Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs In China And Germany

The National Security Agency has had agents in China, Germany, and South Korea working on programs that use “physical subversion” to infiltrate and compromise networks and devices, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.

The documents, leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, also indicate that the agency has used “under cover” operatives to gain access to sensitive data and systems in the global communications industry, and that these secret agents may have even dealt with American firms. The documents describe a range of clandestine field activities that are among the agency’s “core secrets” when it comes to computer network attacks, details of which are apparently shared with only a small number of officials outside the NSA

CORE SECRETS: NSA SABOTEURS IN CHINA AND GERMANY



More news from Snowden about the reach of the NSA's, CIA's, and other intel agencies spying. A very educational article that gets into the details of how they do it to not only foreign corporations but domestic as well. Let's face it, enemies spy on each other, that's a given, but allies also spy on each other.

Some of the documents in this article appear in a new documentary, CITIZENFOUR, which tells the story of the Snowden disclosures and is directed by Intercept co-founder Laura Poitras. The documents describe a panoply of programs classified with the rare designation of “Exceptionally Compartmented Information,” or ECI, which are only disclosed to a “very select” number of government officials.

Edward Snowden Doc Premieres: Shocking inside look at how he did it

Citizen Four is the shocking doc about Edward Snowden made by Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. Just screened tonight was the two hour film which will be released by the Weinstein Company this month. It doesn’t paint the Obama administration in a very good light as Snowden explains how the government has violated privacy rights on a massive scale.

Also the filmmakers clearly indicate that all roads lead to POTUS, a fairly serious accusation. There may be serious repercussions.

I believe that espionage is a necessary evil for any nation. But with that said, I would like to differentiate between what I term espionage and what the CIA and NSA term espionage. I would agree with them that such clandestine activities are necessary to ensure peace and stability, because they are 100% correct. If the US refrained from clandestine operations this would not change the fact that all other major powers would still be doing it, and it would put the US at a disadvantage. Where these intelligence agencies' beliefs begin to diverge from my own has to do with the saying "the ends justify the means." For those who do not know what that means, basically it is a consequential belief that if a certain goal is important enough, ANY means may be used to attain the objective, and that this is perfectly acceptable. This is what the US intelligence apparatus believes, whether they make this view publicly known, as evidenced by the Snowden revelations.

In keeping with their belief, which is any means are justifiable in the interest of "national security," a blanket term that loses all of its meaning when used by the government on many occasions, they feel it is perfectly acceptable to actually violate the Constitutional rights of a United States citizen to preserve these national interests. What is most baffling is that they are allowed to determine what is detrimental or important to national security, and this is why I stated that it is a blanket term with no real weight behind it. I am at odds with their belief in this instance, and I believe I have not only the ideal of justice on my side, but also the law. I say that the Constitution, our most sacred document, and what is contained therein, trumps any later laws that contradict it. So the government can say that they can take away our most basic rights, and even kill us, when they deem it necessary, while I say that this is essentially treason of the highest order, only trumped by conspiring against the US with a foreign power. For the record I do not believe that is what Snowden did.

Having said these things, I would like to point out another piece of information that I do agree with. Namely that it is perfectly acceptable for the US government to spy on foreigners, including officials of a sovereign state, as well as their government itself. The US is under no obligation to respect the rights of a non-US citizen in my opinion, except that they must uphold their most basic rights, meaning they cannot justifiably torture, murder, and so on and so forth. I was not always of this opinion, I admit, but that is where I now stand. The US government is however under an obligation to its own citizens, and because of this these same measures cannot be used against an American citizen. I have thought diligently about whether these same rights apply to an American citizen who is on foreign soil, and I will admit that I am not certain that they should. Of course many would say that an American's rights are attached to the person themselves, regardless of where they are located, and I completely understand this. I am inclined to be of the same opinion, but I just haven't made up my mind, as I haven't considered the question in its entirety. Granted that the above argument is probably the best point to be made in the affirmative.

Anyway, of course the US has agents/spies in foreign countries, including in the private sector. This does not mean however that we send agents to infiltrate these companies or the government itself. The US is not keen on risking its own citizens, including its highly-trained and expensive agents, in such matters. Generally what occurs is an American agent with official cover, meaning they hold an official government position, and are usually a diplomat in a foreign country, will recruit an asset, who then becomes an agent, to do what needs to be done, whether it is steal secrets, get into a computer system, plant software, et cetera. The official US agent, known as a "handler," will usually operate a number of different foreigners as agents, while none of these assets know about each other. The only common link is the US OC operative, and nothing can be done to that person. If this person is caught, the worst outcome for them personally is to be expelled from the foreign nation. And that is why we don't send in US citizens as agents, unless they have official cover.

Again, I agree with this and think the entire practice is perfectly acceptable. This is likely what is going on in China and Germany. It is much more likely that a nation like China will actually send Chinese spies to the US to infiltrate the government or businesses. Countries like Russia would actually send Russian agents to the US, while the US was simply recruiting people who had no affiliation with US intelligence. Other countries are more prone to this because of the melting pot that is the US. Certain countries are notoriously difficult to penetrate, and even an American accent is enough to raise suspicion in many of these places, while foreign accents are common all throughout American business and even government to a lesser extent.

I think that US intelligence is abusing the power it has obtained, and I think something needs to be done to stop it. I am reminded of the boy who cried wolf, for the simple fact that these agencies have used the cloak of "national security" so often that the lines between what is truly national security and what is not have been blurred in the eyes of the public, and this could hurt US intelligence in the near future. People are getting fed up in general with the government overstepping its bounds, and national security could very well suffer precisely because when the edifice gets torn down due to the outrage of the populace, we will be so aware of government lies that we will think everything is a lie. And hey, it probably is, lol.

IMO opinion foreign agents have always been in the usa for 100 years

a reply to: JiggyPotamus

Hey Jiggy:

The problem is that once believing in this:

I believe that espionage is a necessary evil for any nation.

your very first sentence, you are trapped by that. This is somewhat true of any belief system, being a self-limiting, then filtering out anything opposing to that belief system. And where we are, once you accept that belief, the trap is experienced when it's done to you.

I know. I used to believe this, too, more than you can imagine. Believe it or not, now we are used without our consent and/or knowledge in this endeavor, is what all this comes down to. So it's somewhat safer in this climate to believe very little…..
Regards,
tetra50