As evidence mounts, it’s getting harder to defend Edward Snowden

[MohRokTah]

This is from Stewart Baker, so take with appropriate quantities of salt (the infographic is large, so I gave a link):

As evidence mounts, it’s getting harder to defend Edward Snowden

The evidence is mounting that Edward Snowden and his journalist allies have helped al Qaeda improve their security against NSA surveillance. In May, Recorded Future, a [-]predictive analytics[/-] web intelligence firm, published a persuasive timeline showing that Snowden’s revelations about NSA’s capabilities were followed quickly by a burst of new, robust encryption tools from al-Qaeda and its affiliates:

http://www.skatingonstilts.com/.a/6a011570268f42970c01a511ef8bd5970c-pi
http://www.skatingonstilts.com/.a/6a011570268f42970c01a511ef8bd5970c-pi]

This is hardly a surprise for those who live in the real world. But it was an affront to Snowden’s defenders, who’ve long insisted that journalists handled the NSA leaks so responsibly that no one can identify any damage that they have caused.

In damage control mode, Snowden’s defenders first responded to the Recorded Future analysis by pooh-poohing the terrorists’ push for new encryption tools. Bruce Schneier declared that the change might actually hurt al Qaeda: “I think this will help US intelligence efforts. Cryptography is hard, and the odds that a home-brew encryption product is better than a well-studied open-source tool is slight.”

Schneier is usually smarter than this. In fact, the product al Qaeda had been recommending until the leaks, Mujahidin Secrets, probably did qualify as “home-brew encryption.” Indeed, Bruce Schneier dissed Mujahidin Secrets in 2008 on precisely that ground, saying “No one has explained why a terrorist would use this instead of PGP.”

...

More at the Washington Post

[randome]

1. Finally, DU is getting back to normal.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]

[MohRokTah]

5. Just putting it out there.

The infographic was what I found most interesting, but it was definitely to large to hotlink to in a DU post.

[SomethingFishy]

6. LOL...

[leftstreet]

2. I've never forgiven him for keeping a messy garage

[GeorgeGist]

3. Weak sauce with ...

mystery meat.

[unblock]

4. ah yes. someone somewhere might misuse knowledge, therefore best to keep everyone ignorant.

welcome to the middle ages.

i'm also quite certain the terrists never ever ever would have thought to upgrade their security. people like that never give any thought at all to security. ever.

[LittleBlue]

7. Not really

The evidence is mounting that Edward Snowden and his journalist allies have helped al Qaeda improve their security against NSA surveillance. In May, Recorded Future, a predictive analytics web intelligence firm, published a persuasive timeline showing that Snowden’s revelations about NSA’s capabilities were followed quickly by a burst of new, robust encryption tools from al-Qaeda and its affiliates:

To get Al Qaeda, it's not acceptable to spy on Americans.

Thank fuck for Snowden, or else we wouldn't even know about this shit. The WaPo as usual supports the establishment against the American people.

[gratuitous]

10. One would also think

That if the information Snowden got his hands on was so important, why didn't the intelligence agencies keep it a little more secure? You know, do a little background check on their hires, or restrict the information to people in-house and not contract workers?

I also wonder whether the timeline information from Recorded Future is trustworthy? I've never heard of this firm, don't know who they are, what their methodology is, or anything else. But their work is apparently "persuasive" for folks desperate to be persuaded.

[Luminous Animal]

8. From the libertarian Volokh Conspiracy. Nice!

[The Traveler]

9. The flawed premise

The flawed premise of this sort of argument is that getting Al Qaeda or other elements hostile to the US is the top priority of the US military and intelligence apparatus. It is not. Upholding and defending the Constitution is the specifically defined mandate of the US military.

In the case of the US surveillance apparatus we now know, in large part due to Mr. Snowden, that ultimate mandate has been subordinated (and indeed violated) in support of other tasking. The tasking itself ("get Al Qaeda", for example) is of course valid and within Constitutional scope. At least some of the methods employed evidently are not.

States have legitimate secrets, and there is no doubt that some legitimate secrets have been compromised in the course of these disclosures. That is the inevitable cost of revealing over reach by the intelligence community. One would think the intelligence community would at long last learn that lesson, and seek to remain with the ample scope of action allowed by the Constitution. Their insistence on doing otherwise gives reasonable persons grounds for questioning their actual motives and objectives.

Trav

[frylock]

11. *yawn*

[Douglas Carpenter]

12. Absolutely!! If you criticize the government - the terrorist have already won