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Paul Merrell

FBI, CIA Use Backdoor Searches To Warrentlessly Spy On Americans' Communications | Techdirt - 0 views

www.techdirt.com/...ications-without-warrant.shtml

surveillance state NSA CIA FBI Wyden NSA-backdoors PCLOB

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • The other shoe just dropped when it comes to how the federal government illegally spies on Americans. Last summer, the details of the NSA's "backdoor searches" were revealed. This involved big collections of content and metadata (so, no, not "just metadata" as meaningless as that phrase is) that were collected under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA). This is part of the program that the infamous PRISM effort operates under, and which allows the NSA to collect all sorts of content, including communications to, from or about a "target" -- where a "target" can be incredibly loosely defined (i.e., it can include groups or machines or just about anything). The "backdoor searches" were a special loophole added in 2011 allowing the NSA to make use of "US person names and identifiers as query terms." In the past, it had been limited (as per the NSA's mandate) to only non-US persons.
  • This morning, James Clapper finally responded to a request from Senator Ron Wyden concerning the number of such backdoor searches using US identifiers that were done by various government agencies. And, surprisingly, it's redaction free. The big reveal is... that it's not just the NSA doing these searches, but the CIA and FBI as well. This is especially concerning with regards to the FBI. This means that the FBI, who does surveillance on Americans, is spying on Americans communications that were collected by the NSA and that they're doing so without anything resembling a warrant. Oh, and let's make this even worse: the FBI isn't even tracking how often it does this. It's just doing it willy nilly:
  • Got that? Basically, the FBI often asks the NSA for a big chunk of data that the NSA probably shouldn't have in the first place -- including tons of Americans' communications, and the FBI gets to dump it into the same database that it is free to query. And the FBI tracks none of this, other than to say that it believes that there are a "substantial" number of such queries. This would seem to be a pretty blatant attempt to end run around the 4th Amendment, giving the FBI broad access to searching through the communications of Americans with what appears to be almost no oversight. Yikes! Oh, and it's not just the NSA, but the CIA as well. Remember, the CIA is not supposed to be doing any surveillance on US persons (like the NSA), but that's not what's happening at all. At least the CIA tracks some (but not all) of its abuse of backdoor searches:
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The FBI does not track how many queries it conducts using U.S. person identifiers. The FBI is responsible for identifying and countering threats to the homeland, such as terrorism pilots and espionage, inside the U.S. Unlike other IC agencies, because of its domestic mission, the FBI routinely deals with information about US persons and is expected to look for domestic connections to threats emanating from abroad, including threats involving Section 702 non-US. person targets. To fulfill its mission and avoid missing connections within the information lawfully in its possession, the FBI does not distinguish between U.S. and non- U.S. persons for purposes of querying Section 702 collection. It should be noted that the FBI does not receive all of Section 702 collection; rather, the FBI only requests and receives a small percentage of total Section 702 collection and only for those selectors in which the FBI has an investigative interest. Moreover, because the FBI stores Section 702 collection in the same database as its "traditional" FISA collection, a query of "traditional" FISA collection will also query Section 702 collection. In addition, the FBI routinely conducts queries across its databases in an effort to locate relevant information that is already in its possession when it opens new national security investigations and assessments. Therefore, the FBI believes the number of queries is substantial. However, only FBI personnel trained in the Section 702 minimization procedures are able to View any Section 702 collection that is responsive to any query.
  • In calendar year 2013, CIA conducted fewer than 1900 queries of Section 702-acquired communications using specific U.S. person identifiers as query terms or other more general query terms if they are intended to return information about a particular U.S. person. Of that total number approximately 40% were conducted as a result of requests for counterterrorism-related information from other U.S. intelligence agencies. Approximately 27% of the total number are duplicative or recurring queries conducted at different times using the same identifiers but that CIA nonetheless counts as separate queries. CIA also uses U.S. person identifiers to conduct metadata-only queries against metadata derived from the FISA Section 702 collection. However, the CIA does not track the number of metadata-only queries using U.S. person identifiers.
  • So, the CIA is doing these kinds of warrantless fishing expeditions into the communications of Americans as well, but at least the CIA tracks how often it's doing so. Of course, when it comes to metadata searches, the CIA doesn't bother. It's also a bit bizarre that the CIA is apparently carrying out a bunch of those searches for "other U.S. intelligence agencies," when the CIA should be especially limited in its ability to do these searches in the first place. Senator Wyden has responded to these revelations by pointing out how "flawed" the oversight system is that these have been allowed:
  • When the FBI says it conducts a substantial number of searches and it has no idea of what the number is, it shows how flawed this system is and the consequences of inadequate oversight. This huge gap in oversight is a problem now, and will only grow as global communications systems become more interconnected. The findings transmitted to me raise questions about whether the FBI is exercising any internal controls over the use of backdoor searches including who and how many government employees can access the personal data of individual Americans. I intend to follow this up until it is fixed.
  • Hopefully, now you are starting to recognize what a big deal it was last week when the House of Representatives recently voted to defund the ability to do these kinds of backdoor searches. Still, much more needs to be done. Oh, and in case you're wondering why Clapper finally 'fessed up to the FBI and CIA making use of these data to warrantlessly spy on Americans, it's worth noting that the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) is expected to come out with its report on the Section 702 surveillance program on July 2nd (7/02, get it?). It seems likely that the report will discuss these backdoor searches on Americans and how other agencies besides the NSA has been involved in the practice.
  • Paul Merrell on 01 Jul 14
     
    Note to self: Look for the new PCLOB report in the morning. 
Paul Merrell

NUJ members under police surveillance mount collective legal challenge - National Union of Journalists - 0 views

www.nuj.org.uk/...illance-mount-collective-legal

UK civil-liberties freedom-of-the-press terrorism™ police-crackdown journalism

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Six NUJ members have discovered that their lawful journalistic and union activities are being monitored and recorded by the Metropolitan Police. They are now taking legal action against the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the Home Secretary to challenge this ongoing police surveillance. The NUJ members involved in the legal challenge include Jules Mattsson, Mark Thomas, Jason Parkinson, Jess Hurd, David Hoffman and Adrian Arbib. All of them have worked on media reports that have exposed corporate and state misconduct and they have each also previously pursued litigation or complaints arising from police misconduct. In many of those cases, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has been forced to pay damages, apologise and admit liability to them after their journalistic rights were curtailed by his officers at public events.
  • The surveillance was revealed as part of an ongoing campaign, which began in 2008, during which NUJ members have been encouraged to obtain data held about them by the authorities including the Metropolitan Police 'National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit' (NDEDIU). The supposed purpose of the unit is to monitor and police so called 'domestic extremism'. In the course of the campaign, a number of NUJ members have obtained data held about them and the union fears there are many more journalists and union members being monitored.
  • The NUJ has instructed Bhatt Murphy Solicitors to pursue the case. The cases raise significant and wide-ranging concerns about: the impact on privacy, the chilling effect on the ability of NUJ members and journalists to do their jobs, and their ability to take part in legitimate trade union activity. The claim challenges the surveillance and retention of data on the basis that it is unnecessary, disproportionate and not in accordance with the law. Journalists and union members have no way of knowing the circumstances in which their activities are monitored, retained, disclosed and systematically stored on secret police 'domestic extremism' databases. The NUJ continues to offer support and assistance to the members involved and extends its support to other media workers who may be affected. The union is extremely concerned by the lack of legal safeguards to protect the press and trade unions from state interference, and believes the actions of the authorities do not abide by domestic law and the European Convention on Human Rights, including Article 8 on privacy, Article 10 on freedom of expression and Article 11 on freedom of assembly and association.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • I'm A Photographer Not A Terrorist – NUJ supported campaign. Met's journalist files include details of sexual orientation, childhood and family medical history - Jules MattssonTimes journalist Jules Mattsson is one of six members of the NUJ to launch a legal challenge against the Metropolitan Police after finding that it keeps surveillance files on them in a database of Domestic Extremism. When police spy on journalists like me, freedom is at risk - Jason N ParkinsonPersistent requests under the Data Protection Act revealed that files were kept on journalists who were simply doing their job IFJ backs legal challenge by journalists over police surveillance in UKThe International Federation of Journalists has joined in supporting six NUJ members who have taken legal action against the Metropolitan Police and the Home Secretary. The legal challenge concerns the monitoring and recording of their lawful journalistic and union activities.
  • Paul Merrell on 23 Nov 14
     
