Michael Hayden Ran The NSA And CIA: Now Warns That Encryption Backdoors Will Harm American Security & Tech Leadership – Techdirt

from the good-for-him dept

There are very few things in life that former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden and I agree on. For years, he was a leading government champion for trashing the 4th Amendment and conducting widespread surveillance on Americans. He supported the CIA's torture program and (ridiculously) complained that having the US government publicly reckon with that torture program would help terrorists.

But, there is one thing that he and I agree on: putting backdoors into encryption is a horrible, dreadful, terrible idea. He surprised many people by first saying this five years ago, and he's repeated it a bunch since then -- including in a recent Bloomberg piece, entitled: Encryption Backdoors Won't Stop Crime But Will Hurt U.S. Tech. In it, he makes two great points. First, backdooring encryption will make Americans much less safe:

We must also consider how foreign governments could master and exploit built-in encryption vulnerabilities. What would Chinese, Russian and Saudi authorities do with the encrypted-data access that U.S. authorities would compel technology companies to create? How might this affect activists and journalists in those countries? Would U.S. technology companies suffer the fate of some of their Australian counterparts, which saw foreign customers abandon them after Australia passed its own encryption-busting law?

Separately, he points out that backdooring encryption won't even help law enforcement do what it thinks it wants to do with backdoors:

Proposals that law-enforcement agencies be given backdoor access to encrypted data are unlikely to achieve their goals, because even if Congress compels tech firms to comply, it will have no impact on encryption technologies offered by foreign companies or the open-source community. Users will simply migrate to privacy offerings from providers who are not following U.S. mandates.

Indeed, this is the pattern we have seen in Hong Kong over the last six months, where pro-democracy protesters have moved from domestic services to encrypted messaging platforms such as Telegram and Bridgefy, beyond the reach of Chinese authorities. Unless Washington is willing to embrace authoritarian tactics, it is difficult to see how extraordinary-access policies will prevent motivated criminals (and security-minded citizens) from simply adopting uncompromised services from abroad.

None of this is new, but it's at least good to see the former head of various intelligence agencies highlighting these points. At this point, we've seen intelligence agencies highlight the value of encryption, Homeland Security highlight the importance of encryption, the Defense Department highlight the importance of encryption. The only ones still pushing for breaking encryption are a few law enforcement groups and their fans in Congress.

Filed Under: backdoors, encryption, michael hayden

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Michael Hayden Ran The NSA And CIA: Now Warns That Encryption Backdoors Will Harm American Security & Tech Leadership - Techdirt

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Here is What Hedge Funds Think About National Storage Affiliates Trust (NSA) – Yahoo Finance

Out of thousands of stocks that are currently traded on the market, itisdifficult to identify those that will really generate strong returns. Hedge funds and institutional investors spend millions of dollars on analysts with MBAs and PhDs,who areindustry experts and well connected to other industry and mediainsiders on top of that. Individual investors can piggyback the hedge funds employing these talents andcanbenefit from their vast resources and knowledge in that way. We analyze quarterly 13F filings of nearly 750 hedge funds and, by looking at the smart money sentiment that surrounds a stock, we can determine whether it has the potential to beat the market over the long-term. Therefore, lets take a closer look at what smart money thinks aboutNational Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA).

National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) investors should pay attention to a decrease in hedge fund interest recently. NSA was in 15 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of September. There were 18 hedge funds in our database with NSA holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that NSA isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings). Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

Hedge funds' reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn't keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research has shown that hedge funds' large-cap stock picks indeed failed to beat the market between 1999 and 2016. However, we were able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the Russell 2000 ETFs by 40 percentage points since May 2014 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that'll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 27.8% through November 21, 2019. That's why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies

Story continues

We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example Europe is set to become the world's largest cannabis market, so we check out this European marijuana stock pitch. One of the most bullish analysts in America just put his money where his mouth is. He says, "I'm investing more today than I did back in early 2009." So we check out his pitch. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. We also rely on the best performing hedge funds' buy/sell signals. Let's analyze the key hedge fund action surrounding National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA).

At Q3's end, a total of 15 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -17% from the second quarter of 2019. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in NSA over the last 17 quarters. With hedgies' sentiment swirling, there exists an "upper tier" of key hedge fund managers who were adding to their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

The largest stake in National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) was held by Renaissance Technologies, which reported holding $62 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Millennium Management with a $31.9 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Winton Capital Management, Citadel Investment Group, and D E Shaw. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Navellier & Associates allocated the biggest weight to National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA), around 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. Winton Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.19 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to NSA.

Due to the fact that National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) has faced a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there is a sect of fund managers who sold off their positions entirely last quarter. At the top of the heap, Jonathan Barrett and Paul Segal's Luminus Management cut the biggest position of the 750 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $9.7 million in stock. Dmitry Balyasny's fund, Balyasny Asset Management, also dumped its stock, about $4.8 million worth. These moves are important to note, as total hedge fund interest fell by 3 funds last quarter.

Let's also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks - not necessarily in the same industry as National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) but similarly valued. We will take a look at NovaGold Resources Inc. (NYSEAMEX:NG), Euronav NV (NYSE:EURN), Cannae Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CNNE), and Federal Signal Corporation (NYSE:FSS). This group of stocks' market values resemble NSA's market value.

[table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position NG,16,211750,6 EURN,18,138289,2 CNNE,19,241748,0 FSS,19,77508,-1 Average,18,167324,1.75 [/table]

View table hereif you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 18 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $167 million. That figure was $138 million in NSA's case. Cannae Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CNNE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand NovaGold Resources Inc. (NYSEAMEX:NG) is the least popular one with only 16 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) is even less popular than NG. Hedge funds dodged a bullet by taking a bearish stance towards NSA. Our calculations showed that the top 20 most popular hedge fund stocks returned 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. Unfortunately NSA wasn't nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was very bearish); NSA investors were disappointed as the stock returned 0.4% during the fourth quarter (through the end of November) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as 70 percent of these stocks already outperformed the market so far in Q4.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.

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Former NSA Lawyer on Laura Ingrahams Spying Theory: I Dont Think Ive Ever Heard a More Uninformed Conversation About Intel – Law & Crime

Fox News opinion host Laura Ingraham on Friday suggested that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff(D-N.Y.) abused his power by working with the National Security Agency (NSA) to obtain Rep. Devin Nuness(R-Calif.) phone records. Ingraham was immediately contradicted by a former NSA attorney who said the hosts allegations were so uninformed that it was honestly astonishing.

The Ingraham Angle segment centered on the House Intel Panels Impeachment Report, which contained phone records showing Rep. Nunes phone contacts with the Rudy Giuliani and Giulianis recently indicted business associateLev Parnas. Ingraham and her guest, Sara Carter, both claimed to have heard from a knowledgeable source that Schiff obtained Nuness records with the help of the NSA.

Carter has reportedly been barred from appearing on Fox Newss hard news shows because her reporting is not vetted, and passes none of the networks editorial guidelines.

A knowledgeable source tells the Ingraham Angle tonight that not only did Schiff get dirt from the secret subpoenas that he sent to phone companies, he also got help from the NSA. All Americans should be shocked by this and more, and demand a full and immediate investigation, Ingraham said.

Ive heard the same, Carter said, before launching into a diatribe against the Obama administration for expanding the NSAs spying program.

Former NSA attorney and current CNN legal analyst Susan Hennessey immediately responded that the entire exchange had absolutely no basis in reality.

Hi, former NSA lawyer here. This is not how it works. At all, Hennessey wrote in response to the segment. Its not how the law works. Its not how NSA works. Its not how phone records work. Thats all. Have a good evening.

But Hennessey wasnt done. She called this an unintelligence mess of people who dont understand [Executive Order] 12333, FISA, Title III, ECPA, Gates Procedures, contact chainingor honestly anything.

Hennessey concluded that Ingrahams segment was one of the most uninformed conversations she had ever heard.

Its honestly astonishing. I dont think Ive ever heard a more uninformed conversation about NSA or intelligence collection in my life. And I once had a relative corner me a wedding to say NSA was blackmailing John McCain into supporting immigration reform SO THE BAR IS REAL LOW, she wrote.

In response to questions about how the panel obtained Nuness records, Patrick Boland, the top spokesman for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, told The Daily Beaston Thursday that congressional investigators did not subpoena call records for any member of Congress or their staff. The report itself indicates that Nunes was picked up incidentally in the records of Giuliani and Parnas when AT&T call logs were subpoenaed.

National Security attorney Bradley Moss also weighed in on Ingraham-Carter segment, calling it delusional and pathetic.

[image via Fox News screengrab]

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Former NSA Lawyer on Laura Ingrahams Spying Theory: I Dont Think Ive Ever Heard a More Uninformed Conversation About Intel - Law & Crime

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Jobs with the NSA – The Lake Front

Gisselle Casarrubias

SAN ANTONIO- The Center for Career Development & Testing recently hosted an event for students interested in jobs or internships with the NSA.

Officials with the CCDT invited officials with the NSA on September16th to speak to students about the benefits of working for the government..

Ollu student Paul Smith who attended the event said,

the information sessionthey put on it was super helpful, super interesting, they took time out oftheir busy schedule to come and inform us. Theyre not even from San Antonioand they came from the NSA to show us the opportunities which there are plentyof and it was just awesome.

If you would like to attend this event, a mass e-mail will be sent out with more information about the event. For further questions contact the Center for Career Development and Testing located in Main 123.

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NSA: Unthinkable things occurred in Kogi, Bayelsa polls – New Telegraph Newspaper

admits governorship elections were disasters

The National Security Adviser (NSA), Maj-Gen. Babagana Monguno (rtd) has scored the conduct of the November 16 governorship elections in Bayelsa and Kogi states low.

Monguno said things unthinkable happened during the elections.

The NSA, who spoke yesterday at an Inter-Agencies Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) meeting in Abuja, said despite the assurances of adequate security before the elections, the polls were a fiasco where the unthinkable happened.

He did not elaborate on the details of the unthinkable things that happened. But the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had kicked against the conduct and outcome of the elections in the two states.

The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, however, said the elections were peaceful despite related infractions.

He disclosed that 49 persons have been arrested on election related violence in the two states, including six persons arrested in connection with the killing of the woman leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mrs. Salome Abuh, in Kogi State.

Monguno, who was represented by Mr. Sanusi Galadima, recalled that prior to the two elections, the ICCES was told of the level of the preparedness and assured of adequate security.

