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Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

schneier.com

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Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#31

Post by bri3d »

mahyarm wrote: post #26
belluchan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With 535 of them not including staff, they really shouldn't. And clearance isn't enough, you also have to have a need to know. We just need a system of oversight that works well.

With the amount of NSA staffers and people who have clearance being well above that number, really?

"Clearance" isn't supposed to be some magic card that lets someone go find every document marked with their level of "clearance." It's just a permission to receive knowledge marked with that level of "clearance" as necessary to do one's job.

NSA staffers have defined roles and are given information on a need-to-know basis. Obviously the Snowden leaks proved that at least for a sysad, the technical component of the need-to-know restriction was broken, but that's how it's supposed to work.

For Congressional oversight to be useful, Congress (or a subset) need a higher level of access than that given to the NSA themselves - the ability to ask for any information and have it given to them.

That's a pretty powerful tool, so I don't think the "well NSA has lot of people" counter is valid.

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#32

Post by rdl »

fit2rule wrote: post #28
rdl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed the part where he had the conversation anyway, in a regular room. The procedures for handling classified information, especially SCI and ECI, are there to protect from foreign intelligence services. i.e. people doing exactly the shit NSA is accused/documented of doing to foreign governments.

I think you missed the point that I asked: why is there no secure facilities specifically for the purpose of citizen/representative conversation? Is it only the privileged elite military class that get the fun toys? I think it is ..

There are different levels of "secure". Citizens rarely have possession of TS/SCI or TS/ECI information without possessing a valid TS/SSBI and SAP access for that material, and when they do possess that material without the authorization, their intent is rarely to testify before Congress about that material.

A normal secured room (which is also swept for bugs, is kept physically secured by the Capitol Police, etc.) is perfectly adequate for normal secure communications between citizens and elected officials.

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#33

Post by ForHackernews »

fit2rule wrote: post #27
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #10

Imagine that the NSA was only doing legitimate, useful, necessary, highly secret things (humor me here). Can they brief Congress on what they're doing? All 535 publicity-seeking chatterboxes? No way. That's the same as issuing a press release. So not telling Congress everything is (in principle) necessary. But who are these representatives Schneier briefed? Are they on the Intelligence Committee? If so, and they stil…

The corruption of government starts with its secrets. A truly free people don't keep secrets. Somewhere in this grey mass is a line, and that line gets crossed and crossed, over and over again. What secret is worth keeping if its keeping results in oppression, tyranny, inhumanity? Why should those who are given the right to murder, get away with murder - just because it is 'unsafe' to prosecute the murders? The reaso…

> A truly free people don't keep secrets.

> What the NSA 'should be' is a National Communications Agency, wherein all harmful human activity they observe are communicated - to all and sundry! Openly! Publicly! Without any barrier to delivering full awareness - for all!

This is ridiculous hyperbole. There are all kinds of legitimate secrets: trade secrets, private sexual kinks, personal financial or medical records, embarrassing taste in pop songs.

I don't understand how you can be angry about privacy violations on the one hand, and arguing for our society being some kind of secretless panopticon on the other.

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#34

Post by fit2rule »

rdl wrote: post #32
fit2rule wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed the point that I asked: why is there no secure facilities specifically for the purpose of citizen/representative conversation? Is it only the privileged elite military class that get the fun toys? I think it is ..

There are different levels of "secure". Citizens rarely have possession of TS/SCI or TS/ECI information without possessing a valid TS/SSBI and SAP access for that material, and when they do possess that material without the authorization, their intent is rarely to testify before Congress about that material. A normal secured room (which is also swept for bugs, is kept physically secured by the Capitol Police, etc.) i…

I care not a single bit for the Security Theatre in your TLA soup - the point yet remains: why are citizens not allowed to communicate secretly with their representatives with the same degree of certainty as their military? Hmm ..

