Spies Worry Over 'Doomsday' Cache Stashed By Ex-NSA Contractor Snowden

[big_dog]

Source: Reuters

British and U.S. intelligence officials say they are worried about a "doomsday" cache of highly classified, heavily encrypted material they believe former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has stored on a data cloud.

The cache contains documents generated by the NSA and other agencies and includes names of U.S. and allied intelligence personnel, seven current and former U.S. officials and other sources briefed on the matter said. The data is protected with sophisticated encryption, and multiple passwords are needed to open it, said two of the sources, who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

The passwords are in the possession of at least three different people and are valid for only a brief time window each day, they said. The identities of persons who might have the passwords are unknown. One source described the cache of still unpublished material as Snowden's "insurance policy" against arrest or physical harm.

U.S. officials and other sources said only a small proportion of the classified material Snowden downloaded during stints as a contract systems administrator for NSA has been made public. Some Obama Administration officials have said privately that Snowden downloaded enough material to fuel two more years of news stories. "The worst is yet to come," said one former U.S. official who follows the investigation closely.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/25/us-usa-security-doomsday-idUSBRE9AO0Y120131125

[lark]

1. Come on Edward,

share the news, we'd like to know what our government is trying to hide from us.

[blkmusclmachine]

13. Transparency, where are you?!?!

[lark]

22. Transparency has gone the way of hope and change.

Sad.

[arely staircase]

38. you want him to publish the names of US agents and humint

sources?

[lark]

41. Now you are just making things up.

[arely staircase]

44. just asking a question nt

[hobbit709]

2. Let them worry. It will do them good.

[big_dog]

4. this is turning into the real life Jason Bourne

except that they are at a stand off

[arely staircase]

39. looking more like a real life raoul silva

https://www.google.com/search?q=villain+in+skyfall&client=ms-android-att-us&source=android-browser-suggest&hl=en-US&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=HteXUpK0Bof7oASKyYA4&ved=0CDwQ7Ak&biw=640&bih=335&dpr=2#biv=i%7C1%3Bd%7CnJSbAfO_o2pWQM%3A

[Wernothelpless]

50. Exactly what he's doing ...

Hold it over their heads and they'll leave him alone ... give them a little poke every now and then ... so, NSA, how does it feel to be on the other end of the stick ...

[harun]

64. Agree, it does the powerful good to know the curtain can be pulled back from time to time

[Blue_Tires]

3. So do we ever find out what's on this 'Doomsday' Cache?

Last edited Tue Nov 26, 2013, 06:36 PM - Edit history (1)

or is it some kind of national secret?

What's the point of the story? Anyone who has been keeping up with the news already knew months ago Snowden had his little in-case-anything-happens-to-me contingency plan...

And why exactly IS it called a 'Doomsday' Cache when in all the previous stories it was just referred to as an "insurance policy?" "Doomsday" implies it contains information which could potentially end the world as we know it...

[riderinthestorm]

5. So promise him immunity and let him come back in return for the cache

Seems simple to me.

Unless your real goal is to imprison whistle blowers....

[Dopers_Greed]

6. Bring it on

Let the public know what our criminal overlords are up to

[dipsydoodle]

7. Paranoia rules

.

[marble falls]

8. "The worst is yet to come." Bring it on.

[okaawhatever]

9. So much for Snowden doing this to protect American citizens. When will others wake up to the

fact that his actions are espionage and aren't about the "surveillance state" the NSA uses on citizens. How anyone can defend his actions at this point is beyond me.

[AtheistCrusader]

11. Intesting conclusion you just disseminated there.

Can you just link us to the talking points?

[psychopomp]

17. I think Snowden did the wrong thing and is a traitor

Being a whistleblower means standing your ground. Taking US national security secrets to the CHINESE and then the RUSSIANS? Fuck that. The guy's an idiot. The Communists in China and the tyrants in Russia are enemies of the United States and enemies of democracy.

[nilesobek]

20. Your comments cannot go unchecked

Enemies? Really? This is the kind of rank paranoia the pervades the national police state. This ignorant belief got us Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Making enemies just like Israel does, everywhere we go. Some folks can't live without "enemies." It is confirmation of their wild ideologies. Putin has discouraged the release of the nuclear material Snowden has. Putin must know that such information is so damning, that the crimes committed so heinous, that it would destabilize the USA.

[psychopomp]

31. Yeah. Really. Enemies

We went to war with the CCP once (PVA) and they haven't changed a bit. The Russian government is old-fashioned Russian tyranny. If you think Putin has US interests at heart, you are a fool.

