Top intel official: Edward Snowden forced 'needed transparency'

Edward Snowden: hero or traitor? Lawmakers sound off 01:27

Story highlights

  • James Clapper: The leaks would have been tolerable if related only to civil liberties and privacy concerns
  • Clapper says Edward Snowden's leaks compromised a critical program in Afghanistan; it was shut down

Washington (CNN)The top U.S. intelligence official said Wednesday that Edward Snowden's leaks of secret government surveillance programs "forced some needed transparency."

The comment by James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, was a stark contrast to the heavy condemnation top U.S. officials have levied on the former National Security Agency contractor until now.

Clapper, however, also strongly criticized Snowden's leaks and the "huge damage to our collection capabilities" that he inflicted.

Clapper explained that he perhaps could have "tolerated" Snowden's disclosures if they had related only to civil liberties and privacy concerns.

Snowden's leaks "forced some needed transparency," Clapper said, "but he exposed so many other things that had nothing to do with so-called domestic surveillance or civil liberties and privacy in this country."

Read more @ http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/09/politics/james-clapper-edward-snowden-transparency/

 

Find out if the NSA spied on you and shared it with GCHQ

An online tool helps you find out if the NSA spied on you and then shared that data with the GCHQ.

Curious if the NSA has ever spied on you? Privacy International launched a site so you can find out if Britain's GCHQ spied on you; put another way, GCHQ can access NSA data so if the NSA gobbled up your communications, then this is how you can find out and get that digital dirt destroyed.

Privacy International wrote:

Have you ever made a phone call, sent an email, or, you know, used the internet? Of course you have!

Chances are, at some point over the past decade, your communications were swept up by the U.S. National Security Agency's mass surveillance program and passed onto Britain's intelligence agency GCHQ. A recent court ruling found that this sharing was unlawful but no one could find out if their records were collected and then illegally shared between these two agencies… until now!

If you are an American and you are still wondering if this applies to you, it does; it applies to "everyone" in the world. After Privacy International's legal victory in February, the watchdog organization explained:

Through their secret intelligence sharing relationship with the NSA, GCHQ has had intermittently unrestricted access to PRISM - NSA's means of directly accessing data and content handled by some of the world's largest Internet companies, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple.

GCHQ could also access the NSA's Upstream surveillance program. In fact, GCHQ's access to NSA material "makes up the large bulk of all surveillance material handled by the security services; some ex-GCHQ staffers estimated that '95% of all SIGINT [signals intelligence material] handled at GCHQ is American'."

So the next step in Privacy International's "Did GCHQ Illegally Spy On You" campaign allows you to find out if you were spied upon. People need to make their own personal claims to be submitted to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT). The online tool offers options for individuals representing themselves, for individuals with representation such as attorneys or advocates, for organizations representing themselves, and for organizations with representation.

The FAQ states, "This campaign will only tell you if the NSA shared your communications with GCHQ before December 2014, not if GCHQ shared communications with the NSA."

Read more @ http://www.networkworld.com/article/2984205/security/find-out-if-the-nsa-spied-on-you-and-shared-it-with-gchq.html

 

Did GCHQ illegally spy on you? Now you can find out – from this page

Privacy International launches latest online campaign

Ever wonder whether the UK's listening post, GCHQ – the Government Communications Headquarters – was tuning in to your life a little too closely?

Well, now you may be able to find out, thanks to an online campaign launched by spy-botherers Privacy International (PI). There is a bit of a catch, as you'll see. Just a bit of a catch.

The charity has set up a webpage where you can provide personally identifiable information – your name, email address, IP address, MAC address and so on – and then submit a claim to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT). The IPT oversees the security services, and asks it to confirm whether your details are included in a vast database of information held by the UK security services.

According to PI, the IPT is legally obliged to let you know if those details are included. The goal is to highlight just how broadly the GCHQ dragnet stretches – it's not just suspected terrorists that are subject to governmental spying.

There are two caveats: one, it will be you filing a claim with the tribunal, not PI on your behalf, so be prepared to get involved in a lengthy process; and two, you should bear in mind that you would be providing the security services with personally identifiable information that can then be linked to you. This, ironically, would make it easier for them to spy on you in future.

It's also in your interest to file as soon as possible, as the Tribunal will only search records that go back a year. And, since the UK government simply changed the law to make GCHQ's previously illegal activity legal, you will only get back information up to 5 December 2014. So if you file today on 14 September 2015, the search will only cover 14 September 2014 to 5 December 2014.

