Former NSA Boss Calls Snowden's Supporters Internet Shut-ins; Equates Transparency Activists With Al-Qaeda

by Tim Cushing

Some of the most ardent defenders of our nation's Skynet surveillance programs and other forms of cyber-overreach have one thing in common: they continue to belittle their opponents as a loose confederation of basement-dwelling loners who exist solely on The Internet. I'm sure this form of disparagement plays well with like-minded people who take comfort in belittling things they don't understand (anyone more than 5 years younger than them; The Internet; bitcoin exchange rates; bronies*).

[*TBH, I don't really understand the last two either. But I have yet to attack them purely out of naivete.]

Mike Rogers, best friend to intelligence agencies everywhere, has done this on more than one occasion. The first one he fired off during his impassioned defense of the indefensible CISPA bill, in which he referred to opponents of the bill (including the ACLU and EFF) as "14-year-olds in their basement clicking around on the internet."

In his recent impassioned defense of not cutting off funding to some of the NSA's surveillance efforts, Rogers returned to his favorite target.

Are we so small that we can only look at our Facebook likes today in this Chamber? Or are we going to stand up and find out how many lives we can save?

Now, it's former NSA director Michael Hayden's turn to call opposition to NSA spying nothing more than bunch of internet malcontents. In his speech to the Bipartisan Policy Center, Hayden speculated that apprehending Ed Snowden could result in retaliatory attacks from "hackers and transparency groups."

"If and when our government grabs Edward Snowden, and brings him back here to the United States for trial, what does this group do?" said retired air force general Michael Hayden, who from 1999 to 2009 ran the NSA and then the CIA, referring to "nihilists, anarchists, activists, Lulzsec, Anonymous, twentysomethings who haven't talked to the opposite sex in five or six years".

Setting aside the point that transparency groups like the ACLU and EFF aren't comprised of malicious hackers, the insinuation that the opposition is largely comprised of sexless young adults is nothing short of insulting. It's this sort of attitude fosters the "us vs. them" antagonism so prevalent in these agencies dealings with the public. The NSA (along with the FBI, DEA and CIA) continually declares the law is on its side and portrays its opponents as ridiculous dreamers who believe safety doesn't come with a price.

By characterizing the opposition as social misfits, the NSA's supporters hope to sway public opinion back to its side. After all, who would Joe Public find better company: anarchist twenty-somethings, most of them desperately single, or the intelligence community, which may occasionally, inadvertently overstep its bounds in its tireless quest to keep America safe?

Opposition properly belittled, Hayden went on to practically dare hackers to attack military sites -- and to equate their activities with terrorism.

"They may want to come after the US government, but frankly, you know, the dot-mil stuff is about the hardest target in the United States," Hayden said, using a shorthand for US military networks. "So if they can't create great harm to dot-mil, who are they going after? Who for them are the World Trade Centers? The World Trade Centers, as they were for al-Qaida..."

Hayden said that the loose coalition of hacker groups and activists were "less capable" of inflicting actual harm on either US networks or physical infrastructure, but they grow technologically more sophisticated. Echoing years of rhetoric that has described terrorists, Hayden added that their "demands may be unsatisfiable".

At this point, Hayden goes beyond insulting and into possibly dangerous territory by directly comparing "transparency groups" and "hackers" to al-Qaida terrorists. The best thing about this speech is knowing Hayden is still only a "former" head of the NSA. No doubt his words carry weight, but they're less likely to have a direct impact.

Reading Hayden's statements makes you wonder if those currently in the positions he formerly held also believe "transparency groups" and "activists" are "terrorists." Hayden attempted to portray his discussion of possible cyber-attacks as "purely speculative" but by couching it in "activists=terrorists" rhetoric, he simply exposed how intelligence agencies view those who actively oppose their tactics.

The War on Terror is ridiculous enough without the specious addition of opponents of domestic surveillance and supporters of Snowden's whistleblowing to the "enemies" list. Hayden's mindset indicates there's an underlying tension that encourages intelligence agencies to view millions of Americans as latent threats simply waiting for something to trigger their "terrorist" actions.

