WASHINGTON A government contractor in Georgia was arrested this weekend after a classified National Security Agency reportwas leaked on an alleged cyberattack attempt by Russian military intelligence officers on a voting software company and local election officials.

Reality Leigh Winner, a 25-year-old federal contractor for Pluribus International Corp. who had a top secret security clearance and was working at a government agency, was arrested by FBI agents Saturday at her home in Augusta, Georgia, according to the Justice Department.

The Intercept published a storyMonday on a highly classified May 5 intelligence report the outlet had received anonymously thatanalyzes intelligence very recently acquired by the agency about a months-long Russian intelligence cyber effort against elements of the U.S. election and voting infrastructure.

Reuters

The Justice Department announced Winners arrest hours after The Intercept story was published. While it did not name The Intercept or the NSA, the details included in an affidavit from an FBI agent leave little doubt the case revolves around the disclosure of the May 5 NSA report that The Interceptpublished online.

The affidavit states that an Intelligence Community Agency was contacted by a News Outlet about an upcoming story on May 30.The news outlet gave the agency a copy of the May 5 document, and the agency determined the pages of the intelligence reporting appeared to be folded and/or creased, suggesting they had been printed out and hand-carried out of a secure place, the affidavit states. The copy of the May 5 report published by The Intercept shows creases that make it appear it was folded to fit into a letter-sized envelope.

The NSA conducted an internal audit and determined that six people had printed the May 5 report. The agency audited six desktop computers and found that Winner had email contact with the news outlet and that no others had communicated with the publication.

Winner, who had worked for Pluribus since February, reportedly admitted to government agents Saturday that she had printed the report, removed it from her office and mailed it to the news outlet from Augusta. Winner also allegedlyacknowledged that she was aware of the contents of the intelligence reporting and that she knew the contents of the reporting could be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of a foreign nation, the FBI affidavit said.

Winner, an Air Force veteran, has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration on Twitter, tagging the presidents Twitter account in multiple messages.

Winners mother, Billie Winner-Davis,told Guardian reporter Jon Swaine that she is a former U.S. Air Force linguist who speaks Pashto, Farsi and Dari. But she was not able to provide any insight into her daughters arrest.

I dont know who she might have sent it to, Winners mother told The Daily Beast in an interview, adding that Justice Department officials were very vague.

They said she mishandled and released documents that she shouldnt have, but we had no idea what it pertained to or who.

She called us yesterday night. She asked if we could help out with relocating her cat and dog, she said.

The Intercept indicated it does not know who sent the document but was able to independently authenticate it.

As we reported in the story, the NSA document was provided to us anonymously, Ryan Grim, the Washington bureau chief of The Intercept, said in an email. The Intercept has no knowledge of the identity of the source.(Grim is HuffPosts former Washington bureau chief.)

Notably, the quote included in the DOJ press release on the case comes from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein rather than Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had recused himself from cases involving Russia and the 2016 campaign.

Exceptional law enforcement efforts allowed us quickly to identify and arrest the defendant, Rosensteins statement said. Releasing classified material without authorization threatens our nations security and undermines public faith in government. People who are trusted with classified information and pledge to protect it must be held accountable when they violate that obligation.

President Donald Trump has told the Justice Department to get more aggressive in cracking down on leaks. He reportedly told former FBI Director James Comey to consider jailing journalists.

Leaks to journalists occur every day, as they have for decades, and are a vital source of information for the public in our democracy, said ACLU attorney Patrick Toomey. It would be deeply troubling if this prosecution marked the beginning of a draconian crackdown on leaks to the press by the Trump administration.

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FBI Arrests Federal Contractor In Leak Of NSA Report On ...

The woman charged by the Department of Justice with stealing Top Secret information from the National Security Agency apparently believes being white is a form of terrorism.

Thats according to a tweet the alleged leaker, Reality Winner, sent in February. Winner, who is herself white, tweeted at rapper Kanye West that he should make a shirt declaring whiteness an act of terror.

@kanyewest you should make a shirt that says, being white is terrorism, she tweeted.

Winners social media history is filled with left-wing messages and support for progressives like Bernie Sanders, as The Daily Callers Chuck Ross has previously documented. (RELATED: NSA Leaker Is A Bernie Supporter Who Resists Trump)

The majority of her recent tweets are angrily directed against President Donald Trump, in particular rehashing the liberal trope about tiny hands. She has also called the president an orange fascist, a cunt and bashed his selection of Confederate General Jeff Sessions amounts to racism. Sessions is head of the agency currently prosecuting Winner.

Winner held a Top Secret security clearance for her job at Pluribus International, an NSA contractor. She reportedly is the source for The Intercepts Monday report about previously unknown Russian interference in the 2016 election. (RELATED: Trump Admin Catches One Of The Leakers)

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NSA Leaker: 'Being White Is Terrorism' | The Daily Caller

The 25-year-old woman who stole Top Secret documents from the National Security Agency and leaked them to The Intercept appears to be a supporter of Bernie Sanders and other progressive icons, such as Bill Maher and Michael Moore.

Reality Leigh Winners apparent social media footprint also shows that she is a supporter of other liberal causes, including the Womens March and the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim civil rights group.

She also recently referred to President Trump as a piece of shit because of his position on the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protests.

Winner was indicted in federal court on Monday after she allegedly stole classified documents from her employer, Pluribus International, a defense contractor that does work for the NSA from its offices in Augusta, Ga.

Winner admitted to FBI agents that she stole the documents and provided them to The Intercept. The news site published an article on Monday that appears to be based on the stolen materials.The Top Secret records show that Russian agents attempted to hack into U.S. voting systems prior to the November election.

The federal complaint filed against Winner reveals that she stole the classified documents on May 9, four days after they were published by the NSA. She printed the report and sent it through ground mail to The Intercept. On May 30, a reporter with the outlet contacted the NSA inquiring about the documents. The agency then contacted the FBI, which dispatched agents to interview and apprehend Winner at her home in Augusta.

Other than her left-leaning Facebook page, Winner has a limited online footprint. One news article from the Kingsville (Tex.) Record shows that she graduated from Air Force basic training in March 2011.

A photo of Winner has not been publicly released, but her Facebook page includes information that matches details contained in a federal indictment filed against her in New York on Monday.

The indictment states that Winner has blonde hair and is five-feet-five.The document also mentions that Winner was planning a vacation to Belize last month and that she drives a light-colored Nissan Cube. Winners social media accounts show that she visited Belize and drives a car matching that description.

Jon Swaine, a reporter with The Guardian, also identified Winner.

Winners posts on Facebook suggest that she is politically active.

OnFeb. 14, a day after Winner took her Top Secret job at Pluribus, Winner posted a photo outside of the Atlanta offices of Georgia Sen. David Perdue.

Winner wrote that she had a 30-minute private meeting with the Republican lawmakers state policy director.

She said they discussed my concerns regarding climate change and what the state of Georgia is doing to reduce dependency on fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, my plea that our senators not be afraid to directly state when our president or his cabinet tell outright lies was well heard. I was able to draw the parallel between the 2011 interview of President Bashar al Assad claiming utter ignorance of the human rights violations his citizens were protesting to Trumps statement last week that the White House hadnt received any calls about the DAPL, nor were there any protests before last week. They got the message, she wrote.

A spokeswoman for Perdue released a statement on Tuesday calling the allegations against Winner very serious.

