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

Report: Secret NSA Powers Wider Than Thought

Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, June 21, 2013, 7:27 AM

Via Drudge:
Spy agency can snoop without warrant…
… Keep data collected ‘inadvertently’
Lawyers eye for evidence in murder, divorce cases…
CLAIM: Top judges, generals, politicians wiretapped…
Judge’s one-paragraph order governs mass collection…
REPORT: SKYPE helped gov’t access customer data…
McConnell: Attack on free speech…
Govt to map your ‘every move’…
The Guardian released more documents today on NSA surveilance procedures in the United States.

Fisa court submissions show broad scope of procedures governing NSA’s surveillance of Americans’ communication.
Top secret documents submitted to the court that oversees surveillance by US intelligence agencies show the judges have signed off on broad orders which allow the NSA to make use of information “inadvertently” collected from domestic US communications without a warrant.
The Guardian is publishing in full two documents submitted to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (known as the Fisa court), signed by Attorney General Eric Holder and stamped 29 July 2009. They detail the procedures the NSA is required to follow to target “non-US persons” under its foreign intelligence powers and what the agency does to minimize data collected on US citizens and residents in the course of that surveillance.
The documents show that even under authorities governing the collection of foreign intelligence from foreign targets, US communications can still be collected, retained and used.
The procedures cover only part of the NSA’s surveillance of domestic US communications. The bulk collection of domestic call records, as first revealed by the Guardian earlier this month, takes place under rolling court orders issued on the basis of a legal interpretation of a different authority, section 215 of the Patriot Act.
The Fisa court’s oversight role has been referenced many times by Barack Obama and senior intelligence officials as they have sought to reassure the public about surveillance, but the procedures approved by the court have never before been publicly disclosed.

Whistleblower: NSA Spying On Americans, Congress And Military Officers



"In this bombshell episode of the Boiling Frogs Post Podcast Show NSA whistleblower Russ Tice joins us to go on record for the first time with new revelations and the names of official culprits involved in the NSA's illegal practices. Mr. Tice explains in detail how the National Security Agency targets, sucks-in, stores and analyzes illegally obtained content from the masses in the United States. He contradicts officials and the mainstream media on the status of the NSA's Utah facility, which is already operating and "On-Line." He reveals the NSA as a Deep State that targets and wiretaps US political candidates for its own purposes. We discuss the latest controversies involving the NSA, PRISM, Edward Snowden, and the spins and lies that are being floated by the US mainstream and pseudo-alternative media. - See more at: boilingfrogspost.com

Video at link

Unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society.
Tim Berners Lee Wired


Stop Watching Us.

The revelations about the National Security Agency's surveillance apparatus, if true, represent a stunning abuse of our basic rights. We demand the U.S. Congress reveal the full extent of the NSA's spying programs.

Read the full letter to US CongressDear Members of Congress,
We write to express our concern about recent reports published in the Guardian and the Washington Post, and acknowledged by the Obama Administration, which reveal secret spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on phone records and Internet activity of people in the United States.
The Washington Post and the Guardian recently published reports based on information provided by an intelligence contractor showing how the NSA and the FBI are gaining broad access to data collected by nine of the leading U.S. Internet companies and sharing this information with foreign governments. As reported, the U.S. government is extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person's movements and contacts over time. As a result, the contents of communications of people both abroad and in the U.S. can be swept in without any suspicion of crime or association with a terrorist organization.
Leaked reports also published by the Guardian and confirmed by the Administration reveal that the NSA is also abusing a controversial section of the PATRIOT Act to collect the call records of millions of Verizon customers. The data collected by the NSA includes every call made, the time of the call, the duration of the call, and other "identifying information" for millions of Verizon customers, including entirely domestic calls, regardless of whether those customers have ever been suspected of a crime. The Wall Street Journal has reported that other major carriers, including AT&T and Sprint, are subject to similar secret orders.
This type of blanket data collection by the government strikes at bedrock American values of freedom and privacy. This dragnet surveillance violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which protect citizens' right to speak and associate anonymously, guard against unreasonable searches and seizures, and protect their right to privacy.
We are calling on Congress to take immediate action to halt this surveillance and provide a full public accounting of the NSA's and the FBI's data collection programs. We call on Congress to immediately and publicly:

1. Enact reform this Congress to Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity and phone records of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court;
2. Create a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying. This committee should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform to end unconstitutional surveillance;
3. Hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

https://optin.stopwatching.us/

NYT: Skype collaborated with NSA long before PRISM

2:01 PM 06/20/2013
Skype’s relationship with the U.S. intelligence establishment is older than its alleged involvement with the NSA’s recently revealed Internet surveillance program PRISM, according to a New York Times report Thursday.

