Creating a Surveillance State

The N.S.A.

Katherine Weiss

Layout:• Background and Beginnings of the NSA

• Creation of the NSA

• Church Committee and FISA

• Atmosphere before and after 9/11

• Wednesday Night Massacre

• AT&T

• Edward Snowden

What year was the NSA created?

Early beginnings• Code and Cipher Decryption Unit

• Cipher Bureau and Military Intelligence Branch, Section 8 MI-8

• Headed by Herbert Yardley

• Ended in 1929 by U.S. Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson

Early beginnings• Signal Security Agency• Created during World War II

• Army Security Agency

• Armed Forces Security Agency

National Security Agency• October 24th, 1952

• Presidential directive

• “to provide an effective, unified organization and control of the communications intelligence activities of the United States conducted against foreign governments, to provide for integrated operational policies and procedures pertaining thereto.”

Church Committee• 1975, U.S. Senate Select

Committee

• Study of governmental operation with respect to Intelligence activity

• Involved the CIA, FBI, and NSA

• Frank Church, Chairman, Democrat

Foreign Intelligence surveillance act

• Signed into law on October 6th, 1978 by President Carter

• Created to provide oversight of the Government’s covert surveillance activities of foreign entities

• Establishment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court

• Oversee requests for surveillance warrants

General Michael Hayden• Director of the NSA 1999-2005

Thinthread• Developed by William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe

• Data collection and information processing system

• Cost-effective, efficient, easy to understand, anonymous

• Complex filters to sift through data

• Rejected in favor of Trail Blazer

• (Which was abandoned in 2006 as a 1.2 bil. flop)

General Michael Hayden• Director of the NSA 1999-2005

• Culture against domestic spying

• Fear of repercussions

A shift in the agency

Before 9/11 After 9/11

“Hayden would often say that the NSA had long been ‘gatherers’, passively picking information from the airwaves as it passed by. Now they would become ‘hunters’ actively going after that information wherever it was”

• The standard for probable cause to surveillance others is much lower

• Those deemed “suspicious” would be targeted

• Culture against domestic spying

• Fear of repercussions

A shift in the agency

Before 9/11 After 9/11

Champions of executive power

“Wednesday night massacre”

• Shows internal fracturing within the administration

• Shows use of intimidation tactics

• Key players:

• Jack Goldsmith

• John Ashcroft

• James Comey

• Andrew Card

• Alberto Gonzales

Jack Goldsmith:Head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel

John Ashcroft:US Attorney General

James Comey:Deputy Attorney General

Andrew Card:White House Chief of Staff

Alberto Gonzales:White House Counsel

“Wednesday night massacre”

• Shows internal fracturing within the administration

• Shows use of intimidation tactics

• Key players:

• Jack Goldsmith

• John Ashcroft

• James Comey

• Andrew Card

• Alberto Gonzales

VSASHCROFTCOMEY

CARDGONZALES

AT&T INVOLVEMENT• Secret rooms in cities across the country

• Whistleblower Mark Klein

• Optical Splitters

• Hepting v. AT&T

2008 FISA Amendment acts• Expanded powers

• Prohibits individual states from investigating, sanctioning of, or requiring disclosure by complicit telecoms or other persons

• Grants telecommunication companies immunity for cooperation with authorities

• Removes requirements for detailed descriptions of the nature of information of targeted by the surveillance if the target is reasonably believed to be outside the country

• Increased time for warrantless surveillance to 7 days

• Allows eavesdropping in emergencies without court approval

• Comprehensive review within one year

• New provisions were extended until Dec. 2017

Edward Snowden• Traitor?

• Coward?

• Patriot?

The Edward snowden case

• June 5, 2013: The Guardian began its series of articles about the surveillance activities of the NSA

• June 9, 2013: Edward Snowden Reveals himself to the media

• June 14, 2013: U.S. Justice Department charges Snowden

• June 23, 2013: Snowden leaves for Ecuador, gets stranded in Russia.

• August 1, 2013: Granted temporary asylum by Russian authorities

• August 7, 2014: Snowden granted an extension to stay in Russia for 3 more years

Revelations

1.The NSA is collecting mass amounts of metadata

2.NSA program PRISM

3.Monitoring credit card transaction of AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon customers

4.NSA Spying on foreign countries and world leaders

Thoughts?

Questions?

Works cited• Bamford, James. The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America's Most Secret Agency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982.

• Bamford, James. The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America. New York: Doubleday, 2008.

• CNN Library. "September 11th Hijackers Fast Facts." The Guardian. September 8, 2014.

• Eggen, Dan, and Paul Kane. "Gonzales Hospital Episode Detailed." The Washington Post. May 16, 2007.

• "FISA Court Motions Requesting Public Access to Rulings on NSA Bulk Surveillance." American Civil Liberties Union.

• Friedersdorf, Conor. "82 Years Before Edward Snowden, There Was Herbert O. Yardley." The Atlantic. December 4, 2013.

• Grabianowski, Ed. "How the Patriot Act Works." How Stuff Works. July 6, 2007.

• Greenwald, Glenn. No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2014.

• Kane, Paul. "Obama Supports FISA Legislation, Angering Left." The Washington Post. June 20, 2008.

Works cited• Lichtblau, Eric. Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice. New York: Pantheon Books, 2008.

• Mayer, Jane. "The Secret Sharer." The New Yorker. May 23, 2011.

• "Mission." National Security Agency Central Security Service. 15 Apr. 2011. Web.

• "National Security Agency (NSA)." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 08 Sep. 2014.

• "NSA Transition to 2001." Electronic Frontier Foundation. Dec. 2000. Web.

• Pilkington, Ed. "Declassified NSA Files Show Agency Spied on Muhammad Ali and MLK." The Guardian. September 26, 2013.

• "Reform the Patriot Act | Section 215." American Civil Liberties Union. https://www.aclu.org/free-speech-national-security-technology-and-liberty/reform-patriot-act-section-215.

• Savage, Charlie. "Obama to Call for End to N.S.A.'s Bulk Data Collection." The New York Times. March 24, 2014.

Works cited

• "The National Security Agency (NSA) Controversy: Timeline." Discoverthenetworks.org. Mar. 2014. Web.

• "Timeline of NSA Domestic Spying." Electronic Frontier Foundation. https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/timeline.

• "What Was the Saturday Night Massacre." History. December 4, 2013. http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/what-was-the-saturday-night-massacre