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Paul Merrell

NSA chief criticises media and suggests UK was right to detain David Miranda | World ne... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-keith-alexander-david-miranda

surveillance state NSA Alexander leaks legislation

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • The outgoing director of the National Security Agency lashed out at media organizations reporting on Edward Snowden’s surveillance revelations, suggesting that British authorities were right to detain David Miranda on terrorism charges and that reporters lack the ability to properly analyze the NSA’s broad surveillance powers.General Keith Alexander, who has furiously denounced the Snowden revelations, said at a Tuesday cybersecurity panel that unspecified “headway” on what he termed “media leaks” was forthcoming in the next several weeks, possibly to include “media leaks legislation.”
  • The general, who is due to retire in the next several weeks, said that the furore over Snowden’s surveillance revelations – which he referred to only as “media leaks” – was complicating his ability to get congressional support for a bill that would permit the NSA and the military Cyber Command he also helms to secretly communicate with private entities like banks about online data intrusions and attacks.“We’ve got to handle media leaks first,” Alexander said.“I think we are going to make headway over the next few weeks on media leaks. I am an optimist. I think if we make the right steps on the media leaks legislation, then cyber legislation will be a lot easier,” Alexander said.The specific legislation to which Alexander referred was unclear. Angela Canterbury, the policy director for the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group, said she was unaware of any such bill. Neither was Steve Aftergood, an intelligence policy analyst at the Federation of American Scientists.The NSA’s public affairs office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Alexander has previously mused about “stopping” journalism related to the Snowden revelations.“We ought to come up with a way of stopping it. I don’t know how to do that. That’s more of the courts and the policymakers but, from my perspective, it’s wrong to allow this to go on,” he told an official Defense Department blog in October.
  • While Attorney General Eric Holder said last year that he had no plans to pursue charges against Greenwald, pro-NSA officials have recently taken to using loaded legal language when referring to the journalists reporting on the Snowden documents.James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, called on Snowden and unnamed “accomplices” to return the surveillance documents cache during congressional testimony in January. The chairman of the House intelligence committee, Mike Rogers of Michigan, called Greenwald a “thief” last month.Like other NSA officials and their allies over the past several months, Alexander has become more visible to the public, part of the NSA’s push to regain control of the public narrative as the Obama administration and members of Congress debate the future scope of the NSA’s powers.In an October interview with the New York Times, Alexander said: “I do feel it’s important to have a public, transparent discussion on cyber so that the American people know what’s going on.”
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  • But staff at Georgetown University, which sponsored the Tuesday cybersecurity forum, took the microphone away from a Guardian reporter who attempted to ask Alexander if the NSA had missed the signs of Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine, which appeared to take Obama administration policymakers by surprise.Although the event was open to reporters, journalists were abruptly told following the NSA director’s remarks that they were not permitted to ask questions of Alexander, who did not field the Ukraine question. Following the event, security staff closed a stairwell gate on journalists who attempted to ask Alexander questions on his way out.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Mar 14
     
    The scary part is that Alexander apparently believes Congress will pass such legislation and the Supreme Court will uphold it. That's despite even mainstream media having declared open season on the NSA because of government prosecutions of members of the media for publishing leaks and prosecutions of members of the media for refusing to reveal sources.  
Paul Merrell

Is NSA Surveillance Mastermind Keith Alexander Selling US Secrets to Wall Street? | VIC... - 0 views

www.vice.com/...-us-secrets-to-wall-street-630

surveillance state NSA Alexander revolving-door

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Perhaps you already assume that there's some kind of twisted marriage between Wall Street megabanks and the US global surveillance regime. Why wouldn't there be? But not even a total cynic could have anticipated spymaster Keith Alexander cashing in this hard, this fast. As Bloomberg recently reported, the former National Security Agency chief, who resigned in March at the age of 62, quickly offered his cyber-security expertise at the eye-popping price of $1 million per month to an assortment of shady business lobbies. And now at least one member of Congress is probing this most delightfully dystopian of arrangements, raising the possibility that Alexander will be shamed out of the practice, if nothing else. “Disclosing or misusing classified information for profit is, as Mr. Alexander well knows, a felony. I question how Mr. Alexander can provide any of the services he is offering unless he discloses or misuses classified information, including extremely sensitive sources and methods,” Florida Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson wrote one of the business groups, the Security Industries and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), which holds it down for Wall Street in Washington. “Without the classified information that he acquired in his former position, he literally would have nothing to offer to you.”
  • In an interview Monday, Grayson was even more strident in his criticism. "Frankly, what the general is doing is beginning to resemble an extortion racket," he told me. "This is a man who basically lied for a living, and he continues to do that." To be clear, what's uniquely outrageous about Alexander, who has apparently lowered his asking price to $600,000, is not that he is a former US official dangling his alleged expertise and the allure of privileged access to government officials before Wall Street. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who served under Barack Obama and is the odds-on favorite to succeed him, does this all the time, usually at a rate of about $250,000 a pop. (Indeed, one might argue that the very fact she has managed to do so while enjoying a stellar national reputation is what signaled to Alexander he might as well dive headlong through the revolving door.) But the former NSA head presumably knows things about sophisticated intelligence-gathering practices that very, very few people on Earth have been privy to—information that could be useful in the private sector, which has a tendency to collude with the military in ways that made former President and World War II General Dwight Eisenhower very sad.
  • "What could he possibly have that's worth $1 million a month other than classified information?" wonders Melanie Sloan, founder of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a good government group. "That's more than former presidents make." Indeed, even former President Bill Clinton, whose corruption since leaving office is by now the stuff of legend, doesn't have the gall to ask for that much per gig. There's a sort of "fuck it!" attitude to what Alexander is doing, seemingly kicking sand in the face of everyone angry at his surveillance regime by getting paid to reflect on the experience of assembling it. More ominously, there's the prospect that Alexander, whether deliberately or otherwise, may have left behind vulnerabilities while running the NSA so as to put himself in prime position to effectively hold the banks hostage now. Certainly, there have been reports suggesting the agency was aware of some vulnerabilities it either could or did not address.   "What is especially troubling is he might actually be worth it," says former North Carolina Democratic Congressman Brad Miller, who worked extensively on financial regulation and Wall Street reform in Congress. "He's obviously not a computer geek. Some of the things that might have seemed paranoid a few years ago now seem more than plausible given what we've already learned the NSA has been doing."
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  • In an email, former New York Times reporter and Goldman Sachs regulatory guru Stephen Labaton—who is currently president of communications and influence powerhouse RLM Finsbury and apparently fielding the General's media inquiries—dismissed Grayson's critique and Miller's concerns. "The letter is ludicrous," he wrote me, before adding about Miller, "The congressman’s kidding, right? Will he [Alexander] next be tied to the Kennedy assassination?" But as Marcy Wheeler points out, given that the former NSA boss has spent the last year hyping the incredible risk of catastrophic cyber-attack, as well as the alleged damage done by Edward Snowden (an assessment his successor does not seem to share), it's fair to ask if his consultancy is essentially a scam. That the victims are, for now, Wall Street bankers—some of the least sympathetic human beings around—is a sweet bit of irony. But it doesn't change the bigger picture: In this age of total surveillance and unchecked financial power, the frontiers of corruption never seem to stop expanding.
Paul Merrell

