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

Firefox Plug-in Warns Users Of NSA Surveillance


Saturday, June 15, 2013 0:16

(Before It's News)
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day? The government is likely logging even the most mundane day-to-day computer habits of millions of Americans, but there’s a way to stand up against surveillance while also rocking out.
According to leaked NSA documents published by The Guardian last week, the United States National Security Agency is conducting dragnet surveillance of the communications of Americans, regularly receiving phone records for millions of Verizon customers while also being capable of accessing the conversations that occur over Facebook, Google and several other major Internet names through a program called PRISM. Now a 28-year-old artist and developer from Brooklyn, New York has found a fun way of warning computer users about potential government surveillance, and he’s incorporated one of the best-selling rock albums ever in the process.
Justin Blinder released a plugin for the Web browser Firefox this week, and he’s already seeing a positive response in the press if not just based off of the idea alone. His “The Dark Side of the Prism” browser extension alerts Web surfers of possible surveillance by starting up a different song from Pink Floyd’s 1973 classic “The Dark Side of the Moon” each time a questionable site is crossed.
Blinder told the Guardian that he built the program over the course of four hours with the hopes he could “create some sort of ambient notification that you are on a site that is being surveiled by the NSA.”
“I was really interested in the fact that, although the PRISM leaks were a shock to many of us, we pretty much already kind of know we’re being surveiled a lot of the time and giving away so much data,” he said.
More: http://rt.com/usa/prism-floyd-nsa-surveillance-723/


Source: http://yeoldefalseflag.com/thread-firefox-plug-in-warns-users-of-nsa-surveillance


http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative...&utm_campaign=



Firefox plug-in warns users of NSA surveillance

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Published time: June 14, 2013 19:43
Edited time: June 15, 2013 02:23

AFP Photo / Leon Neal








Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day? The government is likely logging even the most mundane day-to-day computer habits of millions of Americans, but there’s a way to stand up against surveillance while also rocking out.
According to leaked NSA documents published by The Guardian last week, the United States National Security Agency is conducting dragnet surveillance of the communications of Americans, regularly receiving phone records for millions of Verizon customers while also being capable of accessing the conversations that occur over Facebook, Google and several other major Internet names through a program called PRISM. Now a 28-year-old artist and developer from Brooklyn, New York has found a fun way of warning computer users about potential government surveillance, and he’s incorporated one of the best-selling rock albums ever in the process.
Justin Blinder released a plugin for the Web browser Firefox this week, and he’s already seeing a positive response in the press if not just based off of the idea alone. His “The Dark Side of the Prism” browser extension alerts Web surfers of possible surveillance by starting up a different song from Pink Floyd’s 1973 classic “The Dark Side of the Moon” each time a questionable site is crossed.

PRISM

Blinder told the Guardian that he built the program over the course of four hours with the hopes he could "create some sort of ambient notification that you are on a site that is being surveiled by the NSA."
"I was really interested in the fact that, although the PRISM leaks were a shock to many of us, we pretty much already kind of know we're being surveiled a lot of the time and giving away so much data," he said.
Upon news of the phone tracking program, even members of Congress said they couldn’t get over how much information was being shared between the telecoms and the government. Walking out of a briefing this Wednesday, Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-California) said, "What we learned in there is significantly more than what is out in the media today,” and described her reaction as “astounded.” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said the program “represents an outrageous abuse of power and a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution,” and the American Civil Liberties Union has sued the government with a similar complaint filed in federal court.
Separate from leaking a document about the NSA’s access to phone records, former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden also gave The Guardian evidence of Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, AOL and others sharing private communications of customers with the government. When “The Dark Side of the Prism” is installed, users of those sites will be reminded with one of the most iconic albums of the twentieth century.
"I just Googled 'Prism' and the cover came up," Blinder said. It just so happened that the long-time best-seller also fits the mood for exactly what the programmer was looking for.
"I didn’t want it to be too jarring because a lot of us seem to be giving in to being surveiled on a daily basis. I feel like people already know that. I didn't want it to be alarming,” he said.


Image from pinkfloyd.com

“The Dark Side of the Moon” was Pink Floyd’s eighth studio album and most commercially successfully, selling roughly 50 million copies and landing on the Billboard charts for 741 consecutive weeks. Surveillance, on the other hand, isn’t quite as popular: according to a Post/Washington Post poll released this week, 52 percent of Americans oppose the PRISM program.
With regards to Snowden, the American public is largely polarized on the issue. He’s been labeled as both a traitor and whistleblower and is currently the target of a Department of Justice investigation.
“He’s not a whistleblower, by the way, because a whistleblower actually wants the rule of law to be enforced,” Jeremy Bash, the former chief of staff for then-CIA Director Leon Panetta, told Politics Confidential this week. “He copied documents and he made a run for it. He may be actually aiding our enemies.”
On his part, Snowden said he leaked the documents because, “I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, Internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building.”
Earlier this year, Pink Floyd lyricist Roger Waters lent his support to Army Private first class Bradley Manning, who is currently on trial for the largest intelligence leak in US history.
“We need more whistl blowers,” Waters wrote in a statement. “Blowing the whistle on our behalf is not just brave, it is heroic and it is our duty.”


http://rt.com/usa/prism-floyd-nsa-surveillance-723/

WOW Gore is upset.....will wonders ever cease.....