    Two excellent short videos on this page. It's disturbing that police are ignoring the EU Convention on Human Rights. Related, legislation is currently in Parliament to grant the government the power to censor any form of "extremism" on the Web, with the term "extremism" left undefined.   Civil liberties have been under attack in the UK for at least 1,000 years. Time for a new Magna Carta?
Paul Merrell

How Israel helps eavesdrop on US citizens | The Electronic Intifada - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...7788

surveillance state NSA Israel Unit 8200 Narus Verint

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • It is well-known that the two largest American telecom companies AT&T and Verizon collaborated with the US government to allow illegal eavesdropping on their customers. The known uses to which information obtained this way has been put include building the government’s massive secret “watch lists,” and “no-fly lists” and even, Bamford suggests, to deny Small Business Administration loans to citizens or reject their children’s applications to military colleges. What is less well-known is that AT&T and Verizon handed “the bugging of their entire networks — carrying billions of American communications every day” to two companies founded in Israel. Verint and Narus, as they are called, are “superintrusive — conducting mass surveillance on both international and domestic communications 24/7,” and sifting traffic at “key Internet gateways” around the US.
  • Virtually all US voice and data communications and much from the rest of the world can be remotely accessed by these companies in Israel, which Bamford describes as “the eavesdropping capital of the world.” Although there is no way to prove cooperation, Bamford writes that “the greatest potential beneficiaries of this marriage between the Israeli eavesdroppers and America’s increasingly centralized telecom grid are Israel’s intelligence agencies.” Israel’s spy agencies have long had a revolving-door relationship with Verint and Narus and other Israeli military-security firms. The relationship is particularly close between the firms and Israel’s own version of the NSA, called “Unit 8200.”
  • Israeli companies seeking a share of massively expanded US intelligence budgets formed similarly incestuous relationships with some in the American intelligence establishment: Ken Minihan, a former director of the NSA, served on Verint’s “security committee” and the former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) official responsible for liaison with the telecom industry became head of the Verint unit that sold eavesdropping equipment to the FBI and NSA.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • FISA — the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 — required the government to seek court warrants for wiretaps where at least one target was in the US. In 2005, it was revealed that the Bush administration had been flagrantly violating this law. Last July, Congress passed a bill legalizing this activity and giving retroactive immunity to the telecom companies that had assisted.
  • Israel has a well-established record of compromising American national security. The most notorious case was that of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. Although the full details of his crimes are still secret, he is thought to have passed critical information about US intelligence-gathering methods to Israel, which then traded those secrets to US adversaries. In 2005, Larry Franklin, a Defense Department analyst, pleaded guilty to spying for Israel. Most recently, Ben-Ami Kadish, a retired US army engineer, was indicted in April for allegedly passing classified documents about US nuclear weapons to Israel from 1979 to 1985. Two former officials of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, are still awaiting trial on charges that they passed classified information between Franklin and the Israeli government.
  • Nor have particular Israeli firms established a record of trustworthiness that would justify such complacency. Jacob “Kobi” Alexander, the former Israeli intelligence officer who founded Verint, fled the US to Israel in 2006 just before he and other top executives of a subsidiary were indicted for fraud that allegedly cost US taxpayers and company shareholders $138 million. Alexander eventually adopted a fake identity and hid in the southern African country of Namibia where he is now fighting extradition
  • Israeli companies do not assist the US only to spy on its own citizens, of course. Another Israeli firm, Natural Speech Communication (NSC), among whose directors is former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit, makes software that the US uses to electronically analyze and key-word search recorded conversations in “Levantine Arabic,” the dialects “spoken by Israeli Arabs, Jordanians, Lebanese and Palestinians.” Mexico and Australia are among other countries known to use Israeli technologies and firms to eavesdrop on their citizens.
Paul Merrell

Senate Investigation of Bush-Era Torture Erupts Into Constitutional Crisis | The Nation - 0 views

