Tim May wrote:
>None of the non-cryptographic methods are very resistant to legal,
>technical, sniffing, and black bag attacks. And only multiply-chained
>encrypted-at-each-stage messages, a la remailers, are adequate for
>high-value messages.
Those who've read it know that Jim Bamford's "Body of Secrets" ends
with a paragraph on NSA's being unable to cope with the spread of
communications protection technology and has come to rely more
and more on the Special Collection Service, a joint NSA-CIA black
bag operation and other methods of gaining access to targeted material.
This comes after decades of NSA disparaging the CIA's reliance on
HUMINT in favor of COMINT, ELINT, and a host of technological
intelligence gathering methods. Bamford says that NSA's prowess in
these methods accounts for its humongous growth into the premier
intel agency -- in budget and in personnel. Until the technology it
invented, fostered and funded made its way into the private world
and then to other countries intel (and allegedly criminal) organizations.
>From computers to crypto to means to crack or get around those.
What will come of Special Collection Service application inside the
United States as the fervor for homeland defense burgeons and
the redefinition of "foreign enemies" to include anyone in the US
considered to be a threat, is worth pondering, in particular as SCS
techniques are shared with domestic agencies to fight the drug war
and for counterterrorism -- all domestic agencies now becoming
rapidly militarized in policy, training, equipment and close working
with DoD.
Recall DEA planting the bug on Jim Bell for IRS -- the
agency is the most militarized due to the DoD and intel agencies
being ordered to fight the drug war in the US and overseas.
Recall, too, the amazing 30 agents which raided Jim's home,
according to trial testimony by Jeff Gordon, the were all shocked
and frightened at the chem-warfare stuff allegedly found there,
until the EPA calmed the tough guys. That's the reason Jim's
home is listed in the EPA's most hazardous sites compendium
for the year of the raid.
Last week, as Declan noted there were a series of congressional
hearings on homeland security legislation and increased funding
for combating high-tech crime. We offer the lengthy testimony
on several bills providing for homeland defense and combating
terrorism:
http://cryptome.org/homeland-terr.htm (286K)
As I noted a few days ago, information is now listed with nuclear,
biological and chemical threats to the nation, and requires similar
intelligence about its danger to the homeland.
This could lead to the the technologies Tim lists being defined
as homeland information-terrorist threats as our very own Stasi
secret police grows rapidly -- informers squealing on family
members, vast lists of suspects, and so on. No wonder the
CIA has held on to the East German lists of enemies of the
state -- its own citizenry -- so fervently.
US intel is looking for reasons to live and where best than pursuing
you know who, ably assisted by the industry set up by ex-intel
members. Those down-sized by the end of the Cold War got
bills to pay.
Finally, reading the NYT account of Kerry's team killing the
Vietnamese is sobering. The article is much more disturbing
than accounts of it have portrayed. Kerry's and other killers'
spin over the years have induced an intolerance for reading
the grim shit that the military does when it is out of control.
And be sure to reflect on Bamford's account of the Joint
Chiefs planning to fake a terrorist attack on the US to warrant
a Cuban offensive. That shit could be in the works even
now -- homeland defense is aiming to be a humongous
growth industry. One easy way to get that underway is to
fake a nationally disruptive infowar attack -- or is that already
underway.