Al Gore: NSA's secret surveillance program 'not really the American way'

Former vice-president – not persuaded by argument that program was legal – urges Congress and Obama to amend the laws

Al Gore: 'I am not sure how to interpret polls on this, because we don't do dial groups on the bill of rights.' Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

The National Security Agency's blanket collection of US citizens' phone records was "not really the American way", Al Gore said on Friday, declaring that he believed the practice to be unlawful.In his most expansive comments to date on the NSA revelations, the former vice-president was unsparing in his criticism of the surveillance apparatus, telling the Guardian security considerations should never overwhelm the basic rights of American citizens.


He also urged Barack Obama and Congress to review and amend the laws under which the NSA operated.
"I quite understand the viewpoint that many have expressed that they are fine with it and they just want to be safe but that is not really the American way," Gore said in a telephone interview. "Benjamin Franklin famously wrote that those who would give up essential liberty to try to gain some temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."


Since the 2000 elections, when Gore won the popular vote but lost the presidency to George W Bush, the former vice-president has tacked to the left of the Democratic party, especially on his signature issue of climate change. Gore spoke on Friday from Istanbul where he was about to lead one of his climate change training workshops for 600 global activists. Such three-day training sessions on behalf of the Climate Reality Project are now one of his main concerns.


Unlike other leading Democrats and his former allies, Gore said he was not persuaded by the argument that the NSA surveillance had operated within the boundaries of the law."This in my view violates the constitution. The fourth amendment and the first amendment – and the fourth amendment language is crystal clear," he said. "It is not acceptable to have a secret interpretation of a law that goes far beyond any reasonable reading of either the law or the constitution and then classify as top secret what the actual law is."

Gore added: "This is not right."


The former vice-president was also unmoved by some recent opinion polls suggesting public opinion was in favour of surveillance
"I am not sure how to interpret polls on this, because we don't do dial groups on the bill of rights," he said.
He went on to call on Barack Obama and Congress to review the laws under which the NSA expanded its surveillance. "I think that the Congress and the administration need to make some changes in the law and in their behaviour so as to honour and obey the constitution of the United States," he said. "It is that simple."
He rejected outright calls by the Republican chair of the house homeland security committee, Peter King, for prosecution of journalists who cover security leaks, such as the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald.


Gore did say, however, that he had serious concerns about some aspects of the testimony offered by national intelligence director James Clapper during testimony to the Senate intelligence committee last March.
Clapper, in response to pointed questions from Democratic senator Ron Wyden, had said during that appearance that the NSA did not collect data on Americans."I was troubled by his direct response to Senator Wyden's very pointed question," Gore said. "I was troubled by that."Gore has long had qualms about the expansion of the surveillance state in the digital age. He made those concerns public this year in his latest book, The Future: Six Drivers of Social Change, in which he warned: "Surveillance technologies now available – including the monitoring of virtually all digital information – have advanced to the point where much of the essential apparatus of a police state is already in place."


Within hours of the Guardian's first story about the NSA, the former vice-president tweeted: "In digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?
He said on Friday: "Some of us thought that it was probably going on, but what we have learned since then makes it a cause for deep concern."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...tion1:sublinks

Glenn Beck Discusses DHS Insider "It's About To Get Ugly!"


06/14/2013


+Glenn Beck on Douglas Hagmann DHS Insider - Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck

Written by The Producer of The Hagmann and Hagmann Report.

On Monday of this week, June 10, 2013, Glenn Beck broke this story on his own syndicated radio show, "Its about to get ugly!" We have edited the clip down to only 4 minutes and 6 seconds so all of you can hear what he said on his show.


Here is what is on the Glenn Beck Web Site:


Over the weekend, Glenn read a shocking story out of Canada where a DHS insider warned that things were about to get very ugly very anyone exposing this administration either as a whistleblower or as a dissenting voice in the media.