www.thenation.com/...e-erupts-constitutional-crisis

surveillance state CIA Feinstein Senate-Intelligence-Committee

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Here’s what Feinstein described Tuesday morning: At some time after the committee staff identified and reviewed the Internal Panetta Review documents, access to the vast majority of them was removed by the CIA. We believe this happened in 2010 but we have no way of knowing the specifics. Nor do we know why the documents were removed. The staff was focused on reviewing the tens of thousands of new documents that continued to arrive on a regular basis. […] Shortly [after Udall’s comments], on January 15, 2014, CIA Director Brennan requested an emergency meeting to inform me and Vice Chairman Chambliss that without prior notification or approval, CIA personnel had conducted a “search”—that was John Brennan’s word—of the committee computers at the offsite facility. This search involved not only a search of documents provided to the committee by the CIA, but also a search of the ”stand alone” and “walled-off” committee network drive containing the committee’s own internal work product and communications. According to Brennan, the computer search was conducted in response to indications that some members of the committee staff might already have had access to the Internal Panetta Review. The CIA did not ask the committee or its staff if the committee had access to the Internal Review, or how we obtained it. Instead, the CIA just went and searched the committee’s computers.
  • If what Feinstein alleges is true, it essentially amounts to a constitutional crisis. And she said as much during her speech, describing “a defining moment for the oversight of our intelligence community.” “I have grave concerns that the CIA’s search may well have violated the separation of powers principles embodied in the United States Constitution, including the Speech and Debate clause. It may have undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function,” Feinstein said. “Besides the constitutional implications, the CIA’s search may also have violated the Fourth Amendment, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as Executive Order 12333, which prohibits the CIA from conducting domestic searches or surveillance.”
  • There’s also the issue of intimidation. The media reports that have been bubbling up recently around this issue have suggested that Senate investigators illegally obtained the Panetta review—some even raised the specter of hacking by the Senate investigators. The CIA went so far as to file a crime report with the Department of Justice, accusing Senate staffers of illegally obtaining the Panetta review. Tuesday morning, Feinstein strenuously denied the review was illegally obtained, and asserted it was included in the 6.2 million files turned over by the CIA and describing at length why Senate lawyers felt it was a lawful document for the committee to possess. And, in a remarkable statement, Feinstein accused the CIA of intimidation by filing the crime report. “[T]here is no legitimate reason to allege to the Justice Department that Senate staff may have committed a crime. I view the acting general counsel’s referral [to DoJ] as a potential effort to intimidate this staff—and I am not taking it lightly.” Feinstein went on to note one fairly amazing fact. The (acting) general counsel she referred to, who filed the complaint with DoJ, was a lawyer in the CIA’s counterterrorism center beginning in 2004. That means he was directly involved in legal justifications for the torture program. “And now this individual is sending a crimes report to the Department of Justice on the actions of congressional staff,” she noted gravely. “The same congressional staff who researched and drafted a report that details how CIA officers—including the acting general counsel himself—provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice about the program.”
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Feinstein included an interesting aside in her speech. “Let me note: because the CIA has refused to answer the questions in my January 23 letter, and the CIA inspector general review is ongoing, I have limited information about exactly what the CIA did in conducting its search.”
  • Also: remember that earlier this year, in response to a question from Senator Bernie Sanders, the National Security Agency did not expressly deny spying on Congress. The NSA may just have been being careful with its language, reasoning that since bulk data collection exists, perhaps members of Congress were caught up in it. But the question remains: if the CIA felt justified spying on Senate computers, may it have listened in on phone calls as well?
  • Feinstein’s grave concerns were echoed Tuesday morning by Senator Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “This is not just about getting to the truth of the CIA’s shameful use of torture. This is also about the core founding principle of the separation of powers, and the future of this institution and its oversight role,” Leahy said in a statement. “The Senate is bigger than any one Senator. Senators come and go, but the Senate endures. The members of the Senate must stand up in defense of this institution, the Constitution, and the values upon which this nation was founded.”
  • Underlying this constitutional crisis is a desire by many at the CIA to sweep the Bush-era torture abuses under the rug. That logically would be the clear motivating factor in seizing the Panetta review from Senate investigators. And Brennan wasn’t afraid to keep pushing that approach—even during the same Tuesday interview with NBC’s Mitchell in which he denied “spying” on the Senate. Brennan also said that the CIA’s history of detention and interrogation should be “put behind us.” (It should be noted, of course, that there is strong circumstantial evidence that Brennan himself was complicit in the illegal torture program when he served in the Bush administration.) In the wake of her revelations on Tuesday, Feinstein renewed her desire to declassify the Senate report. “We’re not going to stop. I intend to move to have the findings, conclusions and the executive summary of the report sent to the president for declassification and release to the American people,” she said, and suggested the findings will shock the public. “If the Senate can declassify this report, we will be able to ensure that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted.”
  • Obama has long said he supports declassification, and it seems it will happen soon. Tuesday, Feinstein was already moving to hold a committee vote on declassification. Committee Republicans will likely oppose it, but independent Senator Angus King, the swing vote, told reporters he is inclined to vote for declassification.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Mar 14
     
    Note the error in the last quoted paragraph: Obama has said he supports declassification of the Senate report's *findings," not the entire report. That's likely over a 6,000-page difference.
Paul Merrell

NSA Spying Relies on AT&T's 'Extreme Willingness to Help' - ProPublica - 0 views

www.propublica.org/...ts-extreme-willingness-to-help

surveillance state NSA AT&T

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Aug 15 - No Cached
  • he National Security Agency’s ability to spy on vast quantities of Internet traffic passing through the United States has relied on its extraordinary, decades-long partnership with a single company: the telecom giant AT&T. While it has been long known that American telecommunications companies worked closely with the spy agency, newly disclosed NSA documents show that the relationship with AT&T has been considered unique and especially productive. One document described it as “highly collaborative,” while another lauded the company’s “extreme willingness to help.”
  • AT&T’s cooperation has involved a broad range of classified activities, according to the documents, which date from 2003 to 2013. AT&T has given the NSA access, through several methods covered under different legal rules, to billions of emails as they have flowed across its domestic networks. It provided technical assistance in carrying out a secret court order permitting the wiretapping of all Internet communications at the United Nations headquarters, a customer of AT&T. The NSA’s top-secret budget in 2013 for the AT&T partnership was more than twice that of the next-largest such program, according to the documents. The company installed surveillance equipment in at least 17 of its Internet hubs on American soil, far more than its similarly sized competitor, Verizon. And its engineers were the first to try out new surveillance technologies invented by the eavesdropping agency. One document reminds NSA officials to be polite when visiting AT&T facilities, noting: “This is a partnership, not a contractual relationship.” The documents, provided by the former agency contractor Edward Snowden, were jointly reviewed by The New York Times and ProPublica.
  • It is not clear if the programs still operate in the same way today. Since the Snowden revelations set off a global debate over surveillance two years ago, some Silicon Valley technology companies have expressed anger at what they characterize as NSA intrusions and have rolled out new encryption to thwart them. The telecommunications companies have been quieter, though Verizon unsuccessfully challenged a court order for bulk phone records in 2014. At the same time, the government has been fighting in court to keep the identities of its telecom partners hidden. In a recent case, a group of AT&T customers claimed that the NSA’s tapping of the Internet violated the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches. This year, a federal judge dismissed key portions of the lawsuit after the Obama administration argued that public discussion of its telecom surveillance efforts would reveal state secrets, damaging national security.
Paul Merrell

After Brit spies 'snoop' on families' lawyers, UK govt admits: We flouted human rights laws * The Register - 0 views

www.theregister.co.uk/...uk_spies_on_lawyers

surveillance state GCHQ MI5 lawyer-client-communications

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • The British government has admitted that its practice of spying on confidential communications between lawyers and their clients was a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Details of the controversial snooping emerged in November: lawyers suing Blighty over its rendition of two Libyan families to be tortured by the late and unlamented Gaddafi regime claimed Her Majesty's own lawyers seemed to have access to the defense team's emails. The families' briefs asked for a probe by the secretive Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), a move that led to Wednesday's admission. "The concession the government has made today relates to the agencies' policies and procedures governing the handling of legally privileged communications and whether they are compatible with the ECHR," a government spokesman said in a statement to the media, via the Press Association. "In view of recent IPT judgments, we acknowledge that the policies applied since 2010 have not fully met the requirements of the ECHR, specifically Article 8. This includes a requirement that safeguards are made sufficiently public."
  • The guidelines revealed by the investigation showed that MI5 – which handles the UK's domestic security – had free reign to spy on highly private and sensitive lawyer-client conversations between April 2011 and January 2014. MI6, which handles foreign intelligence, had no rules on the matter either until 2011, and even those were considered void if "extremists" were involved. Britain's answer to the NSA, GCHQ, had rules against such spying, but they too were relaxed in 2011. "By allowing the intelligence agencies free rein to spy on communications between lawyers and their clients, the Government has endangered the fundamental British right to a fair trial," said Cori Crider, a director at the non-profit Reprieve and one of the lawyers for the Libyan families. "For too long, the security services have been allowed to snoop on those bringing cases against them when they speak to their lawyers. In doing so, they have violated a right that is centuries old in British common law. Today they have finally admitted they have been acting unlawfully for years."
  • Crider said it now seemed probable that UK snoopers had been listening in on the communications over the Libyan case. The British government hasn't admitted guilt, but it has at least acknowledged that it was doing something wrong – sort of. "It does not mean that there was any deliberate wrongdoing on the part of the security and intelligence agencies, which have always taken their obligation to protect legally privileged material extremely seriously," the government spokesman said. "Nor does it mean that any of the agencies' activities have prejudiced or in any way resulted in an abuse of process in any civil or criminal proceedings. The agencies will now work with the independent Interception of Communications Commissioner to ensure their policies satisfy all of the UK's human rights obligations." So that's all right, then.
  • Paul Merrell on 15 Mar 15
     