They made promises and told the meeting of the level of their preparedness, but unfortunately, the fiasco was the answer. What happened was quite unthinkable.

Violence erupted in the two states of Bayelsa and Kogi, particularly the violence that occurred in Kogi State which aftermath of that election led to the death of a woman leader in that state, he regretted.

The NSA expressed the fear that if nothing is done to curtail such violence in future elections, voters might not come out to vote.

He advised that in the future elections, particularly the by-elections that would come up in January 2020, the various security agencies and political parties should meet to ensure that those elections were free of violence.

Monguno further advised party thugs to have a rethink, remarking that at a book launch in Abuja two days ago, all the creme de la crme of various political parties, the national chairmen of the strongest political parties the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were there.

I saw how they were embracing each other, laughing, which to my mind, that laughter means a lot: look at the useless people killing themselves because of politics!

So, it is our hope and prayer that if all the stakeholders pertaining to any election that would come up in future would come together the issue of violence would be addressed adequately.

The IGP, who was also represented by Assistant Inspector General (AIG), Bashir Makama, said 35 persons were arrested in Bayelsa while 14 were arrested in Kogi, for allegedly disrupting the elections.

The breakdown of the arrest in Kogi, Adamu said, include six for the death of PDP woman leader and eight for electoral violence.

The IGP, however, described the conduct of the polls as relatively peaceful, adding, despite the related infractions or some sort of thuggery that was observed and other challenges faced, the elections could be said to be relatively peaceful.

He said those arrested in connection with the Bayelsa governorship were being interrogated by the zonal police headquarters in Benin City.

They would be charged to court as soon as investigations are concluded, he assured

INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, requested that security personnel on election duty should be identified by their names.

This, he said, is to know who to be held responsible for the proper conduct of elections in those locations.

This will not only enhance transparency, but the commission and security agencies will know who to contact in specific locations during elections when the need arises, he said.

The INEC Chairman further called for deepening of the use of technology to ensure the integrity of elections.

We are excited by some of the new provisions concerning electronic transmission of results.

We are glad that the electoral legal framework is removing some of the encumbrances to the full deployment of technology for the improvement of the electoral process in Nigeria, especially result collation and management.

The commission will work with the National Assembly for the expeditious passage of the amendment to the electoral legal framework so that work can begin in earnest to make future elections in Nigeria more technology-based.

It is long overdue, it is doable, it is achievable and it is inevitable, he emphasized.

Meanwhile, INEC has tasked stakeholders on the need to ensure free and fair elections in the country.

Mr. Emeka Ononamadu, INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Enugu State, stressed this need in Enugu at a stakeholders forum on the new electoral bill before the National Assembly.

Ononamadu urged the stakeholders to identify challenges as well as proffer enduring solutions to electoral malpractices that had been militating against free and fair elections.

According to him, the challenges and solutions should be in line with what happened during the recent Kogi and Bayelsa governorship elections.

After the 2019 general election, there were also two major elections in Kogi and Bayelsa and I think the election must have given Nigerians insight into what direction should be taken.

Our gathering is to look at the event collectively for improvement in our electoral process.

In the last previous elections, we made sure that the elections were free and fair, he said.

Ononamadu told stakeholders that the review of the 2010 Electoral Act had become germane in view of observed lapses during the 2019 general election and the Bayelsa and Kogi states off season elections.

He absolved the commission of the allegations of being solely responsible for the electoral challenges facing the nation, saying that no organisation or individual will make elaborate arrangements and turn around to sabotage it.

The REC said INEC was taking the step of involving stakeholders to demonstrate that it meant business of realizing free, credible elections as the nation moves forward.

In her contribution, Mrs. Rita Chekwe, Head of Administration of INEC in Enugu, said that the commission was committed to delivering its mandate by conducting a credible election.

Chekwe noted that the gathering had become imperative for the stakeholders to brainstorm and make input for an effective electoral process in Nigeria without compromising their integrity.

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Former NSA lawyer debunks Laura Ingrahams bogus claim that Adam Schiff used the agency to obtain Devin Nunes phone records: Not how the law works -…

Throughout the Ukraine scandal and the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, Fox News Laura Ingraham hasnt been shy about jumping through hoops to defend the president and she recently claimed that House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, during the inquiry, abused his power by working with the National Security Agenda (NSA) to obtain Rep. Devin Nunes phone records. But according to former NSA attorney Susan Hennessey, Ingrahams comments have zero basis in reality.

Ingraham made her claims about Schiff when far-right podcast host Sara Carter was a guest on her show on December 6. Ingraham asserted, A knowledgeable source tells The Ingraham Angle tonight that not only did Schiff get dirt from the secret subpoenas that he sent to phone companies, he also got help from the NSA. All Americans should be shocked by this and more and demand a full and immediate investigation.

Hennessey, on Twitter, responded that Ingraham doesnt even understand how the NSA works. Now a legal analyst for CNN, Hennessey tweeted, Hi, former NSA lawyer here. This is not how it works. At all. Its not how the law works. Its not how NSA works. Its not how phone records work.

In a separate tweet, Hennessey posted, Its honestly astonishing. I dont think Ive ever heard a more uninformed conversation about NSA or intelligence collection in my life. And I once had a relative corner me (at) a wedding to say NSA was blackmailingJohn McCaininto supporting immigration reform. SO THE BAR IS REAL LOW.

Hi, former NSA lawyer here. This is not how it works. At all. Its not how the law works. Its not how NSA works. Its not how phone records work. Thats all. Have a good evening. https://t.co/qtFX1axUSN

Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) December 7, 2019

Its honestly astonishing. I dont think Ive ever heard a more uninformed conversation about NSA or intelligence collection in my life. And I once had a relative corner me a wedding to say NSA was blackmailing John McCain into supporting immigration reform SO THE BAR IS REAL LOW

Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) December 7, 2019

Because on the face of it, it really does look like she went on television to repeat an outright unfounded lie. And even worse for a national security/war correspondent it would seem that she doesnt understand even extremely basic principles of the subjects she covers.

Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) December 7, 2019

Jerry Lambe, in a December 7 article for Law & Crime, notes that Hennessey isnt the only one to call out the Ingraham/Carter segment as nonsense. Bradley P. Moss, an NSA attorney, tweeted, This is pathetic. Delusional.

Lambe also points out that Patrick Boland (spokesman for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee) told the Daily Beast that impeachment investigators did not subpoena call records for any member of Congress or their staff.

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AlterNets journalists work tirelessly to counter the traditional corporate media narrative. Were here seven days a week, 365 days a year. And were proud to say that weve been bringing you the real, unfiltered news for 20 yearslonger than any other progressive news site on the Internet.

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Former NSA lawyer debunks Laura Ingrahams bogus claim that Adam Schiff used the agency to obtain Devin Nunes phone records: Not how the law works -...

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2 stocks that intend to just keep winning: National Storage Affiliates Trust (NSA), The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated (CAKE) – US Post News

The recent performance of National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) stock in the market spoke loud and clear to investors as NSA saw more than 366.04K shares in trading volumes in the last trading session, way higher than the average trading volume of 366.04K shares by far recorded in the movement of National Storage Affiliates Trust (NSA). At the time the stock opened at the value of $34.97, making it a high for the given period, the value of the stock dropped by -2.32%. After the decrease, NSA touched a low price of $33.78, calling it a day with a closing price of $34.92, which means that the price of NSA went 34.11 below the opening price on the mentioned day.

Given the most recent momentum in the market in the price movement of NSA stock, some strong opinions on the matter of investing in the companys stock started to take shape, which is how analysts are predicting an estimated price of $34.13 for NSA within consensus. The estimated price would demand a set of gains in total of -162645.33%, which goes higher than the most recent closing price, indicating that the stock is in for bullish trends. Other indicators are hinting that the stock could reach an outstanding figure in the market share, which is currently set at 58.76M in the public float and 2.04B US dollars in market capitalization.

When it comes to the technical analysis of NSA stock, there are more than several important indicators on the companys success in the market, one of those being the Relative Strength Indicator (RSI), which can show, just as Stochastic measures, what is going on with the value of the stock beneath the data. This value may also indicate that the stock will go sideways rather than up or down, also indicating that the price could stay where it is for quite some time. When it comes to Stochastic reading, NSA stock are showing 79.89% in results, indicating that the stock is neither overbought or oversold at the moment, providing it with a neutral within Stochastic reading as well. Additionally, NSA with the present state of 200 MA appear to be indicating bullish trends within the movement of the stock in the market. While other metrics within the technical analysis are due to provide an outline into the value of NSA, the general sentiment in the market is inclined toward positive trends.

With the previous 100-day trading volume average of 808335 shares, The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated (CAKE) recorded a trading volume of 585880 shares, as the stock started the trading session at the value of $42.01, in the end touching the price of $41.50 after dropping by -1.21%.

The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated (CAKE) surprised the market during the previous quarter closure with the last reports recording $0.59, compared to the consensus estimation that went to $0.54. The records showing the total in revenues marked the cap of +0.97%, which means that the revenues decreased by -43.49% since the previous quarterly report.

CAKE stock seem to be going ahead the lowest price in the last 52 weeks with the latest change of 15.82%.Then price of CAKE also went backward in oppose to its average movements recorded in the previous 20 days. The price volatility of CAKE stock during the period of the last months recorded 2.16%, whilst it changed for the week, now showing 2.01% of volatility in the last seven days. The trading distance for this period is set at -3.82% and is presently away from its moving average by -0.46% in the last 50 days. During the period of the last 5 days, CAKE stock lost around -2.95% of its value, now recording a dip by -4.98% reaching an average $43.65 in the period of the last 200 days.During the period of the last 12 months, The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated (CAKE) dropped by -4.62%.

According to the Barcharts scale, the companys consensus rating was unchanged to 3.35 from 3.35, showing an overall improvement during the course of a single month. Based on the latest results, analysts are suggesting that the target price for CAKE stock should be $41.50 per share in the course of the next 12 months. To achieve the target price as suggested by analysts, CAKE should have a spike by 0% in oppose to its present value in the market. Additionally, the current price showcases a discount of 24.55% when compared to the high consensus price target predicted by analysts.

CAKE shares recorded a trading volume of 578353 shares, compared to the volume of 776.27K shares before the last close, presented as its trading average. With the approaching 2.01% during the last seven days, the volatility of CAKE stock remained at 2.16%. During the last trading session, the lost value that CAKE stock recorded was set at the price of $41.50, while the lowest value in the last 52 weeks was set at $35.83. The recovery of the stock in the market has notably added 15.82% of gains since its low value, also recording -3.62% in the period of the last 1 month.