The allegations against Ms. Winner are very serious, and if true, directly threaten our national security.Wetrust our Justice Department will get to the bottom of this and handle it appropriately, the spokeswoman said.

Winner was heavily critical of Trump just after he took office. She used the hashtag NeverMyPresident and Resist in a Facebook post about his position on DAPL.

Winner posted on Facebook most recently on Friday, the day before she was interviewed by the FBI.

You are what you love, not who loves you, she wrote.

This article has been updated with additional information, including about Winners meeting in February at the offices of Georgia Sen. David Perdue.

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NSA Leaker Is A Bernie Supporter Who 'Resists' Trump | The ...

Reality Leigh Winner, 25, a federal contractor charged by the U.S. Department of Justice for sending classified material to a news organization, poses in a picture posted to her Instagram account. Reality Winner / Instagram via Reuters

"Its a new kind of insider threat that the agency cant defend against," Aid said.

And its getting worse, he added, in part because "Donald Trump and the change in the political scene in America has created an environment for a lot of people who feel that they have to DO something. You become an instant activist."

Winner was vocal in her opposition to Trump on social media, but her motives are unclear. According to federal charging documents, she admitted to mailing a Top Secret document detailing Russian hacking intelligence to the news media. She faces one count of "gathering, transmitting or losing defense information."

The lines are blurry, but Winner and those like her seem in a different class than the Washington insiders who have always leaked to settle internal scores or to make policy points. They are small fries, far from the nations power centers, inside a vast intelligence apparatus who decide the public needs to know what they do. Manning leaked from Baghdad; Snowden was based in Hawaii; Winner was in Georgia.

"These are people who have a greater sense of loyalty to some outside cause than to the organization they are working in, and thats a new thing for the intelligence community," said a former senior NSA official, who asked not to be named so he could speak more candidly about sensitive topics.

There is another dimension, another former NSA official said: Too much information is classified, and everyone working in intelligence knows it.

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Indeed, the document Winner allegedly leaked did not seem, on its face, to be terribly sensitive. The U.S. government, after all, was perfectly willing to acknowledge its authenticity by charging Winner barely an hour after the story broke on The Intercept, as if to send a message. The charging documents dont link the case to The Intercept, but officials quickly did so in background comments to reporters.

Her attorney, Titus Thomas Nichols, said Winner has yet to enter a plea, although a detention hearing is scheduled for Thursday. She remains jailed in Lincoln County.

"A week ago today she was living her life," he said. "Now shes in the middle of a political whirlwind."

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How Did Accused NSA Leaker Reality Winner Get Security Clearance? - NBCNews.com

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Accused NSA leaker cursed out Trump in social media posts New York Post When she's not leaking government secrets she's crushing it at the gym and cursing out the Leader of the Free World. Reality Leigh Winner, the 25-year-old contractor accused of leaking classified NSA documents, is a die-hard CrossFit competitor who ...

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Accused NSA leaker cursed out Trump in social media posts - New York Post

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Reality Winner, who is white, tweeted to rapper Kanye West in February that he should make a shirt saying whiteness is a form of terrorism.

@kanyewest you should make a shirt that says, being white is terrorism,' Winner wrote on Twitter.

A search of Winners Twitter account shows multiple left-wing messages disparaging President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, ranging from calling the president an orange fascist to calling Sessions a Confederate general whoencourages racism:

Winners Facebook page also shows posts resisting Trump with the hashtags #NeverMyPresident and #resist, but one such post is no longer available:

The left-wing activist reportedly supported Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2016 election and followedNSA leaker Edward Snowden on Twitter.

Winner worked as a government contractor with Pluribus International Corporation in Georgia and was charged Monday with allegedly leaking NSA documents on Russian election hacking to The Intercept.

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Alleged NSA Leaker Once Said 'Being White Is Terrorism' - Breitbart News

Shadow Brokers, the group behind last yearsrelease of hacking exploits allegedly used by the National Security Agency,has dropped another trove of files. In a Medium posttoday, the hacker group offered up a password giving freeaccess to files it had previously tried to auction off.

The Shadow Brokers first came to prominence last August whenthey leaked exploits linked tothe NSA and the Equation Groupcontaining vulnerabilities inmajor firewall products.The group would later release a list of IP addressesit claimed were compromised by the Equation Group.

Shadow Brokerswas hoping to auction off another set of files, but didntattract very much interest or Bitcoin in the attempt. After that failed, the group posted a farewell message in January and leaked a new set of Windows-related vulnerabilities.

Todays leak from the Shadow Brokerscomes with a lengthy Medium post, in which the group says it is releasing the files as a form of protest after losing faith in the leadership ofPresident Donald Trump. Claiming that Trump appears to be abandoning his base, the post also offers a list of suggestions for how the president could Make America Great Again.

Security researchers are still goingthrough the files, but many of the exploits appear to be used for attacking older or little-used systems. And at least one guy thinks this leak might lead to the unmasking of the hackers:

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Alleged NSA hack group Shadow Brokers releases new trove of exploits - TechCrunch

This report first appeared on CyberScoop.

The man responsible for leading the National Security Agencys defensive mission says his team is fielding more calls than ever from agencies across the government.

Dangerous, highly capable hackers and a desire by agencies to adopt cloud technology have increased the workload forInformation Assurance chief Paul Pitelli and his office, which he says is sort of like the Geek Squad for defense in government.

Pitelli is acareer professionalwho has served in the NSA for more than 20 years as the secretive spy agency transformed into what it is today a highly sophisticated technology behemoth with an array of federal responsibilities, including both signals intelligence and protecting sensitive government systems. With the recent retirement of former Information Assurance Directorate head Curtis Dukes, a renown computer scientist and intelligence community icon, Pitelli took on an increased role in an ever important effort to ensure that the Defense Department and broader government arent hacked.

Well get a wide range of calls from Hey were trying to set up a whole new [information technology] environment and that could be the White House calling, Pitelli said.

A big focus in recents years for Information Assurance, according to Pitelli, has been helping a variety of different federal agencies establish secure cloud data storage processes.

I have never been more busy, Pitelli told CyberScoop in an interview Thursday after he spoke at the McAfee Security Through Innovation Summit.We are getting calls because they all need help. Everyone wants to take advantage of cloud services, thats sort of one thing were getting called for, but its also traditional issues because our nation is being constantly attacked. Were one of the few agencies that get to see when and how the adversary starts operating.

Federal lawmakers have increasingly encouraged agencies in recent years to adopt cloud data storage technologies as a way to both save costs and phase out old on-premise servers.

Because of the economics of cloud services theres so much incentive [for agencies] to migrate many of their capabilities, Pitelli said. A lot of people in government want the NSAs help.

Nobody in government wants to be the next to suffer a hack like the2015 data breach that exposed federal employee information held by theOffice of Personnel Management, he said.

So were getting a lot of calls where its basically, Hey we want to make this move, but how do we do it well? Pitelli said.

Turnoverat the White House also adds to the Information Assurance divisions current workload.

With a change of administration, you know, they typically take a fresh look. And for us thats an opportunity because it allows us to sometimes make an [IT] environment better, Pitelli said. The cyber dimension is adding, on one hand, what you can call issues or events, but I think can be opportunities.

Historically, Fort Meades defensive efforts in cyberspace have been overshadowed by the spy agencys more offensive-centric, intelligence gathering mission set. This is evident from a labor perspective, given that the NSAs Signals Intelligence workforce remains much larger than the Information Assurance unit.

