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Rep. Mike Rogers Angrily Defends Bathroom Spycam | Popehat - 0 views

www.popehat.com/...ngrily-defends-bathroom-spycam surveillance state NSA NSA-oversight must-read
shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Representative Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) was defiant today in the face of accusations that he had installed a small digital camera in the women's bathroom in his office at the Capitol. "This is just politics," said the ten-term Congressman. "I would argue the fact that we haven't had any women come forward with any specificity arguing that their privacy has been violated, clearly indicates, in ten years, clearly indicates that something must be doing right. Somebody must be doing something exactly right." When reporters asked how women would know to complain — the spycam, funded by the government, was expertly hidden — Rogers asserted that was the point. "You can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated," said Rogers.
  • Rogers went on to explain that the nation's Capitol — which has housed figures like former Congressman Bob Filner and former Senator Bob Packwood — presents known dangers to women, and that the spycam is calculated to make certain they are protected from those dangers. “If the women knew exactly what that spycam was about, they would be applauding and popping champagne corks. It’s a good thing. it keeps the women safe. It keeps the Capitol safe," Rogers asserted. Rogers then abruptly concluded the interview, threatening to sue reporters if they wrote about it.
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Oct 13
     
    Ken White of Popehat gives a great satirical take on the statement by Rep. Mike Rogers's statement that this week during a hearing on the NSA scandal that: "You can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated." (Put that one in your memorable quotes file, quick.) Worse, Rogers seemed to be sincere. And even worse yet, he is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. The CSPAN footage is in one of the links from White's masterful satire. 
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Oct 13
     
    Oops! Chairman Rogers apparently has a double standard on what constitutes "privacy" that distinguishes between victims of NSA snooping and victims of an insecure Affordable Care Act web site: "Continuing with the issue of privacy, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., ridiculed the program as unsafe for private information, stating that functionality concerns are indicative of a lack of privacy. "If it's not functioning, you know it's not secure," said Rogers. "You have exposed millions of Americans because you said it was "an acceptable risk." http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/10/30/obamacare-website-down-while-sebelius-testifies/ So actual NSA privacy violations: not a problem. Potential ACA privacy violations: huge problem. Somehow, I strongly favor accidental privacy violations over intentional and secret government snooping. But maybe I'm just weird.
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James Clapper Confirms VADM Mike Rogers Needlessly Obfuscated in Confirmation Hearing |... - 0 views

