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European officials lash out at new NSA spying report – CBS …

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Updated 4:24 p.m. ET

BERLINA top German official accused the United States on Sunday of using "Cold War" methods against its allies, after a German magazine cited secret intelligence documents to claim that U.S. spies bugged European Union offices.

Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger was responding to a report by German news weekly Der Spiegel, which claimed that the U.S. National Security Agency eavesdropped on EU offices in Washington, New York and Brussels. The magazine cited classified U.S. documents taken by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that it said it had partly seen.

"If the media reports are accurate, then this recalls the methods used by enemies during the Cold War," Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said in a statement to The Associated Press.

"It is beyond comprehension that our friends in the United States see Europeans as enemies," she said, calling for an "immediate and comprehensive" response from the U.S. government to the claims.

Other European officials demanded an explanation from the U.S.

"I am deeply worried and shocked about the allegations," European Parliament President Martin Schulz said in a statement, according to CNN. "If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations. On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the U.S. authorities with regard to these allegations."

The revelations come at a particularly sensitive time for U.S.-E.U. relations, as long-awaited talks about a new trade pact are scheduled to begin next week. It is unclear how the latest report on NSA spying are going to affect them, but the trade pact has been a centerpiece of the Obama administrations diplomatic efforts in Europe for some time.

According to Der Spiegel, the NSA planted bugs in the EU's diplomatic offices in Washington and infiltrated the building's computer network. Similar measures were taken at the EU's mission to the United Nations in New York, the magazine said.

Der Spiegel didn't publish the alleged NSA documents it cited or say how it obtained access to them. But one of the report's authors is Laura Poitras, an award-winning documentary filmmaker who interviewed Snowden while he was holed up in Hong Kong.

The magazine also didn't specify how it learned of the NSA's alleged eavesdropping efforts at a key EU office in Brussels. There, the NSA used secure facilities at NATO headquarters nearby to dial into telephone maintenance systems that would have allowed it to intercept senior EU officials' calls and Internet traffic, Der Spiegel report said.

Germany was allegedly the focus of the European spying, according to The Guardian, categorising Washington's key European ally alongside China, Iraq or Saudi Arabia in the intensity of the electronic snooping.

During a trip through Europe two weeks ago, President Obama assured an audience in Germany that America is not indiscriminately "rifling" through the emails of ordinary European citizens, describing the National Security Agency's surveillance programs as a "circumscribed" system that has averted threats in America, Germany, and elsewhere.

Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger urged EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso to take personal responsibility for investigating the allegations.

In Washington, a statement from the national intelligence director's office said U.S. officials planned to respond to the concerns with their EU counterparts and through diplomatic channels with specific nations.

However, "as a matter of policy, we have made clear that the United States gathers foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations," the statement concluded. It did not provide further details.

NSA Director Keith Alexander last week said the government stopped gathering U.S. citizens' Internet data in 2011. But the NSA programs that sweep up foreigners' data through U.S. servers to pin down potential threats to Americans from abroad continue.

Speaking on CBS' "Face the Nation," former NSA and CIA Director Mike Hayden downplayed the European outrage over the programs, saying they "should look first and find out what their own governments are doing." But Hayden said the Obama administration should try to head off public criticism by being more open about the top-secret programs so that "people know exactly what it is we are doing in this balance between privacy and security."

"The more they know, the more comfortable they will feel," Hayden said. "Frankly, I think we ought to be doing a bit more to explain what it is we're doing, why, and the very tight safeguards under which we're operating."

Hayden also defended a secretive U.S. court that weighs whether to allow the government to seize the Internet and phone records from private companies. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is made up of federal judges but does not consider objections from defense attorneys in considering the government's request for records.

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Edward Snowden: ‘The people are still powerless, but now they …

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Edward Snowden has no regrets five years on from leaking the biggest cache of top-secret documents in history. He is wanted by the US. He is in exile in Russia. But he is satisfied with the way his revelations of mass surveillance have rocked governments, intelligence agencies and major internet companies.

In a phone interview to mark the anniversary of the day the Guardian broke the story, he recalled the day his world and that of many others around the globe changed for good. He went to sleep in his Hong Kong hotel room and when he woke, the news that the National Security Agency had been vacuuming up the phone data of millions of Americans had been live for several hours.

Snowden knew at that moment his old life was over. It was scary but it was liberating, he said. There was a sense of finality. There was no going back.

What has happened in the five years since? He is one of the most famous fugitives in the world, the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary, a Hollywood movie, and at least a dozen books. The US and UK governments, on the basis of his revelations, have faced court challenges to surveillance laws. New legislation has been passed in both countries. The internet companies, responding to a public backlash over privacy, have made encryption commonplace.

Snowden, weighing up the changes, said some privacy campaigners had expressed disappointment with how things have developed, but he did not share it. People say nothing has changed: that there is still mass surveillance. That is not how you measure change. Look back before 2013 and look at what has happened since. Everything changed.

The most important change, he said, was public awareness. The government and corporate sector preyed on our ignorance. But now we know. People are aware now. People are still powerless to stop it but we are trying. The revelations made the fight more even.

He said he had no regrets. If I had wanted to be safe, I would not have left Hawaii (where he had been based, working for the NSA, before flying to Hong Kong).

His own life is uncertain, perhaps now more than ever, he said. His sanctuary in Russia depends on the whims of the Putin government, and the US and UK intelligence agencies have not forgiven him. For them, the issue is as raw as ever, an act of betrayal they say caused damage on a scale the public does not realise.

This was reflected in a rare statement from Jeremy Fleming, the director of the UK surveillance agency GCHQ, which, along with the US National Security Agency. was the main subject of the leak. In response to a question from the Guardian about the anniversary, Fleming said GCHQs mission was to keep the UK safe: What Edward Snowden did five years ago was illegal and compromised our ability to do that, causing real and unnecessary damage to the security of the UK and our allies. He should be accountable for that.

The anger in the US and UK intelligence communities is over not just what was published fewer than 1% of the documents but extends to the unpublished material too. They say they were forced to work on the assumption everything Snowden ever had access to had been compromised and had to be dumped.

There was a plus for the agencies. Having scrapped so much, they were forced to develop and install new and better capabilities faster than planned. Another change came in the area of transparency. Before Snowden, media requests to GCHQ were usually met with no comment whereas now there is more of a willingness to engage. That Fleming responds with a statement reflects that stepchange.

In his statement, he expressed a commitment to openness but pointedly did not credit Snowden, saying the change predated 2013. It is important that we continue to be as open as we can be, and I am committed to the journey we began over a decade ago to greater transparency, he said.