[bemildred]

42. You calling anybody a fool is very funny.

[psychopomp]

79. Care to share any of your "wisdom" or are you just going to make a snide comment and run away?

Comments like yours above are the reason that I rarely visit DU anymore.

[bemildred]

90. Yeah, nobody should make snide comments except you.

Don't let the door hit your butt.

[psychopomp]

91. Been here for twelve years, ain't going anywhere

Your vapid posts and contributions to the DU circle-jerk are the kinds of submissions that contribute to the decline and irrelevance of this site.

[treestar]

54. It is weird how some people can be so cynical about our government

yet have no suspicions whatever of the Russian or Chinese one.

[randome]

61. Very good point.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[bemildred]

77. What is weird is how people who claim te be hard-nosed realists get all googly-eyed

over their own government

[treestar]

83. Interesting that basic trust in it is being labeled "goggly eyed."

Especially compared to other governments, it is one of the best around. I don't see it necessary to call people goggly eyed if they don't think it is always wrong.

[bemildred]

85. It is just as unnecessary to call people who point to it's many faults "cynical".

And haters and other pejorative names, especially when they, like you I assume, want to make it better.

Edit: and it is absolute balderdash to suggest we are fans of Russia or China.

[treestar]

86. Yet those are the places in which

Snowden sought "refuge" from that horrible freedom-hater, the USA:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/china-claims-victory-scrubbing-internet-21055948

This horrible person let our country's intelligence out to the highest bidder, yet he is here lionized as the alleged preserver of horrid!

[bemildred]

88. In your mind. nt

[NoOneMan]

29. "Being a whistleblower means standing your ground"

Regurgitating talking points means checking your brain in at the door.

All he must do is publicly expose wrong-doing, which he has done. He doesn't have to wear a suit, talk in a particular accent, defend the life of his grandmother, or whatever other nonesense you come up with to disqualify him from being a whistleblower.

As for what national security secrets he took to Chinese and Russians, we are not privy to those to judge, if he took any at all. If you believe he did, you are believing an assertation of an entity who has been blatently exposed for wrong-doing by the person they are counter-accusing. It is interesting how quick you are to take the side of an already tarnished authority, in an obvious attempt to deamonize a whistleblower.

Try using your brain. Everything they feed you isn't something you have to swallow. Everything you swallow isn't something you have to regurgitate.

[psychopomp]

32. Your condescending tone notwithstanding

I read your post in earnest, looking for some interesting contribution to the conversation. Didn't find one.

[Sognefjord]

30. The United States and democracy are hardly synonymous.

[psychopomp]

33. Never said they were

But if you think that the Russian or Chinese governments want anything approaching what we have here, forget it.

[Sognefjord]

34. If they wanted what we have here (lunatic consumerism) our climate would crash 30 years sooner.

[treestar]

55. WTF they are not open government

Eddie'd have met a firing squad already if he'd done it to them.

[Sognefjord]

57. He'd be disappeared here, most likely.

[treestar]

63. No, he could have used the Whistleblower Protection Act

If he truly cared about Americans' privacy, that's what he would have done.

[Sognefjord]

65. If you believe that you are akin to those who believed Hitler would stop at the Sudetenland.

[treestar]

72. Ridiculous

The third Reich certainly had no Whistleblower Protection Act.

Quit exaggerating, and you might drum up concern on this issue. The constant exaggeration is what gets people thinking there's not much there.

[bemildred]

69. I suggest you try that and see what happens.

It's been tried already, they are in prison and nobody else got time, or much of anything.

Our government has long since ceased to respect it's own laws, or any laws, except when it is convenient, or not doing so is inconvenient. Expediency rules the day, the law is obscured or hidden, and utter fools are running amuck behind the fog of bullshit served up to us every day.

[treestar]

73. Have you been to a courthouse lately?

Of the thousands in this country, you're claiming they are all for show?

[bemildred]

74. Nice straw man.

Yes, I have actually, sat on a DUI jury in September. Looked like the system was falling apart.

[treestar]

75. So all 50 states and the federal judicial systems are "falling apart"

because you did not like something (not described) on a DUI case?

Also all the administrative proceedings are for show? (social security administration, employment discrimination hearings, immigration decisions and proceedings, tax court decisions). A lot of people spending a lot of time on evidence/witnesses all for show.

[bemildred]

76. And another straw man. nt

[psychopomp]

80. And another vapid post that contributes nothing to the conversation

[treestar]

87. Not. That's what you in essence said.

Admit that generally , with flaws, we do have the rule of law in the US. It's ridiculous to claim otherwise.

[bemildred]

89. What I said is they break the law when they like, not that they break it all the time.

The "Rule of Law" is when the government follows it's own laws, all the time.

