NSA Working With AI Technology

Intelligence and National Security Summit in Fort Washington, Maryland, this week largely agreed that the AI developments over the past nine months have been surprising.

George Barnes, deputy director of the National Security Agency, called it a “big acceleration” in AI since last November, when OpenAI publicly launched ChatGPT.

“What we all have to do is figure out how to harness it for good, and protect it from bad,” Barnes said during a July 13 panel discussion with fellow leaders of the “big six” intelligence agencies.

“And that’s this struggle that we’re having,” Barnes continued. “Several of us have actually been in various discussions with a lot of our congressional oversight committees, just struggling with this whole notion of how do we actually navigate through the power of what this represents for our society, and really the world.”

The NSA and other intelligence agencies have been working in the broader field of artificial intelligence for decades. The issue has become a major priority in recent years, with many policymakers looking to ensure the defense and intelligence communities keep pace with China on AI and related technologies.

Barnes said the NSA is now developing a new “AI roadmap” to guide its internal use of the technologies.

“That’s really focused on bringing forward the things we’ve been doing for decades actually, in foundational AI, machine learning, but then tackling these newer themes, such as generative AI, and then ultimately, more artificial general intelligence, which is beyond the generative and something that industry is still searching to grasp.”  READ MORE...

Snowden Receives Russian Passport

MOSCOW, December 2. /TASS/. Former NSA (National Security Agency) employee Edward Snowden took an oath and was granted a Russian passport, his lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told TASS on Friday.

"Yes, he received a passport. He took the oath," Kucherena said in a response to a question as to whether Snowden has been given a Russian passport, adding that he personally met with Snowden yesterday.

The lawyer also said that Snowden’s spouse is currently submitting the required documents for Russian citizenship as well. Snowden and American acrobat and blogger Lindsay Mills married in Moscow in 2017.

Snowden’s US passport was annulled in 2013, but the White House explained back then that it was a routine legal procedure following the issuance of an arrest warrant and his citizenship status remained unchanged.

In late September, a Russian presidential decree was published stating that Snowden was eligible to be granted the Russian citizenship.

In 2013, Snowden leaked information on the electronic surveillance methods used by American intelligence services, including illegally eavesdropping on foreign leaders’ conversations.

Fleeing punitive consequences from US federal authorities, Snowden sent requests for asylum to several countries, including Russia. On August 1, 2014, he obtained a temporary Russian residence permit and later was granted an open-ended residency permit.

Back in the United States, Snowden is facing two counts of violating the Espionage Act, and he risks up to ten years in prison on each count.  READ MORE...