CS Colloquium - William Binney

Event time: 
Thursday, December 11, 2014 - 10:30am
Location: 
Linsly-Chittenden, Room 101 See map
63 High Street
New Haven, CT 06520
Event description: 

CS Colloquium
William Binney
Title: A most intrusive surveillance system

Host: Bryan Ford

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Light breakfast will be served in LC 196 (foyer) at 10:15 a.m., just prior to the talk.

Between 2001 and mid 2007, Mr. Binney was a consultant on analysis and analytic techniques to various agencies of the US government intelligence community – NSA, CIA, NRO and Customs and Border Protection in the Department of Homeland Security.  From 1970 to 2001, Mr. Binney was a civilian employee of NSA.  At NSA, Mr. Binney held numerous positions: Technical Director of the World Geopolitical and Military Analysis, Operations Directorate Analysis Skill field leader, member of the NSA Senior Technical Review Panel, Chair of the Technical Advisory Panel to the Foreign Relations Council, co-founder of the Sigint Automation Research Center, an agency representative to the National Technology Alliance Executive Board, and Technical Director of the Office of Russia as well as a leading analyst for warning for over 20 years.

Over the years, Mr. Binney applied mathematical discipline to collection, analysis and reporting.  In the process, he was able to structure analysis and transform it into a definable discipline, making it possible to code and automatically execute functions without human intervention from the point of collection to the end product.  The successful automation of analysis formed the foundation for prototype developments in the SIGINT Automation Research Center; demonstrated how to handle massive amounts of data effectively and relate results to military and other customers; and, formed the basis for organizing an international coalition of countries to develop and share technology advances.

William Binney is a former high-level National Security Agency intelligence official who, after his 2001 retirement after 30 years, blew the whistle on NSA surveillance programs. His outspoken criticism of the NSA during the George W. Bush administration made him the subject of FBI investigations that included a raid on his home in 2007. Even before Edward Snowden’s NSA whistle blowing, Binney publicly revealed that NSA had access to telecommunications companies’ domestic and international billing records, and that since 9/11 the agency has intercepted some 15 to 20 trillion communications. The Snowden disclosures confirmed many of the surveillance dangers Binney — without the benefit of documents — had been warning about under both the Bush and Obama administrations.