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Owner of Snowden's Email Service on Why He Closed Lavabit Rather Than Comply With Gov't

Lavabit, an encrypted email service believed to have been used by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, has abruptly shut down. The move came amidst a legal fight that appeared to involve U.S. government attempts to win access to customer information. In a Democracy Now! broadcast exclusive, we are joined by Lavabit owner Ladar Levison and his lawyer, Jesse Binnall. "Unfortunately, I can?t talk about it. I would like to, believe me," Levison says. "I think if the American public knew what our government was doing, they wouldn?t be allowed to do it anymore." In a message to his customers last week, Levison said: "I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people, or walk away from nearly 10 years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit." Levison said he was barred from discussing the events over the past six weeks that led to his decision. Soon after, another secure email provider called Silent Circle also announced it was shutting down.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AARON MAT?: We turn now to the news an encrypted email service believed to have been used by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has abruptly shut down. The move came amidst a legal fight that appeared to involve U.S. government attempts to win access to customer information.

The owner of Lavabit, Ladar Levison, wrote a message online saying, quote, "I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people, or walk away from nearly 10 years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit." Ladar Levison said he was barred from discussing the events over the past six weeks that led to his decision.

He went on to write, quote, "This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would strongly recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States."

Later on Thursday, another secure email provider called Silent Circle also announced it was shutting down.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, in a Democracy Now! broadcast exclusive, we go to Washington, D.C., where we?re joined by Ladar Levison, founder, owner and operator of Lavabit. We?re also joined by his lawyer, Jesse Binnall.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Ladar Levison, let?s begin with you. Explain the decision you made.

LADAR LEVISON: Yeah, well, I?ve--thank you, Amy. I?ve compared the decision to that of, you know, putting a beloved pet to sleep, you know, faced with the choice of watching it suffer or putting it to sleep quietly. It was a very difficult decision. But I felt that in the end I had to pick between the lesser of two evils and that shutting down the service, if it was no longer secure, was the better option. It was, in effect, the lesser of the two evils.

AMY GOODMAN: What are you facing? When you say "the lesser of two evils," what was the other choice?

LADAR LEVISON: Unfortunately, I can?t talk about that. I would like to, believe me. I think if the American public knew what our government was doing, they wouldn?t be allowed to do it anymore, which is why I?m here in D.C. today speaking to you. My hope is that, you know, the media can uncover what?s going on, without my assistance, and, you know, sort of pressure both Congress and our efforts through the court system to, in effect, put a cap on what it is the government is entitled to in terms of our private communications.

AARON MAT?: For those who aren?t familiar with what encrypted email is, can you walk us through that and talk about what your service provided?

LADAR LEVISON: Certainly. You know, I?ve always liked to say my service was by geeks, for geeks. It?s grown up over the last 10 years, it?s sort of settled itself into serving those that are very privacy-conscious and security-focused. We offered secure access via high-grade encryption. And at least for our paid users, not for our free accounts--I think that?s an important distinction--we offered secure storage, where incoming emails were stored in such a way that they could only be accessed with the user?s password, so that, you know, even myself couldn?t retrieve those emails. And that?s what we meant by encrypted email. That?s a term that?s sort of been thrown around because there are so many different standards for encryption, but in our case it was encrypted in secure storage, because, as a third party, you know, I didn?t want to be put in a situation where I had to turn over private information. I just didn?t have it. I didn?t have access to it. And that was sort of--may have been the situation that I was facing. You know, obviously, I can?t speak to the details of any specific case, but--I?ll just leave it at that.

AMY GOODMAN: NSA leaker Edward Snowden recently described your decision to shut down Lavabit as, quote, "inspiring." He told The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald, quote, "America cannot succeed as a country where individuals like Mr. Levison have to relocate their businesses abroad to be successful. Employees and leaders at Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, and the rest of our internet titans must ask themselves why they aren't fighting for our interests the same way small businesses are. The defense they have offered to this point is that they were compelled by laws they do not agree with, but one day of downtime for the coalition of their services could achieve what a hundred Lavabits could not."

Snowden went on to say, quote, "When Congress returns to session in September, let us take note of whether the internet industry?s statements and lobbyists--which were invisible in the lead-up to the Conyers-Amash vote--emerge on the side of the Free Internet or the NSA and its Intelligence Committees in Congress."

