Privacy Alert! Big Brother is watching and listening, UPDATED

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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

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Obama Admin Grabs Millions of Verizon Phone Records

http://cdn.breitbart.com/mediaserver...05/Verizon.png



by Ben Shapiro 5 Jun 2013
According to a breaking report from the UK Guardian, Barack Obama’s National Security Agency has been collecting phone records of millions of domestic customers of Verizon under a court order obtained in April. The order requires Verizon to turn over phone records on an “ongoing, daily basis” to the NSA, both within the US and between the US and international sources.

The Guardian reports: “The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.” The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) handed over the order to the FBI on April 25, and gave them a three month blanket surveillance clearance. That means that numbers of both parties, location data, call duration, and time of all calls are subject to government surveillance. That makes the Obama administration’s oversight essentially unlimited.




The NSA, White House and Department of Justice all declined comment. The court order says that Verizon is forbidden to let customers know about the surveillance. Verizon also declined comment.




The order forces Verizon to turn over electronic versions of “all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications between the United States and abroad” … or, more ominously, “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.” Every single day, Verizon must turn over that information.




The Guardian says that Verizon may not be the only cell-phone provider targeted with the order, and adds that “previous reporting has suggested the NSA has collected cell records from all major mobile networks.”

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...-Verizon-phone


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Additional information is being reported that confirms what most of us have always suspected. NSA is collecting all our email data, tracking our movements, our photographs, our documents, etc. Also factor in the fact that a court recently ruled that Obama is free to collect our DNA without being found guilty of any crime.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-c...sm-slide-4.jpg

National Security Agency (NSA) building designed for massive data collection in Utah:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-c...hensastuff.jpg
WaPo reports the following:
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.
The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before. Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy. Even late last year, when critics of the foreign intelligence statute argued for changes, the only members of Congress who knew about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues.
An internal presentation on the Silicon Valley operation, intended for senior analysts in the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate, described the new tool as the most prolific contributor to the President’s Daily Brief, which cited PRISM data in 1,477 articles last year. According to the briefing slides, obtained by The Washington Post, “NSA reporting increasingly relies on PRISM” as its leading source of raw material, accounting for nearly 1 in 7 intelligence reports.
That is a remarkable figure in an agency that measures annual intake in the trillions of communications. It is all the more striking because the NSA, whose lawful mission is foreign intelligence, is reaching deep inside the machinery of American companies that host hundreds of millions of American-held accounts on American soil.
The technology companies, which participate knowingly in PRISM operations, include most of the dominant global players of Silicon Valley. They are listed on a roster that bears their logos in order of entry into the program: “Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.” PalTalk, although much smaller, has hosted significant traffic during the Arab Spring and in the ongoing Syrian civil war.
Dropbox , the cloud storage and synchronization service, is described as “coming soon.” [...]
Read more here.
Note how there is a one-line mention of things to come from cloud storage. If you haven’t read this previous report on who is running the cloud, now would be a good time to review the links from this GatewayPundit article in connecting the dots, and the Obama appointees behind the cloud.
UPDATE: Politico reports the following:
Why did a government source leak information of this program, dubbed “PRISM,” to the Post? What follows is perhaps the most chilling paragraph I’ve read to date about U.S. government surveillance:
Firsthand experience with these systems, and horror at their capabilities, is what drove a career intelligence officer to provide PowerPoint slides about PRISM and supporting materials to The Washington Post in order to expose what he believes to be a gross intrusion on privacy. “They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,” the officer said.
In the wake of last night’s Guardian report about the NSA’s collection of Verizon phone user metadata, the New York Times editorial board argued that the Obama administration “has now lost all credibility” in defending its abuses of executive power. That was before the report about PRISM, which unlike the Verizon metadata, includes surveillance of user content.
“‘They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,’ the officer said.” [...]
Read more here.

White House Defends Collecting Phone Records

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By JULIE PACE
AP White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON
The Obama administration on Thursday defended the National Security Agency's need to collect telephone records of U.S. citizens, calling such information "a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats."

While defending the practice, a senior administration official did not confirm a newspaper report that the NSA has been collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of Verizon under a top secret court order.