Doug Hagmann with the Canadian Free Press explained his encounter with a DHS insider:

“If anyone thinks that what’s going on right now with all of this surveillance of American citizens is to fight some sort of foreign enemy, they’re delusional. If people think that this ‘scandal’ can’t get any worse, it will, hour by hour, day by day. This has the ability to bring down our national leadership, the administration and other senior elected officials working in collusion with this administration, both Republican and Democrats. People within the NSA, the Department of Justice, and others, they know who they are, need to come forth with the documentation of ‘policy and practice’ in their possession, disclose what they know, fight what’s going on, and just do their job. I have never seen anything like this, ever. The present administration is going after leakers, media sources, anyone and everyone who is even suspected of ‘betrayal.’ That’s what they call it, ‘betrayal.’ Can you believe the size of their cahones? This administration considers anyone telling the truth about Benghazi, the IRS, hell, you name the issue, ‘betrayal,’” he said.

“We know all this already,” I stated. He looked at me, giving me a look like I’ve never seen, and actually pushed his finger into my chest. “You don’t know jack,” he said, “this is bigger than you can imagine, bigger than anyone can imagine. This administration is collecting names of sources, whistle blowers and their families, names of media sources and everybody they talk to and have talked to, and they already have a huge list. If you’re not working for MSNBC or CNN, you’re probably on that list. If you are a website owner with a brisk readership and a conservative bent, you’re on that list. It’s a political dissident list, not an enemy threat list,” he stated.

After reading this story, Glenn forwarded it on to TheBlaze news team to verify it and see how it matched up with the information they were getting from their sources. What he received in response from the team at TheBlaze was one of the most chilling things he has ever read.

“I found that and I sent that immediately to my global information desk in New York,” Glenn said. “And this is the responsive: Glenn, I can’t tell you about this source or this story, but I can tell you this: One, our sources have been increasingly afraid and have insisted in some cases on similar clandestine arrangements to deliver information.”

“Two, they have avoided all e‑mails, cellphones from the get‑go and that is becoming even more the case of late,” he continued, “They have reported increased security and scrutiny on their jobs, along with warnings of what happens ‘to those that commit treason’.”

“Three, they are uniformly panicked and they feel what info they have has got to get out to be broadcast to the broadest possible group as quickly as possible. They are growing very frustrated by the lack of response from the American people and are becoming increasingly bold. See the Guardian and WaPo leaks.They have a fear that they are about to be shut down.”

“Four, many know far more than they have shared and they are trying to figure out ways, as are we, to insulate them so the information can be revealed.”

Glenn asked for the prayers and support of the audience, warning that things were only going to get harder from here.


The rest is here.

http://www.hagmannandhagmann.com/1/p...-get-ugly.html

http://www.glennbeck.com/2013/06/10/...t-to-get-ugly/

Justin Blinder released a plugin for the Web browser Firefox this week, and he’s already seeing a positive response in the press if not just based off of the idea alone. His “The Dark Side of the Prism” browser extension alerts Web surfers of possible surveillance by starting up a different song from Pink Floyd’s 1973 classic “The Dark Side of the Moon” each time a questionable site is crossed.

LOL excellent, I had no idea, thanks for posting Kathyet!

On Prism, partisanship and propaganda

Addressing many of the issues arising from last week's NSA stories

l


James Clapper, on Saturday decried the release of the information and said media reports about it have been inaccurate Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

(updated below - Update II - Update III)
I haven't been able to write this week here because I've been participating in the debate over the fallout from last week's NSA stories, and because we are very busy working on and writing the next series of stories that will begin appearing very shortly. I did, though, want to note a few points, and particularly highlight what Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez said after Congress on Wednesday was given a classified briefing by NSA officials on the agency's previously secret surveillance activities:

"What we learned in there is significantly more than what is out in the media today. . . . I can't speak to what we learned in there, and I don't know if there are other leaks, if there's more information somewhere, if somebody else is going to step up, but I will tell you that I believe it's the tip of the iceberg . . . . I think it's just broader than most people even realize, and I think that's, in one way, what astounded most of us, too."

The Congresswoman is absolutely right: what we have reported thus far is merely "the tip of the iceberg" of what the NSA is doing in spying on Americans and the world. She's also right that when it comes to NSA spying, "there is significantly more than what is out in the media today", and that's exactly what we're working to rectify.
But just consider what she's saying: as a member of Congress, she had no idea how invasive and vast the NSA's surveillance activities are. Sen. Jon Tester, who is a member of the Homeland Security Committee, said the same thing, telling MSNBC about the disclosures that "I don't see how that compromises the security of this country whatsoever" and adding: "quite frankly, it helps people like me become aware of a situation that I wasn't aware of before because I don't sit on that Intelligence Committee."
How can anyone think that it's remotely healthy in a democracy to have the NSA building a massive spying apparatus about which even members of Congress, including Senators on the Homeland Security Committee, are totally ignorant and find "astounding" when they learn of them? How can anyone claim with a straight face that there is robust oversight when even members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are so constrained in their ability to act that they are reduced to issuing vague, impotent warnings to the public about what they call radical "secret law" enabling domestic spying that would "stun" Americans to learn about it, but are barred to disclose what it is they're so alarmed by? Put another way, how can anyone contest the value and justifiability of the stories that we were able to publish as a result of Edward Snowden's whistleblowing: stories that informed the American public - including even the US Congress - about these incredibly consequential programs? What kind of person would think that it would be preferable to remain in the dark - totally ignorant - about them?
I have a column in the Guardian's newspaper edition tomorrow examining the fallout from these stories. That will be posted here and I won't repeat that now. I will, though, note the following brief items:
(1) Much of US politics, and most of the pundit reaction to the NSA stories, are summarized by this one single visual from Pew:

The most vocal media critics of our NSA reporting, and the most vehement defenders of NSA surveillance, have been, by far, Democratic (especially Obama-loyal) pundits. As I've written many times, one of the most significant aspects of the Obama legacy has been the transformation of Democrats from pretend-opponents of the Bush War on Terror and National Security State into their biggest proponents: exactly what the CIA presciently and excitedly predicted in 2008 would happen with Obama's election.
Some Democrats have tried to distinguish 2006 from 2013 by claiming that the former involved illegal spying while the latter does not. But the claim that current NSA spying is legal is dubious in the extreme: the Obama DOJ has repeatedly thwarted efforts by the ACLU, EFF and others to obtain judicial rulings on their legality and constitutionality by invoking procedural claims of secrecy, immunity and standing. If Democrats are so sure these spying programs are legal, why has the Obama DOJ been so eager to block courts from adjudicating that question?
More to the point, Democratic critiques of Bush's spying were about more than just legality. I know that because I actively participated in the campaign to amplify those critiques. Indeed, by 2006, most of Bush's spying programs - definitely his bulk collection of phone records - were already being conducted under the supervision and with the blessing of the FISA court. Moreover, leading members of Congress - including Nancy Pelosi - were repeatedly briefed on all aspects of Bush's NSA spying program. So the distinctions Democrats are seeking to draw are mostly illusory.
To see how that this is so, just listen to then-Senator Joe Biden in 2006 attack the NSA for collecting phone records: he does criticize the program for lacking FISA court supervision (which wasn't actually true), but also claims to be alarmed by just how invasive and privacy-destroying that sort of bulk record collection is. He says he "doesn't think" that the program passes the Fourth Amendment test: how can Bush's bulk record collection program be unconstitutional while Obama's program is constitutional? But Biden also rejected Bush's defense (exactly the argument Obama is making now) - that "we're not listening to the phone calls, we're just looking for patterns" - by saying this:

I don't have to listen to your phone calls to know what you're doing. If I know every single phone call you made, I'm able to determine every single person you talked to. I can get a pattern about your life that is very, very intrusive. . . . If it's true that 200 million Americans' phone calls were monitored - in terms of not listening to what they said, but to whom they spoke and who spoke to them - I don't know, the Congress should investigative this."

