The Obama administration’s frustrating NSA week
By Alex Wilhelm From Tech Crunch
While Congress and the nation at large have done little except talk and embark on preliminary legal skirmishes regarding the United States’ mass surveillance practices, the forces in favor of reform and change had a decent week. The Obama administration did not.
The president’s speech one week ago on proposed changes to NSA practices was met with skepticism. A sample headline detailing the response: “Jon Stewart skewers Obama’s vague, rambling NSA speech.” The Post was sedate but firm: “Obama goal for quick revamp of NSA program may be unworkable, some U.S. officials fear.”
If the president had hoped that his reform proposals — including mild curtailment of the phone metadata program, some sort of protection for the privacy of foreign citizens and the like — would placate those opposed to the NSA, he was certainly disappointed.
Praise could be found for the president, but in the form of a backhanded compliment. Republican Rep. Peter King was content with the speech, because it didn’t seem to propose meaningful change:
“I didn’t think any changes were called for, any so-called reforms, but the fact is the ones that the President made today are really minimal. […] So long as the NSA can move quickly to protect us against plots, that’s all that is necessary: That the data is there, and the NSA is able to move quickly.”
Impressive accolades. When the forces arrayed against change think you are doing fine, you aren’t pushing for much change.
Also this week the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board lit into the NSA’s bulk collection program, saying that it lacked firm legal footing. The White House was left to somewhat lamely argue that it “simply disagree[s] with the board’s analysis on the legality of the program.”
The group also attacked the key reason for keeping the program: Its efficacy. The group’s report contained the following, as the Washington Post quoted:
“We have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the telephone records program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation. Moreover, we are aware of no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack.”
This week Russia announced that it would not expel Edward Snowden, and that the choice to leave would be his to make. So, if the administration had hoped that the clock would run out, sending Snowden back into its hands by default, those hopes have been largely dashed.
A group of self-described “US researchers in cryptography and information security” released an open letter in opposition mass surveillance today. A sample:
Indiscriminate collection, storage, and processing of unprecedented amounts of personal information chill free speech and invite many types of abuse, ranging from mission creep to identity theft. These are not hypothetical problems; they have occurred many times in the past.
And finally, earlier this Friday the Republican National Committee passed a resolution condemning the NSA’s bulk data programs in Constitutional terms. The resolution called for Republicans to investigate the NSA, forming a new committee. It was strongly worded, and somewhat surprising, coming from the party of the former President who set up much of what we are now talking about shutting down.
There was more, but that is a representative sample from the week.
Nothing may still happen. We can’t say that it won’t, but as time passes it increasingly seems that at least moderate change is feasible.
In the immediate aftermath of the early Snowden leaks, even that seemed far out of reach.
Image Credit: Flickr
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Just two words from Apple on the NSA’s iPhone hacking show how the tech community now hates the NSA
By Jim Edwards From Business Insider
If Walmart or McDonald’s began describing the Obama Administration as an unconstitutional threat to the privacy of its customers, it would be front page/holy-cow news.
But that’s what is happening in Silicon Valley right now, with America’s biggest tech companies.
The most interesting two words in Apple’s official statement today on the news that the NSA can put spyware on 100% of Apple’s products, including the iPhone, are these: “malicious hackers.”
The company said it was unaware of the NSA’s hacking program, called “DROPOUTJEEP,” and that it was working to end the breach. But note that Apple’s statement went out of its way to portray the U.S. government as a security threat:
We will continue to use our resources to stay ahead of malicious hackers and defend our customers from security attacks, regardless of who’s behind them.
Apple isn’t alone in its ire against the NSA. Most people think that the major tech companies — Apple, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. — have been pussycats in terms of the NSA’s domestic surveillance program. In fact there is a bunch of evidence that they hate it, and were unaware of its full extent. Here’s what was said by Microsoft, which has been the most aggressive in publicly expressing its anger about domestic spying, from our coverage earlier this month:
… government snooping potentially now constitutes an ‘advanced persistent threat,’ alongside sophisticated malware and cyber attacks.
We all want to live in a world that is safe and secure, but we also want to live in a country that is protected by the Constitution.
Yes, Microsoft officially regards the NSA — its own government — as an unconstitutional advanced persistent threat. The company has vowed to sue the government over every non-transparent data request it gets.
And most people have forgotten Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s initial reaction to Edward Snowden’s leaks about NSA surveillance:
He said after the news broke in the Guardian and the Washington Post about Prism, the government surveillance programme that targets major internet companies: “The government response was, ‘Oh don’t worry, we’re not spying on any Americans.’ Oh, wonderful: that’s really helpful to companies trying to serve people around the world, and that’s really going to inspire confidence in American internet companies.”
“I thought that was really bad,” he said. Zuckerberg said Facebook and others were pushing successfully for more transparency. “We are not at the end of this. I wish that the government would be more proactive about communicating. We are not psyched that we had to sue in order to get this and we take it very seriously,” he said.
The anger in the tech business about the NSA’s spying is wide and deep. Remember those Google engineers who went rogue, calling out the way the NSA hacked into the cables between its servers?
Twitter and Yahoo have demanded changes, too.
Here’s Apple’s full statement. But as you read it, bear in mind how crazy 2014 is shaping up to be. The most powerful opponents of the NSA are not the American people. (Where are the protests and demonstrations against the greatest domestic spying threat, ever?) They are tech companies with high-priced lawyers:
Apple has never worked with the NSA to create a backdoor in any of our products, including iPhone. Additionally, we have been unaware of this alleged NSA program targeting our products. We care deeply about our customers’ privacy and security. Our team is continuously working to make our products even more secure, and we make it easy for customers to keep their software up to date with the latest advancements. Whenever we hear about attempts to undermine Apple’s industry-leading security, we thoroughly investigate and take appropriate steps to protect our customers. We will continue to use our resources to stay ahead of malicious hackers and defend our customers from security attacks, regardless of who’s behind them.
PHOTO: Apple CEO Tim Cook Kevork Djansezian/ Getty Images
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