Snowden: NSA Employees Routinely Pass Around Nude Photos

[W!nston]

This would be a fun job to have now wouldn't it? Just kidding. These are disturbing practices and we will never know how far this goes up and down the chain of command. No one will ever be held accountable. It's disgusting.

Snowden: NSA employees routinely pass around intercepted nude photos
"These are seen as the fringe benefits of surveillance positions," Snowden says.

Edward Snowden in Guardian Interview 07 17 2017

ARSTECHNICA | By Cyrus Farivar | July 17 2014 | 12:39pm EDT

Edward Snowden has revealed that he witnessed “numerous instances” of National Security Agency (NSA) employees passing around nude photos that were intercepted “in the course of their daily work.”

In a 17-minute interview with The Guardian filmed at a Moscow hotel and published on Thursday, the NSA whistleblower addressed numerous points, noting that he could “live with” being sent to the US prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He also again dismissed any notion that he was a Russian spy or agent—calling those allegations “bullshit.”

If Snowden’s allegations of sexual photo distribution are true, they would be consistent with what the NSA has already reported. In September 2013, in a letter from the NSA’s Inspector General Dr. George Ellard to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the agency outlined a handful of instances during which NSA agents admitted that they had spied on their former love interests. This even spawned a nickname within the agency, LOVEINT—a riff on HUMINT (human intelligence) or SIGINT (signals intelligence).

“You've got young enlisted guys, 18 to 22 years old,” Snowden said. “They've suddenly been thrust into a position of extraordinary responsibility where they now have access to all of your private records. In the course of their daily work they stumble across something that is completely unrelated to their work in any sort of necessary sense. For example, an intimate nude photo of someone in a sexually compromising position. But they're extremely attractive.

“So what do they do? They turn around in their chair and show their co-worker. The co-worker says: ‘Hey that's great. Send that to Bill down the way.’ And then Bill sends it to George and George sends it to Tom. And sooner or later this person's whole life has been seen by all of these other people. It's never reported. Nobody ever knows about it because the auditing of these systems is incredibly weak. The fact that your private images, records of your private lives, records of your intimate moments have been taken from your private communications stream from the intended recipient and given to the government without any specific authorization without any specific need is itself a violation of your rights. Why is that in a government database?”

Then Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian’s editor-in-chief, asked: “You saw instances of that happening?”

“Yeah,” Snowden responded.

“Numerous?”

“It's routine enough, depending on the company that you keep, it could be more or less frequent. These are seen as the fringe benefits of surveillance positions."

Update 5:27pm CT: In an e-mail sent to Ars, NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines wrote: "NSA is a professional foreign-intelligence organization with a highly trained workforce, including brave and dedicated men and women from our armed forces. As we have said before, the agency has zero tolerance for willful violations of the agency’s authorities or professional standards, and would respond as appropriate to any credible allegations of misconduct."

However, she declined to respond to direct questions as to the veracity of Snowden's allegations or if anyone at NSA had ever been terminated or otherwise punished for engaging in such behavior.

 

[W!nston]

On First Day Of Work Nsa Employee Spied On Ex-Girlfriend

This article is a little older but it is relevant to the article above:

LOVEINT: On his first day of work, NSA employee spied on ex-girlfriend
New letter from NSA oversight to senator details 12 instances of obvious abuse.

ARSTECHNICA | By Cyrus Farivar | Sept 27 2013 | 12:35pm EDT

In 2005, a National Security Agency employee was given his first day of access to the United States’ SIGINT (signals intelligence) capability. So what did he do with his vast powers?

According to a newly published letter (PDF) by the NSA Office of the Inspector General (OIG), “he queried six e-mail addresses belonging to a former girlfriend, a U.S. person, without authorization.”

An internal NSA audit four days later revealed this violation. His punishment?

“A reduction in grade, 45 days restriction, 45 days of extra duty, and half pay for two months. It was recommended that the subject not be given a security clearance.”

