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

NSA staff not too happy about being thrown under the bus, say Obama signed off on spying on allies



Officials at the NSA aren’t very happy about the Commander in Chief throwing them under the bus in the recent high-profile spying scandal in which it was revealed they spied on leaders of foreign allies like Germany and Mexico. Some of them are now speaking out, saying President Obama not only knew about the bugs, he authorized them.
from LA Times:

The White House and State Department signed off on surveillance targeting phone conversations of friendly foreign leaders, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said Monday, pushing back against assertions that President Obama and his aides were unaware of the high-level eavesdropping.
Professional staff members at the National Security Agency and other U.S. intelligence agencies are angry, these officials say, believing the president has cast them adrift as he tries to distance himself from the disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that have strained ties with close allies.
The resistance emerged as the White House said it would curtail foreign intelligence collection in some cases and two senior U.S. senators called for investigations of the practice.
France, Germany, Italy, Mexico and Sweden have all publicly complained about the NSA surveillance operations, which reportedly captured private cellphone conversations by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, among other foreign leaders.
On Monday, as Spain joined the protest, the fallout also spread to Capitol Hill.

read the rest

The "Obama was unaware" excuse has been spread so thin at this point, it’s not even plausible.

Some European allies are now even milling the idea of placing sanctions against the United States over the spying.


http://poorrichardsnews.com/post/654...rown-under-the

Intelligence Director Blames Public Anger Over NSA, Not Government Misdeeds, For ‘Erosion Of Trust’ Complicating His Job

October 29, 2013 by Sam Rolley

Director of National Intelligence James “most truthful, least untruthful” Clapper lamented to a House Intelligence Panel Tuesday that the current criticism facing the National Security Agency is creating an “erosion of trust” within the Nation’s intelligence community.

Clapper told the group of lawmakers that Congressional criticism of the tactics carried out by U.S. intelligence agencies is creating an environment in which officials at the Nation’s spy agencies are unable to adequately do their jobs.

Clapper was joined by NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander and other intelligence officials for the Congressional discussion about government surveillance.

“There has been a lot in the media about this situation.

Some right. Some wrong,” panel ranking member Representative Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) said during the committee hearing, adding that “more needs to be done” to increase NSA transparency and accountability.

Clapper responded, insisting that the NSA and the U.S. intelligence community as a whole “does not spy indiscriminately on citizens of any country.”

“To be sure, we have made mistakes,” Clapper said, adding that the intelligence community would work to resolve those mistakes.

“That is what the American people want and that is what the President has asked us to do,” he said.

Clapper notably lied to Congress during a hearing on March 12, when Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”

Clapper replied, “No sir … not wittingly.”

Clapper later admitted that his answer was a lie on national television, telling NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, “I thought, though in retrospect, I was asked [a] ‘when are you going to … stop beating your wife’ kind of question, which is … not answerable necessarily by a simple yes or no. So I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying, ‘No.’ ”

If there is an “erosion of trust,” Clapper, it seems, should count himself among the most caustic benefactors of the problem.

Filed Under: Government, Liberty, Liberty News, Privacy, Staff Reports

http://personalliberty.com/2013/10/2...ating-his-job/

Europe considers sanctions against United States over Obama admin’s spying on allied leaders



The Obama administration loves to blame Republicans for America’s “diminished stature in the world,” but the truth is that the Obama administration’s own policies are to blame, especially when it comes to how aggressively the NSA has been spying on our allies.

Now, some of our friends in Europe are considering enacting sanctions against the US until we curtail our spying programs.

from AP:

The NSA’s program of spying on the foreign leaders was already damaging relations with some of the closest U.S. allies. German officials said Monday that the U.S. could lose access to an important law enforcement tool used to track terrorist money flows.

As possible leverage, German authorities cited last week’s non-binding resolution by the European Parliament to suspend a post-9/11 agreement allowing the Americans access to bank transfer data to track the flow of terrorist money. A top German official said Monday she believed the Americans were using the information to gather economic intelligence apart from terrorism and that the agreement known as the SWIFT agreement should be suspended.

read the rest

The article here goes on to say that there is even talk of economic/trade sanctions against the US, but I seriously doubt the likelihood things will get to that point.

Imagine for a moment that roles were reversed and we found out that Germany or Mexico had hacked President Obama’s personal cell phone. Sanctions would be swift and brutal. How could the Obama administration expect any less for their own actions?