An overwhelming majority of budget dollars are allocated to offense rather than defense, former intelligence officials say, and thats resulted in an agency that is known almost exclusively for digital espionage rather than cyber-defense.

Dukes, former IAD head Debora Plunkett and departing NSA Deputy Director Rick Ledgett recently voiced their concerns that the NSA should be focusing on defense more than it has in the past.

Roughly 90 percent of the U.S. government cybersecurity spending is used to fuel offensive operations, Ledgett told Reuters.

I absolutely think we should be placing significantly more effort on the defense, particularly in light of where we are with exponential growth in threats and capabilities and intentions, Plunkett, who oversaw the NSAs defensive mission from 2010 to 2014, recently told Reuters.

Defense under NSA21

The trios comments come amid an expansive reorganization effort by the NSA, instituted by agency Director Michael Rogers, that works to combine what was once called the Information Assurance Directorate and Signals Intelligence Directorate into a single, joint entity.

Although Rogers plan, known as NSA21, is intended to streamline operations, it has also spurred new concerns that the spy agencys defensive mission will receive even less resources in the future.

When the NSA goes through a change a lot of that discussion goes on because theres a big difference between offense and defense as far as the budget and so that was one of the big concerns that some folks vocalized, said Pitelli, I see a need, a bigger need for cybersecurity not just at NSA but for everybody.

The dual impact of NSA21s rollout and Dukes recent retirement has caused some confusion in government.

I know Curt voiced concerns that as we make this move [towards NSA21] there can be this perception that Oh well who do I call? And if they dont know who to call the question is, Well where did it go? Curt was really one of the great, visible icons of Information Assurance and he retired and so there is that time right now where we are waiting to find out whose going to be given the mantle next, Pitelli said.

Pitelli declined to specifically discuss the NSAs budget but said he would like to see Congress broadly allocate greater resources for cybersecurity writ large, across the entire government.

I will go so far as to say I would hope that the government not just at NSA, but the government really tries to allocate additional funds for the cybersecurity information assurance mission, Pitelli said. Alot of times people have lumped in their information assurance budgets with their IT budgets and the challenge I think youre seeing now is that we havent kept up with the budgets of cybersecurity.

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NSA cyber-defense chief: 'I have never been more busy' - FedScoop

For many, many years, Senator Ron Wyden has been directly asking the US intelligence community a fairly straightforward question (in his role as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee): just how many Americans are having their communications swept up in surveillance activities supposedly being conducted on foreigners under the FISA Amendments Act (FISA being Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). Wyden started asking way back in 2011 and got no answers. His continued questioning in 2013 resulted in Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lying to Congress in a public hearing, which Ed Snowden later claimed was a big part of the inspiration to make him leak documents to the press.

Just last month, we noted that Wyden had renewed his request for an accurate depiction of how many Americans have had their communications swept up, this time asked to new Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats. Unfortunately, for all these years, it's basically felt like Senator Wyden tilting at a seeming windmill, with many others in Congress basically rolling their eyes every time the issue is raised. I've never understood why people in Congress think that these kinds of things can be ignored. There have been a few attempts by others -- notably on the House Judiciary Committee -- to ask similar questions. Almost exactly a year ago, there was a letter from many members of the HJC, and there was a followup in December. But, notably, while there were a number of members from both parties on that letter, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte, did not sign the letter, meaning that it was unlikely to be taken as seriously.

Suddenly, though, it seems that the ins-and-outs of Section 702, and how the "incidental" information it collects on Americans is used has taken on a much wider interest, following President Trump's misleading suggestion that President Obama tapped his phone lines, and some Trump supporters trying to twist typical 702 surveillance to justify those remarks. Either way, if that leads people to actually look at 702, that may be a good result out of a stupid situation. And, thus, we get to this surprising moment, in which Goodlatte has actually sent a similar letter to Coats (along with ranking member John Conyers) asking about the impact of 702 surveillance on Americans. And since (for reasons that are beyond me) Reuters refuses to link to the actual source materials, you can read the full letter here or embedded below.

The letter demands an answer by April 24th. And, yes, it's notable that Goodlatte has signed on, because Section 702 is up for reauthorization at the end of the year, and if Goodlatte is not on board with reauthorization, then the NSA is going to have some difficulty in getting it through.

You have described reauthorization of Section 702 as your "top legislative priority." Although Congress designed this authority to target non-U.S. persons located outside of the United States, it is clear that Section 702 surveillance programs can and do collect information about U.S. persons, on subjects unrelated to counterterrorism. It is imperative that we understand the size of this impact on U.S. persons as our Committee proceeds with the debate on reauthorization.

The letter then even points to Coats' response to Wyden during Coats' confirmation hearing that he was "going to do everything I can to work with Admiral Rogers in NSA to get you that number." Of course, back in December, it was said that the intelligence community might finally deliver that number... in January. And it's now April. Still, with Goodlatte finally taking an interest in this, it's a sign that the NSA can't just coast by and continue to completely ignore this.

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Oh, Sure, Now Congress Is Serious About Asking NSA About Surveillance On Americans - Techdirt

President Donald Trump should not have accused American intelligence agencies of wiretapping Trump Tower during the 2016 Presidential campaign, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency Michael Hayden said Thursday afternoon in a talk at Princeton University.

Thats awful, and thats untrue, Hayden said. The retired four-star Air Force general said that the assorted intelligence agencies do not have political motives in their actions.

Just found out that Obama had my wires tapped in Trump Tower just before the victory, Trump tweeted on March 4. He has since maintained that the Obama administration, and specifically National Security Advisor Susan Rice, monitored the Trump campaigns communications.

Trump has not provided any firm evidence for his claims, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Although there has been a particularly public conflict between Trump and the CIA at times, it is normal for there to be tensions between an incoming president and intelligence agencies, Hayden said. I dont know if youve been following along up here in New Jersey, but it hasnt been smooth.

It has been harder than usual for Trump and the intelligence agencies to work together because Trump thinks intuitively by nature and is not used to consuming the large amounts of information intelligence agencies provide.

Hayden also recounted stories from his time in the upper echelons of American government. He was the director of the NSA when the 9/11 attacks happened.

He had to address the agencys tens of thousands of employees two days after the attacks and reassure them that their work mattered, he said. Some employees were scared to come to work.

Hours after the attacks, Hayden directed the NSA to expand monitoring of communications between Afghanistan and the United States. He later played a critical role in expanding the surveillance program that former CIA employee Edward Snowden revealed in 2013.

In Haydens view, Snowden should not be considered a true whistleblower, since he did not expose any illegal activity. Everything that the NSA did was authorized by Congress and Presidents Bush and Obama, so the American public should already have known what was happening, Hayden said.

There are far more checks on the powers of the NSA to collect data on Americans than the organizations foreign counterparts have, Hayden said in defense of the agency. In other countries, including Western democracies, legislatures and courts do not have oversight, but they do in America.

We know that as night follows day, we will end up in a Congressional hearing sooner or later, Hayden said. When he led the CIA and NSA, he would use the maximum powers allotted to him by the Constitution, American law, and American policy to keep the country safe, even if he knew some of his actions would be controversial.

Complete transparency is not possible from the spy agencies because the full reality would scare some Americans, Hayden said. He advocated for what he calls a policy of translucence over full transparency, so that Americans could know generally what was going on without hearing unnecessary specifics.