Others in the intelligence community, especially in the US, will grudgingly credit Snowden for starting a much-needed debate about where the line should be drawn between privacy and surveillance. The former deputy director of the NSA Richard Ledgett, when retiring last year, said the government should have made public the fact there was bulk collection of phone data.

The former GCHQ director Sir David Omand shared Flemings assessment of the damage but admitted Snowden had contributed to the introduction of new legislation. A sounder and more transparent legal framework is now in place for necessary intelligence gathering. That would have happened eventually, of course, but his actions certainly hastened the process, Omand said.

The US Congress passed the Freedom Act in 2015, curbing the mass collection of phone data. The UK parliament passed the contentious Investigatory Powers Act a year later.

Ross Anderson, a leading academic specialising in cybersecurity and privacy, sees the Snowden revelations as a seminal moment. Anderson, a professor of security engineering at Cambridge Universitys computer laboratory, said: Snowdens revelations are one of these flashbulb moments which change the way people look at things. They may not have changed things much in Britain because of our culture for adoring James Bond and all his works. But round the world it brought home to everyone that surveillance really is an issue.

MPs and much of the UK media did not engage to the same extent of their counterparts elsewhere in Europe, the US, Latin America, Asia and Australia. Among the exceptions was the Liberal Democrat MP Julian Huppert, who pressed the issue until he lost his seat in 2015. The Snowden revelations were a huge shock but they have led to a much greater transparency from some of the agencies about the sort of the things they were doing, he said.

One of the disclosures to have most impact was around the extent of collaboration between the intelligence agencies and internet companies. In 2013, the US companies were outsmarting the EU in negotiations over data protection. Snowden landed like a bomb in the middle of the negotiations and the data protection law that took effect last month is a consequence.

One of the most visible effects of the Snowden revelations was the small yellow bubble that began popping up on the messaging service WhatsApp in April 2016: Messages to this chat and calls are now secured with end-to-end encryption.

Before Snowden, such encryption was for the targeted and the paranoid. If I can take myself back to 2013, said Jillian York, the director for international freedom of expression at the digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, I maybe had the precursor to [the encrypted communication app] Signal on my phone, TextSecure. I had [another email encryption tool] PGP, but nobody used it. The only major exception was Apples iMessage, which has been end-to-end encrypted since it was launched in 2011.

Developers at major technology companies, outraged by the Snowden disclosures, started pushing back. Some, such as those at WhatsApp, which was bought by Facebook a year after the story broke, implemented their own encryption. Others, such as Yahoos Alex Stamos, quit rather than support further eavesdropping. (Stamos is now the head of security at Facebook.)

Without Snowden, said York. I dont think Signal would have got the funding. I dont think Facebook would have had Alex Stamos, because he would have been at Yahoo. These little things led to big things. Its not like all these companies were like we care about privacy. I think they were pushed.

Other shifts in the technology sector show Snowdens influence has in many ways been limited. The rise of the smart speaker, exemplified by Amazons Echo, has left many privacy activists baffled. Why, just a few years after a global scandal involving government surveillance, would people willingly install always-on microphones in their homes?

The new-found privacy conundrum presented by installing a device that can literally listen to everything youre saying represents a chilling new development in the age of internet-connected things, wrote Gizmodos Adam Clark Estes last year.

Towards the end of the interview, Snowden recalled one of his early aliases, Cincinnatus, after the Roman who after public service returned to his farm. Snowden said he too felt that, having played his role, he had retreated to a quieter life, spending time developing tools to help journalists protect their sources. I do not think I have ever been more fulfilled, he said.

But he will not be marking the anniversary with a victory lap, he said. There is still much to be done. The fightback is just beginning, said Snowden. The governments and the corporates have been in this game a long time and we are just getting started.

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Edward Snowden: 'The people are still powerless, but now they ...

Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison – CBS News

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Updated 5:00 p.m. ET

Bradley Manning, the Army private who was responsible for the largest leak of confidential information in U.S. history, was sentenced Wednesday to 35 years in prison by a military judge.

About 3.5 years (1294 days) will be subtracted from Manning's sentence. The 1294 days are the number of days he's been detained plus the 112-day credit he received for excessively harsh treatment while in a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va. Even with the time subtracted, he'll have to serve at least one-third of his sentence before he is eligible for parole, meaning that if nothing changes in post-trial hearings, he could potentially be free in about 6.5 years, his lawyer David Coombs said at a press conference after the sentencing.

Manning will also be dishonorably discharged, forfeit all pay and benefits, and be reduced to the grade of "private E-1" (PV1), the lowest rank possible for an enlisted member of the Army.

Manning's legal team has said that among the many post-trial legal maneuvers they have planned, they will apply for a pardon from President Obama. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at a press conference Wednesday there was a process for pardons. "I'm not going to get ahead of that process," Earnest said.

Manning stood at attention and appeared not to react to the sentencing, according to the Associated Press. Some of the spectators gasped when the verdict was read, and Manning's supporters expressed shock at the length of the sentence.

After the hearing, Coombs said he and others escorted Manning to a back room of the courthouse, and that everyone but Manning was crying.

"He looks to me and says: 'It's okay...I know you did your best. We're gonna get through this,'" Coombs said. "I'm in a position where my client is cheering me up."

Manning is likely to serve his time in Ft. Leavenworth in Kansas, the main military prison in the U.S.

Coombs said he has health concerns for Manning, whom he described as having "gender dysphoria," which is a condition in which there is a conflict between a person's physical gender and the gender he or she identifies as. Coombs said he is going to seek to have that condition addressed during Manning's detention.

Through Coombs, Manning's family released a statement saying: "We are saddened and disappointed in today's sentence. We continue to believe that Bradley's intentions were good."

The American Civil Liberties Union put out a statement critical of the sentence.

"When a soldier who shared information with the press and public is punished far more harshly than others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians, something is seriously wrong with our justice system," said Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project.

WikiLeaks, on Twitter, called the sentence a "significant strategic victory" and claimed Manning could be free within a decade.

Daniel Ellsberg, the man behind the "Pentagon Papers" leak in the 1970s, told the AP Manning was "one more casualty of a horrible, wrongful war that he tried to shorten. I think his example will always be an inspiration of civil and moral courage to truth tellers in the future."

House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon, R-Calif., called 35 years "a light sentence," and a "dangerous conclusion" that won't send a strong enough signal to others tempted to disclose classified information.

"Bradley Manning betrayed his country, his obligations as a Soldier, and the trust of all Americans. He put the lives of our troops and our allies in danger," McKeon said.

The 25-year-old who gave thousands of classified U.S. military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks was acquitted of aiding the enemy in a military court-martial, but was convicted on multiple other counts.