8:33 pm • 28 October 2013 • 3 Comments

http://poorrichardsnews.com/post/653...ed-states-over

NSA chief Keith Alexander blames diplomats for surveillance requests

Barbed exchange with former ambassador over spying on foreign leaders likely to deepen rift with Obama administration
Thursday 31 October 2013 22.16 EDT

Keith Alexander: pointed exchange. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

The director of the National Security Agency has blamed US diplomats for requests to place foreign leaders under surveillance, in a surprising intervention that risks a confrontation with the State Department.
General Keith Alexander, the country's most senior spy, made the remarks during a pointed exchange with a former US ambassador to Romania, lending more evidence to suggestions of a rift over surveillance between the intelligence community and Barack Obama's administration.
The NSA chief was challenged by James Carew Rosapepe, who served as an ambassador under the Clinton administration, over the monitoring of the German chancellor Angela Merkel's phone.
Rosapepe, now a Democratic state senator in Maryland, pressed Alexander to give "a national security justification" for the agency's use of surveillance tools intended for combating terrorism against "democratically elected leaders and private businesses".
"We all joke that everyone is spying on everyone," he said. "But that is not a national security justification."
Alexander replied: "That is a great question, in fact as an ambassador you have part of the answer. Because we the intelligence agencies don't come up with the requirements. The policymakers come up with the requirements."
He went on: "One of those groups would have been, let me think, hold on, oh: ambassadors."
Alexander said the NSA collected information when it was asked by policy officials to discover the "leadership intentions" of foreign countries. "If you want to know leadership intentions, these are the issues," the NSA director said.
The exchange on Thursday night drew laughs from the audience at the Baltimore Council on Foreign Relations, but did not seem to impress the former ambassador, who replied: "We generally don't do that in democratic societies."
It also risked deepening the division between the Obama administration and the intelligence community, which have been briefing against one another throughout the week.
Alexander had previously insinuated that targets of surveillance emerged from elsewhere in the administration, but this is the first time he is known to have publicly singled out US diplomats.
Just hours earlier, secretary of state John Kerry appeared to lay the blame at the door of the NSA, when he said certain practices had occurred "on autopilot" without the knowledge of senior officials in the Obama administration.
Alexander was asked by the Guardian how he thought Merkel, who grew up in East Germany when the Stasi secret service was operating, might have felt when she discovered her phone had been monitored by the NSA. "I don't know, I don't know the answer," he said. "You know, I would say 'alleged'."
Asked why he would say "alleged", given he presumably knows the monitoring occurred, Alexander said: "I say alleged because there are no facts ... that are on the table."
But Alexander also opened the door to the US halting surveillance of foreign leaders, hinting that it might be in the best interests of the US to suspend some surveillance programs to guarantee support to combat terrorism.
"I think those partnerships have greater value than some of the collection," he said. "And we ought to look at it like that."
Alexander, who is soon stepping down from the NSA, spoke after an eight-day period in which his agency has faced a growing chorus of criticism over its activities, particularly in relation to allied nations such as Germany.
The NSA may also lose its ability to gather domestic phone data – a program Alexander has previously sought to guard.
In his speech in Baltimore, Alexander adopted a slightly different tone, suggesting he was "not wedded" to the program if a better alternative could be found.
Competing legislation has been introduced in the House and Senate this week to reform the NSA and the secret surveillance court that is supposed to hold it to account. One bill, which has growing support on Capitol Hill, would effectively end the routine collection of phone records data.
"I am not wedded to these programs," Alexander said in his opening remarks. "If we can come up with a better way of doing them, we should. Period." Speaking specifically about the collection of phone records, he compared administering the program to holding a "hornets' nest".
"We're holding this hornets' nest for the good of the nation. We would love to put it down, we would like to cast it aside, but if we do it is our fear that there will be a gap – and the potential for another 9/11 – and we would not have done our duty. So our duty would be: find another way."
The reference to the September 11, 2001, attacks was consistent with previous remarks. On Wednesday, al-Jazeera published a master list of NSA "talking points", obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Under the subheading “Sound Bites That Resonate”, the memo encourages references to 9/11 as justification for its mass surveillance.
"You know, every one of us remembers 9/11," Alexander told the audience in Baltimore. "You remember where you were, what was going on, what happened when the first plane hit, what was going on when the second plane hit – it changed our lives."
Alexander recalled firefighters killed trying help victims of the attack, and invoked the image of a fireman, during 9/11, "handing the flag" to the military and intelligence community. "We, the military and intelligence community, said 'we've got it from here'," he said. "That is etched on our hearts and our minds forever."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...oreign-leaders

NSA Spied on World Bank, IMF, UN, Pope, World Leaders, and American Politicians and Military Officers

Submitted by George Washington on 11/01/2013 12:45 -0400

It came out this week that the NSA spied on the headquarters of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and United Nations.