Is collecting everyone's phone records not "very intrusive" when Democrats are doing it? Just listen to that short segment to see how every defense Obama defenders are making now were the ones Bush defenders made back then. Again, leading members of Congress and the FISA court were both briefed on and participants in the Bush telephone record collection program as well, yet Joe Biden and most Democrats found those programs very alarming and "very intrusive" back then.
(2) Notwithstanding the partisan-driven Democratic support for these programs, and notwithstanding the sustained demonization campaign aimed at Edward Snowden from official Washington, polling data, though mixed, has thus far been surprisingly encouraging.
A Time Magazine poll found that 54% of Americans believe Snowden did "a good thing", while only 30% disagreed. That approval rating is higher than the one enjoyed by both Congress and President Obama. While a majority think he should be nonetheless prosecuted, a plurality of young Americans, who overwhelmingly view Snowden favorably, do not even want to see him charged. Reuters found that more Americans see Snowden as a "patriot" than a "traitor". A Gallup poll this week found that more Americans disapprove (53%) than approve (37%) of the two NSA spying programs revealed last week by the Guardian.
(3) Thomas Drake, an NSA whistleblower who was unsuccessfully prosecuted by the Obama DOJ, writes in the Guardian that as a long-time NSA official, he saw all of the same things at the NSA that Edward Snowden is now warning Americans about. Drake calls Snowden's acts "an amazingly brave and courageous act of civil disobedience." William Binney, the mathematician who resigned after a 30-year career as a senior NSA official in protest of post-9/11 domestic surveillance, said on Democracy Now this week that Snowden's claims about the NSA are absolutely true.
Meanwhile, Daniel Ellsberg, writing in the Guardian, wrote that "there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago." He added: "Snowden did what he did because he recognized the NSA's surveillance programs for what they are: dangerous, unconstitutional activity."
Listen to actual experts and patriots - people who have spent their careers inside the NSA and/or who risked their liberty for the good of the country - and the truth of Snowden's claims and the justifiability of his acts become manifest.
(4) As we were about to begin publishing these NSA stories, a veteran journalist friend warned me that the tactic used by Democratic partisans would be to cling to and then endlessly harp on any alleged inaccuracy in any one of the stories we publish as a means of distracting attention away from the revelations and discrediting the entire project. That proved quite prescient, as that is exactly what they are attempting to do.
Thus far we have revealed four independent programs: the bulk collection of telephone records, the Prism program, Obama's implementation of an aggressive foreign and domestic cyber-operations policy, and false claims by NSA officials to Congress. Every one of those articles was vetted by multiple Guardian editors and journalists - not just me. Democratic partisans have raised questions about only one of the stories - the only one that happened to be also published by the Washington Post (and presumably vetted by multiple Post editors and journalists) - in order to claim that an alleged inaccuracy in it means our journalism in general is discredited.
They are wrong. Our story was not inaccurate. The Washington Post revised parts of its article, but its reporter, Bart Gellman, stands by its core claims ("From their workstations anywhere in the world, government employees cleared for Prism access may 'task' the system and receive results from an Internet company without further interaction with the company's staff").
The Guardian has not revised any of our articles and, to my knowledge, has no intention to do so. That's because we did not claim that the NSA document alleging direct collection from the servers was true; we reported - accurately - that the NSA document claims that the program allows direct collection from the companies' servers. Before publishing, we went to the internet companies named in the documents and asked about these claims. When they denied it, we purposely presented the story as one of a major discrepancy between what the NSA document claims and what the internet companies claim, as the headline itself makes indisputably clear:

The NSA document says exactly what we reported. Just read it and judge for yourself (Prism is "collection directly from the servers of these US service providers"). It's endearingly naive how some people seem to think that because government officials or corporate executives issue carefully crafted denials, this resolves the matter. Read the ACLU's tech expert, Chris Soghoian, explain why the tech companies' denials are far less significant and far more semantic than many are claiming.
Nor do these denials make any sense. If all the tech companies are doing under Prism is providing what they've always provided to the NSA, but simply doing it by a different technological means, then why would a new program be necessary at all? How can NSA officials claim that a program that does nothing more than change the means for how this data is delivered is vital in stopping terrorist threats? Why does the NSA document hail the program as one that enables new forms of collection? Why would it be "top secret" if all this was were just some new way of transmitting court-ordered data? How is Prism any different in any meaningful way from how the relationship between the companies and the NSA has always functioned?
As a follow-up to our article, the New York Times reported on extensive secret negotiations between Silicon Valley executives and NSA officials over government access to the companies' data. It's precisely because these arrangements are secret and murky yet incredibly significant that we published our story about these conflicting claims. They ought to be resolved in public, not in secret. The public should know exactly what access the NSA is trying to obtain to the data of these companies, and should know exactly what access these companies are providing. Self-serving, unchecked, lawyer-vetted denials by these companies don't remotely resolve these questions.
In a Nation post yesterday, Rick Perlstein falsely accuses me of not having addressed the questions about the Prism story. I've done at least half-a-dozen television shows in the last week where I was asked about exactly those questions and answered fully with exactly what I've written here (see this appearance with Chris Hayes as just the latest example); the fact that Perlstein couldn't be bothered to use Google doesn't entitle him to falsely claim I haven't addressed these questions. I have done so repeatedly, and do so here again.
I know that many Democrats want to cling to the belief that, in Perlstein's words, "the powers that be will find it very easy to seize on this one error to discredit [my] NSA revelation, even the ones he nailed dead to rights". Perlstein cleverly writes that "such distraction campaigns are how power does its dirtiest work" as he promotes exactly that campaign.
But that won't happen. The documents and revelations are too powerful. The story isn't me, or Edward Snowden, or the eagerness of Democratic partisans to defend the NSA as a means of defending President Obama, and try as they might, Democrats won't succeed in making the story be any of those things. The story is the worldwide surveillance apparatus the NSA is constructing in the dark and the way that has grown under Obama, and that's where my focus is going to remain.
(5) NYU Journalism professor Jay Rosen examines complaints that my having strong, candidly acknowledged opinions on surveillance policies somehow means that the journalism I do on those issues is suspect. It is very worth reading what he has to say on this topic as it gets to the heart about several core myths about what journalism is.
(6) Last week, prior to the revelation of our source's identity, I wrote that "ever since the Nixon administration broke into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychoanalyst's office, the tactic of the US government has been to attack and demonize whistleblowers as a means of distracting attention from their own exposed wrongdoing and destroying the credibility of the messenger so that everyone tunes out the message" and "that attempt will undoubtedly be made here."
The predictable personality assaults on Snowden have begun in full force from official Washington and their media spokespeople. They are only going to intensify. There is nobody who political officials and their supine media class hate more than those who meaningfully dissent from their institutional orthodoxies and shine light on what they do. The hatred for such individuals is boundless.
There are two great columns on this dynamic. This one by Reuters' Jack Shafer explores how elite Washington reveres powerful leakers that glorify political officials, but only hate marginalized and powerless leakers who discredit Washington and its institutions. And perhaps the best column yet on Snowden comes this morning from the Daily Beast's Kirsten Powers: just please take the time to read it all, as it really conveys the political and psychological rot that is driving the attacks on him and on his very carefully vetted disclosures.
UPDATE

