Thread: Privacy Alert! Big Brother is watching and listening, UPDATED

Critics: Obama Likes His NSA, And He’s Keeping It

January 17, 2014 by Sam Rolley

President Barack Obama’s announced changes to the National Security Agency Friday were dismissed by many privacy advocates, tech companies and politicians as do-nothing measures to preserve the surveillance state status quo.

Instead of the strong renouncement of the National Security Agency’s intrusive spy tactics critics had hoped for, the President delivered a handful flaccid half measures that will do little to limit the agency’s power.

Based on Obama’s announcement, the NSA will continue to hold on to troves of communications metadata until Congress figures out how it should be handled. The NSA will continue to comb through the records; and searches will be approved by a court with a dubious record of protecting the citizenry.

Furthermore, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will still not be required to obtain a court order before issuing national security letters demanding information about customers’ telephone and Internet activity from a private entity.

And best of all for the Nation’s spies—or, as Obama put it, your friends and neighbors— will continue to operate almost completely outside of the public view.

Unfortunately for Obama, NSA critics realized he was playing a shell game almost immediately.

TechFreedom President Berin Szoka issued the following statement noting that what the President didn’t say is more revealing than what he did:

The reforms announced today will certainly help address some of the greatest privacy concerns raised by U.S. surveillance. But the speech will probably be remembered most for the much-needed reforms it didn’t announce.

First, outsourcing the retention of call records to private companies is a fig leaf that conceals the real issue: the legal standard for access. The President would let the NSA access meta-data if it can establish “reasonable suspicion that a particular number is linked to a terrorist organization.” This standard is too low to protect the privacy of the innocent. In general, the Fourth Amendment requires a “probable cause” showing before a court may issue a warrant. The courts are struggling to address this issue based on a confusing series of 1970s cases about wiretapping. They seem to be moving, cautiously, to restoring the Founders’ understanding: there is one Fourth Amendment for all technologies, just as there is one First Amendment for all media. Until they do that, it’s up to Congress and the President to fix the problem.

Second, while the President made much about narrowing the purposes of U.S. surveillance of non-citizens, he didn’t actually promise any real changes about how that surveillance is conducted. This should trouble everyone everywhere, especially those who rely on American Internet companies. It’s bad news for those companies, who need the trust of their global user base. Failing to address international concerns will only help those trying to shut off cross-border data flows to U.S. companies. That would would spell the end of the Internet as an open, global platform and, ironically, facilitate surveillance by foreign governments with far fewer scruples.

Third, the President focused entirely on surveillance by national security agencies, saying nothing at all about the need for greater protections against law enforcement, from the IRS and DOJ to local prosecutors. That’s especially disappointing because, just last month, a Whitehouse.gov petition demanding a warrant requirement to protect cloud email services got well over 100,000 signatures. The White House has promised to respond to any petition that crossed that threshold. Today’s speech would have been the perfect opportunity to say, once and for all, that we need a consistent warrant requirement, an idea now supported by 169 Members of the House.

Cindy Cohn, Legal Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, suggested that nothing beyond completely ending mass surveillance will fix the NSA problem:

Mass non-targeted surveillance violates international human rights law. It is disproportionate because it sweeps up the communications and communications records of million of innocent people first and only sorts out second what is actually needed. Obama’s reforms take a step forward in recognizing that foreigners deserve at least some privacy, but to be consistent with the rule of law, the NSA must be forbidden from engaging in mass, untargeted surveillance in the U.S. or abroad.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said that Obama should be embarrassed about the ineffectual offerings:

He said that Obama is a small man and it is “embarrassing for a head of state to go on like that for 45 minutes and say almost nothing.”

“Although those national whistle-blowers have forced this debate, this President has been dragged, kicking and screaming to today’s address. He is being very reluctant to make any concrete reforms,” Assange told CNN. “And unfortunately, today we also see very few concrete reforms.”

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) took issued a statement re-iterating his belief that Obama overseeing the NSA is the same as a fox guarding a henhouse:

While I am encouraged the President is addressing the NSA spying program because of pressure from Congress and the American people, I am disappointed in the details. The Fourth Amendment requires an individualized warrant based on probable cause before the government can search phone records and e-mails. President Obama’s announced solution to the NSA spying controversy is the same unconstitutional program with a new configuration,” Sen. Paul said. “I intend to continue the fight to restore Americans rights through my Fourth Amendment Restoration Act and my legal challenge against the NSA. The American people should not expect the fox to guard the hen house.

