The Real Danger of the NSA Spy (Comic)

Here's Video Of The House Debate That Almost Passed An Amendment Cutting At The NSA's Domestic Surveillance

Yesterday, an amendment proposed by Rep. Amash that would have dramatically undermined the NSA's authority to collect records on the phone calls of American citizens failed to pass. Proponents of the amendment claimed that it protected the Fourth Amendment rights of the public. Those opposed argued that it would erode national security.

The debate back and forth was perhaps the best encapsulation of the current conversation in Congress concerning the pervasive surveillance of the NSA that has recently become better known, mostly through the prism of leaks from the now fugitive Edward Snowden. That information has divided Congressional representatives and senators, demanding that they choose a side, at least rhetorically, on the issue.

Yesterday was a further step in the direction of accountability, albeit only in the lower chamber of Congress. The members had to vote yes or no on whether to defund a known - and previously lied about - program that collects private data on Americans sans their status as party to an investigation.

You've read coverage on the NSA for months, with commentary of all sorts taking positions on both the digital and telephonic collection practices of the agency. The following debate isn't a cable news segment stacked with paid pundits, half-neck analysts, or think-tank hacks. Instead, this is our Congress, arguing with itself, about how to handle our privacy.

The amendment failed 205-217. That's a defeat, but those in favor of its passage were greater in number than many, myself included, anticipated.

Enjoy [Debate begins at 16:40]:

Top Image Credit: Zoe Rudisill

Technology And The Ruling Party

"Power tends to corrupt," said Lord Acton, "and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

The sexism needs updating but the sentiment remains true. That's been all too obvious this week, during which the powers that be did their damnedest to protect their once-secret surveillance programs...while the NSA responded to Freedom Of Information Act requests with the claim "There's no central method to search [internal NSA emails] at this time."

@rezendi In related news, NSA says it's never come across the term "dogfooding" in any of its data trawling, & doesn't know its definition.-
Lun Esex (@LunaticSX) July 24, 2013

The black-comedy message is clear: surveillance is something that the powerful do to the powerless, in their own perfect secrecy. Two-way transparency is but a pipe dream in the minds of civil libertarians. Which puts me in mind of science-fiction guru Charles Stross's recent blog post A Bad Dream:

Is the United Kingdom a one party state? [...] I'm nursing a pet theory. Which is that there are actually four main political parties in Westminster: the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Ruling Party. The Ruling Party is a meta-party...it always wins every election, because whichever party wins is led by members of the Ruling Party, who have more in common with each other than with the back bench dinosaurs who form the rump of their notional party [...] Any attempt at organizing a transfer of power that does not usher in a new group of Ruling Party faces risks being denounced as Terrorism.

Of course in America this is old news. The one thing that the Tea Party and the Occupy movement have in common is their desire to throw the Ruling Party bums out of Washington. It's an accepted axiom in American politics that anyone who has been in Washington too long is suspect and probably corrupt. (More than 75% of Americans think their political parties are corrupt.)

The wave of hope that drove Obama into office was fuelled in part by the belief that he wasn't a member of the Ruling Party. Well, even if he wasn't then, he sure is now. That's what usually happens to successful politicians:

The GOP establishment: Obama is a tyrant, except in the areas where we want to give him sweeping unilateral power to exercise in secret.-
Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) July 26, 2013

Nancy Pelosi in 2005: Patriot Act "a massive invasion of privacy" 1.usa.gov/1bOHdyZ Today, she voted to let that invasion continue.-
Trevor Timm (@trevortimm) July 24, 2013

Similarly, the recent spate of antigovernment street protests in Turkey, Brazil, etc., are-arguably-protests against the various international incarnations of the Ruling Party. As Slavoj i ek writes in the London Review of Books:

What we first took as a failure fully to apply a noble principle (democratic freedom) is in fact a failure inherent in the principle itself. This realisation - that failure may be inherent in the principle we're fighting for - is a big step in a political education. Representatives of the ruling ideology roll out their entire arsenal to prevent us from reaching this radical conclusion.

i ek's a Marxist, and I'm a staunch capitalist, but even I have to admit that he may be on to something there. it's possible that multiparty democracy suffers from an inherent and fundamental flaw: the eventual installation of an entrenched, parasitical Ruling Party.

So, of course, as a techie who instinctively thinks in terms of hacking and fixing systems, I immediately find myself wondering: is there a technical fix? Can better technology save us from the Ruling Parties, or at least alleviate some of our governments' more glaring flaws? Or will technology further entrench and empower them?

