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Meanwhile, back in the NSA

Meanwhile, back in the NSA


by digby

This really seems worth a little more commentary than it’s gotten:

The US National Security Agency has been accused of spying on Brazil’s biggest oil company, Petrobras, following the release of more files from US whistleblower Edward Snowden. 

The latest disclosures, which aired on Brazil’s Fantástico news program, have led to accusations that the NSA is conducting intelligence-gathering operations that go beyond its core mission of national security – often cited as the key distinction between the agency and its counterparts in China and Russia.

I think this points out the central dishonest conceit about the NSA programs and why we should be much more skeptical than we have been: they can rationalize everything as a matter of national security, which opens up vast possibilities for law enforcement and the spying agencies to spy on people under the new legal doctrines established since 9/11.

And if that “national security” spying happens to be of use to certain commercial entities well that’s just frosting on the cake.

Also too: this from bruce Schneier.

Or how about this from Emptywheel?

I want to return to last week’s Edward Snowden related scoop (Guardian, ProPublica/NYT) that the NSA has corrupted cryptography. Remember, there are several reasons the story was important:

  • NSA lost the battle for the Clipper Chip and turned instead to achieve the same goals via means with less legal sanction
  • NSA broke some companies’ encryption by “surreptitiously stealing their encryption keys or altering their software or hardware”
  • NSA also worked to “deliberately weaken[] the international encryption standards adopted by developers”

One key result of this — as Rayne and Julian Sanchez have emphasized — is to make everyone more exposed to hackers.

This is a bit like publishing faulty medical research just to prevent a particular foreign dictator from being cured. It makes everyone on the Internet more vulnerable, increasing the chances that dissidents will be uncovered by despotic regimes and that corporations will fall victim to cybercriminals.

[snip]

Bear this in mind the next time you see people on Capitol Hill wringing their hands about the threat of a possible “Digital Pearl Harbor”—especially if they think the solution is to give more data and authority to the NSA. Because the agency is apparently perfectly happy to hand weapons to criminals and hostile governments, as long as it gets to keep spying too.

And since then, the NSA has responded to rampant cyberattacks and threats of them against targets it cares about by demanding yet more access to those targets’ data

I love the idea that this is all so benign that we needn’t worry our pretty little heads about it. But every new revelation shows an agency that has expanded its mission without proper oversight or even passing thought as to the possible ramifications of its actions.

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