Edward Snowden asks for asylum in Ecuador: live updates | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...n-leaves-hong-kong-moscow-live

surveillance state NSA Snowden asylum Ecuador

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • The NSA whistleblower left Hong Kong on an Aeroflot flight to Moscow, two days after the US charged him with espionage, before applying for asylum in Ecuador
  • WikiLeaks has released a statement claiming that Snowden is "bound for Ecuador" and is awaiting the processing of his application for asylum:  Mr Edward Snowden, the American whistleblower who exposed evidence of a global surveillance regime conducted by US and UK intelligence agencies, has left Hong Kong legally. He is bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from WikiLeaks. Mr Snowden requested that WikiLeaks use its legal expertise and experience to secure his safety. Once Mr Snowden arrives in Ecuador his request will be formally processed. Former Spanish Judge Mr Baltasar Garzon, legal director of Wikileaks and lawyer for Julian Assange has made the following statement: "The WikiLeaks legal team and I are interested in preserving Mr Snowden’s rights and protecting him as a person. What is being done to Mr Snowden and to Mr Julian Assange - for making or facilitating disclosures in the public interest - is an assault against the people".
  • It’s past midnight in Hong Kong and late evening in Moscow, so time for a summary of the events so far on a day of extraordinary drama: • Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor whose revelations to the Guardian about the scale and scope of US spying and hacking activities has prompted global headlines, has fled Hong Kong and is now in Moscow. • His plane arrived in Russia shortly after 5pm local time. Snowden is not believed to have a Russian visa and is thought to be staying overnight at a capsule hotel inside Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport after reportedly being met on the tarmac by diplomatic cars.
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  • • Snowden was allowed to leave despite the US having filed a request for Hong Kong to arrest him. Hong Kong’s government said the documents sent by Washington did not fully meet legal requirements, the statement added, so Snowden was allowed to leave. It has since been reported that the US revoked Snowden’s passport on Saturday. It is not clear how he was allowed to leave Hong Kong if this happened. • Snowden is reportedly booked on a flight on Monday from Moscow to Havana, after which he is believed to be heading for another Latin American destination, reported variously as Venezuela or Ecuador. • The Ecuadorean ambassador to Russia is at the airport but said he had not met Snowden and was not entirely sure where he is.  • WikiLeaks has claimed in tweets it "assisted Mr Snowden's political asylum in a democratic country" and that its "legal advisers" are with him, including Sarah Harrison, a WikiLeaks staffer.
  • • There has been an angry reaction in the US to news of Snowden’s departure. Keith Alexander, head of the NSA, called Snowden “an individual who is not acting, in my opinion, with noble intent". • Snowden's departure came on the same day the South China Morning Post carried detailed reports of claims from him about US actions against China, including allegations of the hacking of phone text messages. China has said it is “gravely concerned” about the revelations. The country’s Xinhua news agency called the US “the biggest villain in our age" when it comes to hacking.
  • Paul Merrell on 23 Jun 13
     
    My favorite part so far, NSA head Gen. Keith Alexander called Snowden "an individual who is not acting, in my opinion, with noble intent". Let's consider for a moment that as a U.S. Army officer, Gen. Alexander, initially and upon each promotion, was required to "solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God."  http://www.army.mil/values/officers.html So what part of "support and defend the Constitution of the United States" is it that he didn't catch? U.S. military officers are required by law to disobey illegal commands. Can this man seriously believe that his mission does not violate the U.S. Constitution?  The Fourth and Fifth Amendments were direct reactions to the British Army's practice of invading Colonist's homes at will. destroying their privacy and seizing anything in sight including its residents, their papers, their personal effects, and their property without judicial warrant or due process and just compensation. But that is just what Gen. Alexander assists in. He is a usurper of our Constitution. But let's compare the courage of Edward Snowden and Keith Alexander: "Common experience shows how much rarer is moral courage than physical bravery.  A thousand men will march to the mouth of the cannon where one man will dare espouse an unpopular cause." - Clarence Darrow   "Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of the colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change." -
Paul Merrell

NSA Head, General Keith Alexander, Wants 'All the Phone Records' of Americans - 0 views

www.opposingviews.com/...xander-wants-all-phone-records

surveillance state NSA Alexander domestic-telephone-records lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • General Keith Alexander, who is head of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, told Congress that there was no “upper limit” as to how many telephone records the U.S. government wants to collect, reports The Guardian. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) asked Gen. Alexander if the NSA's goal was to collect the phone records of all Americans Gen. Alexander replied, "I believe it is in the nation's best interest to put all the phone records into a lockbox, yes." Back in May, Gen. Alexander laughed off the suggestion that the NSA was even spying on Americans, reported Reuters: According to Alexander, the NSA has its hands full keeping tabs on potential terrorists, and does not have the bandwidth to read the 420 billion emails generated by Americans each day - even though some foreign governments were trying to do that. "The great irony is we're the only ones not spying on the American people," he quipped.
  • During the yesterday's hearing,  Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Gen. Alexander if the NSA collected information from cell phone towers that could be used to locate customers. But Gen. Alexander refused to confirm or deny this practice.
Paul Merrell

