As I write this, a bunch of reporters are flying from Moscow to Havana on an Aeroflot Airbus 330, but Edward Snowden isnt sitting among them. His whereabouts are unknown. He might still be in the V.I.P. lounge at Sheremetyevo International Airport. He could have left on another plane. There are even suggestions that he has taken shelter in the Ecuadorian Embassy in Moscow.

What we do know is that, on this side of the Atlantic, efforts are being stepped up to demonize Snowden, and to delegitimize his claim to be a conscientious objector to the huge electronic-spying apparatus operated by the United States and the United Kingdom. This is an individual who is not acting, in my opinion, with noble intent, General Keith Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency, told ABCs This Week on Sunday. What Snowden has revealed has caused irreversible and significant damage to our country and to our allies. Over on CBSs Face the Nation, Senator Dianne Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, I dont think this man is a whistle-blower he could have stayed and faced the music. I dont think running is a noble thought.

An unnamed senior Administration official joined the Snowden-bashing chorus, telling reporters, Mr. Snowdens claim that he is focussed on supporting transparency, freedom of the press, and protection of individual rights and democracy is belied by the protectors he has potentially chosen: China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, and Ecuador. His failure to criticize these regimes suggests that his true motive throughout has been to injure the national security of the U.S., not to advance Internet freedom and free speech.

It is easy to understand, though not to approve of, why Administration officials, who have been embarrassed by Snowdens revelations, would seek to question his motives and exaggerate the damage he has done to national security. Feinstein, too, has been placed in a tricky spot. Tasked with overseeing the spooks and their spying operations, she appears to have done little more than nod.

More unnerving is the way in which various members of the media have failed to challenge the official line. Nobody should be surprised to see the New York Post running the headline: ROGUES GALLERY: SNOWDEN JOINS LONG LIST OF NOTORIOUS, GUTLESS TRAITORS FLEEING TO RUSSIA. But where are Snowdens defenders? As of Monday, the editorial pages of the Times and the Washington Post, the two most influential papers in the country, hadnt even addressed the Obama Administrations decision to charge Snowden with two counts of violating the Espionage Act and one count of theft.

If convicted on all three counts, the former N.S.A. contract-systems administrator could face thirty years in jail. On the Sunday-morning talk shows I watched, there werent many voices saying that would be an excessive punishment for someone who has performed an invaluable public service. And the person who did aggressively defend Snowdens actions, Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian blogger who was one of the reporters to break the story, found himself under attack. After suggesting that Greenwald had aided and abetted Snowden, David Gregory, the host of NBCs Meet the Press, asked, Why shouldnt you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?

After being criticized on Twitter, Gregory said that he wasnt taking a position on Snowdens actionshe was merely asking a question. Im all for journalists asking awkward questions, too. But why arent more of them being directed at Hayden and Feinstein and Obama, who are clearly intent on attacking the messenger?

To get a different perspective on Snowden and his disclosures, heres a portion of an interview that ABCthe Australian Broadcasting Company, not the Disney subsidiarydid today with Thomas Drake, another former N.S.A. employee, who, in 2010, was charged with espionage for revealing details about an electronic-eavesdropping project called Trailblazer, a precursor to Operation Prism, one of the programs that Snowden documented. (The felony cases against Drake, as my colleague Jane Mayer has written, eventually collapsed, and he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.)

INTERVIEWER: Not everybody thinks Edward Snowden did the right thing. I presume you do

DRAKE: I consider Edward Snowden as a whistle-blower. I know some have called him a hero, some have called him a traitor. I focus on what he disclosed. I dont focus on him as a person. He had a belief that what he was exposed toU.S. actions in secretwere violating human rights and privacy on a very, very large scale, far beyond anything that had been admitted to date by the government. In the public interest, he made that available.

INTERVIEWER: What do you say to the argument, advanced by those with the opposite viewpoint to you, especially in the U.S. Congress and the White House, that Edward Snowden is a traitor who made a narcissistic decision that he personally had a right to decide what public information should be in the public domain?

DRAKE: Thats a government meme, a government coverthats a government story. The government is desperate to not deal with the actual exposures, the content of the disclosures. Because they do reveal a vast, systemic, institutionalized, industrial-scale Leviathan surveillance state that has clearly gone far beyond the original mandate to deal with terrorismfar beyond.

As far as Im concerned, that about covers it. I wish Snowden had followed Drakes example and remained on U.S. soil to fight the charges against him. But I cant condemn him for seeking refuge in a country that doesnt have an extradition treaty with the United States. If hed stayed here, he would almost certainly be in custody, with every prospect of staying in a cell until 2043 or later. The Obama Administration doesnt want him to come home and contribute to the national-security-versus-liberty debate that the President says is necessary. It wants to lock him up for a long time.

And for what? For telling would-be jihadis that we are monitoring their Gmail and Facebook accounts? For informing the Chinese that we eavesdrop on many of their important institutions, including their prestigious research universities? For confirming that the Brits eavesdrop on virtually anybody they feel like? Come on. Are there many people out there who didnt already know these things?

Snowden took classified documents from his employer, which surely broke the law. But his real crime was confirming that the intelligence agencies, despite their strenuous public denials, have been accumulating vast amounts of personal data from the American public. The puzzle is why so many media commentators continue to toe the official line. About the best explanation Ive seen came from Josh Marshall, the founder of T.P.M., who has been one of Snowdens critics. In a post that followed the first wave of stories, Marshall wrote, At the end of the day, for all its faults, the U.S. military is the armed force of a political community I identify with and a government I support. Im not a bystander to it. Im implicated in what it does and I feel I have a responsibility and a right to a say, albeit just a minuscule one, in what it does.

I suspect that many Washington journalists, especially the types who go on Sunday talk shows, feel the way Marshall does, but perhaps dont have his level of self-awareness. Its not just a matter of defending the Obama Administration, although theres probably a bit of that. Its something deeper, which has to do with attitudes toward authority. Proud of their craft and good at what they do, successful journalists like to think of themselves as fiercely independent. But, at the same time, they are part of the media and political establishment that stands accused of ignoring, or failing to pick up on, an intelligence outrage thats been going on for years. Its not surprising that some of them share Marshalls view of Snowden as some young guy Ive never heard of before who espouses a political philosophy I dont agree with and is now seeking refuge abroad for breaking the law.

Mea culpa. Having spent almost eighteen years at The New Yorker, Im arguably just as much a part of the media establishment as David Gregory and his guests. In this case, though, Im with Snowdennot only for the reasons that Drake enumerated but also because of an old-fashioned and maybe nave inkling that journalists are meant to stick up for the underdog and irritate the powerful. On its side, the Obama Administration has the courts, the intelligence services, Congress, the diplomatic service, much of the media, and most of the American public. Snowdens got Greenwald, a woman from Wikileaks, and a dodgy travel document from Ecuador. Which side are you on?

See the article here:
Demonizing Edward Snowden: Which Side Are You On? | The ...

Unlike many fans of cryptocurrency, Edward Snowden has no problem with the Zcash founders reward. The former CIA employee-turned whistle-blower Tweeted his support for the anonymity-focused digital asset earlier today.

For Snowden, the founders reward incentivises and funds the team behind the privacy coin to address issues with the project, such as that identified and patched by them recently. However, other cryptocurrency community members pointed out that teams working on coins that lack the controversial founders reward were just as adept at patching issues in their own code bases.

Controversial US government secrets discloser Edward Snowden is a fan of the privacy-focused cryptocurrencyZcash. The former CIA employee does not even mind the much-debated founders reward included in every Zcash block mined. For many in the digital currency community, this founders reward is contrary to the spirit of cryptocurrency and decentralisation generally.

However, Snowden claims that such a reward is important to attract the best minds to work on the Zcash project. For him, such a consistent payment of the developers allows them to discover issues and patch them before they can be exploited by opportunistic parties.

One such vulnerability was discovered 11 months ago by Zcash developers. In a report posted to the Zcash blogtoday, the flaw in the code is described along with the method used to patch it.

The counterfeiting vulnerability, as the team refer to it as, was first discovered on March 1, 2018. The decision was made to keep the discovery secret to avoid the risk of attackers exploiting the flaw in the code. It has since been rectified without Zcash users needing to do anything to protect their funds.

According to the blog post:

The flaw allows an attacker to create counterfeit shielded value in any system that depends on parameters which are generated as described by the paper.

Zcash developers are confident that no such attacks were made on the network owing to the sophistication of the knowledge required to identify the flaw in the first place, along with the lack of a footprint highlighting that the vulnerability had been exploited.

For Snowden, the Zcash founders reward, which is 20% of each block reward earned by the networks miners, financed the addressing of the vulnerability:

In the above Tweet, Snowden compares Zcash to different cryptocurrency projects that do not offer such a founders reward. He states that other coins have only discovered bugs in the code after they were exploited, costing the projects users money.

However, as members of the crypto community highlighted, other projects have been just as adept at identifying vulnerabilities in the code without such a founders reward. Both Monero and Bitcoin were mentioned as examples of coins that do not rely on a centralised group of developers being paid out of a single purse for their work but were still driven to patch flaws in code as quickly as humanly possible. In fact, a recent Bitcoin flaw took just days to rectify following its discovery (admittedly by a Bitcoin Cash developer).

Interestingly, the post on the Zcash blog highlights how the vulnerability has existed in the code for years now. Going off Snowdens logic, perhaps it would have been identified and patched even quicker if the controversial founders reward was even higher than 20%.

Related Reading: eToro Adds ZCash

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Why Edward Snowden Likes Zcash Despite the Controversial ...

Never have I been so grateful to have been so wrong.

Two years on, the difference is profound. In a single month, the N.S.A.s invasive call-tracking program was declared unlawful by the courts and disowned by Congress. After a White House-appointed oversight board investigation found that this program had not stopped a single terrorist attack, even the president who once defended its propriety and criticized its disclosure has now ordered it terminated.

This is the power of an informed public.

Ending the mass surveillance of private phone calls under the Patriot Act is a historic victory for the rights of every citizen, but it is only the latest product of a change in global awareness. Since 2013, institutions across Europe have ruled similar laws and operations illegal and imposed new restrictions on future activities. The United Nations declared mass surveillance an unambiguous violation of human rights. In Latin America, the efforts of citizens in Brazil led to the Marco Civil, an Internet Bill of Rights. Recognizing the critical role of informed citizens in correcting the excesses of government, the Council of Europe called for new laws to protect whistle-blowers.

Beyond the frontiers of law, progress has come even more quickly. Technologists have worked tirelessly to re-engineer the security of the devices that surround us, along with the language of the Internet itself. Secret flaws in critical infrastructure that had been exploited by governments to facilitate mass surveillance have been detected and corrected. Basic technical safeguards such as encryption once considered esoteric and unnecessary are now enabled by default in the products of pioneering companies like Apple, ensuring that even if your phone is stolen, your private life remains private. Such structural technological changes can ensure access to basic privacies beyond borders, insulating ordinary citizens from the arbitrary passage of anti-privacy laws, such as those now descending upon Russia.

Though we have come a long way, the right to privacy the foundation of the freedoms enshrined in the United States Bill of Rights remains under threat. Some of the worlds most popular online services have been enlisted as partners in the N.S.A.s mass surveillance programs, and technology companies are being pressured by governments around the world to work against their customers rather than for them. Billions of cellphone location records are still being intercepted without regard for the guilt or innocence of those affected. We have learned that our government intentionally weakens the fundamental security of the Internet with back doors that transform private lives into open books. Metadata revealing the personal associations and interests of ordinary Internet users is still being intercepted and monitored on a scale unprecedented in history: As you read this online, the United States government makes a note.

