December 2013

NSA Dragnet Included Allies, Aid Groups and Business Elite

Secret documents reveal more than 1,000 targets of American and British surveillance in recent years, including the office of an Israeli prime minister, heads of international aid organizations, foreign energy companies and a European Union official involved in antitrust battles with American technology businesses.

While the names of some political and diplomatic leaders have previously emerged as targets, the newly disclosed intelligence documents provide a much fuller portrait of the spies’ sweeping interests in more than 60 countries. Britain’s General Communications Headquarters, working closely with the National Security Agency, monitored the communications of senior European Union officials, foreign leaders including African heads of state and sometimes their family members, directors of United Nations and other relief programs, and officials overseeing oil and finance ministries, according to the documents. In addition to Israel, some targets involve close allies like France and Germany, where tensions have already erupted over recent revelations about spying by the NSA. Details of the surveillance are described in documents from the NSA and Britain’s eavesdropping agency, known as GCHQ, dating from 2008 to 2011. The target lists appear in a set of GCHQ reports that sometimes identify which agency requested the surveillance, but more often do not. The documents were leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and shared by The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel.

Slobberknockered

Edward J. Snowden must be pleased with what he started. A group appointed by President Barack Obama in August to review the National Security Agency’s hugely controversial spying operations has finished its work. Expectations for the panel have been extremely low since its creation. According to administration and congressional officials I spoke with over the past three weeks, senior leaders of the U.S. intelligence community, and especially the NSA, were supremely confident back in August that their support in the White House was rock-solid and that any changes the panel might propose would be, in the words of one official, “largely cosmetic.” Clearly, they were overconfident. The Review Group’s preliminary findings and recommendations are anything but cosmetic.

GOP requests criminal probe of James Clapper

Seven House Republicans are calling for the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into whether Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied to Congress.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Reps. Darrell Issa (R-CA), James Sensenbrenner Jr (R-WI), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Trey Gowdy (R-SC), Raúl Labrador (R-ID) and Ted Poe (R-TX) said Clapper's "willful lie under oath" fuels distrust in the government and undermines the ability of Congress to do its job. "There are differences of opinion about the propriety of the NSA’s data collection programs," they wrote. "There can be no disagreement, however, on the basic premise that congressional witnesses must answer truthfully.” Shawn Turner, a spokesman for Clapper, said the intelligence director mistakenly understood Sen Ron Wyden's (D-OR) question during the Senate Intelligence hearing in March to be referring to the contents of communications, instead of "metadata" such as phone numbers, call times and call durations.

The gulf widens between NSA supporters and opponents

[Commentary] At this point we are likely months away from any definitive actions to change the National Security Agency’s modus operandi. It must be remembered that, though some reforms could be put in place by executive order, major revisions would need congressional approval – and Congress, like the rest of the country, remains uncertain and divided over the correct balance between national security imperatives and bedrock privacy rights.

Still, here are my hunches about potential outcomes:

NSA metadata mining programs will not, in the end, be eliminated, though the agency may have to live with some restrictions. The key battle will be over the nature of any restrictions on data gathering. Due to opposition from both the NSA and phone companies, metadata traffic will not be parked in the private sector. While possible, creation of an independent body to store such data presents complicated issues of organization and authority.
More likely, some form of an adversarial system will be constructed within the legal framework that includes the NSA and the federal security courts. Again, the powers of such a “public advocate” will pose the strongest challenges.
The NSA will not be ordered to cease attempting to crack encryption codes of both American and foreign firms; and it won’t stop placing malware where it deems necessary for security reasons along the global internet supply chain.
The White House will take greater control of decisions to spy on individual world leaders, though the practice will not stop entirely.
Congress will not go along with extending privacy rights under the 1974 Privacy Act to foreigners.
I have no idea how the appellate courts and the Supremes will deal with Judge Leon’s decision -- though I suspect that, despite admonitions from some of my colleagues here at AEI that the balance between national security and privacy should be determined by the Congress and the Executive, judicial actions may well intervene.

Officials’ defenses of NSA phone program may be unraveling

From the moment the government’s massive database of citizens’ call records was exposed this year, US officials have clung to two main lines of defense: The secret surveillance program was constitutional and critical to keeping the nation safe. But six months into the controversy triggered by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, the viability of those claims is no longer clear.

In a three-day span, those rationales were upended by a federal judge who declared that the program was probably unconstitutional and the release of a report by a White House panel utterly unconvinced that stockpiling such data had played any meaningful role in preventing terrorist attacks. Either of those developments would have been enough to ratchet up the pressure on President Obama, who must decide whether to stand behind the sweeping collection or dismantle it and risk blame if there is a terrorist attack.

