Photos of an NSA “upgrade” factory show Cisco router getting implant

[grahamhgreen]

A document included in the trove of National Security Agency files released with Glenn Greenwald’s book No Place to Hide details how the agency’s Tailored Access Operations (TAO) unit and other NSA employees intercept servers, routers, and other network gear being shipped to organizations targeted for surveillance and install covert implant firmware onto them before they’re delivered.

These Trojan horse systems were described by an NSA manager as being “some of the most productive operations in TAO because they pre-position access points into hard target networks around the world.”

The document, a June 2010 internal newsletter article by the chief of the NSA’s Access and Target Development department (S3261) includes photos (above) of NSA employees opening the shipping box for a Cisco router and installing beacon firmware with a “load station” designed specifically for the task.

The NSA manager described the process:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/

[villager]

1. Cue the apologists...

...or have the official a.m. talking points been released yet?

[gcomeau]

2. Do you understand what this is talking about?

"These Trojan horse systems were described by an NSA manager as being “some of the most productive operations in TAO because they pre-position access points into hard target networks around the world.” "

THAT IS THE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES JOB. You understand that the reason intel agencies exist is to collect intelligence? What the hell do you think anyone needs "apologists" for here? Do you have any capability to discriminate between legitimate and illegitimate activities or is anything you perceive to be spying.... BY A SPY AGENCY... somehow automatically a scandal?

[villager]

3. Do you?

Do you imagine they are really restricting themselves of "legitimate" activities, however they are defined when bending backwards to defend unchecked, and rogue, eavesdropping operations?

Glad to see the A.M. talking points have indeed been released!

[gcomeau]

4. Oh stop the juvenile "talking points" bullshit and have a real discussion.

Explain to me what aspect of this photograph represents evidence of scandalous activity. How did you determine that this was something illicit and unconscionable that required "apologists" rather than it being a completely legitimate intelligence activity directed at a legitimate target, seeing as the penetration of foreign networks using this type of strategy is EXACTLY the type of thing what the NSA is SUPPOSED to be doing?

You know, beyond some vague handwaving "oh I just know they're doing that and if you don't you're soooooo naive..."

[villager]

5. "Bullshit?" "Handwaving?" "Real discussion?"

You are truly following the script, so it's hard to imagine that "discussion" -- since you came here to defend the NSA regardless -- is high on your list of priorities.

To put this another way: How do you think the activities of the NSA should be legally circumscribed?

[gcomeau]

6. Oh for fuck sake grow the hell up.

Or do you seriously think I'm some kind of paid operative faithfully transcribing my arguments from some central shadowy authority that cares SOOOOOOO much about what you say on the internet that they feel the need to deploy their armies of discussion board commandos to do battle with you? Take the damn tinfoil off your head and talk like a rational human being.


I asked you a simple question. You completely avoided it. I'm confident that's because you have no actual answer to give... but I'll answer yours for you anyway.

I think the activities of the NSA already *are* legally circumscribed... you know... by the law. And I also think those restrictions have been violated. what I do not think is that that means every single time anyone posts a single shred of information about the NSA doing ANYTHING it's automatically evidence that they're up to no good and everyone needs to get all up in arms and outraged.

[villager]

10. "real discussion" "I'll give you your answer"

Yeah, a real "discussion" fan there.

You're far more splenetic than anyone else on this thread right now.

Don't you believe there should be any restraints on NSA activity? Or is that a rhetorical question?

[gcomeau]

13. Why are you asking me questions I just answered?

Oh... right... you have no interest in actually bothering to deal with anything I write.

I answered your question. You didn't answer mine. That's where we're at right now.

[villager]

34. You stated where you think the NSA should be reigned in? And its operations overseen

...in the names of checks and balances?

Yeah, you were so busy putting words in other peoples' mouths, accompanied by the neat rhetorical trick of calling that a "discussion," that I must've missed it...

[gcomeau]

38. I stated that they are already reigned in.

We have these things called laws, I did refer to them.


I also stated there have been violations of those restrictions, but that NOTHING in this OP contains any information that correlates to any such infraction.

Given your starting position that this picture would bring out "the apologists" with their "talking points" I asked you what exactly your grounds was for stating that apology was required of anything here. I'm still waiting... but I'm certainly not holding my breath.

[villager]

40. Ah yes, "the NSA isn't violating any laws! The 'courts' are keeeping them in check!"

Sad, really.

[gcomeau]

56. Can you read?

I'll just copy and paste from the post you were replying to:

"We have these things called laws, I did refer to them.


I also stated there have been violations of those restrictions,...

