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August 11, 2021

Microsoft challenges the government’s decision to award Amazon a NSA cloud-computing contract, which could be worth $10 billion

Satya Nadella stand on stage wearing a purple and white checkered shirt. — Satya Nadella is the CEO of Microsoft.
MANJUNATH KIRAN/AFP via Getty Images

Microsoft has filed a protest with federal auditors over an NSA contract awarded to Amazon.
The cloud-computing contract could be worth up to $10 billion, Nextgov reported.
The Defense Department canceled a $10 billion JEDI cloud-computing contract with Microsoft in July.
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Microsoft has protested the National Security Agency’s (NSA) decision to award a lucrative cloud-computing contract to Amazon.

Microsoft filed the protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the federal agency tasked with probing government spending decisions. It came after the NSA gave Amazon Web Services the deal, Nextgov reported, citing the protest documents.

Microsoft said the security agency did not conduct a thorough evaluation before awarding the contract, according to Washington Technology, which first reported the filing.

The NSA’s new project, codenamed WildandStormy, could be worth up to $10 billion, NextGov reported.

Although there are few details about the program, a top intelligence official has previously said that the NSA plans to move more of its data onto commercial cloud platforms.

John Sherman, acting chief information officer for the Department of Defense (DoD), told Fedscoop in February 2020 that the NSA wanted to move its data from some sites, and use vendors for managed cloud services as part of its “Hybrid Compute Initiative,” Fedscoop reported.

“NSA recently awarded a contract for cloud computing services to support the Agency. The unsuccessful offeror has filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office,” an NSA spokesperson confirmed to Nextgov.

“The Agency will respond to the protest in accordance with appropriate federal regulations.”

The new protest filing comes after years of wrangling between two tech giants over the DoD’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract. In 2019, the DoD granted Microsoft the $10 billion contract, which Amazon argued former President Trump had improperly influenced through his public criticisms of former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

In July, the Pentagon said in a press release that it had canceled Microsoft’s contract, citing “evolving requirements,” which meant JEDI no longer met its needs.

Microsoft has tried to develop Azure, its cloud-computing platform, for government security clients. In December 2020, the company said in a blog post that it had finished building Azure Government Top Secret, a new cloud for highly classified information. It said it was working with the government on its accreditation.

It is not clear whether Microsoft wanted the NSA to select this new Azure platform for its WildandStormy project.

The NSA is due to respond to Microsoft’s protest on October 29, according to the filing.

Microsoft, Amazon, and the NSA did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

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June 29, 2021

Tucker Carlson claimed the NSA is monitoring his Fox News show as part of a plot to take it off air

Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed that the NSA is monitoring his show.
He said a source tipped him off about the surveillance, but offered no proof.
Carlson has long stirred fears that US intelligence is plotting against ordinary conservatives.
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Fox News host Tucker Carlson told viewers on Monday night that the National Security Agency (NSA) is monitoring his show as part of a plot to take it down.

The host said that a US government whistleblower contacted his show “to warn us that the NSA, the National Security Agency, is monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.”

The host said that he’d been shown information by the whistleblower that could have only have been accessed if Carlson’s texts and emails had been hacked. He did not share that information, or offer any other proof for his claim.

Carlson said that he had submitted a records request seeking further information, and said “spying on opposition journalists is incompatible with democracy.”

-Daniel Chaitin (@danielchaitin7) June 29, 2021

Carlson’s claims were received with skepticism by those with experience of the NSA and national-security issues.

“This is an open offer to the alleged NSA whistleblower – If in fact you have evidence of improper or unlawful collection of the comms of @TuckerCarlson call me and I will see if I can assist you in making proper, lawful disclosures through the approved channels,” tweeted Bradley Moss, an attorney specialising in national security cases.

-John Schindler (@20committee) June 29, 2021

(HoIS is an abbreviation for “hostile intelligence service.”)

However, the Justice Department under both the Obama and Trump administrations did spy on journalists as part of national-security probes in recent years.

Carlson has long stirred fears that US intelligence and law enforcement agencies are seeking to persecute ordinary conservatives. But has offered scant evidence in support of the claims and has been accused of seeking to whitewash violent right-wing extremism.

In the wake of the January 6 riot Carlson claimed that a law-enforcement drive against white nationalist groups and other figures on the far right was part of the covert plot.