The order was granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25 and is good until July 19, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported Wednesday. The order requires Verizon, one of the nation's largest telecommunications companies, on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries.

The newspaper said the document, a copy of which it had obtained, shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of U.S. citizens were being collected indiscriminately and in bulk, regardless of whether they were suspected of any wrongdoing.


http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/06/Administration-d...

http://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-cont...0535632952.jpg
Rand Paul: NSA seizure of phone records ‘an astounding assault on the Constitution’

12:26 PM 06/06/2013

"astounding assault on the Constitution.”

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul on Thursday responded to the revelation that the National Security Agency has been secretly obtaining phone records of Verizon customers by calling it ‘an astounding assault on the Constitution.

“After revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted political dissidents and the Department of Justice seized reporters’ phone records, it would appear that this Administration has now sunk to a new low,” the libertarian-leaning Republican said.
A court order leaked to the Guardian revealed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is allowing the FBI to obtain “all call detail records or telephony metadata” from Verizon.

“The Bill of Rights was designed to protect us from evil, too, particularly that which always correlates with concentrated government power, and particularly Executive power,” Paul said. “If the President and Congress would obey the Fourth Amendment we all swore to uphold, this new shocking revelation that the government is now spying on citizens’ phone data en masse would never have happened.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/06/rand-paul-nsa-seizure-of-phone-re...

NSA Also Collected Phone Records from AT&T, BellSouth

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by John Nolte 6 Jun 2013, 10:30 AM PDT post a comment
It seemed improbable that today's bombshell report from The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald about the National Security Agency seizing the phone records of every Verizon cell phone customer was something limited to just one carrier. Now the USA Today reports that, according to their own sources, the same thing is going on with AT&T and BellSouth.

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.
The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime.

This story gets more disturbing by the minute.

The primary pushback I am hearing from Democrats, their media, and even some Republicans, is that this is the seizure of meta-data. That, however, is nothing but spin. From this so-called meta-data, the NSA can not only profile you, but track your whereabouts via cell phone towers:
For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made — across town or across the country — to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others.
The three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the NSA, which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the sources said. The program is aimed at identifying and tracking suspected terrorists, they said.
It's hard to imagine that we are done learning about the number of carriers involved.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...-ATT-BellSouth

CNN.com - Bush says he signed NSA wiretap order - Dec 17, 2005

www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/17/bush.nsa/‎

• Cached

Dec 17, 2005 – In acknowledging the message was true, President Bush took aim at the ... of a special court called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court. ... in on thousands of phone conversations without getting a warrant is ...

NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls



The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.
The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: The NSA record collection program
"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added.
For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made — across town or across the country — to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others.
The three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the NSA, which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the sources said. The program is aimed at identifying and tracking suspected terrorists, they said.
The sources would talk only under a guarantee of anonymity because the NSA program is secret.
Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, nominated Monday by President Bush to become the director of the CIA, headed the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005. In that post, Hayden would have overseen the agency's domestic call-tracking program. Hayden declined to comment about the program.
The NSA's domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not been used in the NSA's efforts to create a national call database.
In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. "In other words," Bush explained, "one end of the communication must be outside the United States."
As a result, domestic call records — those of calls that originate and terminate within U.S. borders — were believed to be private.
Sources, however, say that is not the case. With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans. Customers' names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA's domestic program, the sources said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information.
Don Weber, a senior spokesman for the NSA, declined to discuss the agency's operations. "Given the nature of the work we do, it would be irresponsible to comment on actual or alleged operational issues; therefore, we have no information to provide," he said. "However, it is important to note that NSA takes its legal responsibilities seriously and operates within the law."
The White House would not discuss the domestic call-tracking program. "There is no domestic surveillance without court approval," said Dana Perino, deputy press secretary, referring to actual eavesdropping.
She added that all national intelligence activities undertaken by the federal government "are lawful, necessary and required for the pursuit of al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorists." All government-sponsored intelligence activities "are carefully reviewed and monitored," Perino said. She also noted that "all appropriate members of Congress have been briefed on the intelligence efforts of the United States."
The government is collecting "external" data on domestic phone calls but is not intercepting "internals," a term for the actual content of the communication, according to a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the program. This kind of data collection from phone companies is not uncommon; it's been done before, though never on this large a scale, the official said. The data are used for "social network analysis," the official said, meaning to study how terrorist networks contact each other and how they are tied together.