Death by a thousand papercuts

It's not the first time that PI has taken the mass paperwork approach to force greater transparency.

Back in February, the charity encouraged people to send in their personal details in an effort to seek confirmation that their information had been covered up, most likely by the NSA, and sent on to GCHQ.

That approach came following a ruling [PDF] by the IPT that said the huge sharing of information between the US and UK was illegal prior to 5 December 2014 because the rules for sharing that information were secret.

In response, the UK government went to the IPT and argued that it did not need to tell people if their information was included in that now-illegal sharing of information. The Tribunal rejected that argument in a further decision [PDF], so now it is obliged to tell you if your details are included in that database.

Cat and mouse

This most recent effort to prise open the doors on GCHQ is just the latest in a cat-and-mouse game between the UK security services and Privacy International (among others).

Read more @ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/14/gchq_illegal_spying/

 

Human Rights Watch demands to know who's been snooping on it

Handy guide to complaining about illegal surveillance launched

Civil rights NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has launched a legal challenge to find out if its information was shared between the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

The organisation is unhappy that a ruling by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) in February did not reveal the full extent of intelligence sharing.

Human Rights Watch, together with three individuals, has now lodged a new legal challenge.

“Given the mass surveillance capabilities of the NSA and GCHQ, a huge number of people could have been affected by the unlawful spying,” said Human Rights Watch in a statement.

For now, the organisation is focusing on those who handle the most sensitive information. In July it emerged that GCHQ had spied on Amnesty International, so HRW lodged a complaint on behalf of itself, a security research expert, an investigative journalist and a lawyer.

Read more @ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/15/human_rights_watch_gchq_nsa_lawsuit/

 

Privacy group and people are taking on GCHQ and NSA over unlawful data sharing

Human Rights Watch continues to do its job

PRIVACY GROUP Human Rights Watch (HRW) is challenging the grey area that surrounds exactly who had their details shared between GCHQ and the US National Security Agency (NSA).

The area is grey despite a number of public legal cases, and HRW is trying to clear things up a bit. The sharing is known, and seen as unlawful, but the relevant courts have not yet clarified who was affected. The group wants to put that to bed.

"Despite billions of records being shared every day between the NSA and GCHQ, and that historical sharing having been declared unlawful, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal has not yet confirmed to any claimant that their communications were part of those unlawfully shared," HRW said.

"Given the mass surveillance capabilities of the NSA and GCHQ, and that the agencies operate with an ‘extensive degree of sharing' between them, a huge number of people could have been affected by the unlawful spying."

There is, and has been ever since the world met Edward Snowden, a very keen interest in which agencies do what, and how they take information, and the HRW effort follows something from peer outfit Privacy International that asked people to come forward and take part in a legal case.

That was in February when people were concerned about the veil of silence from the authorities.

Read more @ http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2426035/privacy-group-and-people-are-taking-on-gchq-and-nsa-over-unlawful-data-sharing

 

Extent Of U.K.’s Surveillance Dragnet Probed In Fresh Legal Challenge

A new legal challenge to U.K. intelligence agency surveillance practices has been filed in the U.K. by human rights organization Human Rights Watch and three unnamed individuals working in security research, investigative journalism and law. The action is aimed at ascertaining the scope of illegal data-sharing that took place between the NSA and GCHQ.

The move follows a landmark legal ruling, back in February, when the IPT — the court which oversees the U.K.’s domestic intelligence agencies — ruled that prior to December 2014 GCHQ had acted illegally by receiving data from the NSA’s surveillance dragnets. It was the first time in the court’s 15 year history it had ruled against the agencies.

The claims filed today with the IPT will “seek to establish whether GCHQ has spied on the claimants, whether their communications were part of those unlawfully shared between NSA and GCHQ, and how the Tribunal  is interpreting intelligence sharing”, according to pro-privacy organization Privacy International, which was one of the groups which brought the earlier legal challenge.

This June the IPT also found that GCHQ had acted unlawfully in handling intercepted communications data — although the court blamed “error” and “technical” failures for what it said were ‘breaches of internal policies’. That judgment also revealed that two human rights organizations’ communications had been targeted by the intelligence agencies — one of which, the IPT subsequently confirmed, was Amnesty International.

