<story><title>Who Is Publishing NSA and CIA Secrets, and Why?</title><url>https://www.lawfareblog.com/who-publishing-nsa-and-cia-secrets-and-why</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cpr</author><text>Why would Russia (or other anti-US entities) need to create such a climate?&lt;p&gt;Isn&amp;#x27;t it prima facie clear that the three-letter agencies are essentially rogue governments (the &amp;quot;deep state&amp;quot;), a law unto themselves, and thus completely antithetical to the whole idea of a democratic republic?&lt;p&gt;So internal people at those agencies, if they have half a brain and a conscience, and are patriotic in the original sense of loving one&amp;#x27;s patria (fatherland), though hating the bad aspects of one&amp;#x27;s government, should already be willing to spill the so-called secrets by which these agencies operate their illegal and immoral agendas.</text></item><item><author>defen</author><text>&amp;gt; I think it&amp;#x27;s not out of the question it&amp;#x27;s multiple motives, too. It&amp;#x27;s not impossible someone chose to grab some stuff due to moral objections, and is feeding the information through some channels that themselves have their own motivations.&lt;p&gt;That would be my guess as well - an application of so-called &amp;quot;Fourth-generation warfare&amp;quot;. In the same way that ISIS seeks to encourage self-radicalization, since it is virtually untraceable, Russia (or really, anyone opposed to US interests) would aim to create a climate where NSA&amp;#x2F;CIA employees &amp;quot;self-radicalize&amp;quot; in the sense that they become convinced that those organizations are engaging in illegal or immoral activities.&lt;p&gt;So, create organizations like Wikileaks, people like Ed Snowden, plant news stories, etc. At a high level the idea is that you create a broad-spectrum propaganda campaign that is designed to encourage insiders to leak secrets for the benefit of their own conscience. If you reach the right people you can gain access to tons of secrets in a way that is 100% deniable. No payments, no meetings or communications with Russian agents that can be tracked, etc.</text></item><item><author>jerf</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s not out of the question it&amp;#x27;s multiple motives, too. It&amp;#x27;s not impossible someone chose to grab some stuff due to moral objections, and is feeding the information through some channels that themselves have their own motivations. I&amp;#x27;ve seen accusations that Snowden had that happen to him with his documents, for instance, by which I don&amp;#x27;t mean that I do or do not believe that, just that it&amp;#x27;s not inconceivable. You don&amp;#x27;t necessarily need a single atomic motive for this to be happening.&lt;p&gt;If so, that raises other interesting questions, such as: &amp;quot;What is the largest, most powerful possible intelligence agency that would not be virtually 100% guaranteed to leak so hard that non-trivial stuff would even get into the open air?&amp;quot; We spend a lot of time on HN worrying about how powerful a police state could become with modern technology, but it&amp;#x27;s possible that that very power could itself be a quantitative change and that an entity powerful enough to be that strong of a police state might also virtually inevitably tear itself apart with internal struggles. I mean, that would still suck for those not in the middle (though it sucks for them too; one of the reasons I really hate police states is that really &lt;i&gt;nobody&lt;/i&gt; is happy, not even the people with power), but it may imply that it is intrinsically less stable of an arrangement than many of us fear.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m just musing here for other people to bounce their ideas off of, not particularly proposing a concrete idea here. But is it just me, or in the last 10 years have we not been seeing a slowly ramping rate of outright-public leaks like this? What if it&amp;#x27;s not a fluke, but a fundamental attribute of the current technology landscape and psychological makeup of humans at scale?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>defen</author><text>Right, the point I&amp;#x27;m making is how do you &amp;quot;know&amp;quot; that is true vs propaganda? In reality it&amp;#x27;s probably a mix of the two. It&amp;#x27;s important to recognize that although there is a binary distinction between &amp;quot;employees who have leaked&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;employees who have not&amp;quot;, there is a much fuzzier distribution of the trait &amp;quot;propensity to leak&amp;quot; across all CIA&amp;#x2F;NSA employees. Some people leak for personal gain (bribe&amp;#x2F;gambling debt&amp;#x2F;etc); some people leak for ideological reasons (convinced of the inevitable triumph of Communism&amp;#x2F;hatred of USA); some people leak because of their conscience (whistleblowers)  The goal of an anti-US entity would be to nudge someone who is on the border &amp;#x2F; considering leaking into actually going through with it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Who Is Publishing NSA and CIA Secrets, and Why?