Military – Page 85 – Public Intelligence Blog

Snowden was not alone: CIA faction behind leak of NSA document trove

February 15-17, 2014

Sources within the U.S. intelligence community have told WMR, on the condition of anonymity, that National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden gained access to and released tens of thousands of classified NSA documents because a faction within the Central Intelligence Agency was growing increasingly alarmed over the massive surveillance system controlled by NSA. In many cases, highly compartmented CIA covert operations abroad were made known to NSA because of the ability of the signals intelligence and cyber warfare agency to monitor full spectrum digital communications worldwide, including those of the CIA.

A group of active and retired CIA officers, in addition to CIA contractors, set out to expose the NSA's massive surveillance operations, as well as those of its foreign partners. Snowden, a former CIA employee who worked for the joint NSA-CIA Special Collection Service in Geneva, Switzerland as an official cover CIA employee attached to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and in Misawa, Japan under non-official cover with Dell Computer and Booz Allen Hamilton, was chosen by the CIA faction as the person best positioned to collect NSA documents and leak them to the media.

Continue reading “Wayne Madsen: Snowden Had Help — CIA vs NSA Story Gains Traction”

2014/03/122014/03/12

Berto Jongman: NSA Malware for Millions of Computers

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Corruption, Government, Military

NSA Malware Designed to Infect Millions of Computers

Anthony M Freed

Tripwire, Mar 12, 2014

First Look’s digital publication The Intercept is reporting that classified documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveal that the National Security Agency is developing “groundbreaking surveillance technology” designed to infect millions of computers with surveillance malware.

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2014/03/082014/03/08

Berto Jongman: YouTube (14:46) NSA Deceptions & Lies Pre- and Post- 9/11

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call, YouTube

This is a MUST WATCH. Includes NSA spying on Secretary of State Colin Powell, pre-Senator Barack Obama, specific generals including Petraeus, and specific Supreme Court Justices as well as specific lawyers across the country. Begins with segment in which General Mike Hayden, then Director of NSA, is shown actively lying, with malice aforethought, to a nation-wide audience on television.

Concludes with growing national movement to shut down provision of local water to any NSA facility, the OFF NOW campaign; while also forbidding any NSA data being used in state and local courts; kicking NSA out of all state academic and research universties; and terminating state contracts with any corporations holding contracts with NSA.

Snowden @ Phi Beta Iota

2014/03/072014/03/07

Berto Jongman: Full Text of Edward Snowden Testimony to European Parliament

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call

PDF (12 Pages): Introductory Statement & Answer to Questions

Highlights:

00 The included links are a “best of the best” selection of media stories.

01 EU security agencies have created a bazaar allowing NSA to get it all.

02 There are many other undisclosed programs.

03 According to Snowden, at least ten specific individuals are liable for failing to act on his alarm — those names are being withheld by Booz Allen and the various US agencies and Snowden has not named them himself.

04 “The culture within the US Intelligence Community is such that reporting serious concerns about the legality or propriety of programs is much more likely to result in your being flagged as a troublemaker than to result in substantive reform.”

05 Oversight focuses on limiting public discovery rather than on enforcing the limits of the law.

06 Indiscrinate economic intelligence is the true purpose of such technical collection programs as do work.

07 Defensive intelligence is more important to democracies than offensive intelligence — NSA and GCHQ have been obsessing on offensive intelligence (economic and political espionage) in what they process, while continuing indiscriminate mass surveillance that does not appear to have been processed, only stored against future possible exploitation.

Full Text with Links Below the Line

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2014/03/032014/03/05

Robert Steele: Why We Need a Defense Clandestine Service

Government, Ineptitude, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Military

SHORT URL: http://tinyurl.com/Steele2Flynn

Commentary: Why We Need a Defense Clandestine Service

DefenseNews, 3 March 2014

I was a CIA spy from 1979 to 1988, leaving when invited to be a co-creator of the Marine Corps Intelligence Center from 1988 to 1993. Since 1993, I have been one of the more persistent published proponents of intelligence reform around the world.

In 2010, I was among those interviewed for the position of defense intelligence senior leader for human intelligence (HUMINT). I made two points during that interview: First, in a declining fiscal environment, the best way to pay for a defense spy program would be by cutting in half the Measurements and Signatures Analysis Intelligence program, which is under the oversight of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) director. It is the most over-hyped and underperforming national collection program.

Second, micro-pockets of excellence notwithstanding, no one serving in the Pentagon (or CIA) was qualified by mindset or experience to create the Defense Clandestine Service (DCS). I was particularly pointed about the complacency and ineptitude of the entrenched civilian cadre, and the inexperience and uncertainty of their constantly changing uniformed counterparts.

Here are my observations on whether there should be a DCS, and if so, how it should be trained, equipped and organized.

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2014/03/032014/03/03

Marcus Aurelius: Heritage Foundation 2014 Defense Reform Handbook

Ethics, Military

Handbook is largely self-explanatory but the following extract from the introduction at page vi sets the stage:

The Lights are Blinking Red

…

From day one, the Obama Administration has neglected the imperative to modernize the country’s defense forces, underplayed the amount of forces needed for the national defense, and failed to implement any serious reform agenda. Rather than deliver on its promise to provide more bang for the buck, the White House has done little more than call cuts “efficiencies.” Indeed, how the White House has failed to utilize resources efficiently is more damaging than the spending reductions themselves. Exacerbating this downward spiral, the President has emboldened enemies, strained relations, and undercut the confidence of traditional allies—leaving the nation less safe than when he took office. The President’s re-election squandered the opportunity to reverse a dangerous trend. As a result, by the end of his presidency, America’s military will be “hollow.” The armed forces are already inadequate to protect all the nation’s vital national interests because of shortfalls in training and maintenance. By the endof his second term, the shortfalls in readiness will be compounded by reductions in military capabilities. It is not an overstatement to conclude that the capabilities- requirements mismatch will rival the hollow forces of the 1970s under President Jimmy Carter.

The Heritage Foundation 2014 Defense Reform Handbook

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2014/03/012014/03/01

Steven Aftergood: IG Blasts NRO Secrecy Practices

Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military

INSPECTOR GENERAL BLASTS NRO SECRECY PRACTICES

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the agency that builds and operates U.S. intelligence satellites, frequently makes mistakes when it classifies national security information, according to an assessment performed last year by the NRO Inspector General.

“From the classified documents we reviewed at NRO headquarters, 114 of 134 documents contained classification errors,” the IG report said.

Agency classification officials “lack sufficient knowledge of classification principles and procedures necessary to perform their duties,” the NRO Inspector General found. “One OCA [original classification authority] had almost no knowledge of his responsibilities.”

“Because of the lack of full compliance in multiple areas, the NRO is susceptible to the risk of persistent misclassification,” the IG said.

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