Ladar, you were the service provider for Edward Snowden?

LADAR LEVISON: I believe that?s correct. Obviously, I didn?t know him personally, but it?s been widely reported, and there was an email account bearing his name on my system, as I?ve been made well aware of recently.

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald also wrote, "What is particularly creepy about the Lavabit self-shutdown is that the company is gagged by law even from discussing the legal challenges it has mounted and the court proceeding it has engaged. In other words, the American owner of the company believes his Constitutional rights and those of his customers are being violated by the US Government, but he is not allowed to talk about it."

Greenwald goes on to write, quote, "Just as is true for people who receive National Security Letters under the Patriot Act, Lavabit has been told [that] they would face serious criminal sanctions if they publicly discuss what is being done to their company."

Ladar Levison, why did you start Lavabit?

LADAR LEVISON: Well, just to add one thing to Greenwald?s comments, I mean, there?s information that I can?t even share with my lawyer, let alone with the American public. So if we?re talking about secrecy, you know, it?s really been taken to the extreme. And I think it?s really being used by the current administration to cover up tactics that they may be ashamed of.

But just to answer your question, why did I start Lavabit? It was right out of college. I was sitting around with a group of my friends. I owned the domain name nerdshack.com, and we thought it would be cool to offer, you know, a free private email with a large quota, just like Gmail, and we sort of built the service along those lines. And as I was designing and developing the custom platform, it was right around when the PATRIOT Act came out. And that?s really what colored my opinion and my philosophy, and why I chose to take the extra effort and build in the secure storage features and sort of focus on the privacy niche and the security focus niche. And it?s really grown up from there. We?ve seen a lot of demand for, you know, people who want email but don?t necessarily want it lumped in and profiled along with their searches or their browsing history or any of their other Internet activities. And that?s really where we?ve focused and really how we?ve grown over the years, up to when I shut down 410,000 registered users.

AARON MAT?: And, Ladar, during this time, you?ve complied with other government subpoenas. Is that correct?

LADAR LEVISON: Yeah, we?ve probably had at least two dozen subpoenas over the last 10 years, from local sheriffs? offices all the way up to federal courts. And obviously I can?t speak to any particular one, but we?ve always complied with them. I think it?s important to note that, you know, I?ve always complied with the law. It?s just in this particular case I felt that complying with the law--

JESSE BINNALL: And we do have to be careful at this point.

LADAR LEVISON: Yeah, I--

JESSE BINNALL: But I think he can speak philosophically about the--his philosophy behind Lavabit and why it would lead to his decision to shut down.

LADAR LEVISON: Yeah, I have--

AMY GOODMAN: That?s Jesse Binnall, by the way. And, Jesse, how difficult is this for Ladar Levison, what he can say, what he can?t say? How high are the stakes here?

JESSE BINNALL: The stakes are very high. It?s a very unfortunate situation that, as Americans, we really are not supposed to have to worry about. But Ladar is in a situation where he has to watch every word he says when he?s talking to the press, for fear of being imprisoned. And we can?t even talk about what the legal requirements are that make it so he has to watch his words. But the simple fact is, I?m really here with him only because there are some very fine lines that he can?t cross, for fear of being dragged away in handcuffs. And that?s pretty much the exact fears that led the founders to give us the First Amendment in the first place. So it?s high stakes.

LADAR LEVISON: Yeah.

AARON MAT?: And, Ladar, in your letter, you write that "A favorable decision would allow me to resurrect Lavabit as an American company." So, are you suggesting perhaps that you would consider moving it abroad?

LADAR LEVISON: I don?t think I can continue to run Lavabit abroad as an American citizen. I would have to move abroad, effectively, to administer the service. As an American citizen, I?m still subject to the laws and jurisdiction of the United States, particularly as long as I continue to live here. You know, that?s why I have a lot of respect for Snowden, because he gave up his entire life, the life that he?s known his entire life, so that he could speak out. I haven?t gotten to that point. I still hope that it?s possible to run a private service, private cloud data service, here in the United States without necessarily being forced to conduct surveillance on your users by the American government.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you say, Ladar, if you?ve received a national security letter?

