{"id":185521,"date":"2014-10-24T20:59:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-25T01:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/10\/24\/this-is-a-huge-and-well-deserved-f-you-to-the-cia-and-the-nsa\/"},"modified":"2014-10-24T20:59:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-25T01:59:00","slug":"this-is-a-huge-and-well-deserved-f-you-to-the-cia-and-the-nsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/10\/24\/this-is-a-huge-and-well-deserved-f-you-to-the-cia-and-the-nsa\/","title":{"rendered":"This is a Huge and Well Deserved F%$# You to the CIA and the NSA"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s well deserved too.<\/p>\n

You see the Federal Trade (FTC) commission has hired hired Ashkan Soltan as their new Chief Technical Officer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The reason that this is a giant f%$# you to the US state security apparatus is because (wait for it) he helped the Washington Post<\/i> do its news stories on the Snowden affair:<\/p>\n

The Federal Trade Commission has hired privacy and technology expert Ashkan Soltani to serve as the commission\u2019s chief technology officer. But security experts and former senior U.S. intelligence officials are questioning the FTC\u2019s decision, given Soltani\u2019s very public role as a consultant for The Washington Post, where he co-authored multiple articles based on classified documents stolen from the National Security Agency by former contractor Edward Snowden.<\/span>

<\/span> The FTC said in a press release that Soltani will join FTC in November and will replace Latanya Sweeney, who is returning to Harvard University, where she founded and directs the school\u2019s Data Privacy Lab. His job will be to advise the commission on evolving technology and policy issues, a role similar to one he held previously at the FTC before leaving government to become an independent consultant.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Needless to say, Michael Hayden and His Evil Minions\u2122<\/sup> heads are exploding<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The news has elicited wails from NSA\u2019s mail mouthpieces, Stewart Baker and Michael Hayden.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not trying to demonize this fella, but he\u2019s been working through criminally exposed documents and making decisions about making those documents public,\u201d said Michael Hayden, a former NSA director who also served as CIA director from 2006 to 2009. In a telephone interview with FedScoop, Hayden said he wasn\u2019t surprised by the lack of concern about Soltani\u2019s participation in the Post\u2019s Snowden stories. \u201cI have no good answer for that.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span>[snip]<\/span>

<\/span>Stewart Baker, a former NSA general counsel, said, while he\u2019s not familiar with the role Soltani would play at the FTC, there are still problems with his appointment. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone who justified or exploited Snowden\u2019s breach of confidentiality obligations should be trusted to serve in government,\u201d Baker said.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span>I find Hayden\u2019s wails especially disgusting, given the way \u2014 it is now clear \u2014 the government spent so much effort covering up how he extended the illegal wiretap program in March 2004. I mean, I\u2019m not trying to demonize the fella, but he\u2019s a criminal, and yet he\u2019s complaining about the press reporting on abuses?<\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>At FTC, Soltani will be in a role where he can directly influence the kind of regulatory pressure placed on data collectors to protect user privacy. He understands \u2014 probably far more than we know from the WaPo stories \u2014 how NSA is capitalizing on already collected data. Which means he may be able to influence how much remains available to the spooks.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I do not expect Soltani to actually get the job.<\/p>\n

It’s clear that Obama is very much in the pocket of the US state security apparatus, and he will find a way to stop this.<\/p>\n

But still, it is very well deserved push-back against the what can only be described as the forces of evil in America’s shadow government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s well deserved too. You see the Federal Trade (FTC) commission has hired hired Ashkan Soltan as their new Chief Technical Officer. The reason that this is a giant f%$# you to the US state security apparatus is because (wait for it) he helped the Washington Post do its news stories on the Snowden affair: …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1005,969,1102,985,1019,1025],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-evil","category-intelligence","category-regulation","category-schadenfreude","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}