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On Monday at the Center for Strategic & International Studies' Global Security Forum, John Brennan, Director of the US' Central Intelligence Agency, spoke about the recent bombings in Paris. In what many commentators took as a reference to Edward Snowden, but could instead refer to the Church Committee, Brennan predicted that finding the attackers will be more difficult than it would have been, had intelligence services been left unchecked:
In the past several years, because of a number of unauthorized disclosures and a lot of hand-wringing over the government's role in the effort to try to uncover these terrorists, there have been some policy and legal and other actions that are taken that make our ability collectively, internationally to find these terrorists much more challenging.
I do hope that this is going to be a wake-up call particularly in areas of Europe where I think there has been a misrepresentation of what the intelligence security services are doing by some quarters that are designed to undercut those capabilities.
[...]
There are a lot of technological capabilities that are available right now that make it exceptionally difficult both technically as well as legally for intelligence security services to have insight that they need to uncover it.
Brennan's complete remarks are available in video via C-SPAN.
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by Snotnose on Wednesday November 18 2015, @05:15PM
What we're doing didn't work so we need to do more of it.
One of the top CIA asshats was on a Sunday morning show. He said "we need to strike a balance. It's not a trade off, it's a balance". Uh, yeah. You're taking away my privacy and my rights and I get what in return? Cuz it sure as hell isn't more security.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday November 18 2015, @05:25PM
The thing is, it's not like they couldn't have done what they needed to do with the power they already have.
For example, they had the information they needed to be watching out for the 9/11 hijackers. And the underwear bomber. And the shoe bomber. And yes, the Paris attacks too. George W Bush famously ignored the report that bin Laden was determined to strike, because he was too busy golfing and clearing brush on his dude ranch to be bothered.
The problem is not that the intelligence agencies are too powerless. The problem is that we tend to reward failure (by giving them more budget, personnel, and power) and punish success (by cutting budget, personnel, and power). With those incentives, it's no wonder they could be called the Central Incompetence Agency.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2015, @05:30PM
And the current potus is doing such a wonderful job.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2015, @05:39PM
What does that have to do with anything? Have you come to the erroneous conclusion that because someone insults Bush, they must like Obama?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 18 2015, @08:42PM
"What does that have to do with anything? Have you come to the erroneous conclusion that because someone insults Bush, they must like Obama?"
That is a common occurrence. I say, "Obama sucks" someone tells me "Bush sucked worse!" Next day, I say "Bush sucked." Another fool steps up to say "Obama sucks worse!" It's always left or right, black or white, true or false, one extreme or the other. It's just crazy.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday November 18 2015, @10:36PM
That is a common occurrence. I say, "Obama sucks" someone tells me "Bush sucked worse!" Next day, I say "Bush sucked." Another fool steps up to say "Obama sucks worse!" It's always left or right, black or white, true or false, one extreme or the other. It's just crazy.
Bush Sucks.
Obama Blows.
Either way, they're moving air -- hmm...sounds like politicians. Color me shocked!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday November 18 2015, @05:58PM
Americans killed by terrorist attack in the last 35 years:
Ronald Reagan - 286 (most in the Beirut bombings)
George H.W. Bush - 1 (one guy caught by Hezbollah)
Bill Clinton - 238 (most in the Oklahoma City bombing)
George W Bush - 3046 (most in the World Trade Center attack)
Barack Obama - 36 (the biggest single incident was the Fort Hood shootings)
By those standards, Obama has done quite well (but not as good as Bush senior), and Bush junior did a terrible job. And before you yell about the Paris attacks not showing up in those numbers, it's not Obama's responsibility to protect France from terrorist attack - that's the French government's job. Sure, they're our allies, we'll lend a hand where we can, but ultimately that responsibility falls on Hollande and his government.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2015, @06:05PM
By those standards, Obama has done quite well
Those standards are irrelevant. What matters is not how many Americans were killed by terrorist attacks under any specific president, but how well the president has respected the constitutional and our liberties. Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama are all criminals under that standard.
(Score: 3, Informative) by jdavidb on Wednesday November 18 2015, @07:44PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Wednesday November 18 2015, @10:21PM
He said "we need to strike a balance. It's not a trade off, it's a balance".
Indeed. In the United States, we *already* struck a balance, and encoded it in a document that we call the Constitution of the United States of America.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday November 19 2015, @01:03AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Thursday November 19 2015, @06:13AM
We struck a balance between privacy and security in the Constitution. We decided that the security we get from warrantless searches isn't worth the potential tradeoffs, and codified that in the 4th amendment. Thre are plenty of similar balances that were codified in the Constitution. Not sure why you disagree.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday November 19 2015, @07:16AM
(what they want is another bargain, they outgrew the old one)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 19 2015, @12:00PM
That is true, but when they change the bargain without telling anyone, then it's breaking the law, which is a crime. Crimes are punishable. They have broken the law over and over again and have even stopped pretending that they aren't breaking the law, because they don't perceive the need, that is, the possibility of punishment.
Time for punishment.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday November 18 2015, @11:04PM
What we're doing didn't work so we need to do more of it.
The problem is that they have concentrated ALL of their efforts on clandestine data collection of private citizens, trying to track every bit of communication rather than concentrating on facts on the ground. They've built a wheat and chaff problem of gargantuan proportions.
They used to be very good at facts on the ground. Who boarded what train. Travel end-points. Arms shipments. Car rentals. Money flow.
Collections of bad guys all leaving X country for Y country.
Now all they know is who talks to who.
They for years were adamant that they were not collecting actual conversations. So why are they worried about encryption?
Its ONLY that latter bit, the "full take" that they increasingly can't get ahold of.
But they never had that historically and have only recently become dependent on it.
They've put all their eggs in one basket and left that basket to be monitored by the supercomputers. Tradecraft is a thing of the past.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2015, @03:48AM
On the Tonight Show, actor Shia Labeouf said an FBI agent played back one of Labeouf's phone calls to him and told him that one-fifth of all calls were being recorded.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ux1hpLvqMw [youtube.com]