Top-Secret Document Reveals NSA Spied On Porn Habits As Part Of Plan To Discredit 'Radi... - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...sa-porn-muslims_n_4346128.html

surveillance state NSA NSA-porn COINTELPRO FBI must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • WASHINGTON -- The National Security Agency has been gathering records of online sexual activity and evidence of visits to pornographic websites as part of a proposed plan to harm the reputations of those whom the agency believes are radicalizing others through incendiary speeches, according to a top-secret NSA document. The document, provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, identifies six targets, all Muslims, as “exemplars” of how “personal vulnerabilities” can be learned through electronic surveillance, and then exploited to undermine a target's credibility, reputation and authority. The NSA document, dated Oct. 3, 2012, repeatedly refers to the power of charges of hypocrisy to undermine such a messenger. “A previous SIGINT" -- or signals intelligence, the interception of communications -- "assessment report on radicalization indicated that radicalizers appear to be particularly vulnerable in the area of authority when their private and public behaviors are not consistent,” the document argues. Among the vulnerabilities listed by the NSA that can be effectively exploited are “viewing sexually explicit material online” and “using sexually explicit persuasive language when communicating with inexperienced young girls.”
  • The Director of the National Security Agency -- described as "DIRNSA" -- is listed as the "originator" of the document. Beyond the NSA itself, the listed recipients include officials with the Departments of Justice and Commerce and the Drug Enforcement Administration. "Without discussing specific individuals, it should not be surprising that the US Government uses all of the lawful tools at our disposal to impede the efforts of valid terrorist targets who seek to harm the nation and radicalize others to violence," Shawn Turner, director of public affairs for National Intelligence, told The Huffington Post in an email Tuesday. Yet Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said these revelations give rise to serious concerns about abuse. "It's important to remember that the NSA’s surveillance activities are anything but narrowly focused -- the agency is collecting massive amounts of sensitive information about virtually everyone," he said. "Wherever you are, the NSA's databases store information about your political views, your medical history, your intimate relationships and your activities online," he added. "The NSA says this personal information won't be abused, but these documents show that the NSA probably defines 'abuse' very narrowly."
  • None of the six individuals targeted by the NSA is accused in the document of being involved in terror plots. The agency believes they all currently reside outside the United States. It identifies one of them, however, as a "U.S. person," which means he is either a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident. A U.S. person is entitled to greater legal protections against NSA surveillance than foreigners are. Stewart Baker, a one-time general counsel for the NSA and a top Homeland Security official in the Bush administration, said that the idea of using potentially embarrassing information to undermine targets is a sound one. "If people are engaged in trying to recruit folks to kill Americans and we can discredit them, we ought to," said Baker. "On the whole, it's fairer and maybe more humane" than bombing a target, he said, describing the tactic as "dropping the truth on them." Any system can be abused, Baker allowed, but he said fears of the policy drifting to domestic political opponents don't justify rejecting it. "On that ground you could question almost any tactic we use in a war, and at some point you have to say we're counting on our officials to know the difference," he said.
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  • In addition to analyzing the content of their internet activities, the NSA also examined the targets' contact lists. The NSA accuses two of the targets of promoting al Qaeda propaganda, but states that surveillance of the three English-speakers’ communications revealed that they have "minimal terrorist contacts." In particular, “only seven (1 percent) of the contacts in the study of the three English-speaking radicalizers were characterized in SIGINT as affiliated with an extremist group or a Pakistani militant group. An earlier communications profile of [one of the targets] reveals that 3 of the 213 distinct individuals he was in contact with between 4 August and 2 November 2010 were known or suspected of being associated with terrorism," the document reads. The document contends that the three Arabic-speaking targets have more contacts with affiliates of extremist groups, but does not suggest they themselves are involved in any terror plots. Instead, the NSA believes the targeted individuals radicalize people through the expression of controversial ideas via YouTube, Facebook and other social media websites. Their audience, both English and Arabic speakers, "includes individuals who do not yet hold extremist views but who are susceptible to the extremist message,” the document states. The NSA says the speeches and writings of the six individuals resonate most in countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Kenya, Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia.
  • The NSA possesses embarrassing sexually explicit information about at least two of the targets by virtue of electronic surveillance of their online activity. The report states that some of the data was gleaned through FBI surveillance programs carried out under the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act. The document adds, "Information herein is based largely on Sunni extremist communications." It further states that "the SIGINT information is from primary sources with direct access and is generally considered reliable." According to the document, the NSA believes that exploiting electronic surveillance to publicly reveal online sexual activities can make it harder for these “radicalizers” to maintain their credibility. "Focusing on access reveals potential vulnerabilities that could be even more effectively exploited when used in combination with vulnerabilities of character or credibility, or both, of the message in order to shape the perception of the messenger as well as that of his followers," the document argues. An attached appendix lists the "argument" each surveillance target has made that the NSA says constitutes radicalism, as well the personal "vulnerabilities" the agency believes would leave the targets "open to credibility challenges" if exposed.
  • One target's offending argument is that "Non-Muslims are a threat to Islam," and a vulnerability listed against him is "online promiscuity." Another target, a foreign citizen the NSA describes as a "respected academic," holds the offending view that "offensive jihad is justified," and his vulnerabilities are listed as "online promiscuity" and "publishes articles without checking facts." A third targeted radical is described as a "well-known media celebrity" based in the Middle East who argues that "the U.S perpetrated the 9/11 attack." Under vulnerabilities, he is said to lead "a glamorous lifestyle." A fourth target, who argues that "the U.S. brought the 9/11 attacks on itself" is said to be vulnerable to accusations of “deceitful use of funds." The document expresses the hope that revealing damaging information about the individuals could undermine their perceived "devotion to the jihadist cause." The Huffington Post is withholding the names and locations of the six targeted individuals; the allegations made by the NSA about their online activities in this document cannot be verified. The document does not indicate whether the NSA carried out its plan to discredit these six individuals, either by communicating with them privately about the acquired information or leaking it publicly. There is also no discussion in the document of any legal or ethical constraints on exploiting electronic surveillance in this manner.
  • While Baker and others support using surveillance to tarnish the reputation of people the NSA considers "radicalizers," U.S. officials have in the past used similar tactics against civil rights leaders, labor movement activists and others. Under J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI harassed activists and compiled secret files on political leaders, most notably Martin Luther King, Jr. The extent of the FBI's surveillance of political figures is still being revealed to this day, as the bureau releases the long dossiers it compiled on certain people in response to Freedom of Information Act requests following their deaths. The information collected by the FBI often centered on sex -- homosexuality was an ongoing obsession on Hoover's watch -- and information about extramarital affairs was reportedly used to blackmail politicians into fulfilling the bureau's needs. Current FBI Director James Comey recently ordered new FBI agents to visit the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington to understand "the dangers in becoming untethered to oversight and accountability."
  • James Bamford, a journalist who has been covering the NSA since the early 1980s, said the use of surveillance to exploit embarrassing private behavior is precisely what led to past U.S. surveillance scandals. "The NSA's operation is eerily similar to the FBI's operations under J. Edgar Hoover in the 1960s where the bureau used wiretapping to discover vulnerabilities, such as sexual activity, to 'neutralize' their targets," he said. "Back then, the idea was developed by the longest serving FBI chief in U.S. history, today it was suggested by the longest serving NSA chief in U.S. history." That controversy, Bamford said, also involved the NSA. "And back then, the NSA was also used to do the eavesdropping on King and others through its Operation Minaret. A later review declared the NSA’s program 'disreputable if not outright illegal,'" he said. Baker said that until there is evidence the tactic is being abused, the NSA should be trusted to use its discretion. "The abuses that involved Martin Luther King occurred before Edward Snowden was born," he said. "I think we can describe them as historical rather than current scandals. Before I say, 'Yeah, we've gotta worry about that,' I'd like to see evidence of that happening, or is even contemplated today, and I don't see it."
  • Jaffer, however, warned that the lessons of history ought to compel serious concern that a "president will ask the NSA to use the fruits of surveillance to discredit a political opponent, journalist or human rights activist." "The NSA has used its power that way in the past and it would be naïve to think it couldn't use its power that way in the future," he said.
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Nov 13
     
