NSA Spy Program : Ex-NSA chief Keith Alexander seeks post-Snowden second act - by Darren Samuelsohn and Joseph Marks

Former National Security Agency chief Gen. Keith Alexander is launching a consulting firm for financial institutions looking to address cybersecurity threats, POLITICO has learned.

Less than two months since his retirement from the embattled agency at the center of the Edward Snowden leak storm, the retired four-star general is setting up a Washington-based operation that will try to attract clients based on his four decades of experience in the military and intelligence — and the continued levels of access to senior decision-makers that affords.

“He’s already out pushing hard,” said an industry source recently briefed by Alexander on the new business venture. “He’s cleared. If something does pop, he can get in the door and get a briefing. That’s part of his stock and trade.”

Read More: Ex-NSA chief Keith Alexander seeks post-Snowden second act - Darren Samuelsohn and Joseph Marks - POLITICO.com

NSA Spy Program: EU Parliament invites Snowden to testify

The European Parliament's committee tasked with investigating the NSA announced on Thursday it had invited Edward Snowden to provide testimony via video link. It was not immediately clear if Snowden would agree to the request.

The Justice and Civil Liberties Committee voted on the measure 36-2 with one abstention.
German EU parliament member Jan Philipp Albrecht expressed doubt at the possibility of Snowden, who currently has temporary asylum in Moscow, giving evidence in the NSA investigation.

Snowden would be worried about the video link pointing US authorities - who are currently seeking his arrest - to his undisclosed location, Albrecht told the news agency AFP, adding that it would be "very unlikely" that Snowden testify.

The EU Parliament has tasked its Justice and Civil Liberties Committee with investigating the extent to which US National Security Agency (NSA) has spied on EU member states.

Read more: EU Parliament invites Snowden to testify | News | DW.DE | 09.01.2014

NSA will continue spying : Judge Pauley got it right: The NSA’s metadata program is perfectly constitutional - by Eric Posner.

This month two judges issued two different opinions about the NSA’s controversial bulk metadata collection program. Judge Richard Leon ruled in Washington, D.C., that the program likely violated the law. Judge William Pauley ruled in New York that the program did not violate the law. Judge Pauley’s opinion is both correct legally and more sensible than Judge Leon’s, but it’s not hard to imagine that even our conservative Supreme Court could go the other way.

Under the metadata program, the NSA vacuums up certain data associated with telephone calls—including the number called from, the number called to, and the time of the call—and stores them on its servers. Under the loose supervision of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the NSA can search the data for evidence of terrorist connections. For example, if the NSA learns the cellphone number of a suspected terrorist, it can query the metadata for the phone numbers dialed on the terrorist’s phone, the phone numbers of the phones that called that phone, and other phone numbers associated with those phone numbers. The NSA turns over suspicious phone numbers to the FBI for further investigation.

Judge Pauley argued that under the Supreme Court case of Smith v. Maryland, which was decided in 1979, the metadata program does not violate the Fourth Amendment because the NSA collects the metadata from the telephone companies of the targets; the NSA does not monitor the phone itself. In Smith, the court held that the defendant did not have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” (the standard for a Fourth Amendment claim) in the phone numbers he had dialed, because by dialing them he communicated them to the phone company. So the police could install a device called a pen register at the telephone company’s premises to record those phone numbers.

The court reasoned that when people voluntarily divulge personal information to third parties, they “assume the risk” that those third parties will turn over the information to the police, and thus can’t complain when that happens, even if at the government’s request. Many commentators object that people do expect phone companies, banks, hospitals, and other trusted institutions to keep personal information secret.

But the reason for the rule is that we do not expect many of our communications with other people to be kept secret, a simple rule is better than a case-by-case inquiry into how strong your privacy interest is every time you speak to a colleague or stranger, and law enforcement would be too difficult if police could not gather such information before obtaining a warrant. After all, police can’t obtain a warrant unless they already have reason to believe that someone has committed a crime, and that reason to believe has to come from somewhere.

Read  more: Judge Pauley got it right: The NSA’s metadata program is perfectly constitutional.

NSA Spying: Snowden Says He Took No Secret Files to Russia - by James Risen

Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, said in an extensive interview this month that he did not take any secret N.S.A. documents with him to Russia when he fled there in June, assuring that Russian intelligence officials could not get access to them.

Mr. Snowden said he gave all of the classified documents he had obtained to journalists he met in Hong Kong, before flying to Moscow, and did not keep any copies for himself. He did not take the files to Russia “because it wouldn’t serve the public interest,” he said.

“What would be the unique value of personally carrying another copy of the materials onward?” he added.

He also asserted that he was able to protect the documents from China’s spies because he was familiar with that nation’s intelligence abilities, saying that as an N.S.A. contractor he had targeted Chinese operations and had taught a course on Chinese cybercounterintelligence. 

“There’s a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents,” he said.

American intelligence officials have expressed grave concern that the files might have fallen into the hands of foreign intelligence services, but Mr. Snowden said he believed that the N.S.A. knew he had not cooperated with the Russians or the Chinese. He said he was publicly revealing that he no longer had any agency documents to explain why he was confident that Russia had not gained access to them. He had been reluctant to disclose that information previously, he said, for fear of exposing the journalists to greater scrutiny. 

