risking his life to tell you about NSA surveillance [ot]

[you] claim that laws were broken, when you can't even name them.

Manning was handing the information to Osama bin Laden

You think people with security clearances get to decide on their own what should and shouldn't be secret?

national security is immune to politics

Special access program
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Special access programs (SAPs) in the federal government of the United States of America are security protocols that provides highly classified information with safeguards and access restrictions that exceed those for regular (collateral) classified information. It may be a type of black project. A SAP can only be initiated, modified, and terminated within their department or agency; the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence; their principal deputies (e.g. the Deputy Secretary of State in DoS and the Deputy Secretary of Defense in DoD); or others designated in writing by the President.[1] In addition to collateral controls, a SAP may impose more stringent investigative or adjudicative requirements, specialized nondisclosure agreements, special terminology or markings, exclusion from standard contract investigations (carve-outs), and centralized billet systems.[2]
Contents

1 Types and categories
2 Marking
3 Examples
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

Types and categories

Two types of SAP exist: acknowledged and unacknowledged. The existence of an acknowledged SAP may be publicly disclosed, but the details of the program remain classified. An unacknowledged SAP (or USAP) is made known only to authorized persons, including members of the appropriate committees of the United States Congress. Waived SAPs are a subset of unacknowledged SAPs in the Department of Defense. These SAPs are exempt by statutory authority of the Secretary of Defense from most reporting requirements and, within the legislative branch, the only persons who are required to be informed of said SAPs are the chairpersons and ranking committee members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senate Armed Services Committee, House Appropriations Committee, and the House Armed Services Committee.[3]

There are three categories of SAPs within the Department of Defense:[4]

Acquisition SAPs (AQ-SAPs), which protect the "research, development, testing, modification, and evaluation or procurement" of new systems;
Intelligence SAPs (IN-SAPs), which protect the "planning and execution of especially sensitive intelligence or CI units or operations";
Operations and Support SAPs (OS-SAPs), which protect the "planning, execution, and support" of sensitive military activities.

Only the Director of National Intelligence may create IN-SAPs. Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) control systems may be the most well-known intelligence SAPs. The treatment of SCI is singular among SAPs, and it seems there is some disagreement within the government as to whether or not SCI is a SAP. Defense Department sources usually state that it is,[5] and at least one publication refers to a separate SCI-SAP category alongside the three listed above.[6] The Intelligence Community, drawing on the DNI's statutory responsibility to protect intelligence sources and methods, finds a legal basis for SCI separate from that of SAPs, and consequently consider SCI and SAPs separate instances of the more general controlled access program.[7]
Marking

SAP documents require special marking to indicate their status. The words SPECIAL ACCESS REQUIRED, followed by the program nickname or codeword, are placed in the document's banner line. Abbreviations may be used for either element. Portion markings use SAR and the program's abbreviation. For example, a secret SAP with the nickname MEDIAN BELL would be marked SECRETSPECIAL ACCESS REQUIRED-MEDIAN BELL. Portions would be marked (SSAR-MB). [8] Multiple SAPs are separated by slashes. Compartments within SAPs may be denoted by a hyphen, and are listed alphanumerically. Subcompartments are separated by spaces, and are also listed alphanumerically. Markings do not show the hierarchy beyond the sub-compartment level. Sub-sub-compartments are listed in the same manner as sub-compartments.[9] A more complex banner line with multiple SAPs and subcompartments might read TOP SECRET//SAR-MB/SC-RF 1532-RG A691 D722.[10]

Older documents used different standard for marking. The banner line might read SECRETMEDIAN BELLSPECIAL ACCESS REQUIRED, and the portion marking would read (S//MB).[11] Other variations move the special access warning to a second line, which would read MEDIAN BELL Special Control and Access Required (SCAR) Use Only or some other phrase directed by the program security instructions.[12]
Examples

The following national or international SAPs, unless otherwise noted, are identified in 32 CFR 154.17:

Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI), national intelligence information concerning sources and methods which is protected by control systems defined by the Director of National Intelligence. Note that SCI markings are separate from those of other SAPs.
Single Integrated Operational Plan-Extremely Sensitive Information (SIOP-ESI, replaced by NC2-ESI), the national plan for nuclear war. Note that SIOP-ESI was listed among non-IC dissemination control markings on classified documents, not with other SAPs.
Presidential support activities
Nuclear Weapon Personnel Reliability Program
Chemical Personnel Reliability Program[13]
Access to North Atlantic Treaty Organization classified information at the staff level

NSA recruitment drive goes horribly wrong

Staff from the National Security Agency got more than they bargained for when they attempted to recruit students to their organization earlier this week …

Bim Adewunmi
guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 July 2013 08.15 EDT

On Tuesday, the National Security Agency called at the University of Wisconsin on a recruitment drive.

Attending the session was Madiha R Tahir, a journalist studying a language course at the university. She asked the squirming recruiters a few uncomfortable questions about the activities of NSA: which countries the agency considers to be "adversaries", and if being a good liar is a qualification for getting a job at the NSA.

She has posted a recording of the session on Soundcloud, which you can hear above, and posted a rough transcript on her blog, The Mob and the Multitude. Here are some highlights.

The session begins ...

Tahir: "Do you consider Germany and the countries that the NSA has been spying upon to be adversaries, or are you, right now, not speaking the truth?"

Recruiter 1: "You can define adversary as 'enemy' and, clearly, Germany is not our enemy. But would we have foreign national interests from an intelligence perspective on what's going on across the globe? Yeah, we do."

Tahir: "So by 'adversaries', you actually mean anybody and everybody. There is nobody, then, by your definition that is not an adversary. Is that correct?"

Recruiter 1: "That is not correct."

Recruiter 2: "… for us, our business is apolitical, OK? We do not generate the intelligence requirements. They are levied on us ... We might use the word 'target'."

Tahir: "I'm just surprised that for language analysts, you're incredibly imprecise with your language. And it just doesn't seem to be clear."

Later ...

Tahir: "... this is a recruiting session and you are telling us things that aren't true. And we also know that the NSA took down brochures and factsheets after the Snowden revelations because those factsheets also had severe inaccuracies and untruths in them, right? So how are we supposed to believe what you're saying?"

Even later ...

Tahir: "I think the question here is do you actually think about the ramifications of the work that you do, which is deeply problematic, or do you just dress up in costumes and get drunk?" [A reference to an earlier comment the recruiter made about NSA employees working hard and going to the bar to do karaoke.]

Recruiter 2: "... reporting the info in the right context is so important because the consequences of bad political decisions by our policymakers is something we all suffer from."

Unnamed female student: "And people suffer from the misinformation that you pass along so you should take responsibility as well."

Later still ...

Male student: "General Alexander [head of the NSA] also lied in front of Congress."

Recruiter 1: "I don't believe that he did."

Male student: "Probably because access to the Guardian is restricted on the Department of Defence's computers. I am sure they don't encourage people like you to actually think about these things. Thank God for a man like Edward Snowden who your organisation is now part of a manhunt trying to track down, trying to put him in a little hole somewhere for the rest of his life. Thank God they exist."

And finally ...

Recruiter 2: "This job isn't for everybody, you know ..."

Tahir: "So is this job for liars? Is this what you're saying? Because, clearly, you're not able to give us forthright answers. I mean, given the way the NSA has behaved, given the fact that we've been lied to as Americans, given the fact that factsheets have been pulled down because they clearly had untruths in them, given the fact that Clapper and Alexander lied to Congress – is that a qualification for being in the NSA? Do you have to be a good liar?"

Recruiter 1: I don't believe the NSA is telling complete lies. And I do believe that you know, I mean people can, you can read a lot of different things that are, um, portrayed as fact and that doesn't make them fact just because they're in newspapers."

Unnamed female student: "Or intelligence reports."

Recruiter 1: "That's not really our purpose here today and I think if you're not interested in that ... there are people here who are probably interested in a language career."

Why the Private Sector is Important for Cybersecurity

Posted by Mike McConnell on July 10, 2013

Mike McConnell
Vice Chairman

Last week, I had the privilege of participating in important panel discussions during the 2013 Aspen Ideas Festival around the cyber threat to American infrastructure and national security. Recent events have generated debate in this country about national security – and that’s a healthy thing. I’ve been saying for many years that there are ways to protect privacy while improving security, and a national debate helps us better understand the requirements and tradeoffs.