He also threw a jab in the President’s direction via Twitter:

Senator Rand Paul ✔ @SenRandPaul Follow "If you like your privacy you can keep it...": http://www.paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1077 …
12:03 PM - 17 Jan 2014


Representative Jeff Duncan followed a similar approach, with a bit more vitriol:

Rep. Jeff Duncan ✔ @RepJeffDuncan Follow It took a gov't contractor leaking classified information to the press for the POTUS to learn what the NSA was doing...
12:01 PM - 17 Jan 2014


Rep. Jeff Duncan ✔ @RepJeffDuncan Follow Welcome to the spectator Presidency ladies & gentlemen. Where President Obama learns what's going on his in own Administration from @CNN
12:04 PM - 17 Jan 2014



Rep. Jeff Duncan ✔ @RepJeffDuncan Follow Welcome to the spectator Presidency ladies & gentlemen. Where President Obama learns what's going on his in own Administration from @CNN
12:04 PM - 17 Jan 2014


Rep. Jeff Duncan ✔ @RepJeffDuncan Follow Can't express my thoughts on the #NSAspeech in 140 characters so here's a link http://tinyurl.com/pfbplbx
12:09 PM - 17 Jan 2014


Rep. Jeff Duncan ✔ @RepJeffDuncan Follow RT @TaylorMade014 I guess the definition of a "transparent administration" is one where the president is ignorant to what goes on.
12:13 PM - 17 Jan 2014

And his statement on Facebook: “Think about this for a moment. It took a government contractor leaking classified information to the press for the President of the United States to learn what the NSA was doing. President Obama is either a spectator who has no idea what’s going on within his own White House, or he’s purposefully lying to save face with the American public, or he intentionally isolates himself from knowing the full truth to protect himself. Quite frankly, it’s disgraceful.”


And here’s a mixed bag selection of more Congressional Twitter response:


Marsha Blackburn ✔ @MarshaBlackburn Follow I find it ironic that President @BarackObama used the #IRS to target Americans and now claims he's going to save us from the #NSA.
12:50 PM - 17 Jan 2014


Loretta Sanchez ✔ @LorettaSanchez Follow Proposed #NSA reforms don't go far enough. Need hard limits on data collection type & storage time, & a privacy advocate throughout process
12:07 PM - 17 Jan 2014


Rep. Pete King ✔ @RepPeteKing Follow Pres Obama NSA speech better than expected. Most programs left intact. But concerned about extending US citizen privacy rights to foreigners
12:32 PM - 17 Jan 2014

In the comments below, tell us what you thought of the President’s announcement.

Filed Under: Conservative Politics, Liberty News, Privacy, Staff Reports

http://personalliberty.com/2014/01/1...es-keeping-it/

NSA Official: 'We Are Now a Police State'

December 19, 2013 - 10:54 AM
By Matt Vespa
Subscribe to Matt Vespa RSS

Last year, high-ranking NSA official Bill Binney said, “We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state.” Now, Binney says that the U.S. has already become a full-blown police state.
Binney told Washington’s Blog on Wednesday that:

“The main use of the collection from these [NSA spying] programs [is] for law enforcement. [See the 2 slides below].”


“These slides give the policy of the DOJ/FBI/DEA etc. on how to use the NSA data. In fact, they instruct that none of the NSA data is referred to in courts – cause it has been acquired without a warrant.”

“So, they have to do a ‘Parallel Construction’ and not tell the courts or prosecution or defense the original data used to arrest people. This I call: a ‘planned programed perjury policy’ directed by US law enforcement.”

“And, as the last line on one slide says, this also applies to ‘Foreign Counterparts.’”

“This is a total corruption of the justice system not only in our country but around the world. The source of the info is at the bottom of each slide. This is a totalitarian process – means we are now in a police state.”

Binney, a 32-year veteran of the agency, was instrumental in the creation of the NSA’s surveillance program for digital information. He also served as the NSA’s senior technical director.

