Opening the barn doors

Tucked away towards the end of today’s mammoth New York Times article on the National Security Agency’s foreign eavesdropping, Scott Shane turns to the main policy issues:

Joel F. Brenner, the agency’s former inspector general, says much of the criticism is unfair, reflecting a naïveté about the realpolitik of spying. “The agency is being browbeaten for doing too well the things it’s supposed to do,” he said.

But Mr. Brenner added that he believes “technology has outrun policy” at the N.S.A., and that in an era in which spying may well be exposed, “routine targeting of close allies is bad politics and is foolish.”

Another former insider worries less about foreign leaders’ sensitivities than the potential danger the sprawling agency poses at home. William E. Binney, a former senior N.S.A. official who has become an outspoken critic, says he has no problem with spying on foreign targets like Brazil’s president or the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. “That’s pretty much what every government does,” he said. “It’s the foundation of diplomacy.” But Mr. Binney said that without new leadership, new laws and top-to-bottom reform, the agency will represent a threat of “turnkey totalitarianism” — the capability to turn its awesome power, now directed mainly against other countries, on the American public.

“I think it’s already starting to happen,” he said. “That’s what we have to stop.”

Whatever reforms may come, Bobby R. Inman, who weathered his own turbulent period as N.S.A. director from 1977 to 1981, offers his hyper-secret former agency a radical suggestion for right now. “My advice would be to take everything you think Snowden has and get it out yourself,” he said. “It would certainly be a shock to the agency. But bad news doesn’t get better with age. The sooner they get it out and put it behind them, the faster they can begin to rebuild.”

Is NSA simply doing its job?  Isn’t that job vital to American diplomacy?  Has it gone too far in monitoring foreign leaders?  Does it represent a threat to civil liberties at home?  Should the Administration simply make public what NSA does so that citizens (including members of Congress) can make up their own minds about it?

Those to me are the main questions.  The Times article certainly demonstrates that NSA is doing a lot of intercepting.  That much of it goes unexploited or is useless puts it in the same category with most intelligence reports.  And some of what the Times article describes suggests a need for more NSA resources, not less.  Some of the material it produces in unquestionably of great use to our military and diplomats.  It is hard to predict in advance precisely which morsels will help them in their efforts, which is why NSA collects so much.

Most foreign leaders are savvy about eavesdropping and assume that their conversations are overheard unless they take special precautions to prevent it.  That’s what the Americans do.  They meet in SCIFs (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities) for classified conversations.  They are supposed to keep classified information off their cell phones, though of course a good deal sneaks in and is likely exploited by others.  Angela Merkel has good domestic political reasons for complaining loudly about American eavesdropping, but she is likely more concerned with getting access to our vast treasure trove than limiting what NSA does.

The threat to civil liberties at home is real, though this article does not tell us much about the breadth and depth of NSA collection inside the United States.  I assume they get it all, one way or another.  But they only listen (or read or analyze) a small fraction, presumably with court orders, which don’t appear hard to get.  They just don’t have the capacity to be checking up on whether you are cheating on your wife.  But it is entirely possible that this vast data base could be abused for domestic political purposes.  The barriers to this need to be clarified more than they have been so far.  It seems to me they are far too low and need to be raised.

Making public everything that Snowden has would be a daring move.  The intelligence community won’t want to do it, because they will fear doing so will reveal sources and methods.  But on domestic collection it seems to me the Administration could be more forthcoming.  There is something unbecoming about Russian intelligence knowing more than American citizens about domestic US government eavesdropping .  This would be a bit like opening the barn door after the horses have bolted, which might air out the barn and restore some of the government’s damaged credibility.