www.emptywheel.net/...scated-in-confirmation-hearing surveillance state NSA lies Clapper Mike-Rogers
shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • On Friday, James Clapper finally provided Ron Wyden an unclassified response to a question he posed on January 29, admitting that the NSA conducts back door searches. (via Charlie Savage) As reflected in the August 2013 Semiannual Assessment of Compliance with Procedures and Guidelines Issued Pursuant to Section 702, which we declassified and released on August 21, 2013, there have been queries, using U.S. person identifiers, of communications lawfully acquired to obtain foreign intelligence by targeting non U.S. persons reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S. pursuant to Section 702 of FISA. It has taken just 9 months for Clapper to admit that, contrary to months of denials, the NSA (and FBI, which he doesn’t confirm but which the Report makes clear, as well as the CIA) can get the content of Americans’ communications without a warrant. But Clapper’s admission that this fact was declassified in August should disqualify Vice Admiral Mike Rogers from confirmation as CyberComm head (I believe he started serving as DIRNSA head, which doesn’t require confirmation, yesterday). Because it means Rogers refused to answer a question the response to which was already declassified.
  • Udall: If I might, in looking ahead, I want to turn to the 702 program and ask a policy question about the authorities under Section 702 that’s written into the FISA Amendments Act. The Committee asked your understanding of the legal rationale for NASA [sic] to search through data acquired under Section 702 using US person identifiers without probable cause. You replied the NASA–the NSA’s court approved procedures only permit searches of this lawfully acquired data using US person identifiers for valid foreign intelligence purposes and under the oversight of the Justice Department and the DNI. The statute’s written to anticipate the incidental collection of Americans’ communications in the course of collecting the communications of foreigners reasonably believed to be located overseas. But the focus of that collection is clearly intended to be foreigners’ communications, not Americans. But declassified court documents show that in 2011 the NSA sought and obtained the authority to go through communications collected under Section 702 and conduct warrantless searches for the communications of specific Americans. Now, my question is simple. Have any of those searches been conducted?
  • Rogers: I apologize Sir, I’m not in a position to answer that as the nominee. Udall: You–yes. Rogers: But if you would like me to come back to you in the future if confirmed to be able to specifically address that question I will be glad to do so, Sir. Udall: Let me follow up on that. You may recall that Director Clapper was asked this question in a hearing earlier this year and he didn’t believe that an open forum was the appropriate setting in which to discuss these issues. The problem that I have, Senator Wyden’s had, and others is that we’ve tried in various ways to get an unclassified answer — simple answer, yes or no — to the question. We want to have an answer because it relates — the answer does — to Americans’ privacy. Can you commit to answering the question before the Committee votes on your nomination?
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Rogers: Sir, I believe that one of my challenges as the Director, if confirmed, is how do we engage the American people — and by extension their representatives — in a dialogue in which they have a level of comfort as to what we are doing and why. That is no insignificant challenge for those of us with an intelligence background, to be honest. But I believe that one of the takeaways from the situation over the last few months has been as an intelligence professional, as a senior intelligence leader, I have to be capable of communicating in a way that we are doing and why to the greatest extent possible. That perhaps the compromise is, if it comes to the how we do things, and the specifics, those are perhaps best addressed in classified sessions, but that one of my challenges is I have to be able to speak in broad terms in a way that most people can understand. And I look forward to that challenge. Udall: I’m going to continue asking that question and I look forward to working with you to rebuild the confidence. [my emphasis]
  • I assume that now that Clapper has given him the okay to discuss unclassified topics with Congress, Rogers will now provide a forthright answer, all the while claiming he was ignorant about the answer at the time (fine! then make me DIRNSA because I know more about it!). But Rogers’ response went far beyond such an answer. He refused — not just in the hearing but even after it — to commit to answering a question with a completely unclassified answer. And as I pointed out in this post, his written answers were even more obfuscatory. I don’t get a vote. But I think this should disqualify him as a nominee.
  • Update: Here’s the exchange in Rogers’ questions for the record on back door searches. What is your understanding of the legal rationale for NSA to search through data acquired under section 702 using U.S. Persons identifiers without probable cause? Information acquired by NSA under Section 702 of FI SA must be handled in strict accordance with minimization procedures adopted by the Attorney General and approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. As required by the statute and certifications approving Section 702 acquisitions, such activities must be limite d to targeting non-U.S. persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States . NSA’s Court-approved procedures only permit searches of this lawfully acquired data using U.S. person identifiers for valid foreign intelligence purposes and under the oversight of the Department of Justice and Office of Director of National Intelligence.
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Pentagon report: scope of intelligence compromised by Snowden 'staggering' | World news... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...nowden-leaks-national-security surveillance state Snowden DoD-damage-assessment
shared by Paul Merrell on 23 May 14 - No Cached
  • • Classified assessment describes impact of leaks as 'grave' • Report does not include specific detail to support conclusions• 12 of 39 heavily redacted pages released after Foia request• Read the full Defense Intelligence Agency report
  • A top-secret Pentagon report to assess the damage to national security from the leak of classified National Security Agency documents by Edward Snowden concluded that “the scope of the compromised knowledge related to US intelligence capabilities is staggering”.The Guardian has obtained a copy of the Defense Intelligence Agency's classified damage assessment in response to a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) lawsuit filed against the Defense Department earlier this year. The heavily redacted 39-page report was prepared in December and is titled “DoD Information Review Task Force-2: Initial Assessment, Impacts Resulting from the Compromise of Classified Material by a Former NSA Contractor.”But while the DIA report describes the damage to US intelligence capabilities as “grave”, the government still refuses to release any specific details to support this conclusion. The entire impact assessment was redacted from the material released to the Guardian under a presidential order that protects classified information and several other Foia exemptions.Only 12 pages of the report were declassified by DIA and released. A Justice Department attorney said DIA would continue to process other internal documents that refer to the DIA report for possible release later this year.
  • The classified damage assessment was first cited in a news report published by Foreign Policy on January 9. The Foreign Policy report attributed details of the DIA assessment to House intelligence committee chairman Mike Rogers and its ranking Democrat Dutch Ruppersberger. The lawmakers said the White House had authorized them to discuss the document in order to undercut the narrative of Snowden being portrayed as a heroic whistleblower.The DIA report has been cited numerous times by Rogers and Rusppersberger and other lawmakers who claimed Snowden’s leaks have put US personnel at risk.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • But details to back up Rogers' claims are not included in the declassified material released to the Guardian.Neither he nor any other lawmaker has disclosed specific details from the DIA report but they have continued to push the “damage” narrative in interviews with journalists and during appearances on Sunday talk shows.
  • The declassified material does not state the number of documents Snowden is alleged to have taken, which Rogers and Ruppersberger have claimed, again citing the DIA’s assessment, was 1.7m. Nor does the declassified portion of the report identify Snowden by name.“[Redacted] a former NSA contractor compromised [redacted] from NSA Net and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS),” the report says. “On 6 June 2013, media groups published the first stories based on this material, and on 9 June 2013 they identified the source as an NSA contractor who had worked in Hawaii.”JWICS is identified as a “24 hour a day network designed to meet the requirements for secure [top-secret/sensitive compartmented information] multi-media intelligence communications worldwide. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has directed that all Special Security Offices (SSOs) will install the JWICS.”The Washington Post, quoting anonymous sources, reported last October that Snowden “lifted the documents from a top-secret network run by the Defense Intelligence Agency and used by intelligence arms of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines.” The Post further claimed that Snowden “took 30,000 documents that involve the intelligence work of one of the services” and that he gained access to the documents through JWICS.