LADAR LEVISON: No.

JESSE BINNALL: Unfortunately, he can?t.

AMY GOODMAN: We?re going to talk about that in a minute, the overall issue of what these are, for listeners and viewers who are not familiar with this. But, Ladar Levison, soon after you pulled the plug on Lavabit, another encrypted email provider called Silent Circle also shut down. Mike Janke, Silent Circle?s CEO and co-founder, said, quote, "There was no 12-hour heads up. If we announced it, it would have given authorities time to file a national security letter. We decided to destroy it before we were asked to turn (information) over. We had to do scorched earth." Ladar, your response?

LADAR LEVISON: I can certainly understand his position. If the government had learned that I was shutting my service down--can I say that?

JESSE BINNALL: Well, I think it?s best to kind of avoid that topic, unfortunately. But I think it is fair to say that Silent Circle was probably in a very different situation than Lavabit was, and which is probably why they took the steps that they did, which I think were admirable.

LADAR LEVISON: Yeah. But I will say that I don?t think I had a choice but to shut it down without notice. I felt that was my only option. And I?ll have to leave it to your listeners to understand why. But it?s important to note that, you know, Lavabit wasn?t the first service provider to receive a government request, and we?re not the first service provider to fight it. We?re just the first service provider to take a different approach. And it could very well be because of our size that we have that option. We?re wholly focused on secure email. Without it, we have no business. You take a much larger provider with a greater number of employees, and shutting down a major section of their company, when they have to answer to shareholders, may not be a viable option.

AMY GOODMAN: Why have you decided to speak out today, Ladar?

LADAR LEVISON: Because my biggest fear when I shut down the service was that no good would come of it. And I?m hoping that by speaking out, I can prompt, hopefully, Congress to act and change the laws that put me in this circumstance to begin with. I know that?s a little ironic, considering I can?t speak about the specific laws that put me in this position, but, you know, there?s a real need in this country to establish what the rights are of our cloud providers. And unless we take actions to ensure that, you know, we can continue to operate secure, private services, I think we?re going to lose a lot of business over the next few years. And I think all the major providers, not just Lavabit, have gone on record to say the same.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think people should use email?

LADAR LEVISON: Yeah, I think it?s a great way to communicate. I think we?re entering a world where we have any number of ways of communicating, from postal mail to Twitter, to text messaging, to Facebook, to instant messenger, to email, to telephone, to video chat. They all kind of blend together. They all sort of fit their own niche, their own purpose. And I think email still has a very important role to play in communication between people.

AMY GOODMAN: Should we just assume it?s all being read?

LADAR LEVISON: I think you should assume any communication that is electronic is being monitored.

AMY GOODMAN: We?re going to break and then come back to our discussion. And we?ll be joined by a service provider who did get a national security letter and is now able to talk about it. We?ve been speaking with Ladar Levison, Lavabit owner, who just shut down the--as a service provider, provided services to Edward Snowden; and Jesse Binnall, his lawyer. We?ll be back in a minute.

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Snowden's Flight to Freedom

by Jeffrey Tucker

Dear rest of the world: Please know that it?s painful for us Americans to see what is happening in the case of Edward Snowden.

Here he is flying from Hong Kong to Russia ? countries that seem like safe havens from the long reach of the U.S. empire. Where will he end up? Could be Iceland, Venezuela, or Ecuador. He needs someplace to go where the authorities can?t be intimated to turn him over to his jailers and possible executioners.

It?s either that or face the chair for doing the right thing. Even though I understand the corruption of the system ? and I get just how bad things really are ? it?s still hard to process. The law under which he has been charged dates from 1917, and its sole purpose was to destroy the peace movement of the time. As Woodrow Wilson said before the law passed, ?Creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out.?

And they were. If you spoke out against the war, you were arrested. Papers were effectively nationalized. Prices were controlled. Independent thinkers of all types were jailed. Actually, a number of Americans at the time fled to Russia for freedom and found themselves in the middle of the Bolshevik Revolution. Then, like now, the choice was the frying pan or the fire.

