[governance] Bruce Schneier: The Only Way to Restore Trust in the NSA

Wed Sep 4 22:42:04 EDT 2013

What Schneier is suggesting would go a long way to resolving some of the
issues that Snowden raises for US citizens but doesn't seem to address what
the NSA has been doing in the rest of the world--the EU, the UN, Mexico,
Brazil that we know of now. What can/could/should be done about those and by
whom?

M

-------------------------------------------

The Only Way to Restore Trust in the NSA

The public has no faith left in the intelligence community or what the
president says about it. A strong, independent special prosecutor needs to
clean up the mess. 

Bruce Schneier <http://www.theatlantic.com/bruce-schneier/>  Sep 4 2013,
6:00 AM ET 

<http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/NSAballs.banner.reuters.jpg.j
pg> Michaela Rehle/Reuters

I've recently seen two
<http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/08/28/nsa-has-been-spying-on-members-of-co
ngress-for-a-long-time/>  articles
<http://www.nsfwcorp.com/scribble/5695/f3cf4b5670fff686e04e6a27898d3230b64b8
08e/>  speculating on the NSA's capability, and practice, of spying on
members of Congress and other elected officials. The evidence is all
circumstantial and smacks of conspiracy thinking -- and I have no idea
whether any of it is true or not -- but it's a good illustration of what
happens when trust in a public institution fails
<https://www.schneier.com/essay-435.html> .

The NSA has repeatedly lied about the extent of its spying program. James R.
Clapper, the director of national intelligence, has lied
<http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/director-national-intelligences-word-g
ames-explained-how-government-deceived>  about it to Congress. Top-secret
documents provided by Edward Snowden, and reported on by the Guardian and
other newspapers, repeatedly show that the NSA's surveillance systems are
monitoring the communications of American citizens. The DEA has used
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805>
this information to apprehend drug smugglers, then lied about it in court.
The IRS has used this information to find tax cheats, then lied about it.
It's even been used
<http://www.itnews.com.au/News/354407,nz-police-affidavits-show-use-of-prism
-for-surveillance.aspx>  to arrest a copyright violator. It seems that every
time there is an allegation against the NSA, no matter how outlandish, it
turns out to be true.

Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald has been playing this well, dribbling the
information out one scandal at a time. It's looking more and more as if the
NSA doesn't know
<http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57600000/edward-snowdens-digital-maneuv
ers-still-stumping-u.s-government/>  what Snowden took. It's hard for
someone to lie convincingly if he doesn't know what the opposition actually
knows.

All of this denying and lying results in us not trusting anything the NSA
says, anything the president
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/15/remember-when-
obama-said-the-nsa-wasnt-actually-abusing-its-powers-he-was-wrong/>  says
<http://reason.com/blog/2013/08/27/ed-krayewski-on-president-obamas-decepti>
about the NSA, or anything companies
<https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/wordgames>  say about their involvement with
the NSA. We know secrecy corrupts, and we see that corruption. There's
simply no credibility, and -- the real problem -- no way for us to verify
anything these people might say.

We need something like South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
where government and corporate employees can come forward and tell their
stories about NSA eavesdropping without fear of reprisal.

It's a perfect environment for conspiracy theories to take root: no trust,
assuming the worst, no way to verify the facts. Think JFK assassination
theories. Think 9/11 conspiracies. Think UFOs. For all we know, the NSA
might be spying on elected officials. Edward Snowden said that he had the
ability to spy on anyone in the U.S., in real time, from his desk. His
remarks were belittled, but it turns out he was right
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-
data> .

This is not going to improve anytime soon. Greenwald and other reporters are
still poring over Snowden's documents, and will continue to report stories
about NSA overreach, lawbreaking, abuses, and privacy violations well into
next year. The "independent" review that Obama promised of these
surveillance programs will not help, because it will lack both the power to
discover everything the NSA is doing and the ability to relay that
information to the public.

It's time to start cleaning up this mess. We need a special prosecutor, one
not tied to the military, the corporations complicit in these programs, or
the current political leadership, whether Democrat or Republican. This
prosecutor needs free rein to go through the NSA's files and discover the
full extent of what the agency is doing, as well as enough technical staff
who have the capability to understand it. He needs the power to subpoena
government officials and take their sworn testimony. He needs the ability to
bring criminal indictments where appropriate. And, of course, he needs the
requisite security clearance to see it all.

We also need something like South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, where both government and corporate employees can come forward
and tell their stories about NSA eavesdropping without fear of reprisal.

Comparisons are springing up between today's NSA and the FBI of the 1950s
and 1960s. We never managed to rein in J. Edgar Hoover's FBI -- it took his
death for change to occur. I don't think we'll get so lucky with the NSA.

Yes, this will overturn the paradigm of keeping everything the NSA does
secret, but Snowden and the reporters he's shared documents with have
already done that. The secrets are going to come out, and the journalists
doing the outing are not going to be sympathetic to the NSA. If the agency
were smart, it'd realize that the best thing it could do would be to get
ahead of the leaks.

The result needs to be a public report about the NSA's abuses, detailed
enough that public watchdog groups can be convinced that everything is
known. Only then can our country go about cleaning up the mess: shutting
down programs, reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act system,
and reforming surveillance law to make it absolutely clear that even the NSA
cannot eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant.

Comparisons are springing up
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennifergranick/2013/08/22/my-dinner-with-gener
al-alexander/>  between today's NSA and the FBI of the 1950s and 1960s, and
between NSA Director Keith Alexander and J. Edgar Hoover. We never managed
to rein in Hoover's FBI -- it took his death for change to occur. I don't
think we'll get so lucky with the NSA. While Alexander has enormous personal
power, much of his power comes from the institution he leads. When he is
replaced, that institution will remain.

Trust is essential <http://www.schneier.com/essay-412.html>  for society to
function. Without it, conspiracy theories naturally take hold. Even worse,
without it we fail as a country and as a culture. It's time to reinstitute
the ideals of democracy: The government works for the people, open
government is the best way to protect against government abuse, and a
government keeping secrets from is people is a rare exception, not the norm.

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