  • A top-secret Pentagon report to assess the damage to national security from the leak of classified National Security Agency documents by Edward Snowden concluded that “the scope of the compromised knowledge related to US intelligence capabilities is staggering”. The Guardian has obtained a copy of the Defense Intelligence Agency's classified damage assessment in response to a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) lawsuit filed against the Defense Department earlier this year. The heavily redacted 39-page report was prepared in December and is titled “DoD Information Review Task Force-2: Initial Assessment, Impacts Resulting from the Compromise of Classified Material by a Former NSA Contractor.” But while the DIA report describes the damage to US intelligence capabilities as “grave”, the government still refuses to release any specific details to support this conclusion. The entire impact assessment was redacted from the material released to the Guardian under a presidential order that protects classified information and several other Foia exemptions.
  • Only 12 pages of the report were declassified by DIA and released. A Justice Department attorney said DIA would continue to process other internal documents that refer to the DIA report for possible release later this year. Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, questioned the decision to withhold specific details. "The essence of the report is contained in the statement that 'the scope of the compromised knowledge related to US intelligence capabilities is staggering'. But all elaboration of what this striking statement means has been withheld," he said. The assessment excluded NSA-related information and dealt exclusively with non-NSA defense materials. The report was distributed to multiple US military commands around the world and all four military branches.
  • The classified damage assessment was first cited in a news report published by Foreign Policy on January 9. The Foreign Policy report attributed details of the DIA assessment to House intelligence committee chairman Mike Rogers and its ranking Democrat Dutch Ruppersberger. The lawmakers said the White House had authorized them to discuss the document in order to undercut the narrative of Snowden being portrayed as a heroic whistleblower. The DIA report has been cited numerous times by Rogers and Rusppersberger and other lawmakers who claimed Snowden’s leaks have put US personnel at risk. In January, Rogers asserted that the report concluded that most of the documents Snowden took "concern vital operations of the US Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force". "This report confirms my greatest fears — Snowden’s real acts of betrayal place America’s military men and women at greater risk. Snowden’s actions are likely to have lethal consequences for our troops in the field," Rogers said in a statement at the time.
  • But details to back up Rogers' claims are not included in the declassified material released to the Guardian. Neither he nor any other lawmaker has disclosed specific details from the DIA report but they have continued to push the “damage” narrative in interviews with journalists and during appearances on Sunday talk shows. The declassified portion of the report obtained by the Guardian says only that DIA “assesses with high confidence that the information compromise by a former NSA contractor [redacted] and will have a GRAVE impact on US national defense”. The declassified material does not state the number of documents Snowden is alleged to have taken, which Rogers and Ruppersberger have claimed, again citing the DIA’s assessment, was 1.7m.
  • No evidence has surfaced to support persistent claims from pundits and lawmakers that Snowden has provided any of the NSA documents he obtained to a “foreign adversary”. Ben Wizner, Snowden’s attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, said: "This report, which makes unsubstantiated claims about alleged harm to national security, is from December of 2013. Just this month, Keith Alexander admitted in an interview that he doesn’t 'think anybody really knows what he [Snowden] actually took with him, because the way he did it, we don’t have an accurate way of counting'. In other words, the government’s so-called damage assessment is based entirely on guesses, not on facts or evidence."
  • Steven Aftergood, of the Federation of American Scientists, pointed out that the report's finding that the Snowden leaks had a "grave" impact did not follow any of the levels defined in the annex. "That is a bit odd," he said, adding: "Within this hierarchy, it is not clear where 'grave impact' would fall."
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NSA Director Finally Admits Encryption Is Needed to Protect Public's Privacy - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...213028 surveillance state encryption NSA Comey
shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • NSA Director Finally Admits Encryption Is Needed to Protect Public’s Privacy The new stance denotes a growing awareness within the government that Americans are not comfortable with the State’s grip on their data. By Carey Wedler | AntiMedia | January 22, 2016 Share this article! https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&to&su=NSA%20Director%20Finally%20Admits%20Encryption%20Is%20Needed%20to%20Protect%20Public%E2%80%99s%20Privacy&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mintpress
  • Rogers cited the recent Office of Personnel Management hack of over 20 million users as a reason to increase encryption rather than scale it back. “What you saw at OPM, you’re going to see a whole lot more of,” he said, referring to the massive hack that compromised the personal data about 20 million people who obtained background checks. Rogers’ comments, while forward-thinking, signify an about face in his stance on encryption. In February 2015, he said he “shares [FBI] Director [James] Comey’s concern” about cell phone companies’ decision to add encryption features to their products. Comey has been one loudest critics of encryption. However, Rogers’ comments on Thursday now directly conflict with Comey’s stated position. The FBI director has publicly chastised encryption, as well as the companies that provide it. In 2014, he claimed Apple’s then-new encryption feature could lead the world to “a very dark place.” At a Department of Justice hearing in November, Comey testified that “Increasingly, the shadow that is ‘going dark’ is falling across more and more of our work.” Though he claimed, “We support encryption,” he insisted “we have a problem that encryption is crashing into public safety and we have to figure out, as people who care about both, to resolve it. So, I think the conversation’s in a healthier place.”
  • At the same hearing, Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch declined to comment on whether they had proof the Paris attackers used encryption. Even so, Comey recently lobbied for tech companies to do away with end-to-end encryption. However, his crusade has fallen on unsympathetic ears, both from the private companies he seeks to control — and from the NSA. Prior to Rogers’ statements in support of encryption Thursday, former NSA chief Michael Hayden said, “I disagree with Jim Comey. I actually think end-to-end encryption is good for America.” Still another former NSA chair has criticized calls for backdoor access to information. In October, Mike McConnell told a panel at an encryption summit that the United States is “better served by stronger encryption, rather than baking in weaker encryption.” Former Department of Homeland Security chief, Michael Chertoff, has also spoken out against government being able to bypass encryption.
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  • Regardless of these individual defenses of encryption, the Intercept explained why these statements may be irrelevant: “Left unsaid is the fact that the FBI and NSA have the ability to circumvent encryption and get to the content too — by hacking. Hacking allows law enforcement to plant malicious code on someone’s computer in order to gain access to the photos, messages, and text before they were ever encrypted in the first place, and after they’ve been decrypted. The NSA has an entire team of advanced hackers, possibly as many as 600, camped out at Fort Meade.”
  • Rogers statements, of course, are not a full-fledged endorsement of privacy, nor can the NSA be expected to make it a priority. Even so, his new stance denotes a growing awareness within the government that Americans are not comfortable with the State’s grip on their data. “So spending time arguing about ‘hey, encryption is bad and we ought to do away with it’ … that’s a waste of time to me,” Rogers said Thursday. “So what we’ve got to ask ourselves is, with that foundation, what’s the best way for us to deal with it? And how do we meet those very legitimate concerns from multiple perspectives?”
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Rep. Mike Rogers: Russia May Be Behind Snowden Leak - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37410.htm surveillance state Rogers Feinstein Snowden NSA-blowback Obama NSA-reform
shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has questioned whether Edward Snowden acted alone in leaking details of the National Security Agency's surveillance programs to U.S. and British newspapers last year. In a prerecorded interview due to air on NBC's "Meet The Press" Sunday, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., describes the former NSA contractor as "a thief whom we believe had some help. "Let me just say this. I believe there’s a reason he ended up in the hands, the loving arms, of an FSB agent in Moscow," Rogers said, according to an early transcript provided by the program. "I don’t think that’s a coincidence."
  • Reuters, today (11 days later) - reporting on "a rare interview at NSA's heavily guarded Fort Meade headquarters" from "Richard Ledgett, who leads a task force responding to the leaks":   The NSA's internal review has determined about 98 percent of the scope of the material that Snowden had accessed, and officials have found no evidence that he had help either within the NSA or from adversary spy agencies.
  • New York Times, today: According to senior government officials, F.B.I. agents from the bureau’s Washington field office, who are leading the investigation, believe that Mr. Snowden methodically downloaded the files over several months while working as a government contractor at the Hawaii facility. They also believe that he worked alone, the officials said.
  • Paul Merrell on 21 Jan 14
     
