HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019783.jpg

The “War on Terror” After Snowden | 295 secretly briefed on in 2009. Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Sen- ate Select Committee, pointed out with privileged knowledge that it saved “subway cars stuffed to the gunwales with people”; Represen- tative Mike Rogers also spoke with privileged knowledge when he said on June 9, 2013, referring to the 702 program, “I can tell you in the Zazi case in New York, it’s exactly the program that was used.” The third NSA program of interest to terrorists that Snowden revealed was called XKeyscore. Using Internet data from PRISM, the NSA had created the equivalent of digital fingerprints for suspected foreign terrorists on watch lists. The “fingerprint” for each suspect was based on his or her search pattern on the Internet. These algo- rithms made it difficult for suspects to hide on the Internet by using aliases. Once a suspect was “fingerprinted,” any attempt to evade surveillance by using a different computer and another user name would be detected by the XKeyscore algorithms. The “fingerprints” only worked so long as XKeyscore remained secret from those on the watch list. After Snowden exposed it, suspects could evade sur- veillance by changing their search patterns when they changed their ) aliases. ® Further enabling furtive Internet users to evade the surveillance of the government, Snowden offered specific tips about the secret sources and methods used by both the NSA and the British GCHQ. He revealed in a public interview, for example, that the GCHQ had deployed the first “full-take” Internet interceptor that “snarfs everything, in a rolling buffer to allow retroactive investigation without missing a single bit.” When asked how to circumvent it, he replied, “You should never route through or peer with the UK under any circumstances. Their fibers are radioactive, and even the Queen’s selfies to the pool boy get logged.” Aside from this warning about using Internet providers whose wiring passes through Britain, he also warned Internet users about trusting the encryption of any U.S.-based Internet company because of their secret relationships with the NSA. He added that the NSA considered “telecom collabo- rators to be the jewels in their crown of omniscience.” He also gave a warning about the attention the NSA was paying to “jihadi forums.” He said that to avoid being automatically “targeted” by the NSA, one needed to avoid them. | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.indd 295 ® 9/3016 8:13AM | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019783