Spymasters in Australia, Canada and France have exploited recent tragedies to seek intrusive new powers despite evidence such programs would not have prevented attacks. Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain recently mused, Do we want to allow a means of communication between people which we cannot read? He soon found his answer, proclaiming that for too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: As long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone.

At the turning of the millennium, few imagined that citizens of developed democracies would soon be required to defend the concept of an open society against their own leaders.

Link:
Opinion | Edward Snowden: The World Says No to Surveillance ...

Edward Snowden. (Photo: Praxis Films)

The cybersecurity expert who hired Edward Snowden for his last jobis layingout his lessons learned but admits it would have been hard to stop the man whospilled some of the National Security Agencys most closely held secrets.

Knowing what I knew at the time, l would have hired him again, Steven Bay,a former cyberintelligence analyst for Booz Allen Hamilton, said today in Seattle at the IEEE Computer Societys Rock Stars of Cybersecurity conference.

Knowing what I know now, obviously, I wouldnt, he added.

Bay said todays talk marked the first time he discussed his side of the Snowden story in a public forum.

After the story broke, Baylost his NSA access and had to switchto a different position at Booz Allen Hamilton, which was Snowdens employer for thosecrucial few monthsin the spring of 2013. Baysaid he couldnttalk openly about the case until he left Booz Allen this June. Now hes the chief information security officer for NuVasive, a medical devices company in San Diego.

Snowdens timeline is well-known by now: After years of working atthe CIA, and as a Dell contractor for the NSA, he applied for another NSA contract job in Hawaii with Booz Allen. Bay said heand his offices technical directorinterviewed Snowden at a Wendys restaurant near the agencys facilities in Kunia.

He was a highly technical person, Bay recalled. He was very passionate about internet anonymization, as hes come out and talked about. He claimed to have run two Tor nodes out of his home and he also claimed to have known a zero day vulnerability within Tor.

Snowden knew his stuff so thoroughly that Bay said thetechnical directortook over the interview and basically nerded out for an hour.

Snowden got the job, and started working as an intelligence analyst at the NSAs facility in Hawaii at the beginning of April in 2013.

Bay said two red flags came up in the weeks that followed. First, Snowden began asking about a highly classified mass-surveillance program thats now known to the public as PRISM. Bay had access to the PRISM data, but Snowden didnt.

Bay didnt give Snowden access to PRISM, but he did provide him with somedatathat in retrospect he shouldnt have. I shared a little bit too much information, Bay acknowledged today. He said thats what caused him to lose NSA access after the Snowden story broke.

The second red flag popped up when Snowden started coming in late to work, only a few weeks after starting the job. When Bay asked about it, Snowden told him he was suffering from epilepsy.

In response, Bay played the role of a supportive manager. Then, in mid-May, Snowden told him the epilepsy was getting worse and that hed have to go in for tests on the following Monday and Tuesday. If the results werent good, he might have to be out even longer.

Bay said he suggested that Snowden apply for short-term disability, but Snowden told himhe didnt want to bother with the paperwork. Which made no sense to me but to each his own. If he wanted to take leave without pay, take leave without pay, Bay said.

In reality, Snowden wasnt suffering from epilepsy. Unbeknownst to Bay, Snowden took off forHong Kong on that Monday, May 20, carrying gigabytes worth of NSA data with him.

Bay said he received an email from Snowden the next day, telling him the test results were bad and that hed have to take more time offwork. In a reply email, Bay reminded Snowdento check in with human resources about filing for disability.

Wednesday night, the next night, he emails me back, and says, OK, sounds good, Ill get in touch with HR. And that was the last I ever heard from him, Bay said.

Bay tried to check in with Snowden several times afterward, to no avail. At the end of the month, Bay called his boss in Georgia, asking what to do about Snowdens time sheet. In response, the supervisor alertedNSAs security teamto Snowdens medical leave and his missing status.

Thank goodness he did this, Bay said. It really protected us at Booz Allen, and myself as well.

That was on a Friday. The followingMonday, NSA officials told Bay they were on the case. All that week, he and NSA agents went searching for Snowden.

In my mind, I was worried that he was dead, Bay said. I was worried that he had an epileptic seizure of some sort, or a blackout while driving on the island, and he drove off a cliff and killed himself. Thats what I was concerned about. The thought that Ed could be doing any of this didnt even cross my mind.

Bay said The Guardian published its first story based on NSA leakson the Thursday of that week in June. It was the talk of the agency, hesaid. A couple of days later, one of his best friends at work wondered out loud whether Snowden might beinvolved.

I thought, No way! Theres not a chance that Ed would do that. And I made the comment that that would be my worst nightmare, Bay said.

The next daySunday, June 9 Bay turned off his phone for a church meeting. When he turned it back on, he faced a torrent of texts. The first textwas from his friend, reading: Sorry, man, it looks like your worst nightmare came true.

Thats how Bay found out Snowden was the leaker. Three years afterward, Bay still gets emotional when he remembers the moment.

I found an empty room at the church, and I broke down, Bay said. Every negative thought one could have, I had. There were thoughts of Im going to lose my job, Im going to be blamed, Im going to get fired, Im going to go to jail, Im going to be the scapegoat. And I started thinking about what this is going to do to NSA, what about all of our undercover agents, what if that sort of information gets out? Are peoplegoing to die over this?

Bay spent most of the rest of the day in meetings with executivesat Booz Allen and agents from the FBI. Surprisingly, the FBI was totally cool, he recalled. I was expecting to be in a dark room with a hot light on me. It was nice to hear, despite all these negative emotions that I felt earlier in the day,thatnobody blamed us.

The days after that were devoted to damage control. Eventually, it came out that Snowden had been planning his moves for several years. The fact that he was skilled in information technology and gained access to classified information made him the ultimate insider threat, Bay said.

I was visiting with the director of NSA Hawaii, and he made the comment that, well, Booz Allen got caught holdingthe hot potato when the attack went out. Thats pretty accurate, he said.

It turns out, as [Snowden] admitted a few weeks later, he targeted our contract directly, Bay said. Somehow he figured out that our contract, and whatwe did on that contract, were the types of gateshe needed to get access to.

Today, Snowden is seen as a hero by millions of people opposed to government intrusions and invasions of privacy. AnOliver Stone movie opening this week, titled Snowden, casts the whistleblower in a sympathetic light. But as you can imagine, Bay is not afan.

The fact that Snowden hasbeen given asylum by the Russian government, under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin, leadsBay to saythat Snowden is probably colluding with that countrys security services.

I do believe that Ed has given up the goods to Putin, Bay said.

Snowden strongly denies making any such deal with Russian intelligence, or handing over any secrets to the Russians. Everything I had is in the hands of journalists, Snowden told the BBC last year.

It may take decades for history to render its judgment in the case of Edward Snowden vs. the NSA butin the meantime,Bay had these pointers to improve cybersecurity:

Go here to see the original:
Edward Snowdens former boss speaks out GeekWire

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Im Amy Goodman, as we continue with Part 2 of our interview with Wolfgang Kaleck, a human rights attorney who for decades has been at the forefront of the legal fight to hold powerful actors and governments around the world accountable for human rights abuses. He documents his remarkable career in the new book Law Versus Power: Our Global Fight for Human Rights. The books foreword was written by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, whom Kaleck represents in Europe. Edward Snowden writes, quote, I came to appreciate that Wolfgang combines a lawyers attention to detail, a radicals view of power, and an activists vision for a better world. [W]hen the history of our era is written not by the torturers and their apologists, but by those who never gave up on the promise of the Universal Declaration of Human RightsWolfgang Kaleck will be one of the primary authors, Snowden writes.

Wolfgang Kaleck is the general secretary of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rightshis new book isLaw Versus Power: Our Global Fight for Human Rightsjoining us now in our New York studio, where hes just come from Berlin.

Thank you very much for continuing with us in Part 2 of this discussion. So lets start off with the man who introduces you in your book, Edward Snowden, your client. You represent him in Europe. Talk about whats happening with Ed Snowden right now, the world-renowned whistleblower who is now in political asylum in Russia, though, of course, would like to be back in the United States. And for our viewers, if you would just refresh our memory about what Snowden did and his significance?

WOLFGANG KALECK: There are a lot of stories that have to be told about Edward Snowden. Obviously, he was the one who confirmed all the warnings of many, many experts in the field about mass surveillance. So, you know, since his revelations, we lost somehow our innocence, not only about the mass surveillance carried out by the secret services all over the world, not only by the NSAwe have to remind thatbut also the collection and processing of data by the powerful corporations, such as Facebook and all the others. And so, thats the one thing. And I think it will beat some point, it will be remembered as a really historical watershed, summer 2013, before and after.

So, the second thing is, in a time, you know, when many people are frustrated about whats going on in the worldyou know, the rise of the far right, the economic crisis everywherehe sets an example for courage and, you know, that you can achieve something when you risk something, whereas many of us are sitting there in our offices, in cafes and restaurants, and debating and not really risking something. What did he risk? Basically, the first moment when he revealed not only the facts, but also identified himself, he risked basically his life and his existence. And he had to flee the U.S., went to Hong Kong, and then the only country which was willing to host him was Russia. By the time he looked for other places to go and to stayin Europe, in Latin Americabut nobody was really willing to give him a safe stay.

And this is how we then come in. Hes represented in the U.S. by the ACLU. Ben Wizner is the leading lawyer. But in Europe, there was a lot of interest in his revelations, so he participated in an inquiry commission at the European Parliament and at the Council of Europe. And we thought that the Europeans, who consider themselves the champions of human rights and democracy, at some point really, really acknowledge what he did and also declare his prosecution in the U.S. as against all standards of criminal law and human rights, because what hes facing in the U.S. is a life-long sentence. He can get a 30-year prison term for each file he copied and made public. And he could be forced to serve the sentence in a maximum-security prison in total isolation, under this, you know, special statute, special administration measure, SAM. And that is obviously against any standard.

And so, its a very big disappointment that the European governments acted once again in complete bigotry. Its, you know, the whistleblower of my enemy is my friend, but my own whistleblower is my enemy. And that is, you know, criminalizing whistleblowers in the way they do it. Its, from many points of view, very, very stupid. And thats something we try towe tried and are still trying to challenge, because this is a man who deserves all our solidarity.

AMY GOODMAN: And just specifically, to refresh everyones memory, Edward Snowden is the man who exposed the secrets of the National Security Agency, the massive intelligence agency that is many times larger than the CIA, and its ability to spy on Americans, on foreign governments, people around the world. This was in 2013, revealing numerous global surveillance programs, not only run by the NSA but the Five Eyes intelligence alliance with the cooperation of telecommunications companies and European governments. So, he was taking on the world, in a sense. He goes to Hong Kong. He reveals this information to Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, their reporting leading to Pulitzer Prizes. And as he then tries to take refuge, perhaps in a Latin American country, he loses his passport. Its revoked, from the United States. And so, when he was traveling, in transit, he is not able to leave Russia, in transit, and he is ultimately granted political asylum there, where he has remained forwhat? Close to six years right now.

WOLFGANG KALECK: Close to six years. In summer, its going to be six years, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, there he is. Are there secret negotiations going on with the U.S. government for him to come home, or is there just no chance at this point?

WOLFGANG KALECK: There is no chance at this point. But hes a young man, and were hoping for some more, you know, human rights and democracy-orientated U.S. governments in the future. So he has many, many more chances, and at some pointI mean, public opinion is pretty much in favor of him. I mean, in my country, in Germany, hes a hero. Hes considered as a hero. And in many European countries, as well. Many young people admire him. And that is something that at some point the politicians willwe have to convince them, in some point, to say, OK, close the chapter. And

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about how he testifies in other countries, though he doesnt leave his political asylum in Russia at this moment. Who has called on him to testify? For example, in Germany and in other countries.