These days it's hard for Silicon Valley to look at Washington with anything other than dismay trending towards horror, along with a powerful sense of "there has to be a better way." I expect that's why people have seriously called for Google to buy Detroit. I suspect that's what Larry Page had in mind, at least in part, when he mused aloud about the desirability of a mad science island untrammeled by antiquated laws and politics, where we could experiment with new and better systems:

We're changing quickly, but some of our institutions, like some laws, aren't changing with that. The laws [about technology] can't be right if it's 50 years old - that's before the Internet. Maybe more of us need to go into other areas to help them improve and understand technology.

Google is, after all, the apotheosis of the Valley; a company that muses about offering eternal youth to its employees somewhere down the road, a company that oozes scientific method. Doesn't that sound a whole lot better than the Ruling Party? Doesn't it seem like the best thing we could do is import the Google Way to Washington, and turn our government into a genuine technocracy?

Sorry. No. Silicon Valley thinks of itself as built on merit, innovation, iteration, and rational thought, and to some extent it is, but its worldview can be even more blinkered and bubble-bound than that of the Ruling Party. Technology does not solve all of the world's problems, and it's dangerous hubris to think that it might. Rational thought is a flawed tool in a world full of irrational people. And most of all, power corrupts; anyone who replaces the Ruling Party will probably eventually become a member.

But on the other hand, avoiding politics and/or pretending that it has nothing to do with us is no longer an option for the tech industry. Edward Snowden has shown us that much. We have become too important and too powerful. As I wrote here almost three years ago:

You probably don't want to read about political idiocy here, and I can't blame you. But it may be time for the tech industry to start paying much more attention to the political world, because as Wikileaks vividly illustrates, these days almost every political issue has tech aspects-and hence, down the road, tech repercussions.

Can't help but think I wasn't wrong. But that doesn't mean the tech industry should be trying to directly shape what happens in Washington and Westminster. We provide tools; we don't dig trenches. That's not what we're good at. (Witness FWD.us.) Instead we should collectively be trying to ensure that tomorrow's technologies, and tomorrow's networks, support individual authority (and privacy), rather than building centralized panopticons which increase and cement the existing hegemonies.

I realize that this all sounds simultaneously paranoid and na ve. But I believe we're nearing a crucial point at which, depending on a myriad of separate decisions ultimately made by individual people, tomorrow's technologies can-and will-either increase or diminish our individual and collective freedoms by a very significant degree. The direction we will take seems finely balanced, and could still go either way. So keep your fingers crossed, and your eyes wide open.

Postscript: I'll be in Las Vegas this week to cover the Black Hat and DefCon security conferences. I'm not entirely sure yet what kind of reportage I'll be filing, but if you're interested in occasional sardonic tweets from Sin City, follow me on Twitter.

NSA surveillance critics to testify before Congress

Democrat congressman Alan Grayson says hearing will help to stop 'constant misleading information' from intelligence chiefs

Congress will hear testimony from critics of the National Security Agency's surveillance practices for the first time since the whistleblower Edward Snowden's explosive leaks were made public.

Democrat congressman Alan Grayson, who is leading a bipartisan group of congressman organising the hearing, told the Guardian it would serve to counter the "constant misleading information" from the intelligence community.

The hearing, which will take place on Wednesday, comes amid evidence of a growing congressional rebellion NSA data collection methods.

On Wednesday, a vote in the House of Representatives that would have tried to curb the NSA's practice of mass collection of phone records of millions of Americans was narrowly defeated.

However, it exposed broader-than-expected concern among members of Congress over US surveillance tactics. A majority of Democrat members voted in support of the amendment.

Grayson, who was instrumental in fostering support among Democrats for the the amendment, said Wednesday's hearing would mark the first time critics of NSA surveillance methods have testified before Congress since Snowden's leaks were published by the Guardian and Washington Post.

"I have been concerned about the fact that we have heard incessantly in recent weeks from General Keith Alexander [director of the NSA] and Mr James Clapper [director of National Intelligence] about their side of the story," he said. "We have barely heard anything in Congress from critics of the program.

"We have put together an ad hoc, bipartisan hearing on domestic surveillance in on the Capitol. We plan to have critics of the program come in and give their view - from the left and the right."

Grayson said the hearing had bipartisan support, and was backed by the Republican congressman Justin Amash, whose draft the amendment that was narrowly defeated.

"Mr Amash has declared an interest in the hearing. There are several others who have a libertarian bent - largely the same people who represented the minority of Republicans who decided to vote in favour of the Amash amendment."

The hearing will take place at the same time as a Senate hearing into the NSA's activities. That will feature Gen Alexander and possibly his deputy, Chris Inglis, as well as senior officials from the Department of Justice and FBI.

The simultaneous timing of the hearings will lead to a notable juxtaposition between opponents and defenders of the government's surveillance activities.

