Inside the USA’s surveillance culture

The United States Government is quite unpopular at the moment. People don’t feel represented and they are angry. This discontent is unfolding in a variety of ways all over the country. I reached out to as many people as possible to get the full picture of what is happening right now in America, specifically in the world of cyber-security.

As the world is becoming increasingly dependent upon advanced technology, that the majority of the population doesn’t fully understand, I am compelled to make an attempt at navigating the rapidly shifting technological landscape. I spoke to several ex-Hackers, to a cyber security expert and to a former CIA official who was the “whistleblower” that revealed the United States’ usage of waterboarding and “enhanced interrogation”.

I asked Steve Morgan, from Cybersecurity Ventures, to illustrate these digital threats and elaborate on why cyber security is important. For many citizens “digital threats” and “cyber-terrorism” are abstract ideas that can be difficult to imagine. He explained how “cyber thieves are using laptops to hotwire cars”.

Steve told me that the FBI recently investigated a hacker because he got onto an airplane and “he hacked into the cockpit and was able to execute commands to tilt the plane’s wings and climb up.” This hacker was only trying to prove a point and no one was harmed, but clearly the power of technology and the need for cyber security is very real.

The biggest threat to the stability and security of the US, according to Steve, are our power grids. He believes that an attack on our power grids would be “a 10 on the richter scale of cyber attacks” because “we’d lose running water, refrigeration and electricity at hospitals…” Steve equated that an attack of this scale would be “similar to nuclear threats”. Luckily for us, he believes that the “U.S. has a tremendous offensive cyber-response capability”. It seems that the attitude is that the best defense is a good offense.

The offensive of digital warfare is very different than physical warfare. I spoke with a few former “hacktivists” who are all extremely afraid of revealing their names, and refused to go on record. I will collectively refer to them as X, which seems appropriate because it’s an essential part of the hacker ethos. According to X, the hacker community are more like pirates or mercenaries than a symbolic “Robinhood” figure. Additionally parts of  X are very weary of the glorification of hacktivism because the community is more concerned with disruption than overall governance.

There are no rules of engagement, and the movements are leaderless. This means there are both people who care very much about trying to use their powers for good and the opposite. I asked X why they would stop. X thinks that after intervening with governments abroad, to try and influence the political situation on the ground, there is initially a self indulgent sense of pride. Over time though a hacker becomes an X,  because they began to think that perhaps these acts are not truly constructive. They all agree that fame, excitement and a sense of curiosity are what drives many hackers. There are more than just “blackhats” our there, as there are also groups like Redhack or the Syrian Electronic Army with very different agendas.

The most interesting point shared by X was that the government doesn’t always seek punitive measures on hackers. They would rather recruit them to work with as assets. X stressed the fact that groups like Anonymous have enormous potential to do good. However, as long as they remain such a broad and leaderless movement they will probably continue as a force of disturbance and not systemic construction. Although, I personally feel we live in a time where there is a need for people to disturb and disrupt the establishment, no one should idolize these people, and everyone should definitely take them seriously or at least understand why they exist.

I also spoke with John Kiriakou, a CIA whistleblower on waterboarding that served prison time for what he exposed. He agreed that there is a real sense of corruption within the government among people right now, citing “the way every Baltimore policeman was exonerated in the Gray murder case. Look at the cases across the country of cops killing unarmed civilians and getting away with it.” This is a very real problem. There have been more murders in Chicago than there were casualties during the war in Afghanistan over the same time period. The Chicago police are obviously in a state of heightened alarm because of this climate, and doing that job is extremely intense, but the sheer numbers of police murders and little to no justice is clearly immoral.

This is the intrinsic moral code that so called “whistleblowers” act upon. When I asked about the relationship between “whistleblowers” and hacktivistsm John agreed that “there is a great difference between whistleblowers and hacktivists”.

I think that “hacktivism” has no heirarchy or oversight. I think the individuals involved have a spectrum of personal reasons for wanting to take part in this digital fight, but are intrinsically acting from a different perspective because of their anonymity and aloof advantage/perspective. The whistle blower has to serve as a figurehead for the issue they are exposing.

As a historic CIA whistblower John, feels that “Whistleblowers are not interested in anarchy or in the wholesale revelation of national security secrets.” More often than not I would agree that these whistleblowers are acting in a way that is trying to clean up or shine light on the abuses of power. Conversing with John, I agree it is often a more selfless act that is for the good of the country from a different angle, and is more focused on exposing information from the inside out rather than the outside in.

This is why the usage of the Espionage Act is so frightening. John has served his time and has a unique understanding of how dangerous this process is for the culture and direction of the intelligence community.

The far more frightening thing is the manner in which trials are held for the whistleblowers that choose to do so while remaining in the country are prosecuted in. John told me “that Espionage cases are deliberately kept out of the public eye through the usage of CIPA hearings…The public and press never really have any idea of what is going on. Just the way the government likes it”. I am astounded by John’s description of how he felt when the government he worked for turned on him. ]

He said: “The goal is not necessarily prison time. The goal is to ruin the whistleblower professionally, financially, and personally. It’s to make sure that everybody in the intelligence community sees what will happen if they open their mouths about waste, fraud, abuse, and illegality”

Perhaps this is why the CIA, DHS and DOJ chose not to speak with me. I’ve heard the opinions of the people who design the technology. I’ve heard from hackers. I’ve heard from whistleblowers. These people are all genuinely concerned about justice, fairness and the security/transparency of information in one form or another. However, we also must assume the government as an entity truly cares about us as a nation.

The government is the general in this war. They are the final defense that holds the security and continuation of the world that many people live within. Therefore they must feel a strong need to posture their cards extremely carefully. However, John also said “Some things must remain secret for the good of the country…But in the current system too much is kept secret. Secrecy for the sake of secrecy is wrong”. This secrecy inspires hacktivist movements. I don’t think individuals like Kiriakou or Snowden should be imprisoned for exposing programs that the public pays for but doesn’t know about.

So I ask them, why so much silence on the issue? Why turn these people into traitors? Government cozies up with the hackers when they get their hands on them, so why prosecute fellow employees for charges of treason with prison sentences that are decades long?

I wish I could tell you, but they refused to comment.