WOLFGANG KALECK: Yeah. I mean, first of all, we appreciated that very much European institutions, such as the assemblythe Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament, took a stand on mass surveillance and protection of whistleblowers. And they asked him foras as an expert. So, he is not just, I mean

AMY GOODMAN: As an expert on?

WOLFGANG KALECK: On whistleblowing and mass surveillance. So, hes not just regarded as, lets say, a kind of technical nerd engineer guy who leaks some information, and then, you know, whatever. No, hes someone who can explain what what goes on. And that is also very important to acknowledge, that he has not just leaked some data, but he pointed to a problem, and that affectsthis problem affects the whole world. Because, let us make this very clear, the NSA and the British secret service, GCHQ, they might have the highest standard of technique of surveillance, but the others wouldyou know, everybody would do it, including the French, the Germans, the Russians, the Indian. You know, they would do it. And so, this is not about the NSA. And, you know, that is also something we have to remind the people in Europe, who easily point to the U.S. and say, you know, Thats only the U.S. No, no, no, its everybody. And so, its about democracy, now and in the future.

AMY GOODMAN: Youve come to the United States, and you see also, from your perch in Berlin, what is happening with President Trump. But can you talk about the far-right shift thats happening in Europe? And start with your own country. Start with Germany.

WOLFGANG KALECK: Yeah, its a very tragic development, which has to do with several factorsamongst others, the economic crisis in Europe. I mean, everybody is now realizing what the impact of the economic globalization isyou know, outsourcing work and to places where work iswhere workforce is very cheap, and that leads to unemployment in all our countries, and that leads also to a certain insecurity, economic and social insecurity, in all our countries. And then we have, you know, these demagogues all over Europe who try to instrumentalize that.

And so, I would blame governments like the German government under Chancellor Merkel, who enjoys a very good reputation. I would blame them for not having developed a social visionsocial and democratic vision for Europe in the last decade. It was a lost decade. And then, of course, when it became obvious that the migration management system of Europe failed, she allowed the people to enter Germany, but Germany was also the most responsible state for the so-called Dublin system, the migration management system, which gave the responsibility of protecting European borders to the European border states. And not only that, but if they were not able to permitto prohibit people from coming in, when the people entered the territory, these were the states where the asylum claims had to be dealt with. And so, the central Western European powersFrance, the U.K., Germanywould lean back and would say, OK, Spain, Italy, Greece, you do the dirty job for us. And that system failed, ultimately, in summer 2015. Many refugeespolitical refugees from Syria, above allcame to Germany. And that was then instrumentalized by the right-wingers all over Europe.

And yeah, that is something were still struggling on. Some of the right-wingers are, unfortunately, in power, in Poland and Hungary. And some of them, yeah, are struggling for power, like in Germany, like in France, where the situation can change. But one has also to say that this is against the frustration of many people. There were powerful demonstrations, for example, in Germany. There is a lot of resistance all over Europe, a lot of solidarity with the migrants. So, its an openits a politically open situation. It looks bad when you look at the institutions and at the governments, but it looks a little bit more hopeful when you see, you know, all the local and regional initiatives, yeah, of resistance and of solidarity.

AMY GOODMAN: Lets talk about some of the cases that you have taken on. And if you can also talk about why you feel this is important? Sometimes the cases you look at are decades old, and yet you are right there. Lets talk about Argentina for a moment. You took on both government crimes during the Dirty War, and you took on corporate crimes, like companies like Mercedes-Benz.

WOLFGANG KALECK: Yeah. First of all, there are many people around the world who are saying we dont have to look back, we have to look forward. It was President Obama. But now its President AMLO in Mexico, again, who calls for national reconciliation. And I think these people neglect the importance ofyou know, that a society which has suffered a dictatorial past has to challenge that, because torture is not only an individual problem or individualits not a fact which occurred in the past, but it has a serious impact on the torture survivor, his family, his social environment, but also the whole society. You know, you cannot build up a democracy and a human rights-orientated society on the corpses of the tortured and the assassinated.

So, that is, I think, a very important lesson we can learn fromabove all, from Chile and from Argentina. And this is why the Argentinean and the Chilean human rights movement are insisting that this should be on the agenda, on the agenda of their national courts, and if they are not willing and able to deal with that, on international courts. And thats where we come in. And this is alsoyou know, this is also a moment to remind that 20 yearsa little bit more than 20 years ago, in October 1998, General Pinochet was finally arrested. And that is

AMY GOODMAN: General Pinochet, who was thewho took power in Chile in 1973.

WOLFGANG KALECK: Eleventh of September, 1973, the other

AMY GOODMAN: Another September.

WOLFGANG KALECK: The other 11th of September, yeah. And yeah, and tortured and killed thousands of oppositionals, and was impune until he left Chile for a private trip to the U.K. and was then there arrested in October 1998.

And so, if youyou have to recall that also because, all of us, we are frustrated about the current situation, but there are also achievements of the human rights movement. And what happened after the Pinochet arrest was really, really impressive, because many lawyers, human rights activists all over the world said, Lets repeat that Pinochet experience in other countries. And amongst them, Peter Weiss and Michael Ratner from the Center for Constitutional Rights are calling on the the investigation and prosecution of those who are responsible for the U.S. torture system. So, the claim was from Pinochet to Rumsfeld. And thats also then important to remember that a couple of years ago it was for many, even human rights activists and lawyers, impossible to think of challenging such powerful actors as Rumsfeld. Many people were saying, Oh, this doesnt lead anywhere. You know, this will have no result. And we proved that it was an important contribution to the struggle against torture.

And, of course, it also led to the broader network, which we have now, which not only focuses on state actors, those who are responsible for crimes against humanity and torture, but also targets of corporations who are involved in human rights violations. And so, this is not only a story about brave human rights lawyers, individuals in Madrid, in London, in Berlin or in New York. This is a story of a network of young lawyers completely dedicated to human rights, in India, in the Philippines, in Congo, in Colombia. Everywhere you travel, you will find now these kind of lawyers. And that is also an important dimension of our work, and that is also an important message. You know, like we are debating, Should we, or should we not? No, we have to. We have to, because all these people I just mentioned deserve our solidarity.

AMY GOODMAN: So, especially for young people who are not aware of what happened in Argentina, talk about the mothers of the disappeared, the groups that fought to make clear what was happening in Argentina, the tens of thousands of people who were killed or disappeared. Talk about the government accountability, the corporate accountability, like Mercedes-Benz, and what you and other human rights lawyers did about this.

WOLFGANG KALECK: Yeah. After March 1976, the military took the power in Argentina and immediately started to arrest waves and waves of especially young people who were in the opposition, students, journalists, but, above all, also workers, trade unionists. The main group within the 30,000 disappeared in the seven years of dictatorship in Argentina were trade unionists. So, it was not onlyit was not only a crime, but it was also a transformation of the Argentinian society. It was a transformation to a neoliberal society. And that is verythat is very important to be remembered.

And that dictatorship in Argentinasame goes for the Chile coupNaomi Klein, in her book, Shock Effect [Shock Doctrine], reminds us that it was about to shock and awe the workers movement in order to have a free way to a neoliberal society. And many corporations within Chile, Argentina, participated, but also many outside, and amongst them, the big automobile corporations such as Mercedes-Benz from Germany, but also Ford from the U.S. And, I mean, fortunately enough

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what Mercedes-Benz did.

WOLFGANG KALECK: Mercedes-Benz had a production in the province of Buenos Aires, and there was an independent trade union movement on the level of the factory. They asked for what trade unions ask foryou know, better wages and more security, work security. And more than 15 of them had been abducted, several of them tortured to death, disappeared. But one of them survived. That was my client, Hctor Ratto, who could testify about the role of one manager of Mercedes-Benz, and therefore we tried to hold Mercedes accountable in Germany, in the U.S.

AMY GOODMAN: Because its a German company.

WOLFGANG KALECK: Its a German company. The guy had double citizenshipArgentinian-Germanso we could go to Germany. The lawyers went also to the U.S. to file a case again under the Alien Tort Claims Act. And finally, the case is nowinvestigation is open in Argentina. And yeah, a good example, you know, for endurance, for sustainability of the work, is that, you know, more than 30 years after all this happened, in last month, a number of old managers of Ford, of the Ford company, had been sentenced in an Argentinian court, you know? So

AMY GOODMAN: Well, lets talk about that. In Argentina, in December, two former motor Ford Motor Company executives were found guilty of aiding in the kidnapping and torture of 24 workers during Argentinas military dictatorship. Pedro Mller, Hctor Francisco Sibilla were sentenced to 10 and 12 years in prison. They were found guilty of providing the personal information of workers to military forces, as well as allowing interrogations inside the Ford factorythe first time executives of a multinational corporation were found guilty of human rights abuses in Argentina.

WOLFGANG KALECK: Yeah. Thats an incredible, important precedent, yeah, not only for Argentina, but all over the world, because we have this situation in many countries that, you know, these companies come there and profit from authoritarian systems to make more, toyeah, its easier to make more profit without strong trade unions. They profit there. And then, when people try to hold them accountable, they would say, Oh, were just neutral businessmen. That is, by the way, the same excuse the Nazithe industrialists in the Nazi time used when they were put on trial in the Nuremberg follow-up trials. And it was declared null and invalid by the time by the judges in the Nuremberg trials. So, its important that we have new precedents right now.

And its also important because many people in the human rights movement try to frame their work as neutral and apolitical. And whereas we think its very important to recall the causes of these human rights violations. It was not that the generals in Chile or Argentina are, you know, cruel human beings. No, they had a political and economic project, and they were supported by the Western states and by the Western companies. And therefore these cases are also very important to warn all of us that same developments are going on right now. You know, companies are making their business all over the world, no matter what government is in power and no matter if human rights and labor rights of their workers and trade unionists are respected or not. And that is ofso, Argentina is a very important signal, as well as in the case of the Operation Condor trial. I mean

AMY GOODMAN: And explain Operation Condor.

WOLFGANG KALECK: Operation Condor was like the CIA extraordinary rendition program, a cooperationan international cooperation between secret services and special police forces in the late 60s and early 70s in Latin America, in southern Latin America. So, here we had the secret service people from all these dictatorships sitting together with the U.S.there are photos of it, of this, of these meetingsand discussing how to chase the oppositionals across the borders.

And so, what happened was, you know, in Uruguay, the dictatorship began already in '74, so some of the Uruguayan oppositionals flew to Argentina. And when the dictators were in power there, they arrested them and tortured them, or in Argentina or brought them back when they were tortured in Uruguay. So, it's kind of the blueprint of the extraordinary renditionyou know, alliance of secret services all over the world. Where here we had political oppositionals, there we had terrorism suspects.

And the interesting thing is that in Argentina, in one very important trial, the leading generals were accountable for their actions within the framework of the Operation Condor. So, the Operation Condor was declared as an illegal action. And that is also very important, because, I mean, people tend to forget what happens under theyou know, under the label national security, which was, by the way, also a very familiar term in the 70s in Latin America to cover up the crimes of the military dictators.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about using legal means, that your group does, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, to challenge, for example, unlawful killings by armed drones, for example, the role of air bases in Europe, like Ramstein in Germany, as well as in Italy? What is the role of the U.S. drone program?

WOLFGANG KALECK: The U.S. carries out targeted killings by drones. That is well known, and that is challenged in courts here in the U.S. and also elsewhere. But its also important to know that part of the system of these targeted killings are air bases in Europeamongst them, air bases in Sicily and in Ramstein in Germany. And so, the U.S. says that this is not a breach against international law, but that is not the majority opinion. The majority opinion, if we are not in war, you cannot just kill people, you know, without trial, without any judicial control. And so, it is against the majority legal opinion. For example, Germany and Italy have another stand.