The charge of aiding the enemy was the most serious of 21 counts. It carried a possible life sentence without parole. Manning was ultimately convicted of six espionage counts, five theft charges, a computer fraud charge and other military infractions.

Manning pleaded guilty earlier this year to reduced versions of some charges. He faced up to 20 years in prison for those offenses, but prosecutors pressed ahead with the original eight federal Espionage Act violations, five federal theft counts, and two federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act violations, each punishable by up to 10 years; and five military counts of violating a lawful general regulation, punishable by up to two years each. All told, Manning faced a maximum of up to 90 years in prison for his various convictions.

Manning had chosen to have his fate decided by a judge, Army Col. Denise Lind, rather than a military jury. Col. Lind gave no explanation for her verdict or why she was not convinced by the government's contention that Manning knew the material he provided to WikiLeaks would make its way to the enemy.

There were no minimum sentencing requirements for Judge Lind to follow.

A prosecutor suggested Manning be sentenced to 60 years in prison because he betrayed his country. The soldier's defense attorney didn't recommend a specific punishment but suggested the limit of his punishment should be 25 years, since that is when the classification of some of the leaked documents expires.

Manning, a native of Crescent, Okla., had prior to the verdict admitted to sending 470,000 Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports, 250,000 State Department diplomatic cables and other material, including several battlefield video clips, to WikiLeaks while working in Army intelligence in Iraq in early 2010.

WikiLeaks published much of the material on its website, as well as in cooperation with several news outlets like The New York Times and The Guardian.

Prosecutors had argued that Manning had a "general evil intent" because he knew the classified material would be seen by and help terrorists. They claimed when Navy SEALs raided Osama bin Laden's Pakistani compound in 2011, they found copies of WikiLeaks documents that Manning had provided. Prosecutors also argued that Manning simply wanted to make a name for himself by leaking the classified material.

Manning himself did not testify during the trial itself, but in a pre-trial hearing said he wanted to expose what he called the American military's "bloodlust" and disregard for human life in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as its dishonest diplomacy, and that he carefully selected material that wouldn't put troops in harms' way. His attorney has tried to portray Manning as a whistleblower with good intentions.

During a sentencing hearing, Manning apologized for causing harm to his country.

"I am sorry that my actions hurt people. I'm sorry that they hurt the United States," he said as he began.

The soldier said that he understood what he was doing but that he did not believe at the time he would cause harm to the U.S.

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Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison - CBS News

Bradley Manning Faces A Tough Life In Prison – Business …

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U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning enters the courtroom for day four of his court martial at Fort Meade, Maryland June 10, 2013. Manning, 25, is charged with providing more than 700,000 documents to WikiLeaks, the biggest unauthorized release of classified files in U.S. history. The most serious among the charges is aiding the enemy. REUTERS/Gary Cameron NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bradley Manning, the soldier convicted in the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history, faces the prospect of years of monotony with no Internet access in a small military prison cell but he would likely be allowed to mix with other inmates and exercise outdoors.

The 25-year-old Manning, who has yet to be sentenced, would be able to nominate friends and relatives for visits pending official approval. A handshake, a brief kiss or a hug that does not involve touching below the waist are allowed during visits, and visitors and inmates may hold hands, according to regulations. Prisoners are allowed to telephone friends and family through payphones that may only be used at set times, but they are not permitted to send email or browse the Internet.

A military judge on Tuesday found the former low-level intelligence analyst guilty of 19 criminal charges, including espionage and theft, for giving about 700,000 classified diplomatic cables and war logs to the anti-secrecy WikiLeaks website in 2010 while he was serving in Iraq.

The U.S. Army Private First Class was acquitted at his two-month-long court-martial on the most serious charge of aiding the enemy, sparing him a life sentence without parole. But his convictions could draw a maximum term of 136 years.

Legal experts said the case was highly unusual and they were reluctant to predict the sentence. The judge has already ruled that 112 days will be deducted because Manning was mistreated in the months after his arrest in Baghdad in May 2010.

The sentencing phase of the court-martial at Fort Meade, Maryland, began on Wednesday and was expected to last at least until August 9, military officials said.

Any sentence longer than 10 years must be served at the United States Disciplinary Barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, U.S. Army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel S. Justin Platt said. Manning could also serve time at a Fort Leavenworth military correctional facility, where the spokesman said he had been held pre-trial since April 2011.

Cells, which have walls rather than bars, contain a bed, a toilet and a sink, a desk and a locker, according to unclassified army regulations. The regulations say cells for one person must have 35 square feet (3.25 square meters) of unencumbered space. When confinement exceeds 10 hours per day, there must be at least 80 square feet (7.4 square meters) of total floor space.

TIGHTLY STRUCTURED DAYS

Several people familiar with the prisons described them as clean and relatively safe compared to civilian prisons but said the daily routine was monotonous and tightly structured.

"Most of those guys there have inculcated the hierarchy, the structure, the discipline the respect for authority," said Raelean Finch, a former army intelligence officer who co-writes a blog called "Captain Incarcerated" with a friend and former army colleague serving six years at the Barracks in Fort Leavenworth. (She asked that her friend not be identified further in order to preserve his pseudonym on the blog.)

Finch said that although "it's a tinderbox for sure, tempers flare and whatnot, everyone recognizes they're in a pretty safe situation."

She said many fear being "Fed-Exed" - the term used for being transferred to a civilian federal prison because prisons are perceived as being less disciplined and more violent.

Another blog, "Prison Pie," by a woman who posts her inmate brother's letters, details the routine: Breakfast starts at 5.30 a.m., work hours are between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m., then lunch at noon and back to work at 1 p.m. until 4 p.m., followed by dinner between 4.30 p.m. and 5.30 p.m. Work includes jobs such as catering, laundry, cleaning and yard maintenance.

There is a lockdown for head count twice a day and 3-1/2 hours of time is allotted for activities such as games and movies in the evening until 9.30 p.m.

MOSTLY PAP LITERATURE

Philip Cave, a lawyer who represents soldiers and visits military prisons, said Manning would be able to borrow from a limited list of books, particularly those with legal information that can help an inmate better understand their case, although there were a few more general-interest titles.

"Mostly pap," said Cave. He said military prisons were more restrictive than civilian prisons about books and magazines, although inmates are allowed to receive titles from friends and relatives that meet official approval.

The former officer Finch said her inmate friend uses a 1990s-vintage refurbished electronic word processor that meets prison guidelines to write his posts, which he prints and sends to her by regular mail since he can't use the Internet.

There is nothing to prevent an inmate writing for publication, the U.S. Army spokesman Platt said, although they may be prevented from receiving compensation for doing so. All correspondence, except between a client and a lawyer, is screened by prison officials.