In recent weeks he has spread the conspiracy theory that the FBI may have instigated the January 6 riot in order to entrap and discredit Trump supporters.

He has long claimed that the threat of far-right extremism, which has motivated a series of mass shootings in the US which have killed hundreds, is being exaggerated. He doubled down on that claim on his show Monday.

“Americans are, in fact, much more likely to die from a lightning strike than at the hands of a white supremacist,” Carlson said. “White supremacy may be ugly, many opinions are, but it is not a meaningful threat to the nation.”

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June 14, 2021

Reality Winner, the ex-NSA contractor convicted of leaking a report about Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, has been released from prison

GettyImages 693907654 — Reality Winner exits a courthouse in Augusta, Georgia, on June 8, 2017.
Sean Rayford/Getty Images

Reality Winner, a former US intelligence contractor, has been released from prison.
Winner was convicted in 2018 of leaking an intel report about Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
She’s now at a residential-reentry facility in San Antonio.
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Reality Winner, a former contractor for the National Security Agency, has been released from prison, her attorney announced on Monday.

Winner was sentenced to five years in prison in 2018. She’d been convicted of leaking a report about Russia’s meddling in the 2016 US election to The Intercept, a nonprofit publication.

Winner’s attorney, Alison Grinter Allen, said on Twitter that Winner had been released into the residential-reentry program through good behavior.

“Her release is not a product of the pardon or compassionate release process,” Allen said, “but rather the time earned from exemplary behavior while incarcerated.” Allen added that Winner had asked for privacy as she worked to “heal the trauma of incarceration and build back the years lost.”

Federal Bureau of Prisons records showed that Winner was at a residential-reentry facility in San Antonio and that she was set to be released from the program on November 23.

Federal authorities arrested Winner and charged her with Espionage Act violations after The Intercept published a report around Winner’s leaked files in 2017.

An affidavit said The Intercept had sent a member of the federal government a copy of the report Winner provided. The copy showed that the pages had been “folded and/or creased,” meaning someone had printed it before removing it from a classified space, the affidavit said.

Investigators discovered that only six people in the agency had printed the report. They later found that Winner had not only printed it but had contact with The Intercept.

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May 31, 2021

The US reportedly spied on Angela Merkel and other top European politicians with Denmark’s help

Denmark reportedly helped the US access the calls and texts of senior European officials, including Angela Merkel.
Denmark held an internal investigation into its partnership with the NSA between 2012 and 2014.
The country’s public broadcaster reported the findings of the investigation, citing nine unnamed sources.
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Denmark’s foreign intelligence unit helped the US spy on European officials, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to a report by Danish public broadcaster Danmarks Radio (DR) on Sunday.

In 2015, the Danish Defence Intelligence Service (FE) conducted an internal investigation – code-named “Operation Dunhammer” – into its partnership with the US National Security Agency (NSA), according to the report.

The investigation found that the NSA used Danish information cables to spy on senior officials in Sweden, Norway, France, and Germany between 2012 to 2014, according to DR’s report. The report cited nine unnamed sources with classified information from FE.

The NSA accessed calls, texts, and chat messages to and from officials’ telephones, the sources told DR.

In addition to Merkel, the NSA spied on former German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and former German opposition leader Peer Steinbrück, according to the DR report.

The FE and the NSA didn’t provide comment on the DR report.

A spokesperson for the German chancellery told Reuters it only became aware of the NSA spying allegations when journalists asked them about the report, and declined to comment further.

Leaks by former NSA employee Edward Snowden alleged that the NSA tapped Merkel’s phone and spied on other countries. Snowden tweeted on Sunday that President Joe Biden was “deeply involved in this scandal the first time around” as he was vice-President when the reported spying took place.

Insider contacted the White House and the NSA for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.

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January 21, 2021

The Trump-appointed NSA general counsel installed the day before Biden took office is now on leave due to a Department of Defense probe

nsa — Michael Ellis was installed as the NSA’s general counsel just the day before President Biden was sworn in.
Photo Illustration by Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The Trump-installed General Counsel of the National Security Agency has been put on administrative leave a day after starting the role, due to a Department of Defense inspector general probe, CNN reported.
Michael Ellis’s installation just before President Joe Biden took office garnered criticism that the Trump administration was trying to burrow a loyalist in a civilian position.
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Michael Ellis, the National Security Agency general counsel who was installed just a day before President Joe Biden took office, is now on administrative leave because the Department of Defense inspector general is investigating his appointment, CNN reported.