As a result, he’s been sought after by a multitude of media outlets, like CBS, ABC, CNN, New York Times, USA Today, Fox News, and PBS.

Concerning the collection of data by federal agencies mentioned by Binney, Washington’s Blog added that:

“By way of background, the government is spying on virtually everything we do.”

“All of the information gained by the NSA through spying is then shared with federal, state and local agencies, and they are using that information to prosecute petty crimes such as drugs and taxes. The agencies are instructed to intentionally “launder” the information gained through spying, i.e. to pretend that they got the information in a more legitimate way … and to hide that from defense attorneys and judges.”

http://www.cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/ma...w-police-state

Ron Paul

Take a moment to thank Edward Snowden for his bravery. CLICK HERE: http://bit.ly/1dfTJ6j

Ron's reaction to President Obama's NSA speech:

"We should not be surprised that these reforms do nothing to protect us from the surveillance state. After all, if it were not for the public reaction to Edward Snowden’s revelations President Obama likely would never have addressed the issue of NSA spying. Opponents of the surveillance state must continue to speak out against our violations of our rights to live our lives free of Big Brother’s watching eye."

Obama Aides: He Didn't Know Extent of NSA Surveillance

"I think it was disturbing to most people, and I think he found it disturbing.”

1.17.2014
Truth Revolt



President Obama doesn’t merely claim ignorance of the IRS’ targeting of politically conservative groups or the Department of Justice’s targeting of journalists: according to The New York Times, Obama was also ignorant of the extent of NSA surveillance. According to the Times, “aides said Mr. Obama was surprised to learn after leaks by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, just how far the surveillance had gone.” David Plouffe, Obama’s advisor, said, “Things seem to have grown at the NSA. I think it was disturbing to most people, and I think he found it disturbing.”

President Obama has repeatedly claimed ignorance on scandals plaguing his administration.

In October, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said Obama didn’t know about failures of Healthcare.gov. In May, Obama said he knew nothing about the IRS scandal: “I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the IG report before the IG report had been leaked through the press.” That same month, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Obama had no clue that the DOJ was targeting the Associated Press: “Other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any attempt by the Justice Department to seek phone records of the AP.”

In November 2012, Obama said he knew nothing about the scandal surrounding then-CIA Director David Petraeus. Carney denied in June 2012 that Obama knew anything about the Fast and Furious scandal: “[E]veryone knows the President did not know about this tactic until he heard about it through the media.”

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/obam...a-surveillance

NSA collects millions of text messages daily in 'untargeted' global sweep

• NSA extracts location, contacts and financial transactions
• 'Dishfire' program sweeps up 'pretty much everything it can'
• GCHQ using database to search metadata from UK numbers
• Dishfire presentation on text message collection – key extracts


Follow Barack Obama's speech on NSA surveillance on our live blog


James Ball in New York
The Guardian, Thursday 16 January 2014 13.55 EST
Jump to comments (1858 )



The NSA has made extensive use of its text message database to extract information on people under no suspicion of illegal activity. Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA

The National Security Agency has collected almost 200 million text messages a day from across the globe, using them to extract data including location, contact networks and credit card details, according to top-secret documents.

The untargeted collection and storage of SMS messages – including their contacts – is revealed in a joint investigation between the Guardian and the UK’s Channel 4 News based on material provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The documents also reveal the UK spy agency GCHQ has made use of the NSA database to search the metadata of “untargeted and unwarranted” communications belonging to people in the UK.

The NSA program, codenamed Dishfire, collects “pretty much everything it can”, according to GCHQ documents, rather than merely storing the communications of existing surveillance targets.

The NSA has made extensive use of its vast text message database to extract information on people’s travel plans, contact books, financial transactions and more – including of individuals under no suspicion of illegal activity.

An agency presentation from 2011 – subtitled “SMS Text Messages: A Goldmine to Exploit” – reveals the program collected an average of 194 million text messages a day in April of that year. In addition to storing the messages themselves, a further program known as “Prefer” conducted automated analysis on the untargeted communications.