Read more @ http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/14/human-rights-watch-legal-challenge-gchq-nsa-data-sharing/

 

Ummm for 2 years now I have read all the stories on what the NSA and GCHQ have been up to hacking into corporations, placing malaware into computers in transit…. And a lot of other very shady things….. so this to me is a bit hypocritical.  

US urged to shore up cyber security against Chinese hacking

Intelligence chief says tough measures are necessary.

The United States' top intelligence official has urged a congressional committee to take tough measures to counter the threat posed by Chinese hackers targeting American interests.

Presenting a dire assessment of global online security risks, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also said that while China and Russia posed the most advanced online threats, Iran and North Korea could also cause serious disruptions.

Clapper's latest comments come as the Obama administration is believed to be considering targeted sanctions against Chinese individuals and companies for attacks against US commercial targets.

They also come just weeks before just Chinese President Xi Jinping makes an official state visit to Washington in late September.

"Chinese cyber espionage continues to target a broad spectrum of US interests, ranging from national security information to sensitive economic data and intellectual property," Clapper said.

Read more @ http://www.itnews.com.au/news/us-urged-to-shore-up-cyber-security-against-chinese-hacking-409121

 

Intel chiefs draw distinction between digital espionage and malicious hacks

At a Congressional hearing Thursday, officials stressed the need to develop clearer international norms to determine what's a tolerable amount cyberspying and what's unacceptable. 

Ever since Edward Snowden revealed widespread US surveillance and data gathering, US national security officials have been trying to manage the public relations fallout at home and abroad.

Two summers later, they seem willing to concede similar intelligence-gathering efforts by foreign adversaries may fall within the realm of acceptable behavior.

“I caution that we think about the old saw about people who live in glass houses,” James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, told the House Intelligence Committee in a Thursday hearing on worldwide cyberthreats. “We should think before we throw rocks. These are very complex policy issues.”

Read more @ http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/2015/0911/Intel-chiefs-draw-distinction-between-digital-espionage-and-malicious-hacks 

Cyber Hacking Likely to Grow in Frequency, Sophistication

WASHINGTON—

The lines between cybercrime and espionage are blurring, and unless the United States takes the lead in establishing international norms of online behavior, the frequency and sophistication of cyber hacking attacks will increase, according to leaders of the U.S. intelligence community.

The directors of the FBI, CIA, NSA and other intelligence agencies, speaking before the House Intelligence Committee in Washington, addressed the “cyber challenges” facing the United States and the international community.

“Cyber threats to U.S. national and economic security are increasing in frequency, scale, sophistication and severity of impact,” said James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, in his opening statement.  

“We foresee an ongoing series of low-to-moderate level cyber-attacks from a variety of sources over time, which will impose cumulative costs on U.S. economic competitiveness and national security.”

Read more @ http://www.voanews.com/content/cyber-hacking-likely-grow-frequency-sophistication/2955856.html

Joseph Gordon-Levitt Talks Meeting Edward Snowden: "He Believed it Was the Right Thing to Do"

The actor describes the NSA leaker, whom he spoke to as part of his research for Oliver Stone's 'Snowden,' as "warm, kind and thoughtful."

Oliver Stone’s Edward Snowden biopic may have been pushed back to next year and subsequently out of this year's Oscar race but that hasn’t stopped star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays Snowden, from talking about meeting the whistleblower.

"[Snowden] was in good spirits," the actor told The Guardian, describing him as "warm, kind and thoughtful."

Read more @ http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/joseph-gordon-levitt-talks-meeting-824537

 

Upcoming biopics bring Lance Armstrong, Edward Snowden stories to big screen

Read more @ http://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/upcoming-biopics-bring-lance-armstrong-edward-snowden-stories-to-big-screen-1.2561034

 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt Prepares for Role by Secretly Meeting with Edward Snowden

Read more @ http://www.allmediany.com/articles/31161-joseph-gordon-levitt-prepares-for-role-by-secretly-meeting-with-edward-snowden  

Swooning MEPs go all Directioner over Edward Snowden

The People's Whistleblower up for Euro Parl's human rights prize, again

Whistleblower-in-chief Edward Snowden has been nominated for the European Parliament’s human rights prize, for a second time.

The nominations for the 2015 Sakharov Prize were decided last week, with Snowden getting the nod again after losing to Malala Yousafzai, the teenage Pakistani girl who defied the Taliban, in 2013.

The prize is awarded every year to honour exceptional individuals who combat intolerance, fanaticism and oppression.