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2 stocks that intend to just keep winning: National Storage Affiliates Trust (NSA), The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated (CAKE) - US Post News

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NSA Office working with police, INEC on polls – The Nation Newspaper

Our Reporter

The Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) will continue to work with security agents to ensure violence-free elections, it said in a statement on Thursday.

We are working with law enforcement and security agencies involved in election security to identify gaps, strengthen our collective preparedness and ensure that future elections are safer and conducive. The statement added.

The office said following the meeting of the Inter-Agencies Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) held in Abuja. The Office of the National Security Adviser supports election security coordination, identify challenges and strengthen national capacity to ensure the safety of the electoral process.

It explained that the National Security Adviser Maj. Gen Babagana Munguno did not condemn the gubernatorial elections in Bayelsa and Kogi States and is not in any position to do so. There is no difference between the position of the Nigeria Police Force and the Office of the National Security Adviser on the recent polls. Both agencies have condemned the unfortunate death of Mrs Salome Abuh, in Kogi State.

The Nigeria Police has already made arrests and all security agencies are working to identify other perpetrators of election violence for prosecution. Neither the ICCES nor the Office of the National Security Adviser is in a position to pass verdict over the validity of gubernatorial elections in Kogi and Bayelsa States as some reports suggest.

Only the courts are empowered by law to determine issues arising from the conduct of the elections. The planning and management of the electoral process is a continuous undertaking and through the ICCES, we are identifying the challenges recorded in the recent polls and working with all stakeholders to ensure that the outcomes of future polls are improved.

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NSA Office working with police, INEC on polls - The Nation Newspaper

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The Inspector General’s Report on 2016 FBI Spying Reveals a Scandal of Historic Magnitude: Not Only for the FBI but Also the US Media – The Intercept

Just as was true when the Mueller investigation closed withouta single American being charged with criminally conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election, Wednesdaysissuance of the long-waited report from the Department of Justices Inspector General reveals that years of major claims and narratives from the U.S. media were utter frauds.

Before evaluating the media component of this scandal, the FBIs gross abuse of its power its serial deceit is sograve and manifest that it requires little effort to demonstrate it. In sum, the IG Report documents multiple instances in which the FBI in order to convince a FISA court to allow it spy on former Trump campaign operative Carter Page during the 2016 election manipulated documents, concealed crucial exonerating evidence, and touted what it knew were unreliable if not outright false claims.

If you dont consider FBI lying, concealment of evidence, and manipulation of documents in order to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign to be a major scandal, what is? But none of this is aberrational: the FBI stillhas its headquarters in a building named after J. Edgar Hoover who constantly blackmailed elected officials with dossiers and tried to blackmail Martin Luther King into killing himself because thats what these security state agencies are. They are out-of-control, virtually unlimited police state factions that lie, abuse their spying and law enforcement powers, and subvert democracy and civic and political freedomsas a matter of course.

In this case, no rational person should allow standard partisan bickering to distort or hide this severe FBI corruption. The IG Report leaves no doubt about it. Its brimming with proof of FBI subterfuge and deceit, all in service of persuading a FISA court of something that was not true: that U.S. citizen and former Trump campaign official Carter Page was an agent of the Russian government and therefore needed to have his communications surveilled.

Just a few excerpts from the report should suffice to end any debate for rational persons about how damning it is. The focus of the first part of the IG Report was on the warrants obtained by the DOJ, at the behest of the FBI, to spy on Carter Page on the grounds that there was probable cause to believe he was an agent of the Russian government. That Page was a Kremlin agent was a widely disseminated media claim typically asserted as fact even though it had no evidence. As a result of this media narrative, the Mueller investigation examined these widespread accusations yet concluded that the investigation did not establish that Page coordinated with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

The IG Report went much further, documenting a multitude of lies and misrepresentations by the FBI to deceive the FISA court into believing that probable cause existed to believe Page was a Kremlin agent. The first FISA warrant to spy on Page was obtained during the 2016 election, after Page had left the Trump campaign but weeks before the election was to be held.

About the warrant application submitted regarding Page, the IG Report, in its own words, found that FBI personnel fell far short of the requirement in FBI policy that they ensure that all factual statements in a FISA application are scrupulously accurate.' Specifically, we identified multiple instances in which factual assertions relied upon in the first FISA application were inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation, based upon information the FBI had in its possession at the time the application was filed.

Its vital to reiterate this because of its gravity:we identified multiple instances in which factual assertions relied upon in the first FISA application were inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation, based upon information the FBI had in its possession at the time the application was filed.

The specifics cited by the IG Report are even more damning. Specifically, based upon the information known to the FBI in October 2016, the first application contained []seven significant inaccuracies and omissions. Among those significant inaccuracies and omissions: the FBI concealed that Page had been working with the CIA in connection with his dealings with Russia and had notified CIA case managers of at least some of those contacts after he was approved as an operational contact' with Russia; the FBI lied about both the timing and substance of Pages relationship with the CIA; vastly overstated the value and corroboration of Steeles prior work for the U.S. Government to make him appear more credible than he was; and concealed from the court serious reasons to doubt the reliability of Steeles key source.

Moreover, the FBIs heavy reliance on the Steele Dossier to obtain the FISA warrant a fact that many leading national security reporters spent two years denying occurred was particularly concerning because, as the IG Report put it, we found that the FBI did not have information corroborating the specific allegations against Carter Page in Steeles reporting when it relied upon his reports in the first FISA application or subsequent renewal applications.

To spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of an election, one who had just been working with one of the two major presidential campaigns, the FBI touted a gossipy, unverified, unreliable rag that it had no reason to believe and every reason to distrust, but it hid all of that from the FISA court, which it knew needed to believe that the Steele Dossier was something it was not if it were to give the FBI the spying authorization it wanted.

In 2017, the FBI decided to seek reauthorization of the FISA warrant to continue to spy on Page, and sought and obtained it three times: in January, April and June, 2017. Not only, according to the IG Report, did the FBI repeat all of those seven significant inaccuracies and omission, but added ten additional major inaccuracies. As the Report put it: In addition to repeating the seven significant errors contained in the first FISA application and outlined above, we identified 10 additionalsignificant errors in the three renewal applications, based upon information known to the FBI after the first application and before one or more of the renewals.

Among the most significant new acts of deceit was that the FBI omitted the fact that Steeles Primary Subsource, who the FBI found credible, had made statements in January 2017 raising significant questions about the reliability of allegations included in the FISA applications, including, for example, that he/she did not recall any discussion with Person 1 concerning Wikileaks and there was nothing bad about the communications between the Kremlin and the Trump team, and that he/she did not report to Steele in July 2016 that Page had met with Sechin.

In other words, Steeles own key source told the FBI that Steele was lying about what the source said: an obviously critical fact that the FBIsimply concealed from the FISA court because it knew how devastating that would be to being able to continue to spy on Page.As the Report put it, among the most serious of the 10 additional errors we found in the renewal applications was the FBIs failure to advise[DOJ] or the court of the inconsistences, described in detail in Chapter Six, between Steele and his Primary Sub-source on the reporting relied upon in the FISA applications.

The IG Report also found that the FBI hid key information from the court about Steeles motives: for instance, it omitted information obtained from [Bruce] Ohr about Steele and his election reporting, including that (1) Steeles reporting was going to Clintons presidential campaign and others, (2) [Fusion GPSs Glenn] Simpson was paying Steele to discuss his reporting with the media, and (3) Steele was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being the U.S. President.

If it does not bother you to learn that the FBI repeatedly and deliberately deceived the FISA court into granting it permission to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign, then it is virtually certain that you are either someone with no principles, someone who cares only about partisan advantage and nothing about basic civil liberties and the rule of law, or both. There is simply no way for anyone of good faith to read this IG Report and reach any conclusion other than that this is yet another instance of the FBI abusing its power in severe ways to subvert and undermine U.S. democracy. If you dont care about that, what do you care about?

* * * * *

But the revelations of the IG Report are not merely a massive FBI scandal. They are also a massive media scandal, becausethey reveal that so much of what the U.S. media has authoritatively claimed about all of these matters for more than two years is completely false.

Ever since Trumps inauguration, a handful of commentators and journalists Im included among them have been sounding the alarm about the highly dangerous trend of news outlets not merely repeating the mistake of the Iraq War by blindly relying on the claims of security state agents but, far worse, now employing them in their newsrooms to shape the news. As Politicos media writer Jack Shafer wrote in 2018, in an article entitled The Spies Who Came Into the TV Studio:

In the old days, Americas top spies would complete their tenures at the CIA or one of the other Washington puzzle palaces and segue to more ordinary pursuits. Somewrotetheirmemoirs. One ran forpresident. Anotherdieda few months after surrendering his post. But todays national-security establishment retiree has a different game plan. After so many years of brawling in the shadows, he yearns for a second, lucrative career in the public eye. He takes a crash course in speaking in soundbites, refreshes his wardrobe and signs a TV news contract. Then, several times a week, waits for a network limousine to shuttle him to the broadcast news studios where, after a light dusting of foundation and a spritz of hairspray, he takes a supporting role in the anchors nighttime shows. . . .

[T]he downside of outsourcing national security coverage to the TV spies is obvious. They arent in the business of breaking news or uncovering secrets. Their first loyaltyand this is no slamis to the agency from which they hail. Imagine a TV network covering the auto industry through the eyes of dozens of paid former auto executives and you begin to appreciate the current peculiarities.

In a perfect television world, the networks would retire the retired spooks from their payrolls and reallocate those sums to the hiring of independent reporters to cover the national security beat. Let the TV spies become unpaid anonymous sources because when you get down to it, TV spies dont want to make newsthey just want to talk about it.

Its long been the case that CIA, FBI and NSA operatives tried to infiltrate and shape domestic news, but they at least had the decency to do it clandestinely. In 2008, the New York Times David Barstow won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing a secret Pentagon program in which retired Generals and other security state agents would get hired as commentators and analysts and then unbeknownst to their networks coordinate their messaging to ensure that domestic news was being shaped by the propaganda of the military and intelligence communities.

But now its all out in the open. Its virtually impossible to turn on MSNBC or CNN without being bombarded with former Generals, CIA operatives, FBI agents and NSA officials who now work for those networks as commentators and, increasingly, asreporters.