Carriers uniquely positioned

AT&T recently merged with SBC and kept the AT&T name. Verizon, BellSouth and AT&T are the nation's three biggest telecommunications companies; they provide local and wireless phone service to more than 200 million customers.
The three carriers control vast networks with the latest communications technologies. They provide an array of services: local and long-distance calling, wireless and high-speed broadband, including video. Their direct access to millions of homes and businesses has them uniquely positioned to help the government keep tabs on the calling habits of Americans.
Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help the NSA, the sources said. According to multiple sources, Qwest declined to participate because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants.
Qwest's refusal to participate has left the NSA with a hole in its database. Based in Denver, Qwest provides local phone service to 14 million customers in 14 states in the West and Northwest. But AT&T and Verizon also provide some services — primarily long-distance and wireless — to people who live in Qwest's region. Therefore, they can provide the NSA with at least some access in that area.
Created by President Truman in 1952, during the Korean War, the NSA is charged with protecting the United States from foreign security threats. The agency was considered so secret that for years the government refused to even confirm its existence. Government insiders used to joke that NSA stood for "No Such Agency."
In 1975, a congressional investigation revealed that the NSA had been intercepting, without warrants, international communications for more than 20 years at the behest of the CIA and other agencies. The spy campaign, code-named "Shamrock," led to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was designed to protect Americans from illegal eavesdropping.
Enacted in 1978, FISA lays out procedures that the U.S. government must follow to conduct electronic surveillance and physical searches of people believed to be engaged in espionage or international terrorism against the United States. A special court, which has 11 members, is responsible for adjudicating requests under FISA.
Over the years, NSA code-cracking techniques have continued to improve along with technology. The agency today is considered expert in the practice of "data mining" — sifting through reams of information in search of patterns. Data mining is just one of many tools NSA analysts and mathematicians use to crack codes and track international communications.
Paul Butler, a former U.S. prosecutor who specialized in terrorism crimes, said FISA approval generally isn't necessary for government data-mining operations. "FISA does not prohibit the government from doing data mining," said Butler, now a partner with the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in Washington, D.C.
The caveat, he said, is that "personal identifiers" — such as names, Social Security numbers and street addresses — can't be included as part of the search. "That requires an additional level of probable cause," he said.
The usefulness of the NSA's domestic phone-call database as a counterterrorism tool is unclear. Also unclear is whether the database has been used for other purposes.
The NSA's domestic program raises legal questions. Historically, AT&T and the regional phone companies have required law enforcement agencies to present a court order before they would even consider turning over a customer's calling data. Part of that owed to the personality of the old Bell Telephone System, out of which those companies grew.
Ma Bell's bedrock principle — protection of the customer — guided the company for decades, said Gene Kimmelman, senior public policy director of Consumers Union. "No court order, no customer information — period. That's how it was for decades," he said.
The concern for the customer was also based on law: Under Section 222 of the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, telephone companies are prohibited from giving out information regarding their customers' calling habits: whom a person calls, how often and what routes those calls take to reach their final destination. Inbound calls, as well as wireless calls, also are covered.
The financial penalties for violating Section 222, one of many privacy reinforcements that have been added to the law over the years, can be stiff. The Federal Communications Commission, the nation's top telecommunications regulatory agency, can levy fines of up to $130,000 per day per violation, with a cap of $1.325 million per violation. The FCC has no hard definition of "violation." In practice, that means a single "violation" could cover one customer or 1 million.
In the case of the NSA's international call-tracking program, Bush signed an executive order allowing the NSA to engage in eavesdropping without a warrant. The president and his representatives have since argued that an executive order was sufficient for the agency to proceed. Some civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, disagree.