So... yeah... not quite the same thing as saying the NSA isn't violating any laws now is it? And that's the SECOND time I've said that to you. But you appear to have zero interest in actually paying attention.



Now how about, just once, you try dealing with something I'm saying? How does that sound? You could start with... oh, I don't know... answering the question I asked you way up there in post #4.

[pscot]

64. Troll

[villager]

66. They do seem to be out in force today

Vociferously so

[joshcryer]

94. Good luck with that.

Knee jerk philosophy is the name of the game.

[TorchTheWitch]

117. maybe because everything you do write

at least in this thread was a hair on fire attack fest on a poster. Frankly, I can't even tell what your argument is even supposed to be when it's maybe hidden somewhere in the attack sewage you've been spewing forth. And I say "maybe" since who could be bothered to see if you have anything of substance to say after wading through all that obnoxious crap.

[LanternWaste]

12. I'd imagine many more alternative exist; e.g., a dogmatic hack, possibly...

"Or do you seriously think I'm some kind of paid operative faithfully transcribing my arguments ..."

I'd imagine many more alternative exist; e.g., a dogmatic hack, possibly...

[NCTraveler]

15. Just want to chime in.....

Just want to chime in and back what you are saying. I am not familiar with your posting history and am not going to go too far. You are laying out an argument and staying with it while being opposed by nothing. Yet the opposition is strong. The whole "talking points" etc is a complete fox news angle. It is a way to attack the person without ever addressing their actual words. I really wish ops like this weren't sidetracked by people doing things like this. It becomes more and more difficult to educate ones self when one must wade through so much shit in order to get to facts.

I fell I need to say that I believe that the NSA is currently in violation of the fourth amendment. Unfortunately, if I don't say that in every thread about this topic, I will be labeled a fascist or NSA defender. Both of those accusations are thrown around without backup often.

I believe there are now five replies to you, not one of them addressing anything you said about the op.

[gcomeau]

22. It's always been a problem, but it seems to just keep getting worse.

I get so sick of the knee jerk reactions to half the things that gets posted... and then the automatic reaction to any dissenting view that the offending party is somehow an "establishment operative" or "spewing talking points" or whatever other bullshit phrase of the day it is.


It's almost impossible to introduce any degree of nuance into any discussion on any topic because everyone is so obsessed with imagining that anyone who posts anything they don't agree with is engaged in some kind of conspiracy and is out to get them... they're an infiltrator from free republic... or on the DNC payroll... or they're a "gun grabber" who wants to disarm the country... or an undercover NRA spokesman... or whatever other stupid thing someone wants to dream up. In reality there's some small percentage of posters who actually are here just to cause trouble but they're blown up in the minds of some people into this sinister all pervading presence all out of proportion to the level of effort anyone would ever dream of devoting to dealing with the denizens of some online discussion forum off in one corner of the internet.


I mean for cripes sake, it was the first post in the thread! It was pre-emptive! Just a straight declaration that anyone who came into the thread with anything that didn't toe the line with the poster's preferred (and completely unsubstantiated) interpretation of what these activities implied was a talking point spewing apologist. It's absurd.

[NCTraveler]

23. Agree with this response 100%. nt.

[MohRokTah]

32. Spot on! eom

[Aerows]

46. Let me tell you what Network Professionals think

They are PISSED.

That isn't an apologist, that is a straight-forward assessment that our jobs and abilities are being compromised.

It's not a joke. Our jobs and ability to facilitate the businesses we work for can be compromised.

I'm not going to apologize for being pissed about that.

[gcomeau]

54. Yeah...

"It's not a joke. Our jobs and ability to facilitate the businesses we work for can be compromised. "

Emphasis on "can be".

Also, your building "can be" leveled by a bombing run by the US military, they do possess the capabilities after all. Last I checked I had no particular reason to think the people in that photo were engaged in that activity either however.

[Aerows]

57. Woo Hoo!

disaster recovery is hilarious, no one ever has to plan for contingencies, and it is absolute lunacy to have to plan for something that happens in an emergency.

But hey, protecting your company is not in anyway serious business, because the military could come in and bomb your firm just because they feel like it.

Was that really the reply you were going with? Because if it was, I have to tell you - if you run a first class operation, you plan for that, too.

[gcomeau]

59. Wow, you are really off the deep end aren't you?

If you feel like the US military is going to personally target your place of work then by all means get upset that you lack the ability to fight off an armored division with air support.


Similarily IF YOU THINK the NSA has mobilized itself to penetrate your companies networks and read all your terribly important e-mails that they care ever so much about by all means get upset that they have way more resources to do that kind of thing than you have to combat them, and rant and rail at the reality of the fact that you can't go toe to toe with the largest intelligence agency on earth.