Nominations can be made by political groups or by at least 40 MEPs and the Parliament is notably fond of Snowden – a report approved last week called for him to be given asylum.

Once the nominations are in, three committees – Foreign Affairs (AFET), Human Rights (DROI, which is technically a subcommittee) and Development (DEVE) – vote to select three finalists. After that, the Conference of Presidents, made up of the parliament president and the leaders of the political groups, select the winner.

Two other whistleblowers are on the list: Antoine Deltour, a former PricewaterhouseCoopers auditor who unleashed the so-called LuxLeaks scandal, and Stéphanie Gibaud, who uncovered tax evasion and money laundering by UBS.

Read more @ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/14/meps_we_love_you_edward_snowden/

 

The late Boris Nemtsov, Edward Snowden among candidates for top European Union right prize

BRUSSELS –  Assassinated Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and leaker Edward Snowden are among the candidates later this month for the European Union's top human rights prize.

Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister turned critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was assassinated Feb. 27, 2015, near the Kremlin.

With Russia relations already at a low, the EU legislature said that Nadezhda Savchenko, a Ukrainian pilot currently held in Russia, will also be among the eight candidates presented on Sep. 28 for the Sakharov Prize.

The nominees also include Snowden, the U.S. intelligence leaker who also was among the candidates two years ago.

Read more @ http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/09/11/late-boris-nemtsov-edward-snowden-among-candidates-for-top-european-union-right/

James Bond, Edward Snowden and Wikileaks Meet in Berlin

A new museum of espionage opening in Berlin is set to commemorate the world of spying with relics from the Cold War including cameras hidden in bras, lipstick guns and tobacco pipe guns - right up to modern day snooping technology.

The Museum in Leipziger Platz is homage to the world of spying, which is unsurprising as Berlin was known as the "capital of spies" throughout the Cold War period. It contains much of what M might have conceived in the James Bond movies. 

Read more @ http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150918/1027194841/Berlin-museum-surveillance-spying.html

 

Edward Snowden spotted in Geneva – in sculpture form

Edward Snowden is back in Geneva, alongside fellow whistleblowers Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. Well, a bronze sculpture of them, that is. They feature in a new temporary installation in support of freedom of expression.

"It is a monument to the courage of three people who said no to the establishment of comprehensive monitoring and lies, and have chosen to tell the truth," declared the Italian artist Davide Dormino, who created the bronze sculpture of the three whistleblowers. 

Entitled “Anything to Say?" his itinerant memorial was inaugurated on the Place des Nations in front of the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva on Monday. 

Read more @ http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/traitors-or-heroes-_edward-snowden-spotted-in-geneva---in-sculpture-form/41660402

 

Edward Snowden among speakers at Bard College conference on privacy

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON >> Edward Snowden, the former CIA employee accused of espionage for leaking classified information on government surveillance programs, will be among featured speakers at a two-day conference, “Why Privacy Matters,” at Bard College next month.

Snowden, who currently resides in Russia, where he had been granted a three-year asylum, will be speaking via satellite Oct. 16 at the eighth annual international conference, which takes place Oct. 15 and 16 at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College.

In 2013, Snowden leaked classified information from the National Security Agency, which revealed global surveillance programs run by the United States and European governments. He has since been charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with violating the Espionage Act and with theft of government property.

The conference, at Olin Hall on Bard’s Annandale-on-Hudson campus, asks the question of what people lose when they lose their privacy.

Reading on Kindles, searching Google, and using cell phones leave a data trail of intimate details, the college said. “Why Privacy Matters” convenes a diverse group of thinkers to consider topics such as whether people’s loss of control over their data impacts their inner lives and whether freedom is possible in a world without privacy.

Read more @ http://www.dailyfreeman.com/general-news/20150913/edward-snowden-among-speakers-at-bard-college-conference-on-privacy

 

Edward Snowden Calls on UK Students to Rise Up Against Spying

Former CIA contractor Edward Snowden, who revealed the extent and methods of mass surveillance used by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain's GCHQ spy agency, has called on students to oppose plans to increase surveillance powers.

Snowden was speaking in his role as Rector of the University of Glasgow, at the opening of Freshers' Week, when new students arrive. He said:

"There are cynical people in government, in private society, in the press who argue that everything we do as civil society, a community, as an academic sector, as a common human family doesn't amount to much. We change things, but they're not so big. Reforms are made, but they aren't really determinative. I would argue that that is completely false," said Snowden.