Cave said that Manning, a slight man who looks younger than his 25 years and is gay, may encounter homophobia, and some inmates may view him as a traitor, although others convicted of espionage are serving time in Fort Leavenworth.

"They may take some extra precautions in the beginning to make sure of his safety," Cave said.

Finch said her inmate friend knew of a number of openly gay inmates. According to him, they do not generally encounter prejudice, tend to socialize among themselves, and sometimes dated within the strictures of a prison environment.

MANNING IN "CAGE" AFTER ARREST

Manning's lawyers and civil rights groups complained that he was mistreated during initial detention in Kuwait and nine months he spent in solitary confinement at a U.S. Marine Corps jail in Quantico, Virginia.

A United Nations special rapporteur on torture formally accused the U.S. government of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of Manning. A government lawyer responded that the United States was satisfied Manning had been placed in the same type of cell as other pre-trial detainees.

At Quantico, Manning was confined to his cell for 23 hours a day, required to sleep naked and was woken often during the night, military officials said. They said those measures were necessary because of concern that Manning was suicidal.

To compensate for that treatment, the court-martial judge, Colonel Denise Lind, ruled that 112 days should be deducted from any sentence she imposes.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Writing by Grant McCool; Editing by Claudia Parsons)

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Huawei: U.S. Is Afraid We Will Stop NSA Spying — It Has …

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When it comes to high-stakes national security brinksmanship, its clear that attack is the best form of defense. At the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona this week, Huaweis rotating chairman Guo Ping used his keynote speech on Tuesday to remind the world about the U.S.s own cybersecurity controversies, referencing the U.S. National Security Agencys internet collection program exposed in 2013.

This has all the hallmarks of a carefully orchestrated line of defense that has been in the works for some time and its a very good one.

The World Of Glass Houses

The PRISM program was initiated under the Patriot Act in 2001 and expanded under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2006 and 2007. The program enabled NSA to collect data from U.S. internet companies including Microsoft, Google and Apple, when permitted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

PRISM, PRISM, on the wall, who is the most trustworthy of them all? Guo asked his MWC audience. If you dont understand that, you can go ask Edward Snowden.

And so onto stage two. In an article written for Wednesdays Financial Times, Guo suggested that the reason the U.S. is so determined to cast national security aspersions on Huawei and encourage its international allies to follow suit has nothing to do with expanding Beijings intelligence collection reach and everything to do with limiting Washingtons.

The Snowden leaks, Guo wrote, shone a light on how the NSAs leaders were seeking to collect it all - every electronic communication sent, or phone call made, by everyone in the world, every day.

Taking The Fight To Europe

That Huawei chose MWC to launch this line of attack on Washington is not a surprise. There was significant unease around the world when the extent of U.S. electronic eavesdropping was exposed and this plays directly to that, as a very brazen look whos talking.

Clearly the more Huawei gear is installed in the worlds telecommunications networks, wrote Gou, the harder it becomes for NSA to collect it all.

The statements coming from Huawei and its leadership have reassured that the company will never assist other countries in gathering intelligence. In other words: we wont do as were asked by Beijing, just as we wont do as were asked by Washington or anyone else either; were not the threat, were the defense, and thats the real truth behind Washingtons lobbying against us.

Huawei, Guo Ping wrote, hampers U.S. efforts to spy on whomever it wants.

China Accuses The U.S. Of Protectionism

This is the first reason for the campaign against us, according to Guo. The second reason has to do with 5G. And here Huawei has found an unlikely ally President Donald Trump.

"I want 5G, and even 6G, technology in the United States as soon as possible, the President tweeted last week. It is far more powerful, faster, and smarter than the current standard. American companies must step up their efforts, or get left behind. There is no reason that we should be lagging behind on something that is so obviously the future. I want the United States to win through competition, not by blocking out currently more advanced technologies. We must always be the leader in everything we do, especially when it comes to the very exciting world of technology!

Immediately afterward, Guo responded enthusiastically: I have noticed the Presidents Twitter, he said that the U.S. needs faster and smarter 5G, or even 6G in the future, and he has realized that the U.S. is lagging behind in this respect, and I think his message is clear and correct."

Guo has progressed this argument in his FTarticle: America also directly benefits if it can quash a company that curtails its digital dominance. Hobbling a leader in 5G technology would erode the economic and social benefits that would otherwise accrue the countries that roll it out early.

The battleground between Washington and Huawei had already shifted to Europe ahead of MWC. Despite the European Union citing caution and the U.K. publicly questioning the level of security within Huawei equipment, there remains no tangible evidence of compromises and accusations are limited to forward-looking threat mitigation. The European carriers fear that a prohibition on Huawei will set their 5G rollouts back several years and will result in them not having access to the markets best-performing networking equipment.

The fusillade being directed at Huawei, Guo has now written, is the direct result of Washingtons realization that the U.S. has fallen behind in developing a strategically important technology.

Trump On The Fence?

This has raised the question as to what extent Trump truly ascribes to the hawkish views of Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence, per their recent thinly veiled threats to European allies that U.S. collaboration will be switched off if they include Huawei in their networks. The much talked about executive order banning Huawei from the U.S. was not signed in time for MWC, despite reports. Are there cracks not yet publicly visible in the U.S. stance against Huawei? Is this now a card to be played in the high-stakes trade game playing out with Beijing? And will Huaweis return to the U.S., under stringent security controls, be a card that Beijing plays to give the President the China trade win he so badly wants?

Trump has said a deal is very close, and some analysts are now expressing serious fearsthat the agreement will be too weak, highlighted byan apparent disagreement between the President andTrade Representative Robert Lighthizer. If the stance on Huawei is softened to secure a deal, that will inevitably be portrayedas a major volte-face.

The reality is that 5G and the IoT built on itsexponential increase in networking capacity will be a major economic driver for a generation or more.Accenture estimates that IoT could add $14trillion to the global economy by 2030throughthe biggest driver of productivity and growth in the next decade, accelerating the reinvention of sectors that account for almost two-thirds of world output. Speak to telecoms industry insiders, especially the networks, and they will wax lyrical about Huaweis innovation and technical lead. The industry excepting Huaweis competitors do not want to see the company excluded.

Nick Read, CEO of Vodafone, the U.K.s leading carrier, told reporters at MWC on Monday that we need to have a fact-based risk-assessed review. People are saying things at the moment that are not grounded, Im not saying that is the case for the U.S. because I have not met them directly myself, so I have not seen what evidence they have, but they clearly need to present that evidence to the right bodies throughout Europe.

The longer this war of rhetoric and lobbying has continued, the more it has started to shift in Huaweis favor, even setting the U.S. against the rest of the Five Eyes. Australia and New Zealand had been relatively forthright in excluding Huawei but may soften their stance if theyre seen to be out of step internationally. The U.K. will be a major litmus test when its security report is published in a few weeks' time.