Frightened people dont make good Democrats or Republicans, Hayden said.

Hayden teaches a course as George Mason University called Intelligence and Public Policy in which he challenges his students to find the correct amount of control and knowledge that the American public should have over the intelligence agencies that are tasked with protecting it.

At the beginning of the course, he asks his students a single question, which he wants them to answer over the course of the semester, he said.

Is the secret pursuit of secret truth compatible with American democracy? Hayden asked. "Is the secret pursuit of any secret truth compatible with any modern democracy?

Continued here:

Former CIA and NSA director: Trump should stop attacking ... - Packet Online

Defense

Strategic Command chief Gen. John Hyten says that Cyber Command needs its own platform ahead of a planned split from NSA.

U.S. Cyber Command needs to be elevated to a full combatant command as soon as possible, but it should remain tied to the National Security Agency until it has its own cyber platform, according to the head of U.S. Strategic Command.

Air Force Gen. John Hyten told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he and Adm. Michael Rogers, head of the NSA and CyberCom, submitted their plan to the Trump administration calling for elevation of CyberCom "sooner rather than later."

He said that needed to happen "just to normalize that command and make sure that we can kind of develop normal command relationships between Cyber Command and all the combatant commanders including Strategic Command."

Later in the hearing, Hyten added that the end of the dual-hat leadership structure of the NSA and CyberCom will have to wait until CyberCom has an independent cyber platform from the NSA.

"There are acquisition programs of record being instituted to build those capabilities," said Hyten. "Once those capabilities are built, I would be supportive of separating the two. But I will not advocate separating the two until we have a separate platform in the services that Cyber Command can operate on."

Senators pressed Hyten on a number of cybersecurity topics, including the ramifications of modernizing the IT architecture that controls the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Strategic Command currently oversees cyber, space and nuclear capabilities, and Hyten said they are linked in that a cyber threat that could affect command and control capabilities could undermine the U.S. nuclear deterrent, "and we have to make sure we never allow that to happen."

Hyten said Congress needs to demand that as the military services modernize nuclear command and control capabilities that they move from a 20th century architecture and not simply move from eight-and-a-half inch floppy discs to the five-inch variety.

"We will introduce cyber vulnerabilities as we walk into that, but if you work it right from the beginning, you can make sure that that threat is mitigated from the beginning," he said.

When asked whether the U.S. has the capacity to protect nuclear cyber systems, Hyten said in general he was happy with where the Cyber Mission Forces are going right now. But he warned that they do yet not have the capacity to meet all of the requirements the DOD has.

He said that currently cyber forces are specifically assigned to the combatant commands, and that DOD needs to look at cyber forces like special forces -- as a high-demand, low-density asset that needs to be centralized and allocated out based on mission priority.

"The demand signal is going to go nowhere but up and the capacity is not sufficient to meet all of the demand," he said.

Hyten also said the conversation on deterrence in cyberspace must move past the nuclear framework of the past, with its binary analysis.

"I think what's missing is a broader discussion of what 21st century deterrence really means," said Hyten. "That involves the nuclear capabilities as the backstop, but fundamentally space, cyber, conventional, all the other elements as well.""Now it's a multivariable analysis and each of those has to be put in context," he said. "And context has to be the fact that we're actually not deterring cyber, we're not deterring space. We're deterring an adversary that wants to operate and do damage in those domains."

About the Author

Sean Carberry is an FCW staff writer covering defense, cybersecurity and intelligence. Prior to joining FCW, he was Kabul Correspondent for NPR, and also served as an international producer for NPR covering the war in Libya and the Arab Spring. He has reported from more than two-dozen countries including Iraq, Yemen, DRC, and South Sudan. In addition to numerous public radio programs, he has reported for Reuters, PBS NewsHour, The Diplomat, and The Atlantic.

Carberry earned a Master of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, and has a B.A. in Urban Studies from Lehigh University.

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General: Cyber Command needs new platform before NSA split - FCW.com

Here we go again. The latest twist in President Donald Trumps never-ending allegation that the Obama White House was spying on Team Trump before inauguration day involves an arcane, highly classified issue about Americans who arementioned in signals intelligence intercepts.

Trump and his supporters seek to paint any interception of American phone callsor even discussions about Americans by foreignersas improper and maybe illegal. Thats not true. Every day, the National Security Agency intercepts lots of calls between foreigners in which Americans are discussed. If theyre important Americanstop politicians, for instancethat intercept may have intelligence value. If it doesnt, the intercept is deleted and forgotten.

More rarely, the NSA intercepts phone calls in which one of the interlocutors is an American. As long as this operation has been approved per the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Actmeaning a top-secret Federal court has issued a warrant for this collectionthis is perfectly legal SIGINT. Here, too, an intelligence report will be issued in top-secret channels if the NSA determines theres foreign intelligence value here and somebody, usually the FBI, needs to know what the intercept reveals.

In all cases, the identity of the American or Americans discussed is masked in the top-secret reports issued by NSA. They are referred to as US Person or USP for short; if theres more than one of them, a number is added. Such SIGINT reports look like this fictional excerpt:

(TS/SI) In a recent conversation with one of his top aides, Zendias foreign minister, Abu Jefferson, opined that it would not be in his countrys interests if USP-1 is named U.S. Secretary of State by the incoming administration of USP-2. In particular, Abu Jefferson noted the concern of Zendias Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) that USP-1 is too close to the oil business and his appointment as Americas top diplomat may prove negative for Zendias rising LNG industry. He indicated that USP-3 would be a better choice as U.S. Secretary of State from the Zendian MFAs perspective, and that actions should be taken to support USP-3s potential candidacy.

Lets say a few months back youre one of the high-level people in Washington with the right security clearances and a need to know, since SIGINT reports which cite USPs are not widely disseminated even in top-secret channels. Unless youre clueless, youd immediately realize that USP-2 is Donald Trump while USP-1 is almost certainly Rex Tillerson. But who is USP-3?

Thats an important question since Zendias foreign minister wants actions taken to support USP-3 as Secretary of State. Given the tricky state of American relations with Zendia, it would be good to know whats going on here, particularly since past Zendian actions in Washington have included illegalities such as bribes to members of Congress.

If youre a top dog inside the Beltway, you would then ask the NSA to let you know who the mystery USP-3 is. Theres nothing sinister about thisit happens all the time in Washington. When the NSA receives a request to unmask that Americans identity, to use the proper spy-term, the Agency office which issued the report is asked if theyre ok with the unmasking. The request then goes upa chain, potentially as high as the NSA director, for final approval.

As Admiral Mike Rogers, the Agencys director, recently informed the House Intelligence Committee in open session, the number of NSA officials authorized to unmask USPs is only about 20including the director himself. Neither is this any sort of rubber stamp. The NSA reserves the right to decline unmasking requests, if they think the request is inappropriate or would reveal sensitive intelligence sources and methods. Denials are hardly uncommon.

Even if unmasking approval is granted, the USPs identity is shared only with the requester, in top-secret channels, and cannot be shared more widely. At all times, the NSA retains control of the information and it must be protected per stringent Agency regulations.

The above scenario is the backdrop for the latest accusation against the Obama administration proffered by Team Trump. The White House has jumped on a new report by Bloomberg which alleges that Susan Rice, National Security Adviser during Obamas second term, on multiple occasions last year asked NSA to reveal the identity of Trump associates who wound up in SIGINT reports.

