CIA
Amazon AWS: Good enough for the CIA
Amazon AWS: Good enough for the CIA
Leena Rao has a fascinating background story at Fortune on Amazon Web Services, built around a profile of its leader, Senior Vice President Andy Jassy. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but this bit was particularly interesting:
Netflix’s adoption also gave other big companies and institutions the confidence to try AWS. Its heavyweight corporate customers now include Samsung, Comcast, and pharmaceutical giant Novartis, to name just a few. In 2013, AWS won a contract from the Central Intelligence Agency—a classified deal that became public knowledge when a competitor sued the government over it. Once that news broke, Jassy recalls, “a lot of companies would say, ‘Well, if the security and performance is good [enough] for the CIA, then it’s probably good enough for us.’ ”
Read about the original disclosure of the deal over at Federal Computing World.
Petraeus reaches plea deal with Justice Department
Petraeus reaches plea deal with Justice Department
Kevin Johnson and Tom Vanden Brook, reporting for USA Today:
The explosive details in the agreement show that Petraeus lied to investigators, divulged a massive amount of sensitive data to Paula Broadwell and worried about how she handled them in an interview she taped with him.
Those who want former NSA analyst Edward Snowden’s head on a plate for disseminating classified information based on his ideals, with which you may or may not agree, and then admitting it, must be really angry at former CIA director General David Petraeus for disseminating classified information to his mistress and then lying about it to FBI agents.
Right?
Some oaths are apparently more oathy than others
Some oaths are apparently more oathy than others
This is a great article, but this bit is particularly rich. Tyler Bass of Vice’s Motherboard reports the now well-known Petraeus affair with an elegant juxtaposition of facts:
“Oaths do matter,” David H. Petraeus, then C.I.A. director, said at the time. “And there are indeed consequences for those who believe they are above the laws that protect our fellow officers and enable American intelligence agencies to operate with the requisite degree of secrecy.”
Just weeks later, Petraeus would fall from grace after FBI agents, conducting a separate investigation, discovered emails that revealed an extramarital affair.
Oaths indeed.
CIA Comments on Zero Dark Thirty
CIA Comments on Zero Dark Thirty
Deborah Pearlstein of the law blog Opinio Juris shared the statement of Michael Morell, the Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, on the film Zero Dark Thirty, about the hunt for and capture of Osama Bin Laden. Its interesting that he would feel compelled to comment at all, especially in a press release.