The rather important part there however is the bolded part.. which you may want to devote at least some time to reflecting on.


And that has NOTHING FUCKING TO DO with the picture in this damn OP, unless you can point at the part of the info contained here that says THIS is a case of these guys going after you.

[Aerows]

61. LOL

Honey, I hope you don't have to be in the position that this situation has put WAY too many people in.

I'll just respond politely.

I'll take the personal attacks on the chin.

[gcomeau]

62. You know another option...

...is to respond politely with some level of substance substantiating why anyone should be worked into a lather over the information in the OP.


Just a random observation.

[LondonReign2]

70. Oh for fuck sake stop being such an aggressive jackass

[gcomeau]

72. Mmm... no. Thanks for the suggestion though.

But when faced with such blatant nonsense I'll take the level of aggressiveness in response that I feel is appropriate.

[KittyWampus]

77. after reading this thread so far, it's interesting the person trying to have an actual discussion

has been called a troll and an aggressive jackass.

It says volumes.

[Bobbie Jo]

97. Textbook irony. nt

[LondonReign2]

100. Laughable

Yeah? So far the person “trying to have an actual discussion” has:

Asked if a poster “has any capability to discriminate” on points
Asked if said poster “can understand”
Accused a poster of being juvenile
Accused the same poster of “talking points” and “bullshit” and not having a “real discussion” (and all that in the subject line)
Accused the same poster of “vague handwaving”
Told poster to “grow up”. “take the tinfoil hat off” and “talk like a rational human being”
Asked if a poster can read
Accused posters of knee jerk reactions
Accused poster of being off the deep end
As well as answering every post with invective like a sad, failed, bully.

So, yeah, troll/jackass is about the mildest term possible.
Par for the course

[gcomeau]

101. Yeah... you might want to try actually reading the exchange...

For example, I was asking the other poster to stop their throwing around of the accusation of "talking points" and called their use of that accusation "bullshit". And if you want to question the characterization of it AS bullshit you might notice he was making that "talking points" accussation from the first post of the thread before anyone else had even commented as a pre-emptive characterization of anyone who might come along afterwards and disagree with them.

For another, I asked if the poster could read after they TWICE claimed I was making an argument that was EXACTLY THE POLAR OPPOSITE of something I had stated ridiculously clearly. At that point, the question was apt.


Knee jerk reaction? Refer again to content of that posters very first post in the thread, before anyone else had even made a comment.




How about instead of just listing the things I've said as if they're somehow incriminating you try making an argument that any of them weren't justified?

[WillyT]

7. Because... WE DON'T TRUST THEM !!!!

And the long history of lies and deceit doesn't help matters now.

The Church Committee was the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-ID) in 1975. A precursor to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the committee investigated intelligence gathering for illegality by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after certain activities had been revealed by the Watergate affair.

By the early years of the 1970s, the unpopularity of the Vietnam War and the unfolding Watergate scandal brought the era of minimal oversight to an abrupt halt.[according to whom?] The United States Congress was determined to rein in the Nixon administration and to ascertain the extent to which the nation's intelligence agencies had been involved in questionable, if not outright illegal, activities.

A series of troubling revelations started to appear in the press concerning intelligence activities. First came the revelations of Christopher Pyle in January 1970 of the U.S. Army's spying on the civilian population[1][2] and Sam Ervin's Senate investigations produced more revelations.[3] Then on December 22, 1974, The New York Times published a lengthy article by Seymour Hersh detailing operations engaged in by the CIA over the years that had been dubbed the "family jewels". Covert action programs involving assassination attempts against foreign leaders and covert attempts to subvert foreign governments were reported for the first time. In addition, the article discussed efforts by intelligence agencies to collect information on the political activities of US citizens.[4]

These revelations convinced many Senators and Representatives that the Congress itself had been too lax, trusting, and naive in carrying out its oversight responsibilities.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

We need to do this again.

[gcomeau]

9. Wow, compelling...

So WE DON'T TRUST THEM!!!! therefore any activity the NSA takes that does not involve every employee in the agency standing quietly in a corner completely immobile represents evidence of wrongdoing. So we have a picture of them doing something... and even though that something is entirely consistent with things the NSA is intended to be doing... OMG! People at the NSA are doing something! Everyone FREAK OUT!!!!!!

Brilliant.

[WillyT]

14. ...

DULink: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024955822

[gcomeau]

17. You're just reinforcing my point, you get that right?

There was wrongdoing over here... therefore EVERYTHING is evidence of wrongdoing!!!!