The report, by Eli Lake, is hedging and cautious, noting that most of the intercepts in question involved two foreigners, not any member of Team Trump, while adding, Rices unmasking requests were likely within the law. Lakes exclusive illuminates the strange saga of Devin Nunes, the House Intelligence Committee chair, whose mysterious late-night White House visit turns out to have involved a Trump administration unofficial investigation of possible malfeasance by Rice, including top-secret information which White House officials wanted to share with Rep. Nunes.

It hardly needs to be explained that this report has been greeted warmly by those who wish to turn attention away from the presidents mounting Russia problems. Since the commander-in-chief has repeatedly stated in tweets that the whole Russia story is FAKE NEWS, this is a welcome development indeed for the White House, since it puts the spotlight on Team Obama rather than Team Trump.

That said, President Trump and his fans should be cautious, since it will be nearly impossible to prove that Rice did anything wrong by asking the NSA to unmask Americans in SIGINT reports. Most of the reports in question involve senior officials of foreign governments discussing the still-forming Trump administration, including speculation about potential cabinet appointments. As National Security Advisor, Rice had perfectly legitimate reasons to want to know the full story about those reports. This scandal appears to be a giant nothingburger, to use one of President Obamas preferred descriptions.

Yet there are caveats. Although its all but impossible to prove, if Rice asked for those identities for politicalnot national securityreasons, theres a problem. Then theres the possibility that she may not have adhered to NSAs rigid rules about protecting the identities of those unmasked USPs. If she informed White House staffers without a need to know who those Americans were, the FBI may have something to investigate.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Susan Rice is a deeply unpopular figure with our Intelligence Community. Her abrasive personality and overall incompetence grated on the IC. Her habitually coarse language was inflicted on senior intelligence officials more than once, while nobody outside Obamas inner circle considered Rice even marginally competent at her job. Simply put, she was the worst National Security Adviser in American historyat least until Mike Flynns dismally failed three-week tenure.

In addition, Rice didnt like to play by the rules, including the top-secret ones. On multiple occasions, she asked the NSA to do things they regarded as unethical and perhaps illegal. When she was turned downthe NSA fears breaking laws for any White House, since they know they will be left holding the bag in the endRice kept pushing.

As a longtime NSA official who experienced Rices wrath more than once told me, We tried to tell her to pound sand on some things, but it wasnt allowedwe were always overruled. On multiple occasions, Rice got top Agency leadership to approve things which NSA personnel on the front end of the spy business refused. This means there may be something Congress and the FBI need to investigate here.

Susan Rice and Team Trump are both despised by our intelligence agencies, albeit for different reasons. The prospect of a death-match between them is causing unusual emotions in the IC. For us, this is like the Iran-Iraq war, explained another longtime NSA official: Wed like both sides to lose.

Its unfortunate that the Rice story is distracting from the far more important KremlinGate issue, since clandestine Russian interference in our politics is a considerably weightier national security concern than potential illegalities about SIGINT unmasking by the past administration. Nevertheless, President Obama may have gifted his successor and his Republican allies in Congress a genuine scandal, which could delay necessary resolution of the knotty issue of Team Trumps alleged ties with Moscow.

John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, hes also been a Navy officer and a War College professor. Hes published four books and is on Twitter at @20committee.

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Trump Has a Problem With NSABut So Does Obama - Observer

The choice of Rob Joyce, former head of the National Security Agencys Tailored Access Operations unit as cyber security coordinator puts an experienced offensive cyber operator at the nexus of the nations cyber policy and strategy at a time when nation-state cyber interference is at the forefront of public consciousness.

Joyce succeeds Michael Daniel, who had a public policy, economist and finance background and spent nearly a decade in cyber policy at the Office of Management and Budget and the White House. Joyces background, by contrast, is as an operator in the cyber realm, bringing an intimate understanding of the threat to the forefront of national cyber policy.

As cyber coordinator, Joyce is not the federal chief information security officer (CISO). That post is largely focused on securing the federal enterprise; the cyber coordinator drives policy beyond the federal government. The cyber coordinator is also interested in cybersecurity across the entire digital ecosystem, including private industry, state and local governments and foreign governments, as well. So its a much broader role than what the federal CISO focuses on, says Daniel, who is now president of the Cyber Threat Alliance, a non-profit focused on cyber threat sharing across the industry. There is some degree of overlap and complementarity obviously the cybersecurity coordinator has to care about the security of federal networks but the cybersecurity coordinator has a broader mandate than that.

Little is publicly known about NSAs offensive cyber activities. But in a rare public appearance last August at the USENIX 2016 conference, Joyce described the five steps to a successful cyber intrusion initial exploitation, establish presence, install tools, move laterally and collect/ex-filtrate/exploit and then walked through the weaknesses he and his hackers came across and exploited each day.

If you really want to protect your network, he said then, you really have to know your network. You have to know the devices, the security technologies, and the things inside it. His clear message: His team often knew better than the networks managers. Indeed, while NSA hackers might not understand products and technologies as well as the people who design them, Joyce said they learn to understand the security aspects of those products and technologies better than the people who created them.

You know the technologies you intended to use in that network, he said. We know the technologies that are actually in use in that network. [Theres a] subtle difference. Youd be surprised at the things that are running on a network versus the things you think are supposed to be there.

Penetration-testing is essential, as is follow-up. Joyces OTA regularly conducted Red Team testing against government networks. Well inevitably find things that are misconfigured, things that shouldnt be set up within that network, holes and flaws, he said. The unit reported its findings, telling the network owner what to fix.

Then a few years later, it would be time to test that network again. It is not uncommon for us to find the same security flaws that were in the original report, Joyce said. Inexcusable, inconceivable, but returning a couple of years later, the same vulnerabilities continue to exist. Ive seen it in the corporate sector too. Ive seen it in our targets.

Laziness is a risk factor all its own. People tell you youre vulnerable in a space, close it down and lock it down, Joyce said, reflecting on the fact that network administrators frequently dont take all threats and risks seriously enough. Dont assume a crack is too small to be noted or too small to be exploited. Theres a reason its called advanced persistent threats: Because well poke and well poke and well wait and well wait and well wait, because were looking for that opportunity to [get in and] finish the mission.

As an offensive cyber practitioner, Joyce sought to identify and, when needed, exploit the seams in government and enemy networks. He focused on the sometimes amorphous boundaries where the crack in the security picture might come from getting inside a personal device, an unsecured piece of operational security, such as a security camera or a network-enabled air conditioning system, or even an application in the cloud. Cloud computing is really just another name for somebody elses computer, he said. If you have your data in the cloud, you are trusting your security protocols the physical security and all of the other elements of trust to an outside entity.

Most networks are well protected, at least on the surface. They have high castle walls and a hard crusty shell, he said. But inside theres a soft gooey core.

Figuring out how to protect that core from a national security and policy perspective will be Joyces new focus, and if Daniels experience is any indicator, it will be a challenge.

From his perspective, cybersecurity is only partly about technology. Adversaries tend to get into networks through known, fixable vulnerabilities, Daniel says. So the reason those vulnerabilities still exist is not a technical problem because we know how to fix it its an incentive problem an economics problem. That is, network owners either fail to recognize the full extent of the risks they face or, if they do, may be willing to accept those risks rather than invest in mitigating them.

The challenge, then, is formulating policy in an environment in which the true level of risk is not generally understood. In that sense, Joyces ability to communicate the extent to which hackers can exploit weaknesses could be valuable in elevating cyber awareness throughout the White House.