And so, what we askclaim from the German and from the Italian government is that they guarantee that from German and Italian territory no unlawful targeted killings are carried out. And so, the German answer was, Yeah, we told the U.S. that they should respect international law, and they answered they do. Very superficial way to deal with this problem, so we went to court, and there is a pending court procedure, as well in Germany as well as in Italy. But obviously our main target should be the U.S. But in the U.S. it seems impossible to challenge these actions, so we have to circumvent that and go to European courts.

AMY GOODMAN: You write about the struggle for collective memory. Explain what you mean, Wolfgang.

WOLFGANG KALECK: OK, all this work, you know, taking up cases from the '70s, from the 80s, in Latin America, now in Syria, is, of course, in what we are doing, not only in my organization in Berlin, but many other organizations, is a legal work. It's primarily legal work. But its also a contribution to collective memory. And that is something we think is extremely important, that, you know, any society which has such a pastI mean, we in Germany had a terrible pasthas to challenge that somehow and have to build up something like a collective memory. And here, our lawsuits, the documentation, you know, which is the basis for all lawsuits, then the trials, the proceeding, the testimonies collected, that is a very important material and can serve as an important basis for the collective memory. But, of course, that only works if we lawyers communicate with artists, with journalists, with writers, with the rest of the society. And this is why its nice to have European courts taking up cases like the Pinochet case or like our Syria cases right now. But in the end of the day, it would be important that these trials are taking place in those societies affected by the crimes.

AMY GOODMAN: You keep mentioning Syria. Talk about your work documenting human rights abuses of the Assad regime

WOLFGANG KALECK: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: as well as, last June, German authorities issuing an arrest warrant for the head of the Syrian Air Force, that was really very much based on your work.

WOLFGANG KALECK: Yeah. We have more than a half of a million Syrian refugees coming to Germany, amongst them many political activists of the Arab Syrian Spring from 2011 on, and many of them are, yeah, survivors of torture. And so, we have a huge potential of witnesses and experts amongst the Syrian community. We have some of the most prominent Syrian lawyers coming to GermanyAnwar al-Bunni, Mazen Darwishwho, together with us, elaborated a strategy how to challenge the systematic torture, which, unfortunately, is the DNA of the Assad regime. And when I say Assad regime, father Assad and son Assad. So, some of the prisons, like the infamous Sednaya Prison, exist for decades right now.

And so, what wehappy enough, the German federal prosecutors opened investigation into this already in 2012. And then we contributed to these investigations by bringing a lot of witnesses to the prosecutor and also by delivering the original set of data of the military photographer Caesar, who photographed the corpses of many people who had been tortured to death in Syrian prisons, and not only the corpses but also some information where they were killed. So, we have the units, the military units, the prison units, where they were killed. And that is now being analyzed by German forensic experts.

And, of course, some of the procedures are then directed against those who happen to be in Germany or in Europe. So there are also some torturers who have come with the bigger group of the refugees. But for us, from Berlin, the most important thing is that those who bear the most responsibility are to be held accountable. And that is the heads of the secret services. And so, we are extremely happy that the federal prosecutors office and the Supreme Court released this arrest warrant against Jamil Hassan, which is, by the way, then also something

AMY GOODMAN: And Jamil Hassan is the head of the Syrian Air Force intelligence.

WOLFGANG KALECK: The head of the Air Force secret service, yeah, and one of the most infamous, you know, torture experts in Syria. And the interesting thing is also this is then something we will point out as unprecedented. I mean, why only holding Syrian torture, you know, secret service heads accountable, and why not the heads of other secret services, like George Tenet from the U.S., like the Sri Lankans, like the Congolese, like the Colombians? So, this is also a very important symbol in the fight against torture all over the world. As the International Criminal Court is not functioning so well, as we have problems all over the world, we can deliver the messages that there are some courts in Europe willing and able to deal with this fact.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, you write about success without victory, from Videla to Rumsfeld. As we wrap up, explain what you mean.

WOLFGANG KALECK: That many of us, you know, think in black and white. You know, its or victory or failure, and whereas the life plays in the gray zone. And the political and the legal struggle we are involved in also plays in this gray zone. So, sometimes we wont have success immediately, but we have to acknowledge, when we comewhen we move some steps forward. And that is what happened in the struggle for accountability in cases of torture and crimes against humanity. The last 20 years, so much happened, also in a positive way, that we have to remind that. Obviously, we want more. We dont want torture in the world. So, its incredible whats happening there, but still there are networks, there are activists all over the world, who resist that development and who build up something which is, yeah, I would say, given to the small resources all of us have, thats quite important.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much for being with us. Wolfgang Kaleck is the general secretary of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. He is Edward Snowdens European lawyer. He has a new book out. Usually hes in Berlin, Germany, but now in the United States talking about Law Versus Power: Our Global Fight for Human Rights.

To see Part 1 of our discussion, go to democracynow.org. Im Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.

Read this article:
Edward Snowdens Lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck on the Global Fight ...

Is Edward Snowden, the twenty-nine-year-old N.S.A. whistle-blower who was last said to be hiding in Hong Kong awaiting his fate, a hero or a traitor? He is a hero. (My colleague Jeffrey Toobin disagrees.) In revealing the colossal scale of the U.S. governments eavesdropping on Americans and other people around the world, he has performed a great public service that more than outweighs any breach of trust he may have committed. Like Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department official who released the Pentagon Papers, and Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear technician who revealed the existence of Israels weapons program, before him, Snowden has brought to light important information that deserved to be in the public domain, while doing no lasting harm to the national security of his country.

Doubtless, many people inside the U.S. power structurePresident Obama includedand some of its apologists in the media will see things differently. When Snowden told the Guardian that nothing good was going to happen to him, he was almost certainly right. In fleeing to Hong Kong, he may have overlooked the existence of its extradition pact with the United States, which the U.S. authorities will most certainly seek to invoke. The National Security Agency has already referred the case to the Justice Department, and James Clapper, Obamas director of National Intelligence, has said that Snowdens leaks have done huge, grave damage to our intelligence capabilities.

Before accepting such claims at face value, lets remind ourselves of what the leaks so far have not contained. They didnt reveal anything about the algorithms that the N.S.A. uses, the groups or individuals that the agency targets, or the identities of U.S. agents. They didnt contain the contents of any U.S. military plans, or of any conversations between U.S. or foreign officials. As Glenn Greenwald, one of the journalists who broke the story, pointed out on Morning Joe today, this wasnt a WikiLeaks-style data dump. [Snowden] spent months meticulously studying every document, Greenwald said. He didnt just upload them to the Internet.

So, what did the leaks tell us? First, they confirmed that the U.S. government, without obtaining any court warrants, routinely collects the phone logs of tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of Americans, who have no links to terrorism whatsoever. If the publicity prompts Congress to prevent phone companies such as Verizon and A.T. & T. from acting as information-gathering subsidiaries of the spying agencies, it wont hamper legitimate domestic-surveillance operationsthe N.S.A. can always go to court to obtain a wiretap or search warrantand it will be a very good thing for the country.

The second revelation in the leaks was that the N.S.A., in targeting foreign suspects, has the capacity to access vast amounts of user data from U.S.-based Internet companies such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Skype. Exactly how this is done remains a bit murky. But its clear that, in the process of monitoring the communications of overseas militants and officials and the people who communicate with them, the N.S.A. sweeps up a great deal of online data about Americans, and keeps it locked awayseemingly forever.

Conceivably, the fact that Uncle Sam is watching their Facebook and Google accounts could come as news to some dimwit would-be jihadis in foreign locales, prompting them to communicate in ways that are harder for the N.S.A. to track. But it will hardly surprise the organized terrorist groups, which already go to great lengths to avoid being monitored. Not for nothing did Osama bin Ladens compound in Abbottabad go without a phone or Internet connection.

Another Snowden leak, which Greenwald and the Guardian published over the weekend, was a set of documents concerning another secret N.S.A. tracking program with an Orwellian name: Boundless Informant. Apparently designed to keep Snowdens former bosses abreast of what sorts of data it was collecting around the world, the program unveiled the vast reach of the N.S.A.s activities. In March, 2013, alone, the Guardian reported, the N.S.A. collected ninety-seven billion pieces of information from computer networks worldwide, and three billion of those pieces came from U.S.-based networks.

Its hardly surprising that the main targets for the N.S.A.s data collection were Iran (fourteen billion pieces in that period) and Pakistan (more than thirteen billion), but countries such as Jordan, India, and Egypt, American allies all, may be a bit surprised to find themselves so high on the list. We hack everyone everywhere, Snowden told the Guardian. We like to make a distinction between us and the others. But we are in almost every country in the world. We are not at war with these countries.

For most Americans, the main concern will be domestic spying, and the chronic lack of oversight that Snowdens leaks have highlighted. In the years since 9/11, the spying agencies have been given great leeway to expand their activities, with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court, which deals with legal requests from the agencies, and the congressional intelligence committees, which nominally oversees all of their activities, all too often acting as rubber stamps rather than proper watchdogs.

Partly, that was due to lack of gumption and an eagerness to look tough on issues of counterterrorism. But it also reflected a lack of information. Just a couple of months ago, at a Senate hearing, Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, one of the few legislators to sound any misgivings over the activities of the intelligence agencies, asked Clapper, Does the N.S.A. collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans? To which Clapper replied: No, sir. (He added, Not wittingly.) At another hearing, General Keith Alexander, the director of the N.S.A., denied fourteen times that the agency had the technical capability to intercept e-mails and other online communications in the United States.

Thanks to Snowden, and what he told the Guardian and the Washington Post, we now have cause to doubt the truth of this testimony. In Snowdens words: The N.S.A. has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wifes phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.

Were Clapper and Alexander deliberately lying? If so, perhaps Snowden should be extradited to the United States and dragged into courtbut only as part of a proceeding in which the two spymasters face charges of misleading Congress. I suppose you could make the argument that he is a nave young man who didnt fully understand the dangerous nature of the world in which we live. You could question his motives, and call him a publicity seeker, or an idiot. (Fleeing to Hong Kong wasnt very smart.) But he doesnt sound like an airhead; he sounds like that most awkward and infuriating of creaturesa man of conscience. I dont want to live in a society that does these sort of things, he told Greenwald. I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.

So what is Snowdens real crime? Like Ellsberg, Vanunu, and Bradley Manning before him, he uncovered questionable activities that those in power would rather have kept secret. Thats the valuable role that whistle-blowers play in a free society, and its one that, in each individual case, should be weighed against the breach of trust they commit, and the potential harm their revelations can cause. In some instances, conceivably, the interests of the state should prevail. Here, though, the scales are clearly tipped in Snowdens favor.

Ill leave the last word to Ellsberg, who, for revealing to the world that that Pentagon knew early on that the war in Vietnam was unwinnable, was described in some quarters as a communist and a traitor: Snowden did what he did because he recognised the NSAs surveillance programs for what they are: dangerous, unconstitutional activity. This wholesale invasion of Americans and foreign citizens privacy does not contribute to our security; it puts in danger the very liberties were trying to protect.

Photograph by Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty.

[#image: /photos/59095103ebe912338a37265d]

Read more of our coverage of government surveillance programs.

Link:
Why Edward Snowden Is a Hero | The New Yorker

Documents revealed by Edward Snowden and pertaining to the National Security Agency (NSA), US surveillance programs and US Intelligence Community partners abroad have been released and reported on since 5 June 2013. Below is a list of the revelations, with links to documents and relevant articles, with the most recent ones at the top.