The past three years of Russiagate reporting for which U.S. journalists have lavished themselves with Pulitzers and other prizes despite a multitude of embarrassing and dangerous errors about the Grave Russian Threat has relied almost exclusively on anonymous, uncorroborated claims from Deep State operatives (and yes, thats a term that fully applies to the U.S.). The few exceptions are when these networks feature former high-level security state operatives on camera to spread their false propaganda, as in this enduringly humiliating instance:

All of this has meant that U.S. discourse on these national security questions is shaped almost entirely by the very agencies that are trained to lie: the CIA, the NSA, the Pentagon, the FBI. And their lying has been highly effective.

For years, we were told by the nations leading national security reporters something that was blatantly false: that the FBIs warrants to spy on Carter Page were not based on the Steele Dossier. GOP Congressman Devin Nunes was widely vilified and mocked by the super-smart DC national security reporters for issuing a report claiming that this was the case. The Nunes memo in essence claimed what the IG Report has corroborated: that embedded within the FBIs efforts to obtain FISA court authorization to spy on Carter Page was a series of misrepresentations, falsehoods and concealment of key evidence:

As the Rolling Stones Matt Taibbi one of the few left/liberal journalists with the courage and integrity to dissent from the DNC/MSNBC script on these issues put it in a detailed article: Democrats are not going to want to hear this, since conventional wisdom says former House Intelligence chief Devin Nunes is a conspiratorial evildoer, but the Horowitz report ratifies the major claims of the infamous Nunes memo.

That the Page warrant was based on the Steele Dossier was something that the media servants of the FBI and CIA rushed to deny. Did they have any evidence for those denials? That would be hard to believe, given that the FISA warrant applications are highly classified. It seems far more likely that as usual they were just repeating what the FBI and CIA (and the pathologically dishonest Rep. Adam Schiff) told them to say, like the good and loyal puppets that they are. But either way, what they kept telling the public in highly definitive tones was completely false, as we now know from the IG Report:

Over and over, the IG Report makes clear that, contrary to these denials, the Steele Dossier was indeed crucial to the Page eavesdropping warrant. We determined that the Crossfire Hurricane teams receipt of Steeles election reporting on September 19, 2016 played a central and essential role in the FBIs and Departments decision to seek the FISA order, the IG Report explained.A central and essential role.

It added: in support of the fourth element in the FISA application-Carter Pages alleged coordination with the Russian government on 2016 U.S. presidential election activities, the application relied entirely on the following information from Steele Reports 80, 94, 95, and 102.

Just compare the pompous denials from so many U.S. national security reporters at the nations leading news outlets that the Page warrant was not based on the Steele Dossier to the actual truth that we now know:in support of the fourth element in the FISA application-Carter Pages alleged coordination with the Russian government on 2016 U.S. presidential election activities, the application relied entirely on the following information from Steele Reports 80, 94, 95, and 102 (emphasis added).

Indeed, it was the Steele Dossier that led FBI leadership, including Director James Comey and Deputy Diretor Andrew McCabe, to approve the warrant application in the first place despite concerns raised by other agents that the information was unreliable. Explains the IG Report:

FBI leadership supported relying on Steeles reporting to seek a FISA order on Page after being advised of, and giving consideration to, concerns expressed by Stuart Evans, then NSDs Deputy Assistant Attorney General with oversight responsibility over QI, that Steele may have been hired by someone associated with presidential candidate Clinton or the DNC, and that the foreign intelligence to be collected through the FISA order would probably not be worth the risk of being criticized later for collecting communications of someone (Carter Page) who was politically sensitive.

The narrative manufactured by the security state agencies and laundered by their reliable media servants about these critical matters was a sham, a fraud, a lie. Yet again, U.S. discourse was subsumed by propaganda because the U.S. media and key parts of the security state have decided that subverting the Trump presidency is of such a high priority that their political judgment outweighs the results of the election that everything, including outright lying even to courts let alone the public, is justified because the ends are so noble.

As Taibbi put it: No matter what people think the political meaning of the Horowitz report might be, reporters who read it will know: Anybody who touched this nonsense in print should be embarrassed. No matter how dangerous you believe the Trump presidency to be, this is a grave threat to the pillars of U.S. democracy, a free press, an informed citizenry and the rule of law.

* * * * *

Underlying all of this is another major lie spun over the last three years by the newly-minted media stars and liberal icons from the security state agencies. Ever since the Snowden reporting indeed, prior to that, when the New York Times Eric Lichtblau and Jim Risen (now with the Intercept)revealed in 2005 that the Bush-era NSAwas illegally spying on U.S. citizens without the warrants required by law it was widely understood that the FISA process was a rubber-stamping joke, an illusory safeguard that, in reality, offered no real limits on the ability of the U.S. Government to spy on its own citizens. Back in 2013 at the Guardian, I wrote a long article, based on Snowden documents, revealing what an empty sham this process was.

Sites like Lawfare led by Comey-friend Benjamin Wittes and ex-NSA lawyer Susan Hennessey became Twitter and cable news stars and used their platform to resuscitate what had been a long-discredited lie: namely, that the FISA process is highly rigorous and that the potential for abuse is very low. Liberals, eager to believe that the security state agencies opposed to Trump should be trusted despite their decades of violent lawlessness and systemic lying, came to believe in the sanctity of the NSA and the FISA process.

The IG Report obliterates that carefully cultivated delusion. It lays bare what a sham the whole FISA process is, how easy it is for the NSA and the FBI to obtain from the FISA court whatever authorization it wants to spy on anyAmericans they want regardless of how flimsy is the justification. The ACLU and other civil libertarians had spent years finally getting people to realize this truth, but it was wiped out by the Trump-era veneration of these security state agencies.

In an excellent article on the fallout from the IG Report, the New York Times Charlie Savage, long one of the leading journalistic experts on these debates, makes clear how devastating these revelations are to this concocted narrative designed to lead Americans to trust the FBI and NSAs eavesdropping authorities:

At more than 400 pages, the study amounted to the most searching look ever at the governments secretive system for carrying out national-security surveillance on American soil. And what the report showed was not pretty.

The Justice Departments independent inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, and his team uncovered a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process in how the F.B.I. went about obtaining and renewing court permission under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.

The litany of problems with the Carter Page surveillance applications demonstrates how the secrecy shrouding the governments one-sided FISA approval process breeds abuse, said Hina Shamsi, the director of the American Civil Liberties Unions National Security Project. The concerns the inspector general identifies apply to intrusive investigations of others, including especially Muslims, and far better safeguards against abuse are necessary.

His expos left some former officials who generally defend government surveillance practices aghast.

These errors are bad, said David Kris, an expert in FISA who oversaw the Justice Departments National Security Division in the Obama administration. If the broader audit of FISA applications reveals a systematic pattern of errors of this sort that plagued this one, then I would expect very serious consequences and reforms.

Civil libertarians for years have called the surveillance court a rubber stamp because it only rarely rejects wiretap applications. Out of 1,080 requests by the government in 2018, for example,government recordsshowed that the court fully denied only one.

Defenders of the system have argued that the low rejection rate stems in part from how well the Justice Department self-polices and avoids presenting the court with requests that fall short of the legal standard. They have also stressed that officials obey a heightened duty to be candid and provide any mitigating evidence that might undercut their request. . . .

But the inspector general found major errors, material omissions and unsupported statements about Mr. Page in the materials that went to the court. F.B.I. agents cherry-picked the evidence, telling the Justice Department information that made Mr. Page look suspicious and omitting material that cut the other way, and the department passed that misleading portrait onto the court.

This system of unlimited domestic spying was built by both parties, which only rouse themselves to object when the power lies in the other sides hands. Just last year, the vast majority of the GOP caucus joined with a minority of Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schifftohand President Trump all-new domestic spying powers while blocking crucial reforms and safeguards to prevent abuse. The spying machinery that Edward Snowden risked his life and liberty to expose always has been, and still is, a bipartisan creation.

Perhaps these revelations will finally lead to a realization about how rogue, and dangerous, these police state agencies have become, and how urgently needed is serious reform. But if nothing else, it must serve as a tonic to the three years of unrelenting media propaganda that has deceived and misled millions of Americans into believing things that are simply untrue.

None of these journalists have acknowledged an iota of error in the wake of this report because they know that lying is not just permitted but encouraged as long as it pleases and vindicates the political beliefs of their audiences. Until that stops, credibility and faith in journalism will never be restored, and despite how toxic it is to have a media that has no claim on credibility that despised status will be fully deserved.

Read this article:

The Inspector General's Report on 2016 FBI Spying Reveals a Scandal of Historic Magnitude: Not Only for the FBI but Also the US Media - The Intercept

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Permanent Record: Snowden reveals why he blew the whistle on Big Brother – Daily Maverick

At the heart of Daily Mavericks newsroom, a State Security Agency fly on the wall might be surprised to hear the following statement:

I dont care who taps my phone, I dont have anything on there.

That is not to say that Daily Maverick has a blas approach to sensitive information, quite the opposite. The journalists who worked on the Gupta Leaks were all given air-gapped machines that had never touched the internet, as well as strict instructions to immediately toss said machines out the window if SSA agents came knocking.

While the organisation itself is committed to protecting information by any means necessary, as journalists we can also be a pessimistic bunch. We know with relative certainty that the NSA is still monitoring Americans, that the GCHQ is watching over the British, and that Facebook and Google are keeping tabs on everyone.

And so, I dont have anything on there is more of an understanding that we, as everyday citizens of the world wide web, do not have the capacity to prevent governments and corporations from mining our data, than a flippant lack of regard for the privacy of our sources as journalists. It is an acknowledgement that to keep anything valuable on ones phone is to give everyone access to it.

In his biography, Permanent Record, both loved and hated NSA mass surveillance whistle-blower Edward Snowden explains exactly why the fear of ones information being collected is completely rational.

Snowden reveals the workings behind his decision to equip Americans, and the rest of the world, with the knowledge that they were being watched. In so doing, he gave citizens the power to start challenging governments and corporations control of their data.

Snowden details how he transitioned from growing up in a military household and joining the NSA as a consultant, to blowing the whistle on one of the USs biggest secrets.

Growing up in a military household, Snowden describes his familys first computer as his second sibling and his first love. He set back his family clocks so he could spend more time online, and gamed the school system by figuring out he could pass a class without handing in any homework.

Living in the shadow of NSA headquarters in Maryland, Snowden felt the shock of September 11 2001 intimately. His response was to join the army, but he was invalided out of service following a bad fall. He then became a consultant for the NSA, being granted top-level clearance.

As Snowden describes it, The geek inherited the world.