    Head of the House Intelligence Committee Mike Rogers makes some pretty strange accusations against Edward Snowden and gets ratification from Diane Feinstein, head of the corresponding Senate Committee. Nicely done page combining portions of articles and the video of the Rogers-Feinstein interview. Also an added note from Glenn Greenwald. It bears remembering that Snowden was on layover in Moscow waiting for a flight to South America when the U.S. pulled his passport; i.e., the reason he is in Russia is because of U.S. government action.  
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Dire warning over pending released of CIA torture report - CBS News - 0 views

www.cbsnews.com/...torture-report-a-terrible-idea war & peace torture CIA Senate-Intelligence_Committee-Report Rogers
shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Foreign governments and U.S. intelligence agencies are predicting that the release of a Senate report examining the use of torture by the CIA will cause "violence and deaths" abroad, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Sunday.Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, is regularly briefed on intelligence assessments. He told CNN's "State of the Union" that U.S. intelligence agencies and foreign governments have said privately that the release of the report on CIA interrogations a decade ago will be used by extremists to incite violence that is likely to cost lives. The 480-page report, a summary of a still-classified 6,000 page study, is expected to be made public next week."I think this is a terrible idea," Rogers said of the expected release. "Our foreign partners are telling us this will cause violence and deaths...Foreign leaders have approached the government and said, 'You do this, this will cause violence and deaths.' Our own intelligence community has assessed that this will cause violence and deaths."
  • Rogers questioned why the report needed to become public, given that the Justice Department investigated and filed no criminal charges."What good will come of this report?" he asked. "There's been a Department of Justice investigation. It was stopped under the Bush administration. There has been congressional action to stop this activity. President Obama put an executive order saying he wouldn't continue any of that activity."
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Dec 14
     
    For those worried about potential loss of entertainment when Rogers leaves office in March, don't worry. He bowed out of a re-election bid in favor of a new career as a syndicated radio show host. 
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NSA head: We need bulk collection | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...a-head-we-need-bulk-collection surveillance state NSA Rogers Congress bulk-collection
shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • The head of the National Security Agency on Thursday told Senate lawmakers that preventing his agency from collecting Americans’ information in bulk would make it harder to do its job.Under questioning before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Adm. Michael Rogers agreed that ending bulk collection would “significantly reduce [his] operational capabilities.”ADVERTISEMENT“Right now, bulk collection gives us the ability ... to generate insights as to what’s going on,” Rogers told the committee.The NSA head also referenced a January report from the National Academy of Sciences that concluded there is “no software technique that will fully substitute for bulk collection” because of the ability to search through the storehouse of old information. “That independent, impartial, scientifically-founded body came back and said no, under the current structure there is no real replacement,” Rogers said.Rogers was questioned on Thursday by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Intelligence Committee who has become its most vocal privacy hawk.
  • In response to the NSA head’s comments, Wyden pointed to a 2013 White House review group, which found that one controversial NSA bulk collection program “was not essential to preventing attacks” and that the information obtained by the NSA “could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using” other means.The debate follows on a congressional clash earlier this year over the NSA’s bulk collection of records about the phone calls of millions of Americans. The records contained information about whom people called and when but not what they talked about.
  • After a brief lapsing of some portions of the Patriot Act, Congress eventually reined in the NSA by forcing it to go through the courts to search private phone companies’ records for a narrower set of records. Many privacy advocates treated the new law, called the USA Freedom Act, as a significant victory, through national security hawks worried that it would make it harder for the NSA to track terrorists.Under the new system — which has not gone into effect yet — the amount of time it takes to obtain those records “is probably going to be longer I suspect,” Rogers said.Though the phone records database has been the NSA’s most prominent bulk collection program, it is not the only one. The agency’s collection of vast amounts of Internet data has alarmed many privacy advocates and is the target of a current lawsuit from Wikipedia and the American Civil Liberties Union. 
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Florida congressman denied access to censored pages from Congress' 9/11 report | Browar... - 0 views

www.browardbulldog.org/...pages-from-congress-911-report war & peace 9-11 28-pages Congress Rogers Grayson
shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • The U.S. House Intelligence Committee has denied a Florida congressman’s request for access to 28 classified pages from the 2002 report of Congress’ Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando, told BrowardBulldog.org he made his request at the suggestion of House colleagues who have read them as they consider whether to support a proposed resolution urging President Obama to open those long-censored pages to the public. “Why was I denied? I have been instrumental in publicizing the Snowden revelations regarding pervasive domestic spying by the government and this is a petty means for the spying industrial complex to lash back,” Grayson said last week, referring to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.
  • In a party line vote, the House Intelligence Committee voted 8-4 on Dec. 1 to deny Democrat Grayson access to the 28 pages. The same day, the committee unanimously approved requests to access classified committee documents – not necessarily the 28 pages – by 11 other House members. Grayson, an outspoken liberal and a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said his denial was engineered by outgoing Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich. Rogers is a former FBI agent who did not seek re-election in November. “Congressman Rogers made serious misrepresentations to other committee members when he brought this up,” Grayson in a telephone interview. “When the Guardian reported on the fact that there was universal domestic surveillance regarding every single phone call, including this one, I went to the floor of the House and gave a lengthy speech decrying it.”
  • “Chairman Rogers told the committee that I had discussed classified information on the floor. He left out the most important part that I was discussing what was reported in the newspaper,” said Grayson. “He clearly misled the committee for an improper purpose: to deny a sitting member of Congress important classified information necessary for me to do my job.” Rogers did not respond to a request for comment. An aide in his Lansing, Michigan office referred callers to a spokeswoman for the House Intelligence Committee who could not be reached for comment.
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Pentagon and intelligence community chiefs have urged Obama to remove the head of the N... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...6-977a-1030f822fc35_story.html suveillance-state Rogers NSA Clapper Ashton-Carter
shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • The heads of the Pentagon and the nation’s intelligence community have recommended to President Obama that the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, be removed. The recommendation, delivered to the White House last month, was made by Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., according to several U.S. officials familiar with the matter. Action has been delayed, some administration officials said, because relieving Rogers of his duties is tied to another controversial recommendation: to create separate chains of command at the NSA and the military’s cyberwarfare unit, a recommendation by Clapper and Carter that has been stalled because of other issues. The news comes as Rogers is being considered by President-elect Donald Trump to be his nominee for director of national intelligence to replace Clapper as the official who oversees all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. In a move apparently unprecedented for a military officer, Rogers, without notifying superiors, traveled to New York to meet with Trump on Thursday at Trump Tower. That caused consternation at senior levels of the administration, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal personnel matters.
  • The White House, Pentagon and Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment. The NSA did not respond to requests for comment. Carter has concerns with Rogers’s performance, officials said. The driving force for Clapper, meanwhile, was the separation of leadership roles at the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, and his stance that the NSA should be headed by a civilian.
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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. 
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Intelligence Warnings On Benghazi Were Loud And Clear - Investors.com - 0 views