[randome]

18. Wrongdoing with the Bush Administration, to boot.

Wrongdoing that was 'corrected' (admittedly not to everyone's favor) by the current Administration.

But because the Bush Admin did some egregious things, we should be afraid for the rest of our lives!
[hr][font color="blue"][center]If you don't give yourself the same benefit of a doubt you'd give anyone else, you're cheating someone.[/center][/font][hr]

[KoKo]

30. Did you catch PBS Frontline: "United States of Secrets" (Part One) this week?

United States of Secrets (Part One)

How did the government come to spy on millions of Americans?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/view/

Next week is Part Two.

It's worth a watch and online at the link.

[gcomeau]

35. No, but I'll see if I can catch it later...

(Of course that has no bearing on the unsubstantiated conspiracy mongering surrounding the picture in the OP, which contains no information one would not expect to see if one were to snap a picture of NSA employees engaged in the exact activities they are *supposed* to be engaged in in the first place...)

[Logical]

112. LOL, temper temper! Nap time? nt

[grahamhgreen]

47. Yes, we understand - they are spying on the wrong people, inciting wars, and destabilizing the world

Do you understand that?

[gcomeau]

52. Wow, you got all that from the photo?

By all means, share the evidence you uncovered in the OP that shows us that these specific people are engaged in all those nefarious activities. I'd be fascinated to have you walk us through that.

[grahamhgreen]

102. No. I do understand your points. I hope you understand mine. What I'd like to see is evidence

that targets of the spying are engaged in nefarious activities and not just political activities.

[gcomeau]

103. In other words...

...you want the intelligence community to advertise the the general public the targets of all their operations so that you can personally give your approval of whether you think they're warranted.

That would be *brilliant*...

[grahamhgreen]

104. Yes. Why? They work for me and have zero credibility. They've jumped the shark and are over their

heads.

[gcomeau]

105. You understand that intelligence work...

...generally has SECRECY as a prerequisite for successful operations right? Most time if you, oh let's say, take out an ad in the NY Times telling your target where and how you're planning on spying on them things would tend not to go well. Just for example.

[grahamhgreen]

107. So does a police state. They work for us. They are spying on us. They failed on 9-11 & Iraq. They

have a non productive agenda for the world, in my view.

[gcomeau]

108. Oh joy, the false equivalence game.

This bad thing has secrecy, so secrecy bad!!!!!!

So does a doctor's office. So does a psychologist. THEY MUST BE UP TO SOMETHING NEFARIOUS, EXACTLY LIKE A POLICE STATE!



Do you or do you not think that there is any actual need for intelligence activities being performed by the government? Are you going to make an argument that they have neither the need nor the *responsibility* to know as much as they can about the world in which they are forming policy beyond whatever other governments and organizations simply decide to tell them?



Or are you simply going to argue we do need it, we just don't need it to actually, you know, be effective or work so we can totally conduct intelligence activities in full view of any target of those activities and just expect them to let us?

[grahamhgreen]

109. Sure, but the NSA should not be performing them. They seem to have been corrupted by the neo-cons.

We're better off disbanding them and starting anew - unless they are will to allow us to look into what they are doing.

In my view, fostering wars around the world (Iraq, Ukraine) for the proliferation of oil and gas interests at my expense is directly contrary to America's best interests, don't you agree?

[gcomeau]

110. And how would that help?

Is it some inherent property of the building the NSA is currently occupying or the acronym applied to them that allowed that to happen, so if we relocate them and give them a different name or something they'll suddenly act differently and be immune to having neocons find employment there?

[grahamhgreen]

111. Would you keep going back to the same doctors once you figured out that nothing was wrong with you,

but they kept you going in for needless surgeries so that they could have a job?

[gcomeau]

115. Now you're making me repeat my earlier question

That analogy to needless surgeries and nothing wrong with you only makes sense if you are trying to claim we don't need intelligence capabilities.

Are you claiming that or not?

[grahamhgreen]

121. In my view, the NSA is not providing intelligence for the American people. They are willfully

dismembering our Bill of Rights

We need intel..

They are not providing it.

We especially need intel on them, AKA transparency.

Course it's never to late for them to get on the right side of Democracy and our Constitution.

[gcomeau]

122. Because you have access to that intelligence and can make that evaluation???

We especially need intel on them, AKA transparency.

Do we really need to have the "spying is a necessarily secret activity" talk again???

