[governance] Thousands Of Firms Trade Confidential Data With The US Government In Exchange For Classified Intelligence (...Bloomberg...)

[Riaz K Tayob]

[The challenge for multistakeholderism... now IFF you don't/can't/refuse 
to take BigCorporates and USG relationship seriously with stuff like 
this happening... and can yawn at the regulatory revolving door between 
companies and the USG then Multistakeholderism can simply be seen as the 
soft glove over the imperial fist on a reasonable basis... and it also 
serves to dilute the legitimate concerns of some Third World countries 
to have democratic control over CIR... something we cannot even discuss 
reasonably in a non-binding forum... ]


  Thousands Of Firms Trade Confidential Data With The US Government In
  Exchange For Classified Intelligence

Tyler Durden's picture <http://www.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden>
Submitted by Tyler Durden <http://www.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden> 
on 06/14/2013 00:29 -0400

The rabbit hole just got deeper. A whole lot deeper.

On Sunday we predicated that "there's one reason why the administration, 
James Clapper and the NSA should just keep their mouths shut as the 
PRISM-gate fallout escalates: *with every incremental attempt to refute 
some previously unknown facet of the US Big Brother state, a new piece 
of previously unleaked information from the same intelligence 
organization now scrambling for damage control, emerges and exposes the 
brand new narrative as yet another lie, forcing even more lies, more 
retribution against sources, more journalist persecution and so on*."

And like a hole that just gets deeper the more you dug and exposes ever 
more dirt, tonight's installment revealing one more facet of the 
conversion of a once great republic into a great fascist, "big brother" 
state, comes from Bloomberg 
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/u-s-agencies-said-to-swap-data-with-thousands-of-firms.html>which 
reports that "thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing 
companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, 
*providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that 
include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the 
process said*."

The companies extend far wider than the legacy telcos, such as Verizon, 
that launched the entire NSA-spying scandal a week ago: "Makers of 
hardware and software, banks, Internet security providers, satellite 
telecommunications companies and many other companies also participate 
in the government programs. In some cases, the information gathered may 
be used not just to defend the nation but to help infiltrate computers 
of its adversaries."

    Many of these same Internet and telecommunications companies
    voluntarily provide U.S. intelligence organizations with additional
    data, such as equipment specifications, that don't involve private
    communications of their customers, the four people said.

And since what goes on behind the scenes is confidential, literally 
anything goes: "Along with the NSA, the Central Intelligence Agency, the 
Federal Bureau of Investigation and branches of the U.S. military have 
agreements with such companies to gather data that might seem innocuous 
but could be highly useful in the hands of U.S. intelligence or cyber 
warfare units, according to the people, who have either worked for the 
government or are in companies that have these accords."

Some of the back and forth is innocuous, such as Microsoft revealing 
ahead of time the nature of its exposed bugs (ostensibly providing the 
government with a back door into any system using a Microsoft OS, but 
since it's don't ask, dont' tell, nobody really knows). However the bulk 
of the interaction is steeped in secrecy: "Most of the arrangements are 
so sensitive that only a handful of people in a company know of them, 
and they are sometimes brokered directly between chief executive 
officers and the heads of the U.S.'s major spy agencies, the people 
familiar with those programs said."

More on this "company within a company":

    Typically, a key executive at a company and a small number of
    technical people cooperate with different agencies and sometimes
    multiple units within an agency, according to the four people who
    described the arrangements.

    *If necessary, a company executive, known as a "committing officer,"
    is given documents that guarantee immunity from civil actions
    resulting from the transfer of data*. The companies are provided
    with regular updates, which may include the broad parameters of how
    that information is used.

Remember how they say conspiracies are impossible because too many 
people know about them, and the information always eventually leaks? 
Well not if you contain it to a handful of people in any organization, 
and force them to sign a bloody NDA, pledging one's first born in the 
case of secrecy breach.

An example of a company that is happy to "communicate" with tht the 
government is Intel's McAfee internet security unit, which in addition 
to everything is one giant backdoor entrance for the government. If need 
be of course:

    Intel Corp. (INTC)'s McAfee unit, which makes Internet security
    software, regularly cooperates with the NSA, FBI and the CIA, for
    example, and is a valuable partner because of its broad view of
    malicious Internet traffic, including espionage operations by
    foreign powers, according to one of the four people, who is familiar
    with the arrangement.

    Such a relationship would start with an approach to McAfee's chief
    executive, who would then clear specific individuals to work with
    investigators or provide the requested data, the person said. The
    public would be surprised at how much help the government seeks, the
    person said.