NSA Fallout in Europe Boosts Alternatives to Google

During its first four years, Berlin-based Posteo struggled to find customers for its secure e-mail service. That changed in June, when US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that his former employer monitored phones and e-mails worldwide.

In the past six months, Posteo has tripled the subscribers of its 1-euro-per-month ($1.37) encryption service, to more than 30,000. “The NSA reports were the final straw,” said Daniel Hundmaier, a 42-year-old communications officer in Berlin who switched to Posteo, stopped using Google’s search engine, and changed the operating system on his phone. As European consumers like Hundmaier focus more on Internet privacy, they’re avoiding the likes of Google, Amazon and Yahoo!. Phone operators such as Vodafone Group and Orange and providers of Internet computing services like Deutsche Telekom’s T-Systems have started stressing that stricter European laws on privacy make the region a safer place to store client data. The shift has created a windfall for privacy-focused startups and small companies that promise enhanced security. Shares of S&T, a computer services company from Linz, Austria, attributed growth of almost 50 percent in orders in 2013 to increased concerns over data security among customers. German systems integrator Cancom says its operating profit climbed 18 percent in the third quarter, largely due to fallout from the NSA scandal. Its shares have jumped 69 percent since June 1. “Made in Germany is high in demand,” said Klaus Weinmann, chief executive officer of Cancom, based in Jettingen-Scheppach, a market town 100 km (62 miles) west of Munich.

Which Way, Mr. Wheeler?

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler affirmed his commitment to the FCC’s Open Internet Rules in a House Commerce Oversight Hearing. That’s reassuring. But, those rules are being challenged in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, and an adverse decision by the court would not only invalidate the rules but could also put the FCC’s authority in jeopardy.

This could make it impossible for the FCC to implement any future policies to prevent harms that arise beyond those contemplated by the current rules. The question is how Chairman Wheeler will defend the historical principles he’s identified if the court invalidates the FCC’s ability to implement the Open Internet Rules in whole or in part. The Chairman has said that “regulating the Internet is a nonstarter,” which suggests he is already considering specific ways in which the FCC might step in. Yet determining the best regulatory path forward must be underscored by an examination of the Internet ecosystem in its entirety, and ensuring that ecosystem leads to the types of effects we would expect in a competition-driven market.

Sen Rockefeller Concerned About Lifting In-flight Cell Phone Ban

Sen Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has joined the chorus raising their voices over a Federal Communications Commission proposal to allow in-flight mobile phone calls, saying he has "serious concerns" about it.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has pointed out that what the FCC is considering is getting rid of a technical prohibition that no longer applies in some circumstances, but that it is still up to the airlines to whether to allow calls. In letters to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and FCC Wheeler, Sen Rockefeller said he is concerned that allowing such calls would compromise the overall safety of a flight. The FCC prohibition was based on the risk of interference to flight safety, but there has been a technical fix since then.

Kathryn Brown Named Internet Society CEO

Kathryn Brown, former Verizon exec and chief of staff to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Bill Kennard, has been named CEO of the Internet Society. Brown succeeds Lynn St. Amour starting Jan. 1. Amour announced last February she would be exiting at the completion of her current contract after 15 years with the society. Brown most recently was senior advisor at consulting firm Albright Stonebridge Group and before that senior VP, public policy and corporate responsibility at Verizon.

LTE becomes mainstream, as the focus shifts to capacity: Year in Review 2013

In 2013 LTE became more mainstream in the US market as all four Tier 1 carriers strengthened their nationwide LTE networks by adding capacity and coverage. The carriers cemented the country as a leader of LTE networks and finally gave consumers four credible options for accessing LTE service across the country. Though Verizon and AT&T continue to lead in coverage, T-Mobile has started to catch up fast and says it will soon rival its larger peers on speed.

The shift toward adding capacity to LTE networks is perhaps even more important than the ongoing macro buildouts. As the networks get built out and attract more users -- 66 percent of Verizon's mobile data traffic now goes over LTE, for example -- carriers will need additional capacity to make sure their networks do not break down under the stress. That is what is underlying Verizon's push to use AWS spectrum and T-Mobile's move toward wider channels. It is also the core of Sprint's network strategy for 2014 and beyond. For now, Sprint is lagging its competitors both in LTE network breadth and depth, yet if its Spark network materializes and Sprint uses its 2.5 GHz spectrum holdings to deliver 50-60 Mbps real-world speeds, the wait might just be worth it.

Benton

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