A number of SIDToday articles from 2006 give an indication of NSA operations against Iranian targets operating in Iraq. A particular concern was Iranian support of Shia militias, including supplying weapons and materials for explosives. Economic reporting revealed Iranian purchasing of US microprocessors used in improvised explosive devices. At the same time, the US was intensely concerned to locate and kill the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which was eventually achieved when a courier was located in a Baghdad internet cafe. Audio fingerprinting techniques developed in the search for al-Zarqawi were used in other situations

Source documents:Economic Reporting Strives to Interdict the Flow of Improvised Explosive Device ComponentsEmbedded with USSOCOM: NSA Reps Provide Direct Analytic SupportDeployment of New System Improves Access to Iranian CommunicationsNSA/CSS Georgia Contributes to Capture of Iraqi Terrorist LeaderInstant-Gratification SIGINTOpen Source Signals Analysis: Not Your Grandfathers SIGINT!Intercepted: Letter for Zarqawi from al-Qaida Senior LeadersCatch of the Day: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and FriendsAl-Zawahiri Speaks Yet Again!Al-Zawahiri: At It Again!Public Enemy No. 1 Speaks!VoiceMatch: A New Offering at NCSNuclear Sleuthing Can SIGINT Help?SCS Baghdad Teams With Brits to Help Free Hostages

Related article:328 NSA Documents Reveal Vast Network of Iranian Agents, Details of a Key Intelligence Coup, and a Fervor for Voice-Matching Technology, by Margot Williams, Talya Cooper, Henrik Moltke, Micah Lee, 15 August 2015 in the Intercept

A series of articles from the NSAs internal SIDToday give an indication of concerns at the agency in 2006. The agency was fielding an unprecedented number of Freedom of Information requests, in response to James Risen and Eric Lichtblaus NYT article about warantlesss wiretapping, to frustration from the staff tasked with dealing with them. The agency was also responding to the growth of online call services, where those using US numbers might be based elsewhere. A series of articles encouraged employees to write more effectively for the larger audience produced new intelligence sharing within the intelligence community and federal government.

Source documents:New CNO Capability Poised to Help Counter IEDs, Geolocate TerroristsSID Around the World: Living in Thailand A Singles PerspectiveSID Around the World: Misawa and TokyoSID Around the World: Jumping Into Yorkshires Village Life with Both FeetSID Around the World: Walking the Streets of TurkeySID Around the World: A Glimpse of UtahSID Around the World: Sugar Grove, West VirginiaSID Around the World: Life in Central Maryland?? (repost)What Is a FOIA Request? And Why Is S02L3 Always Bugging Us?Exploiting US/UK/CAN Phone Numbers In Compliance with USSID-18 Policy

Related article328 NSA Documents Reveal Vast Network of Iranian Agents, Details of a Key Intelligence Coup, and a Fervor for Voice-Matching Technology, by Margot Williams, Talya Cooper, Henrik Moltke, Micah Lee, 15 August 2015 in the Intercept

Long-term NSA employee and self-styled SIGINT curmudgeon Rahe Clancy was given a regular spot in internal newsletter SIDToday to voice his complaints. His column, which started in 2005 and ran through to Clancys retirement in 2006, was supportive of the agencys core activities but critical of what he saw as the increasing corporatisation of the agency and, in particular, the proliferation of management jargon in internal communications. Clancys was one of a number of regular columns that ran in SIDToday, which included the SIGINT Philospher and Ask Zelda! described in previous releases from the archive.

Source documents:The Regruntlement of a SIGINT CollectorOpinion Piece: The SIGINT Curmudgeons Last Shot!SIGINT Curmudgeon Excited By SCO-FESTCan You Cut the Mustard as a SCO?Letters to the Editor: Views on the Corporatization of NSA

Related article:Before Snowden, an NSA Spy tried to incite change from the inside. He called himself the curmudgeon of signals intelligence, by Peter Maas, 15 August 2018 in the Intercept

A sequence of posts from the NSAs internal newsletter SIDToday shows how the agency monitors environmental change, as the issue rises up the list of security threats to the United States. Particular focuses are disputes over natural resources like fish stocks and water scarcity, and the response to natural disasters. Previous revelations have shown how the agency has surveiled climate conferences.

Source documents:Japan, Eternal Land of the Rising SunAn Intern Learns That Customers Do Value SIGINTPersistence and Collaboration Thwart Criminals on the High SeasOne Fish, Two Fish, My Fish, Your Fish!A Growing Security Challenge: Competition for WaterDid You Know that NSA Has an Arctic Presence?New GLAIVE (HF Collection System) Course Is AccreditedResponsibility 3B: Implications of Technology & Geopolitical TrendsNSA Hosts Successful Climate Change Day in Advance of UN ConferenceSINIO Seminar: Fire and Ice: A Discussion on Climate Change

Related article:The NSAs Role in a Climate-Changed World: spying on nonprofits, fishing boats, and the North Pole, by Alleen Brown and Miriam Pensack, 15 August 2018 in the InterceptNSA spied against UN climate negotiations, by Sebastian Gjerding, Henrik Moltke, Anton Geist and Laura Poitras, 30 January 2014 in Information

An NSA document from March 2006 reveals that the agency had infiltrated virtual private networks (VPNs) used by organisations including Al Jazeera, Iraqs Ministries of Defence and the Interior, Iran Air and Aeroflot and the private SABRE and Galileo computer systems that facilitate travel transactions like booking airline tickets and are used by hundreds of airlines around the world. In 2006, the ability to exploit VPNs was held closely within NSA but a tool called VIVIDDREAM was made available to analysts that would let them know whether a particular VPN was vulnerable, without giving them information about how the exploit worked. That the NSA had access to Al Jazeeras internal communications and Aeroflot reservation records was reported by Der Spiegel in 2013, but the means of that access has not been published until now. VPN protocols and implementation vary and security researchers have a number of suggestions about how the agency might have secured this access.

Source documents:Efforts Against Virtual Private Networks Bear FruitGiving Answers, Keeping Secrets

Related articles:NSA Spied on Al Jazeera Communications, 31 August 2013 in Der SpiegelNSA cracked open encrypted networks of Russian airlines, Al Jazeera, and other high potential targets, by Micah Lee, 15 August 2018 in the Intercept

AT&T facilities in eight US cities are actively involved in intercepting internet traffic; this is the source of data the NSA refers to as FAIRVIEW. NSA considers AT&T as a trusted partner with an extreme willingness to help, valuable not just for its access to US traffic it assists other American companies with bandwidth but for its partnerships with international providers. AT&T refers to the eight sites as Service Node Routing Complexes; they were set up following the internet boom of the mid to late 90s; the companys cooperation with NSA allows the US agency privileged access to the common backbone technology that transports internet traffic worldwide. Documents outline how FIARVIEW traffic is integrated into other key NSA systems like MAINWAY, MARINA and XKEYSCORE.

Source documents:Changes to Handling of FAA-702 CollectionFAIRVIEW HomeSSO FAIRVIEW OverviewSSO dictionary FAIRVIEWFull One End Foreign (1EF) Interim Status Update

Relevant article:The Wiretap Rooms: The NSAs Hidden Spy Hubs In Eight U.S. Cities, by Ryan Gallagher and Henrik Moltke, 25 June 2018 in the The Intercept

A newly published document from Snowden archive is the first to ever emerge publicly from Japans extremely secretive Directorate for Signals Intelligence, which has at least 6 facilities and employs around 1700 people. The document discusses the operations of the Tachiarai base southwest of Tokyo which in 2012-13 was collecting hundreds of thousands of internet records for the purpose of detecting potential cyberattacks. The Japanese went to NSA for advice on handling the enormous amounts of information they were collecting, despite the MALLARD operation having a questionable status in Japanese law. Another document reveals that the Directorate intended to collect information about Tor users in order to de-anonymise them.

Source documents:DFS SIGINT-enabled CyberCurrent State of and Proposed Future Cooperation with JapanProtocol note for Japan visitWhats NSAs Reputation Among Third Parties?

Related articles:The Untold Story of Japans Secret Spy Agency, by Ryan Gallagher, 19 May 2018 in the Intercept , 19 May 2018, NHK (video)

A collection of internal NSA memos from March 2013 cite an information source codenamed MONKEYROCKET, which has helped NSA analysts to track down senders and receivers of Bitcoins. MONKEYROCKET, which is described in the documents as a non-Western Internet anonymization service, appears to have been a fake VPN-like service planted by the NSA as a device for observing the online activities of internet users in the Middle East. The documents indicate that data obtained about bitcoin users could be accessed through the NSAs main search interface, XKeyScore.

Source documents:OAKSTAR Weekly Update 8 March 2013OAKSTAR Weekly Update 15 March 2013OAKSTAR Weekly Update 22 March 2013OAKSTAR Weekly Update 29 March 2013OAKSTAR Weekly Update 5 April 2013SSO Corporate Portfolio OverviewMONKEYROCKET Achieves Initial Operational CapabilityEntries From Sample SSO AccessesSSO dictionary MONKEYROCKETOAKSTAR Travel Handbook

Related article:The NSA Worked To track Down Bitcoin Users, Snowden Documents Reveal, by Sam Biddle, 20 March 2018 in the Intercept

Documents from the Snowden archive show how British surveillance activities intensified after the bombings of 7 July 2005, with the collaboration of NSA. GCHQ focused on locating closed loops of burner phones. A Five Eyes intelligence sharing agreement of the previous year, the Alice Springs Resolution, intended to enable unfettered access to metadata repositories among our five agencies, was fulfilled in the wake of the terrorist attack. Later, NSA would criticise Australia and New Zealand for not making enough use of the arrangement.

Source documents:MHS Lends a Hand in the Aftermath of the London BombingsCT Staff and Augmentees Focus on Bombings in BritainThe London Bombings an Insiders ViewContact ChainingGraph theory in the operational environment Sensitive Metadata Analytic Collaboration (SMAC) Concept of OperationsThe Alice Springs ResolutionTransnational DNI Training

Related article:How Londons 7/7 Bombings Led to Unprecedented Surveillance Tactics, by Ryan Gallagher, 1 March 2018 in the Intercept

Documents from the Snowden archive show how intelligence sharing works among the 18 members of the SIGINT Seniors network. The original nine members of the SIGINT seniors Europe group were brought together in 1982 and the alliance expanded after 2001. The alliance has worked together on monitoring major sporting events, counterterrorism operations and the development of new shared tools and techniques.

Source documents:SIGINT Partnership Agrees to Greater SharingLinguistic Resource Sharing in Asia Pacific Takes Step ForwardNSAs Changing Counterterrorism Relationship With IndiaSIGINT Seniors Pacific Successes Highlighted at ConferenceCounterterrorism Analytic Working Group Meets in MadridGlobal Collaboration Environment (GCE)GOOOOAAAALLLL!!! World Cup Report From SUSLAGWhos Who in Afghanistan?SIGINT Seniors Making History in a Good Way

Related article:The Powerful Global Spy Alliance You Never Knew Existed, by Ryan Gallagher, 1 March 2018 in the Intercept

A sigint station run by Norways Intelligence Service in association with the NSA, codenamed VICTORYGARDEN, captured records of phone calls and emails between Norwegian citizens and their contacts abroad, in contravention of Norwegain law. The problem came to the attention of Norways oversight committee in 2014 but has continued unabated since. A sequence of newly-released documents shows a close and developing relationship between Norwegian intelligence and the NSA, which has been shielded from democratic oversight.

