One of the major points of contention during this debate over the National Security Agency is whether analysts are allowed to read anyone’s email and listen to anyone’s phone calls as a matter of legally-sanctioned policy, or if they’re simply capable of doing it, regardless of rules preventing it. Former Booz Allen Hamilton IT analyst Edward Snowden famously said to The Guardian‘s Glenn Greenwald, “I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email.”
Scary. But only if Snowden or his former colleagues decided to break the law and risk serious punishment.
During an interview on MSNBC’s Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, and during numerous interviews since then, Glenn Greenwald clarified that analysts technically aren’t allowed to do what Snowden described. However, they could very easily abuse these “authorities” to wiretap the president or your accountant anyway. The fear factor remains, even though Snowden and Greenwald have yet to reveal evidence any actual illegal activity by analysts.
I suspect that Snowden, reportedly a skilled hacker, might’ve abused his position by sneaking through loopholes in the system or order to determine what was possible, but there’s no solid evidence that he actually wiretapped anyone in the manner he described via NSA’s XKEYSCORE interface. (XKEYSCORE is the software Greenwald described in his latest article, in which he describes, essentially, that NSA analysts can analyse signal intelligence — internet communications and phone calls — using the XKEYSCORE interface. Shocking, I know.) Snowden still might potentially “out” himself as having exploited these loopholes, which would give us a solid idea as to how someone might abuse XKEYSCORE for sinister purposes, but that hasn’t happened yet. Did he ever do it? Who knows. Another question that remains frustratingly unanswered.
When challenged on the absence of any wrongdoing in his reporting, Greenwald has repeatedly cited a pair of pre-Snowden abuses… [CONTINUE READING]