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Started By
Message
Reality Winner shows the NSA has learned nothing from Edward Snowden
Posted on 6/6/17 at 9:51 am
Posted on 6/6/17 at 9:51 am
LINK
quote:I made this point a lot in the Snowden threads and it's worth revisiting. One of the reasons I don't buy that Snowden (and by extension Winner) did exorbitant amounts of damage to our intelligence apparatus is this: if your infosec is so bad a low-level contractor can grab whatever strikes their fancy, then our enemies almost certainly already had it too, because their spies aren't emailing Glenn Greenwald from their work computer. You can lock Winner up for a decade but the only way this gets fixed is if you start locking up the management at some of these contractors. Or at least not contracting with them.
Winner was a civilian contractor and she had no ‘need to know’ to see this report. Contrary to what a lot of civilians think, ‘need to know,’ not security clearance level is the fail-safe of the entire classified information system. Just because you have the requisite security level you can’t just browse classified material without a work related reason for doing so. Everything is supposed to be on a “clearance plus need to know” basis.
Winner was able to print a copy of the report and was able to walk that report out of her workspace. As difficult as it is to believe, apparently there were no safeguards in place to control who printed what as she was not authorized access to the document and still managed to print it. There was no accountability established for the printed document.
Winner was in contact with The Intercept from her work computer. This tells you 100% of what you need to know about the counterintelligence program at her employer. It was so lackadaisical that it wasn’t even feared.
...
Ask yourself what are the odds of a Russian or Chinese or Cuban or Iranian or [fill in your favorite bogeyman here] agent calling the NSA to verify a document is real. Because had The Intercept not called the NSA would not even know the document was missing. And had they not provided a scan of the document Winner had sent them (I’m not all that clear if Winner sent The Intercept a hard copy or if she scanned it and emailed it) they would not have a clue as to how the document got out of their control. Had Winner not been in contact with The Intercept on her office computer the field of suspects might never have been discovered.
This post was edited on 6/6/17 at 9:52 am
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Posted on 6/6/17 at 9:53 am to Iosh
A very good question to ponder right now is whether or not the USA has ANY "secrets" left that haven't been compromised by the very politicized IC of the USA.
I lean towards the answer "No".
I lean towards the answer "No".
Posted on 6/6/17 at 10:01 am to Iosh
How does a 25YO, with left wingnut sympathies, get a job as a NSA contractor? Was she a plant?
Posted on 6/6/17 at 10:01 am to Iosh
quote:
Reality Winner shows the NSA has learned nothing from Edward Snowden by Iosh
This is why the primary takeaway Americans should have in these situations isn't actually the content.
Americans should consider it VERY bad that there is near ubiquitous surveillance and that apparently, there are VERY insufficient safeguards to prevent that data being abused.
I'm not worried about the leakers. I'm worried about the people who simply use their access for political/social/whatever gain.
Posted on 6/6/17 at 10:05 am to Iosh
She was allowed to take that report. This all is starting to stink.
This post was edited on 6/6/17 at 10:06 am
Posted on 6/6/17 at 10:16 am to rds dc
The left should find it amusing that she will be nailed up on the cross for this, but HRC will slide.
Posted on 6/6/17 at 10:16 am to rds dc
quote:
She was allowed to take that report. This all is starting to stink.
Regardless, Realty Sucks knew what she was doing.
10 years in Federal Prison is her knew reality.
Posted on 6/6/17 at 10:23 am to Iosh
Our infosec is a complete and total joke. The security and intelligence community is so completely fragmented over not just an array of agencies but also over such a plethora of marginally qualified contractors that there are quite literally 100s if not 1000s of points of possible entry to acquire data that is often well above classification for these contractors or has no real reason to have ever been available to access for these contractors. It's such a complete and total joke. Bad things don't happen because the NSA/CIA/FBI is ever vigilant but rather because there are just so many random chances clicking out there and missing but at some point these vulnerabilities will be exploited to their fullest (if they haven't already and the agencies either don't realize it, or worse are too afraid of repercussions to reveal it/address it).