So yes, we know that America has not been itself for a long time. Maybe it never was. But still, we read the Federalist Papers. We read Thomas Jefferson. We read the Declaration, the Constitution, the words of Madison and Paine. We just can?t shake the idea that there is something to this notion that government ought to be limited and that people have the right to freedom.

Snowden is a good young man who wanted his fellow citizens to know what our own government is doing to us. He wanted to warn us that our own government is reading our emails and chats and listening in on our phone calls. He blew the whistle on the alarming fact that our own government is assembling a vast database from which it can draw at any point in the future, essentially putting the government in a position to blackmail every citizen forever.

He didn?t just assert all this. He proved it with vast documentation. And he blew the whistle because he thought that doing so might help bring change. I detect something like naivete in his voice. It?s like he still holds to the old ideals. Maybe he was paying attention in the civics class where they teach about the ?Land of the Free? and things like that.

To say what he revealed is unconstitutional is a ridiculous understatement. This program utterly shreds not only the Constitution, but every notion of liberal society. If we had any truly democratic features remaining in our system, Snowden would be given total immunity to prosecution and asked to testify to Congress. Then Congress would get to the bottom of the scandal and gut the agencies that took advantage of public fear to enact totalitarian surveillance.

Alas, Snowden is on the run. But everywhere he goes, he releases more information. No matter how bad you think it is, it seems to get worse. While in Hong Kong, he showed journalists evidence that the U.S. government hacked Chinese mobile phone companies to read millions of text messages. It followed the communications of professors at Tsinghua University. It burrowed into the databases of Pacnet in Hong Kong, their version of AT&T.

These revelations come after years and years of kvetching by U.S. officials that China has been stealing U.S. trade secrets. Whether that is true or not (maybe they?ve made a mountain out of a molehill), just think for a minute about what Snowden?s information implies. Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot.

Let?s just say that a Chinese dissident came to the U.S. and provided The New York Times with proof that the Chinese communists had tapped the phones of our university professors, had been reading our text messages, and had burrowed down deep to have a direct passage to listen to our phone calls.

Can you imagine that response? There would be hysteria. Sermons from the pulpit on Sunday would once again attack the godless communists and their imperial ways. After a few weeks, we might even be close to all-out war. The American people would be absolutely beside themselves.

So you wonder why the Chinese people might be just slightly annoyed to hear this information. And then consider that the U.S. is hounding this leaker and demanding he be captured like a criminal and turned over to the U.S. for a thorough flogging, a life sentence in jail, or possibly even worse.

What?s mystifying is that all of this is happening under a president who ran on a platform of encouraging whistle-blowers. Maybe this promise was like Chairman Mao?s promise to let a hundred flowers bloom. Once they bloomed, he cut them down. Maybe Obama?s encouragement of whistle-blowers was designed to find the traitors and eliminate them.

I actually doubt it, really. In fact, I wonder how much Obama really can control the national security state at all. I?m not against blaming the president for anything and everything, and it?s true that he might have intervened to stop it ? and he might have even personally approved it.

More likely, however, is the strange reality that no American really wants to admit: namely, that the president is a figurehead. A glorified PR man for the state, and not a godlike central planner in charge of all things. There are only so many hours in a day, and most of the president?s days are filled with defending himself, keeping his entourage together, putting the gloss on the elites and their policies, and meeting people and the like.

The system is much bigger than one man, and that one man that everyone trumpets is mostly a bit planner, a survivor who watches the clock and worries what the history books will say about him.

In the day-to-day machinations of the state, we are largely ruled by bad laws and legislation enacted by people long dead ? the worst of it passed 100 years ago ? and they are enforced by bureaucrats and players today who are not subject to any aspect of the democratic system. This combination of legislative cruft plus bureaucratic inertia on behalf of public and private elites is the real source of the tyranny of our times.
_
Jeffrey Tucker is the publisher and executive editor of Laissez-Faire Books, the Primus inter pares of the Laissez Faire Club, and the author of Bourbon for Breakfast: Living Outside the Statist Quo, It's a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes, and A Beautiful Anarchy: How to Build Your Own Civilization in the Digital Age, among thousands of articles. Click to sign up for his free daily letter. Email him: tucker@lfb.org | Facebook | Twitter | Google

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