Companies approached
The NSA's domestic program began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the sources. Right around that time, they said, NSA representatives approached the nation's biggest telecommunications companies. The agency made an urgent pitch: National security is at risk, and we need your help to protect the country from attacks.
The agency told the companies that it wanted them to turn over their "call-detail records," a complete listing of the calling histories of their millions of customers. In addition, the NSA wanted the carriers to provide updates, which would enable the agency to keep tabs on the nation's calling habits.
The sources said the NSA made clear that it was willing to pay for the cooperation. AT&T, which at the time was headed by C. Michael Armstrong, agreed to help the NSA. So did BellSouth, headed by F. Duane Ackerman; SBC, headed by Ed Whitacre; and Verizon, headed by Ivan Seidenberg.
With that, the NSA's domestic program began in earnest.
AT&T, when asked about the program, replied with a comment prepared for USA TODAY: "We do not comment on matters of national security, except to say that we only assist law enforcement and government agencies charged with protecting national security in strict accordance with the law."
In another prepared comment, BellSouth said: "BellSouth does not provide any confidential customer information to the NSA or any governmental agency without proper legal authority."
Verizon, the USA's No. 2 telecommunications company behind AT&T, gave this statement: "We do not comment on national security matters, we act in full compliance with the law and we are committed to safeguarding our customers' privacy."
Qwest spokesman Robert Charlton said: "We can't talk about this. It's a classified situation."
In December, The New York Times revealed that Bush had authorized the NSA to wiretap, without warrants, international phone calls and e-mails that travel to or from the USA. The following month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T. The lawsuit accuses the company of helping the NSA spy on U.S. phone customers.
Last month, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales alluded to that possibility. Appearing at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Gonzales was asked whether he thought the White House has the legal authority to monitor domestic traffic without a warrant. Gonzales' reply: "I wouldn't rule it out." His comment marked the first time a Bush appointee publicly asserted that the White House might have that authority.
Similarities in programs
The domestic and international call-tracking programs have things in common, according to the sources. Both are being conducted without warrants and without the approval of the FISA court. The Bush administration has argued that FISA's procedures are too slow in some cases. Officials, including Gonzales, also make the case that the USA Patriot Act gives them broad authority to protect the safety of the nation's citizens.
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., would not confirm the existence of the program. In a statement, he said, "I can say generally, however, that our subcommittee has been fully briefed on all aspects of the Terrorist Surveillance Program. ... I remain convinced that the program authorized by the president is lawful and absolutely necessary to protect this nation from future attacks."
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., declined to comment.
One company differs
One major telecommunications company declined to participate in the program: Qwest.
According to sources familiar with the events, Qwest's CEO at the time, Joe Nacchio, was deeply troubled by the NSA's assertion that Qwest didn't need a court order — or approval under FISA — to proceed. Adding to the tension, Qwest was unclear about who, exactly, would have access to its customers' information and how that information might be used.
Financial implications were also a concern, the sources said. Carriers that illegally divulge calling information can be subjected to heavy fines. The NSA was asking Qwest to turn over millions of records. The fines, in the aggregate, could have been substantial.
The NSA told Qwest that other government agencies, including the FBI, CIA and DEA, also might have access to the database, the sources said. As a matter of practice, the NSA regularly shares its information — known as "product" in intelligence circles — with other intelligence groups. Even so, Qwest's lawyers were troubled by the expansiveness of the NSA request, the sources said.
The NSA, which needed Qwest's participation to completely cover the country, pushed back hard.
Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled.
In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.
Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.
The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/...5-10-nsa_x.htm