    McAfee firewalls collect information on hackers who use legitimate
    servers to do their work, and the company data can be used to
    pinpoint where attacks begin. The company also has knowledge of the
    architecture of information networks worldwide, which may be useful
    to spy agencies who tap into them, the person said.

Google, another participant in PRISM, already lied about its 
participation in the covert-op:

    Following an attack on his company by Chinese hackers in 2010,
    Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder, was provided with highly sensitive
    government intelligence linking the attack to a specific unit of the
    People's Liberation Army, China's military, according to one of the
    people, who is familiar with the government's investigation. *Brin
    was given a temporary classified clearance to sit in on the
    briefing, the person said*.

    *According to information provided by Snowden, Google, owner of the
    world's most popular search engine, had at that point been a Prism
    participant for more than a year.*

    *Google CEO Larry Page said in a blog posting June 7 that he hadn't
    heard of a program called Prism until after Snowden's disclosures
    and that the Mountain View, California-based company didn't allow
    the U.S. government direct access to its servers or some back-door
    to its data centers. *He said Google provides user data to
    governments "only in accordance with the law."

Ah yes, the law that no mere mortal can observe in action, and which has 
zero popular checks and balances. So what specifically does Google 
provide to the government? "/*Highly offensive information*/" it appears.

    That metadata includes which version of the operating system,
    browser and Java software are being used on millions of devices
    around the world, information that U.S. spy agencies could use to
    infiltrate those computers or phones and spy on their users.

    *"It's highly offensive information," *said Glenn Chisholm, the
    former chief information officer for Telstra Corp (TLS)., one of
    Australia's largest telecommunications companies, contrasting it to
    defensive information used to protect computers rather than
    infiltrate them.

Going back to Obama's promise on live TV that nobody was listening in to 
any conversations, one wonders: why did the major telecom companies 
"*ask for guarantees that they wouldn't be held liable under U.S. 
wiretap laws*." Because if the companies demanded a waiver, they 
obviously were wiretapping, i.e., eavesdropping, and doing so on US 
citizens, or those protected by US laws. And that's why Obama should 
have just kept his mouth shut, instead of having to explain what he 
meant and that he never said what he said.

    Before they agreed to install the system on their networks, some of
    the five major Internet companies -- AT&T Inc. (T), Verizon
    Communications Inc (VZ)., Sprint Nextel Corp. (S), Level 3
    Communications Inc (LVLT). and CenturyLink Inc (CTL). -- *asked for
    guarantees that they wouldn't be held liable under U.S. wiretap
    laws*. Those companies that asked received a *letter signed by the
    U.S. attorney general *indicating such exposure didn't meet the
    legal definition of a wiretap and *granting them immunity from civil
    lawsuits, the person said*.

Ah, the US Attorney General - because what is another Obama scandal that 
doesn't involve his primary henchman Eric Holder...

    Mark Siegel, a spokesman for Dallas-based AT&T, the nation's biggest
    phone carrier, declined to comment. Edward McFadden, a spokesman for
    New York-based Verizon, the second-largest phone company, declined to
    comment. Scott Sloat, a spokesman for Overland Park, Kansas-based
    Sprint, and Monica Martinez, a spokeswoman for Broomfield,
    Colorado-based Level 3, didn't immediately respond to requests for
    comment.

No need to comment - it's quite clear.

The last question remains: what do companies get out of this proactive 
betrayal of their clients? Well, in some cases, such as those of IBM and 
Amazon as we described yesterday 
<http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-12/ibm-or-amazon-whom-will-cia-choose>, 
they get lucrative government (CIA) contracts for billions of dollars. 
But that's just taxpayer cash. Where it gets worse is when the kickbacks 
are yet /*more secrets*/.

    In exchange, *leaders of companies are showered with attention and
    information by the agencies to help maintain the relationship, *the
    person said. In other cases, *companies are given quick warnings
    about threats that could affect their bottom line, *including
    serious Internet attacks and who is behind them.

In other words, what is going on behind the scenes is nothing more than 
one vast, very selective, extremely secretive, symbiotic and perfectly 
"legal" giant information exchange network, which allows corporations to 
profit off classified government information either in kind or in cash, 
and which allows the government to have all the information at its 
disposal, collected using public and private venues, in order to protect 
itself, to take out those it designates as targets, or simply said - to 
get ever bigger.

The loser in all of this?

You.

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