The NSC is about managing the policy process for the national security issues affecting the US government, Daniel explains. You dont have any direct formal authority over anyone. But you do have the power to convene. You have the power to raise issues to people in the White House. You have the ability to try to persuade and cajole. The background he brings will obviously color what he prioritizes and what he puts his time against. But the role itself will not be dramatically different. understanding how to get decisions keyed up in a way that you can actually get them approved.

Joyces background could affect how this administration views commercial technologies, such as cloud services, mobile technology and other advances that, while ubiquitous in our daily lives, are not yet standard across the federal government.

Trust boundaries now extended to partners, Joyce said a year ago. Personal devices youre trusting those on to the network. So what are you doing to really shore up the trust boundary around the things you absolutely must defend? That for me is what it comes down to: Do you really know what the keys to the kingdom are that you must defend?

National security cyber policy is not just defensive, however, and having a coordinator with a keen insiders understanding of offensive cyber capabilities could have a significant long-term impact on national cyber strategy.

Just as Daniel sees cybersecurity as an incentives, or economics problem, Kevin Mandia, chief executive at the cyber security firm FireEye and founder of Mandiant, its breach-prevention and mitigation arm, sees incentives and disincentives as playing a critical role for cyber criminals and nation-state attackers, alike. Simply put, he says, the risk-reward ratio tilts in their favor, because the consequences of an attack do not inflict enough pain.

Mandia agrees that the first priority for U.S. cyber policy should be self-defense. Every U.S. citizen believes the government has a responsibility to defend itself, he said at the FireEye Government Forum March 15. So first and foremost, our mission security folks must defend our networks. But the second thing the private sector wants is deterrence. We need deterrence for cyber activities.

And in order to develop an effective deterrence policy, he argues, the nation needs fast, reliable attribution the ability to unequivocally identify who is responsible for a cyber attack.

Id take nothing off the table to make sure we have positive attribution on every single cyber attack that happens against U.S. resources, Mandia says. Because you cant deter unless you know who did it. You have to have proportional response alternatives, and you have to know where to direct that proportionate response.

Where Joyce stands on deterrence and attribution is not yet clear, but what is clear is that sealing off the cracks in federal network security is sure to get more intense.

A lot of people think the nation states are running on this engine of zero-days, Joyce said a year ago, referring to unreported, unpatched vulnerabilities. Its not that. Take any large network and I will tell you that persistence and focus will get you in, will achieve that exploitation without the zero days. There are so many more vectors that are easier, less risky and quite often more productive than going down that route.

Closing off those vectors forces threat actors to assume more risk, expose zero-day exploits and operate with less cover. When that happens, the balance of cyber power could finally start to tilt away from the hackers.

Tobias Naegele is the editor in chief of GovTechWorks. He has covered defense, military, and technology issues as an editor and reporter for more than 25 years, most of that time as editor-in-chief at Defense News and Military Times.

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What to Expect from the NSA Hacker Turned White House Cyber ... - GovTechWorks

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Given his background, those words carried weight and contributed to the climate of fear and division that burdens our democracy today, including within the intelligence agencies.

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Hayden also signed a letter last August urging Americans to vote against Donald Trump. Anything Hayden says about politics today must therefore be interpreted in that context. He is hardly a disinterested observer, and clearly resents the fact that the American people ignored his unsolicited advice.

Now, Hayden tells the Business Insider that Breitbart News has an illegitimate worldview. He was apparently objecting to Breitbart News storylast week documenting mainstream media reports that the Obama administration had conducted surveillance at Trump Tower and of people connected to the Trump campaign, and that it had disseminated the products of that surveillance.

Hayden admitted that he had not examinedthose media reports themselves. Nevertheless, he attacked Breitbart, Drudge and others:

The retired four-star Air Force general said too that theres an amazing consistency on numerous subjects between the information disseminated by Russian media outlets and that of conservative American sources like the Drudge Report, radio and television host Sean Hannity, and Breitbart.

You have a Breitbart News story essentially launching the Starfleet of the federal government about one of the most horrible political scandals in American history, if true, Hayden said, adding that it was very troubling the president seeming to value Breitbart reports over data compiled by intelligence agencies.

Breitbart doesnt do any creative journalism it just moves the parts around, Hayden continued. And I havent done this personally, but Ive heard others say, when you dig into the Breitbart sources, the articles dont really say that.

They have a worldview, and they are playing with it, he said. I think its an illegitimate worldview, and I think its a non-fact-based worldview. Its a worldview in which preexisting visions seem to be being used to distort the fact pattern that exists.

The proper address for Haydens complaints is the mainstream media, and possibly the Obama administration. Regardless, the views he considers illegitimateareenjoyed by the 45 million unique visitors who read our website every month.

The fact that Hayden and other disgruntled members of the Washington establishment still refuse to acknowledge the basic validity of a different perspective outside the Beltway and the mainstream media is precisely why Trump won in November.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the most influential people in news media in 2016. His new book,How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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NeverTrumper Michael Hayden of CIA, NSA: Breitbart News ... - Breitbart News

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WASHINGTON Congresswants answers about the National Security Agencys expansion of powers in respect to sharing intercepted personal communications with 16 other federal agencies.

President Barack Obama amended an executive order last January that expanded the NSAs abilities to share intelligence.

So that was in the works for a long time. At this point I know that thats out there. Were asking questions about it. I dont think theres anything that that that issue would have to deal with the investigation, but weve asked questions about it, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes told reporters Thursday night, adding that members on the floor had asked him about it as a result of the coverage of the issue in the news.

Other intelligence committee members in their respective chambers had little to say about the effect the new rule has had. Texas Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro said he did not like to comment off the cuff on about intelligence security matters and the Senate Intelligence Committee Ranking member said he could not comment at the time.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, one of eight congressional leaders who receives exclusive intelligence information,would only say she did not believe the change in the NSAs powers caused recent leaks about sensitive information related to the Trump administration to occur.

I mean, I think that we all dont want everybody in pipeline, so were not having the benefit of information or intelligence to keep the American people safe. But I dont think that has anything to do with leaks, she said.

Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert warned that reversing the NSAs expansion would be more difficult now.

Sure, that could be reversed. But its one of those things where youd be able to put you know that virus back into the little box or is it growing and spread too far, because you know its a legitimate question, Gohmert said.

He explained, Now that the intelligence community has seen what its like to spread what is supposed to be very private confidential classified wiretap information, and thats spread across 16 or 17 other federal agencies. I dont know if they would want to give that up. And even if they change the executive order, if that will be complied with.

Gohmert added, This is a very scary time for those of us who believe in a constitutional democratic republic.

Follow Kerry on Twitter

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Congress Seek Answers On NSA's New Powers | The Daily Caller - Daily Caller

Why it matters to you

Are you curious to know just how many Americans are affected by the NSA's mass-surveillance programs. Well, the agency still isn't talking.

With the legislation that effectively legalizes the National Security Agency mass surveillance programs Prism and Upstream set to expire at the end of 2017, Congress is once again asking for numbers on how many Americans have been surveilled. Just as it has for the past six years, though, the NSA isnt playing ball.

Although most Americans only learned of the countrys large-scale spying operations after NSA whistleblowerEdward Snowden revealed them, Congress has been aware a little longer. Since 2011, several key members have been trying to find out how many Americans the NSA has collected personal information from, but theyvealways been denied, according to Ars Technica.

