The Edward Snowden Affair

by Michael Gurnow

  The surveillance debate has intensified since June 5 and lent new perspectives upon the concept of the safety technology can provide. The underlying political issue is who has the right to particular varieties of information.

  The public believes there are two types of conversations, public and private. The intelligence community doesn’t agree. In the Internet Age, a person can “Like” the activity of fishing enough to let the world know by making it public knowledge on one’s Facebook profile. The individual can also choose to obtain a vanity Facebook URL by confidentially submitting one’s telephone number to the social networking site. The phone number is used for authorization purposes to verify the request is coming from the Facebook account holder. Though it is not placed online, the number is nonetheless (questionably) stored on the company’s servers. David Omand, former head of GCHQ, has no problem with collecting the publicly-known fact Bob likes fishing along with his cell number via Facebook’s FISC order permitting the U.S. government access to the information.61 For the watchers, there is no line dividing what an individual puts on the Internet and what people have privately entrusted to another party, be it a website, bank, doctor or telephone company.

  Government spies also scoff at the notion of intellectual property rights. Bought-and-sold politicians agree. If something is publicly or privately posted online, it automatically becomes the property of the website’s owner. (This is also why most businesses permit and encourage employees to use their company-issued phones and email accounts for personal communications—the firms have legal license to review an employee’s private network and communications, because they own the devices and programs and therefore the data on them.) It is an absurd proposition analogous to stating an individual surrenders rightful ownership of a vehicle to a bank when it is parked on property whose tenant has yet to pay the mortgage in full. This policy refuses to acknowledge the resources and labor provided by the Facebook account holder, i.e., the computer used to access the social networking site, time it took to create a profile and mental ingenuity in deciding how and what to say about oneself. It is understood that the website has issued the venue which, in turn, makes the information available worldwide but the skewed exchange undermines the statement that profiles are “free.” No profit sharing is offered the user. Without account holders, social networking sites would be empty voids on lonely servers and not multinational corporate affairs.

  In the surveillance communities’ opinion, everything is public domain and no one has the right to ask “Do you mind?” to someone eavesdropping on a conversation. Their argument is that if a person doesn’t want what is being said to be known (by whomever), the individual best not speak at all. In the cloakand-dagger world of data mining, the person having a discussion cannot reasonably expect privacy, because the individual is voicing one’s thoughts, period. It does not matter whether they are spoken in confidence and directed to a particular person, much like an email is addressed “To: Bob” and not “To: Bob; Bcc: The NSA.” If the speaker is naïve enough to say something at a volume where a microphone can detect it, it is de facto public knowledge. Whereas government surveillance only exchanges the recorded conversation with its own kind, corporate surveillance broadcasts the discussion to anyone who is willing to pay to hear it. In the surveillance world, the only guarantee of privacy is dead silence.

  The U.S. government knows the difference but deliberately ignores it. It does not want a distinction to be made, because it would restrict its power and the power of those who fund political campaigns: defense contractors, telecoms, Internet companies, corporate retailers, fast food enterprises and multimillion-dollar data mining firms. The last thing the U.S. government or private business wants is account holders to have control over their own information.

  Snowden’s skepticism of political solutions is understandable. The people who were hired to watch the watchmen did a poor job. American citizens were told their rights were being protected as a secret oversight court rubberstamped itself into extraneousness while never bothering to see what the NSA might be hiding. Regardless whether a new law is created or a task force is assigned, it can be expected that parties in possession of private information will continue to swear a consumer’s data is sacrosanct and they would never dream of violating a client’s privacy; all the while information is being steadily placed on the open market, swapped and surveilled. Every data mining opt-out form absolves itself by including the clause that the representative business cannot guarantee a person’s information will not conveniently fall into the company’s lap at a later date. If a causal web search produces an individual’s home address alongside the resident’s place of employment, a robber can look up the employer’s hours of operation and know when the house will likely be vacant. When situations like these are presented to those in power, the ball of accountability is bounced back and forth as witnessed when the U.S. government and telecoms pointed the finger of blame at one another after Greenwald exposed Verizon. No one is held accountable, violations continue and people are put at risk. Snowden was correct once again. Current surveillance practices make us less safe.

  Regardless of how futile a circumstance may appear, it is instinct to try to defend oneself from perceived harm. Both businesses and private citizens reacted to the disclosures, some rather violently.

  The NSA leaker’s influence upon world economics has already been felt. Two months after the first disclosure reports showed cloud services’ security had been compromised, 10 percent of network-based services and storage units provided by U.S. companies had been lost.63 It is estimated American businesses will lose $35 million over three years to foreign cloud enterprises.64 Simon Wardley, an executive at the Leading Edge Forum think tank, loved the surveillance revelations, because he knew the end result, “Do I like Prism? Yes, and God bless America and the NSA for handing this golden opportunity to us. Do I think we should be prepared to go the whole hog, ban U.S. services and create a 100 billon euro investment fund for small tech startups in Europe to boost the market? Oh yes, without hesitation.”65 One American business that ironically failed to suffer as a result of the Snowden affair was Booz Allen Hamilton. It renewed its contract with the U.S. government two months after Snowden went public. Along with 16 other companies, the intelligence contractor signed a six billion-dollar deal good for five years.66 Each company will average $75 million per year.

