2 degrees from terrorism: How 9/ 11 changed things

Q: Is there a way to collect this data that is consistent with the Fourth Amendment, the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure?

William Binney: Two basic principles you have to use. ... One is what I call the two- degree principle. If you have a terrorist talking to somebody in the United States — that’s the first degree away from the terrorist. And that could apply to any country in the world. And then the second degree would be who that person in the United States talked to. So that becomes your zone of suspicion.

And the other one ( principle) is you watch all the jihadi sites on the Web and who’s visiting those jihadi sites, who has an interest in the philosophy. ... And then you add those to your zone of suspicion. Everybody else is innocent — I mean, you know, of terrorism, anyway.

J. Kirk Wiebe: Until they’re somehow connected to this activity.

Binney: You pull in all the contents involving ( that) zone of suspicion and you throw all the rest of it away. You can keep the attributes of all the communicants in the other parts of the world, the rest of the 7 billion people, right? And you can then encrypt it so that nobody can interrogate that base randomly.

That’s the way of preventing this kind of random access by a contractor or by the FBI or any other DHS ( Department of Homeland Security) or any other department of government. They couldn’t go in and find anybody. You couldn’t target your next- door neighbor. If you went in with his attributes, they’re encrypted. ... So unless they are in the zone of suspicion, you won’t see any content on anybody and you won’t see any attributes in the clear. ... It’s all within our capabilities.

Thomas Drake: It’s been within our capabilities for well over 12 years.

Wiebe: Bill and I worked on a government contract for a contractor not too far from here. And when we showed him the concept of how this privacy mechanism that Bill just described to you — the two degrees, the encryption and hiding of identities of innocent people — he said, “Nobody cares about that.” I said, “What do you mean?” This man was in a position to know a lot of government people in the contracting and buying of capabilities. He said. “Nobody cares about that.”

Drake: This ( kind of broad surveillance) is all unnecessary. It is important to note that the very best of American ingenuity and inventiveness, creativity, had solved the major challenge problem the NSA faced: How do you make sense of vast amounts of data, provide the information you need to protect the nation, while also protecting the fundamental rights that are enshrined in the Constitution?

The government in secret decided, willfully and deliberately, that that was no longer necessary after 9/ 11. So

they said, you know what? Hey, for the sake of security we are going to draw that line way, way over. And if it means eroding the liberties and freedoms of Americans ... hey, so be it because that’s what’s most important. But this was done without the knowledge of the American people.

Q: Would it make a difference if contractors weren’t used?

Wiebe: I don’t think so. They are human beings. You know, look at what’s going on with the IRS and the Tea Party. You know, there ( are) human beings involved. We are all human beings — contractors, NSA government employees. We are all human beings. We undergo clearance checks, background investigations that are extensive and we are all colors, ages and religions. I mean this is part of the American fabric.

Binney: But when it comes to ... the massive data information collecting on U. S. citizens and everything in the world they can, I guess the real problem comes with trust. That’s really the issue. The government is asking for us to trust them.

It’s not just the trust that you have to have in the government. It’s the trust you have to have in the government employees, ( that) they won’t go in the database — they can see if their wife is cheating with the neighbor or something like that. You have to have all the trust of all the contractors who are parts of a contracting company ... Most importantly, the government has no way to check anything that those people are doing.

Q: Like Snowden’s ability to access information?

Binney: And they didn’t know he was doing ( it). ... That’s the point, right?

Wiebe: And the polygraph that is typically given to all people, government employees and contractors, never asks about integrity. Did you give an honest day’s work for your pay? Do you feel like you are doing important and proper work? Those things never come up. It’s always, “Do you have any association with a terrorist?” Well, everybody can pass those kinds of questions. But, unfortunately, we have a society that is quite willing to cheat. Editor’s note: Excerpts have been edited for length and clarity.