More:The NSA and GCHQ can see data from your phone when youre 10,000 feet in the air

The reason Congress is making a big case to have those numbers revealed this year is because, as during the Obama administration, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) will expire on December 31. While the Trump administration is keen to see this legislation remain in place, according toThe Intercept, Congress wants the numbers to know just how effective it is and how much useless information is potentially collected from regular citizens.

The NSA says that it cant reveal them, even in top-secret briefings. Just as it did whenSen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) requested them in 2011, 2012 and 2014, it claims that by revealing how many Americans were affected, it would require identifying them. That, it claims, would mean destroying their anonymity as part of the data, thereby making their information more vulnerable.

That sort of circular logic isnt sitting well with senators, norwith privacy champion the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It is urging Congress to allow FISA to expire, thereby making the mass spying conducted by the NSA and other intelligence agencies illegal in the future.

As it stands, the NSA uses Prism to siphon mass data from popular online services like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, while Upstream lets it tap into the fiber cables that transmit the internet across the country and around the world.

Although the NSA and others argue that such technologies are vital in helping protect Americans, many have argued that mass surveillance breaches the Constitution and undermines the idea of a free and democratic society.

Continued here:

Congress again pushing NSA to reveal number of Americans under surveillance - Digital Trends

These are definitely uncharted waters, if not alarming and frightening waters. Donald Trump ran against his Democratic rival by calling her crooked Hillary. Just keep that in mind during this story.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said he didnt believe it was known that Michael Flynn, who had to resign as Donald Trumps National Security Adviser due to undisclosed contacts with Russia that he lied about, was also working as a foreign agent for Turkey during the campaign, while he served as a top adviser to Donald Trump. Flynn was paid $530,000 for 3 months of work as a foreign agent for Turkey, according to recent filings.

The White House couldnt really say if they knew about Flynns work as a foreign agent whilst he served as top adviser to Donald Trump and at the time that President Trump appointed him to be the National Security Adviser.

From the White House briefing during a question and answer with reporterJohn Roberts:

Q Was the President aware that Lieutenant General Michael Flynn was acting as a foreign agent when he appointed him to be the national security advisor?

MR. SPICER: I dont believe that that was known. I would refer you to General Flynn and the Department of Justice in terms of the filings that have been made.

Q Had the President have known that, would he have appointed him?

MR. SPICER: I dont know, John. Thats a hypothetical that Im not prepared to ask. I dont know what he discussed prior to being appointed in terms of his background, his resume, his client base. I dont know any of that. I know that, from what I have read, that he has filed the appropriate forms with the Department of Justice, and I think you should ask him and subsequently them if you have any questions about this specific filing.

Actually, no, Flynn did not file the appropriate forms with the Justice Department at the time, which is technically a felony.

The amended filing was made in response to pressure from Justice Department officials in recent weeks, the AP reported a businessman who hired Flynns consulting firm telling them. The businessman, Ekim Alptekin, said in a phone call from Istanbul that the changes were a response to political pressure and he did not agree with Flynns decision to file the registration documents with the Justice Department.

Normally the Justice Department doesnt go around pursuing felony charges against people who fail to file properly, but in this case we have a man working as top adviser and then National Security Adviser in the White House, whose other foreign contacts are already such a problem that he was fired after misrepresenting them.

This disconnect between what Flynns firm reported and what was really going on is startling, said Alex Howard, deputy director of the pro-transparency Sunlight Foundation,The Huffington Post reported based on an interview with Howard. Howard explained to HuffPo, If people lobby for foreign countries in the United States, much less if former high-ranking military officers lobby for foreign countries, its reasonable to expect them to register [with the Justice Department] at the point they sign a contract.

If Donald Trump didnt know his own top adviser and person he appointed as National Security Adviser was working, quite literally, as a foreign agent at the time, he is too foolish to be president. If he did know, he has a lot of explaining to do.

What exactly is the vetting process the Trump camp used to pick people? Or, better yet, was there a vetting process other than ideological fits with their conspiracy theories and a desire to bring down the government from within.

Donald Trumps actions and choices since taking office have already disproven his claim that he willMake America Great Again.

Update 6:00 PM EST: So, this denial isnt looking so hot, just a few hours later:

Continued here:

White House Denies Knowledge of Donald Trump's NSA Being An Agent of a Foreign Government - PoliticusUSA

(TNS) -- WASHINGTON Nearly four years after National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden blew the lid off domestic spying, the vast surveillance programs cherished as the crown jewels of the U.S. intelligence establishment are about to spring back into public debate and not just because of Donald Trumps allegation that hes been the subject of wiretaps.

The legal framework for some of the broadest U.S. surveillance programs, authorized for a five-year period in 2012, will expire Dec. 31 unless Congress reauthorizes it. Already, the debate about those programs has begun, with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee focused on finding an answer to a simple question: How many Americans have emails, text messages and telephone conversations picked up in the governments electronic sweep?

Is it a few thousand? Or is it a lot higher?

We need that number, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told Dan Coats, Trumps nominee to serve as director of national intelligence, at a confirmation hearing Feb. 28. We have sought it for years and years. More and more Americans are getting swept up in these searches.

Wyden pressed Coats on whether he would nail down a number. Coats hedged.

It has been extremely hard to come up with that number for various reasons which I dont fully understand, said Coats, a former member of the Intelligence Committee now weighing his nomination. I will do my best to work to try to find out if we can get that number, but I need first to talk find out about why we cant get it.

Trumps allegation that President Barack Obama ordered his phones tapped last fall, a claim for which he has offered no evidence, has little to do with the coming debate. But it is an indication of the sensitivities surrounding surveillance practices that do not cleave easily along party lines.

While the issue is often cast as a balance of privacy vs. national security, many Republicans, especially those with libertarian streaks, are troubled by what they see as invasive practices. And many Democrats offer strong support of the intelligence community.

At a separate hearing before a House of Representatives committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who earns a perfect score from the American Conservative Union, read incredulously a response he had gotten to his official query to the U.S. intelligence director in which he was told it would be difficult if not impossible to calculate the number of Americans whose communications are intercepted.

That seems like baloney to me, Jordan said. Were talking about the greatest intelligence service on the planet. Youd think they would be able to know that, right?

Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat far to Jordans political left, said, The government can, and does, collect massive amounts of information about our citizens under this authority.

At hearings, Snowdens name hardly arises. But few doubt that his revelations in 2013 helped mold the current debate. Worldwide, Snowden is seen from sharply distinct angles traitor and villain, or global celebrity for data privacy. From his exile in Moscow, where he fled after spilling the secrets, Snowden continues to cast a long shadow.

It was his disclosures that let Americans and people around the world learn of NSA programs like PRISM, Dishfire and XKeyscore, which, respectively, allowed for the monitoring of electronic data retrieved from nine large tech companies, grabbed 200 million text messages a day and saw nearly everything a targeted user did on the internet.

Leaders of allied nations like Germany and Brazil bristled when they learned from Snowdens disclosures that their officials were among dozens of leaders tapped by the NSA.

Much of the bulk collection of data by the NSA was rolled back or halted in 2015 under the USA Freedom Act.

On Capitol Hill, Snowdens name is sometimes uttered with revulsion mixed with recognition that his actions accelerated change.

What he exposed, Im glad that we learned about it. It allowed us to make reforms that were necessary, said Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. But the way that he did it was so reckless. He exposed information that put our troops at risk and hurt important relationships with our allies.

