Whatever you think of Edward Snowden’s behavior, his decision to steal and leak troves of information about the activities of the National Security Agency (NSA) has already led private industry to massively ramp up their efforts to foil governmental and criminal snooping on their networks because real damage has been done to their reputations.
The tech industry’s response to revelations about NSA surveillance has grown far more pointed in recent weeks as it has become clear that the government was gathering information not only through court-approved channels in the United States — overseen by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — but also through the massive data links overseas, where the NSA needs authority only from the president. That form of collection has been done surreptitiously by gaining access to fiber-optic connections on foreign soil.
[Brad] Smith, the Microsoft general counsel, hinted at the extent of the company’s growing encryption effort at a shareholders meeting last week. “We’re focused on engineering improvements that will further strengthen security,” he said, “including strengthening security against snooping by governments.”
They are also applying pressure on Congress to rein in the NSA.
Microsoft, Google and Yahoo also have joined other major tech firms, including Apple, Facebook and AOL, in calling for limits to the NSA’s surveillance powers. Most major U.S. tech companies are struggling to cope with a global backlash over U.S. snooping into Internet services.
As a result, pressure is building on Speaker Boehner to allow a vote on the USA Freedom Act, which has growing bipartisan support. The administration has already announced a change of leadership at the NSA and is debating splitting the leadership of the the NSA and the recently established U.S. Cyber Command.
At a White House meeting of senior national security officials last week, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said he was in favor of ending the current policy of having one official in charge of both the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, said the individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Also, officials appear inclined to install a civilian as director of the NSA for the first time in the agency’s 61-year history.
Ideally, Congress would hold hearings aimed at getting to the truth about the breadth and effectiveness of the NSA’s programs, and use what they learn to craft sensible reforms, but I fear any such effort would become a partisan brawl, with Republicans running amok and Democrats circling the wagons in response.
Real reform is rarely possible without a degree of outrage from the American public, but even the exploitation of the porn habits of Muslim “radicalizers” has so far done little to raise the ire of most Americans. This particular story is rather bizarre. If some fiery imam likes to view pornography in between crafting jihadist incitements against the West, that information could indeed be used to discredit them among their followers. But we could just say that they like kiddie porn or sex with animals or pork sausage biscuits or anything else we might think up. The truth of the allegations is only preferable to lies if we can demonstrate their truth. And the NSA isn’t about to demonstrate to the world how they discovered the porn habits of the “radicalizers.” If they aren’t going to “show their work” then the whole process is pointless.
The truth is, however, that knowing about the personal sexual habits of our adversaries is useful for blackmailing them and recruiting them to work for our side. The same is true about their financial habits. A crude version of this type of spy craft was used in this season of Showtime’s Homeland, where a senior Iranian spy was recruited as a U.S. agent after the CIA discovered that he had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from his own government.
The concern is that the government will use the same tactics to quiet domestic critics. Another concern is that the level of intrusiveness the NSA is pursuing is causing so much harm to our relationships with our allies that it is doing the opposite of keeping us safe. The desire for Total Information Awareness is understandable, but tapping the phones of foreign leaders’ of friendly countries isn’t likely to increase cooperation and intelligence sharing.
I know policy-makers want information when they ask for it and don’t want to be told that getting the information they seek is more trouble than it’s worth, but that really is the case sometimes. It would be easier for the NSA to say ‘no’ to some requests if Congress told them that they had to say ‘no.’
In any case, because the NSA couldn’t keep what they were doing secret, they lost the right to keep on doing it. These revelations harmed the tech industry that the NSA was obligated to protect. So, now the tech industry is at war with them on both the security and the legislative fronts.