The endeavor, called Project Chess, began five years ago while eBay still owned the company. Project Chess’ aim was “to explore the legal and technical issues in making Skype calls readily available to intelligence agencies and law enforcement officials,” sources told The New York Times.


Earlier this month, The Guardian and The Washington Post reported that Skype was one of nine major Internet companies participating in PRISM under the National Security Agency.Skype allegedly came on board February 2011 before it was acquired by Microsoft in May 2011. Microsoft reportedly joined the program in September 2007.

Microsoft carefully acknowledged that it complies with orders for data regarding “requests about specific accounts or identifiers” when the company “a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis.”
“If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data, we don’t participate in it,” the company said in a statement to gaming site Kotaku.


The other companies accused of participating — Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, AOL and Apple — have also issued their own vehement, carefully-worded denials.


Earlier this year, privacy and transparency activists urged Microsoft to come clean about it and Skype’s security practices, user data retention policies and its interpretation of its legal responsibilities to comply with law enforcement requests.The White House, senior members of the congressional intelligence committees and senior officials of the intelligence community have all defended the legality and effectiveness of the program, as well as the oversight regime holding the program accountable.


http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/20/nyt-skype-collaborated-with-nsa-l...

Hot Mic Catches NSA Boss Praising FBI Chiefs For Supportive Testimony

Posted by Gateway Guest Blogger on Thursday, June 20, 2013, 2:27 PM
Guest Post by Mara Zebest

Hmmmm…. a hot mic catches the NSA boss Keith Alexander telling the FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce that he owes the FBI boss another friggin’ beer for the supportive testimony.

The DailyMail reports the following:


The director of the National Security Agency was overheard offering a round of beer to the FBI’s second-in-command following Tuesday’s congressional hearing on the NSA’s controversial surveillance programs.The three-hour hearing had just wrapped up around 1 p.m. when NSA Director Keith Alexander turned to FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce and praised him for his testimony.

‘Thank you, Sean,’ Alexander said, according to a clip of the exchange that was first reported by Ben Doernberg.
‘Tell your boss I owe him another friggin’ beer,’ he added.
‘Yeah?’ Joyce responded.
‘Yeah,’ said Alexander.
‘Tell him to give it to me,’ Joyce said.

Alexander and Joyce sat side-by-side during the hearing and took turns answering questions from lawmakers about the recently disclosed government surveillance programs.Joyce repeatedly praised the programs as ‘essential’ tools for fighting terrorism in his remarks to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

He also described four specific cases where the FBI used data obtained by the NSA programs to thwart terror attacks, including a bomb plot against the New York Stock Exchange and another against the city’s subway system. [...]
Read more here.

Prosecutors ask Hong Kong to detain American on provisional arrest warrant, according to newspaper report

• guardian.co.uk, Friday 21 June 2013 19.36 EDT

A woman walks past a banner supporting Edward Snowden in Hong Kong. Photograph: Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images

US prosecutors have filed a sealed criminal complaint charging National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden with espionage, theft and conversion of government property, the Washington Post reported on Friday.
The US also has asked Hong Kong to detain the former NSA contractor on a provisional arrest warrant, the Post reported. Snowden, 29, is reported to be in hiding in Hong Kong.
A US justice department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a criminal complaint had been filed against Snowden, who disclosed documents detailing US and UK telephone and internet surveillance efforts.
US prosecutors now have 60 days to file an indictment and can then take steps to secure Snowden's extradition from Hong Kong for a criminal trial in the US, the newspaper reported.
Snowden would be able to challenge the request for his extradition in court in Hong Kong.
The Post noted the US extradition treaty with Hong Kong has an exception for political offences, and that espionage has been viewed as a political offence.
Kristinn Hrafnsson, an Icelandic businessman linked to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, said on Thursday he had readied a private plane in China to fly Snowden to Iceland if Iceland's government would grant asylum.
Iceland refused on Friday to say whether it would grant asylum to Snowden.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...with-espionage