The New York Times reports today that Yahoo went to court in order to vehemently resist the NSA's directive that they join the Prism program, and joined only when the court compelled it to do so. The company specifically "argued that the order violated its users' Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures."
If, as NSA (and Silicon Valley) defenders claim, Prism is nothing more than a harmless little drop-box mechanism for delivering to the government what these companies were already providing, why would Yahoo possibly be in court so vigorously resisting it and arguing that it violates their users' Fourth Amendment rights? Similarly, how could it possibly be said - as US government officials have - that Prism has been instrumental in stopping terrorist plots if it did not enhance the NSA's collection capabilities? The denials from the internet companies make little sense when compared to what we know about the program. At the very least, there is ample reason to demand more disclosure and transparency about exactly what this is and what data-access arrangements they have agreed to.
UPDATE II

My column that is appearing in the Guardian newspaper, on the fallout from the NSA stories, is now posted here.
UPDATE III

Underscoring all of these points, please take two minutes to watch this amazing video, courtesy of EFF, in which the 2006 version of Joe Biden aggressively debates the 2013 version of Barack Obama on whether the US government should be engaged in the bulk collection of American's phone records:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/14/nsa-partisanshi...

Glenn asked for the prayers and support of the audience, warning that things were only going to get harder from here.

I agree we all need to be praying. I think there is going to be lots of upheaval over this.

Sign up to join the lawsuit below!

I'm looking for ten million Americans to stand with me and sue the federal government and TAKE BACK our rights.

Can I count on your help?

Without it, I truly fear where our fragile Republic could be headed . . .

Recent news reports revealed that Barack Obama's NSA is looking through billions of our emails and phone records every day!

Today I'm counting on your support.

Will you join my class-action lawsuit IMMEDIATELY?

Go here:

http://www.randpacusa.com/nsa_lawsui...2.aspx?pid=04b

Obama Squelches Air Force Freedom


Posted on June 16 2013 by Conservative Daily
The United States active duty military (at least the Air Force, right now) has been told NOT to view even the news about the Verizon phone snooping by the government on the Internet!
This is the last straw. Finally, “enough is enough!”
A “Notice to Airmen” was sent by the 624^th Operations Center of the United States Air Force and had a priority of “CRITICAL.”
The Executive summary reads: “Similar to events associated with WIKILEAKS disclosures in the past 2 years, classified documents associated with a news story on NSA and wiretapping are potentially classified and readily available on the internet. Users are not to use AF NIPRNET systems to access the Verizon phone records collection and other related news stories because the action could constitute a Classified Message incident.”
In short, the Air Force has warned airmen NOT to read news stories related to the data-mining scandal!
The totalitarian society described in George Orwell’s novel, 1984, has universal surveillance, much like we now know that the United States is under.
NOW MILITARY PERSONNEL CANNOT EVEN READ ABOUT THE SCANDAL!

PLEASE FAX NOW!

Isn’t that the ultimate, secretive cover-up? News about phone records is off-limits to our airmen.
We must demand a Congressional investigation into this matter that goes even further than the actual scandal itself—NOT letting our military even read about it!
An airman doing a simple search on his computer could endanger their future in the Air Force. Anything to do with the recent news about the NSA and Verizon phone records collection and other related news stories is not only “off-limits,” but can bring possible charges against our military!
Cindy McGee, the mother of an airman stationed overseas, gave this account of the scandal cover-up: “The fact that our government is attempting to censor our service members from the truth of what is happening here at home is truly frightening and disheartening. I am outraged that our government is attempting to censor the information from our military that every citizen in this country is potentially being targeted by our government in a massive overreach of their constitutional powers by unconstitutional surveillance of all Americans and storage of that date.”
How dare the President of the United States call these intrusive surveillance programs merely “hype.” But, by now, that wording can almost be expected from President Obama!\

Join the conversation on Facebook!