    If you follow the "November" link you'[l learn that yes, indeed, the UK government lawyers were happily getting the content of their adversaries privileged attorney-client communications. Conspicuously, the promises of reform make no mention of what is surely a disbarment offense in the U.S. I doubt that it's different in the UK. Discovery rules of procedure strictly limit how parties may obtain information from the other side. Wiretapping the other side's lawyers is not a permitted from of discovery. Hopefully, at least the government lawyers in the case in which the misbehavior was discovered have been referred for disciplinary action.  
Paul Merrell

UK Politicians To Hold 'Emergency Debate' After Spy Tribunal Says GCHQ Is Permitted To Put Them Under Surveillance | Techdirt - 0 views

www.techdirt.com/...-them-under-surveillance.shtml

surveillance state UK GCHQ-targets-MPs legislation

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Now we can see what moves legislators to take swift action against domestic surveillance. It all depends on who's being targeted. A long-held "gentleman's agreement" that GCHQ would not spy on members of Parliament (with an exigent circumstances exception, naturally) was found to be not legally-binding by the UK's surveillance oversight tribunal. Today, a panel, headed by Mr Justice Burton, made declarations that the Wilson Doctrine applies only to targeted, and not incidental, interception of Parliamentary communications, but that it has no legal effect, save that in practice the Security and Intelligence Agencies must comply with their own guidance. The Wilson doctrine, implemented by prime minister Harold Wilson in November 1966, lay down the policy of no tapping of the phones of MPs or members of the House of Lords, unless there is a major national emergency, and that any changes to the policy will be reported by the prime minister to Parliament.
  • Once the Parliament members discovered they too could be subjected to GCHQ's "blanket surveillance," they moved quickly. MPs are to hold an emergency debate on the Wilson doctrine, amid fears the convention designed to prevent politicians' communications being spied upon is "dead". [...] Shadow Commons leader Chris Bryant led a successful application in the Commons for an emergency debate in response to Wednesday's judgment. The debate has been allocated up to three hours on Monday, October 19. When it's just the general public and foreign citizens of dozens of nations, politicians generally agree there's a "debate" to be had over dragnet surveillance. The debate then takes place with minimal input from those affected and tends to include large amounts of terrorist fear-mongering and quibbling over how much exactly national security agencies should be allowed to get away with. (As much as possible, usually. Especially when the fear-mongering side has the floor.)
  • When it's those up top discovering they, too, might be subject to the same surveillance they've inflicted on the rest of the nation (and foreigners who have been granted no rights whatsoever), they step all over themselves in their haste to "debate" the side of the issue that states they should continue to be excepted from the laws that apply to everyone else.
Paul Merrell

Meet the Israeli-linked firm that sold Big Brother machines to Mubarak, Qaddafi - and Washington | Mondoweiss - 0 views

mondoweiss.net/...chines-qaddafi-washington.html

surveillance state NSA Israel Narus Verint Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • In 2006, an AT&T technician named Mark Klein discovered a secret room inside the company’s windowless “Folsom Street Facility” in downtown San Francisco that was bristling with Narus machines. The now notorious Room 641A was controlled by the NSA, which was using it to collect AT&T customer data for data mining and real-time analysis. Thanks to the powerful NarusInsight system, the NSA was able to monitor 108 billion emails from AT&T customers per day.
  • Following a lawsuit filed against AT&T by the Electronic Freedom Foundation, Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act in July 2008, giving retroactive immunity to telecom corporations that assisted the NSA, and relieving them of any consequences for spying on Americans. Cass Sunstein, an informal advisor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign who now heads the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and who has urged federal law enforcement to “cognitively infiltrate” anti-government groups, was an outspoken supporter of the retroactive immunity bill. With Sunstein by his side, Obama reversed his initial objections to the NSA’s domestic spying operations, voting as a Senator for retroactive immunity. The vote allowed the NSA to expand its domestic spying operations, clearing the legal hurdles obstructing the creation of PRISM. The stage was set for the second term scandal that would leave Obama reeling.
  • Binney told me that throughout the United States there are currently as many as 20 NSA black sites like Room 641A. Narus devices, he said, have been placed at fiber-optic convergence points, allowing the NSA to retrieve about 80 percent of data carried through telecom and online service providers. Binney emphasized that the devices do not only retrieve so-called metadata, which only offers general records of data, but that they gather the actual content of emails and calls. (“We can reconstruct all of their e-mails along with attachments, see what web pages they clicked on; we can reconstruct their (Voice Over Internet) calls,” said Steve Bannerman, the marketing director of Narus). Thanks to PRISM, the NSA bas been able to “fill in the gaps,” Binney explained, gathering bulk data from communications the NSA might have missed with the NarusInsight system, especially those made between Americans and foreign countries.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Another Israeli-linked tech company, Verint, is a subsidiary of the Israeli firm Comverse, which boasts a reputation as “the world’s leading provider… of communications intercept and analysis” technology. Among the many Comverse executives plucked from the ranks of Israeli army intelligence is the company’s founder, Jacob “Kobi” Alexander, an ex-Israeli intelligence agent who cashed in through Israel’s high-tech surveillance industry. Alexander’s lucrative career collapsed in dramatic fashion when he was arrested for fraud in Namibia in 2006 after an international manhunt, and wound up handing over bank accounts worth $46 million to US authorities.
  • Just as AT&T relied on Narus systems, Verint’s DPI devices have been used to fulfill NSA requests for data from Verizon’s subscribers. And as Bamford explained in his 2008 book on the NSA, “Shadow Factory,” much of the data Verint and other private Israeli contractors gather from can be remotely accessed from Israel. “The greatest potential beneficiaries of this marriage between the Israeli eavesdroppers and America’s increasingly centralized telecom grid are Israel’s intelligence agencies,” Bamford wrote.
Gary Edwards

The Ruling Class Consensus On Domestic Spying | Online Library of Law and Liberty - 0 views

www.libertylawsite.org/...s-consensus-on-domestic-spying

Angelo-Codevilla ruling-class-elites

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • This means that the US government’s vast apparatus is almost completely useless against serious terrorists or criminals, and useful primarily to do whatever the government might choose to innocent persons.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 25 Jun 13
       
