In a recent review of Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Capture Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneler, Steven Aftergood writes in Data and Goliath: Confronting the Surveillance Society that:
“More than just being ineffective, the NSA’s surveillance efforts have actually made us less secure,” he says. Indeed, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board found the “Section 215″ program for bulk collection of telephone metadata to be nearly useless, as well as likely illegal and problematic in other ways. But by contrast, it also reported that the “Section 702″ collection program had made a valuable contribution to security. Schneier does not engage on this point.
I’m waiting on my copy of Data and Goliath to arrive but I don’t find it surprising that Bruce overlooked and/or chose to not comment on the Section 702 report.
Starting with the full text, Report on the Surveillance Program Operated Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, at one hundred and ninety-six pages (196), you will be surprised at how few actual facts are recited.
In terms of the efficacy of the 702 program, this is fairly typical:
The Section 702 program has proven valuable in a number of ways to the government’s efforts to combat terrorism. It has helped the United States learn more about the membership, leadership structure, priorities, tactics, and plans of international terrorist organizations. It has enabled the discovery of previously unknown terrorist operatives as well as the locations and movements of suspects already known to the government. It has led to the discovery of previously unknown terrorist plots directed against the United States and foreign countries, enabling the disruption of those plots.
That seems rather short on facts and long on conclusions to me. Yes?
Here’s a case the report singles out as a success:
In one case, for example, the NSA was conducting surveillance under Section 702 of an email address used by an extremist based in Yemen. Through that surveillance, the agency discovered a connection between that extremist and an unknown person in Kansas City, Missouri. The NSA passed this information to the FBI, which identified the unknown person, Khalid Ouazzani, and subsequently discovered that he had connections to U.S.-based Al Qaeda associates, who had previously been part of an abandoned early stage plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange. All of these individuals eventually pled guilty to providing and attempting to provide material support to Al Qaeda.
Recalling that “early stage plot” means a lot of hot talk with no plan for implementation, which accords with pleas to “attempting to provide material support to Al Qaeda.” That’s grotesque.
Oh, another case:
For instance, in September 2009, the NSA monitored under Section 702 the email address of an Al Qaeda courier based in Pakistan. Through that collection, the agency intercepted emails sent to that address from an unknown individual located in the United States. Despite using language designed to mask their true intent, the messages indicated that the sender was urgently seeking advice on the correct mixture of ingredients to use for making explosives. The NSA passed this information to the FBI, which used a national security letter to identify the unknown individual as Najibullah Zazi, located near Denver, Colorado. The FBI then began intense monitoring of Zazi, including physical surveillance and obtaining legal authority to monitor his Internet activity. The Bureau was able to track Zazi as he left Colorado a few days later to drive to New York City, where he and a group of confederates were planning to detonate explosives on subway lines in Manhattan within the week. Once Zazi became aware that law enforcement was tracking him, he returned to Colorado, where he was arrested soon after. Further investigative work identified Zazi’s co-conspirators and located bomb-making components related to the planned attack. Zazi and one of his confederates later pled guilty and cooperated with the government, while another confederate was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Without the initial tip-off about Zazi and his plans, which came about by monitoring an overseas foreigner under Section 702, the subway-bombing plot might have succeeded.
Sorry, that went by rather fast. The unknown sender in the United States did not know how to make explosives? And despite that, the plot is described as “…planning to detonate explosives on subway lines in Manhattan within the week.” Huh? That’s quite a leap from getting advice on explosives to being ready to execute a complex operation.
What’s wrong with the “terrorists” being tracked by the NSA/FBI? Almost without exception, they lack the skills to make bombs. The FBI fills in, supplying bombs in many cases, Cleveland, 2012, Portland, 2010, and that’s two I remember right off hand. (I don’t have a complete list of terror plots where the FBI supplies the bomb or bomb making materials. Do you? It would save me the work of putting one together. Thanks!)
A more general claim rounds out the “facts” claimed by the report:
A rough count of these cases identifies well over one hundred arrests on terrorism-related offenses. In other cases that did not lead to disruption of a plot or apprehension of conspirators, Section 702 appears to have been used to provide warnings about a continuing threat or to assist in investigations that remain ongoing. Approximately fifteen of the cases we reviewed involved some connection to the United States, such as the site of a planned attack or the location of operatives, while approximately forty cases exclusively involved operatives and plots in foreign countries.
Well, we know that “terrorism-related offense” includes “…attempting to provide material support to Al Qaeda.” And that conspiracy to commit a terrorist act can consist of talking about wanting to commit a terrorist act with no ability to put such a plan in action. Like no knowing how to make a bomb. Fairly serious impediment there, at least for a would be terrorist.
Not to mention that detention has no real relationship to the commission of a crime, as we have stood witness to at Guantanamo Bay (directions).
In Bruce’s defense, like he needs my help!, ;-), no one has an obligation to refute every lie told in support of government surveillance or its highly fictionalized “war on terrorism.” To no small degree, repeating those lies ad nauseam gives them credibility in group think circles, such as inside the beltway in D.C. Especially among agencies whose budgets depend upon those lies and the contractors who profit from them.
Treat yourself to some truth about cybersecurity, order your copy of Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Capture Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneler.