By MARTHA MENDOZA
AP National Writer
SAN JOSE, Calif.
Showing posts with label National Security Agency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National Security Agency. Show all posts
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Friday, April 18, 2014
Ed Snowden, Russian TV star, hands Putin a propaganda coup
What are the odds?
I mean, Vladimir Putin does a call-in show and one guy who happens to get through—to ask a question in English—is Ed Snowden?
That is one amazing coincidence—almost as amazing as those soldiers who mysteriously materialized in Crimea turning out to be Russian.
In a few moments, Snowden became part of a Soviet-style propaganda machine, even though he clearly views himself as a public-spirited crusader.
After Snowden leaked all those NSA documents to the Guardian and the Washington Post, which shared a Pulitzer Prize this week, he fled to Hong Kong and then to Moscow, which was more than happy to tweak President Obama by harboring him.
But Snowden is clearly drawn to the spotlight, and he played a starring role in Putin’s political theater on Thursday.
He gave the Russian leader a chance to beat his chest about how moral he is, compared to the bad old USA.
Keep in mind that Snowden is not just some zealous activist. Some people think he’s a traitor, others think he’s a hero sparking a global debate. But there is no dispute that he is a fugitive from justice.
Nor did he just ask a question. He gave a little speech, saying that White House and other reviews of the NSA surveillance program had concluded “that these programs are ineffective in stopping terrorism. They also found that they unreasonably intrude into the private lives of ordinary citizens.”
Having delivered his anti-NSA spin, Snowden serves up the pitch for Putin to hit: “Does Russia intercept, store, or analyze in any way the communications of millions of individuals? And do you believe that simply increasing the effectiveness of intelligence or law enforcement investigations can justify placing societies, rather than subjects, under surveillance?”
What a coup for Putin. And he did not miss the opportunity.
First, the former KGB officer engaged in a little espionage talk:
“Mr. Snowden, you are a former agent, a spy, I used to be working for an intelligence service; we are going to talk one professional language,” Putin said, according to a translator. “Our intelligence efforts are strictly regulated by our law. So our special forces can use special equipment as they intercept phone calls or follow someone online. You have to get court permission to stalk a particular person. We don’t have mass system of such interception. And according to our law it cannot exist…
“We don’t have as much money as they have in the States, we don’t have these technical devices that they have in the States. Our special services, thank God, are strictly controlled by the society and the law, and are regulated by the law.”
In other words, we can’t afford what the Americans do, and wouldn’t do it if we could.
First, Putin is probably not leveling about his intelligence capabilities. Some analysts say Russia has few if any checks on its spying apparatus. Remember all the surveillance at Sochi?
Second, the U.S. surveillance is also in accordance with the law—although the public uproar sparked by Snowden has prompted Obama to move toward slapping restrictions on the NSA. Whether it’s a good anti-terror tool is another question.
But most important, this guy is lecturing us about respect for the law? The man who at this very moment is threatening eastern Ukraine? The man who flouted international law by seizing Crimea, even as he denied that Russian troops had marched into the peninsula?
This is the guy who Snowden wants to prop up?
I don’t think, as I said earlier this week, that Snowden’s involvement taints the Pulitzer-worthy work of the Guardian and Washington Post. But his star turn yesterday sure muddies Snowden’s reputation even further.
Update: In a piece this morning for the Guardian, Snowden says he was trying to hold Putin accountable:
"I was surprised that people who witnessed me risk my life to expose the surveillance practices of my own country could not believe that I might also criticise the surveillance policies of Russia, a country to which I have sworn no allegiance, without ulterior motive. I regret that my question could be misinterpreted, and that it enabled many to ignore the substance of the question - and Putin's evasive response - in order to speculate, wildly and incorrectly, about my motives for asking it...
"So why all the criticism? I expected that some would object to my participation in an annual forum that is largely comprised of softball questions to a leader unaccustomed to being challenged. But to me, the rare opportunity to lift a taboo on discussion of state surveillance before an audience that primarily views state media outweighed that risk. Moreover, I hoped that Putin's answer - whatever it was - would provide opportunities for serious journalists and civil society to push the discussion further."
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Here's the software that helps Edward Snowden avoid the NSA
http://www.engadget.com/
The underlying technology isn't completely original, and it's not perfect; Tails' open source code and anonymous developer base help resist pressure to include spy-friendly back doors, but there are still potential security holes. Users also have to be careful with their choices of internet services while using Tails, as the wrong ones could give the whole game away. Even with those concerns in mind, the software is a big help to Snowden, journalists and others that want to keep their conversations under wraps with a minimum of effort.
Monday, March 31, 2014
White House Cyber Chief Says Snowden Damage Will Be Felt for Decades
Obama opposes foreign government control of Internet, Michael Daniel says
Edward Snowden
Damage to U.S. national security caused by NSA contractor Edward Snowden will take decades to repair, the White House official in charge of cyber security said Friday.
“Make no mistake: We are going to be dealing with the fallout from that for all of your careers, and the impact that that has had on our national security will reverberate for decades,” Michael Daniel, special assistant to the president for cyber security, told Naval Academy midshipmen.
Daniel, in a speech to the academy’s Center for Cyber Security Studies, also said the Obama administration has adopted a passive approach to offensive and retaliatory cyber attacks against nation states and criminal hackers caught attacking U.S. networks. Cyber attacks are a tool of last resort after diplomacy and law enforcement means are tried, he said.
“We are going to prioritize network defense and law enforcement” before conducting offensive cyber attacks, Daniel said in a wide-ranging speech.
The presidential cyber security official also said the administration opposes placing control of the Internet under foreign governments, despite a recent announcement that the federal government will give up authority over the Internet name server group.
Instead, the administration favors what Daniel called a multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance involving both governments and the private sector that would protect free speech and dissidents.
Snowden, currently under the protection of the Russian government, stole an estimated 1.7 million classified NSA documents using his access as a computer administrator and by fooling several NSA employees into providing their passwords.
Snowden compromised sensitive “accesses” used by the National Security Agency to conduct electronic spying, along with “techniques and tools that are no longer available to us,” Daniel said, without elaborating.
Daniel said he has spent a huge amount of time over the past year “trying to figure out how to plug the holes that Mr. Snowden revealed that we have in the security of our classified networks.”
Other classified NSA systems are being rebuilt and the Snowden affair also has undermined efforts to focus on other pressing cyber security and national security issues, he said.
The comments on Snowden came in response to a question about whether the U.S. government should offer amnesty to the renegade NSA network administrator to recover the lost secrets, many of which have not been disclosed.
Rick Leggett, head of a special NSA task force in charge of the Snowden leaks, told CBS in December that offering some type of legal deal to Snowden in exchange for the return of classified NSA documents pilfered by Snowden is “worth having a conversation about.”
Daniel said he too would like to find out from Snowden the full extent of the stolen classified documents, a portion of which were disclosed to a few news organizations.
“I think it would be very valuable for us to actually understand in much greater detail everything that was taken,” Daniel said.
Outgoing NSA Director Army Gen. Keith Alexander has said he opposes any amnesty for Snowden. “This is analogous to a hostage-taker taking 50 people hostage, shooting 10 and then say, ‘If you give me full amnesty, I’ll let the other 40 go.’ What do you do?” Alexander said, also on CBS. “I think people have to be held accountable for their actions.”
Snowden is facing espionage charges and U.S. intelligence officials believe the documents he has with him were accessed by Russian and possibly Chinese intelligence.
The most recent Snowden disclosures included classified documents that revealed NSA cyber attacks against China’s Huawei Technologies, a global Internet equipment manufacturer accused by the U.S. government of serving as a covert arm of the Chinese intelligence and security apparatus.
China has been linked by the U.S. government to large-scale theft of U.S. government and private sector data through cyber espionage operations.
On offensive cyber operations, Daniel said he has taken part in “long and torturous debates” in the White House Situation Room on the use of cyber attack capabilities, noting that “these are very, very difficult problems” that will continue to be debated.
Regarding cyber retaliation against the growing threat of increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks, Daniel said deterrence and attributing the source of attacks remains very difficult, and there are complicated polices for retaliatory cyber attacks.
“It’s still very difficult to do really good attribution in cyber space,” Daniel said.
Hackers and foreign nation states do not use computer and network servers labeled “bad guy servers,” he said, noting that they often hijack other people’s networks when conducting attacks.
“So when we consider what we’re doing to actually strike back at some of these things, we have to be very careful,” he said, adding that a counter cyber attack might damage the network that provides electrical power to a hospital or a university.
Still, the administration is working on policy tools that will include cyber attacks in response, although the response will “not always be in cyberspace.”
“The right response might be through diplomatic channels—‘Hey, we know who you are. Knock it off’—and maybe through law enforcement channels,” Daniel said.
Counter attacks against hackers could include digital strikes against “botnets”—networks that have been taken over by cyber attackers and used for malicious activities, he said. For such actions, international cooperation will be needed.
International cyber strikes together with other nations simultaneously will increase the effect of the counterattacks, he said.
“This is hard. We’ve worked at it for several years; we’ve gotten better, but we need to do a lot more in that space.”
Deterring foreign cyber attacks will remain murky and for military cyber warriors will involve an electronic “fog of war” that is similar to its counterpart on conventional battlefields, Daniel said.
On Internet governance, Daniel said the administration is opposing proposals by non-democratic states such as China, Russia, and Iran to place control of the Internet under an international organization.
“It is not enough for us to assume that the status quo that we’ve enjoyed for the last 15 or 20 years that has enabled the Internet to thrive as an open platform are simply going to endure,” Daniel said.
“We face a real risk that the multi-stakeholder approach, this approach that has enabled the platform that is the Internet to bring civilians greater transparency, dissidents a protected voice, and economies increased growth will soon change and not for the better,” he added.
Some governments, which he did not name, favor an intergovernmental approach to Internet governance that would fragment the Internet, slow the pace of innovation, and hamper international economic growth.
The administration instead is favoring a joint government-private sector framework that would protect Internet freedom, he said.
Daniel did not address the administration’s controversial announcement March 14 that the Commerce Department will give up control over nonprofit group Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) next year.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich denounced the move as the removal of U.S. control over a vital resource.
“What is the global Internet community that Obama wants to turn the Internet over to? This risks foreign dictatorships defining the Internet,” he stated in a tweet.
Michele Van Cleave, former national counterintelligence executive, said the potential damage caused by Snowden is staggering.
Van Cleave said one likely impact is that future sources and methods of intelligence collection will be curtailed.
“Snowden’s treachery is especially grave because he exposed how all the parts fit together—the blueprints for how America’s most significant intelligence enterprise actually works—which is also the blueprint for how to defeat it,” she said.
“So what does this mean in real terms? It means that the president may not have the intelligence he needs to have for crucial decisions. Nor will the Congress. We may not see threats we should have seen, never mind opportunities. It means that there may be future attacks that we do not see coming, which otherwise might have been prevented,” Van Cleav said in an email.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
US official: Snowden leaks lead to Pentagon change
WASHINGTON (AP) — A top
U.S. military intelligence official said Tuesday that the Pentagon will
have to make costly changes to programs and personnel because of leaks
by former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden.
Defense
Intelligence Agency chief Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn told the House
Intelligence Committee that his agency has to assume that Snowden took
every document he accessed, and that much of it concerned Pentagon
programs.
"We assume the worst
case in how we are reviewing all of the Defense Department's actions...
events, exercises around the world," said Flynn, whose agency produced a
classified report assessing the fallout of the Snowden leaks. He said
he believes there will likely have to be changes in all branches of the
U.S. military because investigators have to assume the information is
compromised.
"What he
potentially made off with ... transcends" the NSA's telephone and
Internet collection programs, said Director of National Intelligence
James Clapper, speaking before the committee's annual threat assessment
hearing. "Less than 10 percent has to do with domestic surveillance
programs," he said.
Clapper has called on Snowden and anyone who is helping him to return the remaining documents that have not yet been published.Documents released over the past year by Snowden have revealed that the NSA sweeps up millions of Americans' phone and Internet records. Revelations about the NSA's spy programs were first published in the Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers in June, based on some of the thousands of documents Snowden handed over to Barton Gellman of the Post, Brazil-based American journalist Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, a U.S. filmmaker.
The subsequent controversy has led President Barack Obama to ask agencies and Congress to consider some reforms.
Officials have said Snowden downloaded some 1.7 million documents. U.S. intelligence officials have said some of those documents include the identities of undercover operatives. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.
In describing the effect of
Snowden's leaks, Clapper appeared to carefully retreat from his
contention last week to the Senate Intelligence Committee that the
disclosures were "the most massive and most damaging theft of
intelligence information in our history." Some historians and
researchers reacted to that comment by questioning whether the Snowden
leaks were more damaging than Soviet spy rings that stole U.S. atomic
bomb designs in the 1940s and funneled critical communications data and
lethally exposed American informants in Russia in the 1980s and 1990s.
Instead,
in his opening statement Tuesday, Clapper told the House panel that
Snowden's leaks were "potentially the most massive and most damaging
theft of intelligence information in our history."
House
Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers said the information Snowden accessed
includes countermeasures the U.S. military uses to avoid the
devastating improvised explosive devices used against troops in
Afghanistan, and increasingly beyond traditional war zones, aimed at
U.S. and Western officials in places like Libya.
He
also tried to draw out Clapper and Flynn on whether they believed
Snowden was somehow working with or being exploited by the Russian
intelligence services.
When
Flynn said "I don't have any information to that effect," that drew a
sharp "Excuse me?" from Rogers, who had discussed the same subject with
the two officials in a classified session the day before.
Flynn rephrased his reply, saying, "Yes, there is a possibility that he is under that influence."
Clapper
said there was no proof, but added that, "it's beyond belief to me that
they wouldn't be taking advantage of the ... opportunity both to
exploit and to control Snowden."
After
the hearing, Rogers said, "I can tell you from a whole series of
classified meetings, the folks who do this for a living believe he is
under the influence of the Russians." He also said he believes that if
Snowden carried any of the material with him or accesses it in any way,
the Russians will crack the code and breach the information — an opinion
echoed by senior House Intelligence Committee Democrat Adam Schiff of
California.
"Snowden has to
know that if he took that classified information into Russia, there has
to be a good chance the Russians will get hold of it," Schiff said in an
interview after the hearing.
Snowden
told The New York Times that he left all of the documents with
journalists in Hong Kong before traveling to Russia, where he has
temporary asylum.
Snowden has
denied working with the Russian government or any foreign intelligence
agency. Snowden's legal representatives could not be reached for
immediate comment.
Rogers,
R-Mich., also said an individual with access to the Snowden documents
was attempting to sell them for personal profit, but he would not
identify who that was. He asked FBI Director James Comey, also at the
hearing, whether such a person could be prosecuted for selling stolen
goods, but Comey demurred, saying if the individual in question was a
journalist he or she might be protected by the Constitution's rights to
free speech.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
DOD official: Snowden ‘stole everything — literally everything’
1:21 PM 12/17/2013
Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden
stole vastly more information than previously speculated, and is holding
it at ransom for his own protection.
“What’s floating is so dangerous, we’d be behind for twenty years in terms of access (if it were to be leaked),” a ranking Department of Defense official told the Daily Caller.
“He stole everything — literally everything,” the official said.
Last month British and U.S. intelligence officials speculated Snowden had in his possession a “doomsday cache” of intelligence information, including the names of undercover intelligence personnel stationed around the world.
“Sources briefed on the matter” told Reuters that such a cache could be used as an insurance policy in the event Snowden was captured, and that, “the worst was yet to come.”
The officials cited no hard evidence of such a cache, but indicated it was a possible worst-case-scenario. Some version of that scenario appears to have come true.
“It’s only accessible for a few hours a day, and is triple encrypted to the point where no one can break it,” the official said of the data cloud where Snowden has likely hidden the information.
According to the official, there are at least two others in possession of the code to access the information, and, “if we nail him — he’ll release the data.”
“Everything you don’t want the enemy to know, he has,” the official said. “Who we’re listening to, what we’re after — they’d shut us down.”
The damage would be “of biblical proportions,” the official said.
Another official from the NSA task force commissioned to assess the data stolen and leaked by Snowden said on television recently that granting Snowden amnesty is “worth having a conversation about” in order to secure any potential stolen data.
Director of the NSA Gen. Keith Alexander said on “60 Minutes” Sunday that he opposes the idea, and said that people need to be held accountable for their actions. The White House stated Monday it would not be changing its policy regarding Snowden.
The NSA director has repeatedly testified before Congress about the revealed programs, and continues to state that the leaks have compromised U.S. national security.
Alexander announced in October he would be retiring as NSA director and head of U.S. Cyber Command effective March, and a recent White House task force charged with improving NSA transparency has suggested appointing a civilian head to steer the signals intelligence agency.
The official said that following Alexander’s retirement, he doesn’t “know how (the amnesty conversation) is going to play out
http://dailycaller.com/
“What’s floating is so dangerous, we’d be behind for twenty years in terms of access (if it were to be leaked),” a ranking Department of Defense official told the Daily Caller.
“He stole everything — literally everything,” the official said.
Last month British and U.S. intelligence officials speculated Snowden had in his possession a “doomsday cache” of intelligence information, including the names of undercover intelligence personnel stationed around the world.
“Sources briefed on the matter” told Reuters that such a cache could be used as an insurance policy in the event Snowden was captured, and that, “the worst was yet to come.”
The officials cited no hard evidence of such a cache, but indicated it was a possible worst-case-scenario. Some version of that scenario appears to have come true.
“It’s only accessible for a few hours a day, and is triple encrypted to the point where no one can break it,” the official said of the data cloud where Snowden has likely hidden the information.
According to the official, there are at least two others in possession of the code to access the information, and, “if we nail him — he’ll release the data.”
“Everything you don’t want the enemy to know, he has,” the official said. “Who we’re listening to, what we’re after — they’d shut us down.”
The damage would be “of biblical proportions,” the official said.
Another official from the NSA task force commissioned to assess the data stolen and leaked by Snowden said on television recently that granting Snowden amnesty is “worth having a conversation about” in order to secure any potential stolen data.
Director of the NSA Gen. Keith Alexander said on “60 Minutes” Sunday that he opposes the idea, and said that people need to be held accountable for their actions. The White House stated Monday it would not be changing its policy regarding Snowden.
The NSA director has repeatedly testified before Congress about the revealed programs, and continues to state that the leaks have compromised U.S. national security.
Alexander announced in October he would be retiring as NSA director and head of U.S. Cyber Command effective March, and a recent White House task force charged with improving NSA transparency has suggested appointing a civilian head to steer the signals intelligence agency.
The official said that following Alexander’s retirement, he doesn’t “know how (the amnesty conversation) is going to play out
http://dailycaller.com/
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Is a Snowden effect stalking US telecom sales?
Published: Friday, 15 Nov 2013 | 12:16 PM
By: Eamon Javers | CNBC Washington Reporter
Sunshinepress | Getty Images
NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden
Is there a Snowden effect on American business?
Ever since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed elaborate cooperation between U.S. Internet and telecommunications firms and the the nation's intelligence service, Washington has been watching to see the companies involved would be hurt.
Cisco this week became the one of the first companies to say publicly that its sales were down as a direct result of the NSA disclosures. The issue is whether overseas clients are reluctant to buy Cisco's telecommunications equipment for fear that the organization would gain access to their systems.
On an investor conference call Wednesday, Benjamin Reitzes of Barclays Capital asked Cisco CEO John Chambers whether the allegations had caused a slump in Cisco's emerging market business, adding, "It is an impact in China."
"I think we're all aware of that." said Robert Lloyd, Cisco's president of development and sales. "It's not having material impact, but it's certainly causing people to stop and then rethink decisions. And that is, I think, reflected in our results."
(Read more: Cramer: 'Open rebellion' among Cisco investors)
Not many tech companies are so publicly connecting the dots between Snowden and sales. A search of this year's Securities and Exchange Commission disclosures for mentions of the "National Security Agency" turns up very few references to a Snowden effect.
One company that did make such a statement is eBay. In an October filing, the online auction site said the Snowden leaks could lead European countries to impose tighter regulations that might harm its business.
"There is significant international pressure against the U.S. and the National Security Agency ... regarding the collection of data by the NSA from U.S. companies," eBay noted among a list of potential business risks. "Further restrictions or regulation in the European Union could result as a direct reaction to these events."
(Read more: Google calls NSA surveillance outrageous)
Ever since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed elaborate cooperation between U.S. Internet and telecommunications firms and the the nation's intelligence service, Washington has been watching to see the companies involved would be hurt.
Cisco this week became the one of the first companies to say publicly that its sales were down as a direct result of the NSA disclosures. The issue is whether overseas clients are reluctant to buy Cisco's telecommunications equipment for fear that the organization would gain access to their systems.
On an investor conference call Wednesday, Benjamin Reitzes of Barclays Capital asked Cisco CEO John Chambers whether the allegations had caused a slump in Cisco's emerging market business, adding, "It is an impact in China."
"I think we're all aware of that." said Robert Lloyd, Cisco's president of development and sales. "It's not having material impact, but it's certainly causing people to stop and then rethink decisions. And that is, I think, reflected in our results."
(Read more: Cramer: 'Open rebellion' among Cisco investors)
Not many tech companies are so publicly connecting the dots between Snowden and sales. A search of this year's Securities and Exchange Commission disclosures for mentions of the "National Security Agency" turns up very few references to a Snowden effect.
One company that did make such a statement is eBay. In an October filing, the online auction site said the Snowden leaks could lead European countries to impose tighter regulations that might harm its business.
"There is significant international pressure against the U.S. and the National Security Agency ... regarding the collection of data by the NSA from U.S. companies," eBay noted among a list of potential business risks. "Further restrictions or regulation in the European Union could result as a direct reaction to these events."
(Read more: Google calls NSA surveillance outrageous)
Other companies are handling the fallout privately.
A security expert for a global firm told CNBC that the company has explored the idea of repatriating all its corporate data out of the United States to keep it away from the NSA's prying eyes, though the idea may turn out to be impractical.
Telecommunications experts say companies may not have much of a choice. In an interconnected world, telecom equipment is made by companies operating in several nations, many of which have their own rapacious intelligence services.
"It's a bit complicated," said one U.S. national security and telecom expert. "The equipment used by NSA is almost all now made by foreign firms like Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson and Nokia. ... "[and] most other national carriers engage in similar activity. The French may be the most aggressive."
A security expert for a global firm told CNBC that the company has explored the idea of repatriating all its corporate data out of the United States to keep it away from the NSA's prying eyes, though the idea may turn out to be impractical.
Telecommunications experts say companies may not have much of a choice. In an interconnected world, telecom equipment is made by companies operating in several nations, many of which have their own rapacious intelligence services.
"It's a bit complicated," said one U.S. national security and telecom expert. "The equipment used by NSA is almost all now made by foreign firms like Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson and Nokia. ... "[and] most other national carriers engage in similar activity. The French may be the most aggressive."
Friday, November 15, 2013
NSA chief says Snowden leaked up to 200,000 secret documents
WASHINGTON
Fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor
Edward Snowden's new refugee documents granted by Russia is seen during a
news conference in Moscow August 1, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Maxim Shemetov
In a question-and-answer session following a speech to a foreign affairs group in Baltimore on October 31, NSA Director General Keith Alexander was asked by a member of the audience what steps U.S. authorities were taking to stop Snowden from leaking additional information to journalists.
"I wish there was a way to prevent it. Snowden has shared somewhere between 50 (thousand) and 200,000 documents with reporters. These will continue to come out," Alexander said.
Alexander added that the documents were "being put out in a way that does the maximum damage to NSA and our nation," according to a transcript of his talk made available by NSA.
U.S. officials briefed on investigations into Snowden's activities have said privately for months that internal government assessments indicate that the number of classified documents to which Snowden got access as a systems operator at NSA installations ran into the hundreds of thousands.
Officials said that while investigators now believe they know the range of documents that Snowden accessed, they remain unsure which documents he downloaded for leaking to the media.
By comparison, the number of Pentagon and State Department documents leaked to WikiLeaks by a disgruntled U.S. Army private was much larger. The anti-secrecy group obtained around 400,000 Pentagon reports on the Iraq war, as well as 250,000 State Department cables and tens of thousands of documents on U.S. operations in Afghanistan.
None of the WikiLeaks material was classified higher than "Secret" but many NSA documents leaked by Snowden were marked "Top Secret" or with an even more restrictive "Special Intelligence" stamp. The material includes highly technical details on U.S. and allied eavesdropping activities.
Snowden's revelations, which first surfaced in June, are still causing a headache for the government of President Barack Obama, particularly in its dealing with allies.
For example, Germany was outraged by reports that the NSA monitored Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone.
Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said Snowden's leaks were "extremely damaging."
"There is no doubt that those disclosures have made our job harder. We've seen that terrorists or adversaries are seeking to learn about the ways that we collect intelligence and seeking to adapt and change the ways that they communicate," he told a congressional hearing on Thursday.
In the past few days, U.S. officials say, a panel of former officials and experts set up by Obama to review NSA operations in the wake of Snowden's disclosures has privately reported interim conclusions to the White House. The group's final report is due on December 15.
The report, along with the White House's own review, is likely to lead to policy changes to be announced by year's end. These are expected to include some constraints on the NSA's wide-ranging eavesdropping.
Also included in documents leaked by Snowden are at least 58,000 classified documents generated by Government Communications Headquarters, the NSA's British counterpart and eavesdropping partner, according to British authorities.
Snowden is in Russia, where he was granted asylum in August for at least a year.
(Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Deborah Charles; Editing by Alistair Bell and Will Dunham)
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Merkel Calls Obama to Complain About Surveillance
(AP) Merkel calls Obama to complain about surveillance
By GEIR MOULSON and JOHN-THOR DAHLBURG
Associated Press
BERLIN
German Chancellor Angela Merkel complained to President Barack Obama on Wednesday after learning that U.S. intelligence may have targeted her mobile phone, saying that would be "a serious breach of trust" if confirmed.
For its part, the White House denied that the U.S. is listening in on Merkel's phone calls now.
"The president assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "The United States greatly values our close cooperation with Germany on a broad range of shared security challenges."
However, Carney did not specifically say that that U.S. had never monitored or obtained Merkel's communications.
The German government said it responded after receiving "information that the chancellor's cellphone may be monitored" by U.S. intelligence. It wouldn't elaborate, but German news magazine Der Spiegel, which has published material from NSA leaker Edward Snowden, said its research triggered the response.
Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement the chancellor made clear to Obama in a phone call that "she views such practices, if the indications are confirmed ... as completely unacceptable."
Merkel said among close partners such as Germany and the U.S., "there must not be such surveillance of a head of government's communication," Seibert added. "That would be a serious breach of trust. Such practices must be stopped immediately."
Carney, the White House spokesman, said the U.S. is examining Germany's concerns as part of an ongoing review of how the U.S. gathers intelligence.
The White House has cited that review in responding to similar spying concerns from France, Brazil and other countries.
U.S. allies knew that the Americans were spying on them, but they had no idea how much.
As details of National Security Agency spying programs have become public, citizens, activists and politicians in countries from Latin America to Europe have lined up to express shock and outrage at the scope of Washington's spying.
Merkel had previously raised concerns over the electronic eavesdropping issue when Obama visited Germany in June, has demanded answers from the U.S. government and backed calls for greater European data protection. Wednesday's statement, however, was much more sharply worded and appeared to reflect frustration over the answers provided so far by the U.S. government.
Merkel called for U.S. authorities to clarify the extent of surveillance in Germany and to provide answers to "questions that the German government asked months ago," Seibert said.
Overseas politicians are also using the threat to their citizens' privacy to drum up their numbers at the polls _ or to distract attention from their own domestic problems. Some have even downplayed the matter to keep good relations with Washington.
After a Paris newspaper reported the NSA had swept up 70.3 million French telephone records in a 30-day period, the French government called the U.S. ambassador in for an explanation and put the issue of personal data protection on the agenda of the European Union summit that opens Thursday.
"Why are these practices, as they're reported _ which remains to be clarified _ unacceptable? First because they are taking place between partners, between allies, and then because they clearly are an affront to private life," Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, the French government spokeswoman, said Wednesday.
But the official French position _ that friendly nations should not spy on each another _ can't be taken literally, a former French foreign minister said.
"The magnitude of the eavesdropping is what shocked us," Bernard Kouchner said in a radio interview. "Let's be honest, we eavesdrop too. Everyone is listening to everyone else. But we don't have the same means as the United States, which makes us jealous. "
The French government, which until this week had been largely silent in the face of widespread U.S. snooping on its territory, may have other reasons to speak out now. The furor over the NSA managed to draw media attention away from France's controversial expulsion of a Roma family at a time when French President Francois Hollande's popularity is at a historic low. Just 23 percent of French approve of the job he is doing, according to a recent poll.
In Germany, opposition politicians, the media and privacy activists have been vocal in their outrage over the U.S. eavesdropping. Up until now, Merkel had worked hard to contain the damage to U.S.-German relations and refrained from saying anything bad about the Americans.
Merkel has said previously her country was "dependent" on cooperation with the American spy agencies _ crediting an American tip as the reason that security services foiled an Islamic terror plot in 2007 that targeted U.S. soldiers and citizens in Germany.
In Italy, major newspapers reported that a parliamentary committee was told the U.S. had intercepted phone calls, emails and text messages of Italians. Premier Enrico Letta raised the topic of spying during a visit Wednesday with Secretary of State John Kerry. A senior State Department official said Kerry made it clear the Obama administration's goal was to strike the right balance between security needs and privacy expectations.
Few countries have responded as angrily to U.S. spying than Brazil. President Dilma Rousseff took the extremely rare diplomatic step of canceling a visit to Washington where she had been scheduled to receive a full state dinner this week.
Analysts say her anger is genuine, though also politically profitable, for Rousseff faces a competitive re-election campaign next year.
David Fleischer, a political scientist at the University of Brasilia, said since the Sept. 11 attacks Brazilian governments knew the Americans had stepped up spying efforts.
"But what the government did not know was that Dilma's office had been hacked as well," Fleischer said.
Information the NSA collected in Mexico appears to have largely focused on drug-fighting policies or government personnel trends. But the U.S. agency also allegedly spied on the emails of two Mexican presidents, Enrique Pena Nieto, the incumbent, and Felipe Calderon.
The Mexican government has reacted cautiously, calling the targeting of the presidents "unacceptable." Pena Nieto has demanded an investigation but hasn't cancelled any visits or contacts, a strategy that Mexico's opposition and some analysts see as weak.
"Other countries, like Brazil, have had responses that are much more resounding than our country," said Sen. Gabriela Cuevas of Mexico's conservative National Action Party.
Yet Mexico has much-closer economic and political ties to the United States that the Mexican government apparently does not want to endanger.
Beyond politics, the NSA espionage has been greeted with relative equanimity in Mexico, since the government has had close intelligence cooperation with the United States for years in the war on drugs.
"The country we should really be spying on now is New Zealand, to see if we can get enough information so the national team can win a qualifying berth at the World Cup," Mexican columnist Guadalupe Loaeza wrote.
The two rivals play Nov. 13.
__
AP writers Julie Pace in Washington, Lori Hinnant in Paris, Frank Jordans in Berlin, Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo, Mark Stevenson in Mexico City, Lara Jakes in Rome and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed.
http://www.breitbart.com/
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
US National Security Agency 'spied on French diplomats'
US Secretary of State John Kerry held
talks with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Tuesday before the
latest claims emerged in Le Monde
The
US National Security Agency has spied on French diplomats in Washington
and at the UN, according to the latest claims in Le Monde newspaper.
NSA internal memos obtained by Le Monde detailed the use of a sophisticated surveillance programme, known as Genie.US spies allegedly hacked foreign networks, introducing the spyware into the software, routers and firewalls of millions of machines.
It comes a day after claims the NSA tapped millions of phones in France.
The details in the latest Le Monde article are based on leaks from ex-intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, through Glen Greenwald, the outgoing Guardian journalist, who is feeding the material from Brazil, says the BBC's Christian Fraser in Paris.
It comes on the day the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, is in London meeting foreign counterparts to discuss Syria.
'Spy implants' The Le Monde report sets out details of Genie, an NSA surveillance programme in which spyware implants were introduced remotely to overseas computers, including foreign embassies.
Continue reading the main story
US allies on spying claims
- US agencies accused of spying on leaders of Brazil and Mexico; Brazil's Dilma Rousseff cancels state visit, Mexico's Enrique Pena Nieto says US has promised an inquiry
- US allegedly runs bugging operations on EU mission in Washington and other European embassies; France objects, Germany cancels surveillance agreement with US and UK
- Le Monde claims NSA snooped on millions of phone calls in France; US ambassador in Paris summoned to explain
It claims bugs were introduced to
the French Embassy in Washington (under a code name "Wabash") and to
the computers of the French delegation at the UN, codenamed "Blackfoot".
The article suggests that in 2011, the US allocated $652m
(£402m) in funding for the programme, which was spent on "spy implants".
Tens of millions of computers were reported to have been hacked that
year.A document dated August 2010 suggests intelligence stolen from foreign embassy computers ensured the US knew ahead of time the positions of other Security Council members, before a UN vote for a resolution imposing new sanctions on Iran.
The US was worried the French were drifting to the Brazilian side - who were opposed to implementing sanctions - when in truth they were always aligned to the US position, says our correspondent.
The intelligence agency quotes Susan Rice, then-US ambassador to the UN, who praises the work done by the NSA: "It helped me know... the truth, and reveal other [countries'] positions on sanctions, allowing us to keep one step ahead in the negotiations."
On Monday, Le Monde alleged that the NSA spied on 70.3 million phone calls in France between 10 December 2012 and 8 January 2013.
At a breakfast meeting with the US secretary of state on Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius demanded a full explanation.
Continue reading the main story
'Genie' Surveillance Programme
- The document in Le Monde outlines techniques used to spy on the communications of the French diplomats
- "Highlands" was the name for the hacking of computers through cookies that were implanted remotely
- "Vagrant" was a term used for capturing information from screens
- "PBX" was a bug which allegedly infiltrated telephone conversations, eavesdropping on conversations in much the same way as one would listen into a conference call
Referring to a telephone call
between the French and US presidents, Mr Fabius told reporters: "I said
again to John Kerry what Francois Hollande told Barack Obama, that this
kind of spying conducted on a large scale by the Americans on its allies
is something that is unacceptable."
Asked if France was considering reprisals against the US,
government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem replied: "It is up to
Foreign Minister Fabius to decide what line we take but I don't think
there is any need for an escalation."We have to have a respectful relationship between partners, between allies. Our confidence in that has been hit but it is after all a very close, individual relationship that we have."
Both French officials made their comments before the latest revelations appeared in Le Monde.
Mr Snowden, a former NSA worker, went public with revelations about US spying operations in June.
The information he leaked led to claims of systematic spying by the NSA and CIA on a global scale.
Targets included rivals like China and Russia, as well as allies like the EU and Brazil.
The NSA was also forced to admit it had captured email and phone data from millions of Americans.
Mr Snowden is currently in Russia, where he was granted a year-long visa after making an asylum application.
The US wants him extradited to face trial on criminal charges.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
NSA 'gathering millions of email address books'
5 hours ago
This undated image shows the National Security Agency(NSA) at Fort Meade, Maryland (AFP Photo/-)
The US agency's data collection program harvests the data from address books and "buddy lists", the newspaper said, citing senior intelligence officials and top secret documents provided by the fugitive NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
During a single day last year, the NSA's Special Source Operations branch collected 444,743 e-mail address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers, the Post said, according to an internal NSA PowerPoint presentation.
The figures, described as a typical daily intake in the document, correspond to a rate of more than 250 million a year, according to the report, which was published on the newspaper's website.
The NSA declined to confirm the specific allegations in the Post report but defended its surveillance activities as legal and respectful of privacy rights.
The agency has come under fire following revelations about vast efforts to collect data on Americans, but it has mostly acknowledged the accuracy of leaks from Snowden while seeking to play down their significance.
The Snowden affair has not only complicated diplomacy but embarrassed the Internet and telecom sector, with some companies accused of betraying their customers by cooperating with government spying.
Russia has granted Edward Snowden one year's asylum but the United States wants him to be extradited to face espionage charges over his leaking of sensational details of US surveillance programmes at home and abroad.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Growing Backlash to Government Surveillance
By MARTHA MENDOZA
AP National Writer
SAN JOSE, Calif.
From Silicon Valley to the South Pacific, counterattacks to revelations of widespread National Security Agency surveillance are taking shape, from a surge of new encrypted email programs to technology that sprinkles the Internet with red flag terms to confuse would-be snoops.
Policy makers, privacy advocates and political leaders around the world have been outraged at the near weekly disclosures from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden that expose sweeping U.S. government surveillance programs.
"Until this summer, people didn't know anything about the NSA," said Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University co-director Amy Zegart. "Their own secrecy has come back to bite them."
Activists are fighting back with high-tech civil disobedience, entrepreneurs want to cash in on privacy concerns, Internet users want to keep snoops out of their computers and lawmakers want to establish stricter parameters.
Some of the tactics are more effective than others. For example, Flagger, a program that adds words like "blow up" and "pressure cooker" to web addresses that users visit, is probably more of a political statement than actually confounding intelligence agents.
Developer Jeff Lyon in Santa Clara, Calif., said he's delighted if it generates social awareness, and that 2,000 users have installed it to date. He said, "The goal here is to get a critical mass of people flooding the Internet with noise and make a statement of civil disobedience."
University of Auckland associate professor Gehan Gunasekara said he's received "overwhelming support" for his proposal to "lead the spooks in a merry dance," visiting radical websites, setting up multiple online identities and making up hypothetical "friends."
And "pretty soon everyone in New Zealand will have to be under surveillance," he said.
Electronic Frontier Foundation activist Parker Higgens in San Francisco has a more direct strategy: by using encrypted email and browsers, he creates more smoke screens for the NSA. "Encryption loses its' value as an indicator of possible malfeasance if everyone is using it," he said.
And there are now plenty of encryption programs, many new, and of varying quality.
"This whole field has been made exponentially more mainstream," said Cyrptocat private instant messaging developer Nadim Kobeissi.
This week, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University released a smartphone app called SafeSlinger they say encrypts text messages so they cannot be read by cell carriers, Internet providers, employers "or anyone else."
CryptoParties are springing up around the world as well. They are small gatherings where hosts teach attendees, who bring their digital devices, how to download and use encrypted email and secure Internet browsers.
"Honestly, it doesn't matter who you are or what you are doing, if the NSA wants to find information, they will," said organizer Joshua Smith. "But we don't have to make it easy for them."
Apparently plenty agree, as encryption providers have seen a surge in interest.
Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP, a free encryption service was being loaded about 600 times a day in the month before Snowden's revelations broke. Two months later, that had more than doubled to 1,380, according to a running tally maintained by programmer Kristian Fiskerstrand.
Andrew Lewman, executive director of TOR, short for The Onion Router, said they don't track downloads of their program that helps make online traffic anonymous by bouncing it through a convoluted network of routers to protect the privacy of their users.
But, he said, they have seen an uptick.
"Our web servers seem more busy than normal," he said.
Berlin-based email provider Posteo claims to have seen a 150 percent surge in paid subscribers due to the "Snowden effect."
Posteo demands no personal information, doesn't store metadata, ensures server-to-server encryption of messages and even allows customers to pay anonymously _ cash in brown envelopes-style.
CEO Patrick Loehr, who responded to The Associated Press by encrypted email, said that subscriptions to the 1 euro ($1.36) per month program rose to 25,000 in the past four months. The company is hoping to offer an English-language service next year.
Federation of American Scientists secrecy expert Steven Aftergood said it is crucial now for policymakers to clearly define limits.
"Are we setting ourselves up for a total surveillance system that may be beyond the possibility of reversal once it is in place?" he asked. "We may be on a road where we don't want to go. I think people are correct to raise an alarm now and not when we're facing a fait accompli."
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, who introduced a bipartisan package of proposals to reform the surveillance programs last month, told a Cato Institute gathering Thursday that key parts of the debate are unfolding now.
"It's going to take a groundswell of support from lots of Americans across the political spectrum," he said, "communicating that business as usual is no longer OK, and they won't buy the argument that liberty and security are mutually exclusive."
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
GCHQ leaks have 'gifted' terrorists ability to attack 'at will', warns spy chief
The leaks of thousands of GCHQ files by CIA spy Edward Snowden have caused “enormous damage” and handed terrorists the “gift” to attack the UK “at will”, the new head of MI5 has warned.
Andrew Parker, the director general of MI5 Photo: MI5/PA
8:58AM BST 09 Oct 2013
Andrew Parker, the director general of the Security Service, said the exposing
of intelligence techniques, by the Guardian newspaper, had given fanatics
the ability to evade the spy agencies.
It comes at a time when the UK is facing its gravest terror threat, including
from “several thousand” Islamist extremists who are living here and want to
attack the country, Mr Parker said.
He used his first public outing since taking over at MI5 to launch a scathing
attack on the Snowden leaks.
It is feared around Whitehall that the revelations have resulted in a
“guidebook for terrorists” while there is frustration that the American is
being heralded as some kind of heroic whistleblower.
Sources find it incomprehensible that exposing spy agency techniques for
tracking terrorists has been argued to be in the public interest.
Leaks from Snowden are known to contain at least 58,000 GCHQ files and it is
feared there could be many more.
It also unclear whether foreign states have had access to the documents and it is understood the Guardian continued to expose the information despite pleas from the Government not to reveal intelligence techniques.
It is believed to be the worst leak of British intelligence files and to have caused the greatest damage.
In his first speech since becoming head of MI5 in April, Mr Parker did not specifically name Snowden or the Guardian.
But he said: “It causes enormous damage to make public the reach and limits of GCHQ techniques.
“Such information hands the advantage to the terrorists. It is the gift they need to evade us and strike at will.
“Unfashionable as it might seem, that is why we must keep secrets secret, and why not doing so causes such harm.”
He said the details of what capabilities the spy agencies have is their “margin of advantage” over the fanatics.
“That margin gives us the prospect of being able to detect their plots and stop them. But that margin is under attack,” he said.
He said reports from GCHQ were “vital to the safety of this country and its citizens”, adding: “We are facing an international threat and GCHQ provides many of the intelligence leads upon which we rely.”
Mr Parker said the UK is already facing its most complicated and unpredictable terror threat and that it was “getting harder” for his agents to protect against the diverse dangers.
With the spread of an al-Qaeda threat to more and more countries, the continue danger of Irish terrorism, the emergence of the lone wolf fanatic and advances in technology and cyber warfare, MI5 is now “tackling threats on more fronts than ever before”, he said.
In the speech to the Royal United Services Institute in London, Mr Parker said: “Our task is getting harder. The threats are more diverse and diffuse.
“And we face increasing challenges caused by the speed of technological change.”
And he warned: “It remains the case that there are several thousand Islamist extremists here who see the British people as a legitimate target.”
Among those are Britons, numbering in the low hundreds sources say, who have travelled to Syria, which is now a hotbed of extremism and terror groups, and since returned home.
The spy chief said: “For the future, there is good reason to be concerned about Syria.
“A growing proportion of our casework now has some link to Syria, mostly concerning individuals from the UK who have travelled to fight there or who aspire to do so.”
While the threat of a large scale terror outrage may have diminished it has not been removed, he said, while there is a growing risk of smaller attacks or individuals acting on their own.
Since 2011, a total of 330 people have been convicted of terrorism-related offences in Britain.
There is also the threat to Britons around the world, such as the attack on the In Amenas gas facility in Algeria and the recent Westgate shopping centre outrage in Nairobi, Kenya.
“Overall, I do not believe the terrorist threat is worse now than before. But it is
more diffuse. More complicated. More unpredictable,” he said.
There have been one or two major terror plots in the UK every year since 2000 and that pattern is “unlikely to change”.
And it was impossible to protect the public 100 per cent, he said, adding “life is not the movies”.
He said, because of its nature and terrible consequences, there was an expectation that there should be “zero” attacks but no crime can have such a target.
In a clear defence of any potential intelligence failings by MI5, Mr Parker also stressed there was a difference between “knowing of someone and knowing everything about them”.
“The idea that we either can or would want to operate intensive scrutiny of
thousands is fanciful,” he said,
“This is not East Germany, or North Korea. And thank goodness it's not.”
He also made a defence for extended powers to monitor modern communications, the subject of recent controversy, saying “we cannot work without tools”.
He said the idea that the agencies would use such powers to monitor everyone’s private lives was “utter nonsense”.
Explaining why he made a public speech, he said it was important for spies to occasionally step out of the shadows to explain to the public the threats they face.
A Guardian News and Media spokeswoman said: "A huge number of people - from President Obama to the US director of national intelligence, James Clapper - have now conceded that the Snowden revelations have prompted a debate which was both necessary and overdue.
"The President has even set up a review panel and there have been vigorous discussions in the US Congress and throughout Europe. Such a debate is only worthwhile if it is informed. That is what journalism should do."
Henry Porter, a columnist at the Observer, the Guardian's sister newspaper, said Sir Andrew was "wrong" to suggest leaks have put lives at risk.
He said that he has lost confidence in the Intelligence and Security Committee, the body of MPs and peers which oversees the security services.
Mr Porter said: "He's wrong [to say The Guardian put security at risk]. The people who released and let go of these documents were the NSA in America. That's where these leaks took place.
"What we have done is shown how much surveillance we are under.We don't have sufficient oversight. I don't have that confidence because of the behaviour of the intelligence and security committee over the last few months, which has steadily come out in favour of the intelligence services."
Snowden, 30, was a CIA analyst based in the US National Security Agency, who provoked one of the biggest intelligence leaks in American history.
He used his position to access and steal thousands of classified documents on US and related British spy programmes.
The leaks were revealed in a series of articles in the Guardian newspaper in June.
He fled the US and is currently being sheltered in Russia.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
It also unclear whether foreign states have had access to the documents and it is understood the Guardian continued to expose the information despite pleas from the Government not to reveal intelligence techniques.
It is believed to be the worst leak of British intelligence files and to have caused the greatest damage.
In his first speech since becoming head of MI5 in April, Mr Parker did not specifically name Snowden or the Guardian.
But he said: “It causes enormous damage to make public the reach and limits of GCHQ techniques.
“Such information hands the advantage to the terrorists. It is the gift they need to evade us and strike at will.
“Unfashionable as it might seem, that is why we must keep secrets secret, and why not doing so causes such harm.”
He said the details of what capabilities the spy agencies have is their “margin of advantage” over the fanatics.
“That margin gives us the prospect of being able to detect their plots and stop them. But that margin is under attack,” he said.
He said reports from GCHQ were “vital to the safety of this country and its citizens”, adding: “We are facing an international threat and GCHQ provides many of the intelligence leads upon which we rely.”
Mr Parker said the UK is already facing its most complicated and unpredictable terror threat and that it was “getting harder” for his agents to protect against the diverse dangers.
With the spread of an al-Qaeda threat to more and more countries, the continue danger of Irish terrorism, the emergence of the lone wolf fanatic and advances in technology and cyber warfare, MI5 is now “tackling threats on more fronts than ever before”, he said.
In the speech to the Royal United Services Institute in London, Mr Parker said: “Our task is getting harder. The threats are more diverse and diffuse.
“And we face increasing challenges caused by the speed of technological change.”
And he warned: “It remains the case that there are several thousand Islamist extremists here who see the British people as a legitimate target.”
Among those are Britons, numbering in the low hundreds sources say, who have travelled to Syria, which is now a hotbed of extremism and terror groups, and since returned home.
The spy chief said: “For the future, there is good reason to be concerned about Syria.
“A growing proportion of our casework now has some link to Syria, mostly concerning individuals from the UK who have travelled to fight there or who aspire to do so.”
While the threat of a large scale terror outrage may have diminished it has not been removed, he said, while there is a growing risk of smaller attacks or individuals acting on their own.
Since 2011, a total of 330 people have been convicted of terrorism-related offences in Britain.
There is also the threat to Britons around the world, such as the attack on the In Amenas gas facility in Algeria and the recent Westgate shopping centre outrage in Nairobi, Kenya.
“Overall, I do not believe the terrorist threat is worse now than before. But it is
more diffuse. More complicated. More unpredictable,” he said.
There have been one or two major terror plots in the UK every year since 2000 and that pattern is “unlikely to change”.
And it was impossible to protect the public 100 per cent, he said, adding “life is not the movies”.
He said, because of its nature and terrible consequences, there was an expectation that there should be “zero” attacks but no crime can have such a target.
In a clear defence of any potential intelligence failings by MI5, Mr Parker also stressed there was a difference between “knowing of someone and knowing everything about them”.
“The idea that we either can or would want to operate intensive scrutiny of
thousands is fanciful,” he said,
“This is not East Germany, or North Korea. And thank goodness it's not.”
He also made a defence for extended powers to monitor modern communications, the subject of recent controversy, saying “we cannot work without tools”.
He said the idea that the agencies would use such powers to monitor everyone’s private lives was “utter nonsense”.
Explaining why he made a public speech, he said it was important for spies to occasionally step out of the shadows to explain to the public the threats they face.
A Guardian News and Media spokeswoman said: "A huge number of people - from President Obama to the US director of national intelligence, James Clapper - have now conceded that the Snowden revelations have prompted a debate which was both necessary and overdue.
"The President has even set up a review panel and there have been vigorous discussions in the US Congress and throughout Europe. Such a debate is only worthwhile if it is informed. That is what journalism should do."
Henry Porter, a columnist at the Observer, the Guardian's sister newspaper, said Sir Andrew was "wrong" to suggest leaks have put lives at risk.
He said that he has lost confidence in the Intelligence and Security Committee, the body of MPs and peers which oversees the security services.
Mr Porter said: "He's wrong [to say The Guardian put security at risk]. The people who released and let go of these documents were the NSA in America. That's where these leaks took place.
"What we have done is shown how much surveillance we are under.We don't have sufficient oversight. I don't have that confidence because of the behaviour of the intelligence and security committee over the last few months, which has steadily come out in favour of the intelligence services."
Snowden, 30, was a CIA analyst based in the US National Security Agency, who provoked one of the biggest intelligence leaks in American history.
He used his position to access and steal thousands of classified documents on US and related British spy programmes.
The leaks were revealed in a series of articles in the Guardian newspaper in June.
He fled the US and is currently being sheltered in Russia.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
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