The top secret rules that allow NSA to use US data without a warrant

Fisa court submissions show broad scope of procedures governing NSA's surveillance of Americans' communication

• Document one: procedures used by NSA to target non-US persons
• Document two: procedures used by NSA to minimise data collected from US persons

• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 20 June 2013 18.59 EDT
• Jump to comments (1401)

The documents show that discretion as to who is actually targeted lies directly with the NSA's analysts. Photograph: Martin Rogers/Workbook Stock/Getty

Top secret documents submitted to the court that oversees surveillance by US intelligence agencies show the judges have signed off on broad orders which allow the NSA to make use of information "inadvertently" collected from domestic US communications without a warrant.
The Guardian is publishing in full two documents submitted to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (known as the Fisa court), signed by Attorney General Eric Holder and stamped 29 July 2009. They detail the procedures the NSA is required to follow to target "non-US persons" under its foreign intelligence powers and what the agency does to minimize data collected on US citizens and residents in the course of that surveillance.
The documents show that even under authorities governing the collection of foreign intelligence from foreign targets, US communications can still be collected, retained and used.
The procedures cover only part of the NSA's surveillance of domestic US communications. The bulk collection of domestic call records, as first revealed by the Guardian earlier this month, takes place under rolling court orders issued on the basis of a legal interpretation of a different authority, section 215 of the Patriot Act.
The Fisa court's oversight role has been referenced many times by Barack Obama and senior intelligence officials as they have sought to reassure the public about surveillance, but the procedures approved by the court have never before been publicly disclosed.
The top secret documents published today detail the circumstances in which data collected on US persons under the foreign intelligence authority must be destroyed, extensive steps analysts must take to try to check targets are outside the US, and reveals how US call records are used to help remove US citizens and residents from data collection.
However, alongside those provisions, the Fisa court-approved policies allow the NSA to:
• Keep data that could potentially contain details of US persons for up to five years;
• Retain and make use of "inadvertently acquired" domestic communications if they contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity;
• Preserve "foreign intelligence information" contained within attorney-client communications;
• Access the content of communications gathered from "U.S. based machine[s]" or phone numbers in order to establish if targets are located in the US, for the purposes of ceasing further surveillance.
The broad scope of the court orders, and the nature of the procedures set out in the documents, appear to clash with assurances from President Obama and senior intelligence officials that the NSA could not access Americans' call or email information without warrants.
The documents also show that discretion as to who is actually targeted under the NSA's foreign surveillance powers lies directly with its own analysts, without recourse to courts or superiors – though a percentage of targeting decisions are reviewed by internal audit teams on a regular basis.
Since the Guardian first revealed the extent of the NSA's collection of US communications, there have been repeated calls for the legal basis of the programs to be released. On Thursday, two US congressmen introduced a bill compelling the Obama administration to declassify the secret legal justifications for NSA surveillance.
The disclosure bill, sponsored by Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, and Todd Rokita, an Indiana Republican, is a complement to one proposed in the Senate last week. It would "increase the transparency of the Fisa Court and the state of the law in this area," Schiff told the Guardian. "It would give the public a better understanding of the safeguards, as well as the scope of these programs."
Section 702 of the Fisa Amendments Act (FAA), which was renewed for five years last December, is the authority under which the NSA is allowed to collect large-scale data, including foreign communications and also communications between the US and other countries, provided the target is overseas.
FAA warrants are issued by the Fisa court for up to 12 months at a time, and authorise the collection of bulk information – some of which can include communications of US citizens, or people inside the US. To intentionally target either of those groups requires an individual warrant.
One-paragraph order

One such warrant seen by the Guardian shows that they do not contain detailed legal rulings or explanation. Instead, the one-paragraph order, signed by a Fisa court judge in 2010, declares that the procedures submitted by the attorney general on behalf of the NSA are consistent with US law and the fourth amendment.
Those procedures state that the "NSA determines whether a person is a non-United States person reasonably believed to be outside the United States in light of the totality of the circumstances based on the information available with respect to that person, including information concerning the communications facility or facilities used by that person".
It includes information that the NSA analyst uses to make this determination – including IP addresses, statements made by the potential target, and other information in the NSA databases, which can include public information and data collected by other agencies.
Where the NSA has no specific information on a person's location, analysts are free to presume they are overseas, the document continues.
"In the absence of specific information regarding whether a target is a United States person," it states "a person reasonably believed to be located outside the United States or whose location is not known will be presumed to be a non-United States person unless such person can be positively identified as a United States person."
If it later appears that a target is in fact located in the US, analysts are permitted to look at the content of messages, or listen to phone calls, to establish if this is indeed the case.
Referring to steps taken to prevent intentional collection of telephone content of those inside the US, the document states: "NSA analysts may analyze content for indications that a foreign target has entered or intends to enter the United States. Such content analysis will be conducted according to analytic and intelligence requirements and priorities."
Details set out in the "minimization procedures", regularly referred to in House and Senate hearings, as well as public statements in recent weeks, also raise questions as to the extent of monitoring of US citizens and residents.
NSA minimization procedures signed by Holder in 2009 set out that once a target is confirmed to be within the US, interception must stop immediately. However, these circumstances do not apply to large-scale data where the NSA claims it is unable to filter US communications from non-US ones.
The NSA is empowered to retain data for up to five years and the policy states "communications which may be retained include electronic communications acquired because of limitations on the NSA's ability to filter communications".
Even if upon examination a communication is found to be domestic – entirely within the US – the NSA can appeal to its director to keep what it has found if it contains "significant foreign intelligence information", "evidence of a crime", "technical data base information" (such as encrypted communications), or "information pertaining to a threat of serious harm to life or property".
Domestic communications containing none of the above must be destroyed. Communications in which one party was outside the US, but the other is a US-person, are permitted for retention under FAA rules.
The minimization procedure adds that these can be disseminated to other agencies or friendly governments if the US person is anonymised, or including the US person's identity under certain criteria.
Holder's 'minimization procedure' says once a target is confirmed to be in the US, interception of communication must stop. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images A separate section of the same document notes that as soon as any intercepted communications are determined to have been between someone under US criminal indictment and their attorney, surveillance must stop. However, the material collected can be retained, if it is useful, though in a segregated database:
"The relevant portion of the communication containing that conversation will be segregated and the National Security Division of the Department of Justice will be notified so that appropriate procedures may be established to protect such communications from review or use in any criminal prosecution, while preserving foreign intelligence information contained therein," the document states.
In practice, much of the decision-making appears to lie with NSA analysts, rather than the Fisa court or senior officials.
A transcript of a 2008 briefing on FAA from the NSA's general counsel sets out how much discretion NSA analysts possess when it comes to the specifics of targeting, and making decisions on who they believe is a non-US person. Referring to a situation where there has been a suggestion a target is within the US.
"Once again, the standard here is a reasonable belief that your target is outside the United States. What does that mean when you get information that might lead you to believe the contrary? It means you can't ignore it. You can't turn a blind eye to somebody saying: 'Hey, I think so and so is in the United States.' You can't ignore that. Does it mean you have to completely turn off collection the minute you hear that? No, it means you have to do some sort of investigation: 'Is that guy right? Is my target here?" he says.
"But, if everything else you have says 'no' (he talked yesterday, I saw him on TV yesterday, even, depending on the target, he was in Baghdad) you can still continue targeting but you have to keep that in mind. You can't put it aside. You have to investigate it and, once again, with that new information in mind, what is your reasonable belief about your target's location?"
The broad nature of the court's oversight role, and the discretion given to NSA analysts, sheds light on responses from the administration and internet companies to the Guardian's disclosure of the PRISM program. They have stated that the content of online communications is turned over to the NSA only pursuant to a court order. But except when a US citizen is specifically targeted, the court orders used by the NSA to obtain that information as part of Prism are these general FAA orders, not individualized warrants specific to any individual.
Once armed with these general orders, the NSA is empowered to compel telephone and internet companies to turn over to it the communications of any individual identified by the NSA. The Fisa court plays no role in the selection of those individuals, nor does it monitor who is selected by the NSA.
The NSA's ability to collect and retain the communications of people in the US, even without a warrant, has fuelled congressional demands for an estimate of how many Americans have been caught up in surveillance.
Two US senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall – both members of the Senate intelligence committee – have been seeking this information since 2011, but senior White House and intelligence officials have repeatedly insisted that the agency is unable to gather such statistics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...ithout-warrant