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shared by Gary Edwards on 13 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 13 Nov 13
     
    excerpt: "Months before the murder of a U.S. ambassador in Benghazi, American intelligence analysts documented a massive al-Qaida rally a few miles from the ambassador's residence. At that rally, terror leaders called for the murder of American diplomats. Three U.S. intelligence reports, unearthed by the American Media Institute and detailed here for the first time, offer vivid descriptions of the al-Qaida meeting. Flying the black flag of al-Qaida, some 300 armed men gathered in Benghazi's Al-Tahrir Square on June 7 and 8, 2012. They brandished machine guns, rocket launchers and a truck mounted with an anti-aircraft cannon. The two-day meeting, which included outdoor prayers and a parade of armed vehicles, was attended by a baker's dozen of North African al-Qaida affiliates. "It was like a team pep rally before the game, only for jihad," said a U.S. intelligence analyst who monitors North Africa. "Organized and deadly. You saw what followed. People died." In the face of these three reports, the State Department continued to deny requests for additional security for the U.S. ambassador in Libya. At the same time, the State Department issued a travel advisory warning Americans against going to Libya in August 2012. Obama administration officials have long denied any warning before the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attacks. On the campaign trail, the president insisted that al-Qaida was "decimated" and "on the run," while intelligence reports prepared for the president's advisers told a different story - that al-Qaida's menace was growing in Libya and elsewhere. Al-Qaida itself publicly displayed its strength. Al-Qaida posted pictures of the June 2012 Benghazi meeting on its Arabic-language Facebook page and invited the Arabic-language media to cover the event, which many did. The three U.S. intelligence reports documenting the al-Qaida gathering in Benghazi were circulated in August 2012 and earlier among Defense and State Department officials, as well as Americ
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U.S. Intelligence Officials Believe Snowden Is Working With Russia, Lawmaker Says - NYT... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...with-russia-lawmaker-says.html surveillance state NSA Rogers Snowden killing-the-messenger
shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • A top congressional intelligence official said on Sunday that American counterintelligence officials are virtually unanimous in believing that Edward J. Snowden is “under the influence of Russian intelligence services.”That suggestion came from Representative Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican who is chairman of the Intelligence Committee.Mr. Rogers had previously raised the possibility that Mr. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, might be working for Russia, though the congressman has yet to offer any evidence. His assertions on Sunday, however, were his most sweeping to date.“Every counterintelligence official believes that,” Mr. Rogers said on the NBC News program “Meet the Press.” “You won’t find one that doesn’t believe today he’s under the influence of Russian intelligence services.”
  • But investigators have disclosed no evidence that Mr. Snowden’s work, while under contract to the N.S.A., might have been directed by a foreign power.Ben Wizner, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who advises Mr. Snowden, has vigorously rejected Mr. Rogers’s contentions, noting that Mr. Snowden tried to gain asylum in several other countries before settling in Russia.There has been no public indication that investigators for the F.B.I., the N.S.A. or the Pentagon have uncovered evidence that Mr. Snowden received assistance from any foreign intelligence service.
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Privacy board report last straw on NSA surveillance program, lawmakers say | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...traw-on-surveillance-lawmakers surveillance state NSA NSA-reform Congress NSA-blowback Obama
shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Lawmakers are renewing their calls for an end to a controversial surveillance program that collects data about virtually all American phone calls, citing the newest recommendations from a government privacy board.This newest set of recommendations “spells the final end of the government's bulk collection” of phone call data, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in a statement.The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board — tasked with overseeing the country’s surveillance activities — released its first report on the controversial surveillance programs made public by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden last year.
  • The board recommended that the government end the phone data program, questioning its efficacy and saying that it “lacks a viable legal foundation” and “raises serious threats to privacy and civil liberties as a policy matter, and has shown only limited value.”Last week, President Obama outlined changes he plans to make to the surveillance program, including requiring intelligence agencies to get court approval before accessing the phone data.Critics of the NSA and its phone data program say Obama didn’t go far enough in his speech and are now pointing to the privacy board’s report as evidence that more needs to be done.“The president's recommendations last week did not go far enough to rein in the out-of-control National Security Agency,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — who has questioned the intelligence community on whether it spies on officials — said in a statement.
  • “This report underscores that the collection of records on virtually every phone call made in the United States is an unconstitutional violation of the privacy rights guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment,” he said, calling on Congress to “pass strong legislation to protect the privacy and civil liberties of the American people.”Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), co-author of the USA Freedom Act, which would end bulk surveillance programs, said the report highlights the need for congressional action.“The report appropriately calls into question the legality and constitutionality of the program, and underscores the need to change the law to rein in the government’s overbroad interpretation” of its surveillance authority, he said in a statement.Schiff called for congressional action before next year’s sunset of a surveillance-enabling national security law.“Congress will not re-authorize bulk collection of this data when it expires next year, but Congress should not wait for the program to expire on its own,” he said. “Rather we should work to restructure the program now.”
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  • House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) vowed to consider the report as his committee looks at the phone data program, which “is in need of significant reform.”In his statement, Goodlatte said he plans to hold a hearing “soon” to examine Obama’s announced plans to rein in surveillance, as well as the recommendations from the privacy board and a White House-convened group of privacy and intelligence experts.Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and an ardent defender of the NSA, slammed the report, accusing the privacy board of overstepping its boundaries. 
  • Rogers pointed to the 17 federal judges who, in 38 cases, “examined this issue and found the telephone metadata program to be legal, concluding this program complies with both the statutory text and with the U.S. Constitution.”The privacy board should “advise policymakers on civil liberties and privacy aspects of national security programs, and not partake in unwarranted legal analysis” or “go outside its expertise to opine on the effectiveness of counterterrorism programs,” Rogers said in a statement. 
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XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet' | World ne... - 1 views