    By Glenn Greenwald, Ryan Gallagher, and Ryan Grim, 26 November 2013. I will annotate later. But this is by far the most important NSA disclosure from Edward Snowden's leaked documents thus far. A report originated by Gen. Alexander himself revealing COINTELPRO like activities aimed at destroying the reputations of non-terrorist "radicalizers," including one "U.S. person." This is exactly the kind of repressive activity that the civil libertarians among us warn about. 
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Nov 13
     
    By Glenn Greenwald, Ryan Gallagher, and Ryan Grim, 26 November 2013. I will annotate later. But this is by far the most important NSA disclosure from Edward Snowden's leaked documents thus far. A report originated by Gen. Alexander himself revealing COINTELPRO like activities aimed at destroying the reputations of non-terrorist "radicalizers," including one "U.S. person." This is exactly the kind of repressive activity that the civil libertarians among us warn about. 
Paul Merrell

Keith Alexander, On Stage While Story Of NSA Infiltrations Breaks, Tries To Mislead Wit... - 0 views

www.techdirt.com/...to-mislead-with-response.shtml

surveillance state NSA Alexander lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • In an interesting bit of timing, just as the Washington Post was breaking the news that the NSA had infiltrated Google and Yahoo's cloud data by hacking into the (stupidly) unencrypted data links between data centers, it turned out that NSA boss Keith Alexander was on stage at a Bloomberg Government Cybersecurity conference. He was asked about the report, and he tried to tap dance around it by claiming the NSA doesn't have access to Yahoo and Google's servers. The Guardian has a brief summary: Alexander, asked about the Post report, denied it. “Not to my knowledge, that’s never happened,” the NSA director said, before reiterating an earlier denial Prism gave the NSA direct access to the servers of its internet service provider partners. “Everything we do with those companies that work with us, they are compelled to work with us,” Alexander said. “These are specific requirements that come from a court order. This is not the NSA breaking into any databases. It would be illegal for us to do that. So I don’t know what the report is, but I can tell you factually: we do not have access to Google servers, Yahoo servers, dot-dot-dot. We go through a court order.” But, of course, in typical Alexander fashion, he's choosing his words carefully -- and thankfully people can more easily see through it at this point, since they're getting so used to it. The report didn't say they were accessing those companies' servers or databases, but rather hacking into the network connection between their data centers. That's like a report breaking of the NSA hijacking armored cars with cash, and Alexander claiming "we didn't break into the bank." Nice try.
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Oct 13
     
    Dear Gen. Alexander, The reason the White House has jumped ship on you and your agency is that they don't want to go down with your ship. If you haven't figured that out by now, you probably also do not realize that those who get caught lying repeatedly set fire to the stage they stand on. As said during World War II, "Loose lips sink ships." You'd be far better off if you just stopped making public statements. But thanks for contributing to our entertainment.
Paul Merrell

At Comverse, Many Smart Business Moves and Maybe a Bad One - New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...21options.html

surveillance state NSA Israel Verint Converse

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Mr. Alexander transformed a communications software company, Comverse Technology, from a start-up to a market leader with annual sales of more than $1 billion.That made Mr. Alexander, known as Kobi, a pioneer and hero in Israel’s emerging high-tech industry. These days, though, Mr. Alexander is also referred to by another title: fugitive. Mr. Alexander, 54, is believed to have fled the United States after he and two other former Comverse executives were charged earlier this month with securities, mail and wire fraud by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. A warrant has been issued for his arrest.Yet the odds are that it will be a long time before Mr. Alexander explains himself in a courtroom, if ever.
  • Mr. Alexander is an Israeli citizen and is a former military officer there. And in late July, according to prosecutors, Mr. Alexander wired $57 million to an account in Israel.While the United States has an extradition treaty with Israel, it is unclear whether the treaty covers the crimes that Mr. Alexander is accused of, law professors said. Furthermore, given Mr. Alexander’s stature and record of military service, Israel may be reluctant to readily hand him over, they add.
  • Another Comverse subsidiary, Verint Systems, which provides more than 25 percent of Comverse’s revenues, is also looking into its options practices.
Paul Merrell

NSA Director Alexander Defends Surveillance at Black Hat | Threatpost - 0 views

threatpost.com/...101541

surveillance state NSA Alexander NSA-capabilities lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Aug 13
     
    "There are allegations [the NSA] listen to all our emails; that's wrong. We don't," Alexander said, adding that of 54 different terrorist-related activities identified through PRISM, 42 of which were disrupted, including 13 in the U.S., and 25 in Europe. "And if we did, we would be held accountable. There is 100 percent auditability on what we do." Technically accurate but materially misleading (only those with text-to-voice capabilities "listen" to emails). Meanwhile, assuming that Alexandeer meant to say "reading" instead of "listening to," the linked Guardian UK reporting on the NSA XScore program brands Gen. Alexander as a liar. 
Paul Merrell