</title><url>https://www.lawfareblog.com/who-publishing-nsa-and-cia-secrets-and-why</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cpr</author><text>Why would Russia (or other anti-US entities) need to create such a climate?&lt;p&gt;Isn&amp;#x27;t it prima facie clear that the three-letter agencies are essentially rogue governments (the &amp;quot;deep state&amp;quot;), a law unto themselves, and thus completely antithetical to the whole idea of a democratic republic?&lt;p&gt;So internal people at those agencies, if they have half a brain and a conscience, and are patriotic in the original sense of loving one&amp;#x27;s patria (fatherland), though hating the bad aspects of one&amp;#x27;s government, should already be willing to spill the so-called secrets by which these agencies operate their illegal and immoral agendas.</text></item><item><author>defen</author><text>&amp;gt; I think it&amp;#x27;s not out of the question it&amp;#x27;s multiple motives, too. It&amp;#x27;s not impossible someone chose to grab some stuff due to moral objections, and is feeding the information through some channels that themselves have their own motivations.&lt;p&gt;That would be my guess as well - an application of so-called &amp;quot;Fourth-generation warfare&amp;quot;. In the same way that ISIS seeks to encourage self-radicalization, since it is virtually untraceable, Russia (or really, anyone opposed to US interests) would aim to create a climate where NSA&amp;#x2F;CIA employees &amp;quot;self-radicalize&amp;quot; in the sense that they become convinced that those organizations are engaging in illegal or immoral activities.&lt;p&gt;So, create organizations like Wikileaks, people like Ed Snowden, plant news stories, etc. At a high level the idea is that you create a broad-spectrum propaganda campaign that is designed to encourage insiders to leak secrets for the benefit of their own conscience. If you reach the right people you can gain access to tons of secrets in a way that is 100% deniable. No payments, no meetings or communications with Russian agents that can be tracked, etc.</text></item><item><author>jerf</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s not out of the question it&amp;#x27;s multiple motives, too. It&amp;#x27;s not impossible someone chose to grab some stuff due to moral objections, and is feeding the information through some channels that themselves have their own motivations. I&amp;#x27;ve seen accusations that Snowden had that happen to him with his documents, for instance, by which I don&amp;#x27;t mean that I do or do not believe that, just that it&amp;#x27;s not inconceivable. You don&amp;#x27;t necessarily need a single atomic motive for this to be happening.&lt;p&gt;If so, that raises other interesting questions, such as: &amp;quot;What is the largest, most powerful possible intelligence agency that would not be virtually 100% guaranteed to leak so hard that non-trivial stuff would even get into the open air?&amp;quot; We spend a lot of time on HN worrying about how powerful a police state could become with modern technology, but it&amp;#x27;s possible that that very power could itself be a quantitative change and that an entity powerful enough to be that strong of a police state might also virtually inevitably tear itself apart with internal struggles. I mean, that would still suck for those not in the middle (though it sucks for them too; one of the reasons I really hate police states is that really &lt;i&gt;nobody&lt;/i&gt; is happy, not even the people with power), but it may imply that it is intrinsically less stable of an arrangement than many of us fear.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m just musing here for other people to bounce their ideas off of, not particularly proposing a concrete idea here. But is it just me, or in the last 10 years have we not been seeing a slowly ramping rate of outright-public leaks like this? What if it&amp;#x27;s not a fluke, but a fundamental attribute of the current technology landscape and psychological makeup of humans at scale?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>linkregister</author><text>Is it prima facie clear though?&lt;p&gt;Of the controversial activities the spy agencies have taken post-WW2, weren&amp;#x27;t virtually all of them under some White House or Congressional auspice?&lt;p&gt;The actions and capabilities revealed in the Snowden leaks were overtly defended by both the President and (most) members of Congressional intelligence committees.&lt;p&gt;If there&amp;#x27;s a deep state in the Intelligence Community, then the Commander-in-Chief, appointed Executive Branch officials (e.g. Director of National Intelligence and Defense Secretary), and Senators &amp;amp; Representatives on Intel committees are part of it.  In which case, public elections are part of the deep state?</text></comment>