Read more @ http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150915/1027029995/snowden-glasgow-university-speech-surveillance.html

 

Edward Snowden addresses @GlasgowUni students: ‘Defy the cynics and change the world’

Rector of university also raises concerns over the Higher Education Governance Bill

AMERICAN whistleblower Edward Snowden, who revealed illegal digital surveillance by Western intelligence services, called on Glasgow university students to pursue human rights, civil liberties and democratic accountability during a speech delivered at the university’s Freshers Week.

Snowden was speaking via video link from Moscow, where he has been granted asylum, as the Rector of the university. He was elected by over 3,000 students last year.

The former National Security Agency spy, responsible for the largest intelligence leak of all time, said: “You’re arriving at this university at an extraordinary time of change. The world is more complex and evolving at a faster rate than it ever has for any class before. And you, and the capabilities and knowledge that you develop here with a little bit of skill and hopefully more than a little bit of luck, will allow you to change the world.

“There are cynical people in government, in private society, in the press who argue that everything we do as civil society, a community, as an academic sector, as a common human family doesn’t amount to much. We change things, but there’s not so big. Reforms are made, but they aren’t really determinative.

“I would argue that that is completely false. When we look at what’s happened in the last two years alone within the United Kingdom, we see that there is a system of mass surveillance put upon the public without their knowledge, without their consent and overseen only by a secret court called the Investigatory Powers Tribunal that in 15 years never ruled against the government a single time.

Read more @ https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/2416/edward-snowden-addresses-glasgowuni-students-defy-the-cynics-and-change-the-world

 

Exiled, but Edward Snowden remains defiant

Edward Snowden continues to live in Russian exile with little prospect of returning home to the United States. In a recent interview with Al Jazeera journalist Mehdi Hasan and whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, he spoke out about his past and plans for the future.

In 2013 Snowden exposed how the US, along with its many global partners, had developed the largest and most complex system of state surveillance in history. Snowden in 2006 began working in IT security for the CIA, and later for the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton with the National Security Agency (NSA). In time, he began to question the many surveillance systems he had access to. One in particular gave him “the authority to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the president if I had a personal email”, he said.

Snowden was no radical, but came to see the state’s secretive operations as dangerous and undermining of democratic society and personal liberty. “I came from a federal family. And when you’re someone like me who grows up in the system believing everything the government says is likely to be true because ‘why would they possibly lie to us’ and you find more and more clear evidence that … the public [is] being misled … you have to think about how that would change your view, how would that change your personality, what would you do?”

Read more @ https://redflag.org.au/article/exiled-edward-snowden-remains-defiant

 

Edward Snowden will speak in Park City — via video

Edward Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who leaked classified documents to expose government surveillance, will speak in December to a Park City audience via video.

Snowden will speak from Russia, where he has been given asylum. Snowden will participate in a discussion on cybersecurity at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 5 at the Eccles Center. The discussion will be moderated by KUER's Doug Fabrizio.

Another guest will be Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project.

Tickets go on sale for the public Oct. 1 by calling 435-655-3114 or online at www.EcclesCenter.org.

Read more @ http://www.sltrib.com/home/2965273-155/story.html

 

The Fundamentals of US Surveillance: What Edward Snowden Never Told Us?

 Former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations rocked the world.  According to his detailed reports, the US had launched massive spying programs and was scrutinizing the communications of American citizens in a manner which could only be described as extreme and intense.

The US’s reaction was swift and to the point. “”Nobody is listening to your telephone calls,” President Obama said when asked about the NSA. As quoted in The Guardian,  Obama went on to say that surveillance programs were “fully overseen not just by Congress but by the Fisa court, a court specially put together to evaluate classified programs to make sure that the executive branch, or government generally, is not abusing them”.

However, it appears that Snowden may have missed a pivotal part of the US surveillance program. And in stating that the “nobody” is not listening to our calls, President Obama may have been fudging quite a bit.

In fact, Great Britain maintains a “listening post” at NSA HQ. The laws restricting live wiretaps do not apply to foreign countries  and thus this listening post  is not subject to  US law.  In other words, the restrictions upon wiretaps, etc. do not apply to the British listening post.  So when Great Britain hands over the recordings to the NSA, technically speaking, a law is not being broken and technically speaking, the US is not eavesdropping on our each and every call.

It is Great Britain which is doing the eavesdropping and turning over these records to US intelligence.