      Bold statement, but then how did the Fort Hood massacre and Boston Marathon massacre occur?  Plenty of email and phone call evidence in both cases.  Yet the government was caught totally unaware.  I guess it really depends on who the watchers are watching.  Proof is slowly being gathered that the watchers are watching those whom the government elites seek to destroy through blackmail, intimidation (IRS anyone?), and breach of Constitutional rights (take your pick of any three letter government agency acronym you like).
  • Ever since the 1970s, the art of code-making has surpassed the art of code-breaking – period.
  • Hence, on the high end, anyone can purchase voice and internet communications software that are beyond the capacity of anyone to access without an electronic key.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • If collection is universal, the collectors don’t have to explain to others (or even to themselves) why they are targeting this person or group and not another. Possessing the data in secret, they can then decide in secret who they are really interested in.
  • That flight from responsibility is also why, in 1978, the intelligence agencies pressed Congress to pass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), under which the agencies submit their requests for detailed targeting, in secret, to a court that decides ex parte and in secret.
  • the FISA court. But that court acts not just in secret, but ex parte – hearing only one side.
  • The relevant question about the uses of the NSA programs, then, is simply “against whom, in the broad American public, is the US government likely to turn its animus?
  • Alas, the ruling class has shown itself all too able to treat domestic opponents as public enemies. But that is another story.
  • In the words of General Keith Alexander, director of NSA, this surveillance has “helped to prevent” “dozens of terrorist events.”
  • From Barack Obama to Karl Rove, the ruling class is in unison: The NSA’s collection of data on virtually all Americans is essential to preventing you from “being blown to smithereens on your morning commute”
  • Another, PRISM, gives access to all records of email, chat, photos, videos and file transfers from the servers of leading US internet companies.
  • Here are the facts.
  • These programs stand between Americans and terrorists. Worries that they will be misused are misplaced or downright kooky.
  • Project Constant Informant, which tracks essentially all American phone calls, allows matching the account holder’s identity with each call’s precise location in time and place.
  • anyone who has followed telecommunication technology and intelligence during the past three decades can only scoff at the claim that universal collection of telephone externals and access to internet traffic can thwart serious criminals or terrorists.
  • In fact, the expansion of the US government’s capacity to intrude on innocent communications happened just as technology enabled competent persons who intend to hide their communications to do so without fail.
Paul Merrell

The NSA Is Building the Country's Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say) | Threat Level | Wired.com - 0 views

www.wired.com/...1

Big Brother NSA Stellar Wind cryptography supercomputers surveillance

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 May 12 - No Cached
    • Paul Merrell
      Paul Merrell on 23 May 12
       
      There goes the neighborhood; the Feds are moving in. 
  • According to another top official also involved with the program, the NSA made an enormous breakthrough several years ago in its ability to cryptanalyze, or break, unfathomably complex encryption systems employed by not only governments around the world but also many average computer users in the US. The upshot, according to this official: “Everybody’s a target; everybody with communication is a target.
  • In the process—and for the first time since Watergate and the other scandals of the Nixon administration—the NSA has turned its surveillance apparatus on the US and its citizens. It has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and sift through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas. It has created a supercomputer of almost unimaginable speed to look for patterns and unscramble codes. Finally, the agency has begun building a place to store all the trillions of words and thoughts and whispers captured in its electronic net. And, of course, it’s all being done in secret.
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  • as a 2007 Department of Defense report puts it, the Pentagon is attempting to expand its worldwide communications network, known as the Global Information Grid, to handle yottabytes (1024 bytes) of data. (A yottabyte is a septillion bytes—so large that no one has yet coined a term for the next higher magnitude.) It needs that capacity because, according to a recent report by Cisco, global Internet traffic will quadruple from 2010 to 2015, reaching 966 exabytes per year. (A million exabytes equal a yottabyte.
  • The data stored in Bluffdale will naturally go far beyond the world’s billions of public web pages. The NSA is more interested in the so-called invisible web, also known as the deep web or deepnet—data beyond the reach of the public. This includes password-protected data, US and foreign government communications, and noncommercial file-sharing between trusted peers.
  • The broad outlines of the so-called warrantless-wiretapping program have long been exposed—how the NSA secretly and illegally bypassed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was supposed to oversee and authorize highly targeted domestic eavesdropping; how the program allowed wholesale monitoring of millions of American phone calls and email. In the wake of the program’s exposure, Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which largely made the practices legal. Telecoms that had agreed to participate in the illegal activity were granted immunity from prosecution and lawsuits. What wasn’t revealed until now, however, was the enormity of this ongoing domestic spying program. For the first time, a former NSA official has gone on the record to describe the program, codenamed Stellar Wind, in detail.
  • one of the deepest secrets of the Stellar Wind program—again, never confirmed until now—was that the NSA gained warrantless access to AT&T’s vast trove of domestic and international billing records, detailed information about who called whom in the US and around the world. As of 2007, AT&T had more than 2.8 trillion records housed in a database at its Florham Park, New Jersey, complex. Verizon was also part of the program
  • the NSA succeeded in building an even faster supercomputer. “They made a big breakthrough,” says another former senior intelligence official, who helped oversee the program. The NSA’s machine was likely similar to the unclassified Jaguar, but it was much faster out of the gate, modified specifically for cryptanalysis and targeted against one or more specific algorithms, like the AES.
  • The breakthrough was enormous, says the former official, and soon afterward the agency pulled the shade down tight on the project, even within the intelligence community and Congress. “Only the chairman and vice chairman and the two staff directors of each intelligence committee were told about it,” he says. The reason? “They were thinking that this computing breakthrough was going to give them the ability to crack current public encryption.”
  • But the real competition will take place in the classified realm. To secretly develop the new exaflop (or higher) machine by 2018, the NSA has proposed constructing two connecting buildings, totaling 260,000 square feet, near its current facility on the East Campus of Oak Ridge. Called the Multiprogram Computational Data Center,
  • n the meantime Cray is working on the next step for the NSA, funded in part by a $250 million contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It’s a massively parallel supercomputer called Cascade, a prototype of which is due at the end of 2012. Its development will run largely in parallel with the unclassified effort for the DOE and other partner agencies. That project, due in 2013, will upgrade the Jaguar XT5 into an XK6, codenamed Titan, upping its speed to 10 to 20 petaflops.
Paul Merrell

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
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • 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.
Gary Edwards

Why the Ruling Class is So Upset About Edward Snowden » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...-so-upset-about-edward-snowden