Just as the conversation about cybersecurity has evolved over the past couple years to its current state – so has the threat. Information technology, although a benefit to all of us who depend on mobile devices and the Internet everywhere, has introduced an increased level of vulnerability that’s unprecedented. I laid out for the audience at the Ideas Festival my thoughts on the resulting security challenges that we now face and some options for addressing them.

First, today there is a real threat of cyber warfare; malware attack tools are putting the security of our intellectual property and national infrastructure (electrical grid, banking, transportation systems) at risk, and the threat of nation state vs. nation state cyber warfare looms. Yet the nature of this warfare has changed because, for example, it might not be in the interest of one nation to disrupt the U.S. money supply if it depends on this supply. So in this sense, certain circumstances offer a different level of deterrence.

What really worries me, though, is the fact that there are thousands of malware attack tools available and, sooner or later, they will be leaked and/or sold on the black market. This would give an extremist group – who is not deterred by things like a dependence on the U.S. financial system – the opportunity to attack our critical infrastructure and debilitate this country and its critical infrastructure.

The U.S. government plays an essential role in addressing these threats, but a great strength comes from its partnership with the private sector. I’m convinced we must continue to acknowledge the needs and value of private industry to help overcome the challenges and counter the threats, which are more likely motivated by political, social and economic conditions.

As a nation, we’ve done a pretty good job at understanding our attackers, but to stay ahead, we must out-innovate them. Free market competition has a way of creating innovative products, services, and ideas because of the economic incentive. Only the best ideas win the economic competition; just ask Apple. Without continued input and collaboration from the private sector, the government runs a big risk of losing innovation needed to stay ahead of our cyber adversaries.

Increasingly, some cyber adversaries see the value of the free market, too – they let others do the work that they will later steal. Public reports have specifically cited China and Russia for this practice. We cannot stifle innovation and creativity, but we do need to protect it so that U.S. businesses continue to thrive, and that’s another reason for the government and private industry to work together.

My hope is that the current debate will result in a better understanding of this point, and spur leaders in the government and the private sector to examine more closely ways to balance privacy and security and to take advantage of every resource our nation has to fight this growing, constantly evolving cyber threat. We need to move quickly because “sooner or later” is sooner than we think.

Obama recently said: I'm just going to go along with all these jackasses because I don't want to end up like JFK did.

GLENN GREENWALD: If your motive had been to harm the United States and help its enemies, or if your motive had been personal material gain, were there things that you could have done with these documents to advance those goals that you didn’t end up doing?

EDWARD SNOWDEN: Absolutely. I mean, anybody in the positions of access with the technical capabilities that I had could, you know, suck out secrets, pass them on the open market to Russia. You know, they always have an open door, as we do. I had access to, you know, the full rosters of everyone working at the NSA, the entire intelligence community, and undercover assets all around the world, the locations of every station we have, what their missions are and so forth. If I had just wanted to harm the U.S., you know, that—you could shut down the surveillance system in an afternoon. But that’s not my intention. And I think, for anyone making that argument, they need to think, if they were in my position, and, you know, you live a privileged life—you’re living in Hawaii, in Paradise, and making a ton of money—what would it take to make you leave everything behind?

The greatest fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change. People will see in the media all of these disclosures. They’ll know the length that the government is going to grant themselves powers, unilaterally, to create greater control over American society and global society, but they won’t be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things, to force their representatives to actually take a stand in their interests. And the months ahead, the years ahead, it’s only going to get worse, until eventually there will be a time where policies will change, because the only thing that restricts the activities of the surveillance state are policy. Even our agreements with other sovereign governments, we consider that to be a stipulation of policy rather than a stipulation of law. And because of that, a new leader will be elected, they’ll flip the switch, say that because of the crisis, because of the dangers that we face in the world, you know, some new and unpredicted threat, we need more authority, we need more power, and there will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose it, and it’ll be turnkey tyranny.