Legal loophole: US offers no apologies for hacking internet encryption
by alethoRT | September 6, 2013
The
US Director of National Intelligence has issued a statement in response
to a report revealing that the National Security Agency, with help from
international allies, secretly inserted backdoors into various
encryption and internet security services.
Intelligence
agencies in the US and United Kingdom have spent millions to bribe
technicians - perhaps even planting agents inside telecommunication
companies - in a bid to penetrate the encryption used by hundreds of
millions of people to protect their privacy online.
The report detailing the intelligence agency’s efforts was published Thursday by The Guardian, and is the latest result of the leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The
office of James Clapper, director of US national intelligence, has
responded by saying the government would simply not be doing its job if
it did not use legally dubious techniques to quietly monitor Americans’
everyday communications.
“It
should hardly be a surprise that our intelligence agencies seek ways to
counteract our adversaries’ use of encryption,” read the statement
issued Friday.
“Throughout history, nations have used encryption to protect their
secrets, and today, terrorists, cyber-criminals, human traffickers and
others also use code to hide their activities.”
Close
readers may focus their attention on the statement’s mention of “and
others,” a loophole that conceivably writes the government a blank check
to spy on anyone it sees fit.
“I
am the other because I do not trust my government in general, or the
people working for its security apparatus in particular,” wrote Ken
White of the Popehat law and civil liberties blog.
“I
am the other because I believe the security state and its
representatives habitually lie, both directly and by misleading
language, about the scope of their spying on us. I believe they feel
entitled to do so,” he adds.
Among
the representatives of the so-called “security state” is US President
Barack Obama, who again drew the ire of civil liberty advocates this
week when he appeared to admit that he lacks the knowledge of what
exactly the NSA is doing.
Obama
participated in a press conference at the G20 summit in which he was
questioned about accusations from Brazil and Mexico that the NSA has
spied on their heads of state.
“I
mean, part of the problem here is we get these through the press and
then I’ve got to go back and find out what’s going on with respect to
these particular allegations,” said President Obama in St. Petersburg.
“I don’t subscribe to all these newspapers, although I think the NSA
does, now at least.”
Obama took time out of his G20 schedule to hold a closed doors session with Brazil’s President Rousseff for nearly 30 minutes on Thursday,
to address the country’s outrage at allegations that her communications
with top members of her government had been intercepted.
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