An NSA presentation from 2011 on the agency's Dishfire program to collect millions of text messages daily. Photograph: GuardianThe Prefer program uses automated text messages such as missed call alerts or texts sent with international roaming charges to extract information, which the agency describes as “content-derived metadata”, and explains that “such gems are not in current metadata stores and would enhance current analytics”.

On average, each day the NSA was able to extract:
• More than 5 million missed-call alerts, for use in contact-chaining analysis (working out someone’s social network from who they contact and when)
• Details of 1.6 million border crossings a day, from network roaming alerts
• More than 110,000 names, from electronic business cards, which also included the ability to extract and save images.
• Over 800,000 financial transactions, either through text-to-text payments or linking credit cards to phone users

The agency was also able to extract geolocation data from more than 76,000 text messages a day, including from “requests by people for route info” and “setting up meetings”. Other travel information was obtained from itinerary texts sent by travel companies, even including cancellations and delays to travel plans.



A slide on the Dishfire program describes the 'analytic gems' of collected metadata. Photograph: GuardianCommunications from US phone numbers, the documents suggest, were removed (or “minimized”) from the database – but those of other countries, including the UK, were retained.

The revelation the NSA is collecting and extracting personal information from hundreds of millions of global text messages a day is likely to intensify international pressure on US president Barack Obama, who on Friday is set to give his response to the report of his NSA review panel.

While US attention has focused on whether the NSA’s controversial phone metadata program will be discontinued, the panel also suggested US spy agencies should pay more consideration to the privacy rights of foreigners, and reconsider spying efforts against allied heads of state and diplomats.

In a statement to the Guardian, a spokeswoman for the NSA said any implication that the agency’s collection was “arbitrary and unconstrained is false”. The agency’s capabilities were directed only against “valid foreign intelligence targets” and were subject to stringent legal safeguards, she said.

The ways in which the UK spy agency GCHQ has made use of the NSA Dishfire database also seems likely to raise questions on the scope of its powers.

While GCHQ is not allowed to search through the content of messages without a warrant – though the contents are stored rather than deleted or “minimized” from the database – the agency’s lawyers decided analysts were able to see who UK phone numbers had been texting, and search for them in the database.

The GCHQ memo sets out in clear terms what the agency’s access to Dishfire allows it to do, before handling how UK communications should be treated. The unique property of Dishfire, it states, is how much untargeted or unselected information it stores.

“In contrast to [most] GCHQ equivalents, DISHFIRE contains a large volume of unselected SMS traffic,” it states (emphasis original). “This makes it particularly useful for the development of new targets, since it is possible to examine the content of messages sent months or even years before the target was known to be of interest.”

It later explains in plain terms how useful this capability can be. Comparing Dishfire favourably to a GCHQ counterpart which only collects against phone numbers that have specifically been targeted, it states “Dishfire collects pretty much everything it can, so you can see SMS from a selector which is not targeted”.

The document also states the database allows for broad, bulk searches of keywords which could result in a high number of hits, rather than just narrow searches against particular phone numbers: “It is also possible to search against the content in bulk (e.g. for a name or home telephone number) if the target’s mobile phone number is not known.”

Analysts are warned to be careful when searching content for terms relating to UK citizens or people currently residing in the UK, as these searches could be successful but would not be legal without a warrant or similar targeting authority.

However, a note from GCHQ’s operational legalities team, dated May 2008, states agents can search Dishfire for “events” data relating to UK numbers – who is contacting who, and when.

“You may run a search of UK numbers in DISHFIRE in order to retrieve only events data,” the note states, before setting out how an analyst can prevent himself seeing the content of messages when he searches – by toggling a single setting on the search tool.

Once this is done, the document continues, “this will now enable you to run a search without displaying the content of the SMS, especially useful for untargeted and unwarranted UK numbers.”

A separate document gives a sense of how large-scale each Dishfire search can be, asking analysts to restrain their searches to no more than 1,800 phone numbers at a time.



An NSA slide on the 'Prefer' program reveals the program collected an average of 194 million text messages a day in April 2011. Photograph: GuardianThe note warns analysts they must be careful to make sure they use the form’s toggle before searching, as otherwise the database will return the content of the UK messages – which would, without a warrant, cause the analyst to “unlawfully be seeing the content of the SMS”.