Facebook Bug Exposes Contact Information Of 6 Million Users



A message from Facebook's "White Hat" program warns users about a bug that exposed contact information

A bug, that Facebook FB +2.64% said has been fixed, inadvertently shared email addresses or telephone numbers of approximately 6 million users, according to a Facebook blog post.
The bug, which was found through Facebook’s “White Hat Program” that works with security researchers around the world, exposed information to people that may have been “ connected” with the person who’s information was shared.
The company post explained the possible consequences:

Because of the bug, some of the information used to make friend recommendations and reduce the number of invitations we send was inadvertently stored in association with people’s contact information as part of their account on Facebook. As a result, if a person went to download an archive of their Facebook account through our Download Your Information (DYI) tool, they may have been provided with additional email addresses or telephone numbers for their contacts or people with whom they have some connection. This contact information was provided by other people on Facebook and was not necessarily accurate, but was inadvertently included with the contacts of the person using the DYI tool.

The company said that it disabled the DYI tool for a day but has reinstated it after fixing the bug. Facebook says that it has “no evidence that this bug has been exploited maliciously and we have not received complaints from users or seen anomalous behavior on the tool or site to suggest wrongdoing.”
In the blog post, Facebook said it was “upset and embarrassed” by the bug but said that “the practical impact of this bug is likely to be minimal since any email address or phone number that was shared was shared with people who already had some of that contact information anyway, or who had some connection to one another.”
Facebook has notified regulators in the U.S., Canada and Europe and its in the process of notifying affected users via email.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymag...million-users/

NSA Whistleblower: NSA Illegally Spied On Top Generals, All Supreme Court Justices, White House Spokesman


Submitted by George Washington on 06/21/2013 19:08 -0400

• Barack Obama
• FBI
• New York Times
• PrISM
• White House

As we reported yesterday, NSA whistleblower Russel Tice – a key source in the 2005 New York Times report that blew the lid off the Bush administration’s use of warrantless wiretapping – told Peter B. Collins on Boiling Frogs Post (the website of FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds) that the NSA spied on and targeted for blackmail:

• "Members of Congress, both Senate and the House, especially on the intelligence committees and on the armed services committees and some of the–and judicial"

• "One of the judges is now sitting on the Supreme Court"

• "Two ... former FISA court judges"

• "State Department officials"

• "People in the executive service that were part of the White House–their own people"

• "Antiwar groups"

• "U.S. companies that that do international business"

• "U.S. banking firms and financial firms that do international business"

• "NGOs that–like the Red Cross, people like that that go overseas and do humanitarian work"

• "The president of the United States now [i.e. Barack Obama, when he was running for Senate]"

Tice just named some additional names.
Specifically, Tice told radio host James Corbett that the NSA spied on the following government officials for the purposes of gaining leverage over them:

• Top Democratic and Republican congress members, especially on the Intelligence, Armed Services and Judiciary committees, as well as the senior leadership in both the House and the Senate

• General Petraeus and other generals (Background)

• Supreme Court justice Alito ... and all of the other Supreme Court justices

• White House spokesman Scott McClellan

Those officials were targeted before the NSA started its mass Prism surveillance program. Now, Tice says the NSA spies oneveryone. He's right.

We asked highly-credible NSA whistleblower William Binney what he thought about Tice's statements. Binney told us:

I can not validate what he is saying. This, however, is not out of the question that our government or parts thereof would in fact do this. Certainly the capability is there.

See this for further background on spying and harassment of government officials and civilians.


http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed...court-justices