The global campaign against Huawei has little to do with security, according to Guo, and everything to do with Americas desire to suppress a rising technological competitor.

MWC was always going to be a heightened battleground between Huawei and Washington. The U.S. sent representatives from the Departments of Defense, State and Commerce to lobby against the company. But for Huawei, MWC is home turf. Their brand dominates. U.S. officials and lobbyists were always going to struggle to take their battle to the industry on foreign soil, especially without the unveiling of any concrete evidence against the company.

In parallel with MWC this week, eleven U.S. senators wrote to Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, noting that "Congress recently acted to block Huawei from our telecommunications equipment market due to concerns with the companys links to Chinas intelligence services," and urged "similar action to protect critical U.S. electrical systems and infrastructure."

This again relates to IoT and the race to deliver connectivity across a wide range of industries. The U.S. doesnt want Chinese networking equipment driving its industrial infrastructurefor many reasons, and security is just one of them.

Your Move, Washington

For all the rhetoric, the challenge for the U.S. is the lack of tangible evidence of Huawei collecting intelligence for Beijing, despite their allegedconflict of interest. There has now been so much Huawei-related news that it is losing its impact. The world is starting to view the accusations more cynically. Germany and Italy appear to be wavering, and even the U.K is equivocating.

"Its a hugely complex strategic challenge which will span the next few decades, probably our whole professional lives," Jeremy Fleming,the head of U.K. intelligence agency GCHQ said this week. "How we deal with it will be crucial for prosperity and security way beyond 5G contracts. The U.K.'s Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC), which has said that cyber threats from the equipment manufacturer can be "mitigated", sits within GCHQ.

For Huawei, this latest move is its best, turning defense into attack, hitting the U.S. where it is most vulnerablewith the combined accusations of offensive cyber and protectionism. Huawei CEO and Founder Ren Zhengfei told the BBC last week that "there's no way the U.S. can crush us. If the lights go out in the West, the East will still shine. And if the North goes dark, there is still the South... America doesn't represent the world."

And now Guo has raised the stakes much further, signing off his FT article by saying that if the US can keep Huawei out of the worlds 5G networks by portraying us as a security threat, it can retain its ability to spy on whomever it wants.

This gets more interesting by the day.

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Huawei: U.S. Is Afraid We Will Stop NSA Spying -- It Has ...

Obama Justifies NSA Spying: Paul Revere Did It First

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Argues US has always defended freedom through surveillance

Steve WatsonInfowars.comJanuary 17, 2014

In a speech that was billed as an announcement of reforms to the NSAs mass spying practices, the president argued that the US has a long history of defending liberty by conducting surveillance. Obama even cited Paul Revere, in remarks clearly designed to justify government spying on its own citizens.

#Obama's justification for #NSA spying: "but Paul Revere did it first!"

Paul Weiskel (@PWeiskel08) January 17, 2014

To virtually no ones surprise, the presidents reforms will not stop NSAs mass spying, and this was immediately evident in the opening remarks of Obamas speech when he attempted to argue that in times of war, the US has always used surveillance to secure freedom.

At the dawn of our Republic, a small, secret surveillance committee borne out of the The Sons of Liberty was established in Boston. Obama stated. The groups members included Paul Revere, and at night they would patrol the streets, reporting back any signs that the British were preparing raids against Americas early Patriots.

Note how in the first sentence, using incredibly Orwellian tactics, Obama has twisted the facts to link spying to patriotism, and to suggest that the earliest American icons were engaged in the same sort of activity as todays NSA.

Obama then went on to cite the Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War, arguing that Throughout American history, intelligence has helped secure our country and our freedoms.

Anyone with any shred of intelligence knows that comparing the actions of Paul Revere, who famously alerted the Colonial militia to the approach of British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, is in no way comparable to NSA mass spying.

Was Paul Revere covertly spying on his own people? Was he collecting records of all their communications, even if they were completely innocent and not suspected of doing any wrong? Of course not, to argue so is completely asinine.

Senator Rand Paul immediately took to the airwaves on CNN to challenge Obamas characterization of Paul Revere as a proto-spy:

Paul Revere was warning us that the British were coming. He wasnt warning us that the Americans were coming. Paul noted.

The Washington Post also hilariously pointed out in a blog post that if the British Redcoats had access to the type of metadata and processing power the NSA does today, Revere probably would have been caught before he could go on his legendary midnight ride. Indeed, Revere would have been outed as a terrorist.

Speaking of terrorists, it was only a matter of minutes before the president invoked 9/11 in his speech, following pre-determined NSA talking points in order to further justify the unconstitutional practices of the NSA.

The horror of September 11 brought these issues to the fore. Across the political spectrum, Americans recognized that we had to adapt to a world in which a bomb could be built in a basement, and our electric grid could be shut down by operators an ocean away. said Obama.

Obama then argued, in the face of independent studies that suggest otherwise, that the NSA spying has prevented multiple attacks and saved innocent lives not just here in the United States, but around the globe as well.

He also argued, in the face of analysis by privacy and constitutional experts, that there have been no abuses connected to the NSA mass spying program.

Nothing in that initial review, and nothing that I have learned since, indicated that our intelligence community has sought to violate the law or is cavalier about the civil liberties of their fellow citizens. said Obama.

Obama: review found no evidence of phone records database being abused. Didn't they read FISA court rulings? http://t.co/P46Js5wW5q

Stuart Millar (@stuartmillar159) January 17, 2014

The President announced that he is appointing one of his own insiders, John Podesta, to oversee a comprehensive review of big data and privacy. Podesta also happens to be the head of the White House front group the Center for American Progress, which as noted by SourceWatch has strong ties with the Common Purpose Project, an effort to create message discipline among the pro-Obama organizations, with a direct tie to the White House.

Anyone who believes that John Podesta, also a former Clinton Chief of Staff, will deliver an impartial opinion during this review of big data and privacy should take into account that the Center for American Progress, as admitted by director Jennifer Palmieri, is focused purely around driving the White Houses message and agenda.

Obama announced that several more reviews of the NSAs practices would be taking place, leading critics to assert that reviews do not equate to actions or concrete reforms.

Reviews on reviews on reviews. You'd be forgiven for wondering if Obama has been president for 5 years.

Spencer Ackerman (@attackerman) January 17, 2014

At one point Obama appeared to be indicating that Americans should be thankful for the way continuing government spying is being dealt with, comparing the US to dictatorships, stating No one expects China to have an open debate about their surveillance programs, or Russia to take the privacy concerns of citizens into account.

