This is why the University of California has a prohibition on classified research at the ten UC campuses. All classified UC research is undertaken at one of the National Laboratories administered by UC or Scripps, and even then only at the Secret Level, not Top Secret. I think that's a good policy, as it protects researchers and staff from impacts of this nature: http://www.ucop.edu/research-policy-analysis-coordination/re...
The solution of just not performing research on classified subjects is. Any of these institutions could not compete for those contracts. UC chooses to do that with Top Secret contracts.
1. This kind of government thug behavior on a college campus is immediately counterintuitive, but makes complete sense after you think about it. All that DARPA money goes somewhere. It's a bit like being shocked that Ma Bell would be an integral arm of state security.
2. This story should be shouted far and wide so that people attending these type of talks will record them on their phones. Make this corruption of our institutions openly apparent, rather than isolated rare incidents easily written off. Make it known that the surveillance-collaborators are not appreciated in the least. These moles won't even return phone calls because they know what they did is indefensible with anything other than "policy".
3. I wonder about running a DoS attack on universities with such agreements, either to make NSA etc have to issue formal declassification of the public documents (unlikely), or to force the colleges to reconsider their agreements (and therefore their research foci). Imagine "I guess we have to destroy every computer in this lab too. And the network switches. And the Internet router, again".
" I wonder about running a DoS attack on universities with such agreements"
No. Just stop. You'd be messing up the lives of grad students and network admins by taking such actions. Get off your keister and out from script-kiddie land and do some direct action protests against the administration if you care so much. They're the one's making/enforcing policy.
I'd think the people who actually destroyed perfectly good systems would be the ones doing the interfering.
If it wasn't clear (as you're calling me a "script-kiddie"), I'm talking about people physically going to these computers, viewing the voyeurs' precious trove, and then attesting "I read this on this machine" to the university administration. This sure seems like a direct action protest to me.
As for [marching] protests - yeah I went to one of those once. It doesn't make much sense to merely volunteer to be kicking fodder for police horses.
(edit: apparently people really don't understand that "denial of service" is a generically applicable term. sheesh)
>As for [marching] protests - yeah I went to one of those once. It doesn't make much sense to merely volunteer to be kicking fodder for police horses.
I find it some what comical when people have a knee jerk reaction and advocate to others that the best™ way to protest is to do it in a way that that an institution/state is best prepared to deal with and puts the individual against forces that are completely asymmetrical in such domain…
1. and 2. are OK points, but your point 3. is atrocious. In my opinion, destructive behavior isn't really a legitimate form of protest, and as rubidium wrote, you'd be hurting people who are innocent in all this.
People were discussing this in the ECE labs and in student government today. I think the consensus is that the administration overreacted but that they were kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place with academic free speech vs. compliance.
In general Purdue does seem to have more of a government and conservative bend to it than other colleges so I'm not surprised that the speaker was called out about the currently classified material on his slides.
Also whoever was saying they were considering DoSing schools.. please don't. My compiler is not going to turn itself in :).
Imagine if the same security practices involving the government's classified information were applied to the citizens' classified (aka private) information.
The university did exactly what it should do. The fault lies entirely with the author: he had absolutely no right to disclose information whose disclosure will cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States (he has not, apparently, signed an NDA, so his behaviour may not be illegal; that it is legal does not make it right).
Top Secret information is not something to be used to make one seem wittier than one is; it's not something to display as a gag. It's a deadly serious matter.
Yes, I'm aware that a lot of folks are concerned about over-classification (that's a legitimate concern, but perhaps overblown; few in the public are aware that over-classification is as contrary to policy as under-classification). That's not really relevant, though: over-classified or not, that information is…still classified.
And I'm aware that many folks are concerned about the legality of certain programmes. They have every right to be concerned, but absolutely no right to examine those programmes for themselves, nor to disclose information about those programmes to unauthorised parties. A few seconds' thought will indicate why: sure, you may be a patriotic American justly concerned for your Constitutional rights, and if you examined a programme's details and found it to be legal, you'd never reveal it; but some other person may be an agent of a foreign state, and not care one but about whether something is legal or not, and immediately disclose it regardless. In the real world, secrets are necessary, and the essential thing about secrets is that they be…secret. One has to trust those who are authorised to examine the legality of such programmes. And of course, one must hold accountable those who abuse that trust. And of course one must also be humble enough to admit that one might be wrong about issues of legality, constitutionality and morality. Speaking of humility:
> By way of example, I mentioned that the NSA, CIA, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence “have steadfastly refused to give me a secure channel to communicate with them” about the Snowden leaks.
