- The following is a script from "Inside the NSA" which aired on Dec. 15, 2013. John Miller is the correspondent. Ira Rosen and Gabrielle Schonder, producers.
No U.S. intelligence agency has ever been under the kind of pressure being faced by the National Security Agency after details of some of its most secret programs were leaked by contractor Edward Snowden. Perhaps because of that pressure the agency gave 60 Minutes unprecedented access to NSA headquarters where we were able to speak to employees who have never spoken publicly before.
Full disclosure, I once worked in the office of the director of National Intelligence where I saw firsthand how secretly the NSA operates. It is often said NSA stands for "never say anything," but tonight the agency breaks with that tradition to address serious questions about whether the NSA delves too far into the lives of Americans.
This whole article is a Catch-22. The whole organization is a Catch-22. Total transparency is the only thing that will make America trust the NSA, but transparency is the most harmful thing for them. What you're left with is selective transparency; in practice this means that Congress, who doesn't know a damn thing, chooses what's transparent and what's not, and then both the public (Snowden, journalists) and the NSA work their way around the laws for different reasons. It's a self-destructive system. In the quote above, they say "look we're stopping attacks daily, so we hired thousands more people, spent more money, gathered metadata on more phone calls." Fine. If it's true, their actions (bar a few outliers that have come to light) are reasonable. If it's not, then they're running a pyramid scheme from inside the government. Only way to tell is to open the box and kill the cat. In all seriousness I do not see a solution to this other than to allow the NSA to hold their course, make sure we never hire another man like J. Edgar Hoover and duck for cover next time someone tries to blow up a subway system. In all this Snowden mess I simply have not seen anyone -- not Greenwald, no one -- offering up an actual solution. There's no way out of this Catch-22 other than to severely limit the NSA's power in future and ... hope they were fucking lying about all the threats they deal with daily and good luck, America.The NSA working with computer manufacturers was able to close this vulnerability, but they say there are other attacks occurring daily
"We're stopping attacks daily..." is a misleading statement. The NSA may very well be stopping hackers from penetrating certain infrastructures, or foiling acts of cyber warfare. However, we have no idea how damaging these attacks would be precisely because the agency is so secretive, and these attacks are most CERTAINLY NOT preventing 'blow up a subway system'-type attacks daily. Not even close, by Alexander's own admission: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/02/nsa_director_admits_to_misle.../ The 60 Minutes piece is misleading in many ways. It essentially gave Alexander a pulpit to refute the very serious constitutional violations he's overseen in the most effective way-- lying. As to Greenwald and Snowden failing to offer alternatives-- that's not their job. Greenwald is a journalist and Snowden was a system admin. Neither of them have the training or responsibility to competently create an alternative. Isn't it enough to know that there is one? Are we resigned to a de-facto surveillance state? See the three degrees of separation parameters they have around suspects (http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/oct/28/nsa...)-- essentially if someone is targeted for whatever reason, everyone they know, everyone their friends know and everyone their friends' friends know are fair game to be spied upon. If Alexander is telling the truth about only '60 authorizations for spying on US persons', then that can mean as many as 60+ million Americans. Can we not acknowledge that that is overboard and that it was not the only solution? Must we have a counter-solution in order to point out constitutional violations?
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/02/nsa_director_admits_to_misle.../ The 60 Minutes piece is misleading in many ways. It essentially gave Alexander a pulpit to refute the very serious constitutional violations he's overseen in the most effective way-- lying. Of course it is. Although I'm not at all sure stopping cyber attacks is something that should be dismissed as unimportant out of hand. That's what I'm saying, though -- I don't trust the NSA, but the only option is to remove some of its capability until we can trust it again, and I think the only way to test how much they're lying is to just do that -- and then face whatever consequences there may be. (Also, didn't 60 minutes used to be a credible journalistic endeavor? I don't remember.) Inre: your second paragraph. It's not Greenwald's responsibility. I think it's Snowden's to an extent. I almost included Obama's name in there somewhere, because in reality it's his call. I guess if you want to go the grand route, it's every American's responsibility. Elections in 2014 and 2016 may render America's judgement of this entire mess. Nope. But the (beginning of) the pointing out phase has already happened. We're getting to solution phase, and we don't have a viable one. We've ousted Nixon and now we need a better option than Ford. That's what I'm saying. I'm not picking a side."We're stopping attacks daily..." is a misleading statement. The NSA may very well be stopping hackers from penetrating certain infrastructures, or foiling acts of cyber warfare. However, we have no idea how damaging these attacks would be precisely because the agency is so secretive, and these attacks are most CERTAINLY NOT preventing 'blow up a subway system'-type attacks daily. Not even close, by Alexander's own admission:
Must we have a counter-solution in order to point out constitutional violations?
Transparency wouldn't prevent the NSA from doing what it does, because they can observe most of the traffic on the Internet, and the phone carries roll over whenever they ask. The argument for secrecy is that people they want to spy on will be able to avoid the spying if they know how it's done, but the only way to avoid it is to resort to sneakernet, and the only countermeasures are the things anyone who doesn't like the NSA/their ISP/J. Random Skiddy looking over their shoulder do regardless of whether they think the NSA cares about what they're up to.
But transparency in the form of Snowden is already potentially going to have an impact on what they do. If transparency leads to scaling-back (which it may or may not), is it beyond the realm of possibility that one day the NSA's ability to collect metadata on domestic calls is removed -- that would certainly hurt them.