CIA Admits Spying On Senate Computers
inSh
It's not been a good day for the CIA. First, the State Department slams
them for brutally treating terror suspects after the 9/11 attacks, noting
that *"no American is proud" of CIA tactics*
<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/state-dept-no-american-proud-cia-tactics>.
And now, as The NY Times reports
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/world/senate-intelligence-commitee-cia-interrogation-report.html?smid=tw-bna&_r=1>,
an internal investigation has found that its *officers improperly
penetrated a computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee* in
preparing the report on the CIA's detention and interrogation program. Of
course, this is not the first time the CIA has hacked Senate networks but
do not fear American citizenry, *CIA Director has apologized for his staff
"acting inappropriately"* and is setting up an internal accountability
board to review the matter.
The report is damning... *(via AP)*
<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/state-dept-no-american-proud-cia-tactics>
*The State Department has endorsed the broad conclusions of a harshly
critical Senate report on the CIA's interrogation and detention practices
after the 9/11 attacks,* a report that accuses the agency of brutally
treating terror suspects and misleading Congress, according to a White
House document.
*"This report tells a story of which no American is proud,"* says the
four-page White House document, which contains the State Department's
preliminary proposed talking points in response to the classified Senate
report, a summary of which is expected to be released in the coming weeks.
*The Senate report concludes that CIA's techniques on al-Qaida detainees
captured after the 2001 attacks were far more brutal than previously
understood. *The tactics failed to produce life-saving intelligence, the
report asserts, and the CIA misled Congress and the Justice Department
about the interrogation program.
So it is no wonder the CIA decided it was above the law and hacked the
Senate's PCs... *(via NY Times)*
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/world/senate-intelligence-commitee-cia-interrogation-report.html?smid=tw-bna&_r=1>
In a statement issued Thursday morning, a C.I.A. spokesman said that
agency’s inspector general had concluded that *C.I.A. officers had acted
inappropriately by gaining access to the computers.*
The statement said that John O. Brennan, the* C.I.A. director, had
apologized to the two senior members of the Senate Intelligence Committee
and that he would set up an internal accountability board to review the
matter*. The board will be led by former Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of
Indiana.
The statement gave almost *no specifics about the findings of the report*,
written by David Buckley, the agency’s inspector general.
Officials said there was a *tense meeting earlier this week when Mr.
Brennan briefed the two senators — Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California
and Saxby Chambliss*, Republican of Georgia. The officials said Ms.
Feinstein had confronted Mr. Brennan about past public statements on the
issue, in which he defended the agency’s actions.
Of course Brennan denied it all when Feinstein first lost her temper over
it...
When the C.I.A.'s monitoring of the committee became public in March Mr.
Brennan said,* “When the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people
who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and
monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong.”*
On Tuesday, November 4, 2014 6:25:57 AM UTC-6, Travis wrote:
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> http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/29/fbi-powers-hacking-computers-surveillance
>
>
> FBI demands new powers to hack into computers and carry out surveillance
>
> Agency requests rule change but civil liberties groups say ‘extremely
> invasive’ technique amounts to unconstitutional power grab
>
> [image: A protest against government surveillance in Washington DC]
>
> A protest against government surveillance in Washington DC. Civil
> liberties groups denounced the FBI’s move as ‘brazen and potentially
> dangerous’. Photograph: Xinhua /Landov/Barcroft Media
>
> Ed Pilkington <http://www.theguardian.com/profile/edpilkington> in New
> York
>
> Wednesday 29 October 2014
>
> The FBI <http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/fbi> is attempting to
> persuade an obscure regulatory body in Washington to change its rules of
> engagement in order to seize significant new powers to hack into and carry
> out surveillance of computers throughout the US and around the world.
>
> Civil liberties groups warn that the proposed rule change amounts to a
> power grab by the agency that would ride roughshod over strict limits to
> searches and seizures laid out under the fourth amendment of the US
> constitution, as well as violate first amendment privacy rights. They have
> protested that the FBI is seeking to transform its cyber capabilities with
> minimal public debate and with no congressional oversight.
>
> The regulatory body
> <https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1348429-fbi-committee-hearing.html>
> to which the Department of Justice has applied to make the rule change, the
> advisory committee on criminal rules, will meet for the first time on
> November 5 to discuss the issue. The panel will be addressed by a slew of
> technology experts and privacy advocates concerned about the possible
> ramifications were the proposals allowed to go into effect next year.
>
> “This is a giant step forward for the FBI’s operational capabilities,
> without any consideration of the policy implications. To be seeking these
> powers at a time of heightened international concern about US surveillance
> is an especially brazen and potentially dangerous move,” said Ahmed
> Ghappour, an expert in computer law at University of California, Hastings
> college of the law, who will be addressing next week’s hearing.
