Report Suggests NSA Engaged In Financial Manipulation

Matt Blaze has been pointing out that when you read the new White House intelligence task force report and its recommendations on how to reform the NSA and the wider intelligence community, that there may be hints to other excesses not yet revealed by the Snowden documents. Trevor Timm may have spotted a big one. In the recommendation concerning increasing security in online communications, the second sub-point sticks out like a sore thumb:If you can’t read that, it says:

Governments should not use their offensive cyber capabilities to change the amounts held in financial accounts or otherwise manipulate the financial system.

While there have been plenty of reports about the US running hundreds of offensive cyberattacks on others, outside of things like Stuxnet, not many have been directly identified. And I’m unaware of any claims suggesting attempts to “manipulate the financial system” of any particular country and/or to “change the amounts held in financial accounts.” It seems a bit odd to come out of the blue like that, and certainly suggests that this particular bullet point likely came as a result of a rather specific thing that came up during the task force’s review.

So, now we wait for the inevitable news of what sort of financial shenanigans the NSA was up to.