  Of all of the responses to the Snowden affair by the American public, the most interesting and distinctive was its approach to technology. People quickly set to slaying the 21st-century Argus, the all-seeing Greek god with 100 eyes for which the panopticon was named. Many fled from the U.S. government’s “architecture of oppression,” starting with the companies and products named in the disclosures. Google was replaced by search engines which allow users to surf the Internet anonymously.67 Likewise, Google Chrome and Microsoft Internet Explorer were traded for proxy browsers. The proceeding weeks would reveal this was one of the NSA’s greatest fears. Even though XKeyscore was shown to be able to reveal and decrypt information traveling through these pathways, the intelligence agency was reported to have difficulty tracking randomly rerouted, encrypted communications.68 Others understood Snowden’s logic as it was relayed to Appelbaum, “As a general rule, U.S.-based multinationals should not be trusted until they prove otherwise.” Aside from the 11 cited Internet companies, at least 69 international corporations have yet to be named. After quoting American novelist William S. Burroughs, “A paranoid man is a man who knows a little about what’s going on,”69 IT professionals suggested swapping Windows operating system with programs run by independent distributors. Security experts pointed out free, open-source software lets people see for themselves that a backdoor hasn’t been installed. Some found smartphone camera apps which do not log a picture’s GPS. Many reluctantly gave up Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest.70

  The truly worried encrypted their home computers. They found similar technology for text
ing and calls. But they were aware this was a speed bump at best. Though one of the godfathers of encryption technology, Phil Zimmermann, observed, “The fact that they [intelligence agencies] use PGP [Pretty Good Privacy] for government users indicates that they haven’t broken it, otherwise they’d have stopped using it,”71 Snowden had made one thing abundantly clear. When asked by MacAskill, “Is it possible to put security in place to protect against state surveillance?” the whistleblower responded, “You are not even aware of what is possible. The extent of their capabilities is horrifying. [ … ] Once you go on the network, I can identify your machine. You will never be safe whatever protections you put in place.”72 Even though he reported “encryption works” and suggested financially rewarding software and hardware designers which prove their privacy reliability, Snowden was aware the NSA’s budget is outpacing the whole of civilian technology. It is only a matter of time before Jaguar-cum-Titan peels back encryption as if it was a candy wrapper.

  But one of the lessons learned from the disclosures is email is a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t privacy conundrum. It had been shown that, left open, the NSA can easily read an email’s metadata and contents. If encrypted, it is NSA policy to capture, decrypt, read and store the communication. There was also the problem of location. Though Levison urged Internet businesses to operate offshore to evade unmerited NSL orders, it left no quarter for people wanting a secure email provider. An email service residing outside the Five Eyes’ domain generates a foreign communication signature and the NSA and GCHQ make of hobby of snatching up third-party and “foreign” data. Levinson opted to go without email.73 Most reluctantly admitted they couldn’t afford this luxury. They chose encrypted email accounts whose files were regularly dumped to dissuade potential court orders. Their argument is if American intelligence is going to surveil any and all electronic correspondence, the users could at least make it worth the spies’ time. Some even accentuated the point by mocking the NSA. Various pundits urged users to copy the intelligence agency into every email to save it the effort of having to track the communication.74 The outcome is referred to as a denialof-service attack, which slows or shuts down a server. These protestors are aware this wouldn’t stop the surveillance state, but content themselves knowing that it will at least consume NSA agents’ time and energy.75

  The “Information Lockdown” response to privacy invasion was countered by Snowden’s nightmare. After reviewing the NSA’s capabilities, others willfully surrendered to Clapper and his coalition, claiming it was impossible to function in modern society without technology and any preventative measures were not only time-consuming, but ultimately futile. But a third group emerged, the antipode to those who dove deeper into the complexities of the IT world. It admired Information Lockdown’s integrity and agreed with the latter half of the Clapper’s Children philosophy. However, it criticized Clapper’s Children for giving up so easily and said those who were willing to wave the white flag before so much as stepping foot on the electronic battlefield, had sold their privacy for a handful of customized coupons. The third group’s ideology was simple. The NSA can’t surveil what isn’t there. They turned in their phones, cancelled their social networking accounts and only use email for business purposes. The Levinsons chose to leave nothing but an envelope’s metadata for the authorities to scan and record. The neo-Luddites argue there is little use in owning a cell phone if it has to be kept in the refrigerator and, unlike email, it is much harder to hide the fact a letter’s contents have been read. And perhaps this will be a prevailing model: the technological haves and have-nots. This is one of the inadvertent gains from the surveillance debacle. U.S. intelligence has offered society the opportunity to step away from the cold, automated, quasi-human interaction of electronic communication and return to a conversational dynamic which is more rewarding and genuine. If this becomes the diametrically opposed standard, though American intelligence used the technology found in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World to achieve its Orwellian objective, privacy’s salvation might ironically lie in Huxley’s character of John Savage.