As Europe erupts over US spying, NSA chief says government must stop media | Glenn Gree... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ts-nsa-spying-chief-government

surveillance state NSA Alexander censorship suveillance-subject-matter

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • is there any doubt at all that the US government repeatedly tried to mislead the world when insisting that this system of suspicionless surveillance was motivated by an attempt to protect Americans from The Terrorists™? Our reporting has revealed spying on conferences designed to negotiate economic agreements, the Organization of American States, oil companies, ministries that oversee mines and energy resources, the democratically elected leaders of allied states, and entire populations in those states.Can even President Obama and his most devoted loyalists continue to maintain, with a straight face, that this is all about Terrorism? That is what this superb new Foreign Affairs essay by Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore means when it argues that the Manning and Snowden leaks are putting an end to the ability of the US to use hypocrisy as a key weapon in its soft power.Speaking of an inability to maintain claims with a straight face, how are American and British officials, in light of their conduct in all of this, going to maintain the pretense that they are defenders of press freedoms and are in a position to lecture and condemn others for violations? In what might be the most explicit hostility to such freedoms yet – as well as the most unmistakable evidence of rampant panic – the NSA's director, General Keith Alexander, actually demanded Thursday that the reporting being done by newspapers around the world on this secret surveillance system be halted (Techdirt has the full video here):
  • The head of the embattled National Security Agency, Gen Keith Alexander, is accusing journalists of "selling" his agency's documents and is calling for an end to the steady stream of public disclosures of secrets snatched by former contractor Edward Snowden."I think it's wrong that that newspaper reporters have all these documents, the 50,000 – whatever they have and are selling them and giving them out as if these – you know it just doesn't make sense," Alexander said in an interview with the Defense Department's "Armed With Science" blog."We ought to come up with a way of stopping it. I don't know how to do that. That's more of the courts and the policy-makers but, from my perspective, it's wrong to allow this to go on," the NSA director declared. [My italics]There are 25,000 employees of the NSA (and many tens of thousands more who work for private contracts assigned to the agency). Maybe one of them can tell The General about this thing called "the first amendment".I'd love to know what ways, specifically, General Alexander has in mind for empowering the US government to "come up with a way of stopping" the journalism on this story. Whatever ways those might be, they are deeply hostile to the US constitution – obviously. What kind of person wants the government to forcibly shut down reporting by the press?Whatever kind of person that is, he is not someone to be trusted in instituting and developing a massive bulk-spying system that operates in the dark. For that matter, nobody is.
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Oct 13
     
    Alexander's call for censorship starts at about 21:00 of the video at http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2013/10/nsa-chief-stop-reporters-selling-spy-documents-175896.html Dear General Alexander: "... we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home." E- Edward R. Murrow, See It Now (9 March 1954), http://tinyurl.com/kzlpm4a
Paul Merrell

Connecting the Dots on PRISM, Phone Surveillance, and the NSA's Massive Spy Center | Th... - 0 views

www.wired.com/...nsa-prism-verizon-surveillance

surveillance state NSA Gen. Alexander lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • As someone who has written many books and articles about the agency, I have seldom seen the NSA in such a state. Like a night prowler with a bag of stolen goods suddenly caught in a powerful Klieg light, it now finds itself under the glare of nonstop press coverage, accused of robbing the public of its right to privacy. Despite the standard denials from the agency’s public relations office, the documents outline a massive operation to secretly keep track of everyone’s phone calls on a daily basis – billions upon billions of private records; and another to reroute the pipes going in and out of Google, Apple, Yahoo, and the other Internet giants through Fort Meade – figuratively if not literally. 
  • But long before Edward Snowden walked out of the NSA with his trove of documents, whistleblowers there had been trying for years to bring attention to the massive turn toward domestic spying that the agency was making.
  • Without documents to prove their claims, the agency simply dismissed them as falsehoods and much of the mainstream press simply accepted that. “We don’t hold data on U.S. citizens,” Alexander said in a talk at the American Enterprise Institute last summer, by which time he had been serving as the head of the NSA for six years. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper made similar claims. At a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee last March, he was asked, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” To which Clapper responded, “No, sir.” The documents released by Snowden, pointing to the nationwide collection of telephone data records and not denied by government officials, prove the responses untrue.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The deception by General Alexander is especially troubling. In my new cover story for Wired’s July issue, which will be published online Thursday, I show how he has become the most powerful intelligence chief in the nation’s history. Never before has anyone in America’s intelligence sphere come close to his degree of power, the number of people under his command, the expanse of his rule, the length of his reign, or the depth of his secrecy. A four-star Army general, his authority extends across three domains: He is director of the world’s largest intelligence service, the National Security Agency; chief of the Central Security Service; and commander of the U.S. Cyber Command. As such, he has his own secret military, presiding over the Navy’s 10th Fleet, the 24th Air Force, and the Second Army.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Jun 13
     
    Check the video on CSPAN  linked from the paragraph about NSA head General Keith Alexander's talk at the American Enterprise Institute. In response to a Fox News question, Alexander lied at length and in detail along the theme of "We don't hold data on U.S. citizens." With both Alexander and National Intelligence DIrector James Clapper both now caught flat-out lying about keeping records on Americans, why should any Executive Branch statements about the scope of their domestic spying be trusted in the least, given that any official statement on the topic would have to rely on information provided by these two men. We know that they are perfectly willing to lie to the public on that topic. 
Paul Merrell

NSA chief Gen. Keith Alexander to retire in March, agency tells UPI - UPI.com - 0 views

www.upi.com/...UPI-91531381982460

surveillance state NSA Alexander retirement

shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • (UPI) -- U.S. National Security Agency chief Gen. Keith Alexander, who has steadfastly defended NSA mass surveillance, plans to retire in five months, the agency said.Alexander, who will be 62 then, is expected to leave the main producer and manager of U.S. signals intelligence in March, NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines said Wednesday in a statement to United Press International.Alexander, appointed to the NSA spot in 2005 by George W. Bush administration Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, "served well beyond a normal rotation, having been 'extended' three times," Vines told UPI.
  • The four-star general is a career Army intelligence officer who is also chief of the Defense Department's Central Security Service and commander of the military's Cyber Command.After the disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden of mass NSA surveillance of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals, Alexander became the public face of Washington's secret collection of personal communications records in the name of national security.He has consistently defended the controversial practice, saying it has helped prevent dozens of "potential terrorist events" since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.Alexander's departure "has nothing to do with media leaks," Vines' statement to UPI said.
  • "The decision for his retirement was made prior" to the leaks, in an agreement made with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in March, she said.Snowden started leaking information to the press in May, with the first reports published in June."The process for selecting his successor is ongoing," Vines told UPI.
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  • Alexander's departure and potential successor are widely expected to prompt congressional debate over whether the huge NSA infrastructure built during Alexander's tenure will remain or be restricted.Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has drafted legislation to eliminate the NSA's ability to systematically obtain Americans' calling records.Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., co-author of the Patriot Act, whose secret interpretation is used to justify the mass metadata collection, is drafting a bill to cut back on domestic surveillance programs.
  • Paul Merrell on 18 Oct 13
     