Through Permanent Record we see he had hoped to serve his country, but found himself working for it instead. This, he says, was not a trivial distinction.

In the preface to his 340-page biography, Snowden aptly explains his experience after being granted unlimited access to the USs secret service.

Deep in a tunnel under a pineapple field a subterranean Pearl Harbor-era former airplane factory I sat at a terminal from which I had practically unlimited access to the communications of nearly every man, woman and child on earth whod ever dialed a phone or touched a computer. Among those were about 320 million of my fellow American citizens, who in the regular conduct of their everyday lives were surveilled in a gross contravention of not just the Constitution of the United States, but the basic values of any free society.

Permanent Record appears to be Snowdens attempt to absolve himself not only of his involvement in the agencies that created the USs mass surveillance economy, but also for his revelation of state secrets to the public.

Immediately after the release of the biography, the Justice Department sued Snowden for violating a non-disclosure agreement he signed with both the CIA and NSA. Snowden is still in exile in Moscow, Russia. Should he return to the US he will face two counts of violating the Espionage Act, as well as stealing government property.

Following 9/11, the US intelligence services jumped to comply with the order of never again. Snowden revealed to the world what never again truly meant for the US public. Whether he should be prosecuted for what he did is up to the reader, although if Donald Trump would have his way Snowden would be executed.

But did his revelation change anything? In 2016/17 the European Union implemented its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), giving citizens more power over their data, while the Investigatory Powers Act in the UK grants a commissioner the power of oversight of the British intelligence agencies.

Our data is still not safe, but we are more aware of the fact that somewhere, in some deep dark recess filled with government hard drives, there is likely to be a video of you using your phone camera to pick food out of your teeth. DM

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Biopic on Reality Winner, Who Leaked NSA Report on Russias Election Interference, in the Works – TheWrap

A biopic is in the works on the life of Reality Winner, a former American intelligence contractor who was arrested for leaking a classified report about Russias interference in the 2016 election and charged with the first criminal leak case in President Donald Trumps administration.

The project, titled Winner, was announced on Tuesday by producers Big Beach, the production team behind The Farewell and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Susanna Fogel, the co-writer of Booksmart and director of The Spy Who Dumped Me, is set to direct from a script by Kerry Howley. Howley is the author of an article in New York Magazine from 2017 called Who is Reality Winner? that also serves as the basis of the screenplay.

Reality Leigh Winner was a 25-year-old federal contractor employed at the NSA in Georgia who in May 2017, was arrested and accused by the Justice Department of sending a classified report to the news site The Intercept. The report described two cyberattacks by Russias military intelligence unit that showed Russias interference in the 2016 election. According to the Justice Department via the New York Times, Winner was arrested hours before the story in The Intercept detailing the hacking published and that she confessed to printing out the document and mailing it to the news outlet. Winner was sentenced to five years and three months in prison for violating the Espionage Act, which was the longest sentence ever imposed in federal court.

As described in Howleys story, however, Winner made for an unusual ideological combatant and leaker. Winner had an active social media presence and didnt fit the profile of someone like Edward Snowden.

Also Read: 'Morning Joe': GOP Support of Ukraine Conspiracy Theory Is Like 'Living in an Alternate Universe'

Dani Melia and Peter Saraf of Big Beach are producing alongside Amanda Phillips, who brought the project to them.

We are honored to be bringing Reality Winners story to screen from a beautiful screenplay by Kerry Howley. We have been longtime fans of Susanna Fogel and can think of no one better to capture this complex character through an empathetic and human lens. This is an urgent story that far too few Americans are aware of, and we have assembled the perfect creative team to tell it, Melia said.

Reality Winner is a mouthpiece for a generation of young people who are struggling to square their personal ethics with the crumbling ethics of our countrys institutions, which we want to be proud of and have allegiance to. Kerrys incredible script lays the groundwork for us to approach her timely story with humor and emotion, rather than preaching or partisanship. And as a longtime obsessive fan of Big Beachs films, Im beyond honored to partner with them, Fogel said.

Its a privilege to work with this dream team to tell the important story of the fascinating, brave and hilarious Reality Winner, producer Phillips said in a statement.

Fogel is represented by UTA and Lighthouse Management & Media. Howley is represented by CAA and Anonymous Content.

There's just over a year to go until the 2020 presidential election, but the competition to potentially replace Donald Trump in the White House is already stiff.

There's a lot to keep track of, but we're here to help. Here's TheWrap's list of everyone who is running for president so far and who has dropped out.

Joe Biden Democratic Party

Entered Race: April 25, 2019

The former Obama VP was a late entry to the race, formally declaring his run for the presidency on April 25. But he's long been a presumed frontrunner, leading many early polls. This is his third presidential run, and for months he's been telling anyone who'll listen that he'd be the most qualified candidate for the job. He's also already been under scrutiny over criticism about his behavior with women, prompting him to post a video promising he'd be "more mindful and respectful" of a woman's "personal space."

Biden has also been prone to embarrassing slips of the tongue, among them placing the assassinations of RFK and MLK in "the late '70s," mistaking his campaign's text number for a website, waxing nostalgic about his friendships with Senate segregationists, and saying "poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids."

Elizabeth Warren Democratic Party

Entered Race: Feb. 9, 2019

The Massachusetts Senator formally announced her candidacy on Feb. 9 at a rally in her home state, and shortly after followed up with a tweet that read: "I believe in an America of opportunity. My daddy ended up as a janitor, but his little girl got the chance to be a public school teacher, a college professor, a United States Senator and a candidate for President of the United States. #Warren2020."

Bernie Sanders Democratic Party

Entered Race: Feb. 19, 2019

Bernie Sanders, the runner-up in the 2016 contest for the Democratic nomination, has recorded a campaign video in which he says he is running for president in 2020, according to a report in Politico.

Pete Buttigieg Democratic Party

Entered Race: April 14, 2019

The 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana would becomethe first openly gay presidential nominee from a major political party. Buttigieg's platform includes a plan to further empower Black America and economic reform.

Julin Castro Democratic Party

Entered Race: Jan. 12, 2019

The former mayor of San Antonio -- and former Obama cabinet member -- supports immigration reform and eliminating lead poisoning.

Tulsi Gabbard Democratic Party

Entered Race: Jan. 11, 2019

Gabbard, a U.S. Representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district, endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2016, but in 2020 she's all-in on herself. Gabbard is running on immigration and criminal justice reform.

Cory Booker Democratic Party

Entered Race: Feb. 1, 2019

The New Jersey senator and former mayor of Newark formally tossed his name into the presidential hat on Feb. 1, the first day of Black History Month. Booker plans to end mass incarceration if he were to be elected president.

Marianne Williamson Democratic Party

Entered Race: Jan. 28, 2019

The "Healing the Soul of America" author and founder of Project Angel Food announced her candidacy during a political rally at the Saban Theater in Los Angeles on Jan. 28. If elected president, Williamson would be in favor of reparations and "economic justice for women and children."

Andrew Yang Democratic Party

Entered Race: Nov. 6, 2017

The entrepreneur and son of immigrant parents from Taiwan became a contender a year ago, tellingThe New York Timesthat he will advocate for a universal basic income.

John Delaney Democratic Party

Entered Race: July 28, 2017

TheU.S. Representative for Maryland's 6th district declaredback in July 2017. He says he'll "end reckless trade wars and expand trade," "create a universal health care system" and "launch a national AI strategy."

Amy Klobuchar Democratic Party

Entered Race: Feb. 10, 2019

The Minnesota Democrat, first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006, announced her bid on Feb. 10, 2019, saying that she wanted to work for "everyone who wanted their work recognized." Klobuchar's key issues she wants to tackle if elected president include revising voting rights protections and prioritizing cybersecurity.

Michael Bennet Democratic Party

Entered Race: May 2, 2019

The Colorado senator has been a vocal supporter on advancing the field of artificial intelligence and expanding the Child Tax Credit. He didn't qualify for the fourth Democratic debate but he's vowed to keep running.

Wayne Messam Democratic Candidate

Entered Race: March 28, 2019

The mayor of Miramar, Florida, a city near Miami, is a first-generation American who has called for end the filibuster and erasing student debt. He only raised $5 -- five -- during the quarter that ended Sep. 30, but he's still in the race.

Tom Steyer Democratic Party

Entered Race: July 9, 2019

The billionaire and climate change activist entered the race in July, saying in a video "if you think that there's something absolutely critical, try as hard as you can and let the chips fall where they may. And that's exactly what I'm doing. My name's Tom Steyer, and I'm running for president."

Joe Sestak Democratic Party

Entered Race: June 23, 2019

The former Pennsylvania Congressman has a plan for America that includes investing in American manufacturing and strengthening antitrust laws.

Deval Patrick - Democratic Party

Entered Race: Nov. 14, 2019

The former governor of Massachusetts acknowledged the challenge of jumping into the Democratic primary so late in the game. But in his announcement he took a veiled swipe at other candidates, saying the party was torn between "nostalgia" and "our big idea or no way.

Michael Bloomberg - Democratic Party

Entered Race: Nov. 24, 2019

The former mayor of New York is the second billionaire to enter the crowded Democratic field with just one year until the election. Bloomberg plans to fund his own campaign and is reportedly spending $30 million in TV ads to launch his campaign.

Bill Weld Republican Party

Entered Race: April 15, 2019

Weld is a former Governor of Massachusetts who has been on the record about his displeasure of Trump, specifically Trump's desire to be more of a "king than a president."

Joe Walsh Republican Party

Entered Race: Aug. 25, 2019

The former congressman from Illinois turned conservative talk show host announced in August 2019 that he would enter the GOP primaries to challenge President Trump. "I'm running because he's unfit; somebody needs to step up and there needs to be an alternative. The country is sick of this guy's tantrum -- he's a child," he told ABC News.

Seth Moulton Democratic Party

Entered Race: April 22, 2019

Dropped Out: August 23, 2019

The Massachusetts congressman and Iraq War veteran ended his campaign for president in a speech to the DNC in San Fransisco. I think its evident that this is now a three-way race between Biden, Warren and Sanders, and really its a debate about how far left the party should go, Mr. Moulton told the New York Times.

Eric Swalwell

Entered Race: April 8, 2019 Dropped Out: July 8, 2019

The California congressman wrote in a statement on his campaign's website about his decision to bow out of the 2020 presidential race, "Ill never forget the people I met and lessons I learned while travelling [sic] around our great nation especially in the communities most affected by gun violence."