This is just one of 12 instances of NSA employees unquestionably abusing America’s surveillance system, publicly revealed for the first time on Thursday.

Last month, the Wall Street Journal introduced the world to an internal term that NSA analysts have come up with to describe the act of spying on one’s ex-partner: LOVEINT. The word is reminiscent of existing spycraft parlance, like HUMINT (human intelligence) or SIGINT (signals intelligence). (LOVEINT also spawned endless Twitter jokes.)

Needless to say, many Americans, including Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) were not exactly thrilled with the idea that NSA employees could put America’s vast surveillance capability to use spying on ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends. So he immediately fired off a letter to the NSA OIG. On Thursday, the OIG’s September 11 response to Sen. Grassley was published on the senator’s website.

Dr. George Ellard, the Inspector General, writes that the NSA currently has “two open investigations into alleged misuse of SIGINT and is reviewing one allegation for possible investigation.”

In each of these cases, NSA employees were either docked in pay or punished administratively, or they left the agency before any further action could be taken. No criminal charges were brought against any of these subjects. Worse still, most of these instances appeared to largely be as a result of reactive reporting by the “subject” (the person who conducted the LOVEINT abuse), and not as a result of proactive internal measures at the NSA itself.

Won’t the real “shady characters” please stand up?

Another case in 2011 describes a situation where a female NSA employee “tasked the telephone number of her foreign-national boyfriends and other foreign nationals and that she reviewed the resultant collection,” adding that “[she] asserted that it was her practice to enter foreign national phone numbers she obtained in social settings into the SIGINT system to ensure that she was not talking to ‘shady characters’ and to help [the] mission.”

Any disciplinary measures could not be imposed, as she resigned first.

Probably the most egregious example in the entire five-page letter is a 2003 incident in which “a female foreign national employed by the U.S. government, with whom the subject was having sexual relations, told another government employee that she suspected that he was listening to her telephone calls. The other employee reported the incident.”

Turns out, her suspicions were right, and then some:

The investigation determined that, from approximately 1998 to 2003, the employee tasked nine telephone numbers of female foreign nationals, without a valid foreign intelligence purposes, and listened to collected phone conversations while assigned to foreign locations. The subject conducted call chaining on one of the numbers and tasked the resultant numbers. He also incidentally collected the communications of a U.S. person on two occasions.
And what became of this fine NSA employee?

“The subject was suspended without pay pending the outcome of the investigation and resigned before discipline had been proposed.”

We contacted the office of Sen. Grassley to find out if he was satisfied by the OIG’s responses and if he plans on taking further action, but we have not received a response.

 

[tonka]

The whole NSA thing is fucked up, but this?
The NSA people are people. Probably guys, young guys.

Of course they passed around pictures. You wouldn't?

You can ask...why do they even have these pictures. Totally fair.

But boys will be boys will be boys. Would gay heaven even exist without that impulse?

 

[W!nston]

All of that is true Tonka but it doesn't excuse the violation of peoples private sex life. I know boys will be boys. I am a voyeur myself. I think most if not all men and a lot of women have voyeuristic tendencies. Does that entitle me or anyone else to invade someone's sex life and pass around nude pics or sex tapes that are taken without permission and then share them with their friends? At work? In a government building? With tacit approval of the boss? No. There must a line somewhere that you would agree should not be crossed.

I do not want or need any pics or videos that are obtained without all parties permission. Gay porn is great but I don't watch (knowingly) porn that is secretly obtained without permission of all parties. If I knew of someone who was knowingly sharing such porn I would feel compelled to tell the Admins of the site it was posted on and then they would be responsible for what happens next.

No. This is not okay.

Sniffit

 

[ihno]

Haaah, I wished I worked for the NSA.

@Sniffit: No, it is not okay but not the problem.
The problem is that they spy and obtain the data - any data - in the first place.

That some of them use that data as jerkoff material is only a minor issue compared to that. Because even if they would not show the pics around, it would still be as immoral and problematic.