You may ask, “What happens if an airman disobeys this unclassified notice?” They could be punished!

FAX CONGRESS NOW!

How about asking Master Sgt. Nathan Sommers?
FOX News reports: Master Sgt. Nathan Sommers, a 25-year Army veteran based at Fort Myer in Washington. Sommers said his core beliefs are enough to mark a soldier for persecution in today’s military.”
Army documents obtained by Fox News indicate Sommers was told that his actions bordered on being disrespectful to President Obama and the “slightest inference of disrespect towards superiors can have a demoralizing effect on the unit.” “You should strive to express your opinion while being aware of the overall ramifications of your statements,” the Army noted.
Sommers’ troubles began last April when he was told to remove pro-Republican, anti-Obama bumper stickers that were on his privately owned car. The stickers read: “Political Dissent is NOT Racism,” “NOBAMA,” NOPE2012” and “The Road to Bankruptcy is Paved with Ass-Fault.” That sticker included the image of a donkey. His superior officer told the solider that the bumper stickers were creating “unnecessary workplace tension.”
“The types of stickers on your car were creating an atmosphere detrimental to morale and were creating unnecessary workplace tension,” the officer wrote in an Army document obtained by Fox News. “A Soldier must balance their personal feelings with the mission of the U.S. Army. Even the slightest inference of disrespect towards superiors can have a demoralizing effect on the unit.”
Attorney Wells said once he got involved, the military backed off of filing a formal reprimand.
Our military men and women put their life on the line for our freedoms. Yet the military is threatened with punishment when they express their private beliefs in private. NOW, airmen are not even allowed to use the Internet to look at just the news! What day doesn't go by that the story isn't somewhere on the front page of every news site?
Something is very wrong here and we must demand a Congressional investigation!

FAX NOW!

Sincerely,
Joe Otto
Conservative-Daily

http://www.conservative-daily.com/2013/06/16/obama-squelches-air-force-freedom/

Who Will Watch the Watchers?


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by Sydney Williams 14 Jun 2013 15 post a comment
The title is borrowed from Edwin Fadiman’s 1970 book. But the concern it expresses goes back almost two thousand years to the Roman poet, Juvenal. He became known as the first to use the term, Quis custodiet ipros custodes?, which literally translated means who will watch the watchmen? But the meaning is the same. In a democracy, the watchers are supposed to be the people, aided by a press not beholden to any political party.

We live in an age of ubiquitous personal data, easily available and mined by government and business. We love the connectivity technology affords, but we are torn between a desire for privacy and a need to be protected. Edward Snowden claims that the pendulum had swung too far toward violations of privacy, so he broke the secrecy rules, ran off to Hong Kong and exposed the NSA’s Prism program on which he had been working while employed by Booz Allen in Hawaii. Civil disobedience has a long history in the United States, from the Bostonians who threw British tea into Boston Harbor, to Henry David Thoreau, to Martin Luther King. Thoreau once said: “If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.”
But then there are those who claim civil disobedience, but in fact are motivated by hubris or politics, men like Daniel Ellsberg who published the “Pentagon Papers” in 1971 and ABC’s Sam Donaldson who in 2006 declared it a “sacred duty” to expose secret CIA prisons. Both men probably thought of themselves as modern-day Thoreaus. But, in my opinion, their motivations had baser elements. Mr. Ellsberg disagreed with the Vietnam War, while Mr. Donaldson simply did not like George Bush. Not everyone who disobeys our laws is a hero, no matter their claim. In which camp does Mr. Snowden fall? It is too early to tell, but I suspect he falls into the latter.


We live in an information age. Ninety-nine plus percent of Americans love their smart phones. Wikipedia estimates that there are 327 million cell phones in the U.S. and over six billion in the world. Estimates are that on average six calls are made per day and three to four times as many text messages. It is estimated that about 150 billion e-mails are sent each day. Instant messaging and twittering provide more fodder. Every YouTube video ever made resides somewhere in the blogosphere, as does every photo sent over the internet. Smart phones are used to call, text, locate the nearest Starbucks or determine the weather. Messages and calls travel wirelessly using some form of spectrum or broadband that some carrier has purchased from the government. We purchase goods and make payments this way. Two years ago, PEW Research estimated that the average young person received or sent 87.7 messages every day. Even those over the age of 65 were sending more than five messages a day. The numbers must be far higher today.


Consequently, our movements, calls and messages can be tracked, listened to and read. That knowledge is instinctive to anyone with a smart phone. “You have zero privacy. Get over it,” said Scott McNealy fourteen years ago. Despite the popularity of Lee Child’s hero, there are very few Jack Reacher’s out there.