Source documents:Life as a TLO in OsloSIGINT Development Working Group Meets in Oslo, NorwayNorway Gets FORNSAT Collection Capability On Par With NSAsNorwegian-US Conference Held at Ft Meade and ColoradoNSAs intelligence relationship with NorwayCanyondust Coverage RegionsManaging the Challenge

Related articles:Norway Used NSA Technology for Potentially Illegal Spying, by Henrik Moltke, 1 March 2018 in the InterceptAntennene som samler inn data om norske borgere, by yvind Bye Skille, 1 March 2018, NRK

Posts from the NSAs internal SIDToday newsletter describe how agency analysts posted to Iraq in 2004, ostensibly to help locate weapons of mass destruction, would locate pornographic material on seized hard drives, which was then used to humiliate and break down detainees. Other accounts suggest this was done as a matter of policy. Further SIDToday articles describe the agencys monitoring of referendum-fixing in Mubaraks Egypt, intelligence gathering on the Israeli and Palestine positions during negotiations at Camp David in 2000 and a reluctance to recruit Americans of Arab descent to work as language specialists. Published documents also document the emerging relationship between NSA and its counterpart in the Czech Republic, the agencys concerted action against a European group called the Anti-Imperialist Camp and how progress was made in monitoring mobile telephony and Skype calls.

Source documents:NSAer Investigates Computers Seized in Raids in IraqWhat SIGINT Revealed About the Egyptian ElectionNow Youre Speaking My Language: NSAs Linguistic Resources (Part I)Can Motor City Manufacture Some Arabic Language Assistance for NSA?Is NSA Going Deaf? What Is Golf Cart Reporting? An Interview With REDACTEDTerrorism or Political Action? The Anti-Imperialist Camp Crosses the LineUS, Czech and Japanese All at the Same TableCzech Mates?GSM Temporary Selectors Breakthroughs in Automated IdentificationA Tough Targeting Challenge: SkypeLetter to the Editor: About SkypeLetter to the Editor: More Comments on Social Network Analysis

Related article:NSA Used Porn to Break Down Detainees in Iraq and Other Revelations From 297 Snowden Documents, by Margot Williams, Talya Cooper and Micah Lee, 1 March 2018 in the Intercept

NSA and associated US government agencies have put significant investment into the development of voice identification technology, which has the potential to become a general biometric means of identifying people as consumer devices using voice recognition become more prevalent. Internal NSA newsletters give some indication of how this technology developed, including the use of bulk voice recordings from Iraq and Afghanistan, and attempts to overcome the strategies surveillance subjects adopted to frustrate it.

Source documents:Technology That Identifies People by the Sound of Their Voices Human Language Technology in Your Future For Media Mining the Future Is Now!RT10 Initiative OverviewVoice/Fax User Group Minutes of January 2008 meetingVoice/Fax User Group Minutes of December 2010 meetingVoice/Fax User Group Minutes of March 2009 meetingVoice/Fax User Group Minutes of October 2008 meetingVoice/Fax User Group Minutes of September 2008 meetingInnov8 VoiceAnalytics Experiment Profile Letters to the Editor: Still More on Tool DevelopmentTips for a Successful Quick Reaction Capabiity NSA Georgia Opens New Audio-Forensics LabNew RT-RG Overview Video Available on NSANet Alert: Voice Masking Is Discovered in SIGINTAlvin, Simon, and Al Qaeda? Finding Modified Voice in SIGINT Traffic SIGINTers Use Human Language Technology to Great Advantage, Isolate Conversation About Threat to US Come to SIDs Identity Intelligence (I2) Day Conference and See Your Target in a Whole New Light!How Is Human Language Technology Progressing?CTIC: Its Not Just Another Pretty Space

Related article:Finding Your Voice, by Ava Kofman, 19 January 2018 in the Intercept

PRISM reports in the Snowden Archive show that criminal defendants were subjected to Section 702 PRISM reporting, obtained without a warrant, that was not revealed in court. Other documents in the archive show how often 702 reporting us used in counterterrorism cases, raising concerns about the prevalence of parallel construction in the US criminal justice system. In some cases, NSA analysts claimed credit for convictions in internal newsletters.

Source documents:Special Source Operations Weekly 25 April 2013Teaming with the FBI in the Global War on TerrorismTransnational DNI training PINWALERe: Ehsanul Sadequee FISA RequestLife as the SID Liaison to the Joint Terrorism Task Force in NYCThe Saudi Assassination Plot How It Was Thwarted2009: A Watershed Year in the Fight Against TerrorismPerseverance Pays Off: Eight-Year SIGINT Effort Culminates in Arrest of Elusive Colombian TerroristClassification guide for FISA, the Protect America Act and the FISA Amendments Act

Related article:NSA Secretly Helped Convict Defendants in U.S. Courts, Classified Documents Reveal, by Trevor Aaronson, 30 November 2017 in the Intercept

Reports produced by US intelligence on potential Cuban and Russian links to the assassination of President Kennedy were kept classified for decades, according to documents in the Snowden archive. A classification guide published in 2000 states that NSAs 1960s attempts to intercept the communications of Cuban diplomats and agents are still to be regarded top secret. A separate classification guide relating to the Cuban missile crisis gives a similar designation to information about NSA targeting of Soviet general staff communications.

Source documents:JFK Assassination Records Classification/Declassification Guide Number: 385-00Classification Guide Title/Number: Cuban Missile Crisis, 10-18

Related article:NSA Concealed Records on JFK Assassination for Decades, by Miriam Pensack, 25 October 2017 in the Intercept

A single slide from an NSA PRISM presentation claims that Saudi Prince Salman bin Sultan ordered Syrian rebels to light up Damascus in March 2013, to mark the second anniversary of the Syrian revolution. The slide claims that almost all information on [Syrian] opposition plans and operations that reaches the NSA is acquired via PRISM.

Source document:PRISM FAA Reporting Highlight

Related article:NSA Document Says Saudi Prince Directly Ordered Coordinated Attack By Syrian Rebels On Damascus, by Murtaza Hussein, 24 October 2017 in the Intercept

A GCHQ document from 2009-2010 explains the PHANTOM PARROT tool, which enables the search of data downloaded from phones seized during border stops, often unbeknownst to their owners, which has then been sent to GCGQ for inclusion in a central database (LUCKY STRIKE), where it is integrated with financial data. The previous UK Independent Reviewer of Terorrism Legislation stated on several occasions that the current system is not subject to sufficient safeguards.

Source documents:PHANTOM PARROTFININT Tasking

Related article:Airport Police Demanded An Activists Passwords. He Refused. Now He Faces Prison In The UK, by Ryan Gallagher, 23 September 2017 in the Intercept

A 2011 report from CSEC describes how a group of hackers codenamed MAKERS MARK, who were believed to be associated with Russia regularly compromised really well designed systems for obscuring their identity by logging into personal accounts. Operatives were even infected with commercial malware. These errors allowed CSEC to attribute MAKERS MARK attacks to Russia.

Source document:Hackers are Humans too: Cyber leads to CI leads

Related article:White House Says Russias Hackers Are Too Good To Be Caught But NSA Partner Called Them Morons, by Sam Biddle, 2 August 2017 in the Intercept

Thirteen previously-unpublished documents from the Snowden archive document the NSAs evolving relationship with its Japanese counterpart, the G2 Annex. While Japan houses and part-funds three NSA bases on its territory and shares access to tools like XKEYSCORE, the US agency also spies on the Japanese government and institutions. NSA programmes housed in Japan include GHOSTHUNTER, which identifies locations of internet users in the Middle East and North Africa and is used to facilitate drone strikes.

Revealed documents:Whats NSAs Reputation Among Third Parties? What are the Japanese Like as SIGINTers?Charlie Meals Opens New Engineering Support Facility in JapanNSA SIGINT Site Relocated in Japan: The Story Behind the MoveBack in Time: The KAL-007 ShootdownRequest for ADET SIGDEV Materials to be Used for Training the Japanese Directorate for SIGINT PersonnelSpecial-Delivery SIGINT: How NSA Got Reports to US Negotiators In Time for Them To Be of ValueUS, Japan Now Exchanging Collection From Reconnaissance MissionsShift to Software Demodulation in Misawa Expands Collection, Saves MoneyNSA Liaison in Tokyo Opens New OfficeCROSSHAIR Foreign Partners Filling HF/DF Gaps for the USThe International Security Issues Build-OutNSA Assistance to Japanese Directorate for SIGINT in Developing Capabilities to Provide SIGINT Support to CNDNSA High Frequency (HF) Collaboration efforts with Japan

Related articles:Japan Made Secret Deals With The Nsa That Expanded Global Surveillance, by Ryan Gallagher, 24 April 2017 in the InterceptJapan monitored in the United States: Snowden unpublished file shock, by Akira Ikegami, Shinichi Takeda and Izumi Tanaka, 24 April 2017 in NHK CloseupNZ spied on Japan as part of anti-whaling push: Snowden document, 26 April 2017 in the New Zealand Herald

A post from the internal NSA newsletter SIDToday describes the role the agency plays in security arrangements for domestic events, primarily the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, which have been designated as National Special Security Events (NSSEs). Other NSSEs include the Salt Lake City Olympics. The Republican National Convention in 2004 was greeted by large scale protest and over one thousand arrests, which were later ruled to be unlawful. It is not known whether the NSA was tasked with monitoring domestic protest.

Revealed documents:NSA Provides Un-conventional Support

Related article:NSA kept watch over Democratic and Republican conventions, Snowden documents reveal, by Ryan Gallagher, 24 April 2017 in the Intercept

An NSA-US Navy report in the Snowden archive shed light on the extent of US defence information compromised when a US spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet in 2001. The 117-page report, prepared three months after the incident largely vindicates the planes crew for their attempts to destroy the signals intelligence and cryptographic material on board before its emergency landing and criticises the lack of institutional preparation for such an incident.

Revealed documents:EP-3E Collision: Cryptologic Damage Assessment and Incident Review

Related article:Burn After Reading: Snowden Documents Reveal Scope of Secrets Exposed to China in 2001 Spy Plane Incident, by Kim Zetter, 10 April 2017 in the Intercept

A page from the NSAs internal WikiInfo, on Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, suggests that in 2005 the agency identified an attack on Politkovskayas email account depplying malicious malware which is not in the public domain. The NSA concluded that Russias FSB was probably responsible. Politkovskaya was assassinated in 2006.

Revealed document:Anna Politkovskaya

Related article:Top-Secret Snowden Document Reveals what the NSA Knew about Previous Russian Hacking, by Sam Biddle, 29 December 2016 in the Intercept

A GCHQ presentation from 2012 discusses the Southwinds system, which intercepts mobile phone activity from commercial aircraft at cruising altitude. As of 2012, the programme was restricted to those regions covered by UK satellite communications provider Inmarsat: Europe, Africa and the Middle East and was capable of updating phone position data every two minutes. Air France and Air Mexico flights were discussed as specific targets as early as 2005, based on possible terrorist threats to these airlines. GCHQ noted that Aeroflot was carrying out its own surveillance of calls made on board its aircraft.

Source documents:SIGINT Analysts: In-flight GSM Is No JokeIn-Flight GSMTHIEVING MAGPIE Using on-board GSM/GPRS to track targetsHOMING PIGEON

Related articles:Les compagnies ariennes dont Air France vises par les services secrets amricains et britanniques, by Jacques Follorou, 7 December 2016 in le MondeAmerican and British Spy Agencies Targeted In-flight Mobile Phone Use, by Jacques Follorou, 7 December 2016 in the Intercept

Details from documents in the Snowden archive, together with architectural plan, public records and interviews with former AT&T employees suggest that an AT&T communications hub at 33 Thomas Street in lower Manhattan is also an NSA surveillance site codenamed TITANPOINTE. AT&T is referred to in several documents as LITHIUM, the partner who visits to TITANPOINTE must be coordinated with. The agency claims to have access to foreign gateway switches at the building, which it refers to as RIMROCK access, as well as to satellite communications as part of a system called SKIDROWE. The facility is also referred to in the Snowden archive as a BLARNEY core site.