In a wide-ranging interview over several days in the last week, Mr. Snowden offered detailed responses to accusations that have been leveled against him by American officials and other critics, provided new insights into why he became disillusioned with the N.S.A. and decided to disclose the documents, and talked about the international debate over surveillance that resulted from the revelations. The interview took place through encrypted online communications.

Read more: Snowden Says He Took No Secret Files to Russia - NYTimes.com

NSA spy scandal may scuttle EU-US anti-terrorist agreement – says EU commissioner

The European Union is threatening to suspend a data-sharing deal with the United States used for tracking terrorist bank funding over suspicions the National Security Agency was stealing financial data from law-abiding Europeans.

The European Union is threatening to suspend a data-sharing deal with the United States. It is supposed to track terrorist bank funding, but there are suspicions the National Security Agency was stealing financial data from law-abiding Europeans.

Cecilia Malmstrom, the EU commissioner responsible for investigating the implications of the NSA and GCHQ spy scandal, said the Terror Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) of 2010, which supplies bank and credit card transaction information to the US treasury in an effort to trace funding to terrorist groups, may be in jeopardy if it is determined the Americans were abusing the agreement.

Malmstrom said she was unhappy with the information supplied by the US government, saying the Americans need to provide more data

"I am not satisfied with what we have received so far," the commissioner told a European parliament committee debating the NSA disclosures. "Whilst from the US reactions last week we now have some understanding of the situation, we need more detailed information in order to credibly assess reality and to be in a position to judge whether the obligations of the US side under the agreement have been breached.

Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is a British intelligence agency that has also come under suspicion of EU commissioners when it was revealed the organization was collecting all online and telephone data in the UK via the Tempora program, also revealed in the NSA disclosures.

"A decision to maintain the agreement or to consider proposing its suspension is a serious matter,” Malmstrom admitted.

Ever since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, a number of controversial security measures were passed under then President George W. Bush. Much of the legislation, however, was put into effect without any public debate.

Read more: NSA spy scandal may scuttle EU-US anti-terrorist agreement – EU commissioner — RT News

US-Brazil tensions flaring after report that NSA spying program also targeted Brazil’s president

The Brazilian government condemned a U.S. spy program that reportedly targeted the nation’s leader, labeled it an “unacceptable invasion” of sovereignty and called Monday for international regulations to protect citizens and governments alike from cyber espionage.

In a sign that fallout over the spy program is spreading, the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported that President Dilma Rousseff is considering canceling her October trip to the U.S., where she has been scheduled to be honored with a state dinner. Folha cited unidentified Rousseff aides. The president’s office declined to comment.

The Foreign Ministry called in U.S. Ambassador Thomas Shannon and told him Brazil expects the White House to provide a prompt written explanation over the espionage allegations.

The action came after a report aired Sunday night on Globo TV citing 2012 documents from NSA leaker Edward Snowden that indicated the U.S. intercepted Rousseff’s emails and telephone calls, along with those of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, whose communications were being monitored even before he was elected as president in July 2012.

Mexico’s government said it had expressed its concerns to the U.S. ambassador and directly to the U.S. administration.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo said, “We’re going to talk with our partners, including developed and developing nations, to evaluate how they protect themselves and to see what joint measures could be taken in the face of this grave situation.”

Read more: US-Brazil tensions flaring after report that NSA spying program targeted Brazil’s president - The Washington Post

NSA Spying On Europeans: Edward Snowden gets asylum in Russia

Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has left the Moscow airport where he had been holed up for over a month, after being granted a year’s asylum in Russia, his lawyer says.

"Snowden has left Sheremetyevo airport. He has just been given a certificate that he has been awarded temporary asylum in Russia for one year," his lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said on Thursday.

An airport spokeswoman added he had left within the past two hours.

A source told the Interfax news agency he had crossed the Russian border for the first time.

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Kucherena said Snowden had left in a normal taxi on his own. The lawyeralso added Snowden’s new place of residence would be kept secret for security reasons.

Read more: Edward Snowden gets asylum in Russia

USA - The Beat Goes On: Court renews NSA telephone surveillance program

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court renewed the government's authority Friday to continue the collection of millions of Americans' telephone records, one of the classified counter-terrorism programs disclosed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

In an unusual public statement, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence acknowledged that the court renewed the authority that was set to expire Friday.

"In light of the significant and continuing public interest in the …collection program, the DNI has decided to declassify and disclose publicly that the government filed an application with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court seeking renewal of the authority to collect telephony metadata in bulk, and that the court renewed that authority,'' the statement said.

Earlier this week, Democrat and Republican lawmakers expressed deep concerns about the scope of the surveillance program and suggested that Congress may not renew legislative authority for it when it comes up for review in nearly two years.

"This is unsustainable, outrageous and must be stopped immediately,'' Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., told Justice and intelligence officials at a Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday.

Read more: Court renews NSA telephone surveillance program