The point being, because of technology and the human need to stay in touch, we live in a world that is far easier to monitor than ever before. Yet millions of Americans seemed oblivious to the traceability of their movements, calls, videos and messages. The disclosure by Edward Snowden about the workings of the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) Prism Program sent sales of George Orwell’s 1984 soaring – up 5000% one day earlier this week. Millions of people, having forgotten or ignored Mr. McNealy’s admonition, are unreservedly sending text messages, photos and e-mails, data that would embarrass them in more sober moments. To them, Mr. Snowden’s divulgence served as a wake-up call; so, for many in the aftermath, the Fourth Amendment trumped safety.


The massive amount of data available means it is impossible for any organization to listen in on every call or read every message. The NSA must create sophisticated algorithms to mine this “metadata” in order to monitor possible terrorist activity. And the formulas must be constantly adjusted to account for new pieces of information. They must also always be on the alert to hacking activities, as the bad guys persistently attempt to block intrusive government monitoring programs. One can think of the Prism Program as a funnel with a very large conical mouth and a microscopic stem – ingesting the general, digesting and disgorging the granular. Wednesday, in testimony before the Senate, NSA chief, General Keith Alexander noted that billions of pieces of data resulted in only a few dozen pieces of information that would be studied carefully.


General Alexander claimed that a dozen or more terrorist plots had been prevented because of the surveillance. On the other hand, the Tsarnaev brothers escaped scrutiny. Was their slipping through the cracks a result of political correctness, errors in the algorithms of the surveillance program, or was their non-detection proof that the NSA errs in favor of not being a Big Brother? A survey conducted by PEW Research, released on Monday, found that 56% of Americans approve the programs. Still, 41% of Americans found that tracking phone calls was an “unacceptable way” for government to investigate terrorists. How, then, should it be done?
We all know that the data exists. We all know that our messages, calls, movements and purchases are captured by some entity. Every time I go on Amazon, a message pops up welcoming me back and making suggestions based on past purchases. This happens to us all and is repeated millions of times every day. What concerns people is what is done with the data. How is it used? Is it sold? Can it be compromised? Virtually every business is dependent on data transmission, from buying gasoline, to the entire banking system to the deployment of nuclear missiles. Cybersecurity is a real and present danger.


When James Clapper, the National Director of Intelligence, appeared before the Senate last March, he was asked if the NSA collects any data at all on millions of Americans. He answered unequivocally that they did not. He lied. Should he be prosecuted for perjury, or was he simply safeguarding a program designed to protect Americans from terrorists? In my opinion the question was designed to elicit a lie. One would have had to have lived in a cave for the last two decades to believe that such data was not being collected. The real question is how is it used?


We live in a politically correct, multicultural environment, one that is supported by mainstream media. In his acceptance of the Bradley Prize last week, Roger Ailes – a notable, non-mainstream media executive – said America is losing its historic literacy. Sixty percent of seniors among the nation’s top colleges could not place the Civil War in the correct half of the 19^th Century! Ideas, in this milieu, don’t count for diversity. Diversity, according to the politically correct, can only be determined by one’s gender or the color of one’s skin, not by the ideas one expresses. It is impossible for “historical illiterates” to put into perspective the disclosures of Mr. Snowden, or to consider what he said in a broader context.


At the heart of the controversy, however, is trust. How can we trust a government that used IRS audits for political gains and the Department of Justice to penetrate press activities for the same purposes? How do we trust a government that lied about the events in Benghazi? Who will watch the watchers? How can we find a consensus when the two Parties are so far apart that landmark legislation like ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank were passed without a single opposition vote? Two PEW Research Center polls regarding the NSA’s tracking methods are telling – one conducted in 2006, the other last week. In both cases, people marginally approved the methods. But in 2006, Republicans overwhelmingly supported the program. Democrats did not. In 2013, we saw the reverse. If half the country does not trust the other half and if nobody trusts government, we have a problem, as President Obama noted a week ago. Yes, Mr. President we do have a problem, and a search for the reason should put you before a mirror. There are others who are responsible, but you are the President. Campaigning when you are not up for re-election, demonizing your opponents, and acting unilaterally has not helped.
Restoration of trust will have to wait for the next President, if then.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...h-the-Watchers

Our military men and women put their life on the line for our freedoms. Yet the military is threatened with punishment when they express their private beliefs in private. NOW, airmen are not even allowed to use the Internet to look at just the news! What day doesn't go by that the story isn't somewhere on the front page of every news site?

Something is very wrong here and we must demand a Congressional investigation!

FAX NOW!

How the government is treating military is outrageous....they expect them to risk their lives but not read the news.