  The underlying philosophical issue is whether liberty and security are mutually exclusive ideas. Some critics of Snowden state the surveillance debate is overreaction and only those who have something to hide need worry. Snowden’s supporters are quick to inquire whether these critics use account passwords other than “1234” and, if not, why they are concerned if a random person reads their email. Bill O’Reilly made a fine point by highlighting a history of surveilled information that had been used to undermine political or economic opposition. Other privacy advocates, such as the anonymous collective behind the encrypted email provider Riseup.net, argue surveillance is used as a weapon to induce conformity:

  What surveillance really is, at its root, is a highly effective form of social control. The knowledge of always being watched changes our behavior and stifles dissent. The inability to associate secretly means there is no longer any possibility for free association. The inability to whisper means there is no longer any speech that is truly free of coercion, real or implied. Most profoundly, pervasive surveillance threatens to eliminate the most vital element of both democracy and social movements: the mental space for people to form dissenting and unpopular views.76

  Many journalists utilize anonymous web browsers to evade detection when exposing human rights violations.77 The same programming is used by drug traffickers.78 So the question ultimately becomes whether an individual is willing to surrender the sale of knives because there is the potential the cutlery could be used as a murder weapon.79 But the analogy is a metaphorical Dutch door. It could symbolize the argument for surveillance or free speech; its value lies in representing the current political atmosphere. There is no gray area in which to reach a compromise, because those entrusted to protect the people have abused their power. The American populace is being forced to choose between liberty and safety. Freedom of speech and expression carries the inherent risk of personal danger at the expense of absolute security. Perfect safety eliminates freedom and privacy.

  Appendix:

  Chronology of disclosures supplied by Snowden

  The Guardian – G | The Washington Post – WP | South China Morning Post – SCMP | Der Spiegel – DS | O Globo – OG | Rede Globo – RG | Epoca – E | Fantastico – F | Norddeutscher Rundfunk/North German Broadcasting – NGB | Süddeutsche Zeitung – SZ | The Wall Street Journal – WSJ | The Age – A | ProPublica – PP | * – accompanying documentation

  DATE PUBLICATION ARTICLE TITLE

  While in Hong Kong

  Wednesday, June 5 G “NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily”*

  Thursday, June 6 G “NSA Prism program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others”*

  Thursday, June 6 WP “U.S. Intelligence Mining Data From Nine U.S. Internet Companies In Broad Secret Program”*

  Friday, June 7 G “Obama orders US to draw up overseas target list for cyber-attacks”*

  Friday, June 7 WP “U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program” (rewrite of previous article)*

  Friday, June 7 G “UK gathering secret intelligence via covert NSA operation”

  Saturday, June 8 G “Boundless Informant: the NSA’s secret tool to track global surveillance data”*

  Sunday, June 9 G Poitras Interview, Pt. I (12 minutes)

  Friday, June 13 SCMP “Edward Snowden: US government has been hacking Hong Kong and China for years”

  Saturday, June 14 SCMP “Edward Snowden: Classified US data shows Hong Kong hacking targets”

  Sunday, June 16 G “GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians’ communications at G20 summits”*

  Monday, June 17 G Online chat

  Thursday, June 20 G “The top secret rules that allow NSA to use US data without a warrant”*

  Friday, June 21 G “GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world’s communications”*

  Saturday
, June 22 SCMP “Snowden reveals more US cyberspying details”

  Saturday, June 22 SCMP “US spies on Chinese mobile phone companies, steals SMS data: Edward Snowden”

  Saturday, June 22 SCMP “NSA targeted China’s Tsinghua University in extensive hacking attacks, says Snowden”

  While in Pre-Asylum Russia

  Thursday, June 27 G “How the NSA is still harvesting your online data”

  Thursday, June 27 G “NSA collected US email records in bulk for more than two years under Obama”*

  Saturday, June 29 DS “NSA Spied on European Union Offices”

  Sunday, June 30 G “New NSA leaks show how US is bugging its European allies”*

  Sunday, June 30 DS “NSA Snoops on 500 Million German Data Connections”

  Monday, July 1 DS “How the NSA Targets Germany and Europe”*

  Saturday, July 6 OG “U.S. spied on millions of e-mails and calls of Brazilians”*

  Saturday, July 6 OG “U.S. expands the surveillance apparatus continuously”*

  Sunday, July 7 RG 8-minute television report with previously unpublished classified documentation concerning the NSA’s surveillance of Brazil*

  Monday, July 8 DS Appelbaum interview

  Monday, July 8 OG “NSA and CIA have maintained staff in Brasilia to collect satellite data”

  Tuesday, July 9 OG “U.S. spies spread through Latin America”*

  Thursday, July 11 G “Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages”

  Friday, July 12 — G9 meeting

  Saturday, July 20 DS “‘Prolific Partner’: German Intelligence Used NSA Spy Program”