[wildbilln864]

47. see post 37 please....n/t

[riderinthestorm]

37. Please provide proof Snowden gave anything to Russia or China? nt

[creeksneakers2]

19. If Snowden is threatening to release

the names and locations of intelligence assets he is threatening to imperil lots of good people who are defending our country. He could also leave our nation vulnerable to attack.

I remember the justified outrage when Bush and Cheney outed just one intelligence officer, Valerie Plame.

[bemildred]

43. I notice Bush/Cheney are not hiding in Russia, and nobody in the government seems to care.

I infer that what annoys the gov't is when they don't do the outing, not the outing itself. If they want to protect those guys, before Snowden or his successors out them, they should bring them here.

[AverageJoe90]

36. It was all too obvious to me that Snowden was likely up to no good, right from the start.

And people like us have been proven pretty much correct by now.

At least Manning stood up for what she did and was actually trying to do it for a noble cause(even if she failed). From what's been disclosed, and, even more so, his actions immediately after, we can deduce that Snowden's intentions were far less scrupulous.

[RC]

53. Snowden learned for Manning

Except for a scapegoat, not much happened to anyone, except for Manning there, and s/he is locked up for a long time.
Snowden, on the other hand, is still walking around loose, releasing what he has and keeping the story alive. Edward Snowden did what he did for a noble cause too. He kept his oath to uphold the Constitution, which is more then the people running the NSA have been doing. You are talking about Snowden and scruples? You want to talk about someone far less scrupulous, how about the NSA and the people running that agency? Yeah, scruples indeed.

[Bonobo]

60. The sun is hot. I like marshmallows.

The logical connection between those two sentences is approximately the same as what you just wrote.

[Demeter]

10. Since they haven't been doing anything wrong, they should have nothing to worry about!

Love to turn an annoyingly stupid and besides-the-point phrase on its end, like that!

[elias7]

12. Come on 9/11....

So much we haven't been told

[blkmusclmachine]

14. Hint: GWB knew what he was doing. His "dumb guy" act was just a ruse to cover up wrongdoing.

[blkmusclmachine]

15. Check out Operation: Northwoods for some interesting insight into CIA + JFK, and maybe 9/11? here:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92662

[yurbud]

16. there would be no point to releasing the names of those people except to harm them

as individuals.

The real "Doomsday files" are probably about misdeeds our government has done at home or abroad that they will bring out the pitchforks and torches--and rightly so.

The stuff they did to get Snowden initially, like forcing down the plane of Bolivia's president, makes me suspect it's crap at least as bad as BCCI or Iran Contra, and probably worse like 9/11, current sockpuppetry of Islamic fundamentalists, or the intersection of business, drug dealing, terrorism, and government as Sibel Edmonds discovered.

[Orsino]

21. Those two explanations are not mutually exclusive.

Real, meaty info on intel methods and policies may directly or indirectly expose assets and agents. That would also need to be taken into account alongside any good done by revelations of wrongdoing.

As much fun as speculation is, I'm not ready to convict Snowden of anything worse than pissing off the powerful.

[yurbud]

23. me either. Frankly, nothing released so far has done more than confirm what we already knew

through other kinds of evidence.

[DeSwiss]

18. Au contraire

- The best is yet to come. The end all your bullshit.

[BelgianMadCow]

24. Interesting. For the longest time, they said they didn't know what Snowden took

then, about a month ago, they warned that he also took infor about other govt's cooperating. Now this.

So now, suddenly, they DO know what he took and they're putting out "doosmday" quotes? Peculiar.

[sendero]

28. They also said..

.. that the NSA had thwarted 20 terror attacks, then 50 and that details would be forthcoming but..... crickets. Guess it is not easy to make up bullshit that supposedly happened in such a way that it can't be easily disproven.

They are liars, that is what they do. They lie to our enemies, they lie to our friends, they lie to us. I doubt it they have stopped a single bona fide non-entrapment terror attack and I doubt that they ever will. Their spying has a much more sinister purpose than terror attacks which, if you pay close attention, benefit the people in power just fine.

As already discovered and hardly surprising, they would rather spend their time tracking the porn habits of "dissidents". Like THAT is constitutional.

[bemildred]

40. I think they really don't know.

I think this is an existential crisis for the spooks. They are used to being the big shots who know the score, and now they are the chumps who have to wait and see what happens next. Big hole in their big egos from that sort of thing. You can see how angry and flummoxed they get when they have to defend their policies in public. And always with the threats, like we are all supposed to be afraid of their magic powers.

[GliderGuider]

25. "Doomsday" to British and U.S. intelligence officials, maybe. Not to me.