Who does this guy think he is?!? The Queen of England has steadfastly refused to send a courier to exchange secret keys with me so that she and I can discuss Battlestar Galactica—or at least, I imagine she would if I were so full of myself that I importuned her to do so. It's simply, literally, none of his business.
This guy disclosed information he literally had no right to disclose; he expects that people should be glad to discuss with him things which are literally none of his business; and he finds it remarkable that people who do have the right to work with that kind of information are doing what they are required to do?
Re: over-classification - my biggest concern is that using the "national security secret" gambit can be a coverup for criminal wrongdoing. We've seen it over and over and over throughout history. And now that the national security state is involved in more activities than ever before, it's almost guaranteed that some of those activities, or the motivations behind them, are criminal.
Conversely, we've heard, many times, things like "disclosure will cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States..." and seen that NOT to be the case. The NSA and related parties are starting to look like the boy who cried wolf. A boy with perhaps more power than any government entity in US history.
>> This guy disclosed information he literally had no right to disclose;
He didn't disclose anything. Edward Snowden did. Continuing to pretend that certain things are secret when they aren't is pure nonsense. The national security apparatus is forcing its members to do so as a form of hazing -- making them act in a silly fashion as an ostentatious display of obedience.
> it's not something to display as a gag. It's a deadly serious matter.
When you say this without consideration of the context, it makes you look very detached from reality. The pictures he showed were all over the internet. FTA:
This was, I think, a rather devout reading of the rules. (Taken literally, the rules say Purdue should also have notified the FBI. I do not know whether that happened.) A more experienced legal and security team might have taken a deep breath and applied the official guidance to “realistically consider the potential harm that may result from compromise of spilled information.”
Or perhaps not. Yes, the images I displayed had been viewed already by millions of people online...
Any time I read national security paranoia regarding Snowden's leaks, all I can think of are quotes from Team America. "From what I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.N.C.E has gathered, it would be 9/11 times 100."
> > And of course, one must hold accountable those who abuse that trust.
> How? And how would one ever discover the abuse without examination?
Because there are inspectors general whose entire careers are built upon investigating the claims of whistleblowers. Anyone who does have legitimate access to information about classified programmes is able to legally contact numerous IGs authorised to investigate those programmes. The entire incentive structure for IGs is designed to reward them when they find wrongdoing.
But, as I noted, one also has to be humble enough to recognise that just because one thinks something is wrong or illegal, that doesn't mean that it is.
Actually, there aren't in practice. Every whistleblower that took the problems to them had their careers destroyed in one way or another while I.G. looked the other way. Then, they took it outside the organization to the press or the courts where they were found to be true whistleblowers. That it always comes to this shows those organizations are very corrupt and eliminating that from within is provably impossible given all the precedents. Whistleblowing and sometimes courts are the only working model.
"But, as I noted, one also has to be humble enough to recognise that just because one thinks something is wrong or illegal, that doesn't mean that it is."
Did you ever see the actual court cases on these things? The NSA's rep said the judicial system has basically no part in anything they deem classified. Whether there's a crime or not, they can't question it and it can't be punished. We'll be humble once we see it from their side first.
Legality is something to leave to the lawyers to argue for sure but that is merely law. Saying that only government gets to decide the moral question of right and wrong is dangerous though. If we fail to recognise the right to conscience we risk falling victim to the many errors that governments have made over the years, particularly in the name of security.
You're right on whether University shouldn't show classified information: that's technically the law. The rest not so much.
Let me stop you right at legality. According to classification law, the act of classification may never be used to cover up illegal activities or merely embarrassing information by agencies under executive branch. The black programs started under the Bush/Cheney administration were so illegal that they had dedicated cronies to try to write BS justifications for them and relied on secret interpretations of law not existing in any public court. Leaking them isn't just ethical: it's legal or in a grey area of legal. Further, there were other unlawful programs such as BULLRUN where organizations that were supposed to protect government systems were weakening everything they depended on. If we ever get a "cyber-9/11," there's a good chance the NSA's programs will be responsible for it due to the holes they leave in for the enemies to find and exploit. Not to mention preventing critical infrastructure from benefiting from high assurance protection like GOTS guards, Type 1 crypto, etc. Any patriot seeing an intelligence agency aiding the enemy and attacking Americans should definitely leak that information before betraying the oath they swore.