[Savannahmann]

71. What part of the NSA Charter allows them to gather intelligence on US Citizens domestically?

I'll give you the answer. None. What that means is that the NSA is violating the Constitution. If you watched the PBS Frontline Special, they authorized the programs under Article 2 of the Constitution. That is the President as Commander in Chief if you are unsure.

So, what happened to the rest of it? The part about Congressional Oversight was ignored. The 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments were regularly ignored. So what part of unconstitional don't you understand?

[gcomeau]

73. What part of the activities described by this OP...

...establish that this has one damn thing to do with illicit domestic operations?

[Savannahmann]

75. Because it's one part of the overall spying program

I would be considered a lunatic if I objected to the NSA trying to spy on the Russians Security services. I would be considered a flake if I raised a stink about the NSA trying to spy on the Chinese Military. However, some of those routers that are being modified are used domestically, and that is against the law.

Since you choose to ignore the NSA reveals that have happened on Frontline, we can assume that you have no defense, and thus the point goes to me.

Your arguments are specious, and without merit, and can be discounted as they have been discredited long ago.

The actions of the NSA/FBI/DHS/GCHQ are indefensible. If I was the President, I would have sent the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department to arrest the lot of them ages ago, and shut them down. All that spying has not revealed one terrorist threat to the United States or it's people. All it does is allow the perverts at the NSA to watch teenaged girls getting undressed on the webcams in their rooms. Now, since you think that this is exactly what the NSA is supposed to do, I have to wonder about you. You wouldn't be Agent Mike afraid that you're going to lose your access to the teenaged girls are you?

[gcomeau]

76. Ah... another one of those.

The NSA did this bad thing over here... therefore everything the NSA does is bad...

Therefore as this is a picture of NSA people doing stuff... they're up to no good!


Your logic is impeccable.

[Octafish]

83. You really should learn why NSA spying on Americans is so, uh, wrong.

The late Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) explained:

“That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

-- Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) FDR New Deal, Liberal, Progressive, World War II combat veteran. A brave man, the NSA was turned on him. Coincidentally, he narrowly lost re-election a few years later.

Sen. Church was a patriot, a hero and a statesman, truly a great American. The guy also led the last real investigation of CIA, NSA and FBI. And what happened to Church, for his trouble to preserve Democracy:

In 1980, Church will lose re-election to the Senate in part because of accusations of his committee’s responsibility for Welch’s death by his Republican opponent, Jim McClure.

SOURCE: http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=frank_church_1

From GWU's National Security Archives:

"Disreputable if Not Outright Illegal": The National Security Agency versus Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, Art Buchwald, Frank Church, et al.

Newly Declassified History Divulges Names of Prominent Americans Targeted by NSA during Vietnam Era

Declassification Decision by Interagency Panel Releases New Information on the Berlin Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Panama Canal Negotiations

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 441
Posted – September 25, 2013
Originally Posted - November 14, 2008
Edited by Matthew M. Aid and William Burr

Washington, D.C., September 25, 2013 – During the height of the Vietnam War protest movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the National Security Agency tapped the overseas communications of selected prominent Americans, most of whom were critics of the war, according to a recently declassified NSA history. For years those names on the NSA's watch list were secret, but thanks to the decision of an interagency panel, in response to an appeal by the National Security Archive, the NSA has released them for the first time. The names of the NSA's targets are eye-popping. Civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King and Whitney Young were on the watch list, as were the boxer Muhammad Ali, New York Times journalist Tom Wicker, and veteran Washington Post humor columnist Art Buchwald. Also startling is that the NSA was tasked with monitoring the overseas telephone calls and cable traffic of two prominent members of Congress, Senators Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Howard Baker (R-Tennessee).

SNIP...

Another NSA target was Senator Frank Church, who started out as a moderate Vietnam War critic. A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee even before the Tonkin Gulf incident, Church worried about U.S. intervention in a "political war" that was militarily unwinnable. While Church voted for the Tonkin Gulf resolution, he later saw his vote as a grave error. In 1965, as Lyndon Johnson made decisions to escalate the war, Church argued that the United States was doing "too much," criticisms that one White House official said were "irresponsible." Church had been one of Johnson's Senate allies but the President was angry with Church and other Senate critics and later suggested that they were under Moscow's influence because of their meetings with Soviet diplomats. In the fall of 1967, Johnson declared that "the major threat we have is from the doves" and ordered FBI security checks on "individuals who wrote letters and telegrams critical of a speech he had recently delivered." In that political climate, it is not surprising that some government officials eventually nominated Church for the watch list.[10]

SOURCE: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB441/

I wonder if Sen. Richard Schweiker (R-CT) also got the treatment from NSA?

