Monthly Archives: January 2014

Report puts Snowden-like leaks as the No. 2 threat to U.S. security

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WASHINGTON Insiders like Edward Snowden who leak secrets about sensitive U.S. intelligence programs pose a potentially greater danger to national security than terrorists, America's spy chiefs warned Wednesday in their annual report to Congress on global security risks.

For the first time, the risk of unauthorized disclosures of classified material and state-sponsored theft of data was listed as the second-greatest potential threat to America in a review of global perils prepared by the U.S. intelligence community. The risk followed cyber attacks on crucial infrastructure but was listed ahead of international terrorism.

U.S. officials previously have said it will cost billions of dollars to repair or revamp communications surveillance systems in the wake of the disclosures by Snowden, a former contract employee at a National Security Agency listening post in Hawaii who began leaking classified documents to the media in June and who later fled to Russia.

Appearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said the leaks represent the "most damaging theft of intelligence information in our history." He urged Snowden to return the material, saying he made "the nation less safe and its people less secure."

"We've lost critical foreign intelligence collection sources, including some shared with us by valued partners," Clapper said. "Terrorists and other adversaries of this country are going to school on U.S. intelligence sources, methods and tradecraft, and the insights that they are gaining are making our job much, much harder."

Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who directs the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the leaks had endangered the lives of intelligence operatives and troops. Matt Olsen, heads of the National Counterterrorism Center, said they had made it tougher to track Al Qaeda and its affiliates.

"What we've seen in the last six to eight months is an awareness by these groups of our ability to monitor communications and specific instances where they've changed the ways in which they communicate to avoid being surveilled," Olsen said.

Investigators believe Snowden copied 1.7 million documents from NSA servers, the largest breach of classified material in U.S. history, although only a fraction have been disclosed so far. Last summer, a military judge sentenced Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning, who was born Bradley Manning, to 35 years in prison for sending 750,000 classified diplomatic cables, military field reports and other material to WikiLeaks.

Both Snowden and Manning have been condemned by critics as traitors and hailed by supporters as whistle-blowers who exposed government wrongdoing.

Only critics spoke at the hearing. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), said the classified documents Snowden downloaded, if printed out, would form a stack more than three miles high.

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Report puts Snowden-like leaks as the No. 2 threat to U.S. security

State Department system containing classified, personal information still riddled with security gaps

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EXCLUSIVE: More than three years after U.S. Army Pvt. Bradley Manning handed over hundreds of thousands of sensitive State Department cables to WikiLeaks, the departments inspector general has warned in stark terms that State has done little since 2010 to fix an info-tech system that is riddled with security gaps, and has no plan yet for how to fix it.

At risk, the IG says, is not onlyclassified information vital to the preservation of national security in high-risk environments across the globe,but the personal information on file concerning about 192 million American passport-holders.

The public version of the inspector generals accusations -- contained in an unprecedented management alert to States top officials and in the managerial responses to the alert -- have been heavily redacted for security reasons.

The alert was circulated in the State Department bureaucracy in November. After a back-and-forth process between department managers and the IGs office, it became accessible to outsiders in mid-January.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ALERT

The problems it describes, however, have been festering far longer than that. Among other things, the alert says that:

-- between 2011 and 2013 alone, six lengthy and detailed reports on information security (five by States inspector generals office, and one by the Government Accountability Office) have found recurring weaknesses in a wide variety of cyber-security issues, including how State hands out and keeps track of passwords; certifies whether information systems are authorized to operate securely; protects its hardware, files and operating systems from hackers or other unauthorized users; and how it scans its systems to detect wayward patterns of behavior.

--In most cases, despite repeated warnings, State Department bureaucrats have not formally reported the shortcomings to other federal agencies, including Homeland Security, though the inspector generalargues it is obligated to do so.

--Nor, the watchdog says, has the department remediated the identified vulnerabilities and risks. Translation: it hasnt done anywhere near enough to fix things, and, in some cases, nothing at all.

--One reason is that portions of the bureaucracy that are specifically tasked with handling information security issues have already been identified by the inspector generals office as part of the problem. Among other things, the alert references a previous IG report on the Bureau of Information Resource Management (IRM), a section of the State Department, where, the alert delicately says, it identified a number of conditions that required managements attention.

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State Department system containing classified, personal information still riddled with security gaps

Snowden nominated for Nobel Prize

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By Laura Smith-Spark, CNN

updated 11:23 AM EST, Wed January 29, 2014

An image of Edward Snowden on the back of a banner is seen infront of the US Capitol in October 2013.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Two Norwegian lawmakers have jointly nominated National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize, they said Wednesday on their party website.

Snowden has "revealed the nature and technological prowess of modern surveillance," and by doing so has contributed to peace, said a joint statement by Bard Vegar Solhjell and Snorre Valen of the Socialist Left Party.

Nominations for this year's Nobel Peace Prize -- whose previous winners include such figures as the late South African President Nelson Mandela, Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and President Barack Obama -- close on Saturday, with the winner announced in October.

According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee's rules, Solhjell and Valen are qualified, as national lawmakers, to make a nomination. The names of each year's nominees are not revealed until 50 years later.