>
> The proposed operating changes related to rule 41 of the federal rules of
> criminal procedure, the terms under which the FBI is allowed to conduct
> searches under court-approved warrants. Under existing wording, warrants
> have to be highly focused on specific locations where suspected criminal
> activity is occurring and approved by judges located in that same district.
>
> But under the proposed amendment
> <https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1347875-fbi-proposed-amendment-rule-41-1.html>,
>
> a judge can issue a warrant that would allow the FBI to hack into any
> computer, no matter where it is located. The change is designed
> specifically to help federal investigators carry out surveillance on
> computers that have been “anonymized” – that is, their location has been
> hidden using tools such as Tor.
>
> The amendment inserts a clause that would allow a judge to issue warrants
> to gain “remote access” to computers “located within or outside that
> district” (emphasis added) in cases in which the “district where the media
> or information is located has been concealed through technological means”.
> The expanded powers to stray across district boundaries would apply to any
> criminal investigation, not just to terrorist cases as at present.
>
> Were the amendment to be granted by the regulatory committee, the FBI
> would have the green light to unleash its capabilities – known as “network
> investigative techniques” – on computers across America and beyond. The
> techniques involve clandestinely installing malicious software, or malware,
> onto a computer that in turn allows federal agents effectively to control
> the machine, downloading all its digital contents, switching its camera or
> microphone on or off, and even taking over other computers in its network.
>
> “This is an extremely invasive technique,” said Chris Soghoian, principal
> technologist of the American Civil Liberties Union, who will also be
> addressing the hearing
> <https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/aclu_comments_on_rule_41.pdf>.
>
> “We are talking here about giving the FBI the green light to hack into any
> computer in the country or around the world.”
>
> A glimpse into the kinds of operations that could multiply under the new
> powers was gained this week when Soghoian discovered from documents
> obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation that in 2007 the FBI had faked
> an Associated Press story
> <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/29/fbi-hacking-press-internet-users>
>
> as a ruse to insert malware into the computer of a US-based bomb plot
> suspect. The revelation prompted angry responses from the AP and from the
> Seattle Times
> <http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024888170_fbinewspaper1xml.html>,
> whose name was also invoked in the documents, though the FBI said it had
> not in the end imitated the newspaper.
>
> Civil liberties and privacy groups are particularly alarmed that the FBI
> is seeking such a huge step up in its capabilities through such an
> apparently backdoor route. Soghoian said of next week’s meeting: “This
> should not be the first public forum for discussion of an issue of this
> magnitude.”
>
> Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford center for
> internet and society, said that “this is an investigative technique that we
> haven’t seen before and we haven’t thrashed out the implications. It
> absolutely should not be done through a rule change – it has to be fully
> debated publicly, and Congress must be involved.”
>
> Ghappour has also highlighted
> <http://justsecurity.org/15018/justice-department-proposal-massive-expand-fbi-extraterritorial-surveillance/>
>
> the potential fall-out internationally were the amendment to be approved.
> Under current rules, there are no fourth amendment restrictions to US
> government surveillance activities in other countries as the US
> constitution only applies to domestic territory.
>
> However, the US government does accept that it should only carry out
> clandestine searches abroad where the fourth amendment’s “basic requirement
> of reasonableness” applies. In a letter
> <https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1347871-fbi-proposed-rule-change.html#document/p5/a184605>
>
> setting out its case for the rule 41 reform, the department of justice
> states that new warrants issued to authorise FBI hacking into computers
> whose location was unknown would “support the reasonableness of the search”.
>
> Ghappour fears that such a statement amounts to “possibly the broadest
> expansion of extraterritorial surveillance power since the FBI’s
> inception”. He told the Guardian that “for the first time the courts will
> be asked to issue warrants allowing searches outside the country”.
>
> He warned that the diplomatic consequences could be serious, with
> short-term FBI investigations undermining the long-term international
> relationship building of the US state department. “In the age of cyber
> attacks, this sort of thing can scale up pretty quickly.”
>
> Another insight into the expansive thrust of US government thinking in
> terms of its cyber ambitions was gleaned recently
> <http://%20http/www.wired.com/2014/10/feds-silk-road-hack-legal/> in the
> prosecution of Ross Ulbricht, the alleged founder of the billion-dollar
> drug site the Silk Road. Experts suspect that the FBI hacked into the Silk
> Road server, that was located in Reykjavik, Iceland, though the agency
> denies that.
>
> In recent legal argument, US prosecutors claimed that even if they had
> hacked into the server without a warrant, it would have been justified as
> “a search of foreign property known to contain criminal evidence, for which
> a warrant was not necessary”.
>
>
>
>
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