“I think that the (Warren Commission) report, to those who have studied it closely, has collapsed like a house of cards, and I think the people who read it in the long run future will see that. I frankly believe that we have shown that the (investigation of the) John F. Kennedy assassination was snuffed out before it even began, and that the fatal mistake the Warren Commission made was not to use its own investigators, but instead to rely on the CIA and FBI personnel, which played directly into the hands of senior intelligence officials who directed the cover-up.” — Senator Richard Schweiker on “Face the Nation” in 1976.

Lost to History NOT

[gcomeau]

84. Perhaps first...

...you should show me where anything in this OP involves the NSA spying on Americans rather than legitimate foreign intelligence targets? Might have saved you a lot of copying and pasting and typing.

[Octafish]

86. No. You first.

As for the copy and pasting, it's all sourced.

You ever hear of Frank Church before today?

[gcomeau]

87. Me first *what* exactly?

And I really don't care if your material is all sourced, I'm not disputing that spying on Americans is bad, or that the NSA has done it. Get it? I'm pointing out the itsy bitsy detail that that is a different subject than the OP is dealing with, unless you can point to anything up there that establishes this is part of domestic surveillance activities.

[Octafish]

88. NSA spying on Americans is illegal.

Apart from Cheney and Addington, you're one of the few people I've read who doesn't see it that way.

[gcomeau]

89. Good grief, are you even bothering to read what I'm typing?

I. Am. Not. Disputing. That.


Pay attention, and try responding with something that has some relationship to what I'm writing.

[Octafish]

91. That's why I wrote what I wrote.

I read what you typed. My takeaway from same in italics:

For some reason, NSA intercepting routers and cramming their own things into them is OK if it's to gather intelligence.

Why it bothers me, sans italics:

That's what Cheney and Addington and their ilk believed when they decided it was OK to turn the NSA on American citizens.

[gcomeau]

93. And...

...if those routers are then heading overseas to networks that are legitimate intelligence targets then yes, it actually IS ok...

Also from the OP:

"These Trojan horse systems were described by an NSA manager as being “some of the most productive operations in TAO because they pre-position access points into hard target networks around the world.”


Now I repeat, what information do you have that those routers up there in this specific OP have illicit domestic destinations? Or are we just playing the "The NSA is doing something... freak out!!!!!!" game?

[Supersedeas]

124. right on schedule

[dembotoz]

8. so my computer runs like shit because of the nsa and not the porn.....

[jmowreader]

43. It's probably the viruses you got from the porn

Get another machine to view porn on, and run it under FreeBSD or Linux. The porn-virus writers don't seem to be targeting those yet.

[villager]

11. In any case, the apologists certainly arrived, like clockwork

[Katashi_itto]

19. +1000

[m-lekktor]

21. the other day one was proclaiming

they don't make routers in the USA!

remember it's ok when a DEM is in the whitehouse

[cstanleytech]

36. So did the trolls. nt

[villager]

39. indeed, the pro-NSA trolls are here in force

[cstanleytech]

41. I wasnt talking about them.

[villager]

42. But you shoulda been -- they are here, sticking to script!

[cstanleytech]

44. Except they didnt show up until after someone posted a taunt that was sure to draw them in

[villager]

67. "We were made to do it!"

Where have we heard that bleat before?

[Logical]

113. True, the NSA has trolls here I am sure! nt

[grahamhgreen]

49. Well, that's what they get paid to do, isn't it!

[randome]

16. So is this much noise made when the FBI wiretaps someone?

When a local detective is authorized to investigate someone? What is it about this process that is supposed to be objectionable? The fact that law enforcement actively investigates suspects and wiretaps?

Where is the evidence in this article that NSA employees are doing anything but their job?

I swear, it's like waving a flag in front of a raging bull. No one has even mentioned something that's objectionable yet. Unless it's 'Obey the Constitution!' kind of hysteria.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]If you don't give yourself the same benefit of a doubt you'd give anyone else, you're cheating someone.[/center][/font][hr]

[DesMoinesDem]

24. I'm disappointed. I thought for sure you'd go with your 'there is no proof' argument.

Greenwald is trying to use an NSA newsletter as proof of something? Obviously Snowden just made that newsletter in his box filled garage with his fiance while trying to figure out what ftp is.

Thinking about your arguments always makes me laugh. Good times.

[randome]

26. Again, what do you find objectionable here?

Make it simple for my simple mind, please.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]“If you're not committed to anything, you're just taking up space.”
Gregory Peck, Mirage (1965)[/center][/font][hr]

[DesMoinesDem]

28. I object that you didn't claim that the NSA newsletter wasn't proof of anything.

It's my favorite defense from NSA apologists. I think you're the only one that uses it so it disappoints me when you don't.

