Schneier on Security

Skeptical • October 12, 2013 5:37 PM

Hmmm… three things.

First, I’m not persuaded that the results of NSA’s current cost/benefit analysis would be altered by including greater likelihood of public exposure.

The one aspect of the leaks that concerns me is that NSA may have weakened standards used to protect data and systems from private parties and non USG entities. However – and granted I speak as someone who wouldn’t know a byte from a bite – I’ve yet to see strong evidence that NSA has in fact done so. Moreover, I’m extremely skeptical of the notion that NSA would attempt to compromise the protection US companies have against foreign espionage. From an intellectual property vantage, the US obviously has much, much more to lose by such a compromise, something NSA and the USG generally are very much cognizant of.

Other than that aspect, I’ve largely found the activities revealed to be acceptable, and I’ve found the FISC oversight/NSA compliance, while a bit bumbling at points, fairly good and certainly not pernicious. I suspect my reaction on this largely tracks that of the voting public.

Second, while including a higher probability of exposure might be justified, I don’t think setting the probability to 1.0 is justified.

Third, I think your generational hypothesis may well be incorrect. Those around Snowden’s age left home for college while Ground Zero was still smoldering. They’ve also experienced firsthand the costs of too much transparency – they’re not naive about the consequences of something being published on the internet. Finally, perhaps most importantly, the subset of such generations that choose to work at NSA are self-selecting; their average characteristics may well differ from those of their broader cohorts.

Skeptical • October 15, 2013 9:22 AM

@ Dirk

By acceptable, I mean methods that are legal, not perniciously directed, embedded in a system of checks and oversight to reduce error and any attempts at abuse, and used to legitimate counter-terrorist and foreign intelligence purposes.

I have yet to see or hear of a single instance of these programs being used to suppress dissent, to harass and intimidate political opponents or minorities, or to conduct commercial espionage. Nor have I seen or heard of a single instance suggesting that the NSA was even interested in such uses.

Sifting through global traffic to find signals connected to foreign intelligence and international terrorist networks and targets is, to my mind, a legitimate function of the NSA. I would absolutely want them to do so in a way that does not pry into the private lives of innocent persons, and that is respectful of the dignity of innocent persons, but I don’t see some type of warrant requirement administered by the courts as feasible or desired in that domain.

No country of which I’m aware requires its intelligence agencies to obtain search warrants for searches or eavesdropping conducted outside national boundaries and designed to exclude their own citizens. If I send signals traffic to Germany, it’s as much subject to interception and review by the Bundesnachrichtendienst as would be any cargo I send.

I understand your frustration that a lot of discussion regarding NSA surveillance is centered around legality. I think that is because the justification for leaking this information is that it reveals abuses; so the question of whether NSA has in fact exceeded their legal remit is of great relevance and interest.

There’s certainly a broader conversation to be had about privacy generally. To what extent do we want global communications to be private? To be subject to some government surveillance? These are hard ethical questions, and good ethical questions. In a somewhat anarchic international system of states, finding workable solutions that respect all legitimate concerns – from privacy to security – is very difficult.

As to “secret courts” and “secret interpretations”, many judicial proceedings and decisions happen in secret when the occasion warrants. FISA simply created a certain type of court, on which sit otherwise ordinary federal judges, to deal with matters that will be by nature highly confidential.

With respect to your China analogy, surveillance by a government that eschews freedom of speech, suppresses political dissent, and engages in enormous amounts of commercial espionage for the benefit of its state enterprises is far more concerning than surveillance by a government that does almost precisely the opposite.