John Hickenlooper

Entered Race: March 4, 2019 Dropped Out: Aug. 15, 2019

The former Colorado governor supported stricter gun control laws and free trade.

Jay Inslee Democratic Party

Entered Race: March 1, 2019 Dropped Out: Aug. 21, 2019

The Governor of Washington ran on a platform focused on climate change, proposing a "100% Clean Energy for America Plan" that would see emissions drop to zero by 2035.

He announced he was dropping out of the race during an appearance on "The Rachel Maddow Show."

"It's become clear that I'm not going to be carrying the ball," Inslee told Maddow. "I'm not going to be the President, I'm withdrawing tonight from the race."

Inslee added that he's optimistic that climate change will be a major part of the Democratic party's priorities.

Kirsten Gillibrand - Democratic Party

Entered Race: Jan. 15, 2019

Dropped Out: Aug. 28, 2019

The senator from New York announced her bid Tuesday, Jan. 15 on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert." Gillibrand, whose campaign slogan is "Brave Wins," supported paid family leave and protecting women's rights.

On August 28, 2019, she announced her withdrawal. "To our supporters: Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Now, let's go beat Donald Trump and win back the Senate," she tweeted.

Howard Schultz Independent

Dropped Out: Sept. 6, 2019

In January the former Starbucks CEO expressed initial interest in running. In August, Schultz reportedly suspended his campaigning until after Labor Day, citing medical issues. In September, Schultz cited those issues and more in a letter on his website as reasons he had to take himself out of the running.

"My belief in the need to reform our two-party system has not wavered, but I have concluded that an independent campaign for the White House is not how I can best serve our country at this time," he wrote.

Schultz is a co-founder of the venture capital firm Maveron, which is an investor in TheWrap.

Bill De Blasio Democratic Party

Entered Race: May 16, 2019

Dropped Out: Sept. 20, 2019

The New York City mayor was looking for more taxes for the wealthy and regulating "gig jobs" under his proposed Universal Labor Standards.

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Biopic on Reality Winner, Who Leaked NSA Report on Russias Election Interference, in the Works - TheWrap

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Honor s President Zhao Ming: NSA-Only 5G Phones Will Be Obsolete by Next Year – Gizchina.com

Honor s President Zhao Ming: NSA-Only 5G Phones Will Be Obsolete by Next Year

On November 26th, Honor s first 5G mobile phones the Honor V30 and V3 Pro were officially launched. Both devices are equipped with a Huawei Kirin 990 series chip and they both support 5G dual-mode NSA / SA cellular networks. As you may already know, not all phones with 5G connectivity support NSA and SA modes, as a matter of fact many 5G devices on the market only support NSA.

Honors 5G phones arrive pretty late to the party though, as most competitors have had 5G options out for various months now. So why did Honor wait so long to launch their first 5G phones? To answer these questions from users and the media, Honors Honorary President Zhao Ming did an interview in which he explained the reasons behind this choice.

Zhao Ming said that Most products currently on the market are transitional and temporary. So, we decided to wait and use the best 5G chip on the market on our Honor V30 series. The Huawei Kirin 990 5G is indeed the best 5G SoC according to the China Mobile Partner Conference; which is where it won the award.

He then added that There is a deeper problem behind NSA-only 5G mobile phones currently sold throughout the country and put in the hands of a large number of consumers. By 2020, there will be a large number of SA networks getting deployed around the country. All these mobile phones will not work properly and theyll suffer no coverage areas. Im still on a 4G phone myself, but how do you explain to consumers its too early for 5G? If we made 5G NSA-only devices earlier on, wed given our consumers a very bad product.

Heres the obvious hint at other brands such as Xiaomi, Samsung and others that have been selling 5G phones which arent dual-mode.

What do you guys think? Did Honor do well by delaying its 5G phone release? Let us know down below!

Via

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Honor s President Zhao Ming: NSA-Only 5G Phones Will Be Obsolete by Next Year - Gizchina.com

Posted in NSA

The "Right to be Forgotten" doubles back and shoots the shark – Reason

This Week in the Great Decoupling: The Commerce Department has rolled out proposed telecom and supply chain security rules that are aimed at but never once mention China. Acually, what the Department rolled out was more a sketch of its preliminary thinking about proposed rules. Brian Egan and I tackle the substance and history of the proposal and conclude that policymakers are still fighting each other about the meaning of a policy they've already announced.

And to show that decoupling can go both ways, a US-based chip-tech group is moving to Switzerland to reassure its Chinese participants. Nick Weaver and I conclude that there's a little less here than Reuters seems to think.

Mark MacCarthy tells us that reports of UChicago weather turning sunny and warm for hipster antitrust are probably overdone. Even so, Silicon Valley should be at least a little nervous that Chicago School enforcers are taking a hard look at personal data and free services as sources of anti-competitive conduct.

Mark highlights my favorite story of the week, in which the Right to be Forgotten discredits itself in, where else, Germany. Turns out that you can kill two people and wound a third on a yacht in the Atlantic, get convicted, serve 20 years, and then demand that everybody just forget it happened. The doctrine hasn't just jumped the shark. It's doubled back and put a couple of bullets in the poor shark for good measure.

Nick explains why NSA is so worried about TLS inspection. And delivers a rant on the bad cybersecurity software that makes NSA's worries so plausible.

It's been a bad week for TikTok, which was caught blocking an American Muslim teen who posted about Uighurs in China and offered an explanation that was believable only because US social media companies have offered explanations for their content moderation that were even less credible. I suggest that all the criticism will just lead to social media dreaming up more and sneakier ways to downgrade disfavored content without getting caught. Brian tells us how the flap might affect TikTok's pending CFIUS negotiation.

Nick ladles out abuse for the bozo who thought it was a good idea to offer Kim Jong Un's cyber bank robbers advice on using cryptocurrency to avoid sanctions. Brian points out that the prosecution will have to tiptoe past the First Amendment.

Senate Democrats have introduced the Consumer Online Privacy Rights Act, an online privacy bill with an unfortunate acronym (think fossilized dinosaur poop). Mark and I conclude that the bill is a sign that Washington isn't going to do privacy before 2021.

Who can resist GPS crop circle spoofing by sand pirates? Not Nick. Or me. Arrrr.

I update our story on DHS's CISA, which has now issued in draft its binding operational directive on vulnerability disclosure policies for federal agencies. It's taking comments on GitHub; Nick approves.

And in quick hits: The death of the Hippie Internet, part 734: Apple changes its map to show Crimea as Russian, but only for Russians. And part 735: Facebook accepts "fake news" correction notice from the Singapore government. Our own Paul Rosenzweig will be an expert witness in the government's prosecution of the Vault 7 leaker;. And Apple's bad IT cost it $467,000 for sanctions violations; I ask whether we should be blaming Scooby-Doo for the error.

Join Steptoe for a complimentary webinar on Tuesday, December 10. We'll be talking about the impacts on retailers of the newly implemented California Consumer Privacy Act and the EU's General Data Protection Regulation. This is a fast-moving area of the law; we can keep you up to date. You can find out more and registerhere.

Download the 290th Episode (mp3).

You can subscribe to The Cyberlaw Podcast using iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Pocket Casts, or our RSS feed!

As always, The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Be sure to engage with @stewartbaker on Twitter. Send your questions, comments, and suggestions for topics or interviewees to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com. Remember: If your suggested guest appears on the show, we will send you a highly coveted Cyberlaw Podcast mug!

The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the speakers' families, friends, former friends, clients, or institutions. Or spouses. I've been instructed to specifically mention spouses.

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The "Right to be Forgotten" doubles back and shoots the shark - Reason

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TM aims to be the first 5G standalone network in Malaysia – Malay Mail

KThe Telekom Malaysia logo is seen on the TM Tower in Bangsar November 22, 2018. Picture by Mukhriz HazimUALA LUMPUR, Dec 3 According to a source to the matter, Telekom Malaysia will begin a live 5G transmission in Langkawi on the 5th December 2019. This is expected to be the first deployment of 5G Standalone (SA) network in the country. It is said that TM is planning to use C-Band (3.5GHz) for the SA network.

According to TM, SA is the future of 5G network deployment and this will be crucial to fast track 5G implementation in the country. The demonstration in Langkawi will allow TM to test new 5G features and to assess the best way to deploy nationwide 5G infrastructure. In addition, TM is also testing the implementation of a converged 5G core which allows co-existence of both Non-Stand Alone (NSA) and Stand Alone (SA) network on a single platform.

On top of that, TM also intends to test and demonstrate Dynamic Spectrum Sharing which allows the same spectrum to be utilised for different mobile technology simultaneously through multiple bands of spectrum. With 5G being a new technology, TM aspires to deliver an efficient and cost-effective 5G infrastructure through the access regulations implemented by the MCMC. The upcoming network will leverage on TMs extensive fibre networks including submarine cables, telecommunication towers, and Cloud computing.

TM also wants to minimise duplication of 5G networks to reduce cost and this will translate to savings and lower prices to consumers. According to TM, they are open to working together with other operators during the 5G demo projects.

The rollout in Langkawi is among the 5G demo projects that are currently being deployed nationwide. Apart from Langkawi, TM has also started its 5G demonstration in Subang Jaya to test out its 5G connected smart traffic light, smart safety, smart security and smart parking system in partnership with Majlis Perbandaran Subang Jaya.

5G NSA vs SA

In case you didnt know, most early 5G deployments worldwide are based on a Non-Stand Alone (NSA) architecture. NSA uses existing 4G networks as an anchor which allow faster 5G rollout but it doesnt offer the full potential of 5G. Meanwhile, a Stand Alone (SA) 5G network will utilise a 5G core without LTE and it can support a wider range of 5G use cases and offer ultra-low latency.

In terms of smartphones, existing Qualcomm-powered 5G smartphones can only support 5G NSA. The only key smartphone maker to support 5G in both SA and NSA mode is Huawei and Honor with its existing Balong 5000 modem and Kirin 990 5G SoC. Xiaomi will soon introduce its first dual-mode 5G smartphone on the Redmi K30 that will utilise MediaTeks new Dimensity 1000 SoC. Oppo also plans to introduce its dual-mode 5G smartphone later this month and it is likely to utilise Qualcomms new X55 5G modem. SoyaCincau

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TM aims to be the first 5G standalone network in Malaysia - Malay Mail

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Hedge Funds Piled Into National Storage Affiliates Trust (NSA) At The Right Time – Yahoo Finance

Does National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) represent a good buying opportunity at the moment? Lets quickly check the hedge fund interest towards the company. Hedge fund firms constantly search out bright intellectuals and highly-experienced employees and throw away millions of dollars on satellite photos and other research activities, so it is no wonder why they tend to generate millions in profits each year. It is also true that some hedge fund players fail inconceivably on some occasions, but net net their stock picks have been generating superior risk-adjusted returns on average over the years.