    So the Obama Administration is looking for a new professional liar to head the NSA. 
Paul Merrell

Keith Alexander Unplugged: on Bush/Obama, 1.7 million stolen documents and other matter... - 0 views

firstlook.org/...er-unplugged-bushobama-matters

surveillance state NSA Alexander Greenwald quotes

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 May 14 - No Cached
  • The just-retired long-time NSA chief, Gen. Keith Alexander, recently traveled to Australia to give a remarkably long and wide-ranging interview with an extremely sycophantic “interviewer” with The Australian Financial Review. The resulting 17,000-word transcript and accompanying article form a model of uncritical stenography journalism, but Alexander clearly chose to do this because he is angry, resentful, and feeling unfairly treated, and the result is a pile of quotes that are worth examining, only a few of which are noted below:
  • AFR: Can you now quantify the number of documents [Snowden] stole? Gen. Alexander: Well, I don’t think anybody really knows what he actually took with him, because the way he did it, we don’t have an accurate way of counting. What we do have an accurate way of counting is what he touched, what he may have downloaded, and that was more than a million documents. It’s hard to recall a better and clearer example of how mindless and uncritical the American media is when it comes to the unproven pronouncements of the U.S. Government. Back in December, 60 Minutes broadcast a now-notorious segment of pure access journalism in which they gullibly disseminated one false NSA claim after the next in exchange for being given exclusive(!) access to a few Secret and Exciting Rooms inside the agency’s headquarters. The program claimed that Snowden “is believed to still have access to 1.5 million classified documents he has not leaked”. On its Twitter account, 60 Minutes made this claim to promote its show:
  • How Edward Snowden managed to steal an alleged 1.7 million documents from the NSA. Sunday: http://t.co/gbrIu5yMcc — 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) December 13, 2013 Mike McConnell, the vice chairman of Booz Allen and former Director of National Intelligence in the Bush administration, then claimed that ”Snowden absconded with 1.7 million to 1.8 million documents.” Ever since then, that Snowden “stole” 1.7 or 1.8 million documents from the NSA has been repeated over and over again by US media outlets as verified fact. The Washington Post‘s Walter Pincus, citing an anonymous official source, purported to tell readers that “among the roughly 1.7 million documents he walked away with — the vast majority of which have not been made public — are highly sensitive, specific intelligence reports”. Reuters frequently includes in its reports the unchallenged assertion that “Snowden was believed to have taken 1.7 million computerized documents.” Just this week, the global news agency told its readers that “Snowden was believed to have taken 1.7 million computerized documents.”
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • In fact, that number is and always has been a pure fabrication, as even Keith Alexander admits. The claimed number has changed more times than one can count: always magically morphing into randomly chosen higher and scarier numbers. The reality, in the words of the General, is that the US Government ”really [doesn't] know[] what he actually took with him” and they ”don’t have an accurate way of counting”. All they know is how many documents he accessed in his entire career at NSA, which is a radically different question from how many documents he took. But that hasn’t stopped American media outlets from repeatedly affirming the inflammatory evidence-free claim that Snowden took 1.7 million documents. As usual, even the most blatantly unreliable claims from National Security State officials are treated as infallible papal pronouncements by our Adversarial Watchdog Press. There’s an equally vital point made by Alexander’s admission. The primary defense of the NSA and its defenders is that one need not worry about the staggering sums of data they collect because they have implemented very rigorous oversight mechanisms and controls that prevent abuse. Yet Edward Snowden spent months downloading a large amount of highly sensitive documents right under their noses. And not only did they have no idea that he was doing it, but now – even after spending large sums of money to find out – they are still completely incapable of learning which documents he took or even how many he took. Does that at all sound like a well-managed, tightly controlled system that you can trust to safeguard your most personal data and to detect and prevent abuse of this system by the tens of thousands of people who have access to it?
  • The release date for my book on the NSA, privacy, and our reporting of the surveillance story, No Place to Hide, is next Tuesday, May 13, at which time all of the previously unpublished NSA documents that are reported on in the book will be placed online, with free access, at the book’s website.
Paul Merrell

Senators: Limit NSA snooping into US phone records - 0 views

bigstory.ap.org/...-nsa-snooping-us-phone-records

surveillance state NSA Alexander NSA-goals must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • One of those senators, Mark Udall, D-Colo., challenged the head of the NSA, Gen. Keith Alexander, on just how far his agency could go when gathering those records. "Is it the goal of the NSA to collect the phone records of all Americans?" Udall asked at Thursday's hearing. "Yes, I believe it is in the nation's best interest to put all the phone records into a lockbox that we could search when the nation needs to do it. Yes," Alexander replied. Udall's counterpart on the committee in proposing more stringent limits, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked Alexander whether the NSA had ever collected or made plans to collect Americans' cellphone signals to track the movements of individual callers. Alexander answered both times that the NSA was not collecting such data and would have to ask for court approval if it wanted to. Questioned further, he cited a classified version of the letter that was sent to senators and said, "What I don't want to do ... is put out in an unclassified forum anything that's classified." Wyden promised to keep asking.
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Oct 13
     
    This is from 27 September 2013. Note the quote from Gen. Alexander saying the NSA wants *all* telephone records in a lockbox for later searches. That's important information about the size of the haystack the NSA wants to build.  
Gary Edwards

'Clinton death list': 33 spine-tingling cases - 0 views

www.wnd.com/...-list-33-most-intriguing-cases

Clinton-Body-Count

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Feb 17
     
    "(Editor's note: This list was originally published in August 2016 and has gone viral on the web. WND is running it again as American voters cast their ballots for the nation's next president on Election Day.) How many people do you personally know who have died mysteriously? How about in plane crashes or car wrecks? Bizarre suicides? People beaten to death or murdered in a hail of bullets? And what about violent freak accidents - like separate mountain biking and skiing collisions in Aspen, Colorado? Or barbells crushing a person's throat? Bill and Hillary Clinton attend a funeral Apparently, if you're Bill or Hillary Clinton, the answer to that question is at least 33 - and possibly many more. Talk-radio star Rush Limbaugh addressed the issue of the "Clinton body count" during an August show. "I swear, I could swear I saw these stories back in 1992, back in 1993, 1994," Limbaugh said. He cited a report from Rachel Alexander at Townhall.com titled, "Clinton body count or left-wing conspiracy? Three with ties to DNC mysteriously die." Limbaugh said he recalled Ted Koppel, then-anchor of ABC News' "Nightline," routinely having discussions on the issue following the July 20, 1993, death of White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster. In fact, Limbaugh said, he appeared on Koppel's show. "One of the things I said was, 'Who knows what happened here? But let me ask you a question.' I said, 'Ted, how many people do you know in your life who've been murdered? Ted, how many people do you know in your life that have died under suspicious circumstances?' "Of course, the answer is zilch, zero, nada, none, very few," Limbaugh chuckled. "Ask the Clintons that question. And it's a significant number. It's a lot of people that they know who have died, who've been murdered. "And the same question here from Rachel Alexander. It's amazing the cycle that exists with the Clintons. [Citing Townhall]: 'What it
Paul Merrell