All the money that was sunk into the IC post 9/11 attracted far too many under qualified and under abled government contractors just hungry for a piece of the pie.
All the money that was sunk into the IC post 9/11 attracted far too many under qualified and under abled government contractors just hungry for a piece of the pie.
Posted on 6/6/17 at 10:47 am to AUin02
quote:I don't know why these sorts of things are contracted out in the first place. The IC should only be contracting out things like the physical construction of a server facility, not things like analysis that are supposed to be its core function. Has anyone actually reported what Winner's job was? Translation?
All the money that was sunk into the IC post 9/11 attracted far too many under qualified and under abled government contractors just hungry for a piece of the pie.
This post was edited on 6/6/17 at 10:49 am
Posted on 6/6/17 at 10:50 am to Iosh
quote:
I don't know why these sorts of things are contracted out in the first place.
Continuity of the workforce.
Posted on 6/6/17 at 10:51 am to DisplacedBuckeye
quote:What, so someone "retires" and is brought back on as a contractor for probably more money? That seems like a bad reason.
Continuity of the workforce.
This post was edited on 6/6/17 at 10:51 am
Posted on 6/6/17 at 10:54 am to Iosh
***conspiracy theory mode [ON] off***
It's almost as if they want leaks to happen.
Almost.
It's almost as if they want leaks to happen.
Almost.
Posted on 6/6/17 at 10:56 am to Iosh
No.
Instead of someone getting orders and training a new officer, you get someone with decades of experience that stays until the position is no longer necessary. It's not limited to that, either. I can give a whole class on this if you'd like.
Instead of someone getting orders and training a new officer, you get someone with decades of experience that stays until the position is no longer necessary. It's not limited to that, either. I can give a whole class on this if you'd like.
Posted on 6/6/17 at 10:57 am to Texas Weazel
When the IC wants leaks to happen they send an intermediary to talk to David Ignatius or Matthew Rosenberg over cocktails. They don't tell a flunky to email the Intercept from their work computer.
Posted on 6/6/17 at 10:58 am to DisplacedBuckeye
quote:While this might be fine in non-intelligence contexts do you not think there's been too little consideration of the cost-benefit of overreliance on contractors in the context of stuff that we presumably don't want to leak?
Instead of someone getting orders and training a new officer, you get someone with decades of experience that stays until the position is no longer necessary. It's not limited to that, either. I can give a whole class on this if you'd like.
This post was edited on 6/6/17 at 10:59 am
Posted on 6/6/17 at 11:00 am to OchoDedos
Not only that, she had top secret clearance...
She should go to prison for a long time
She should go to prison for a long time
This post was edited on 6/6/17 at 11:01 am
Posted on 6/6/17 at 11:04 am to Iosh
quote:
While this might be fine in non-intelligence contexts do you not think there's been too little consideration of the cost-benefit of overreliance on contractors in the context of stuff that we presumably don't want to leak?
No, I don't see that as the issue. She didn't receive her clearance from a CDC.
Posted on 6/6/17 at 11:07 am to DisplacedBuckeye
quote:
No, I don't see that as the issue. She didn't receive her clearance from a CDC.
Posted on 6/6/17 at 11:16 am to DisplacedBuckeye
Clearance isn't the issue and the article goes out of its way to say that. Let's assume she was hired as a contractor to translate Dari and Pashto stuff. Why in the everliving frick is a rando translator able to access and print an English document about Russian hacking without having to ask permission from two supervisors? Where is the compartmentalization? Where is the bureaucracy? Clearance shouldn't mean "okay now I can see all the secret stuff everywhere for any reason."
This post was edited on 6/6/17 at 11:20 am
Posted on 6/6/17 at 11:24 am to Iosh
quote:
Clearance isn't the issue and the article goes out of its way to say that.
Sorry, but I don't care what the article says, clearance is the primary issue. The background coming out on her now makes that very clear.
quote:
You assume she was hired as a contractor to translate Dari and Pashto stuff.
It's extremely rare for a linguist to be limited to translating plain language. She likely needed those acceses to fulfill her PWS requirements.
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