Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA
schneier.com
Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA
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Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA
#2The Intelligence committees and the FISA Court need to be overhauled, to start with. Clearly there's not enough/proper oversight of the agency.
I don't know how they do it now, but the Intelligence committees should also brief the rest of Congress at least twice a year, and I think they should be allowed by explicit laws to declassify anything they want in that briefing. No approval from the White House or anyone else needed. They are, after all, the ones that are supposedly in charge with oversight of the intelligence community.
So next time someone like Ron Wyden knows the agency is lying to the public, he should be able to tell the rest of the Congress in the briefing, all by himself (he shouldn't need approval from the rest of the committee), and it should be defined in laws that he's allowed to do that, just so there's no confusion, and no fear of repercussion.
Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA
#3What's a "SCIF"?
Edits: my guess: (Secure Communications Internal Facility)
Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA
#4What's a "SCIF"? Edits: my guess: (Secure Communications Internal Facility)
Sensitive Comparmented Information Facility: In United States security and intelligence parlance, a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF; pronounced "skiff") is an enclosed area within a building that is used to process Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) types of classified information.
https://duckduckgo.com/Sensitive_Compartmented_Information_F...
Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA
#5What's a "SCIF"? Edits: my guess: (Secure Communications Internal Facility)
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Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA
#6What's a "SCIF"? Edits: my guess: (Secure Communications Internal Facility)
Sensitive Comparmented Information Facility: In United States security and intelligence parlance, a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF; pronounced "skiff") is an enclosed area within a building that is used to process Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) types of classified information. https://duckduckgo.com/Sensitive_Compartmented_Information_F...
thank you!
Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA
#7It's good to know that we do have some legislators on (essentially) our side, even if their hands are, presently, tied.
Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA
#8What's a "SCIF"? Edits: my guess: (Secure Communications Internal Facility)
Sensitive Comparmented Information Facility: In United States security and intelligence parlance, a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF; pronounced "skiff") is an enclosed area within a building that is used to process Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) types of classified information. https://duckduckgo.com/Sensitive_Compartmented_Information_F...
Depending on the level, they often have TEMPEST shielding aka faraday cages to prevent leakage of electromagnetic signals from computers and whatnot. (google Van Eck Phreaking for some ideas on why heh)
Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA
#9Currently, the Intelligence Committees have special access to top secret information. Every member of Congress should have this.
Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA
#10Imagine 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 still can't get straight answers out of the NSA, that's a big deal. (And maybe the rest of Congress is saying that they don't think that the Intelligence Committee has done an adequate job of oversight.)