NSA: Others Implicated in Making Snowden Data Leaks Possible 118
NBC News reports that "A civilian NSA employee recently resigned after being stripped of his security clearance for allowing former agency contractor Edward Snowden to use his personal log-in credentials to access classified information, according to an agency memo obtained by NBC News. In addition, an active duty member of the U.S. military and a contractor have been barred from accessing National Security Agency facilities after they were 'implicated' in actions that may have aided Snowden, the memo states. Their status is now being reviewed by their employers, the memo says." You can read the memo for yourself.
Re:D'oh! (Score:2, Insightful)
Why in the world would you let someone use YOUR OWN PERSONAL login credentials? Why not just give him a key that you can lock out after he's done his work. I cannot believe that someone was deliberately this stupid
So Snowden social hacked a couple of people into allowing him to use their login credentials. That isn't exactly big news and while I'm not saying it's a particularly smart thing to do I seriously doubt that these people are the only ones in NSA history to share login credentials. The real news is that now that the US authorities can't get Snowden they are going to do the next best thing which is to hang these people out to dry as accomplices. I believe that's a mistake since don't think that the vindictiveness of the Obama administration and the US security apparatus is going to do them any favours in the long run but at least it is in the very best traditions of American 'come down on them like a ton-of-bricks' justice.
Re:D'oh! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not vindictiveness -- it's procedure. Anyone with a TS-SCI clearance gets the "we'll ruin your life if you screw up" speech when they accept the status. And, given how often you're required to review training on how not to screw up, these people have zero room to complain about any proverbial ton of bricks.
Re:I wonder - was it social engineering? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Keylogger, not sharing (Score:0, Insightful)
Steal? As if the NSA had the right to collect this data in the first place. It's OUR data. Snowden just gave it back.
Re:Keylogger, not sharing (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not sayign that this is not how snowden got the information, Im just saying I need more proof than the guys who are using unconstitutional secret courts word for it
Others? I'd start with Clapper (Score:5, Insightful)
> Others Implicated in Making Snowden Data Leaks Possible
Since Snowden mentioned Clapper's lying to Congress got him to release the documents, I'd start by implicating Clapper.
From there it's hard not to implicate the Presidents who didn't honor their pledge to uphold the Constitution. Congress. Decision-makers within the NSA.
Without all of them, there would be nothing for Snowden to release.
Re:AKA: We're gonna punish somebody (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:D'oh! (Score:1, Insightful)
No, it isn't. If Snowden wanted to make a point, he would have only released information pertinent to the Fourth Amendment. Instead, he did a data dump that pretty much showed the extent to which the NSA spies on foreigners, which is their fucking job.
If the enabled the latter half of the above sentence, then they're quite burnable.
Re:D'oh! (Score:4, Insightful)
then why the fuck hasn't the people in the NSA who have been targeting American's [namely " The people looking up their girlfriends info" and "obviously violating FISA warrants" and "the ones sending information to the FBI with "don't tell anybody we are doing this and make sure to claim your "investigation" started with some other evidence", which CLEARLY violates the law don't face similar punishments?
Or is it just a pick and choose method of law enforcement.
And don't get me started on the whole "it's an emergency, no need to follow procedure anymore".
Re:D'oh! (Score:3, Insightful)
which CLEARLY violates the law don't face similar punishments?
Because it isn't CLEAR that any laws were broken. People around here like to point to some advisory board report that said the activities were probably illegal, but that 5-person board was split 3-2 so you can't say that CLEARLY the activities were illegal. It is CLEAR to you because that is what you believe it to be, but (fortunately) the US legal system isn't beholden to what you specifically believe.
Ah, sorry, but the fourth Amendment is pretty fucking CLEAR. Argue all you want about FISA panels and other such bullshit we've legalized in the last decade to completely fucking derail that Right, but it is VERY fucking CLEAR what laws have been broken and by whom here if you're willing to dilute the issue down to the very basics where it belongs. It's this bullshit dissection of these kinds of violations that allows you and everyone else to not see the fucking elephant in the room CLEAR as day. An "investigation" is opened, and results are published about 6 months after the last person stopped giving a shit about any of it. And then the illegal activity continues, just as it will here.
Knowing where the violations are, and having the power to do fuck-all about it, are worlds apart. This is why we all know they're breaking laws, and yet not a fucking thing has changed to stop it. If any concept is CLEAR here, that one is.
Re:D'oh! (Score:5, Insightful)
unless every single LOVEINT target was not a US citizen, the law was broken [as the NSA isn't permitted by law to spy on US citizens]
and a FISA judge [he should know] said the NSA violated his warrant for YEARS.
How more illegal do you need to get?