Revealed documents:Blarney Program TDY Handbook FAIRVIEW TDY HandbookFAIRVIEW Dataflow DiagramsSpecial Source Operations: Corporate Partner AccessDNI Processing of RINGBILL AccessSSO Web > (U) BlarneySKIDROWE Low Speed DNI Processing Solution Replacing WEALTHYCLUSTER2

Related articles:Titanpointe: The NSAs Spy Hub in New York, Hidden in Plain View, by Ryan Gallagher and Henrick Moltke, 16 November 2016 in the InterceptLook Inside the Windowless New York Skyscraper Linked to the NSA, by Ryan Gallagher and Henrick Moltke, 19 November 2016 in the Intercept

In a cache of documents revealed to the Intercept, New Zealand based company Endace are revealed as a supplier to GCHQ and other intelligence agencies, including Moroccos DGST which has been singled out by Amnesty and others for human rights abuses. The company supplies equipment that allows telecoms providers to make their systems intercept capable and analysis of previously-released documents from the Snowden archive suggests that Endace-supplied equipment played a critical role in enabling the agency to dramatically expand its surveillance of undersea cables between 2009 and 2012.

Revealed documents:Access: The VisionSupporting Internet OperationsMobile Apps Checkpoint meeting Archives

Related article:Private Eyes: The Little-Known Company That Enables Worldwide Mass Surveillance, by Ryan Gallagher and Nicky Hager, 23 October 2016 in the Intercept

A draft NSA malware manual confirms that SECONDDATE which appears in the ShadowBrokers initial release was created by the Agency. SECONDDATE, which intercepts web requests and redirects them to an NSA server, is part of the system codenamed TURBINE. That, and the NSA server (FOXACID) has been described in previously published documents from the Snowden archive.

Revealed documents:FOXACID SOP for Operational Management of FOXACID InfrastructureWireless LAN/CNE Tool Training Course and EvaluationIntroduction to WLAN / 802.11 Active CNE OperationsIntroduction to BADDECISIONFOXACIDSIGINT Development Support II Program Management ReviewDGO Enables Endpoint Implants via QUANTUMTHEORYQUANTUMTHEORY success at SARATOGAExpeditionary Access Operations: NSAs Close Access Network Exploitation Program

Related article:The NSA Leak is Real, Snowden Documents Confirm, by Sam Biddle, 19 August 2016 in the Intercept

Articles from the NSAs internal newsletter SIDToday show how the NSAs capabilities have at times been frustrated by the adoption of relatively low-tech strategies. In late 2003, insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq had caused issues for the agency with their use of high powered cordless phones, which could be used to denotate IEDs as well as for communication. Later disclosures by other whistleblowers shed light on some of the tools governments are employing in response to this issue.

Source documents:High Powered Cordless Phones in the Af/Pak Border Area: Is UBL Talking?HPCP Conference Aids CollaborationRegister for the Worldwide HPCP Conference, 27-31 October

Related articles:Iraqi Insurgents Stymied the NSA and Other Highlights from 263 Internal Agency Reports, by Margot Williams and Micah Lee, 10 August 2016 in the InterceptThe Secret History of Iraqs Invisible War, by Noah Shachtman, 14 June 2011 in WiredA Secret Catalogue of Government Gear for Spying on Your Cellphone, by Jeremy Scahill and Margot Williams, 17 December 2015 in the Intercept

A post from the internal NSA newsletter SIDToday dated 6 November 2003 describes how the agency shared intercepted material from international NGOs and treaty monitoring organisations working in the health sector with the DIAs Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center. The DIA unit was tasked with producing intelligence for the military in support of force health protection, particularly in the field of epidemiology. The collaboration allowed the NSA to analyse the impact of Chinas SARS outbreak on governance, local media, the economy and the readiness of the Peoples Liberation Army. Further documents from the Snowden archive show the range of the NSAs ambitions in accessing and utilising medical data.

Source document:DIA Swimming Upstream in the SIGINT SystemInteragency SARS Conference May 20thSpecial Source Operations Weekly 18 April 2013A New Approach to Uncovering WMD ProgramsFY 2013 Congressional Budget Justifiation

Related article:How the U.S. Spies on Medical Nonprofits and Health Defenses Worldwide, by Jenna McLaughlin, 10 August 2016 in the Intercept

Amidst the controversy about the hacking of Democratic Party networks, which US authorities have linked to the Russian government, previously published documents in the Snowden archive illustrate the extent to which the US own signal intelligence agency has breached electronic systems in other countries where elections are ongoing, with targets including successive Mexican Presidents. The US is making large investments into its offensive cyberwarfare capability.

Source documents:Intelligently filtering your data: Brazil and Mexico case studiesComputer-Network Exploitation Successes South of the Border

Related articles:Commentary: The worlds best cyber army doesnt belong to Russia, by James Bamford, 9 August 2016, ReutersFresh Leak on US Spying: NSA Accessed Mexican Presidents Email, by Jens Glsing, Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark, 20 October 2013 in Der SpiegelExclusive: Edward Snowden on Cyber Warfare, by James Bamford and Tim De Chant, 8 January 2015, PBS Nova

GCHQs JTRIG unit used a link shortener in an attempt to influence online activists at the time of the 2009 Iranian presidential elections and the Arab Spring. GCHQ set up a free link-shortening service called lurl.me (codenamed DEADPOOL), which the agency classed as one of its shaping and honeypots tools, and used this to target activists from the Middle East. The same technique was used in an attempt to identify members of Anonymous. An examination of previously-published documents from the Snowden archive allows the likely objectives and methods used in this campaign to be understood, including the limitations of GCHQs capacity.

Source documents:JTRIG Tools and TechniquesCyber Offensive Session: Pushing the Boundaries and Action Against HactivismBehavioural Science Support for JTRIGS Effects and Online HUMINT Operations

Related article:British Spies Used a URL Shortener to Honeypot Arab Spring Dissidents, by Mustafa al-Bassam, 29 July 2016 in Vice Motherboard

Whistleblower concerns about the extent of information gathering by the Five Eyes making drawing intelligence insights more difficult are borne out by a 2010 document prepared by Britains intelligence services for the Cabinet office and the Treasury. Documents from GCHQs National Technical Assistance Centre show that a very small percentage of communications intercepted under the agencys targeted operations are ever analysed by a human being.

Revealed documents:The Digint ProgrammeDigint imbalanceArtemis DGO and DOC SpecialCommunications Capability Development ProgrammeMILKWHITE Enrichment Services (MES) ProgrammeMobile Apps Checkpoint meeting ArchivesPRESTON ArchitecturePRESTON Business ProcessesThe National Technical Assistance Centre

Related article:Facing Data Deluge, Secret U.K. Spying Report Warned of Intelligence Failure, by Ryan Gallagher, 7 June 2016 in the InterceptEdward Snowden leaks reveal secret Scottish spy system, by Michael Gray, 11 June 2016 in Commonspace

An investigation shows that the electronic communications of UK parliamentarians are being collected by GCHQ as a matter of course. An unpublished GCHQ document from the Snowden archive confirms that the agency is able to scan the content of parliamentary emails for keywords via the MessageLabs spam filters used in MPs inboxes. In 2014 after Edward Snowdens revelations brought mass surveillance to widespread public attention the UK parliamentary estate moved its internal email and office software to Microsoft 364, so the digital output of parliamentarians is constantly moving between the UK, Netherlands and Ireland. A Computer Weekly study has found that around 65% of parliamentary email headers are routed internationally.

Source documents:Intrusion Analysis / JeACSSO HIGHLIGHT Microsoft Skydrive Collection Now Part of PRISM Standard Stored Communications Collection

Related article:MPs private emails are routinely accessed by GCHQ, by Duncan Campbell and Bill Goodwin, 1 June 2016 in Computer Weekly

Eric Fair, an interrogator who worked for a US military contractor in Iraq and former NSA employee, authored several articles about his experiences in internal agency newsletter SIDToday. Later, in his memoir, Fair reflected on how he had felt obliged to mask his moral qualms about his experience at Abu Ghraib and in Falluja for the consumption of his new colleagues. There is a strong contrast between the tone of Fairs SIDToday articles and his later writing for a general audience.

Source documents:From SIGINT to HUMINT to SIGINT (through HUMINT) part 1From SIGINT to HUMINT to SIGINT (through HUMINT) part 2

Related article:The Secret NSA Diary of an Abu Ghraib Interrogator, by Cora Currier, 11 May 2016 in the Intercept

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Revelations | Courage Snowden

June 21, 1983: Edward Joseph Snowden is born in Elizabeth City, N.C. He spends his early life there before moving with his parents, Lonnie, a Coast Guard officer, and Elizabeth, known as Wendy, to Maryland.

1991-1998: Snowden attends public schools in Anne Arundel County, south of Baltimore, before dropping out of high school in his sophomore year.

1999-2001: During this period, the New York Times reports, he developed a fascination with computers and technology and socialized with a tight circle of friends who were similarly enamored of the Internet and Japanese anime culture. He also registered on the Ars Technica website, a hacking and technology forum, and over a two-year period posted as The One True Hooha or just Hooha about role-playing video games. After his parents divorce in 2001, Snowden lived with his mother in Ellicott City, Md.

On the left is the avatar posted beside Edward Snowden's biography in 2002, when he worked as a webmaster and editor for a website devoted to Japanese anime art that he started with friends in Maryland. On the right, Snowden put clothespins on his chest while working at the site in 2002. katiebair.com via Reuters file

2002-2004: After attending a local community college off and on, Snowden passes a General Educational Development test to receive a high school equivalency credential. In March 2004, he enlists in an Army Reserve Special Forces training program to fight to help free people from oppression in Iraq, he later tells Britains Guardian newspaper. But he says he broke his legs in a training accident, and Army records show he was discharged in September. He then lands a job as a security guard at the Center for Advanced Study of Language at the University of Maryland, which has a close relationship with the National Security Agency, according to the Times.

2006: Snowden is hired by the CIA as a technical/IT expert and receives a top-secret clearance.

2007-2009: Snowden is posted to Geneva, Switzerland, under diplomatic cover as an IT and cyber security expert for the CIA, a position that gives him access to a wide array of classified documents. He later tells the Guardian that during this period he became disillusioned about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world. I realized that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good."

Late 2009-March 2012: Snowdens supervisor at the CIA placed a critical assessment of his behavior and work habits in his personnel file and voiced the suspicion that he had tried to break into classified computer files to which he was not authorized to have access, the New York Times reports after he is identified as the leaker, quoting two unnamed senior American officials. Snowden leaves the CIA soon after his supervisors criticism and begins work as a NSA contractor assigned by Dell -- one of 854,000 contractors with top-secret clearance working for the federal government. Over the next several years, he switches between assignments with the NSA and CIA for Dell, including a stint at a NSA facility in Japan that lasts until March 2012.

A real estate sign stands in front of a home in Waipahu, Hawaii, on June 9, 2013, where Edward Snowden lived with his girlfriend. Anita Hofschneider / AP file

March 2012: Snowden moves to Hawaii to work at a NSA facility there as a Dell employee. He moves into a blue-and-white house in Waipahu, where he is joined by his girlfriend, Lindsay Mills, a 28-year-old performance artist. He donates $250 to the Republican presidential campaign of libertarian Ron Paul, campaign records show, followed by a second contribution of the same amount two months later.

Dec. 1, 2012: Snowden reaches out to Glenn Greenwald, a lawyer and columnist for The Guardian.

Jan. 2013: Snowden reaches out to Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker.

March 2013: He seeks a new contractor job with Booz Allen Hamilton at the same NSA facility in Hawaii. He later tells the South China Morning Post that he did so to get additional access to classified documents he intends to leak.

