Retired National Security Agency executive Bill Sullivan will discuss how the NSA works and consider the implications of the leaks of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in a talk at Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro on April 1 at 7:00 pm.
His talk, “The National Security Agency: The Law, the Media, and the Legacy of Edward Snowden”, is part of the Vermont Humanities Council’s First Wednesdays lecture series and is free and open to the public.
Sullivan will discuss the NSA’s foreign intelligence mission as well as its process, governance, and oversight, and examine media reports based on material provided by Edward Snowden.
Sullivan worked for the NSA as a linguist, analyst, reporter and manager for over thirty years, retiring as a senior executive in 1994. During those years he also served as chief of legislative affairs for the NSA and on detached duty with the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.
Additionally, he served as chief of the Director of Central Intelligence’s National Signals Intelligence Committee. After retirement, he continued to do pro-bono work for the NSA and was asked to serve on the professional staff of the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community. He now lives in Woodstock.
Anyone go?
Can anyone give a report on how this event went? What sort of questions came up?
Fluff
It was basically a fluff piece — PR for the NSA. “Nothing to see here folks, everything is in order. Move along now.” He kept repeating, over and over again, how the NSA only has jurisdiction over non-citizens outside the USA, and said (over and over and over) how all of the hoopla is just the big, bad media trying to sensationalize things.
A number of people walked out, an a few shouted out things and heckled, but the rather large crowd was for the most part polite and docile.
I felt embarrassed for the library. Can’t imagine all of their staff, trustees, and ‘Friends’ believe what this guy was dishing out. All they could do was ask for civility, request that thee be only questions to the speaker afterwards – no points of information were to be offered from the audience, and limit it to one question each.
Sure wish Ian Kiehle or someone with his encyclopedic mind had been there and asked a question about a specific incident that has happened that would have made the speaker squirm and shown his hand a bit.
Would you expect any less?
This will put me on the list, but what did you expect. Look at the guys career. Obviously if he had the convictions that Snowden did he wouldn’t have spent as many years with the agency that he did.
NSA
After my Google check on him I decided it would be a waste of time to attend. My gut feeling was that he was there to promote the NSA/CIA and if I wanted answers he would not be the one give them.
We don’t need a PR presentation to support two agencies who spend too much of their time causing fear and have no regard for our civil rights.
Some Facts
One man, Mr Sullivan retired from NSA over 20 years ago! The other man, Mr Snowden was a contract employee for the NSA until 2013.
Mr Sullivan outlined all the laws and all the oversight requirements that are in place to protect public privacy. Snowden claims that these laws were routinely broken by the NSA and that the public should know this.
Fox News reported that Director of National Intelligence – James Clapper apologized to Congress for misleading them about domestic surveillance in a letter dated June of 2013
Mr Sullivan claims that we should not believe all the media hype. It is overly aggressive and sensationalized. My personal experience with Mainstream Media reaffirms Mr Sullivan’s s position – that the news is often sensationalized.
However in my view — overly aggressive news coverage almost NEVER occurs. They never go far enough and never play hardball with political figures or government agencies. In other words things are likely far worse than what the public hears about.
Obama has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all the presidents combined. He often uses World War I espionage laws that most experts contend are totally antiquated to do this. Many existing whistleblowers have testified to the futility of going though channels. Many have also met with untimely, unexplained but always fatal suicides, car & plane crashes or sudden health episodes that take them out. Let’s face it – Snowden worried about his own safety.
Sullivan was a former NSA employee, now receiving a pension and continues to do ad hoc work for the NSA. He further claims that Snowdens’ motivation was that he is a narcissist who wanted hacker fame.
Snowden left a $200.000 salary and a plush life ,placed himself at risk, lost his freedom and much of his life because he believed that the public had a right to know.
Daniel Ellsberg’s release of the Pentagon Papers is now credited at helping to bring an early end to the Viet Nam war and saving thousands of lives. He firmly endorses Snowden as a true patriot and a whistleblower.
I wonder if we hit rewind and Obama and the NSA had their way — what would have happened to Ellsberg and his release of the Pentagon Papers?
Thank you Mr Snowden and shame on you Vt Humanities Council. How you can sponsor a NSA drum beater without also sponsoring a presentation of the other side – on such a conoversial subject. This was a disservice to the public.
NSA Information Session at Library
Sorry, folks. I beg to disagree.
I found Mr. Sullivan’s presentation very informative in terms of the legal safeguards in place to oversee actions of the NSA. He stressed that the agency is not permitted to tamper with the communications of US citizens, but only those of Foreign entities. That there is a rigorous legal process that must be adhered to if there is probable cause, to be determined by the appropriate judicial agency, to report suspicious activity in terms of espionage or terrorism on the part of a US citizen, and then it must be referred to the FBI.
He listed a number of internet sites available to all giving information relating to NSA activities (as much as can be revealed at this time – which is a no-brainer considering the agency is dealing with subversive matters) and legal stopgaps.
He related that one member of a five member committee assigned by President Obama to investigate the whole Edw. Snowden business was a long-time ACLU employee(?) was very skeptical at first, but then stated at the end that he came away impressed with the agency, found no mis-behavior, but that vigilance must always be practiced (which is obvious with any government agency in a democracy or its’ practices).
He made no apologies, didn’t dance around trying to make excuses, didn’t hesitate to say, “I don’t know,” when a question was posed that he didn’t know the answer to.
I believe that Mr. Snowden is a hacker looking for his 15-minutes of fame, which he got. Mr. Sullivans pointed out that Mr. Snowden have gone to any number of people with his suspicions that the NSA was behaving improperly. But he didn’t. As Mr. Sullivan stated, the biggest result of what Mr. Snowden accomplished was to reveal to foreign entities what programs the NSA was using to intercept, read, or find any plots against US security, and to force the NSA to design new programs. I, for one, am grateful for their vigilance.
Trust
I agree with the above that it would be a nice gesture if the Vermont Humanities Council, who book the First Wednesday series, would allow a presentation which views the Snowden affair from other perspectives than that of the NSA.
That the questions raised by said affair aren’t obvious mystifies me. A government that has total access to anyone’s digital life on demand is going to be tempted by totalitarian tactics. It’s not a good thing. If public servants they be, they should not be trying to have this kind of godlike power. In the past, the mail was trusted because we had iron-clad rules about tampering with the mail! and our phones were deemed safe to use for business once users were convinced that their phone conversations would not be listened in on. We’ve thrown that all away if we decide that we’ll just trust the government not to use its extravagant powers to the full extent of what’s possible. 😉
On the NSA presentation
Speaking only for myself, I would say that:
1) The presentation, as advertised [“will discuss . . . the implications of the leaks of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden”] was decidedly not the talk presented. Mr. Sullivan specifically stated he would not address Snowden unless directly asked (although he had prepared Power Point slides on Snowden);
2) While I recognize the right of anyone to have a position contrary to mine, I think a good presenter gives the strong points of both sides of a case and the reasons he or she supports the one or the other. Mr. Sullivan appeared too much a one-sided apologist.
3) Although the presenter spend an (inordinate?) amount of time recapping the law, he did not seem as well versed in recent developments. In fact, there was a direct question on the cost benefit of the meta database and Mr. Sullivan failed to mention recent movement on this issue, viz: http://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/210-press-releases-2015/1176-joint-statement-by-the-department-of-justice-and-the-office-of-the-director-of-national-intelligence-on-the-declassification-of-renewal-of-collection-under-section-215-of-the-usa-patriot-act
4) All that said, I did however, receive a good lead on a valuable website: http://icontherecord.tumblr.com/