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THE NEXT NSA?Police under scrutiny for using spying technology

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FILE: A motorist whose car has its two front wheels opposing each other is pulled over by a policeman for a moving traffic violation.Reuters

The NSA isnt the only government agency raising concerns about electronic privacy. Local police departments are coming under similar scrutiny not only for using spying technology, but for hiding their use from the public.

At least 25 police departments now use what is known as "Stingray," a briefcase-sized box that swallows up cell phone data within a mile radius.

More than one in three large police departments are also using license-plate readers, which can record every plate-- even on a four-lane highway from vehicles going at speeds of up to 150 miles per hour.

The technology is a remarkable crime-fighting tool, according to former D.C. homicide detective Rod Wheeler.

"Not just automobile thefts, but homicides, all kinds of robberies, so the technology is definitely something that's an asset to us," he said.

But in a May 1 article, Wired magazine reported that Harris Corporation,maker of the Stingray, and Vigilant Solutions, which sells license-plate readers, holds its police department buyers to vows of secrecy.

It reported that Vigilant's terms of service says: "This prohibition is specifically intended to prohibit users from cooperating with any media outlet.

Lon Anderson, with AAA, raised concerns about this provision.

"It's very worrisome, he said. I think we want police agencies to be as transparent as possible. There shouldn't be anything to hide here."

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THE NEXT NSA?Police under scrutiny for using spying technology

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NSA spies on more US citizens than Russians Snowden

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RUSSIA: The NSA gathers more data on American citizens than it does about foreigners, Edward Snowden has said. During an acceptance speech for a truth-telling prize, the whistleblower attacked NSA head, James Clapper, for lying about US surveillance.

We watch our own people more closely than anyone else in the world, said Edward Snowden, appearing in a live video link at the 11th annual Ridenhour Prizes ceremony in Washington. He was greeted by a standing ovation from the audience when he received the Ridenhour Award for Truth-Telling. During his speech, the whistleblower said he leaked thousands of classified government documents, detailing the NSAs mass surveillance programs because it was the right thing to do, and now I see Im not the only one who felt that way. I thought the most likely outcome would be spending the rest of my life in prison, said Snowden.

He also criticized the Senate and the House Intelligence committees for their lack of oversight on the NSA and the intelligence community. Leveling criticism at the NSAs director, James Clapper, Snowden blasted him for his famous lie during a speech last year.

In a testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee last March, Clapper stated that the NSA did not wittingly gather any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans. It was later revealed in Snowdens documents that the agency does collect metadata indiscriminately from American telephone and internet companies. This prompted Clapper to go back on his statement, admitting it was erroneous in an apology letter to Congress.

When Clapper raised his hand and lied to the American public, was anyone tried? Were any charges brought? Snowden asked. Within 24 hours of going public, I had three charges against me.

The 30year-old former CIA contractor-turned whistleblower is currently residing in Russia, where he was granted temporary asylum last year after he fled the US.

- RUSSIA TODAY

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NSA spies on more US citizens than Russians Snowden

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Tech firms to increase alerts about police requests for data — report

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Despite Justice Department objections, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft plan to expand their policies on notifying customers whose data has been requested by law enforcement, says a report.

The news comes as a digital-rights organization gets set to release an influential privacy scorecard, and as bad publicity still hangs in the air regarding potential cooperation between tech firms and the US National Security Agency.

The customer notifications apparently wouldn't apply to requests made by the NSA, or requests involving national security letters -- administrative subpoenas -- issued by the FBI, says a Washington Post report.

"The changing tech company policies do not affect data requests approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which are automatically kept secret by law," the Post notes, referring to the special court that oversees the NSA's controversial surveillance programs. (Those programs, of course, were made commonly known by Edward Snowden's leaking of top secret agency documents last summer). National security letters are also kept mum by default, the Post adds.

But other police requests for email records and online data would be covered, unless accompanied by a court-approved gag order.

The US Department of Justice says the notifications could tip off criminals and help them avoid prosecution, but a tech lawyer quoted by the Post says the change in policy would provide a check on wanton searches. "It serves to chill the unbridled, cost-free collection of data," the Post quotes attorney Albert Gidari Jr. as saying.

