuuming up lots of data which NSA tried to downplay. Drake revealed bad management and oversight at the NSA plus showed what would happen to internal whistleblowers. Binney then told courts and media around 2012 that NSA intercepted all kinds of communications including American emails. That they were collecting everything instead of targeting people.
Now, in 2012, Americans are starting to get the big picture but still claims of 2 or 3 people NSA tried to prosecute as traitors. Then Snowden, claiming inspiration from them, leaks all the specific methods they're using which changes everything. They can no longer deny what they were doing at this point because their own files contradict their lies. That's from domestic all the way through disasters like Belgian networking getting taken down that go way past just keeping tabs. We also find the FISA warrants were targeting criteria applied to whole population's communications instead of warrants for specific accounts or people. Although effective INFOSEC didn't really change, there was a widespread adoption of encryption following the leaks that reduced bulk surveillance a bit plus lots of legal responses that needed information specific to Snowden leaks.
So, there was a huge difference before and after Snowden despite him not being first to tell us they were vacuuming up everything domestic. None of this was obvious for most Americans or easy to prove before Snowden. I guessed most of the attack vectors but even I wasn't sure what they were hitting. It was more "they could do it so we should probably close the hole anyway."
Now there's one company I won't be using.
edit: Some people really don't like it when people "vote with their money", huh?
Would you agree that the programs revealed in them go far beyond the programs previous whistle-blowers revealed?
Did you know beforehand that completely innocent citizens of the world may be targeted for surveillance or their systems compromised because of the company they work for or because they use encryption and live in a particular country?
Do you realise that the details of many of your digital interactions are collected and recorded and could at any time be collated into dossier that would inform its readers of many details of your private life?
Maybe you were, wouldn't, did and do; maybe you personally don't have any reason to be thankful for this guy's actions, but many of us didn't have any idea of the extent to which our data is being collected or the ways in which it can be used against us.
Some of us are rightly thankful for being told what our governments should have had the decency to tell us.
Yes, that is exactly what we want them to do when faced with criminal activity within their organizations and a non-functioning whistleblower program.
> Does anyone else think this Snowden as a hero stuff is a bit much?
Given that he risked death or life imprisonment to expose criminal activity in the organization he (indirectly) worked for, then no, the "hero" stuff is not a bit much.
If someone is a hero for risking their lives on a battlefield on the other side of the planet to "protect our freedoms", someone should also be considered a hero for putting their life at risk to protect the freedom of the American people from tyranny.
Now, if you disagree, you could say that his life or freedom was never at risk (it was), or that the government programs weren't unconstitutional (they were unconstitutional), or that the whistleblower program was a working alternative (it wasn't). But as long as you accept the basic facts of the situation, you really should consider him a hero.