To me it looks like a simple matter of embarrassing people in power. Of course, if you're in power that could feel like Doomsday I expect.
We should always strive to make our governments as nervous as possible. I'm glad Snowden makes them this anxious.

[sendero]

27. "worst" being how..

.. out of control and blatantly unconstitutional the routine actions of the NSA are.

[AverageJoe90]

35. This would definitely be a cause for concern, no doubt.

Say what you will about the NSA, but there are still some good people in Intel who had nothing to do with whatever abuses have been going on and are just trying to do their jobs. And any release of this information would greatly jeopardize these people.....and yes, I do mean *any* release.

Perhaps this may be unfounded(and I hope it is), but if not.....the worst really could be yet to come.

And fuck you Snowden. You betrayed this country, all because you wanted to stick it to the liberal Dem black guy in the White House. Shame on you.

[Comrade Grumpy]

45. Snowden, the gift that keeps on giving. Thank you.

[nolabels]

78. It isn't no gift

Look, the people he is ratting out are breaking the law intentionally and are doing in contempt all US citizens including me and you

[BlueInPhilly]

46. He is not as important as he thinks

or as you think. He's a high school drop out probably with compartmentalized clearance (SCI); heck, even the POTUS does not have access to ALL the top secret documents! Snowden would not have been privy to the most secret documents, or he would have died of "an accident" by now.

He signed the papers and promised not to disclose top secret information. He broke the law, at the very least. I also think he is a traitor, a stupid one at that. He still does not have any end-game, other than the adulation of foolish, anti-government people. Sought asylum in Russia? So did Lee Harvey Oswald. If he really valued liberty and justice for all, he is ensconced in the wrong country.

To everyone who was incensed by the outing of Valerie Plame, I find it ironic that they are the same person defending Snowden. His actions are no less criminal.

[bemildred]

48. He ate the NSA's lunch and he is the dumb guy?

I find it ironic that people who think the outing of Plame is fine get all upset about Snowden.

[NoodleyAppendage]

62. Damn straight! This guy (hero) just walked out the front door with the NSA Crown Jewels...

…and he's the idiot?

If anything Snowden proves his own point that the police/surveillance has grown too big and powerful to effectively police itself or its security.

J

[bemildred]

67. And they continue to prove his point by continuing to act like fools. nt

[hughee99]

49. Can someone help me understand this?

Snowden didn't have access to ANYTHING. Wasn't that one of the first lines of defense? Someone like Snowden didn't have the necessary clearance to get such information... and then of course, even if he did, we knew about all this stuff years ago... but, of course, none of it is true. It's all lies.

And now if I understand right, Snowden is a selfish, cowardly traitor who they are afraid MIGHT leak untrue data that he didn't have access to, data that is also a matter of national security, because he "hates America" or at least, hates the President.

Sounds like someone is working overtime over the holiday weekend trying to sway public opinion on Snowden and try to get people to forget all the stuff that he has said so far (which they said isn't true, and even if it were, it's all legal, and even if it's not, it's for our own protection).

[BlueStreak]

51. This is the angle of the story that nobody wants to discuss.

Last edited Sat Nov 30, 2013, 04:57 PM - Edit history (1)

How can a low-level guy working for a contractor get all of this data?

If this is the kind of security we get from the National SECURITY Agency, we are screwed.

[Laughing Mirror]

52. NSA trained him to, that's how

NSA trained Snowden to be an elite hacker, an "ethical" hacker. A hacker with his smarts could presumably get into all that data, even if they weren't supposed to, couldn't they?

[BlueStreak]

56. Well, no. Not if the information were protected with proper security systems.

This business of "hacker" is not well understood. You can't just hack into any system. A hacker only gets in when there are vulnerabilities that can be exploited. One would think that the NSA, of all places, would have proper security protocols n place.

[Laughing Mirror]

71. An elite hacker would have a better chance cracking those vulnerabilities

especially if he's working, like Snowden, on the inside, one would also think.

[BlueStreak]

81. Was Snowden an elite hacker? I haven't seen any evidence of that.

It sound to me like he uses his normal access to download his trove of documents.

I haven't read every word of coverage, but I have not seen any cases where the NSA has accused him of breaking into their systems. What they accused him of was taking and disclosing information that was classified, which is not the same thing as breaking and entering.

And that is my point. This whole thing seems to be an admission by our National SECURITY agency that they have really lax security protocols in place.