"There is no doubt that the actions of Edward Snowden may have damaged the security interests of several nations in the short term. We do not necessarily condone or support all of his disclosures," said the statement by Solhjell and Valen.

"We are, however, convinced that the public debate and changes in policy that have followed in the wake of Snowden's whistleblowing has contributed to a more stable and peaceful world order.

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Snowden nominated for Nobel Prize

Snowden Nominated by Norwegian Lawmakers for Nobel Peace Prize

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President Barack Obama wants to see Edward Snowden clapped in irons and bound to the U.S. for a criminal trial. Two Norwegian politicians have a different fate in mind for Snowden: the Nobel Peace Prize.

Norwegian parliamentarians Snorre Valen and Baard Vegar Solhjell nominated Snowden for the award -- the same honor Obama himself won in 2009 -- for his disclosures about National Security Agency spying.

The idea that the Nobel committee would bestow its most prestigious prize on a man some in the U.S. consider a traitor drew a dismissive response from a White House official, who said Snowden instead should be tried as a felon.

Snowden should be returned to the U.S. as soon as possible, where he will be accorded full due process, White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.

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Snowdens leaks often shed more heat than light, while revealing methods to our adversaries that could impact our operations in ways that we may not fully understand for years to come, she said.

Two Norwegians agreed that Snowdens leaks undoubtedly damaged the security interests of several nations in the short term and that they didnt necessarily condone or support all his disclosures. The revelations did have a positive impact, they said.

The public debate and changes in policy that have followed in the wake of Snowdens whistleblowing have contributed to a more stable and peaceful world order, Valen and Solhjell, who represent the Socialist Left Party in the Norwegian parliament, wrote in their nomination letter, which was obtained by Bloomberg. Solhjell was environment minister in the former Labor-led government.

Obama was spurred to make changes in U.S. surveillance programs in response to domestic and international backlash that resulted from disclosures made by Snowden, who has temporary asylum in Russia after being charged under espionage laws in the U.S.

The Nobel committee doesnt release the names of nominees for 50 years, though those who make the nominations are free to do so. Nominees may be given to the five-member committee by a government and court officials, academics, board members of organizations that have received the prize, as well as past winners.

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Snowden Nominated by Norwegian Lawmakers for Nobel Peace Prize

Edward Snowden is nominated for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize

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OSLO, Norway, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- Two Norwegian politicians have nominated National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize because they believe he contributed to a more peaceful world order by exposing secret U.S. surveillance programs.

The public debate and changes in policy that have followed in the wake of Snowdens whistleblowing have contributed to a more stable and peaceful world order, Norwegian parliamentarians Snorre Valen and Baard Vegar Solhjell wrote in the nomination letter obtained by Bloomberg.

Snowden, 30, is currently in Russia on temporary asylum after leaking classified documents about the NSAs spying programs. He faces charges of theft and espionage.

Although Valen and Solhjell wrote theres no doubt that the actions of Edward Snowden may have damaged the security interests of several nations in the short term, they believe his actions have in effect led to the reintroduction of trust and transparency as a leading principle in global security policies.

Valen and Solhjell represent the Socialist Left Party in the Norwegian parliament. They did write that they dont necessarily condone or support all of his disclosures.

According to Attorney General Eric Holder, if Snowden returned to the U.S. and pleaded guilty, prosecutors would negotiate with him.

The Nobel Prize winner will be announced in October. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons won last years Peace Prize.

[Bloomberg] [The Independent]

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Edward Snowden is nominated for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize

German government faces legal action over NSA spying

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The German government and the German Federal Intelligence Service are facing legal action because they allegedly aided the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) data collection program.

We will send the legal action to the authorities next Monday, said Constanze Kurz, a German computer scientist and spokeswoman for the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), in an email on Wednesday.

There are several persons as well as organizations which are suing our government and other named persons in charge, she said, adding that one of them is the International League for Human Rights, a German section of the International Federation for Human Rights.

The complainants will bring charges over the alleged involvement of the German government in the NSA spying programs, she said. That is one reason, she said, adding that the action was also started because they did not even try to stop them from tapping into phones, hacking and spying on computers and collecting massive amounts of data although we have clearly laws that forbid foreign espionage.

Kurz said the legal complaint will comprise more than 50 pages, and will be published Monday.

The German government and the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) have been cooperating closely with the NSA and have used spy software provided by the NSA, according to a July report from Der Spiegel based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden.

According to those documents, the BND, the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) and the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) played a central role in the exchange of information among intelligence agencies referred to by the NSA as key partners, Der Spiegel reported.

The NSA also provided the BfV with a spying tool called XKeyscore, according to the report. The XKeyscore tool is a surveillance program that the NSA uses to collect data sets and allows analysts to search through vast numbers of emails, online chats and browsing histories without prior authorization, according to the Guardian newspaper. The BfV has admitted to another German publication, Bild, that it is using an NSA program, but said it is only testing it.

Kurz is also one of the complainants that is challenging the legality of Internet surveillance programmes operated by U.K. intelligence agency GCHQ.

She filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in October together with U.K. groups Big Brother Watch, Open Rights Group and English PEN, alleging that the U.K. government illegally used Internet and telecommunications networks to systematically spy onits citizens.

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German government faces legal action over NSA spying