Vice-admiral Michael Rogers to take command of embattled NSA | World news | theguardian... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...gers-to-comman-keith-alexander

surveillance state NSA Adm.-Rogers Ledgett Alexander Snowden Obama appointments

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • The embattled National Security Agency is about to get new leaders to deal with the ongoing fallout from whistleblower Edward Snowden’s surveillance disclosures.Vice-admiral Michael Rogers, the commander of the US navy’s tenth fleet and its Fleet Cyber Command, will take over from NSA Director Keith Alexander, who reluctantly became a global figure in the wake of the Snowden revelations.Richard Ledgett, the head of the agency’s investigation into Snowden – who publicly floated the prospect of an amnesty for the former contractor – will become the NSA’s new deputy director and top civilian leader.The appointments, both long anticipated, were announced by the Pentagon on Thursday. Rogers is a longtime cryptologist in the Navy, whose informal turn it was to nominate a director for the NSA. Alexander is an Army general; and his predecessor, Michael Hayden, hailed from the Air Force.
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Jan 14
     
    If I recall correctly, Gen. Alexander is due to retire at the end of February. 
Paul Merrell

Keith Alexander Refutes Claims NSA Doesn't Get Cell Data | emptywheel - 0 views

www.emptywheel.net/...laims-nsa-doesnt-get-cell-data

surveillance state NSA cellphone-tracking

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Eight days ago, the country’s four major newspapers reported a claim that the NSA collected 33% or less of US phone records (under the Section 215 program, they should have specified, but did not) because it couldn’t collect most cell phone metadata:
  • Since that time, I have pointed to a number of pieces of evidence that suggest these claims are only narrowly true: A WSJ article from June made it clear the cell gap, such as it existed, existed primarily for Verizon and T-Mobile, but their calls were collected via other means (the WaPo and NYT both noted this in their stories without considering how WSJ’s earlier claim it was still near-comprehensive contradicted the 33% claim) The NSA’s claimed Section 215 dragnet successes — Basaaly Moalin, Najibullah Zazi, Tsarnaev brothers — all involved cell users
  • Identifying Moalin via the dragnet likely would have been impossible if NSA didn’t have access to T-Mobile cell data The phone dragnet orders specifically included cell phone identifiers starting in 2008 Also since 2008, phone dragnet orders seem to explicitly allow contact-chaining on cell identifiers, and several of the tools they use with phone dragnet data specifically pertain to cell phones
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Now you don’t have to take my word for it. Here’s what Keith Alexander had to say about the claim Friday: Responding to a question about recent reports that the NSA collects data on only 20% to 30% of calls involving U.S. numbers, Alexander acknowledged that the agency doesn’t have full coverage of those calls. He wouldn’t say what fraction of the calls NSA gets information on, but specifically denied that the agency is completely missing data on calls made with cell phones. “That part is not true,” he said. “We don’t get it all. We don’t get 100% of the data. It’s not where we want it to be, but it has been sufficient to go after the key targets that we’re going after.” [my emphasis] Admittedly, Alexander is not always entirely honest, so it’s possible he’s just trying to dissuade terrorists from using cellphones while the NSA isn’t tracking them. But he points to the same evidence I did — that NSA has gotten key targets who use cell phones.
  • There’s something else Alexander said that might better explain the slew of claims that it can’t collect cell phone data. The NSA director, who is expected to retire within weeks, indicated that some of the gaps in coverage are due to the fact that the NSA “paused any changes to the program” during the recent controversy and discussions about restructuring the effort. The NSA has paused changes to the program. This echoes WaPo and WSJ reports that crises (they cited both the 2009 and current crisis) delayed some work on integrating cell data, but suggests that NSA was already making changes when the Snowden leaks started.
Paul Merrell

NSA chief says Snowden leaked up to 200,000 secret documents | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...rity-nsa-idUSBRE9AD19B20131114

surveillance state NSA Snowden Alexander leaked-docs

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • (Reuters) - Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked as many as 200,000 classified U.S. documents to the media, according to little-noticed public remarks by the eavesdropping agency's chief late last month. In a question-and-answer session following a speech to a foreign affairs group in Baltimore on October 31, NSA Director General Keith Alexander was asked by a member of the audience what steps U.S. authorities were taking to stop Snowden from leaking additional information to journalists."I wish there was a way to prevent it. Snowden has shared somewhere between 50 (thousand) and 200,000 documents with reporters. These will continue to come out," Alexander said.
  • Alexander added that the documents were "being put out in a way that does the maximum damage to NSA and our nation," according to a transcript of his talk made available by NSA.U.S. officials briefed on investigations into Snowden's activities have said privately for months that internal government assessments indicate that the number of classified documents to which Snowden got access as a systems operator at NSA installations ran into the hundreds of thousands.Officials said that while investigators now believe they know the range of documents that Snowden accessed, they remain unsure which documents he downloaded for leaking to the media.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 13
     
    50K to 200K documents, NSA thinks they know the range of documents Snowden accessed but not which ones. But that's information from Gen. Alexander, who is a congenital liar, caught in lie after lie. 
Paul Merrell