RELATED http://www.alipac.us/f9/senate-intel...lawful-280240/

Whatever.....I am tired of the blame Bush mentality....Obama is in power now.....no matter where it started it needs to be stopped. Obama will use personal info on conservatives or those who do not agree with him to target them, that has already been proven with the IRS scandal....Once again DOES not matter where it started we better get it stopped before we are all in chains and have no freedom what so ever! The crooks in the Senate are going to say whatever fits their agenda.....they could care less about the invasion of our privacy or our rights being stepped on....sell that BS somewhere else.... Heads up, if they are doing it in secret.....it is NOT FOR OUR GOOD and they are doing tons of underhanded secret things to oppress us.

Senate Dems condemn phone snooping, call on White House to justify order


By Alexander Bolton - 06/06/13 11:13 AM ET

Democratic senators on Thursday condemned the National Security Agency’s collection of Verizon customers’ phone records and demanded the Obama administration make public its legal authority for the move. “It concerns me,” said Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “The administration, I think, owes it to the American public to comment on what authorities it thinks it has.”

Udall and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), also a member of the Intelligence Committee, are two of the most outspoken critics of the administration’s surveillance policies.Wyden said he would soon issue a statement on the report in the British newspaper The Guardian revealing the National Security Agency has collected a broad swath of phone data to filter out calls to suspected terrorists. The sweep included telephone numbers and the times and locations of calls but not the content of conversations, according to The Guardian.


Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.), a liberal Democrat, condemned the intelligence operation as “an outrageous breach of Americans’ privacy.”


“I have had significant concerns about the intelligence community over-collecting information about Americans’ telephone calls, emails, and other records and that is why I voted against the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act provisions in 2011 and the reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act just six months ago,” he said in a statement.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), a liberal independent who caucuses with Democrats, also blasted the administration.

"To simply say in a blanket way that millions and millions of Americans should have their phone records checked by the United States government is indefensible and, to my mind, unacceptable," he said.


Some Republicans sought to link the surveillance practices to the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of Tea Party groups seeking tax exemption.“It’s not a surprise. How do you distinguish between that and what the IRS is doing? There are no surprises left,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a member of the Intelligence Committee.



Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3...#ixzz2VTGJzCM5

BREAKING NSA UPDATE: U.S. Intelligence Mining U.S. Citizen Data From NINE U.S. Internet Companies… UPDATE: Why Govt. Source leaked PRISM

Posted by Gateway Guest Blogger on Thursday, June 6, 2013, 6:36 PM
Guest Post by Mara Zebest
Additional information is being reported that confirms what most of us have always suspected. NSA is collecting all our email data, tracking our movements, our photographs, our documents, etc. Also factor in the fact that a court recently ruled that Obama is free to collect our DNA without being found guilty of any crime.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-c...sm-slide-4.jpg

National Security Agency (NSA) building designed for massive data collection in Utah:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-c...hensastuff.jpg
WaPo reports the following:
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.
The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before. Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy. Even late last year, when critics of the foreign intelligence statute argued for changes, the only members of Congress who knew about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues.
An internal presentation on the Silicon Valley operation, intended for senior analysts in the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate, described the new tool as the most prolific contributor to the President’s Daily Brief, which cited PRISM data in 1,477 articles last year. According to the briefing slides, obtained by The Washington Post, “NSA reporting increasingly relies on PRISM” as its leading source of raw material, accounting for nearly 1 in 7 intelligence reports.
That is a remarkable figure in an agency that measures annual intake in the trillions of communications. It is all the more striking because the NSA, whose lawful mission is foreign intelligence, is reaching deep inside the machinery of American companies that host hundreds of millions of American-held accounts on American soil.
The technology companies, which participate knowingly in PRISM operations, include most of the dominant global players of Silicon Valley. They are listed on a roster that bears their logos in order of entry into the program: “Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.” PalTalk, although much smaller, has hosted significant traffic during the Arab Spring and in the ongoing Syrian civil war.
Dropbox , the cloud storage and synchronization service, is described as “coming soon.” [...]
Read more here.
Note how there is a one-line mention of things to come from cloud storage. If you haven’t read this previous report on who is running the cloud, now would be a good time to review the links from this GatewayPundit article in connecting the dots, and the Obama appointees behind the cloud.
UPDATE: Politico reports the following:
Why did a government source leak information of this program, dubbed “PRISM,” to the Post? What follows is perhaps the most chilling paragraph I’ve read to date about U.S. government surveillance:
Firsthand experience with these systems, and horror at their capabilities, is what drove a career intelligence officer to provide PowerPoint slides about PRISM and supporting materials to The Washington Post in order to expose what he believes to be a gross intrusion on privacy. “They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,” the officer said.
In the wake of last night’s Guardian report about the NSA’s collection of Verizon phone user metadata, the New York Times editorial board argued that the Obama administration “has now lost all credibility” in defending its abuses of executive power. That was before the report about PRISM, which unlike the Verizon metadata, includes surveillance of user content.
“‘They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,’ the officer said.” [...]
Read more here.