The note also adds that the NSA automatically removes all “US-related SMS” from the database, so it is not available for searching.

A GCHQ spokesman refused to comment on any particular matters, but said all its intelligence activities were in compliance with UK law and oversight.

But Vodafone, one of the world’s largest mobile phone companies with operations in 25 countries including Britain, greeted the latest revelations with shock.

“It’s the first we’ve heard about it and naturally we’re shocked and surprised,” the group’s privacy officer and head of legal for privacy, security and content standards told Channel 4 News.

“What you’re describing sounds concerning to us because the regime that we are required to comply with is very clear and we will only disclose information to governments where we are legally compelled to do so, won’t go beyond the law and comply with due process.

“But what you’re describing is something that sounds as if that’s been circumvented. And for us as a business this is anathema because our whole business is founded on protecting privacy as a fundamental imperative.”

He said the company would be challenging the UK government over this. “From our perspective, the law is there to protect our customers and it doesn’t sound as if that is what is necessarily happening.”

The NSA’s access to, and storage of, the content of communications of UK citizens may also be contentious in the light of earlier Guardian revelations that the agency was drafting policies to facilitate spying on the citizens of its allies, including the UK and Australia, which would – if enacted – enable the agency to search its databases for UK citizens without informing GCHQ or UK politicians.

The documents seen by the Guardian were from an internal Wikipedia-style guide to the NSA program provided for GCHQ analysts, and noted the Dishfire program was “operational” at the time the site was accessed, in 2012.

The documents do not, however, state whether any rules were subsequently changed, or give estimates of how many UK text messages are collected or stored in the Dishfire system, or from where they are being intercepted.

In the statement, the NSA spokeswoman said: “As we have previously stated, the implication that NSA's collection is arbitrary and unconstrained is false.

“NSA's activities are focused and specifically deployed against – and only against – valid foreign intelligence targets in response to intelligence requirements.

“Dishfire is a system that processes and stores lawfully collected SMS data. Because some SMS data of US persons may at times be incidentally collected in NSA’s lawful foreign intelligence mission, privacy protections for US persons exist across the entire process concerning the use, handling, retention, and dissemination of SMS data in Dishfire.

“In addition, NSA actively works to remove extraneous data, to include that of innocent foreign citizens, as early as possible in the process.”

The agency draws a distinction between the bulk collection of communications and the use of that data to monitor or find specific targets.

A spokesman for GCHQ refused to respond to any specific queries regarding Dishfire, but said the agency complied with UK law and regulators.

“It is a longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters,” he said. “Furthermore, all of GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception and Intelligence Services Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee.”

GCHQ also directed the Guardian towards a statement made to the House of Commons in June 2013 by foreign secretary William Hague, in response to revelations of the agency’s use of the Prism program.

“Any data obtained by us from the US involving UK nationals is subject to proper UK statutory controls and safeguards, including the relevant sections of the Intelligence Services Act, the Human Rights Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act,” Hague told MPs.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...d-global-sweep

PUNT: President to call for outsourcing NSA phone data...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Seeking to calm a furor over U.S. surveillance powers, President Barack Obama on Friday will call for ending the government's control of phone data from hundreds of millions of Americans and require intelligence agencies to get a secretive court's permission before accessing the records, a senior administration official said.

However, congressional officials say the moves would require approval from lawmakers, raising questions about how quickly - or even whether - the proposals could be enacted by a Congress that is divided over the future of the government's spying operations.

Obama will announce the decisions in a highly anticipated speech at the Justice Department. He will not offer his own plan for where the phone records should be moved and will instead call on the attorney general and intelligence community to recommend a transfer point before March 28, when the collection program comes up for reauthorization. The official says the administration will also consult with Congress on the data transfer.



Privacy advocates say moving the data outside the government's control could minimize the risk of unauthorized or overly broad searches by the NSA. A presidential review panel proposed moving the data to the telephone companies or a third party.

However, the phone providers have balked at changes that would put them back in control of the records, citing liability concerns if hackers or others were able to gain unauthorized access to the records.

The moves are more sweeping than what many U.S. officials had been anticipating about the president's surveillance decisions. People close to the White House review process say Obama was grappling with the key decisions on the phone record collections -- known as Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act -- even in the days leading up to Friday's speech.