According to John Loftus, formerly an attorney with  the Department of Justice and author of a number of books concerning US intelligence activities, back in the late seventies  the USDOJ issued a memorandum proposing an amendment to FISA. Loftus, who recalls seeing  the memo, stated in conversation this week that the DOJ proposed inserting the words “by the NSA” into the FISA law  so the scope of the law would only restrict surveillance by the NSA, not by the British.  Any subsequent sharing of the data culled through the listening posts was strictly outside the arena of FISA.

Obama was less than forthcoming when he insisted that “What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a US person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails … and have not.”

According to Loftus, the NSA is indeed listening as Great Britain is turning over the surveillance records en masse to that agency. Loftus states that the arrangement is reciprocal, with the US maintaining a parallel listening post in Great Britain.

Read more @ http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-fundamentals-of-us-surveillance-what-edward-snowden-never-told-us/5477125

 

Nuclear Whistle-blower Vanunu Is Israel's Edward Snowden

Read more @ http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.676206

 

Edward Snowden: Advanced Encryption May Stop Us Communicating With Aliens

On Friday, Neil deGrasse Tyson welcomed Edward Snowden to his StarTalk podcast. Along with the usual conversations about privacy and government, Snowden had another important warning to provide: encryption may hurt our abilities to see, or be seen by, extraterrestrials.

Speaking to deGrasse Tyson from Russia, Snowden explained that the current need for data encryption may not be doing us many favours — at least in the cosmic sense. He said:

“If you look at encrypted communication, if they are properly encrypted, there is no real way to tell that they are encrypted. You can’t distinguish a properly encrypted communication from random behaviour…

“So if you have an an alien civilisation trying to listen for other civilizations or our civilisation trying to listen for aliens, there’s only one small period in the development of their society when all their communication will be sent via the most primitive and most unprotected means.”

He also pointed out that properly encrypted alien signals could also be “indistinguishable to us from cosmic microwave background radiation”. But deGrasse Tyson has a witty retort to that particular warning: “Only if they have the same security problems as us.” Funny, because it’s true.

You can listen to the episode of StarTalk here.

Read more @ http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/09/edward-snowden-advanced-encryption-may-stop-us-communicating-with-aliens/

 

Edward Snowden has a really good theory as to why we've never heard from aliens

Whistle-blower Edward Snowden has some strong opinions on communications — even when those communications are coming from aliens.

The former intelligence-agency contractor turned fugitive was an unexpected guest on famous astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson's StarTalk podcast on September 18. And, inevitably, the two got to talking about extraterrestrials.

Snowden became an infamous household name in 2013 when he leaked classified documents divulging the government's top-secret mass-surveillance program, which involved collecting personal information on Americans via phone records without their knowledge.

When the news broke, the US charged him with theft and espionage, and he's now living in Russia where he has asylum.

But Tyson scored an interview with him in New York City. How? Snowden rigged a robot that he can control from Russia, and rolled right into Tyson's office at the Hayden Planetarium in New York with his face displayed on the screen.

The conversation turned to encryption and cybersecurity, but here's where an astrophysicist differs from a journalist: Tyson's line of questioning quickly turned to how encryption relates to communication with ... aliens.

Tyson asked Snowden if a highly intelligent alien civilization might be communicating with encrypted messages. And Snowden had an unsettling answer.

First, Snowden said, let's assume that most advanced societies eventually realize that they need to encrypt their communication in order to protect it. This could also be the reason why we've never heard from other civilizations — their messages may have just been melding into the background static of the universe.

Here's Snowden's full answer, from the StarTalk podcast:

So if you have an alien civilization trying to listen for other civilizations, or our civilization trying to listen for aliens, there's only one small period in the development of their society when all of their communication will be sent via the most primitive and most unprotected means.

So when we think about everything that we're hearing through our satellites or everything that they're hearing from our civilization (if there are indeed aliens out there), all of their communications are encrypted by default.

So what we are hearing, that's actually an alien television show or, you know, a phone call ... is indistinguishable to us from cosmic microwave background radiation.

So it could be possible there are alien messages constantly hitting our satellites, and we just don't recognize them because they're so heavily encrypted. (The cosmic microwave background radiation that Snowden mentions is thermal radiation throughout the universe left over from the Big Bang. It basically looks and sounds like static to us puny humans.)

Read more @ http://www.techinsider.io/edward-snowden-talks-alien-communication-with-neil-degrasse-tyson-2015-9  


"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us."  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~