Last week, acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller told the head of the NSA to install Ellis as general counsel by 6 p.m. on Saturday. The next day, the agency said it was moving forward with Ellis’s installation and announced that he would start the day before Biden was sworn in.

“Mr. Ellis accepted his final job offer yesterday afternoon. NSA is moving forward with his employment,” an NSA official told Insider on Sunday.

National security legal experts were critical of the effort to burrow Ellis in the role only a few days before a new administration took over.

The NSA’s general counsel position is not a political one but a civil servant role, which means it will be harder for the incoming Biden administration to fire him. However, the new president can easily reassign him to a less important job.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was also critical of the move and on Monday sent a letter to Miller demanding he “immediately cease” Ellis’s installation.

“The circumstances and timing – immediately after President Trump’s defeat in the election – of the selection of Mr. Ellis, and this eleventh-hour effort to push this placement in the last three days of this administration are highly suspect,” Pelosi wrote.

On Wednesday, a DoD spokesperson told Insider they did not comment on open investigations, and an NSA spokesperson said they don’t comment on personnel matters.

Ellis’s appointment came shortly after President-elect Joe Biden was projected to win the 2020 election in November. During that same month, the Washington Post reported that Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Jack Reed asked the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate Ellis’s appointment on the grounds of “improper political influence.”

“The combination of timing, comparative lack of experience of the candidate, the reported qualifications of the other finalists, and press accounts of White House involvement create a perception that political influence or considerations may have played an undue role in a merit-based civil service selection process,” Warner and Reed wrote in a letter in November, CNN reported.

Ellis’s selection also came around when nearly a dozen senior government officials were fired, forced to resign, or resigned in protest, with outgoing President Donald Trump carrying out a political purge at the Defense Department.

Ellis served as chief counsel to Rep. Devin Nunes, who is a Trump loyalist. The concerns over his installation relate to helping Nunes get access to intelligence documents in 2017 that aided Trump in politically attack Democrats, the Post reported.

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January 17, 2021

Trump’s acting secretary of defense is working to install a Trump loyalist as the top lawyer for the NSA just days before the president leaves office

Trump’s acting secretary of defense told the head of the National Security Agency to install a Trump loyalist as the top lawyer at the agency by 6 pm on Saturday.
NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone did not honor Christopher Miller’s request by the deadline.
Nakasone was not in favor of Ellis’s selection and is working to delay his placement.
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Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller told the head of the National Security Agency to install a Trump loyalist as the top lawyer at the agency, The Washington Post reported.

Miller ordered that Michael Ellis be appointed as general counsel by 6 pm on Saturday, but NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone did not follow that order as of the deadline, according to CNN.

The Post reported Ellis was tapped for the job back in November by Pentagon General Counsel Paul C. Ney Jr., but he still hasn’t taken the position and has to finish administrative procedures.

His selection came a shortly after Biden was projected to win the presidential election. Around the same time, nearly a dozen senior government officials were fired, forced to resign, or resigned in protest, including a political purge at the Defense Department by President Donald Trump.

Several sources told The Post that Nakasone was not in favor of Ellis’s selection to the role and wanted to delay his placement.

The general counsel position at the NSA is not a political one but a civil servant role, which means it would be harder for the incoming Biden administration to fire him.

Sources told The Post that Nakasone and others are worried that the Trump administration is trying to plant political personnel in a civilian role, which could violate a long-standing policy.

National security legal experts were critical of the effort to install Ellis into the role just a few days before Trump leaves office.

In November, when Ellis’s nomination was first announced, Susan Hennessey, a former NSA attorney, said it “appears to be an attempt to improperly politicize an important career position.”

On Saturday, Hennessy said if Ellis is installed then Biden should remove him on the day he’s inaugurated.

“At this point, no one should extend this selection process the benefit of the doubt. By all indications, the Trump admin is violating civil service rules and politicizing an apolitical role. If Ellis is installed tonight, Biden should remove him on Day One,” she said in a tweet.

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