www.theguardian.com/...top-secret-program-online-data Edward-Snowden Glenn-Greenwald NSA NSA-Patriot-Act-NDAA NSA-Whistleblower
shared by Gary Edwards on 01 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian's earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight.
  • The files shed light on one of Snowden's most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10
  • "I, sitting at my desk," said Snowden, could "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email".
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  • US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden's assertion: "He's lying. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do."
  • But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.
  • XKeyscore, the documents boast, is the NSA's "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from computer networks – what the agency calls Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). One presentation claims the program covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata.
  • Analysts can also use XKeyscore and other NSA systems to obtain ongoing "real-time" interception of an individual's internet activity.
  • Under US law, the NSA is required to obtain an individualized Fisa warrant only if the target of their surveillance is a 'US person', though no such warrant is required for intercepting the communications of Americans with foreign targets.
  • But XKeyscore provides the technological capability, if not the legal authority, to target even US persons for extensive electronic surveillance without a warrant provided that some identifying information, such as their email or IP address, is known to the analyst.
  • One training slide illustrates the digital activity constantly being collected by XKeyscore and the analyst's ability to query the databases at any time.
  • The purpose of XKeyscore is to allow analysts to search the metadata as well as the content of emails and other internet activity, such as browser history, even when there is no known email account (a "selector" in NSA parlance) associated with the individual being targeted.
  • Analysts can also search by name, telephone number, IP address, keywords, the language in which the internet activity was conducted or the type of browser used.
  • One document notes that this is because "strong selection [search by email address] itself gives us only a very limited capability" because "a large amount of time spent on the web is performing actions that are anonymous."
  • Email monitoring
  • One top-secret document describes how the program "searches within bodies of emails, webpages and documents", including the "To, From, CC, BCC lines" and the 'Contact Us' pages on websites".
  • To search for emails, an analyst using XKS enters the individual's email address into a simple online search form, along with the "justification" for the search and the time period for which the emails are sought.
  • One document, a top secret 2010 guide describing the training received by NSA analysts for general surveillance under the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008, explains that analysts can begin surveillance on anyone by clicking a few simple pull-down menus designed to provide both legal and targeting justifications.
  • Once options on the pull-down menus are selected, their target is marked for electronic surveillance and the analyst is able to review the content of their communications:
  • Chats, browsing history and other internet activity
  • Beyond emails, the XKeyscore system allows analysts to monitor a virtually unlimited array of other internet activities, including those within social media.
  • An NSA tool called DNI Presenter, used to read the content of stored emails, also enables an analyst using XKeyscore to read the content of Facebook chats or private messages.
  • The XKeyscore program also allows an analyst to learn the IP addresses of every person who visits any website the analyst specifies.
  • The quantity of communications accessible through programs such as XKeyscore is staggeringly large. One NSA report from 2007 estimated that there were 850bn "call events" collected and stored in the NSA databases, and close to 150bn internet records. Each day, the document says, 1-2bn records were added.
  • William Binney, a former NSA mathematician, said last year that the agency had "assembled on the order of 20tn transactions about US citizens with other US citizens", an estimate, he said, that "only was involving phone calls and emails". A 2010 Washington Post article reported that "every day, collection systems at the [NSA] intercept and store 1.7bn emails, phone calls and other type of communications."
  • The ACLU's deputy legal director, Jameel Jaffer, told the Guardian last month that national security officials expressly said that a primary purpose of the new law was to enable them to collect large amounts of Americans' communications without individualized warrants.
  • "The government doesn't need to 'target' Americans in order to collect huge volumes of their communications," said Jaffer. "The government inevitably sweeps up the communications of many Americans" when targeting foreign nationals for surveillance.
  • Gary Edwards on 01 Aug 13
     
    "One presentation claims the XKeyscore program covers 'nearly everything a typical user does on the internet' ................................................................. A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its "widest-reaching" system for developing intelligence from the internet. The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian's earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight. The files shed light on one of Snowden's most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10. "I, sitting at my desk," said Snowden, could "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email". US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden's assertion: "He's lying. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do." But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed. XKeyscore, the documents boast, is the NSA's "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from computer networks - what the agency calls Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). One
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Aug 13
     
    "But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed. " Note in that regard that Snowden said in an earlier interview that use of this system rarely was audited and that when audited, the most common request if changes were requested was to beef up the justification for the search. The XScore system puts the lie to just about everything the Administration has claimed about intense oversight by all three branches of federal government and about not reading emails or listening to (Skype) phone calls. The lies keep stacking up in an ever-deepening pile.
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Roger L. Simon » Is America in a Pre-Revolutionary State this July 4th? - 0 views

pjmedia.com/...a-in-a-pre-revolutionary-state July-4th Roger-Simon American-Revolution Arab-Spring freedom-liberty
shared by Gary Edwards on 03 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 03 Jul 13
     