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#35

Post by fit2rule »

ForHackernews wrote: post #33
fit2rule wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The corruption of government starts with its secrets. A truly free people don't keep secrets. Somewhere in this grey mass is a line, and that line gets crossed and crossed, over and over again. What secret is worth keeping if its keeping results in oppression, tyranny, inhumanity? Why should those who are given the right to murder, get away with murder - just because it is 'unsafe' to prosecute the murders? The reaso…

> A truly free people don't keep secrets. > What the NSA 'should be' is a National Communications Agency, wherein all harmful human activity they observe are communicated - to all and sundry! Openly! Publicly! Without any barrier to delivering full awareness - for all! This is ridiculous hyperbole. There are all kinds of legitimate secrets: trade secrets, private sexual kinks, personal financial or medical records, e…

The thing you must understand is that I do not actually consider a society with any investment in state secrecy to be actually functioning. Actually, a society ruled by secrets is little more than a mafia, playing charades.

But I see you are limiting your viewpoint to 'what is real' and not to 'what could be done differently about the situation'. That's okay with me, to 'keep it real'.

But I have no desire to live in a society ruled by its secrets, as the USA (and other sham states) are. If we are to have true freedom, it must include freedom from the liability of having to keep a secret. The USA is almost imploding against the weight of its own secrets; which serve to hide crimes, and little else.

Beneath every revelation of a state secret is a crime that was committed - or will be committed - against another human being. A catalog of tools whose sole purpose is the mass-violation of human rights, in hands other than 'the elected officials deemed worthy enough to hold the keys', is a criminal instrument. I do not personally agree that we need to construct such things; it is because of profit from suffering that such things are allowed, in the secret chambers of the American Security Elite.

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#36

Post by taybin »

fit2rule wrote: post #34
rdl wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are different levels of "secure". Citizens rarely have possession of TS/SCI or TS/ECI information without possessing a valid TS/SSBI and SAP access for that material, and when they do possess that material without the authorization, their intent is rarely to testify before Congress about that material. A normal secured room (which is also swept for bugs, is kept physically secured by the Capitol Police, etc.) i…

I care not a single bit for the Security Theatre in your TLA soup - the point yet remains: why are citizens not allowed to communicate secretly with their representatives with the same degree of certainty as their military? Hmm ..

Because they don't have to. He suggested the use of the room for their sake, not his own.

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#37

Post by fit2rule »

taybin wrote: post #36
fit2rule wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I care not a single bit for the Security Theatre in your TLA soup - the point yet remains: why are citizens not allowed to communicate secretly with their representatives with the same degree of certainty as their military? Hmm ..

Because they don't have to. He suggested the use of the room for their sake, not his own.

Of course they have to.. Schneier is monitored everywhere he goes!

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#38

Post by vaadu »

There is no oversight except on paper.

You can't have oversight unless you have expertise in the area you oversee.

You can't have oversight unless the overseers can impose immediate consequences upon the overseen.

Without these you are nothing but a spectator.

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#39

Post by dllthomas »

bargl wrote: post #15

On his blog Schneier comments that this meeting was kept small on purpose. I wanted to see who was present at this meeting so I looked up some of their information. Not hard to find, but here you go. I plan on emailing each of them and thanking them for consulting someone the tech industry considers a Security SME. Rep. Logfren (Democratic) http://lofgren.house.gov/biography/ Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

s/gf/fg/

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#40

Post by KingMob »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #10

Imagine that the NSA was only doing legitimate, useful, necessary, highly secret things (humor me here). Can they brief Congress on what they're doing? All 535 publicity-seeking chatterboxes? No way. That's the same as issuing a press release. So not telling Congress everything is (in principle) necessary. But who are these representatives Schneier briefed? Are they on the Intelligence Committee? If so, and they stil…

> Can they brief Congress on what they're doing? All 535 publicity-seeking chatterboxes? No way. That's the same as issuing a press release.

Absolutely not. Keeping your (nominal) overseers appraised of your activities is not the same thing at all as informing the whole world in front of cameras. Your implicit argument is that Congress couldn't be trusted with the secrets the NSA would reveal. But this is countered by opinting out that the NSA can't be trusted with the secrets it has.

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