The situation none of us are considering.

[Savannahmann]

The TV Show Burn Notice is winding down this season. I quit watching it a couple years ago, for a number of reasons. Yet, in the show, each season, the main character Michael Weston moves from one shadowy quasi government group with ill defined authority and access to top secret material, to an even larger group.

I know, TV is fantasy, and get over it right? But here is the thing. One of the many claims is that Snowden, an employee not of the NSA, the CIA, or any official Government agency. Was an employee of Booz Allen, a security consulting firm. But as an employee of what is in effect a Detective Agency for secrets, he had access to Human Intelligence, read as spies and sources, all over the world.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/06/officials-how-edward-snowden-could-hurt-the-u-s/

SO according to our Government Officials who are in charge of Intelligence gathering, and intelligence operations, the stories on Burn Notice, while fantasy, relate too close to the truth to be admitted? Because if Booz Allen had access to spies in other nations, or their reports, then who else had it? Was Booz Allen responsible for running these spies? The fictional character Michael Weston says in the first episode he doesn't actually work directly for the CIA, so he can do things they are prohibited from doing.

Accordingly, the Government is so desperate to get Snowden back that they would create a massive international incident by having Europe close the door to the Bolivian President Morales's official plane and several people in Europe were desperate to search the plane, despite that being a direct violation of the Vienna Conventions. But I guess the law doesn't apply to National Security, even when it's international law.

Snowden may be a narcissistic dolt, with a pole dancer for a girlfriend. But the Government is acting like he is Michael Weston. Desperate to get their hands on him, and get him into some prison anywhere to work on him and find out what he knows.

The question remains, how could he, as an employee of Booz Allen know anything? The rules on need to know are that if you don't have a need to know, you don't get to see the information no matter what. Unless our Government is running private contractors as actual spies, then there is no way that Snowden can know anything right? But if he's so valuable that we would create an international incident to get him, then he has to know something, probably a great deal.

The information we are given is inconsistent with what actions are being taken. I know, I've made a lot of assumptions. But that is because the facts don't match up. We are given a series of stories, but none of them are consistent with the next answer we are given. At the very least, sloppy handling of Intelligence data is apparently widespread if a dolt network administrator can get his hands on enough information to supposedly fill four laptops. Site security is obviously problematic if he can take the data and no one notice until he publishes that he is in Hong Kong. Every answer raises two more questions to anyone with a logical mind, which pretty much rules out the apologists who will reply with rolling smiles. The rest of you, think about it. Does it seem reasonable that Booz Allen would have access to FISA court information, PRISM information (rated Top Secret) and everything else we've learned about if Need to Know was applied? Those are vastly different programs, run by different parts of the various agencies involved. CIA runs spies, NSA supposedly runs foreign intelligence, FBI ran FISA. But Snowden had access to all of that information at Booz Allen. How?

What else are these contractors doing for us? We should know, because apparently our national security is being managed by the lowest bidder.

[dkf]

1. He wasn't an IT guy but a Government Hacker, trained by the NSA to find vulnerabilities

Here and abroad.

http://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-trained-snowden-to-hack-2013-7

[Savannahmann]

4. But again.

The systems should have been isolated, and unless he was physically at the terminal, he never should have had access. Lets say you have documents that are sensitive to your business. Plans and research into a revolutionary new phone for example. This information is going to be tightly held by your company to make sure that your competitors do not get access. You are going to monitor those working on it, and you're going to make sure that this information is not on a computer that has access to the internet.

The people who work on it will have to be working on the systems that are physically located there, monitored by you and your staff to make sure that nothing is copied. So how did Snowden get access to information far more valuable than the plans for a revolutionary new cell phone? Are you telling me that all Top Secret information is stored on a network that anyone can access?

At work, they use rotating passwords assigned by Tech Support. Every month, or two at the most, you get a new password. A jumble of letters and numbers before you can access the secured data network. We don't handle anything classified top secret, but our business information is still apparently better secured than the Top Secret data of the United States. Even with that password, you only have access to the information you need. I can't tell you what anyone else in the company is working on, because I don't have access. Tech support can access it, but even that is logged in the system. So how the hell did Snowden access data across at least three different agencies from the computers he had access to Booz Allen?

[dkf]

8. It was his job to attack the system and see what he could find.

There are no compartments he is supposed to work within.