    As we approach July 4, 2013, is America in a pre-revolutionary state? Are we headed for a Tahrir Square of our own with the attendant mammoth social turmoil, possibly even violence. Could it happen here? We are two-thirds of the way into the most incompetent presidency in our history. People everywhere are fed up. Even many of the so-called liberals who propelled Barack Obama into office have stopped defending him in the face of an unprecedented number of scandals coming at us one after the other like hideous monsters in some non-stop computer game. And now looming is the monster of monsters, ObamaCare, the healthcare reform almost no one wanted and fewer understood. It will be administered by the Internal Revenue Service, an organization that has been revealed to be a kind of post-modern American Gestapo, asking not just to examine our accounting books but the books we read . What could be more totalitarian than that? Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal warns the costs of ObamaCare are close to tripling what were promised , and the number of doctors in our country is rapidly diminishing. No more "My son, the doctor!" It doesn't pay. And young people most of all will not be able to afford escalating health insurance costs and will end up paying the fine to the IRS, simultaneously bankrupting the health system and enhancing the brutal power of the IRS - all this while unemployment numbers remain near historical highs. No one knows how many have given up looking for work while crony capitalist friends of the administration enrich themselves on mythological clean-energy projects. In fact, everywhere we look on this July Fourth sees a great civilization in decline. And much of that decline can be laid at the foot of the incumbent. Especially his own people, African Americans, have suffered.  Their unemployment numbers are catastrophic, their real needs ignored while hustlers like Sharpton, Jackson, and, sadly, even the president fan the flames of non-exi
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Ron Wyden: the future of NSA programs is being determined now | World news | theguardia... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ates-obama-end-data-collection surveillance state NSA Wyden Obama Snowden 1.7-million-docs perjury Rand Paul
shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Privacy advocates pressed Barack Obama to end the bulk collection of Americans’ communications data at a series of meetings at the White House on Thursday, seizing their final chance to convince him of the need for meaningful reform of sweeping surveillance practices. A key US senator left one meeting at the White House with the impression that President Obama has yet to decide on specific reforms. “The debate is clearly fluid,” senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a longtime critic of bulk surveillance, told the Guardian after the meeting. “My sense is the president, and the administration, is wrestling with these issues,” Wyden said. Other groups were meeting presidential aides on Thursday afternoon, including the representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (Epic) and the Open Technology Institute. Expectations were mounting that Obama will propose changing the National Security Agency’s controversial database of all domestic phone call records.
  • Wyden, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, said he viewed the coming days and weeks, ahead of an announcement by Obama about the future scope of surveillance, to be decisive for the debate triggered by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.  “What I’d say to Americans is that the future of these programs is being determined now,” Wyden said. “For those like me, who believe that security and liberty are not mutually exclusive, this is the time to weigh in.”
  • Speaking after the meeting with legislators, White House spokesman Jay Carney described the conversation as an opportunity for Obama to “solicit their input”, rather than brief them on his decisions about the future scope of surveillance activities.  The White House held meetings on Wednesday with the leadership of the intelligence agencies, including NSA director Keith Alexander and director of national intelligence James Clapper, as well as with Obama’s privacy and civil liberties advisory group. On Friday, Obama’s staff is expected to meet representatives of major technology firms, ostensibly to continue deliberations.  Shortly before the legislators’ meeting began, two of the attendees, House intelligence committee leaders Mike Rogers of Michigan and Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, issued a statement describing a classified Defense Department report that they said alleged that Snowden’s leaks –which they said totaled 1.7m intelligence files and impacted intelligence operations of all military branches – could “gravely impact” US national security. 
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  • A spokesman for the Defense Intelligence Agency, which spearheaded the report, said the report was an “initial assessment”, and the work of the Information Review Task Force was “ongoing”. But neither the House intelligence committee leaders nor the DIA would provide additional information substantiating the allegations of Snowden’s impact.  “The report is classified and is not releasable,” said the DIA spokesman, who would not agree to be quoted by name. The classified interim assessment was delivered to the House and Senate intelligence committees on 6 January, and the DIA spokesman said there is no deadline for a final report, nor a mandate to make such a report public. 
  • Snowden's attorney, Ben Wizner, described the report as an attack on the journalism produced by the Snowden disclosures. "In truth, Mike Rogers is only indirectly attacking Snowden. He’s directly attacking the journalists who have reported on these revelations. There is not a shred of evidence that any adversary has had any access to any document other than those published by journalists, and they haven't contradicted that," Wizner told the Guardian. "We shouldn’t have any confidence in the accuracy of this innuendo. The government has shown time and again they have very little idea of what Snowden had access to."
  • Speaking outside the White House after a separate meeting with Obama, senator Rand Paul also stepped up his calls for government leniency toward Snowden, contrasting his treatment with Clapper, who has admitted misleading the Senate about surveillance. "Those who call for some sort of frontier justice for [Snowden] need to understand the laws needs to apply equally," Paul told reporters. "James Clapper by all accounts committed perjury which is punishable by five years in prison and if you want to throw the book at Snowden, it's a little hard to say 'Oh, but we're not going to do anything about James Clapper lying to Congress.'"
  • Asked if he was making a direct comparison, Paul added: "It's not my job to compare them or contrast what they did, but what James Clapper did has greatly harmed the credibility of the intelligence agencies ... he has really greatly damaged the intelligence community. It's arguable." After meeting with Obama, Wyden saw the debate over surveillance winding toward a conclusion. “This is crunch time. The decisions are going to be made in the very near future,” Wyden said. “The president made clear he wanted to hear from us. I’m going to keep urging members of Congress and the public to stand on the side of real reform and end intrusive surveillance practices that in effect violate the liberties of our people without making us safer.”
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Jan 14
     