[Laughing Mirror]

92. Here's any evidence you haven't seen yet

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014662694

BANGALORE: The hacker who shook the US intelligence machinery and had world leaders railing against Washington for spying on them picked up crucial skills in India. Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor-turned-whistleblower, spent a week in New Delhi training in core Java programming and advanced ethical hacking. It's this training that got him certified as an EC-Council Certified Security Analyst (ECSA).
...
ECSA is a 4-day course designed to train security professionals in advanced tools and techniques required to perform comprehensive information security tests. It enables students to design, secure and test networks to protect firms from threats that hackers and crackers pose. "To beat a hacker, you need to think like one!" says the EC-Council website.

"Snowden was a certified ethical hacker and hence he chose a fast-track course. It didn't take him much time to figure out how to create exploit-attacks and hack wireless networks. He was able to interpret vulnerabilities and outcomes in security testing," said Sisir Pandey, technical manager in information security at Koenig who trained Snowden on ECSA.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Edward-Snowden-sharpened-his-hacking-skills-in-Delhi/articleshow/26811526.cms

[BlueStreak]

93. That doesn't say much, other than he was a good and motivated student

Has there been any evidence that Snowden used any "expert-level techniques" to bypass what otherwise would have been regarded as robust and appropriate security measures? The question is whether the NSA employed security protocols that were commensurate with the fact that some of the "Snowden cache" was highly classified data?

Given the fact that Snowden was:

a) a contractor
b) a fairly low level job grade

I think the question answers itself. Why is nobody questioning the NSA's obvious mishandling of what it maintains is some of the most highly secretive data anywhere?

[uncle ray]

58. he got a bunch of people to tell him their passwords while doing his job.

[bemildred]

68. Yep, plain old social engineering. And a piece of cake to do, it sounds like.

And they never had a clue.

But they are "protecting" us.

Well, I'll tell you Buddy, I can do without your "protection" racket, because that is what it is.

[yurbud]

59. like Wikileaks, I would prefer they get right to the nasty instead of the long striptease

When they finally get around to it, the shit will hit the fan for the financial elite, and it's going to take us a long time to scrape it off the walls and hose everything down.

We might as well get started.

[Blue_Tires]

84. That's what I've been asking for since day one...

[Sunlei]

66. well then ' worried US officials' release who got Snowden those positions in the first place

seems to me like some of the war profiteer contractors were just professional spies paid with Americas federal funds. Snowden is someones patsy, who?

[polynomial]

70. a powerful tool with this secret Metadata

The Congress and the Senate have a powerful tool with this secret Metadata stuff. From my view these entities government or telephone have been collecting data for decades. For me in war activities the curiosity is about this mercenary business in that operations are carried out with private contracted companies. Whether it army man power or paper work as in intelligence and data collection.

The thing that screams out at me in this whole episode of Snowden is actions are connected to very high profile political business and foreign influence. That is the real red zone or shall we say a code red in that many do not want to accept the truth in this data collection. Started for whatever reason really has convoluted into a miserable mess of corruption deception and profiteering without good intentions.

This is no conspiracy theory, this is a real time operation that is connected to the Senate and the Congress to those people in it. Worse during the Bush administration very prominent political, military, and business persons are tangled in this tool of anti-terrorism. We know the fundamental reasoning is to use this tool for solutions to avoid being terrorized. The very important legal message for those that are caught abusing and using the system to profiteer are without any doubt traitors to the system.

In many of my readings through time Booze Allen and Hamilton a former company deft in the way of business and public relations is an integral player of this operation called Metadata collection. The real mystery or Metadata obviously locked down or stashed is the connection to the Bush family and the Bin Laden family now knowing they are long time business partners on and off. Especially when the news gets hot somehow both the Arabs and the Bush family buy out the media to stay of the message. It’s a shame but these political people are the very core in what is wrong with America yet as most in good wall street connections go free after a corrupt profiteering binge.

Snowden reminds me of Timothy McVeigh yet, McVeigh blow open corruption in a different tragic way. The thing about McVeigh is that he was a home land security risk but was American. At the time I wished he would be sentenced to life rather than the death penalty. It baffles me to an endless thought as why didn’t McVeigh did go to Gitmo? It’s an incredible mismatch of justice to have Arab terrorist locked up for life in our prisons but a home grown young man terminated. From my view McVeigh knew something or was connected to very important people that did not risk being exposed.

Snowden has to reflect on all of this knowing a huge mismatch of business and government was in motion. Snowden was a lower level person however he acted like a patriotic Caption. Knowing very well to release this material would mean there is no going back, this is code red for real, however from my view the Russians are not our enemy, in fact their system has the same or convoluted corruption that America has to deal with. They have defectors too with many wondering just how many have not been reported by our mainstream media that is bought and paid for.

[laserhaas]

82. To the chagrin of stalwarts of secrecy, the truth is their worst nightmare.