Gary-Leupp NSA-Patriot-Act-NDAA NSA-Whistleblower Edward-Snowden

shared by Gary Edwards on 26 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • the networks now compete with one another to generate outrage—not at the spying, mind you, but at Snowden for violating the law.
  • O’Reilly’s current position is that while a hero, Snowden should be placed on trial and judged by a jury. Which is to say, he should be apprehended abroad, brought back in handcuffs and treated to the same benefits of the U.S. judicial system enjoyed by a Bradley Manning or a Guantanamo detainee.
  • He broke the law! He told us: “Any analyst at any time can target anyone.”
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  • “He took an oath,” thunders Dianne Feinstein
  • chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee (and thus someone complicit in the spying programs).
  • What she means by this is that he broke his pledge, made when he became an employee of the CIA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton—which helps handle the massive effort to monitor all of us daily—to conceal any secrets he obtained as an employee.
  • She is of course not referring to the oath he made at the same time, to uphold the Constitution of the United States, which says very clearly that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…”
  • Snowden has not merely revealed that the U.S. government has forced service providers Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple to share all their records with itself, in the form of mega-data that can only be accessed for content following the issuance of warrants from (secret) courts, in order to thwart real or imagined terrorist plots. He hasn’t merely shown that the NSA intercepts 1.7 billion electronic records every day (in order, of course, to thwart the terrorists). He has charged the following:
  • The FBI’s “Counterintelligence Program” (COINTELPRO), active from 1956 to 1971, collected information through wiretaps and other means with the specific objective of destroying civil rights and left-wing organizations.
  • Snowden indicates that those with that power can indeed gain access to what Bill Clinton recently called the “meat” of your communications.
  • That is, every word you’ve spoken on the phone recently, or maybe for several years; or test-messaged or instant-messaged online; can be accessed by government “analysts” at their whim.
  • in 2008, ABC News revealed that National Security Agency staffers enjoyed monitoring satellite phone sex involving U.S. officers in Iraq. It’s worth quoting at length.
  • “‘These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones,’ said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA’s Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003. Kinne described the contents of the calls as ‘personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism.’ [...] Another intercept operator, former Navy Arab linguist, David Murfee Faulk, 39, said he and his fellow intercept operators listened into hundreds of Americans picked up using phones in Baghdad’s Green Zone from late 2003 to November 2007. ‘Calling home to the United States, talking to their spouses, sometimes their girlfriends, sometimes one phone call following another,’ said Faulk. [...] ‘Hey, check this out,’ Faulk says he would be told, ‘there’s good phone sex or there’s some pillow talk, pull up this call, it’s really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, ‘Wow, this was crazy,’ Faulk told ABC News.”
  • “Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere… I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President…”
  • But the main issue is not your protection from phone-sex interlopers, but protection from those who want to do you harm.
  • If that’s the way NSA analysts could deal with U.S. military officers in Iraq—fellow cogs in the system, fighting on behalf of U.S. imperialism—how much respect do you suppose they have for you and your privacy? For your security from their searches, their violations?
  • One of its stated missions was to use surveillance on activists to release negative personal information to the public to discredit them. In many instances the agents succeeded, and they ruined lives. And their abilities to do so pale in comparison with the abilities of Obama’s NSA.
  • the Bush administration would be willing to learn a thing or two about domestic spying from the experts of the former Stasi. What ruling elite has ever gained more total information awareness about its citizens than the old German Democratic Republic?  And done it with such elegant legal scaffolding?
  • As historians such as Katherine Pence and Paul Betts have shown, the GDR authorities operated within scrupulously observed legal constraints. One sees this in the film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) produced in the reunited Germany in 2006. It depicts the surveillance culture of the former East Germany, leaving the viewer nauseated.
  • Everything according to law.
  • I thought of that film while reading the lead Boston Globe editorial on June 13. It concludes that the “policies that [Snowden revealed], however objectionable, are properly authorized” while Snowden himself “broke the law.”
  • Thus, you see, he’s not a whistle-blower but a criminal.
  • U.S. to World: “You Must View Snowden as a Criminal, and Give Him Back”
  • Suddenly, the Cold War has reappeared. Snowden is charged with espionage, some of his critics alleging that he’s in the service of the PRC and/or Russia or other “enemies.” It in fact appears that Beijing and Moscow both were taken by surprise by this episode, and that both have attempted to handle Snowden’s unexpected presence carefully to avoid annoying the U.S.
  • The entirety of the ruling elite and the journalistic establishment are keen on defending the programs Snowden has exposed; keen on punishing him for his whistle-blowing; determined to vilify him as a punk, narcissist, egoist, attention-hungry ne’er-do-well (anything but a thoughtful man who made a moral choice that has enlightened people about the character of the U.S. government); feverishly working on damage control while anticipating more damning revelations; and determined to get those four laptops with their incriminating content back into the bosom of the national security state.
  • It all, in my humble opinion, boils down to thi
  • No, there are us, and there are them. The tiny power elite that controls the mainstream press and cable channels, the corporations that dutifully hand over mega-data to the state (and then deny doing so to allay consumer outrage), the twin political parties, are sick to their stomachs that they’ve been so exposed. We in our turn should feel, if not terrorized, nauseated.
  • Gary Edwards on 26 Jun 13
     
    This is a fun and enlightening read.  Extremely well written!  Maybe the most complete statement of both the facts of the Snowden - NSA disclosure event, and the mix of heartache and anger I feel about it.  Gut wrenching, nauseating and sick to my soul over what these clowns are doing to this great Republic, the Constitution, and the brief history of individual liberty this country represents.  Nicely written summary.
Paul Merrell

Let's check James Comey's Bush years record before he becomes FBI director | Laura Murphy | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...omey-fbi-director-bush-history

surveillance state war & peace Obama Comey FBI confirmation-hearing torture indefinite detention

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Comey is lionised in DC for one challenge over liberties. Yet he backed waterboarding, wire-tapping and indefinite detention
  • It had the air of Hollywood. On the night of 10 March 2004, James Comey, the nominee to lead the FBI for the next ten years, rushed to the hospital bedside of his terribly ill boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft.There, he eventually confronted White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who were trying to get the pancreatitis-stricken Ashcroft to renew a still secret and illegal surveillance program on Americans' electronic communications. Neither Ashcroft nor Comey, then acting attorney general because of Ashcroft's condition, would reauthorize the program. When Gonzales authorized the program to go forward without a Justice Department certification, Comey threatened to resign, along with his staff and FBI Director Robert Mueller.The threats worked: President Bush blinked, and Comey won modifications to the secret surveillance program that he felt brought it into compliance with the law. This event, now the stuff of DC legend, has solidified Comey's reputation as a "civil liberties superhero", in the words of CNN's Jake Tapper, and may be one of the reasons President Obama nominated him Friday to be the next director of the FBI.
  • There's one very big problem with describing Comey as some sort of civil libertarian: some facts suggest otherwise. While Comey deserves credit for stopping an illegal spying program in dramatic fashion, he also approved or defended some of the worst abuses of the Bush administration during his time as deputy attorney general. Those included torture, warrantless wiretapping, and indefinite detention.On 30 December 2004, a memo addressed to James Comey was issued that superseded the infamous memo that defined torture as pain "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure". The memo to Comey seemed to renounce torture but did nothing of the sort. The key sentence in the opinion is tucked away in footnote 8. It concludes that the new Comey memo did not change the authorizations of interrogation tactics in any earlier memos.In short, the memo Comey that approved gave a thumbs-up on waterboarding, wall slams, and other forms of torture – all violations of domestic and international law.
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  • Then, there's warrantless wiretapping. Many media reports describe that Comey's defiant stand at Ashcroft's bedside was in opposition to the warrantless wiretapping of Americans international communications. But we simply do not know exactly what Comey opposed, or why or what reforms he believed brought the secret program within the rule of law. We do, however, know that Comey was read into the program in January 2004.While, to his credit, he immediately began raising concerns, the program was still in existence when the New York Times exposed it in December 2005. This was a year and a half after Comey's hospital showdown with Gonzales and Card. In fact, the warrantless wiretapping program was supported by a May 2004 legal opinion (pdf) produced by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and signed off by Comey, which replaced the 2001 legal opinion Comey had problems with.This, of course, raises the question: just what illegal surveillance program did Comey oppose so much he would resign over it? Last weekend, the Washington Post provided a new theory: the Marina program, which collects internet metadata. Now, the Senate has an opportunity to end the theorizing and find out what exactly Comey objected to. It's a line of questioning that senators should focus doggedly on, in light of the recent revelations in the Post and the Guardian.
  • The final stain on Comey's record was his full-throated defense of the indefinite military detention of an American citizen arrested on American soil. In a June 2004 press conference, Comey told of Jose Padilla, an alleged al-Qaida member accused of plotting to detonate a dirty bomb as well as blow up apartment buildings in an American city. By working for al-Qaida, Padilla, Comey argued, could be deprived of a lawyer and indefinitely detained as an enemy combatant on a military brig off the South Carolina coast for the purpose of extracting intelligence out of him. It turned out that Padilla was never charged with the list of crimes and criminal associations pinned on him by Comey that day. When Padilla was finally convicted – in a federal court – in August 2007, it wasn't for plotting dirty bomb attacks or blowing up apartment buildings. Rather, he was convicted of material support of terrorism overseas. During his indefinite military detention, Padilla was tortured.
  • Everyone has a backstory, and the confirmation process should ensure the American public hears all relevant background information, both good and bad, when Comey appears before the Senate. Senators should insist that Comey explain his role during the Bush era and repudiate policies he endorsed on torture, indefinite detention, and illegal surveillance.The new FBI director will be around for the next decade. We need one who will respect the constitution and the rule of law; not one who will use discredited and illegal activities in the name of justice and safety.
  • Paul Merrell on 23 Jun 13
     