Comparing the NSA's surveilance practices to China is setting the bar very low. #NSA #unimpressed

Charlotte Gilhooly (@chargilhooly) January 17, 2014

The biggest reform Obama appeared to announce today was that a private entity will hold all of the data that the NSA collects. The president will reportedly order attorney general Eric Holder to report to him by 28 March on options for storing the data.

In other words, NSAs bulk data collection of phone calls and other communications is being outsourced, IT IS NOT BEING ENDED.

If Obama's going to outsource NSA data, he should give it to the clowns behind HealthCareDotGov, so nobody will be able to access it.

John Hayward (@Doc_0) January 17, 2014

Rand Paul noted on CNN Its not about who holds it, I dont want them collecting Americans information.

This shifting of records would not solve the problem it would just shift it, said Elizabeth Goitein,co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. In the case of telephone companies, it would turn them into agents of the surveillance community.

With the fresh revelations today that NSA collects HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of text messages per day in an untargeted global sweep, who actually stores them is clearly not the issue here. The issue is the practice of collecting such data, a practice that goes directly against the Fourth Amendment.

Obamas NSA speech in brief:1. OK, well tone it down.2. But were still the good guys.3. Its worse in China.4. Sorry we got caught.

paul bassett davies (@thewritertype) January 17, 2014

The clearest indication that NSA spying will continue came with Obamas declaration that We cannot prevent terrorist attacks or cyber-threats without some capability to penetrate digital communications.

How did Obama's NSA announcements score? Here's our filled-out card. pic.twitter.com/N3h8qJW5Hk

EFF (@EFF) January 17, 2014

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.

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Obama Justifies NSA Spying: Paul Revere Did It First

Call Me Ed: A Day With Edward Snowden | WIRED

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I was in a Russian hotel room, waiting for the biggest photo shoot of my life. My suite's blackout curtains were drawn, the better to conceal the several hundred thousand dollars worth of high-powered lighting and gear we had brought with us. I sat very still; next to me, Platon, one of the world's most accomplished and respected photographers, paced back and forth. Patrick Witty, WIRED's director of photography, stood near the doorway, looking through the peephole at the empty hall. Reflexively, I reached into my left pants pocket for my iPhone, but it wasn't there. For half a second, my heart fluttered, but then I remembered that I had left the phone at home so it couldn't be tapped. For the purposes of this trip, I only had an 800-ruble burner, now sitting quietly on the hotel nightstand, its Cyrillic menu unintelligible to me.

Just a few people on earth knew where I was and whyin Moscow, to sit down with Edward Snowden. It was a secret that required great efforts to keep. I told coworkers and friends that I was traveling to Paris, for some work. But the harder part was covering my digital tracks. Snowden himself had shown how illusory our assumption of privacy really is, a lesson we took to heart. That meant avoiding smartphones, encrypting files, holding secret meetings.

SNOWDEN HELD THE FLAG IN HIS HANDS AND DELICATELY UNFOLDED IT. YOU COULD SEE THE GEARS TURNING.

It took nearly a year of work and many months of negotiation to win Snowden's cooperation. Now the first meeting was just minutes away. I've led a lot of cover shoots in my 20 years in magazines: presidents, celebrities, people I've admired, and people I've reviled. Cowboys and stateswomen. Architects and heroes. But I'd never felt pressure like this.

At 12:15 pm, Snowden knocked on the door of our suite. He had done his homework; he knew Patrick's title before he had a chance to introduce himself. We motioned for him to join us over on the couch, and I took a seat in an armchair to his left. After the introductions (Call me Ed) and a few pleasantries, Platon asked him the question I know we were all thinking: How are you doing? It quickly became clear that, as nervous as we all were, Snowden was completely at ease. He described, in vivid detail, how he was feeling, what his days were like. He talked politics and policy, constitutional law, governmental regulation, and personal privacy. He said he was really glad to see usAmericansand he said he was homesick. He held forth for nearly an hour, meandering from subject to subject but always precise in his vocabularyquoting statutes and bill numbers, CIA regulations and actions, with what seemed to be total recall.

Eventually we moved into what had been the formal dining room. Platon asked Snowden to sit down on an apple box, a small wooden crate that he had used in his shoots of nearly every world leader alive today, including Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama. Platon squatted in front of his subject, as he often does, making himself small and unthreatening. He explained his process very slowly and told Snowden that he'd be asking him to reveal his innermost feelings for the camera. I moved to the back of the room and took in the scene as Platon began to shoot. The two men experimented with a number of poses, angles, and postures, and nearly an hour into shooting it was clear that Snowden was enjoying the process.

It took nearly a year of work before we finally had our first meeting with Snowden (left).

Platon

Back in New York, Platon had done some shopping at a little bodega near his studio. Now he pulled out a knotted plastic bag with his finds: a black T-shirt with the word SECURITY emblazoned in all-caps on both the front and back; another black T, featuring a giant, screaming eagle with flared talons beneath a patriotic slogan; giant red and blue poster markers; an unlined notepad; American flag patches; and an American flag (actually, the same flag brandished by Pamela Anderson in Platon's iconic 1998 George magazine cover). Platon spread the items out on the table and asked Snowden if any of the props resonated with him. Snowden laughed and picked up the SECURITY T-shirt. That's funny, he said. I think it would be fun to wear that. He went into the bathroom and changed into the shirt, and when he emerged he had his chest puffed out a bit, enjoying the joke of it. We all laughed and Platon shot a few rolls of film.

We returned to the prop table, and Snowden picked up the flag. Platon asked him what he'd do with it in a picture. Snowden held the flag in his hands and delicately unfolded it. You could see the gears turning as he weighed his year in exile against the love of country that motivated him in the first place. He said he was nervous that posing with the flag might anger people but that it meant a lot to him. He said that he loved his country. He cradled the flag and held it close to his heart. Nobody said a word, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. We all sat there for a long moment, studying him. Then Platon yelled, Don't move! He clicked off frame after frame, making tiny adjustments to both the lighting and Snowden's posture, sometimes asking for him to look into the lens, sometimes just above it. We had our cover.

After that, there wasn't much else to do. We sat and talked a bit more. Snowden said he didn't really have anyplace to be, but I could tell the shoot had worn him outand with good reason. Including a short lunch break, we'd been going for four hours. At that very moment our writer, James Bamford, was on a plane bound for Moscow; he and Snowden would meet a few days later and talk over the course of three more days.

It was time to go. Platon had brought a copy of each of his two books as a gift. Snowden asked for an inscription, and I snapped a picture of the moment. We shook hands, each of us wishing the other luck as we gathered in the foyer. I hope our paths cross again someday, Platon said. I hope I get to see you back at home, in the US. Snowden looked straight at him as he threw his backpack over his shoulder and said, You probably won't. With that, he closed the door and was gone.