    Wyden  says it's time to get involved. Wyden is one of my senators and is about to get an email informing him that if he believes Barack Obama is the person who will decide this issue, he'd better think that over a bit more.  
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Republican Party Calls For End To NSA Domestic Phone Records Program | TIME.com - 0 views

swampland.time.com/...nvestigation-into-nsa-snooping surveillance state NSA NSA-blowback RNC-resolution
shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • In the latest indication of a growing libertarian wing of the GOP, the Republican National Committee passed a resolution Friday calling for an investigation into the “gross infringement” of Americans’ rights by National Security Agency programs that were revealed by Edward Snowden. The resolution also calls on on Republican members of Congress to enact amendments to the Section 215 law that currently allows the spy agency to collect records of almost every domestic telephone call. The amendment should make clear that “blanket surveillance of the Internet activity, phone records and correspondence — electronic, physical, and otherwise — of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court,” the resolution reads.
  • The measure, the “Resolution to Renounce the National Security Agency’s Surveillance Program,” passed by an “overwhelming majority” by voice vote, along with resolutions calling for the repeal of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act and reaffirming the party’s pro-life stance, according to Reince Priebus, the RNC chairman. Among other points, the resolution declares “the mass collection and retention of personal data is in itself contrary to the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” a claim embraced by civil libertarians of both parties. The revelation of the NSA programs has caused deepened a rift within the Republican Party between national security hawks and libertarians, but at the meeting, no RNC member rose to speak against the resolution.
  • WHEREAS, the mass collection and retention of personal data is in itself contrary to the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which guarantees the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, that warrants shall issue only upon probable cause, and generally prevents the American government from issuing modern-day writs of assistance; WHEREAS, unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society and this program represents a gross infringement of the freedom of association and the right to privacy and goes far beyond even the permissive limits set by the Patriot Act; and WHEREAS, Republican House Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, an author of the Patriot Act and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee at the time of Section 215′s passage, called the Section 215 surveillance program “an abuse of that law,” writing that, “based on the scope of the released order, both the administration and the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court are relying on an unbounded interpretation of the act that Congress never intended,” therefore be it
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  • The full text of the resolution as given to TIME follows below: Resolution to Renounce the National Security Agency’s Surveillance Program WHEREAS, the secret surveillance program called PRISM targets, among other things, the surveillance of U.S. citizens on a vast scale and monitors searching habits of virtually every American on the internet; WHEREAS, this dragnet program is, as far as we know, the largest surveillance effort ever launched by a democratic government against its own citizens, consisting of the mass acquisition of Americans’ call details encompassing all wireless and landline subscribers of the country’s three largest phone companies; WHEREAS, every time an American citizen makes a phone call, the NSA gets a record of the location, the number called, the time of the call and the length of the conversation, all of which are an invasion into the personal lives of American citizens that violates the right of free speech and association afforded by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution;
  • RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee encourages Republican lawmakers to enact legislation to amend Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make it clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity, phone records and correspondence — electronic, physical, and otherwise — of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court; RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee encourages Republican lawmakers to call for a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying and the committee should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform ot end unconstitutional surveillance as well as hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance; and
  • RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee encourages Republican lawmakers to immediately take action to halt current unconstitutional surveillance programs and provide a full public accounting of the NSA’s data collection programs.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 14
     
    That's more like it! Notice that the call is for a "special committee to investigate," etc., not the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Mike Rogers.  Note also the call for heads to roll.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 14
     
    Something messed up in the quoting of the resolution. Please go to the linked web site for the resolution's full text.
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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.  
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White House rejects clemency for Edward Snowden over NSA leaks | World news | theguardi... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...se-nsa-edward-snowden-clemency surveillance state Snowden clemency whistle-blowers Obama Feinstein Rogers
shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • The White House and leading lawmakers have rejected Edward Snowden's plea for clemency and said he should return to the United States to face trial.Dan Pfeiffer, an Obama administration adviser, said on Sunday the NSA whistleblower's request was not under consideration and that he should face criminal charges for leaking classified information. Dianne Feinstein and Mike Rogers, respectively the heads of the Senate and House intelligence committees, maintained the same tough line and accused Snowden of damaging US interests.The former NSA employee this week appealed for clemency and an opportunity to address members of Congress about US surveillance. He also asked for international help to lobby the US to drop the charges against him. The White House, stung by domestic and international criticism, has shown growing appetite to rein in some of the NSA programmes that Snowden exposed but it has not softened its hostility to the 30-year-old fugitive.
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2014 Press Release - NSA Announces New Civil Liberties and Privacy Officer" - 0 views

www.nsa.gov/...iberties_privacy_officer.shtml surveillance state NSA Civil-Liberties-&-Privacy-Officer Rebecca-Richards
shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • GEN Keith Alexander - Commander, U.S. Cyber Command/Director, NSA/Chief, CSS - announced today that well-known privacy expert Rebecca Richards will serve as the National Security Agency's new Civil Liberties and Privacy Officer. She most recently worked as the Senior Director for Privacy Compliance at the Department of Homeland Security.
  • Selected to lead the new NSA Civil Liberties and Privacy Office at the agency's Fort Meade headquarters, Ms. Richards' primary job will be to provide expert advice to the Director and oversight of NSA's civil liberties and privacy related activities. She will also develop measures to further strengthen NSA's privacy protections.
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Apr 14
     
    Softball Interview here. . I wasn't really expecting Obama to reach out to the ACLU and EFF for a good civil liberties lawyer recommendation, but this appointment is lame, the former Director of Privacy for Dept. of Homeland Security, those wonderful folk who keep the homeland safe from terra-ists. The airport gropers, secret no-fly listers, and masters of border protection, where all Constitutional privacy rights do not apply, per the Supreme Court., the coordinators of our glorious "fusion centers," the provisioners of funding for armored cars and surveillance equipment for local police, etc. A sample from her interview linked above that I transcribed (omitting all the umhs and ahs): "When you think about NSA, privacy there for them was privacy of its employees, about contractors, about the average person walking down the street - it was not as concentrated on, this is the big collection that we're getting through these means, and so what this job does is that it brings it up under direct reports to the director of NSA and it is just as a focal point, to bring all of those and -- I walked in the building and people were already asking questions so ..." Heaven help us; has this lassie's brain yet matured to the point of completing her first sentence? This is the lady who is going to keep Admiral Rogers on the straight and narrow path of respecting our civil liberties? I suspect not.  I may return to this inarticulate and non-assertive young lady in later posts. Let it suffice for now to observe that the Dept. of Homeland Security, whose raison d'etre is a virtually non-existent terrorist threat manufactured by the politics of fear, has not exactly been a champion of the People's civil liberties. Moreover, I've had recent occasion to dig rather deeply into exactly what it is that Privacy Officers do and don't do. Telling heads of agencies that they cannot lawfully do what they want to do is no
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