National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) was in 18 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2019. NSA has experienced an increase in enthusiasm from smart money lately. There were 16 hedge funds in our database with NSA positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that NSA isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (see the video below). Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

5 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds

According to most investors, hedge funds are seen as worthless, outdated investment vehicles of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds in operation at present, We choose to focus on the leaders of this group, around 750 funds. It is estimated that this group of investors command most of all hedge funds' total capital, and by watching their first-class equity investments, Insider Monkey has come up with various investment strategies that have historically outperformed the broader indices. Insider Monkey's flagship hedge fund strategy outrun the S&P 500 index by around 5 percentage points per year since its inception in May 2014. We were able to generate large returns even by identifying short candidates. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 25.7% since February 2017 (through September 30th) even thoughthe market was up more than 33% during the same period. We just shared a list of 10 short targetsin our latest quarterly update .

Unlike former hedge manager, Dr. Steve Sjuggerud, who is convinced Dow will soar past 40000, our long-short investment strategy doesn't rely on bull markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on hedge fund buy/sell signals. Let's analyze the recent hedge fund action encompassing National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA).

Heading into the third quarter of 2019, a total of 18 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 13% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in NSA over the last 16 quarters. With the smart money's capital changing hands, there exists an "upper tier" of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

No of Hedge Funds with NSA Positions

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Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Renaissance Technologies has the most valuable position in National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA), worth close to $44.2 million, accounting for less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Millennium Management, led by Israel Englander, holding a $20 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other professional money managers that are bullish include Paul Marshall and Ian Wace's Marshall Wace LLP, David Harding's Winton Capital Management and Jonathan Barrett and Paul Segal's Luminus Management.

As industrywide interest jumped, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Luminus Management, managed by Jonathan Barrett and Paul Segal, established the largest position in National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA). Luminus Management had $9.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Benjamin A. Smith's Laurion Capital Management also initiated a $0.9 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Matthew Tewksbury's Stevens Capital Management, Richard Driehaus's Driehaus Capital, and Michael Gelband's ExodusPoint Capital.

Let's go over hedge fund activity in other stocks - not necessarily in the same industry as National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Prosperity Bancshares, Inc. (NYSE:PBH), Silicon Motion Technology Corporation (NASDAQ:SIMO), SSR Mining Inc. (NASDAQ:SSRM), and Newmark Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NMRK). This group of stocks' market valuations match NSA's market valuation.

[table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position PBH,15,66050,2 SIMO,12,141488,-1 SSRM,16,139260,3 NMRK,16,102144,-8 Average,14.75,112236,-1 [/table]

View table hereif you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 14.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $112 million. That figure was $132 million in NSA's case. SSR Mining Inc. (NASDAQ:SSRM) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Silicon Motion Technology Corporation (NASDAQ:SIMO) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) is more popular among hedge funds. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 24.4% in 2019 through September 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 4 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on NSA as the stock returned 16.4% during Q3 and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.

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Hedge Funds Piled Into National Storage Affiliates Trust (NSA) At The Right Time - Yahoo Finance

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NSA: ‘We know we need to do some work’ on declassifying threat intel – CyberScoop

Written by Shannon Vavra Oct 24, 2019 | CYBERSCOOP

One of the National Security Agencys newly minted Cybersecurity Directorates goals is to quickly share information on adversarial threats with the private sector but the process for doing that needs to be refined, the directorates leader said Thursday.

The process in place today is where we know we need to do some work, Anne Neuberger said while speaking at CyberTalks, produced by CyberScoop. When we find indications of a threat, we see planning to execute a particular operation, or we see the operation being executed. [But] because we learn about it in a classified way, we treat it as classified.

Part of the difficulty the NSA faces is that adversaries often run operations and then discard their compromised infrastructure, making a protracted declassification process nearly useless since indicators of compromise pretty much they have a ticking time clock for how useful they are, Neuberger said.

The new directorate, which started operations earlier this month, is measuring success by examining how well it is able to prevent attacks moving forward.

Have we used threat intelligence, have we used security guidelines, have we worked with the network owner? are the questions the NSA needs to be asking itself moving forward, Neuberger said.

Its not clear what specific metrics the NSA will use to determine whether the new directorate is successful, but Neuberger said the unit will be asking government partners whether it has made a difference in their security.

Inevitably, deciding who will talk with the private sector about nation-state threats NSA or the Department of Homeland Security will involve the DHSsCybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, given that the intelligence agencys authorities dont pertain to critical infrastructure, CISA Director Chris Krebs told reporters at CyberTalks.

By its very nature, Title 50 organizations should not be really researching and understanding how American critical infrastructure works. Thats my job working with Treasury [Department], working with [the Department of] Energy, Krebs said. Title 50 is the part of U.S. Code that covers intelligence agencies.

It may make sense for the NSA to take point and work directly with the private sector if the agency has interest in a specific threat, Krebs said.

But on critical infrastructure and threats to U.S. elections, Krebs thinks DHS should take the reins.

In the traditional critical infrastructure spaces, we would look to take the lead based on our relationships, based on our understanding of how to work with those folks, Krebs said. Since we have the relationship with the state and local election officials we think its probably most effective right now that we help harness various [intelligence] pieces and then put it in the hands of the network defenders in the local election jurisdictions.

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NSA: 'We know we need to do some work' on declassifying threat intel - CyberScoop

Posted in NSA

Meet Tom Drake, the NSA Whistleblower Cheney Wanted to ‘Fry’ – The American Conservative

Thomas Drake. Credit: Adam Berry/Getty Images

Find and fry the leaker or leakers. Burn them. We have to make an example of them.

Vice President Dick Cheney issued that edict after whistleblower Thomas Drake, a former senior executive at the NSA, revealed the unconstitutional mass surveillance regime that had been instituted after 9/11, Drake himself said in a recent interview with The American Conservative.

The constant drumbeat of demands to reveal the names of whistleblowers who filed a complaint against President Trump gives Drake horrible flashbacks, he says. And while Republicans endlessly repeat that the American people have a right to know their identities, Drake doesnt agree.

The identity of the whistleblower is irrelevant, he says. The focus should be on the message, not the messenger. The information that was provided doesnt require the whistleblower to come before Congress. (Congress has been issuing subpoenas to first-hand witnesses to substantiate the complaint.)

I have major concerns for the safety of the whistleblower, Drake continues. The president of the United States hasnt minced words in terms of his perspective. If you call out the behavior of a presidenttheyre going to counterattack. Mine happened behind closed doors. The counterattack on the Ukraine whistleblower is occurring in full view of the public.

Drake says safety concerns are all the more salient because the president is fully exposed here. He has enormous power.

Drake recalls how in his case he was warned by senior leadership at the NSA: They were looking for leakers to Congress. The warning was crystal clear: you cooperate with them at your peril.

The way the Trump administration is responding tells you that the whistleblowers disclosures hit close to homejust like mine did, Drake says. The degree to which the government responds to a whistleblower complaint is the degree to which the whistleblowers disclosures are accurate.

Drake knows what its like to become a target of the state. He earned Cheneys wrath when he was working as a senior level official at the National Security Agency (NSA) after September 11, 2001. Alarmed by the NSAs warrantless surveillance of Americans, Drake reported it to the Inspectors General and to congressional committees. In 2007, after a reporter for the Baltimore Sun published articles on the waste, fraud, and abuse at the NSA, FBI agents, guns blazing, raided the homes of the people who had worked on the Inspector General report and took their computers, books, and papers. In 2010, Barack Obamas administration indicted Drake under the Espionage Act. Members of Congress, he says, were calling him a traitor.

They wanted me to be sent to prison in an orange jumpsuit. I was facing 35 years. The prosecutors were saying that I was worse than a spy, he says, pointing out how Trump has used the similar language to describe the Ukraine whistleblower.

After the leak, Drake was unable to find work in the intelligence community. To support his family, he worked at an Apple store. Eventually all 10 felony charges against him were dropped and a plea deal struck on the eve of the trial. Drake was sentenced to community service and probation. U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett refused to impose a fine, calling the governments decision to drag Drake and his family through four years of hell only to drop all felony charges at the last minute unconscionable.

Because he experienced the heavy personal toll of living as a whistleblower, Drake says he has concern for the blowback todays whistleblowers will face.

Your entire life gets blown up and theres no going back to the way it was before, he says. If theres an actual vote for impeachment, then the whistleblowers life will never be the same.

Historically, whistleblowers have a love/hate relationship particularly with those in power, says Drake. If youre in power you dont like them at all.

Weird things happen when you become president, Drake says. I saw what happens to people when they have power: it does affect you, believing you affect the lives of others. Its incredibly tempting to abuse power; its seductiveness is overwhelming.

Drake sounds like an idealist when he talks about the presidents duties under the Constitution, though its striking the amount of personal courage it takes to report government wrongdoing. He lost his job; he almost lost his freedom.

The media took a long time to cover Drakes case favorably. At first they accepted the Obama administrations narrative that Drake was a spy who must have done something awful, he says. But thanks in part to Jane Mayers reporting at the New Yorker, journalists slowly began to question whether he was really an enemy of the state. Drake went on to win the Ridenhour Truth Telling Prize while still facing felony charges.

The whistleblowers on Ukraine havent been subjected to the hell Drake endured because their complaint is public and highly politicized, says Drake. Trumps such a lightning rod.

Still, he says, its appalling that some reports wax poetic and yearn for the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Just like his predecessors, Drake charges, Trump has been utterly unfaithful to the constitution.

Barbara Boland isThe American Conservatives foreign policy and national security reporter. Follow her on Twitter@BBatDC.

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EXCLUSIVE Last Punched Tape Crypto Key Rolls off the NSAs Machines – Computer Business Review

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After decades in use, last paper tape crypto key punched

The USs National Security Agency (NSA) has ended production of punched paper tape cryptographic keys after over 50 years use; making its final shift to an electronic cryptographic key production and distribution architecture.

An agency spokesman confirmed to Computer Business Review that the last NSA punched tape key had rolled off its machines on October 2, 2019. Such keys were used to encrypt military and other communications, and needed to be physically entered into devices that could store the key, then shipped around the world.

