Drip, Drip, Drip

Actually, it is not dripping so much now as it is pouring out.

During a single month last year the US National Security Agency intercepted some 60 million phone calls in Spain, newly leaked documents from Edward Snowden reveal, according to a report to be published in Spanish daily The World.

  RT

The Spanish government summoned the American ambassador on Monday to address allegations that the National Security Agency collected data on millions of telephone calls in Spain.

  NYT

But this may be the best yet…

Access classified data without authorization, use your account after you’ve been fired, or anonymously request a new account for an Afghan friend – these are just some of the features available in State Department’s SMART system, BuzzFeed reports.

The breaches in security, horrifying to any IT expert, are reported in the State Messaging and Archival Toolset (SMART) – a cable and messaging system which is based on MS Outlook.

  RT

Well, there’s your problem, right there.

The SMART’s monitoring system, deployed for the purpose of determining whether there has been unauthorized access or modification of files, frequently fails to perform any of that, the report said. And with an existing backdoor between the classified and non-classified enclaves, state secrets can be accessed by a user without proper clearance, even unintentionally, BuzzFeed writes.

[...]

SMART was initially created for improving information sharing after the 9/11 attacks.

It has obviously worked VERY well for that. Sharing it with people it shouldn’t.

However, it turns out the system never complied with all the requirements of the Federal Information Security Management Act and the National Institute of Standards and Technology requirements, according to a 2010 Office of Inspector General (OIG) report.

Failing to provide enough cyber protection, the system regularly received failing or below-failing grades from its internal monitoring system, according to documents obtained by BuzzFeed.

Close enough for government work.

Currently, the database has no hashing, time-stamping, or other capabilities telling that the records have not been accessed, tampered with, copied by unauthorized users, or even switched for a fake.

[...]

When a non-classified user’s email on an operating level is included in a classified group mailing list – he begins receiving all classified attachments.

[...]

After the 2010 leak of hundreds of thousands of Pentagon and State Department documents by Army Private Bradley Manning to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, the department has disabled the ability to forward messages, but failed to block the ability to cut and paste messages and cables, BuzzFeed reports.

Jesus, who works in their IT department? Daffy Debra?

Users also regularly mislabel classified information as unclassified, BuzzFeed reports, because they just like unclassified system better and appreciate its user friendly interface.

What can I say?

Moving on...

According to German Bild am Sonntag newspaper, which cited US intelligence sources, National Security Agency chief Keith Alexander briefed Obama on the bugging operation against Merkel in 2010.

"Obama did not halt the operation but rather let it continue," an unnamed high-ranking NSA official told the newspaper.

[...]

The NSA's findings, SMS messages and phone calls, were directly reported to the White House in Washington, unlike as usual to NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, the paper’s source said.

[...]

Moreover, the paper said, the US president later ordered the NSA to prepare a comprehensive dossier on Merkel.

[...]

According to the report, the NSA also spied on Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, after then-President George W. Bush launched a surveillance program in 2002.

[...]

The monitoring operation was reportedly still in force as recently as a few weeks before Obama's visit to Berlin in June 2013.

[...]

An NSA spokeswoman released a statement on Sunday after the Bild am Sonntag revelations came to light that: "Alexander did not discuss with President Obama in 2010 an alleged foreign intelligence operation involving German Chancellor Merkel," adding that "news reports claiming otherwise are not true."

  RT

Of course they’re not. (Sarcasm font.)

Now I think I understand those earlier reports that Alexander is stepping down. I expect they have been in a frantic huddle knowing the kinds of things that might be coming to light, and somebody has to fall on a sword for the Chief.

Both Germany and France have said they want “a no-spy deal” with the US to be signed by the end of the year.

And just what would THAT be worth?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

 

Let the lying begin.  (Or continue.)