[grahamhgreen]

55. No warrants.

[randome]

78. From where does that leap of logic derive?

I can understand it if they were spying on American citizens but that's not what this is about, is it? At least the article doesn't address that.

It's actually not much of an article but it sure pushes some poster's buttons, doesn't it?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]

[snooper2]

20. nice to see the NSA use the baby blue console cable like the rest of the world

I guess these "targets" don't ever do any traffic analysis LOL

[melm00se]

25. laws and technology

laws have (especially when it comes to technological advances) lagged behind the times.

Wiretapping came into existence at almost the same time as the invention of the telegraph (1840's) and evolved as the telegraph became the telephone (1880's) yet the 1st federal regulations on wiretapping didn't come into existence until 1934. The FEderal Communications Act stated:

…no person not being authorized by the sender shall intercept any communication and divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of such intercepted communications to any person

notice the "and" between intercept and divulge.

this 3 letter word freed up the government to wiretap as long as they did not divulge the information.

This changed in the 60's when Congress passed the first law to attempt to regulate wiretapping which was more a century after the invention of the 1st kind of electronic communication.

This spread between the invention of the device and laws regulating it's privacy has shrunk over the years. The mobile phone was (arguably) invented in the early 70's, it took more than a decade for a law to be passed protecting the cellphone user (1986).

the laws will continue to evolve as technology continues to evolve but will continue to lag behind the technology.

Even as the laws evolve, a quick review of the laws themselves shows that it is easy to see how the laws were interpreted to apply only to domestic matters but not to international (or national defense) matters. Administrations since Hoover's have actively monitored other countries' electronic communications both during war and peace time and will, for the foreseeable future, continue to do so. Ditto for areas that might fall under the heading of treason.

This interpretation is why the government appears (allegedly) to be intercepting telecommunications gear destined for other countries to fulfill their national defense obligations.

The big concern (obviously) is if the defenders of the nation turn their eyes inside our own borders.

[villager]

37. Sadly, the laws seem to be "devolving," more than anything

The technology far outstrips the "protections" offered to citizens.

And no one in "either" party has much stomach to stand up to the entrenched MIC at this point...

[KoKo]

50. They already have...and broke the existing laws and tried to stop the new laws

from being put in place to protects the People who should come First and Not the Government who has many more tools at their disposal to use against the People as they have been doing:


PBS: Frontline: (In case you missed it, you can watch it online at the link)

United States of Secrets (Part One)
How did the government come to spy on millions of Americans?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/view/

Part Two is Next Week focusing on the Internet Companies..and the rest of the story..

[Stingray steve]

27. And this is evidence of what exactly ?

That a spy agency is spying ?
oh good Lord

[MohRokTah]

60. I'm SHOCKED, SCHOCKED I SAY That our spy agencies actually, you know, SPY! eom

I

[Trekologer]

123. I'm slightly more shocked at the outrage from congress critters

The spy agency, that they constantly reauthorize to perform blanket spying operations without question, is spying. Especially Sensenbrenner, who wrote the damned thing.

[951-Riverside]

29. THEY'RE PROTECTING US FROM TERRORISTS!

YOU KNOW ...THE SAME PEOPLE WHO ATTACKED US ON 9/11!

[gcomeau]

63. You do realize...

...that in this particular case that statement belongs here sarcasm free right? This is how *completely legitimate intelligence targets* can be penetrated. So boy, it sure is great that somebody took it upon themselves to broadcast that to the world... (That last sentence there? THAT is where the sarcasm belongs)

[sendero]

74. Our "intelligence" and LE agencies..

... are so adept that with all this surveillance and TWO warnings they couldn't catch the Boston Marathon bomber.

They are Keystone Cops, who LIED THEIR ASSES OFF first claiming to have foiled 20 terror plots then 50 and then.. zero, the surveillance has jack shit to do with terror and the biggest losers will be Cisco and other high-profile American companies making network equipment - who wants to buy compromised equipment?

Way to go NSA.

[MohRokTah]

31. The traitor who divulged this belongs in prison

This was a REAL way to gather REAL intelligence on foreign national activities. It's a crime to divulge this.

[villager]

33. The traitors shredding the 4th Amendment belong in prison

There are REAL ways to get REAL intelligence while maintaining REAL checks and balances in the remnants of our democracy.

[Stingray steve]

45. And you think that this...

Story crosses the line in someway ?

[villager]

85. And you think story in some way does not?

You signed up on DU just to defend NSA overreach?

