Lawmakers ‘Disturbed and Angered’ After Classified Briefing Reveals Extent of Snowden Defense Leaks

PJ Tatler ^ | February 5, 2014 - 1:45 pm | Bridget Johnson

[Olog-hai]

Leading members of the House Armed Services Committee emerged from a classified briefing on the Edward Snowden leaks this afternoon “shocked” at the amount of information he reportedly leaked beyond the NSA surveillance programs.

Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), chairman of the Armed Service panel’s Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee and also a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the briefing on the defense consequences of Snowden’s leaks was “very highly classified,” and therefore details couldn’t be discussed. …

[no-to-illegals]

I Totally Agree ... It Was Brbra as in BrRabbit and BrFox.

[Billthedrill]

So, what was it that shocked the oversight committee, the level of the compromise or the activities themselves that were compromised? If the NSA snitched the Contacts list off Angela Merkel's cell phone it's one issue to know the contents and quite another to know that they were taken in the first place.

The difficulty is that once compromised, the concern shifts from the former to the latter, and the real job of oversight shifts from a proper consideration of the validity of the activities to helping the agency cover up the contents themselves. They get sucked onto the wrong team. And the real danger of being briefed into a specific program is that team identification: "You're one of us now," as a certain senior Naval officer once told me. It's in the nature of the business but it imperils oversight.

[Billthedrill]

I’m sorry, I mixed “former” and “latter” in the second paragraph - the point I’m making is that oversight of this sort of thing is compromised by the nature of the data and the sensitivity of the data tend to hinder the proper consideration of whether it was appropriate to gather it in the first place. It is that second thing that is the proper function of oversight and I don’t really see any sign that it’s taking place.

[FredZarguna]

Actually, when I referred to technical capacity I was referring to the level of capability nominally required to meet the requirements of his job description, which were not very high. He may be quite intelligent. [I kind of doubt it, but it's possible.]

His technical managers should have made sure employees at his level did not have access to sensitive intel, or at the very least had access to sensitive intel no higher than necessary for support functions, and no broader than the limitations of the department he was working in.

The fact that he got so much tells us that his bosses were negligent at best, and consummately stupid at worst.

[grumpygresh]

The spy and data collection agencies are all about protecting themselves and their establishment masters from the enemy- the American people.

[Afterguard]

Okay, with my tinfoil hat firmly settled on my noggin, I wonder if the snowdon leak was was a planned event? You know, like F&F, IRS, and the administration’s war on freedom.

Nothing seems too far fetched anymore.

[dforest]

Well, one would think that that those that hired Snowdon had all the resources of the federal government to do a complete background check and assessment of the people they hire.

I think they did, and Snowdon is most likely much smarter and perhaps more crafty, than he is given credit for. After all, he is still alive. I am not saying that I agree with what he did, but I am conflicted about him on the issue in regards to his disclosure of how the government has violated the Constitution in regards to American citizen surveillance. At least we know for sure now.

[PGalt]

Thanks for that link to a very good interview with Snowden. I saw it yesterday from a poster/linker in a zero hedge thread.

BTTT!

[Dead Corpse]

Exactly so. I think this is awfully damn timely considering Snowden’s recent interview.

Agitprop can’t have us seeing him as anything other than a traitor and a bad person.

Notice, they don’t even need to provide details. Just let the seriousness of the charges carry the publics opinion.

[Dead Corpse]

Yeah... He doesn’t sound like a treasonous dunce...

Ya’ think maybe our government is being less than honest? /rhetorical

[Georgia Girl 2]

Its always irritating when the plebes find out about govt criminal or unconstitutional activity.

[GOPJ]

>... our enemies know what was leaked, our government knows what was leaked but we the citizens don’t have the right to know what was leaked even though our enemies already know what it was.

Our job is to work, pay taxes and shut the eff up... Any idea what we're being 'protected' against? I sure as hell don't know.... not anymore - not like I use to...

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

There are programmers working on top secret projects who can barely function because their work is so compartmentalized that they can only code exactly to spec, but this jackass -- who was some kind of network technician -- had access to secrets across the spectrum.

I don't know how much truth there is in the article, and I don't know if it's been previously posted here on FR, but according to one of his co-workers, Snowden was not the low-level network technician the NSA is making him out to be.

See: An NSA Coworker Remembers The Real Edward Snowden: 'A Genius Among Geniuses'

[SgtHooper]

It was recently revealed that over 480,000 CONTRACTORS have a top secret clearance.

Not employees, but freekin contractors, and then SO freekin many!!

[Gene Eric]

Snowden failed to expose the perpetrators of the alleged crimes — the politicians that claim to represent us, but fund and legitimize an operation that he alleges violates our rights.

Congress is making minimal effort but only to pacify the aimless outcry. And it’s absurd to say Clapper “lied” to Congress.

[OneWingedShark]

What is shocking is the poor trade-craft revealed in giving a person of such low technical capacity access to this level of information. There are programmers working on top secret projects who can barely function because their work is so compartmentalized that they can only code exactly to spec, but this jackass -- who was some kind of network technician -- had access to secrets across the spectrum.

It's all either a complete lie, or an indication of genuinely staggering stupidity by our spymasters.

Given the blatant condoning of using the IRS to target the Tea Party, by even the Republicans, is it unreasonable to assume that our spymasters are employing their trade upon us rather than for us?

Especially given the ever increasing sequence of abuse/lawlessness revealed:

1. They deny warrantless searches of data, or if they do the warrant comes from what's effectively a secret court.
2. But it's ok, because they only a limited number of relationships 3 hops.
   (Any other person on Earth can be reached w/ an avg. 4.7 hops.)
3. Aw, heck, it's not like they spy on people that they have no justification for, like say, to the point that spying on one's [romantic] interest has been coined loveint
4. It's not like they paid security companies to subvert their encryption…
5. it's not like they subvert the security at the interface between cloud and internet.

I'm sorry, but the government doesn't seem to be having the best track-record here.

[FredZarguna]

Don't be conflicted.

As Theoden says in The Lord of The Rings [not the hideous movie, the great book] "Oft evil will shall evil mar."

Just because Snowden accidentally may have done some good, that doesn't make him a good person.

[zeugma]

I always find this amusing, our enemies know what was leaked, our government knows what was leaked but we the citizens don’t have the right to know what was leaked even though our enemies already know what it was.

Yup. You are nothing but an ambulatory wallet. Get back to work. Millions on welfare are depending on you.

[FredZarguna]

And it’s absurd to say Clapper “lied” to Congress.

Well, by his own admission, he did.

If you are saying that Congress knew about the surveillance and therefore the public denial of it does not constitute lying, that is a remarkably facile moral position. Call me old fashioned, but to me a lie is a lie.

More importantly, whether the intent was to reveal [in the question] or to suppress the revelation [in the answer] then Clapper lied to somebody a lot more important than Congress: We The People of the United States.

[Gene Eric]

The hearings were not about getting to the truth. It was about making the NSA squirm in front of our esteemed “representatives” and the cameras.