But the changes are expected to be met with pushback from some in the intelligence community, who have been pressing Obama to keep the surveillance programs largely intact.

The administration official insisted on anonymity because this person was not authorized to discuss the president's decisions, by name, ahead of his speech.

Reacting to reports of Obama's plan, retired Gen. Michael Hayden, a former NSA director, said "no one will hold it (the phone data) as well."

Appearing on NBC's "Today" show Friday, Hayden said there has been "serious, irreversible harm to the ability" of the National Security Agency to collect intelligence. Obama's review of the nation's surveillance apparatus was spurred by disclosures about the government's sweeping surveillance programs by former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden.

But the president's address will still leave many questions about reforms to the surveillance programs unanswered. He is expected to recommend further study on several of the 46 recommendations he received from a presidential review group, including ideas for expanding privacy protections to foreigners.
Obama is also expected to call for the creation of an independent privacy advocate on the secretive court that approves the phone record collections. The court currently hears arguments only from the government.

While the privacy advocate post has broad support, a U.S. district judge this week panned the recommendation as unnecessary and possibly counterproductive.

Many of the changes Obama was expected to announce appeared aimed at shoring up the public's confidence in the spying operations.

In previewing Obama's speech, White House spokesman Jay Carney had said Thursday the president believed the government could make surveillance activities "more transparent in order to give the public more confidence about the problems and the oversight of the programs."

The president also was expected to announce changes in U.S. surveillance operations overseas, including ratcheting up oversight to determine whether the government will monitor communications of friendly foreign leaders. It's unclear whether there will be any changes to how the government access or holds communications records collected from foreigners living overseas.

The leaks from Snowden, a fugitive now living in Russia, sparked intense anger in Europe, particularly the revelations that the U.S. was monitoring the phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

http://www.conservativeoutfitters.co...nsa-phone-data

NSA Grabs Locations, Contacts, Passwords & Financial Transactions from Millions of Text Messages

Posted By Joshua Cook on Jan 17, 2014 in 4th Amendment, Articles, Big Brother, Corruption, News, Police State, Tyranny, US News | 1 Comment



If you think the NSA isn’t reading your text messages, you are sadly mistaken. Based on top secret data leaked by Edward Snowden, the NSA collects 200 million text messages a day from across the globe, using them to extract data including location, contact networks, passwords and credit card details, etc. (Full document here.)
The NSA program, codenamed Dishfire, collects “pretty much everything it can,” according to documents from the UK spy agency GCHQ, rather than merely storing the communications of existing surveillance targets.
The NSA has tapped its vast text database to get info in people’s travel plans, contact lists, financial transactions and more — including people under no suspicion of illegal activity.



On average, each day the NSA was able to extract:
• More than 5 million missed-call alerts, for use in contact-chaining analysis (working out someone’s social network from who they contact and when)


• Details of 1.6 million border crossings a day, from network roaming alerts
• More than 110,000 names, from electronic business cards, which also included the ability to extract and save images.
• Over 800,000 financial transactions, either through text-to-text payments or linking credit cards to phone users.



In a statement to the Guardian, a spokeswoman for the NSA said any implication that the agency’s collection was “arbitrary and unconstrained is false.” The agency’s capabilities were directed only against “valid foreign intelligence targets” and were subject to stringent legal safeguards, she said.
But Dishfire’s wide gap was lauded in released documents, which state the benefit of having this collected data on people who aren’t known targets of interests yet.
This begs another question: are wireless companies complying with the NSA? In 2012, Verizon Wireless, the largest carrier in the U.S., stated that they received approximately 270,000 requests for information from law enforcement. According to Verizon’s lawyer, these requests are accompanied by a warrant, court order, or a subpoena. 270,000 requests a year is a small number compared to 200 million a day.
As reported previously, Apple’s CEO called the NSA malicious hackers for creating “backdoors” on iPhones. Has the NSA created “backdoors” in wireless networks without companies knowing it?
This new revelation also proves that NSA spying is not just extracting bulk metadata, but personal content containing private information. Up to this point, courts were arguing that “metadata” does not apply to the 4th Amendment.