Alexander wanted people to build their skills internally and externally to gear individuals for a coming cyber war. This was no holds barred, with plans to disrupt all the systems of a target country.

[Savannahmann]

10. The US Military has a job to attack targets.

We teach them, and they train all the time. They don't storm ashore on Staten Island, they practice their assaults on beaches and targets that have been set up to attack. In other words, training sites set up for that.

The question still remains about Snowden. How did he get access to computers that should have been isolated from one another. The FBI, NSA, and CIA should be using separate systems. There should be no interconnected points, and certainly no interconnected points where some high school drop out at a minor security consulting firm could access all three.

[dkf]

11. Nope. All the data comes in to the FBI's DITU

Everyone else gets it from there. The scary part is they had no isolation of the raw data. From what I have gathered all analysts from all the branches could access it given coding ability. The sigint was available to all.

[Savannahmann]

12. So the spies that Snowden supposedly has information about

are run by the FBI? Why do we need a CIA? Like I keep saying. Every explanation brings new questions.

[dkf]

13. Actually it's hard to tell where he got info because he was at several agencies.

We haven't seen his résumé but we know he was at the CIA and NSA (or contracted to).

But as someone testing the security of network infrastructure I imagine he was let loose everywhere. Alexander wants his hackers skills to be honed. And in the end it is all connected through the Internet.

http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2013/06/snowden-and-toxicity-of-internet.html?m=1

This piece was an OMG moment for me.

[GeorgeGist]

2. Apparently NSA trained him to hack computer systems.

But he started with the CIA.

[chervilant]

3. Thus,

how vulnerable are we really, when a lower-level data entry clerk (ostensibly) can abscond with 'top secret' information?

[Savannahmann]

5. Top Secret Information from three different agencies

The FBI FISA court documents. The NSA Data collection programs. The CIA Human Intelligence information.

[noamnety]

14. There are a lot of lower paid employees with clearances.

The offices that handle TS info generally have admin people/secretaries. You aren't typically going to pay someone $100k a year to do some of the more routine things in an office.

Beyond that, though - there's an assumption in your post that people who make more money are more trustworthy - and I would suggest that the opposite might be true.

[chervilant]

17. Yes...

The opposite has been proven true countless times.

[PSPS]

6. "The situation" has nothing to do with the issues in your essay

You see, it matters not who is doing the domestic spying. Instead, it is the fact that it is transpiring at all. That is "the situation."

[Savannahmann]

7. Agreed

But before we can address the spying, we have to know who is involved. Apparently, it's every dolt off the street who asks to help defend Merica from the shadowy forces arrayed against us. We can't stop it if we don't know who the hell is doing what.

[chervilant]

9. You don't see the 'irony'

in the fact that a 'model/actor wannabe' with a 'pole-dancer girlfriend' absconded with 'sensitive, top secret' information?

[rhett o rick]

21. I never looked at it that way. Thanks. nm

[noamnety]

15. I know this is a little off topic, but I'm getting tired of the slut shaming.

I'm surprised to see people on the left repeatedly falling back on slut shaming his girlfriend because she's a pole dancer. That's something I'd expect more from Limbaugh.

[Savannahmann]

16. I know, believe me I know.

It seems that any argument is worthy if it props up the Intelligence Industrial Complex.

[rhett o rick]

18. People on the left are not repeatedly slut shaming his girlfriend.

When I point out his girlfriend was a pole dancer I am mocking those apologists that are actually doing the shaming.

The OP isnt shaming her, it means that even if that is the case it doesnt affect the issue under discussion.

[noamnety]

19. I figured that out from their reply to me.

I wasn't sure from the OP if that was sarcasm or not - it's hard to tell on here nowadays. And I appreciate where you're coming from with your post.

[Doctor_J]

22. the Snowden bashers have a lot in common with Limpballs

they certainly are not "people on the left"

[nashville_brook]

20. what i hear in his statements, and from what i know about network systems development,

is that the nature of technology is such that once you're on the other side of the server (so to speak), you have access to everything.

in an intelligence system that's all about collection of digital data, the network guys likely have access to everything that's in the system. so, if humint data is stored/transmitted electronically, then yeah, he might have access to that too.

wrt to private intel themes in TV, you might want to check out the one-season wonder "Rubicon."