Now, far as secrecy laws, we have three options: follow strict rules passed by dirty Congress a long time ago; try to release whatever is justifiable through freedom of press (hear of that law?); try to fight it in court with jury nullification of abusive aspects of classification to set precedents. Congress is still dirty: beholden to national security organizations, esp with stock options & contracts. So I left them out. Voters are apathetic & hard to reach individually. That leaves two options for anyone seeing something that straight up shouldn't be classified or deserves a public debate. Which is the choice of the person and how much risk he or she wants to take. Neither is more ethical than the other as the real ethical failure is the lack of integrity by lawmakers and executive branch with punishments for people that show it.
"This guy disclosed information he literally had no right to disclose"
He has several rights that cover it. In the First, speech and press are the obvious ones. A protest also requires ability to name the wrong. Many religions also forbid doing evil to others, esp unjustified (eg bulk). The Third is violated by botnets & C&C nodes. The Fourth is routinely violated by TAO without a court order. The Fifth is undermined by NSA collecting private communications and sabotaging crypto. Parallel construction, also in leaks, skirts the Sixth and Seventh in so many ways it's not funny. The Nineth's right to privacy interpretations are ignored. State's versions of the same under Tenth are ignored. Then there's law I referenced against classifying wrongdoing and Federal/State laws that encourage whistleblowing on it.
So, there's all kinds of rights and laws supporting disclosure of illegal or unethical information despite it being classified. You suggesting we should throw them all out to support arbitrary locking of information in black boxes? Or maybe throw that out when it doesn't make sense?
Note: Another thing I find strange in your side's position is how the decision to classify something can be one person's discretion but no discretion is allowed in whistleblowing or declassifying it. Kind of nonsense position from the start, eh? Gets dumber when we add a conflict of interest for the organization that commits wrongdoing, classifies it, and (as the "owner") is the one you expect to... properly declassify that? Lol. My interpretation and strategy sound more honest as they can avoid non-punishable leaks by drawing a line between legit and corrupt practices.
> And I'm aware that many folks are concerned about the legality of certain programmes. They have every right to be concerned, but absolutely no right to examine those programmes for themselves, nor to disclose information about those programmes to unauthorised parties. A few seconds' thought will indicate why: sure, you may be a patriotic American justly concerned for your Constitutional rights, and if you examined a programme's details and found it to be legal, you'd never reveal it; but some other person may be an agent of a foreign state, and not care one but about whether something is legal or not, and immediately disclose it regardless. In the real world, secrets are necessary, and the essential thing about secrets is that they be…secret. One has to trust those who are authorised to examine the legality of such programmes. And of course, one must hold accountable those who abuse that trust. And of course one must also be humble enough to admit that one might be wrong about issues of legality, constitutionality and morality
How the hell is this a case of Poe's Law? It's an even-handed treatment of a contentious subject. I recognise that there are legitimate concerns, but that not everyone may be permitted to determine to his satisfaction whether those concerns are correct or not. I recognise that folks must be trusted, but also that they must be held accountable.
Where's the crazy, nigh-parodic fundamentalism in that?
I had difficulty figuring out, at first, if you were serious or not. I'm still not sure if you realize that the secret documents he showed are easily and publicly available to the internet.
Assertions the above passage makes (please correct if I've misconstrued):
1. People don't have a right to examine the activities of their government
2. People don't have a right to speak freely about what has been made public
3. People must trust auditors who work in secret
4. Humble yourself so you can never declare right from wrong (and therefore only believe whoever is in power)
I guess the comment could be considered even-handed, just in a narrow artificial context that basically guarantees a specific conclusion. That context seems similar to how someone would think if they officially handled classified information, a role which would clearly make them a fundamentalist.
> 1. People don't have a right to examine the activities of their government
How do you propose to keep things secret while permitting any citizen to examine them? Do you deny that some things need to be secret, or do you deny that some citizens would reveal things which should remain secret? Or do you have a way to keep things secret and publicise them at the same time?
> 2. People don't have a right to speak freely about what has been made public
No, people aren't right to do so. There's a difference: I have a right to pour egg whites and sand in my hair, but I'm a lunatic if I do.
> 3. People must trust auditors who work in secret
Again, what is your proposal which keeps things secret and yet public?
> 4. Humble yourself so you can never declare right from wrong
No, have a sense of humility. You and I are two people out of about 350 million. I may believe something is wrong, and I could be right; but if everyone says I'm not…I should at least consider the possibility. Likewise, one must recognise that neither the law nor the Constitution mandate all good things, or forbid all bad things: plenty of things I dislike I perfectly constitutional, and plenty of things I like are not mandatory. I don't get a veto over the rest of the nation; neither do you.