"Both Congress and the American people deserve to hear both sides of the story," Grayson said. "There has been constant misleading information - and worse than that, the occasional outright lie - from the so-called intelligence community in their extreme, almost hysterical efforts, to defend these programmes."

Although not a formal committee hearing, Grayson's event will take place on Capitol Hill, and composed of a panel of around a dozen members of Congress from both parties.

Grayson said those testifying would include the American Civil Liberties Union as well as representatives from the right-leaning Cato Institute.

"They are both going to come in and make it clear that this programme is not authorised by existing law - and if it were authorised by existing law, that law would be unconstitutional," Grayson said.

The congressman added that Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who first revealed details of the surveillance programmes leaked by Snowden, had also been invited to testify via video-link from his base in Rio.

"Even today, most people in America are unaware of the fact the government is receiving a record of every call that they make, even to the local pizzeria," Grayson said.

"I think that most people simply don't understand that, despite the news coverage, which my view has been extremely unfocused. There has been far too much discussion of the leaker, and not enough discussion of the leak."

US will not seek death penalty for Edward Snowden, Holder tells Russia

Reports this week claimed Snowden had applied for asylum in Russia because he feared torture if he was returned to US

The US has told the Russian government that it will not seek the death penalty for Edward Snowden should he be extradited, in an attempt to prevent Moscow from granting asylum to the former National Security Agency contractor.

In a letter sent this week, US attorney general Eric Holder told his Russian counterpart that the charges faced by Snowden do not carry the death penalty. Holder added that the US "would not seek the death penalty even if Mr Snowden were charged with additional, death penalty-eligible crimes".

Holder said he had sent the letter, addressed to Alexander Vladimirovich, Russia's minister of justice, in response to reports that Snowden had applied for temporary asylum in Russia "on the grounds that if he were returned to the United States, he would be tortured and would face the death penalty".

"These claims are entirely without merit," Holder said. In addition to his assurance that Snowden would not face capital punishment, the attorney general wrote: "Torture is unlawful in the United States."

In the letter, released by the US Department of Justice on Friday, Holder added: "We believe that these assurances eliminate these asserted grounds for Mr Snowden's claim that he should be treated as a refugee or granted asylum, temporary or otherwise."

The US has been seeking Snowden's extradition to face felony charges for leaking details of NSA surveillance programmes. There were authoritative reports on Wednesday that authorities in Moscow had granted Snowden permission to stay in Russia temporarily, but when Snowden's lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, arrived to meet his client at Sheremetyevo airport, he said the papers were not yet ready.

Kucherena, who has close links to the Kremlin, said Snowden would stay in the airport's transit zone, where he has been in limbo since arriving from Hong Kong on 23 June, for the near future.

The letter from Holder, and the apparent glitch in Snowden's asylum application, suggest that Snowden's fate is far from secure.

But a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin insisted Russia has not budged from its refusal to extradite Snowden. Asked by a reporter on Friday whether the government's position had changed, Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that "Russia has never extradited anyone and never will." Putin has previously insisted Russia will not extradite Snowden to the US. There is no US-Russia extradition treaty.

Putin's statement still leaves the Russian authorities room for manoeuvre, however, as Snowden is not technically on Russian soil.

Peskov said that Putin is not involved in reviewing Snowden's application or involved in discussions about the whistleblower's future with the US, though he said the Russian security service, the FSB, had been in touch with the FBI.

Speaking on Wednesday, Snowden's lawyer said he was hoped to settle in Russia. "[Snowden] wants to find work in Russia, travel and somehow create a life for himself," Kucherena told the television station Rossiya 24. He said Snowden had already begun learning Russian.

There is support among some Russian politicians for Snowden to be allowed to stay in the country. The speaker of the Russian parliament, Sergei Naryshkin, has said Snowden should be granted asylum to protect him from the death penalty.

The letter from Holder was designed to allay those fears and negate the grounds for which Snowden as allegedly applied for asylum in Russia. The attorney general said that if Snowden returned to the US he would "promptly be brought before a civilian court" and would receive "all the protections that United States law provides".

"Any questioning of Mr Snowden could be conducted only with his consent: his participation would be entirely voluntary, and his legal counsel would be present should he wish it," Holder said.

He added that despite Snowden's passport being revoked he "remains a US citizen" and said the US would facilitate a direct return to the country.

Germany's president, who helped expose the workings of East Germany's Stasi secret police, waded into the row on Friday. President Joachim Gauck, whose role is largely symbolic, said whistleblowers such as Snowden deserved respect for defending freedom.

"The fear that our telephones or mails are recorded and stored by foreign intelligence services is a constraint on the feeling of freedom and then the danger grows that freedom itself is damaged," Gauck said.