[msanthrope]

48. How does the activity described above violate the 4th amendment? nt

?

[MohRokTah]

58. I would agree with you. What is described in the story does NOT violate the 4th

So I have no idea WTF you are talking about WRT this story.

[Octafish]

81. + 1776 NT

[grahamhgreen]

53. No, the traitors who shipped all our chip manufacturing to China deserve prison!

[alarimer]

79. You should be more upset at the fact that this is happening.

I bet you would be if this was revealed during the Bush Administration.

[MohRokTah]

98. I'm PROUD this is happening.

Fucking awesome they would insert their firmware before this equipment reaches China

FUCKING AWESOME!!!

[Logical]

114. The NSA loves you being scared! nt

[MohRokTah]

116. The tinfoil actually INCREASES the mind control rays! eom

[Logical]

119. Terrorists are everywhere! They kill many weekly! Wait.....

Actually they don't! But stay afraid!

[Aerows]

51. Half of the folks in this thread, indeed most of them

wouldn't know a server room if they fell in a removed slab on a steel server floor.

This isn't a joke.

If you think Network personnel aren't pissed off that this is inhibiting their ability to secure the firms the work for, I cannot express how wrong-headed that is.

Some of you pretend it is an attack on the Administration, and I get that, everything is political. But when it starts to impede businesses, it impacts everyday Americans. It isn't comedy. When people have to work 70-90 hour weeks because of this, it impacts their families, too.

But hey, laugh it up. It's hilarious.

[villager]

65. As you say, it's amazing how easily all of this is dismissed...

but then, each new revelation we get is more vociferously dismissed than the last...

[Aerows]

68. It is regarded as strictly a political attack on President Obama

when it has wide repercussions that a lot of folks don't want to hear about. Do you honestly think that news of widespread government infiltration of private and public networks isn't going to alarm the people that depend on them for business?

That is going to impact human beings. Not some nebulous Cliven Bundy hater, but those that are Democrats, too. And it is going to impact them harshly. Not because Snowden shouldn't have said anything, but because the government shouldn't have been doing this in the first place

[villager]

69. Exactly. It's a strange, narrow panic-response, causing more and more rhetorical knots

...until they imagine they are "progressive" while defending the spying policies of Dick Cheney.

Never mind the wider implications, as you note, of how non-government entities will fare in world markets, because of this...

[Octafish]

80. We've fallen a long way since Inslaw/PROMIS

http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/inslaw.html

[Aerows]

82. It's the same old thing, different day

Drug wars. Excuses to search without a warrant. This is an expansion of that on a broad scale.

[elias49]

90. Now THERE"S a story!

I wonder how many NSA defenders are familiar with the Inslaw/Octopus mess. Started in the 80s and got uglier and uglier. I rememer Danny Casolaro ending up dead under suspicious circumstances....that's what can happen when you fuck with the government. Edward Snowden clearly knew enough not to stick around.
We'll see where this goes I suppose. Or not.

[krawhitham]

92. That photo does not show or prove shit

And what kind of idiot does not load the latest firmware on a new router anyway?

It sounds like BS, you do not need a "load station" to flash a router. You just log into the router using any browser, select the bin file and press go

[elias49]

95. You should apply for a job

with the NSA! You seem to really know your stuff!

[moondust]

99. Well, if there is any truth to it,

it should be fairly easily for an "expert" to spot the NSA's hardware inside the device and/or decompile and examine the "beacon" firmware for the NSA code that "phones home" with data or whatever.

Any takers?

(I, too, get the sense that somebody may know more about writing books and telling stories than about flashing different versions of firmware from various sources such as DD-WRT, Tomato, etc.)

[Logical]

120. Maybe a non-tech user! LOL! nt

[WillyT]

96. Hey grahamhgreen... Did You Catch This ???

DULink: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024959805

[woo me with science]

106. K&R

[Aerows]

118. Here is my take on this

And I want everyone who defends the NSA, etc. to really think about this, especially the people that work for them or contractors that do.

It's really easy to think about this in abstract terms when it is somebody you don't know. The problem is that when there is that much power at the fingertips of that many people, no matter how much power YOU think you have, this kind of thing will end up impacting YOU or someone you love.

Law Enforcement agencies are using this information to prosecute people and don't tell the defense where they got it. Do you honestly think that eventually, the chickens won't come home to roost and impact YOUR life? Because it will. When you make a monster, eventually it arrives at your door.

Don't bother responding with the "but they aren't really doing x, y & z" equivocations, because we all know they are. This was just a food for thought post that you should think very hard about defending a program that will someday impact your life either on you or someone you care about.