Excerpt from:
Call Me Ed: A Day With Edward Snowden | WIRED

Data encryption | cryptology | Britannica.com

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Data encryption, also called encryption or encipherment, the process of disguising information as ciphertext, or data unintelligible to an unauthorized person. Conversely, decryption, or decipherment, is the process of converting ciphertext back into its original format. Manual encryption has been used since Roman times, but the term has become associated with the disguising of information via electronic computers. Encryption is a process basic to cryptology.

Computers encrypt data by applying an algorithmi.e., a set of procedures or instructions for performing a specified taskto a block of data. A personal encryption key, or name, known only to the transmitter of the message and its intended receiver, is used to control the algorithms encryption of the data, thus yielding unique ciphertext that can be decrypted only by using the key.

Since the late 1970s, two types of encryption have emerged. Conventional symmetric encryption requires the same key for both encryption and decryption. A common symmetric encryption system is the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), an extremely complex algorithm approved as a standard by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. Asymmetric encryption, or public-key cryptography, requires a pair of keys; one for encryption and one for decryption. It allows disguised data to be transferred between allied parties at different locations without also having to transfer the (not encrypted) key. A common asymmetric encryption standard is the RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) algorithm.

Encryption keys selected at random and of sufficient length are considered almost impregnable. A key 10 characters long selected from the 256 available ASCII characters could take roughly 40 billion centuries to decode, assuming that the perpetrator was attempting 10,000 different keys per second.

Excerpt from:
Data encryption | cryptology | Britannica.com

Forensic Expert: Manning’s Computer Had 10K Cables …

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FT. MEADE, Maryland - A government digital forensic expert linked accused Army leaker Bradley Manning to documents published by WikiLeaks with damning evidence Sunday, testifying that he found thousands of U.S. State Department cables on one of Manning's work computers, ranging from unclassified to SECRET cables, among other incriminating documents.

Special agent David Shaver, who works for the Army's Computer Crime Investigative Unit, said that on one of two laptops that Manning used he found a folder called "blue," in which he found a zip file containing 10,000 diplomatic cables in HTML format, and an Excel spreadsheet with three tabs.

The first tab listed scripts for Wget, a program used to crawl a network and download large numbers of files, that would allow someone to go directly to the Net Centric Diplomacy database where the State Department documents were located on the military's classified SIPRnet and download them easily; the second tab listed message record identification numbers of State Department cables from March and April 2010; the third tab listed message record numbers for cables from May 2010. The spreadsheet included information about which U.S. embassy originated the cable. The earliest indications on Manning's computer that he was using the Wget tool was March 2010.

Shaver noted in his testimony that what he found particularly significant was that the cable record numbers in the spreadsheet were all sequential.

"Whoever did this was keeping track of where they were [in the downloading process]," said Shaver, the final government witness on Sunday, the third day of a pre-trial hearing that will determine whether the soldier will face a court martial on more than 20 charges of violating military law.

The Net Centric Diplomacy Database stores the more than 250,000 U.S. State Department cables that Manning is alleged to have downloaded and passed to WikiLeaks. In May 2010, he allegedly bragged in an online chat with former hacker Adrian Lamo that he had downloaded them while pretending to lip sync to Lady GaGa music. Six months after Manning was arrested in May, WikiLeaks began publishing 250,000 leaked U.S. embassy cables.

The zip file Shaver examined on Manning's computer didn't include the contents of the cables themselves, but Shaver said that while he was probing unallocated space on one of Manning's laptops, he also found thousands of actual State Department cables, including ones classified as SECRET NOFORN, a classification that prohibits sharing of the information with non-Americans, and another "hundred thousand or so fragments" of cables.

In addition, he found two copies of the now-famous 2007 Army Apache helicopter attack video, that Wikileaks published on April 5, 2010 under the title "Collateral Murder." He also found files pertaining to a second Army video, known as the Garani attack video, that Manning allegedly leaked to WikiLeaks, but which the site has not yet published. Shaver was able to recover a number of PDF files and JPEG images pertaining to the Garani incident that were supposedly deleted from Manning's computer.

The "Collateral Murder" video depicts a U.S. gunship attack on Iraqi civilians that killed two Reuters employees and seriously wounded two Iraqi children. Shaver said one copy of the video he found on Manning's computer was the version that WikiLeaks had published, and the other copy "appeared to be the source file for it." The video appeared to have shown up on Manning's computer for the first time in March 2010.

Shaver testified that he also found four complete JTF GITMO detainee assessments located in unallocated space on Manning's computer. The assessments are reports written by the government about prisoners at the Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay prison, assessing their threat risk should they be released.

Last April, WikiLeaks began publishing a trove of more than 700 Gitmo prisoner assessment reports.

Shaver discovered Wget scripts on Manning's computer that pointed to a Microsoft SharePoint server holding the Gitmo documents. He ran the scripts to download the documents, then downloaded the ones that WikiLeaks had published and found they were the same, Shaver testified.

Finally, Shaver found JPEGS showing aircraft in combat zones, as well as pictures that appear to show hospital burn victims.

Nearly all of the documents found on Manning's computer, aside from the JPEGs of aircraft and burn victims, are documents that Manning allegedly confessed that he had stolen and passed to WikiLeaks in online chats with former hacker Adrian Lamo. Lamo had passed a copy of those chats to the government in May 2010, but forensic investigators found an identical copy of those chats on Manning's computer as well, a government witness said Saturday.

In those chats, Manning told Lamo that he had "zero-filled" his laptops, referring to a way of securely removing data from a disk drive by repeatedly filling all available space with zeros. The implication from Manning was that any evidence of his leaking activity had been erased from his computers. But Shaver's testimony would seem to indicate that either the laptops weren't zero-filled after all, or that it had been done incompletely.

Aside from the files that Shaver found on Manning's computer, he also found repeated keyword searches that suggest that Manning had, if nothing else, an extensive interest in WikiLeaks.

Shaver examined the logs of Intel Link - a search engine for the military's classified SIPRnet - and found suspicious searches coming from an IP address assigned to Manning's computer starting in December 2009. The search terms included "WikiLeaks," "Iceland," and "Julian Assange."

The searches "seemed out of place," Shaver said, for the kind of work Manning was doing in Iraq.

There were more than 100 keyword searches on "WikiLeaks," the first occurring December 1, 2009. He also found searches for the keywords "retention of interrogation videos." The first search for that term was Nov. 28, 2009, around the time that Manning told Lamo he first contacted WikiLeaks. "Interrogation videos" could refer to the infamous CIA videos showing the waterboarding of terror suspects, which the CIA destroyed, despite a court order to the contrary.