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http://freedomoutpost.com/2014/01/ns...text-messages/

Friday, January 17, 2014

EXPOSED: High-Level NSA Official Says Metadata Illegally Used To Prosecute Average Citizens For Everything From Drug Dealing To Tax Evasion

Former Top NSA Official: “We Are Now In A Police State”

THIS IS WHY JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS, PAUL RYAN, JOHN BOEHNER, MITT ROMNEY AND SO MANY OTHER "CONSERVATIVES" WITH SKELETONS IN THEIR CLOSETS.... ROLL OVER FOR THE OBAMA CABAL!!

ITS THE BLACKMAIL...

Posted on December 18, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog
32-year NSA Veteran Who Created Mass Surveillance System Says Government Use of Data Gathered Through Spying “Is a Totalitarian Process”

EXPOSED: High-Level NSA Official Says Metadata Illegally Used To Prosecute Average Citizens For Everything From Drug Dealing To Tax Evasion

Bill Binney is the high-level NSA executive who created the agency’s mass surveillance program for digital information. A 32-year NSA veteran widely regarded as a “legend” within the agency, Binney was the senior technical director within the agency and managed thousands of NSA employees.
Binney has been interviewed by virtually all of the mainstream media, including CBS, ABC, CNN, New York Times, USA Today, Fox News, PBS and many others.
Last year, Binney held his thumb and forefinger close together, and said:

We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state.

But today, Binney told Washington’s Blog that the U.S. has already become a police state.
By way of background, the government is spying on virtually everything we do.
All of the information gained by the NSA through spying is then shared with federal, state and local agencies, and they are using that information to prosecute petty crimes such as drugs and taxes. The agencies are instructed to intentionally “launder” the information gained through spying, i.e. to pretend that they got the information in a more legitimate way … and to hide that from defense attorneys and judges.
This is a bigger deal than you may realize, as legal experts say that there are so many federal and state laws in the United States, that no one can keep track of them all … and everyone violates laws every day without even knowing it.
The NSA also ships Americans’ most confidential, sensitive information to foreign countries like Israel (and here), the UK and other countries … so they can “unmask” the information and give it back to the NSA … or use it for their own purposes.
Binney told us today:

The main use of the collection from these [NSA spying] programs [is] for law enforcement. [See the 2 slides below].
These slides give the policy of the DOJ/FBI/DEA etc. on how to use the NSA data. In fact, they instruct that none of the NSA data is referred to in courts – cause it has been acquired without a warrant.
So, they have to do a “Parallel Construction” and not tell the courts or prosecution or defense the original data used to arrest people. This I call: a “planned programed perjury policy” directed by US law enforcement.
And, as the last line on one slide says, this also applies to “Foreign Counterparts.”
This is a total corruption of the justice system not only in our country but around the world. The source of the info is at the bottom of each slide. This is a totalitarian process – means we are now in a police state.

Here are the two slides which Binney pointed us to:

(Source: Reuters via RT; SOD stands for “Special Operations Division,” a branch of a federal government agency.)
We asked Binney a follow-up question:

You say “this also applies to ‘Foreign Counterparts.’” Does that mean that foreign agencies can also “launder” the info gained from NSA spying? Or that data gained through foreign agencies’ spying can be “laundered” and used by U.S. agencies?

Binney responded:

For countries like the five eyes (US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand) and probably some others it probably works both ways. But for others that have relationships with FBI or DEA etc., they probably are given the data to used to arrest people but are not told the source or given copies of the data.

Posted by JOHN GAULTIER'S FEROCIOUSLY CONSERVATIVE ACTIVIST BULLETIN at 5:27 PM Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook




Labels: NSA SNOOPING ON CITIZENS, OBAMA SNOOPS ON ENEMIES THROUGH THE NSA

http://john-gaultier.blogspot.com/20...cial-says.html

Alex Jones

Obama speech: Miller Lite commercial: less filling, tastes great - http://www.infowars.com/obama-speech...-tastes-great/

Obama just made a Miller Lite speech, to calm fears that NSA spying is a bother and a problem.

Alex Jones


Obama Justifies NSA Spying: Paul Revere Did It First - Argues US has always defended freedom through surveillance.

http://www.infowars.com/obama-justif...-did-it-first/