Trump called Snowden a terrible traitor in a 2013 television interview and suggested he should be executed.

Digital rights activists credit Snowden with forcing major intelligence agencies to talk more openly about surveillance.

What Snowden did was enable the debate and provide more disclosures by the intelligence community when it saw the debate move in a direction it didnt like, said Gregory T. Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a Washington research group that advocates for an open and free internet.

Civil rights activists voice concern over what they describe as gaps in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which provides the legal framework for the NSA to monitor non-U.S. persons without warrants.

As of 2015, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported that 94,368 foreigners or entities abroad were targets of U.S. surveillance for intelligence purposes. The NSA is presumed to vacuum up hundreds of millions of electronic communications a year from those foreign targets, including any they may have had with Americans.

The impact is actually much greater than 94,000 because each of these individuals talks to potentially hundreds of people, said Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union.

How many Americans have their communications monitored in so-called incidental collection remains a guess. In the House hearing last week, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, pressed Elizabeth Goitein, an expert on surveillance at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, for an estimate.

If you conservatively assume that even 1 out of 100 of every foreign targets communications was with an American that would still be millions of American communications, Goitein said.

Pressed further at another point, Goitein said: I had said millions earlier, which I think is conservative. Potentially tens of millions. I dont know. I really hesitate to speculate.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act regulations require the NSA, CIA and FBI all of which have access to the database of collected communications to minimize information about U.S. citizens or green card holders when it is incidentally swept up.

But the databases are widely available one report on how the FBI handles searches of the databases monitored use in 13 FBI field offices and agents in those offices can query the databases even when they have no suspicion of wrongdoing, said David Medine, who until July 1 was chair of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, a bipartisan watchdog that seeks to ensure government compliance with privacy and civil liberties rules.

They are just sort of entitled to poke around and see if something is going on, Medine told a Senate panel in May.

Critics of Section 702 say that sort of backdoor search allows authorities to snoop on citizens without having to show probable cause and obtain constitutionally required warrants.

You have this authority, and the government says the goal is national security and to help us prevent terrorism. The reality is that they can collect information that has no connection to terrorism, national security or weapons of mass destruction, Guliani said.

Defenders of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act surveillance said they hoped legislators reauthorized its use. They say evidence of abuse is minimal.

Throughout my time at NSA, I routinely saw analysts self-report if they ran an improper query, April Doss, a former assistant general counsel at the agency, wrote in her submitted testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on March 1.

Auditors review logs for signs of improper queries, Doss said in an interview, calling existing laws robust and effective and noting the oversight of three branches of government.

Doss and other supporters of the status quo make an unusual argument: Simply trying to satisfy legislators who want to know how many U.S. citizens turn up in the electronic sweeping would require the NSA to act intrusively, would divert analysts from hunting terrorists and would possibly even break the law by actively tracking the Americans they find, raising new privacy concerns.

It would prompt intelligence analysts to look for communications that they would not otherwise see, communications that have no intelligence value, Doss said.

For his part, Swalwell, the California legislator, said convincing the citizenry that surveillance was being done properly was vital to the health of the intelligence community.

The more transparent we are about 702, the better, he said. When Americans understand how their government is protecting them, theyre more willing, I think, to go along with whats necessary to keep us safe.

2017 McClatchy Washington Bureau Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Controversial NSA Surveillance Programs Up for Renewal at Year's End - Government Technology

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Purported CIA documents leaked Tuesday appear to confirm that the U.S. National Security Agency and one of CIA's own divisions were responsible for the malware tools and operations attributed to a group that security researchers have dubbed the Equation.

The Equation's cyberespionage activities were documented in February 2015 by researchers from antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab. It is widely considered to be the most advanced cyberespionage group in the world based on the sophistication of its tools and the length of its operations, some possibly dating as far back as 1996.

From the start, the tools and techniques used by the Equation bore a striking similarity to those described in secret documents leaked in 2013 by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. This relationship was further strengthened by the similarity between various code names found in the Equation malware and those in the NSA files.

The new CIA documents leakedby WikiLeaks include a 2015 discussion between members of the agency's Technical Advisory Council following Kaspersky's analysis of the Equation group.

The discussion focused mostly on what the Equation did wrong that allowed Kaspersky's researchers to establish relationships between various tools and link them to the group. The goal was for the CIA's own cyber teams to learn from those mistakes and avoid them in their own tools and operations.

The Equation's errors identified during the discussion included the use of custom cryptographic implementations instead of relying on standard libraries like OpenSSL or Microsoft's CryptoAPI, leaving identifying strings in the program database (PDB), the use of unique mutexes, and the reuse of exploits.

"The 'custom' crypto is more of NSA falling to its own internal policies/standards which came about in response to prior problems," one team member said during the discussion. "In the past, there were crypto issues where people used 0 [initialization vectors] and other miss-configurations. As a result, the NSA crypto guys blessed one library as the correct implementation and everyone was told to use that."

"The Equation Group as labeled in the report does not relate to a specific group but rather a collection of tools (mostly TAO some IOC)," another member wrote.

TAO is a reference to the NSA's Office of Tailored Access Operations, a large division that specializes in the creation of hacking tools for infiltrating foreign computer systems. Meanwhile, IOC refers to the Information Operations Center, a CIA division that, according to a leaked 2013 budget justification for intelligence agencies, has shifted focus from counterterrorism to cyberespionage in recent years.

The CIA analysis of Kaspersky's Equation report highlights how hackers can learn to better hide their attacks based on research published by security companies. This raises the question of whether security vendors and independent researchers should be so forthcoming with the methods they use to establish links between malware tools.

It is a proven fact that attackers learn from public analyses, and this is something that all researchers consider when publishing material," researchers from Kaspersky Lab said in an emailed statement. "It is a calculated risk. Of course, not all companies choose to disclose all their findings. Some companies prefer to keep some of the details for private reports, or not to create a report at all."

"We believe that, going forward, a balance will be achieved between the amount of publicly disclosed information (just enough to highlight the risks and raise awareness) and the amount of information kept private (to allow for the discovery of future attacks)," the Kaspersky researchers said.

According to them, this new information ties into the escalating cyber arms race that has been going on since 2012 and shows no signs of slowing down.

Lucian Constantin is an IDG News Service correspondent. He writes about information security, privacy, and data protection.

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Leaked docs suggest NSA and CIA behind Equation cyberespionage group - PCWorld

By Curt Mills | U.S. News

President Donald Trump is "absolutely right" to claim he was wiretapped and monitored, a former NSA official claimed Monday, adding that the administration risks falling victim to further leaks if it continues to run afoul of the intelligence community.

"I think the president is absolutely right. His phone calls, everything he did electronically, was being monitored," Bill Binney, a 36-year veteran of the National Security Agency who resigned in protest from the organization in 2001, told Fox Business on Monday. Everyone's conversations are being monitored and stored, Binney said.

Binney resigned from NSA shortly after the U.S. approach to intelligence changed following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He "became a whistleblower after discovering that elements of a data-monitoring program he had helped develop -- nicknamed ThinThread -- were being used to spy on Americans," PBS reported.

On Monday he came to the defense of the president, whose allegations on social media over the weekend that outgoing President Barack Obama tapped his phones during the 2016 campaign have rankled Washington.

Link:

NSA Whistleblower Backs Trump Up on Wiretap Claims - Fox News