Shaver did not face defense cross-examination Sunday afternoon, but will likely do so Monday. He is also expected to testify on classified information in a court session closed to the public.

Despite Shaver's testimony about being able to reconstruct Manning's activities, testimony earlier in the day showed that the security conditions and logging in the area Manning worked lacked basic controls.

Capt. Thomas Cherepko, who is currently the deputy computer information services officer for the NATO command in Madrid, testified during cross-examination from the defense that on the day that Manning was arrested in May 2010, agents with the Army's Criminal Investigations Division (CID) asked him for server logs that would show activity on the classified SIPRnet, activity on a shared drive that soldiers used for storing data in the Army "cloud" as well as email activity.

Cherepko hesitated in answering before saying that he was able to pull up some of the logs for the agents, but not others, because "some of them we did not maintain."

Cherepko explained that due to lack of storage capability, they were not able "to maintain every single data log that you can see on [the television show] CSI."

"The logs we maintain are generic server logs that we use for troubleshooting," he said. "Theyre technical logs, not administrative logs of user activity."

When government attorney Capt. Ashden Fein later asked him in re-direct what the server logs contained, Cherepko replied, "I'm not entirely sure at this time."

CID agents also asked him to image computers, but Cherepko could not recall exactly which computers he was asked to image. He said he did not do the imaging himself, but passed it to one of his subordinates - a sergeant or a private (he couldn't remember who) had done the imaging for him.

Cherepko testified that he expressed concern to the agents about creating "forensically sound images" so as not to taint the data. He said one of the CID agents replied to him saying in essence, "Its okay, we haven't seized it yet so you can't really taint anything," adding that it had been so long since the activity they're investing occurred that "its already been contaminated.

He was later asked to "make a copy of Manning's folder" as well as log files from the server, but didn't know how to do it in a way that would preserve the metadata for forensic purposes, so a CID agent had to walk him through the process over the phone.

Cherepko, who received a letter of admonishment last March from Lt. Gen. Robert Caslan for failing to ensure that the network of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division - Manning's brigade - was properly accredited and certified, continued his testimony about the lax network security at FOB Hammer.

He described how soldiers would store movies and music in their shared drive on the SIPRnet. The shared drive, called the "T Drive" by soldiers, was about 11 terabytes in size, and was accessible to all users on SIPRnet who were given permission to access it, in order to store data that they could access from any classified computer.

Rules prohibited using the shared drive for storing such files, and Cherepko would delete the files when he found them, but they would return despite his efforts. Although he reported the activity to his superiors, he wasn't aware of any punishment that occurred as a result, or any subsequent enforcement of the rules against storing such files on the shared drive.

The hearing will resume Monday morning.

UPDATE 11pm EST: This story has been updated with additional information about forensic data found on Manning's computers.

The rest is here:
Forensic Expert: Manning's Computer Had 10K Cables ...

Edward Snowden files asylum request in Russia – CBS News

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MOSCOWNational Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden on Tuesday submitted a request for temporary asylum in Russia, his lawyer said, claiming he faces persecution from the U.S. government and could face torture or death.

WikiLeaks, the secret-spilling site that has been advising Snowden, and Russia's Federal Migration Service both confirmed the application request.

CBS News' Svetlana Berdnikova reports that, according to legal analysts in Moscow, the Russian government will be able to issue Snowden with temporary documentation to allow him to move freely around Russia once the application is processed by the Migration Service. It can take up to five days for that preliminary review of the application to be completed.

The full examination of his request for refugee status can take the Migration Service three months -- and that period can be doubled if the agency feels more time is necessary to weigh the merits of his request. If asylum is granted, it would permit Snowden to live and work in Russia for up to one year, and could then be renewed.

Snowden, who revealed details of a U.S. intelligence program to monitor Internet activity, argued in his application that the reason he needs asylum is "he faces persecution by the U.S. government and he fears for his life and safety, fears that he could be subjected to torture and capital punishment," lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said on Rossiya 24 television.

Kucherena told The Associated Press that he met the former NSA systems analyst in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport to give him legal advice and that Snowden made the request after the meeting.

Snowden has been stuck there since he arrived on a flight from Hong Kong on June 23. He's had offers of asylum from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, but because his U.S. passport has been revoked, the logistics of reaching whichever country he chooses are complicated.

He said Friday at an airport meeting with Russian rights activists and public figures, including Kucherena, that he would seek at least temporary refuge in Russia until he could fly to one of the Latin American nations that have offered him asylum.

The temporary asylum would allow Snowden to freely travel and work in Russia, Kucherena said. He chose to apply for temporary asylum and not political asylum because the latter takes longer to consider.

Kucherena added that Snowden said he had no immediate plans to leave Russia. According to Russian law, temporary asylum is provided for a period of one year and could be extended each year.

Snowden's stay in Russia has strained already chilly relations between Moscow and Washington. Granting him asylum would further aggravate tensions with the U.S. less than two months before Russia's President Vladimir Putin and President Barack Obama are to meet in Moscow and again at the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg.

Putin on Monday described Snowden's arrival as an unwelcome present foisted on Russia by the U.S. He said that Snowden flew to Moscow intending only to transit to another country, but that the U.S. intimidated other countries into refusing to accept him, effectively blocking the fugitive from flying further.

Snowden previously had sought Russian asylum, which Putin said would be granted only if he agreed not to leak more information. Snowden then withdrew the bid, the Kremlin said.

During Friday's meeting in the transit zone, Snowden argued that he hadn't hurt U.S. interests in the past and has no intention of doing that. Putin did not say Monday if that would be sufficient grounds for asylum.

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday, according to the Interfax news agency, that while Snowden voiced his agreement with Putin's condition, he has made "no confirmation of that in writing."

Putin noted that Snowden apparently did not want to stay in Russia permanently. Asked where the former NSA systems analyst could go, Putin responded: "How would I know? It's his life, his fate."

Mikhail Fedotov, the head of Russia's presidential Human Rights Council, said Tuesday that Snowden should be granted temporary asylum until the U.N. refugee agency could ensure his transit to a country that has offered him permanent asylum.

It was not clear what the likelihood of that was. Dan McNorton, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency, said Tuesday the agency's rules prevent him from commenting directly on any individual's case.

In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney said he was unaware of any communications between the U.S. and Russian government regarding Snowden on Tuesday.

"Our position on this remains what it was," he said. Our interest has always been in seeing him expelled from Russia and returned to the United States."

The Kremlin has been anxious to be rid of Snowden, whom the U.S. wants returned to face espionage charges.

He is charged with unauthorized communication of national defense information, willful communication of classified communications intelligence information and theft of government property. The first two are under the Espionage Act and each of the three crimes carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison on conviction.

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Edward Snowden files asylum request in Russia - CBS News


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