The technology, which uses paper-mylar-paper tape rolls punched with holes to store cryptographic keys (a hole represents a binary 1, and the absence of a hole a binary 0) remains in use in the UK, particularly by the Ministry of Defence.

The NSA only confirmed the end of the programme and declined to provide an image of the now obsolete kit.

Neal Ziring, technical director of the NSAs Capabilities Directorate, told us earlier this year that the signals intelligence agency produced millions of the physical crypto keys per year during the 1980s but was now down to the hundreds annually.

He joked of the last production run: Well probably have a party.

Such cryptographic keys (used for symmetric algorithms widely deployed by the military) are physically shipped around the country in tamper-proof canisters.

Ziring attributed the longevity of the technology, despite digital alternatives, to slow military equipment replacement cycles: Once the military gets a tactical radio or something that they like, they tend to use it for a long while.

Weve been working with our military partners to get them off key tape for, oh jeez, well over a decade; probably longer.

Physical keys remain in widespread use in the UK. In 2018 the UK Key Production Authority, which sits under the NCSC, processed[pdf] 3,800 orders for key material; or 145,000 physical keys for 170 customers across government.

Richard Flitton, managing director ofL3 TRL; a Tewkesbury-based specialist in advanced electronic security systems, earlier told Computer Business Review that ongoing use of the technology was a security issue.

He said: Theres two issues here: one is that youve got to distribute the key, so youve got to physically move the things around the country or even overseas. If youre moving things theyre vulnerable to being intercepted or compromised. Then secondly theres the cost and logistical burden of doing all that.

The authority has a huge challenge to produce all those keys and then its got a challenge to distribute and install them all. I wont describe what happens. But if Joe Public knew, you would think this was all a bit 1960s really.

As Ziring explained earlier, digital cryptographic key management rendered comsec accounting and logistics a lot more straightforward.

In terms of how that works: A base or a depot would have an outpost of the key management system there are various form factors for that right on base.

If theyre trying to put keys into some military aircraft; theyd have fill devices in the hanger, you fill up the key fill device from the KMS, you take it around the airplanes youre talking about walking a couple hundred meters Its not like trying to ship it [a punched tape key] from Maryland out to a base from the other side of the world.

Such tape can either be used as a one-time key, roughly equivalent to a one-time pad to directly encipher a message (this was long ago phased out) or used to store a crypto variable; the key for a symmetric algorithm.

A blog by the NSA itself described the technology: Each 5,000 foot roll of Paper-Mylar-Paper-tape moving through the production line at one foot per second represented the raw material on which the COMSEC key would be punched and printed.

Keeping the punch and print operations moving with the necessary speed and precision presented a serious engineering challenge. Borrowing from the technology of magnetic tape drives, the development team came up with vacuum wells which were incorporated into the system to physically regulate the flow of the tape.

The software development engineer and crypto software programmers of such punch, verification, print (PVP) systems in the 1970s had to write the main system software for the DEC PDP-11 computer that would import cryptologic key and oversee the entire tape production process entirely in assembly language.

This task was daunting and would be considered the equivalent of travelling from Baltimore to Los Angeles on hands and knees by todays programmers.

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EXCLUSIVE Last Punched Tape Crypto Key Rolls off the NSAs Machines - Computer Business Review

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Is This a Room Dramatizes the Interrogation of NSA Leaker Reality Winner – TheaterMania.com

If the FBI comes to your house, don't let them snoop around until they show you a warrant and for God's sake, don't talk to them until you have a lawyer present. That is the most useful lesson from director Tina Satter's Is This a Room, now playing at Vineyard Theatre. But this white-knuckle thriller based on true recent events contains more complicated observations about fear, intimidation, and how power mostly exerts itself in silence.

Satter uses as her script the verbatim transcript of the recording FBI agents Justin Garrick (Pete Simpson) and R. Wallace Taylor (T.L. Thompson) took the afternoon of June 3, 2017, shortly before the FBI arrested NSA contractor Reality Winner (Emily Davis). Winner was an Air Force veteran and specialist in Farsi, Dari, and Pashto. After leaving the military, she took a job as a translator with Pluribus, an organization that contracts with the NSA. Through her top-secret security clearance, she was able to access classified documents at work, including one that was leaked to online news source The Intercept revealing attempts by Russian intelligence to directly interfere with polling places during the 2016 election. In 2018, Winner pleaded guilty to leaking the document and was sentenced to five years, three months in federal prison the longest term ever to be given to someone for releasing government information to the media.

Winner's case raises unsettling questions about how the security state fits into our republic: Why is so much information gathered with our tax dollars withheld from us? Are leakers like Winner American patriots or threats to national security? Is it right that worker bees like Winner languish in prison while well-lawyered national security threats like Michael Flynn and Rudy Giuliani walk free? Is This a Room deals with none of these questions, but it does grippingly dramatize the moment when the cudgel of the state knocked down Reality Winner's door.

From the moment agents approach her, Winner knows she's in trouble. Small talk meant to keep the situation casual (but breathlessly delivered by all cast members) only seems to make things more awkward. Sattler reads a level of danger hidden beneath the anodyne chitchat of the transcript, and she brings that to her nerve-racking staging. The agents loom around her, invade her personal space, and breathe down her neck. Simpson and Thompson enact a classic good cop-bad cop routine, which is rendered no less effective for its transparency. The presence of an unnamed third male (Becca Blackwell) makes it clear that Winner is completely outnumbered.

All of this seems designed to undermine the government's narrative that Winner's confession (delivered without counsel and before any Miranda rights were read) was given freely. While the agents repeatedly state that this conversation is "voluntary," their menacing body language tells an entirely different story. Most damning is the presence of Winner's cat and dog, adorably fashioned by puppet designer Amanda Villalobos. Based on the vaguely threatening way Blackwell handles them alone, we understand that there will be consequences if Winner doesn't comply.

Davis plays Winner like she has just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Her childlike voice betrays guilt and fear from the earliest moments, and it only gets worse from there until she is standing with her hands over her crotch and her eyes downcast, like a little girl who has just wet herself. It's an interpretation of this Air Force veteran and powerlifter who regularly worked out within the testosterone-soaked walls of a CrossFit gym that I found hard to swallow. Did Reality Winner really crumple so completely?

While I intellectually bristled at Satter and Davis's infantilizing interpretation of Winner, that was only after I left the theater, and after I stopped feeling the real anxiety that Is This a Room conjures: Sattler's powerful blocking comes into sharp relief on Parker Lutz's unadorned platform set. The audience is seated in traverse, with the bulk of us staring at a singular line of brave souls seated opposite. Enver Chakartash faithfully re-creates the actual outfit Winner was wearing the day of her arrest, as captured by this snapshot. It leaves her exposed and vulnerable in the face of the handguns and (in Blackwell's case) body armor worn by the agents.

Lee Kinney and Sanae Yamada's aggressive sound design introduces disorienting alien noises to the theater, while Yamada's original music maintains an air of tension. Lighting designer Thomas Dunn has developed a clear convention for the redacted parts of the transcript: A magenta pulse for single words, a short blackout for full sentences. We are left briefly to contemplate in the dark how there are still aspects of this story that our government seeks to hide from us.

All of this created a feeling of anxiety that I've rarely encountered since I was a child being called on the carpet by some adult. Perhaps we are trained from an early age to revert to this red-eared state: From the all-seeing eye of Santa to the awesome surveillance apparatus of the NSA, our culture seems designed to infantilize us before authority. Through sharp design and gripping performances, Satter shows how even the strongest of us become weeping children in the face of the awesome power of the federal government. Does that sound like the land of the free to you?

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Is This a Room Dramatizes the Interrogation of NSA Leaker Reality Winner - TheaterMania.com

Posted in NSA

The Key Facts On National Storage Affiliates Trust ($NSA) (2019-10-28) Urgence News – Urgence News

2019-10-28 (URGENCE NEWS) | Welcome! Today I did some analysis on National Storage Affiliates Trust based on how it has behaved over the past few trading sessions. First of all, please note that this is technical analysis only (ie. analyzing how NSA is trading, not digging into the company fundamentals), and therefore you should not rely only on this to guide you on whether you should buy or sell NSA take it with a grain of salt only, and pay attention to the disclaimer below. With that said, many traders find value in technical analysis and others even swear by it, so if that is you, I hope my analysis will be of use to you. Lets get to it

First things first: during its last day of trading, NSA opened at 35.48, got to a maximum price of 35.48 and dropped to as low as 34.72 before finishing the session at 34.76. In total there were 399000 shares traded, which is enough to conduct our analysis.

VOLUME ANALYSIS: Generally, the higher the volume indicators are, the better you need liquidity to trade, after all. All of the volume indicators are as follows (click here for an explanation on volume)

VOLATILITY INDICATORS: These are what tell you how much the stock has really been moving around. We have calculated all of them (click here for an explanation on volatility)

Now for the most important indicator of all, the trend. Is the stock bullish or bearish? Is it going up or down? Various trend indicators can give us a good indication (click here for an explanation on trend)

Now for momentum. Relative strength is what you want to pay attention to here (click here for an explanation on momentum)

And for the final and simplest part: the return. No complicated calculations needed here!

THE VERDICT: For today (2019-10-28), our analysis of technical indicators for National Storage Affiliates Trust ($NSA) indicates the following (thanks to Trading View for the widget):

The verdict above will consider all these technical indicators and consider which are strong and weak, and then put them all together to come up with a conclusion stating whether NSA is strong or weak. Again this is not a reliable indication of whether National Storage Affiliates Trust is a good investment! None of these indicators consider the company fundamentals. All of this data is based on how it trades only.

What tools do we think are useful for NSA investors? We have identified a handful of great services and software products that we feel comfortable recommending. The first (and main) thing you should take a look at is the Beat The Market Analyzer software, but we also recommend 3 other products. These are Dividend Stocks (an excellent resource to find stocks that may pay far better than NSA), Microcap Millionaires (the best site online for profiting off micro-cap stocks) and Trading Code (an extremely powerful system for profiting off trading). These recommendations are valid for NSA investors as of 2019-10-28.

DISCLAIMER: We are not registered investment advisers and the above analysis should be taken at face value only. We strongly advise against buying or selling National Storage Affiliates Trust ($NSA) based solely on our analysis above, and are not responsible for any losses that you may incur if you choose make any investment decisions based on the above.

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The Key Facts On National Storage Affiliates Trust ($NSA) (2019-10-28) Urgence News - Urgence News

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