    Comey's not right for the FBI directorship this time around. The nation needs an FBI Director and Comey's role in government surveillance, torture, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and indefinite detention of a U.S. citizen. That's too much to get sorted out any time soon given the government shroud of secrecy on those topics. 
Paul Merrell

French and Spanish intelligence aided NSA spying - report - RT News - 0 views

rt.com/...ying-european-intelligence-925

surveillance state NSA France Spain finger-pointing NSA-targets

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Electronic surveillance which the European media and politicians blamed on the NSA was also carried out by their own intelligence services, as part of a wide-ranging allied security effort, according to US officials. European spy agencies collected phone records in war zones and areas outside their borders and shared information with the NSA, US officials said on Tuesday, as part of wider efforts to protect allied soldiers and civilians, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. This is a markedly different version of events to what has been reported in Europe and throws up questions about the level of European involvement in global surveillance.
  • However, these efforts are separate to the US program which targeted foreign leaders, including Angela Merkel. There has so far been no comment from either the French or Spanish authorities or from the NSA.
  • But James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence said that the notion that the NSA had eavesdropped on the phone calls of 70 million French citizens was false and that the allegations were based on “inaccurate and misleading information regarding US foreign intelligence activities.” But he didn’t provide any other explanation. US intelligence officials have, according to the Wall Street Journal, privately said that the disclosures by the European press put them in a difficult position. They are keen to put the record straight but to do so would expose the activities of their allies’ intelligence activities. US officials also say that the leaked documents that the Le Monde story was based on were not supplied by the NSA, but rather were NSA data received from French intelligence. The US reached the conclusion that the phone records the French had collected were from outside France and were then shared with the NSA. There was a similar story for the documents citied in El Mundo, the officials said. There are considerable diplomatic sensitivities of outing partner services, which the NSA relies on for a considerable amount of intelligence. A public exposure of European complicity may spark domestic outrage in Europe and threaten co-operation with the US in future.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Oct 13
     
    Finger-pointing by the U.S. Intelligence Community is good news, a strong sign that the Western nation's surveillance conspiracy is fragmenting. When one defendant blames another, their front is no longer united. 
Paul Merrell

Administration Official Rebuts Feinstein Claim That White House Will No Longer Spy On Allies - 0 views

www.buzzfeed.com/...-feinstein-claim-that-white-ho

surveillance state NSA NSA-blowback Feinstein Obama NSA-targets

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • A senior administration official rebutted Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s statement on Monday that the White House had assured her that they would no longer spy on allies. “The statement that ‘…collection on our allies will not continue…’ is not accurate,” a senior administration official told BuzzFeed. “While we have made some individual changes, which I cannot detail, we have not made across the board changes in policy like, for example, terminating intelligence collection that might be aimed at all allies.” Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, put out a statement on Monday criticizing the administration for not briefing her committee on the National Security Agency’s surveillance of foreign leaders.
  • “It is abundantly clear that a total review of all intelligence programs is necessary so that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are fully informed as to what is actually being carried out by the intelligence community,” Feinstein said. “Unlike [National Security Agency]’s collection of phone records under a court order, it is clear to me that certain surveillance activities have been in effect for more than a decade and that the Senate Intelligence Committee was not satisfactorily informed. Therefore our oversight needs to be strengthened and increased.” Feinstein, who has defended the NSA in the wake of revelations of large-scale domestic surveillance, said that she was “totally opposed” to spying on U.S. allies. She said that the White House had told her that “collection on our allies will not continue.”A spokesperson for Feinstein did not immediately return requests for comment.
Paul Merrell

Lobbyists for Spies Appointed To Oversee Spying - The Intercept - 0 views

firstlook.org/...es-appointed-to-oversee-spying

surveillance state oversight conflicts-of-interest Congressional-committees

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Who’s keeping watch of the National Security Agency? In Congress, the answer in more and more cases is that the job is going to former lobbyists for NSA contractors and other intelligence community insiders. A wave of recent appointments has placed intelligence industry insiders into key Congressional roles overseeing intelligence gathering. The influx of insiders is particularly alarming because lawmakers in Washington are set to take up a series of sensitive surveillance and intelligence issues this year, from reform of the Patriot Act to far-reaching “information sharing” legislation.
  • Who’s keeping watch of the National Security Agency? In Congress, the answer in more and more cases is that the job is going to former lobbyists for NSA contractors and other intelligence community insiders. A wave of recent appointments has placed intelligence industry insiders into key Congressional roles overseeing intelligence gathering. The influx of insiders is particularly alarming because lawmakers in Washington are set to take up a series of sensitive surveillance and intelligence issues this year, from reform of the Patriot Act to far-reaching “information sharing” legislation. After the first revelations of domestic surveillance by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, President Obama defended the spying programs by claiming they were “subject to congressional oversight and congressional reauthorization and congressional debate.” But as Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., and other members of Congress have pointed out, there is essentially a “two-tiered” system for oversight, with lawmakers and staff on specialized committees, such as the House and Senate committees on Intelligence and Homeland Security, controlling the flow of information and routinely excluding other Congress members, even those who have asked for specific information relating to pending legislation.
  • The Intercept reviewed the new gatekeepers in Congress, the leading staffers on the committees overseeing intelligence and surveillance matters, and found a large number of lobbyists and consultants passing through the revolving door between the intelligence community and the watchdogs who purportedly oversee the intelligence community. We reached out to each of them earlier this week and have yet to hear back:
Paul Merrell

Germany to spy on US for first time since 1945 after 'double agent' scandal - Europe - World - The Independent - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...uble-agentscandal-9590645.html

surveillance state blowback Germany CIA double-agent

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is planning to scrap a no-spy agreement Germany has held with Britain and the United States since 1945 in response to an embarrassing US-German intelligence service scandal which has deeply soured relations between Berlin and Washington. The unprecedented change to Berlin’s counter-espionage policy was announced by Ms Merkel’s Interior Minister, Thomas de Maizière. He said that Berlin wanted “360‑degree surveillance” of all intelligence-gathering operations in Germany.The intelligence services of the Allied victors, the United States, Britain and France, have hitherto been regarded as “friendly” to Germany. Their diplomatic and information-gathering activities were exempted from surveillance by Berlin’s equivalent of M15 – the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND).But Mr de Maizière told Bild that he was now not ruling out permanent German counter-espionage surveillance of US, British and French intelligence operations. His remarks were echoed by Stephan Mayer, a domestic security spokesman for Ms Merkel’s ruling Christian Democrats. “We must focus more strongly on our so-called allies,” he said.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Jul 14
     
    One might hope that Germany specifically targets members of Congress who vote for the surveillance state. :-)
Paul Merrell