60 Minutes Hearts the NSA -- Daily Intelligencer - 0 views

nymag.com/...60-minutes-hearts-the-nsa.html

surveillance state NSA NSA-publicity CBS 60-Minutes presstitutes Alexander

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Last night’s episode of 60 Minutes on CBS included what basically amounted to an uncritical commercial for the embattled National Security Agency, led by a journalist who used to be a government colleague. While the show — which has faced recent problems of its own, from the Benghazi debacle to the Amazon drone PR stunt — celebrated its own “unprecedented access to NSA headquarters,” it’s clear the meeting was on the NSA’s terms. In fact, NSA Director General Keith Alexander “made the call to invite us in,” a 60 Minutes producer admitted. They pretty much let him say his piece, nodding along excitedly. “Full disclosure, I once worked in the office of the director of National Intelligence where I saw firsthand how secretly the NSA operates,” said the reporter John Miller at the start of the segment.
  • While no critics of the NSA programs were given a chance to make the case against the potentially extralegal spying, which has resulted in international outrage, CBS did assist in the discrediting of master leaker Edward Snowden. Take, for example, this galling exchange with the head of the Snowden task force within the NSA, following Miller’s dismissive description of Snowden as a “twentysomething-year-old, high-school-dropout contractor”: John Miller: Did you sit in his chair?Rick Ledgett: I did not. I couldn’t bring myself to do that. […] At home, they discovered Snowden had some strange habits. Rick Ledgett: He would work on the computer with a hood that covered the computer screen and covered his head and shoulders, so that he could work and his girlfriend couldn't see what he was doing.John Miller: That's pretty strange, sitting at your computer kind of covered by a sheet over your head and the screen?Rick Ledgett: Agreed.
  • Media observers, some less personally involved in the Snowden leaks than others, could not believe what they were watching: 60 Minutes forgot to ask about how James Clapper & Keith Alexander routinely lied to Congress & FISA courts - just ran out of time.— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 16, 2013 Wow, the 60 Minutes piece about the NSA was just embarrassing. Kudos to the NSA communications staff. You guys should get a raise.— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) December 16, 2013
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • "NSA Doing Great Job, NSA Says" - 60 Minutes— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) December 16, 2013 This 60 Minutes episode has been a pretty good infomercial for the NSA so far. Did anyone catch that 1-800 number so I can order?— Andy Greenberg (@a_greenberg) December 16, 2013 That time a 60 Minutes correspondent asked an NSA analyst to solve a Rubik's cube. #journalism pic.twitter.com/9fgJkLB1oK— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) December 16, 2013
  • CBS’s John Miller, though, knew what he was doing. “General Alexander agreed to talk to us because he believes the NSA has not told its story well,” he explained in a behind-the-scenes segment. “I think we asked the hardest questions we could ask,” he said. “We’ve heard plenty from the critics. We’ve heard a lot from Edward Snowden.” Still, “You also don’t want this to be a puff piece,” he added. We got one anyway.
  • The cherry on top is that Miller is currently in the running, reportedly, for a “top counterterrorism or intelligence role” in the NYPD when his old pal Bill Bratton takes over, something that was not disclosed by 60 Minutes.  He's certainly qualified. (Miller held a similar job as chief of counterterrorism under Bratton at the LAPD in addition to his work in national intelligence.) “He wants the badge, the gun and the adrenaline — to be in the center of the action,” a source told the New York Post of Miller, calling it “a 99.44 percent done deal.” And on top of describing Bill Bratton as “one of my best friends,” this was a great audition.  [CBS News] [HuffPost] [Poynter]
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Dec 13
     
    I'm glad I didn't miss anything important that I haven't heard before too many times. Filmed before a federal judge and Obama's blue ribbon committee report on DoD intelligence community digital spying both in effect branded Alexander as a liar again. 
Paul Merrell

NSA says it considered collecting phone call location data - Los Angeles Times - 0 views

articles.latimes.com/...a-na-nsa-surveillance-20131003

surveillance state NSA Clapper Alexander Wyden location-data lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • The National Security Agency collected samples of records showing where Americans were when they made mobile phone calls in 2010 and 2011 to test how it could obtain and process the data in bulk, but decided not to move forward with the plan, intelligence officials disclosed Wednesday.The admission by NSA chief Keith Alexander to a Senate committee solved part of a mystery about the digital spying agency's involvement with data that could reveal the day-to-day movements of — and deeply personal information about — every cellphone user.
  • Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who receives classified briefings as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had been pressing the NSA to acknowledge its flirtation with bulk collection of U.S. location data. He said in a statement there was more to the story, but did not elaborate."After years of stonewalling on whether the government has ever tracked or planned to track the location of law-abiding Americans through their cellphones, once again, the intelligence leadership has decided to leave most of the real story secret — even when the truth would not compromise national security," Wyden said.
  • The NSA already vacuums up as much mobile phone location data on foreign targets outside the U.S. as it can get, former officials say.The news of the NSA's location data test emerged at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on agency surveillance as the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper, offered a new rationale for the agency's controversial collection of U.S. calling records in bulk.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • "We have heard over and over again the assertion that 54 terrorist plots were thwarted by the use of Section 215 and/or Section 702 authorities," Leahy said, referring to parts of surveillance law. "That's plainly wrong, but we still get it in letters to members of Congress; we get it in statements. These weren't all plots, and they weren't all thwarted. The American people are getting left with an inaccurate impression of the effectiveness of NSA programs."Alexander acknowledged that only in two cases at most could officials say that domestic terrorist activity would not have been detected without the collection of American phone records.But Clapper added that determining "plots foiled" was not the only way to measure the usefulness of the domestic phone database. The records also allow analysts to rule out domestic conspiracies, he said."I would call it the 'peace of mind' metric," he said.
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Feb 14
     
    Alexander says they don't collect location-data on U.S. citizens, then Wyden all but calls him a liar.  And check Clapper's admission that NSA's call metadata program offers nothing but his own "peace of mind."
Paul Merrell

NSA director admits to misleading public on terror plots - Salon.com - 0 views

www.salon.com/...singleton

surveillance state NSA Alexander lies war on terror™ terrorist-plots

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • In so many words, NSA director Keith Alexander admitted Wednesday that the Obama administration had issued misleading information about terror plots and their foiling to bolster support for the government’s vast surveillance apparatus.During Wednesday’s hearing, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy pushed Alexander to admit that plot numbers had been fudged in a revealing interchange:“There is no evidence that [bulk] phone records collection helped to thwart dozens or even several terrorist plots,” said Leahy. The Vermont Democrat then asked the NSA chief to admit that only 13 out of a previously cited 54 cases of foiled plots were genuinely the fruits of the government’s vast dragnet surveillance systems:“These weren’t all plots, and they weren’t all foiled,” Leahy said, asking Alexander, “Would you agree with that, yes or no?”“Yes,” replied Alexander.Proof positive of what many of us have long posited: that under the flimsy guise of a targeted War on Terror, the surveillance state has established itself with little regard for an honest relationship with the American public.
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