The Post cites unnamed company officials in reporting that Facebook and Microsoft are preparing policy changes. An Apple rep told the paper that the company would be updating its policy later in May "so that in most cases when law enforcement requests personal information about a customer, the customer will receive a notification."

Twitter routinely alerts customers about police requests for data, Yahoo announced changes in July, and Google put changes in place this week, the Post reports.

Digital-rights nonprofit The Electronic Frontier Foundation is preparing to release its annual "Who Has Your Back?" scorecard later this month. Last year, neither Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, nor Yahoo got a gold star in the "Tells users about government data requests" column of the report card, though Twitter and others did.

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Tech firms to increase alerts about police requests for data -- report

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What's The NSA Doing Now? Training More Cyberwarriors

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hide captionComputer hacking experts from the National Security Agency and various branches of the U.S. armed services try to break into remote networks set up by competing U.S. military service academies. The hackers' war room is in a building in Columbia, Md., owned by Parsons, a U.S. defense contractor.

Computer hacking experts from the National Security Agency and various branches of the U.S. armed services try to break into remote networks set up by competing U.S. military service academies. The hackers' war room is in a building in Columbia, Md., owned by Parsons, a U.S. defense contractor.

The U.S. needs more cyberwarriors, and it needs them fast, according to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. He plans to more than triple the size of the Pentagon's Cyber Command over the next two years.

But where will they come from? These are not the kind of skills you can teach in basic training.

Enter the embattled National Security Agency. Its new director, Adm. Michael Rogers, also directs the Cyber Command. Ten miles down the road from the NSA, at a defense contractor's office in Columbia, Md., the NSA recently held a live-fire cyberwarfare exercise aimed at developing more cyberwarriors.

In a long room at the facility, big speakers pump electro house music. Several dozen people, many in military uniforms, cluster around computer stations. Hovering above them is the image of a skull and bones a big Jolly Roger pirate flag.

This is a roomful of break-in artists people who are experts at hacking into other people's computers.

hide captionU.S. Naval Academy midshipmen taking part in the cyber exercise check to see if their computer network has been hacked by the NSA's red-cell team.

U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen taking part in the cyber exercise check to see if their computer network has been hacked by the NSA's red-cell team.

Marine Capt. Robert Johnston leads what he calls a reconnaissance and initial access team.

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What's The NSA Doing Now? Training More Cyberwarriors

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NSA on Heartbleed: 'We're not legally allowed to lie to you'

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Summary: In an exclusive interview with ZDNet's David Gewirtz, a senior NSA official explains why the agency regards security and civil liberties as more than a simple balancing act: "You have to have them both."

ZDNet recently had the opportunity to sit down and discuss how the NSA approaches the difficult challenge of both protecting our security and supporting the American ideals of openness and transparency. The recent Heartbleed bug brought these issues to light in a particularly relevant way.

This article contains a transcribed version of that interview. Other than a few housekeeping clean-ups, the interview is verbatim.

Before we start, I also want to point out that I was permitted to ask whatever questions I wanted, and Neal Ziring, Technical Director in NSA's Information Assurance Directorate was willing to answer them.

Here are some tidbits from the full interview:

And now, the full interview, in its entirety...

ZDNet: Let's start out with some background. Tell us about yourself.

Neal: I've been at NSA since 1988, and I worked mostly in evaluation of security products, crypto products, things like that. I worked a little bit on mobile code security, executable content security as you sometimes call it at the DOD and IC levels. I worked a lot on router security, so if you go on NSA.gov, you can see some of the products I worked on, the guidance available on security, and I worked with NIST on security content automation protocol.

"The folks that are here on the inside get to see the intelligence that they're delivering every day. They get to see a soldier go home who they gave intelligence to his platoon so it wasn't ambushed."

Then I spent four years working over in our Technology Directorate as a security architect for some large government systems including some that went out to the field like Iraq and Afghanistan. Then I came back to my home, IAD Directorate, to be the Technical Director. You can think of it like a senior technical advisor position to our director.

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NSA on Heartbleed: 'We're not legally allowed to lie to you'

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