Distrust of US surveillance threatens data deal | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...rveillance-threatens-data-deal

surveillance state EU NSA safe-harbor negotiations Congress

shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • European privacy regulators are putting U.S. surveillance practices under the microscope, this time with a crucial transatlantic data deal hanging in the balance.Legal and privacy advocates say European nations are poised to strike down the deal if they decide the U.S. hasn't done enough to reform its spying programs.The new test comes after the European Commission and the Commerce Department — after months of tense negotiations — reached a deal this week permitting Facebook, Google and thousands of other companies to continue legally handling Europeans’ personal data.ADVERTISEMENTCritics though have long warned that unless the U.S. overhauls its privacy and national security laws, there is no legal framework that can stand up in European court, where privacy is considered a fundamental right under the EU Charter.A working group of 28 EU nations’ data protection authorities — domestic entities separate from the Commission that will be in charge of enforcing the new agreement — may now cast the deciding vote.The group is spending the next few months picking through the so-called Privacy Shield agreement to determine if it adequately protects the personal data of European citizens.
  • “The Commission has said, ‘We’re satisfied. We believe them. We believe the U.S. has substantially changed its practices,’ and they are no longer going off the [Edward] Snowden revelations in the media,” said Susan Foster, a privacy attorney at Mintz Levin who works in both the EU and the U.S.“Whether the working group will go along with it is another question.”The privacy advocate whose complaint against Facebook brought down the Privacy Shield’s 15-year-old predecessor agreement is already questioning the new deal’s validity.“With all due respect ... a couple of letters by the outgoing Obama administration is by no means a legal basis to guarantee the fundamental rights of 500 million European users in the long run, when there is explicit U.S. law allowing mass surveillance,” Max Schrems of Austria said in a statement Tuesday.The United States has been fighting against the perception that it tramples on civil liberties after ex-National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed the breadth of the agency’s snooping.One sticking point in the Privacy Shield negotiations was over the scope of an exception allowing surveillance for national security purposes.
  • In announcing the deal, Commission officials insisted that the U.S. had provided “detailed written assurances” that surveillance of Europeans’ data by intelligence agencies would be subject to appropriate limitations.“The U.S. has clarified that they do not carry out indiscriminate surveillance of Europeans,” Andrus Ansip, Vice President for the Digital Single Market on the European Commission, said Tuesday.The U.S. has also agreed to create an office in the State Department, to address complaints from EU citizens who feel their data has been inappropriately accessed by intelligence authorities.Complicating the working group’s approval of the deal is the hodgepodge of competing regulators in Europe. Each nation has an agency in charge of its own country’s regulation. Some countries — such as Germany — are seen as tougher on privacy than others, like France or the U.K.While some countries consider U.S. privacy protections to be satisfactory, in others they are seen as woefully inadequate.
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  • Defenders of U.S. intelligence practices often point to France and the U.K., arguing they are equally intrusive with their citizens' data.A recent public report “pretty clearly documented that the protections are patchy, vary hugely and are nonexistent in some of the countries,” Foster noted.Privacy advocates dismiss those arguments.“You cannot pick the worst member state, like the U.K., and claim you are ‘equivalent’ to that,” Schrems said Tuesday. “First, this is not a price [sic] you want to win, secondly you have to meet the standards of the European Court of Justice, EU law and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights — not the standard of the worst member state.”The U.S. has made significant reforms to federal spying powers under the Obama administration.The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board — a small bipartisan watchdog — on Friday said the government has begun addressing each of the nearly two-dozen recommendations it made following Snowden's revelations.“[I]mportant measures have been taken to enhance the protection of Americans’ privacy and civil liberties and to strengthen the transparency of the government’s surveillance efforts, without jeopardizing our counterterrorism efforts,” the five-member board said.
  • But whether European countries believe those changes are sufficient to sign off on the Privacy Shield is uncertain. Each of the EU’s 28 member states must approve the deal before it can be finalized.“A lot of this is going to come down to whether the data protection authorities are persuaded by the U.S.’s portrayal of the cumulative protections given to European citizens and the cumulative carving back on the NSA surveillance programs,” Foster said.If the European working group is not satisfied with the assurances from the Commerce Department, the consequences could be dire. Businesses fear a chilling of transatlantic trade, valued at $1 trillion in 2014.The most likely outcome, experts say, would be a patchwork of country-to-country regulations that would make it extremely expensive for companies to comply.Legislative changes in the U.S. seem unlikely. Congress is close to passing a privacy law considered crucial to getting seeing the Privacy Shield approved. But the bill — which gives EU citizens the right to sue in U.S. courts over the misuse of personal data — has sparked controversy on Capitol Hill.Some lawmakers are expressing frustration that the EU has used the threat of enforcement action against U.S. companies to push Congress to make more concessions.“It’s been hard enough to get the Judicial Redress Act passed — if they’re going to make more demands on Congress, there won’t be a lot of willing listeners here,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told The Hill on Thursday.
Paul Merrell

10 Things Americans Underestimate About Our Massive Surveillance State | Alternet - 0 views

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  • Americans may be upset about the latest revelations in the government’s ability to spy on citizens via their online lives, but no one should be surprised. We've underestimated and overlooked many key aspects of the government’s ability to track our lives for years. The bottom line, which resonates most strongly among civil liberties advocates on the left and conservative libertarians on the right, is not just the loss of privacy but also the growing power of the state to target and oppress people who it judges to be critics and enemies. That list doesn’t just include foreign terrorists of the al-Qaeda mold, or even the Chinese government that has  stolen the most advanced U.S. weapon plans; it also includes domestic whistleblowers, protesters and journalists—all of whom have been  targeted by the Obama administration Justice Department.   Let’s go through 10 points about these latest revelations of domestic spying to better understand what Americans have underestimated and overlooked about electronic eavesdropping.
Gary Edwards

How World War I Paved the Way for the Warfare State :: The Mises Economics Blog: The Circle Bastiat - 0 views

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  • Gary Edwards on 19 Mar 14
     
    Part ONE "by David Stockman Remarks To The Committee For The Republic, Washington DC, February 2014 (Part 1 of 6 Parts) [From David Stockman's Contra Corner.] Flask in hand, Boris Yelstin famously mounted a tank outside the Soviet Parliament in August 1991. Presently, the fearsome Red Army stood down-an outcome which 45 years of Cold War military mobilization by the West had failed to accomplish. At the time, the U.S. Warfare State's budget- counting the pentagon, spy agencies, DOE weapons, foreign aid, homeland security and veterans--was about $500 billion in today's dollars.  Now, a quarter century on from the Cold War's end, that same metric stands at $900 billion. This near doubling of the Warfare State's fiscal girth is a tad incongruous.  After all, America's war machine was designed to thwart a giant, nuclear-armed industrial state, but, alas, we now have no industrial state enemies left on the planet. The much-shrunken Russian successor to the Soviet Union, for example, has become a kleptocracy run by a clever thief who prefers stealing from his own citizens. Likewise, the Red Chinese threat consists of a re-conditioned aircraft carrier bought second-hand from a former naval power--otherwise known as the former Ukraine. China's bubble-ridden domestic economy would collapse within six weeks were it to actually bomb the 4,000 Wal-Mart outlets in America on which its mercantilist export machine utterly depends. On top of that, we've been fired as the world's policeman, al Qaeda has splintered among warlords who inhabit the armpits of the world from Yemen to Somalia and during last September's Syria war scare the American people even took away the President's keys to the Tomahawk missile batteries.  In short, the persistence of America's trillion dollar Warfare State budget needs some serious "splainin". The Great War and Its Aftermath My purpose tonight is to sketch the long story of how it all happened, starti
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