Booz Allen Hamilton headquarters in McLean, Va. MICHAEL REYNOLDS / EPA

May 2013: Snowden begins sending some documents to Poitras, Greenwald and to Barton Gellman of the Washington Post. He tells his NSA supervisor that he needs to take some time off to undergo treatment for epilepsy, which he was diagnosed with the previous year, according to the Guardian. He tells his girlfriend he will be away for a few weeks, but is vague about the reason.

May 20, 2013: Snowden arrives in Hong Kong from Hawaii.

June 2, 2013: Greenwald and Poitras arrive in Hong Kong.

June 5, 2013: First revelations arising from the documents provided by Snowden are published in a Guardian article about the NSAs collection of domestic email and telephone metadata from Verizon as part of what is later revealed to be an even broader collection effort.

June 6, 2013: The Guardian and the Washington Post each publish an article about the NSA program PRISM, which forces biggest US internet companies to hand over data on domestic users.

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June 8, 2013: The Guardian publishes NSA slides on Boundless Informant, which shows NSA collected nearly 3 billion pieces of intelligence inside the U.S. in February 2013 alone.

June 9, 2013: The Guardian reveals Edward Snowden as the source of the NSA leaks.

June 11, 2013: Snowden is fired by Booz Allen Hamilton. In a statement, the company says, News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm.

Glenn Greenwald, right, speaks to reporters at a hotel in Hong Kong about his working relationship with Edward Snowden on June 10, 2013. Vincent Yu / AP file

June 14, 2013: The U.S. Justice Department charges Snowden with theft, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person the latter two charges violations of the 1917 Espionage Act. The criminal complaint is initially filed under seal in the Eastern District of Virginia, and unsealed a week later.

June 23, 2013: Snowden leaves Hong Kong for Ecuador, with a planned stopover in Russia. But he is stranded at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow after U.S. authorities rescind his passport. He spends the next month living in limbo in the airports transit center.

Aug. 1, 2013: He is granted temporary asylum by Russian authorities as they consider his application for permanent political asylum.

Aug. 1, 2013: The Guardian publishes an article detailing NSA funding for British intelligence because U.K. can collect data that would illegal for NSA to do, based on documents provided by Snowden.

Oct. 2, 2013: At a Senate hearing on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper tells lawmakers that Snowdens leaks have aided Americas enemies and done great damage to its allies. Peoples lives are at risk here because of data that Mr. Snowden purloined, he says.

Oct. 14, 2013: The Washington Post reports on documents revealing that the NSA collects over 250 million email inbox views and contact lists a year from online services like Yahoo, Gmail and Facebook. The documents, provided by Snowden, show the agency collects the data in bulk from massive fiber optic cables that carry most of the world's telephone and Internet traffic.

Dec. 16, 2013: U.S. District Judge Richard Leon rules that the NSAs gathering of data on all telephone calls made in the United States appears to violate the Constitutions protection against unreasonable searches. But Leon, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, puts his ruling on hold to allow the government to appeal.

Dec. 27, 2013: Another federal judge, U.S. District Judge William Pauley III in Manhattan, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, reaches an opposite conclusion, ruling that the NSAs collection of phone data is legal.

Jan. 17, 2014: In a speech on government mass surveillance revealed by Snowden,President Barack Obama orders Attorney General Eric Holder to study possible reforms of the program. But he also defends NSA employees and attempts to assure Americans they are "not abusing (their) authorities to listen to your private phone calls or read your emails."

Jan. 27, 2014 -- Based on Snowden documents, NBC News reports that British cyber spies demonstrated a pilot program to their U.S. partners in 2012 in which they were able to monitor YouTube in real time and collect addresses from the billions of videos watched daily, as well as some user information, for analysis. At the time, they were also able to spy on Facebook and Twitter.

Feb. 7, 2014 -- NBC News reports, based on Snowden documents, that British spies have developed dirty tricks for use against nations, hackers, terror groups, suspected criminals and arms dealers that include releasing computer viruses, spying on journalists and diplomats, jamming phones and computers, and using sex to lure targets into honey traps.

March 6, 2014: The Pentagon might need to spend billions to overcome the damage done to military security by Snowden's leaks of intelligence documents, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tells members of Congress at a hearing on the defense budget.

March 10, 2014: In a teleconference appearance from Moscow, Snowden tells a crowd at the South by Southwest music and technology festival in Austin, Texas, that the NSA and its counterparts are "setting fire to the future of the Internet," and urges technologists in attendance to help us fix this.

April 17, 2014: Snowden appears via webcam on Russian television to ask President Vladimir Putin about whether Russia conducts mass surveillance of civilians. The softball setup Putin replied with a resounding "no," adding that he is against spying on his people was generally seen as a PR stunt. But in a subsequent opinion column in The Guardian, Snowden defends his line of questioning and notes that Putin was evasive in his response.

May 21, 2014: NBC News Brian Williams interviews Snowden in Moscow. Key pieces of the interview will be broadcast in a one-hour Prime Time special on Wednesday at 10 p.m. Eastern/9 p.m. Central.

Link:
Edward Snowden: A Timeline - NBC News

Edward Snowden is an American computer professional and a former National Security Agency subcontractor. In 2013, he made headlines when he leaked top-secret information about NSA surveillance activities. Similarly, he is also known to be an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency ofU.S.A.Edward Snowden collected top-secret documents regarding NSA domestic surveillance practices that he found disturbing and leaked them. After that newspapers began printing the documents that he had leaked. Many of them detailing the monitoring of American citizens while many groups called him a hero. However, he continued to speak about his works and found asylum in Russia.

Edward Snowden a.k.a Edward Joseph Snowden was born on June 21st, 1983in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, the U.S.A. As of 2019, his age is 36 years old. He holds an American nationality and belongs to white ethnicity group. Edward was influenced by Japanese and Chinese culture and learned Japanese and Chinese along with Chinese martial arts. Similarly, at the age of 20, he adopted Buddhism as his religion.

Recalling about his educational qualification, he attended classes at Anne Arundel Community College. However, he did not finish his undergraduate degree and went on to attempt a masters degree at the University of Liverpool.

Many people still do not know that he comes from a family that has served the United States. His grandfather served in the U.S Coast Guard as a rear admiral, went on to be a senior official with the FBI and later to work in the Pentagon in 2001. Similarly, his father also served as an officer in the Coast Guard. Talking about his mother is also aclerk at the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Edwardsolder sister served as a lawyer at Federal Judicial Center in Washington, D.C. Since a kid, he was quite sure about the fact thathe will serve the federal government as the rest of his family.

Growing up, Edward Snowden had an IQ test score of 145 on twice occasions. His mind was sharp and his I.Q. was well over 145 which makes him one of the rarest of human beings who possess high-level intelligence.

Edward Snowden enlisted in the Army Reserveas a Special Forces candidate in May 2004. However, he was discharged after four months for unknown reasons. But he provedhis in-depth knowledge and love for computers. This acquired the Central Intelligence Agency to acquire his services in 2006. Similarly, a year later transferred to Genevawhere a job was given as a network security technician under a diplomatic cover.Following asupposition of breaking into the top classified documents. He was fired from the agency.

Edward Snowden left the CIA and worked as a private contractor for technology giants like Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton and also the NSA in 2009. However, he started several interviews with a various journalist. He also able to reveal some vital information on NSA (notably secret surveillance programs) that have been put in place by the agency to gather information and breach peoples privacy.

Edward Snowden began talking when he gathered information on the NSA activities. He requested a medical leave of absence and moved to Hong Kong where he started to talk to reporters and journalists.

Edward Snowden has accumulated a huge amount of sum through his professional career. However, he has not revealed his current salary. His estimated net worth to be around$8.6 Million. He earns much from his job and able to maintain a luxurious lifestyle.

Talking about her personal life, Edward Snowden is an unmarried man. But he is in a relationship with his long-time girlfriendLindsay Mills. They met through a dating website. Her girlfriend is popular as a loyalgirlfriendbecause she supports himin everystepof his life.

The lovebird dated each other almost for eight years. The couple setfor theirweddingbeforeSnowdenleaked theinformation. According to many authorized sources that the couple had broken their relationship after the incident though they shared a great bonding. They are living together to be in Russia.

There were reports that Snowden was dead killed by a group among a whole lot of reasons and information as regarding his death. But he released a funny twitter post waving that entire rumor proving it not. He simply said in his post that the reports of his death are greatly worse than in reality. Interesting guy! He is currently living in Russia.

Edward Snowden stands at the height of 5 feet/ 180cm with body weight 75kg/ 165Ibs. Similarly, he has light brown hair color with green eyes color. Edward is not active on social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. But his girlfriend is active on social networking siteslikeInstagramandTwitter.

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Whistleblower Edward Snowden hit out at Central Intelligence Agency Director Gina Haspel on Thursday, questioning how the CIA chief was able to get "promoted" despite overseeing the country's torture program.

Speaking at a conference on "National Security Whistleblowing and Government Secrecy"in London, U.K. via videolink, the National Security agency whistleblower, who fled to Russia from the U.S. in 2013, said America's "culture of impunity" has "corrupted not just our system of intelligence, but really, our system of government."

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Snowden, who copied and leaked highly classified information from the NSA in 2013, exposing a number of global surveillance programs run by the NSA and the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance, said Americans should question how Haspel could get promoted to the top job in the CIA.

"People just want to get ahead... They want to be the best," Snowden said. "So what does it tell them when they see that you can literally torture people and you will be promoted rather than prosecuted?"

It was a concern shared by many Democrats and watchdog groups after President Donald Trump decided to nominate Haspel for the top CIA job.

The 30-year CIA veteran faced strong criticism and questioning from Democrats during her Senate confirmation hearing last May, with senators grilling Haspel over her role in enforcing an interrogation program that saw detainees tortured under the George W. Bush administration.

Specifically, Haspel was involved in the CIA's rendition, detention and interrogation program, which saw suspected terrorists sent to foreign countries where they were interrogated and in some cases, tortured, a practice billed in the wake of 9/11 as"enhanced interrogation."

While much of Haspel's role in the program is considered classified information, she reportedly led a CIA "black site" in Thailand in 2002, overseeing a program that saw detainees interrogated and also played a role in seeing videotaped evidence of interrogations destroyed.

Ultimately, Haspel was confirmed by the Senate, becoming the first female director of the CIA, in a 54-45 vote.Democratic critics maintained, however, that it was not right for the U.S. to promote someone who had helped supervise a site where torture was allowed under the government's watch.

Democratic Alabama Senator Doug Jones, who opposed Haspel, said it was "just hard to get over" her involvement in the brutal torture program.

Snowden said he still struggles with the fact that so many people in government roles "stay silent" when they encounter information withheld from the public that could be in the public's best interest to know.

"One of the challenges," he said, is "living with the knowledge that people continue to sit at those desks as you did, they see what you saw and they stay silent.

"So you really start questioning, how serious is this? Am I crazy?" he said.

Under the Trump administration, however, Snowden said he believed many potential whistleblowers could face even greater fears coming forward due the president's vow to crack down on "leakers."

While the U.S. leader's predecessor, Barack Obama, oversaw his own crackdown on whistleblowers, Trump, Snowden said, "very much wants to break that record."

"I absolutely dont think that the Trump White House is going to do any better," the whistleblower added.

Edward Snowden speaks remotely WIRED25 Festival: WIRED Celebrates 25th Anniversary Day 2 on October 14, 2018 in San Francisco, California. The whistleblower has said he doesn't understand how CIA Director Gina Haspel was 'promoted rather than prosecuted.' Phillip Faraone/Getty

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Edward Snowden Hits Out At CIA Director Gina Haspel: 'You Can ...