It was also alleged that the NSA spied on the Vatican and the Pope.

Congressman Rand Paul asks whether the NSA might be spying on President Obama as well.

Congressman Devin Nunes said in that the Department of Justice was tapping phones in the Congressional cloak room.

Sounds crazy …

But it is well-documented that the NSA was already spying on American Senators more than 40 years ago.

And a high-level NSA whistleblower says that the NSA is spying on – and blackmailing – top government officials and military officers, including Supreme Court Justices, high-ranked generals, Colin Powell and other State Department personnel, and many other top officials. And see this:



He says the NSA started spying on President Obama when he was a candidate for Senate:



Another very high-level NSA whistleblower – the head of the NSA’s global intelligence gathering operation – says that the NSA targeted CIA chief Petraeus.

Of course, the NSA also spied on the leaders of Germany, Brazil and Mexico, and at least 35 world leaders total.

The NSA also spies on the European Union, the European Parliament, the G20 summit and other allies.

A confidential government memo admits that the spying didn’t help prevent terrorism:

The memo acknowledges that eavesdropping on the numbers had produced “little reportable intelligence”.

Because the leaders of allies such as Germany, Brazil, Mexico, the EU and G-20 have no ties to Al Qaeda terrorists, the spying was obviously done for other purposes.
The NSA conducts widespread industrial espionage on our allies. That has nothing to do with terrorism, either. And the NSA’s industrial espionage has been going on for many decades.

Indeed, there is no evidence that mass surveillance has prevented a single terrorist attack. On the contrary, top counter-terror experts say that mass spying actually hurts U.S. counter-terror efforts (more here and here).

If NSA spying were really focused on terrorism, our allies and companies wouldn’t be fighting back so hard against it.

BONUS:

• Feinstein Introduces Trojan Horse … But Tech Giants Throw Weight Behind Legislation Which Would ACTUALLY Rein In NSA Spying
  
• Congress Acting Surprised By NSA Spying Is Like a Parent Saying “I Can’t Believe You Stayed Out All Night and Got Drunk … Just Because I Left You a Keg Of Beer and a Note That Said ‘Do Whatever The F@ck You Want, For As Long As You Want!’”
  

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed...iticians-and-m

China Slams "Peeping Tom" America: "The Trust Fiasco Of America The Eavesdropper"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/01/2013 08:45 -0400

Three weeks ago, during the US government shutdown fiasco, and when there was legitimate concern if the US would begin prioritizing debt payments upon running out of cash, China's official and most widely read press agency, Xinhua, slammed the US in "U.S. fiscal failure warrants a de-Americanized world" in which it called for a new world order, and an end to the reserve currency. Now, it is time for the follow up, with China kicking "America the eavesdropper" precisely when it is down.

From Xinhua:

The trust fiasco of America the Eavesdropper



The latest outburst of outcries and outrage across the world has laid bare that almighty America has at least one other anomalous addiction besides borrowing -- bugging.
The U.S. debt drama features a polarized and paralyzed Washington at the helm of the world's largest economy. As nerve-racking as it is, such irresponsible behavior is a recurrent headache economic policymakers worldwide can bear with.
Yet the sole superpower's spying saga is spicy on a heart-attack scale. It is particularly hurtful to those supposed to trust America the most -- its allies.
The recent cascade of eye-popping disclosures depicts a hyperactive Uncle Sam prying into others' secrets and even eavesdropping on dozens of heads of state.
It has been revealed that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) monitored the phone conservations of at least 35 world leaders in 2006. And that is just a tip of the iceberg of the spook organization's sprawling spying scheme.
Leaked documents show that the NSA has not only gained front-door access to countless Google and Yahoo user accounts through a court-approved process, but secretly broken into the main communications links connecting the two Internet giants' respective data centers around the world to siphon information at will.
What is counterintuitive in the NSA forage is its nonsensical approach: relentless and indiscriminate like a vacuum cleaner. It just bugs everybody, even its closest allies in Europe.
In the most shocking revelation so far, Uncle Sam turned Madame Europa, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, into, as Deutsche Presse-Agentur puts it, "a dupe whose mobile phone conversations were for more than a decade a source of information for U.S. authorities."
Merkel and her peers in the U.S. alliance have every reason to feel insulted and betrayed. At the very least, they deserve the kind of respect and trust that underpins the practice that air travelers do not have to fly naked.
The motivation behind America's extensive eavesdropping is unclear. The explanations the White House has been forced to offer are far from explanatory, and the diorthosis President Barack Obama has promised seems all but skin-deep.
The half-heartedness stands in stark contrast with the pushfulness with which America accuses China of cyber-espionage, and the evasiveness marks a stunning retreat from the straightforwardness with which Washington reproves Beijing for alleged monetary manipulation.
The apparent application of a double standard only reinforces the image of a Janus-faced America. In the sunlight, it preaches; in the dark, it pries. On the offensive, it orates; on the defensive, it equivocates.
The wayward practice has now backfired, and the damage is increasing. Just as the borrowing addiction is shedding America's economic credibility, the bugging obsession is draining its political and security trustworthiness -- only with potentially more destructive consequences.
Trust is the first and foremost casualty. Common sense dictates that trust is a two-way street: One has to trust in order to be trusted. It is particularly true in friendships and alliances. America obviously failed to follow the simple rule.
If Washington did not knit the worldwide wiretapping web just because it could, then its pillage for information unveils an Uncle Sam too deeply entrenched in suspicion and isolation to treat anyone as a real friend.
Ironically enough, the bugging undermines the very thing it is supposed to protect -- national security. As America pins its security on alliances, the tapping tale would sour its relationship with allies -- and thus erode its security bedrock -- more than any terrorist would be capable of.
The harm could go far beyond. For example, mutual trust is vital to China and America's endeavor to build a new type of major-country relations. Washington's lack of trust and hemorrhage of trustworthiness would only make the effort more difficult.
Needless to say, trust entails trade-offs, and the quid pro quos are not riskless. But the United States should be wise enough to know that to trust nobody is no less dangerous than to trust anybody.
As indicated in the still simmering spying scandal, the potential cost of excessive bugging could be way higher. Uncle Sam needs to remember what happened to the tailor in the Lady Godiva story -- Peeping Tom was struck blind.


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-1...a-eavesdropper

Germany Advises Journalists To Stop Using Google Over US Spying Concerns, May Ask Snowden To Tesity Against NSA

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/31/2013 18:25 -0400

The spat between the US and Germany is getting worse by the minute. Following yesterday's meaningless escalation by the Treasury accusing, via official pathways, Germany of being the main culprit for Europe's lack of recovery (and Germany's subsequent retaliation), it is Germany's turn now to refocus public attention on Big Brother's spying pathology when a union representing Germany's journalists advised its members earlier today to stop using Google and Yahoo because of the latest report implicating the NSA in eavesdropping on Google and Yahoo.


From Reuters:

"The German Federation of Journalists recommends journalists to avoid until further notice the use of search engines and e-mail services from Google and Yahoo for their research and digital communication," the union said in a statement.

It cited "scandalous" reports of interception of both companies' web traffic by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain's GCHQ.

"The searches made by journalists are just as confidential as the contact details of their sources and the contents of their communication with them," said Michael Konken, head of the union which represents about 38,000 journalists. He said there were safe alternatives for both searches and email.

And while in the US having one's dirty laundry is almost perceived as a status symbol by a culture that encourages online exhibitionism via Facebook and other social media (so what if some bureaucrat in Virginia knows more than what is public), in Germany privacy is actually taken seriouysly.

The German government said last week it had evidence that Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone had been monitored by U.S. intelligence.

Government snooping is especially sensitive in Germany, which has among the strictest privacy laws in the world, since it dredges up memories of eavesdropping by the Stasi secret police in former communist East Germany.

Earlier this month, Deutsche Telekom said it wanted German companies to cooperate to shield local internet traffic from foreign intelligence services, although experts believe this could be an uphill battle.

In August, Deutsche Telekom and its partner United Internet launched an initiative dubbed "E-mail made in Germany" to protect clients' email traffic.

And in other news, it is increasingly looking likely that none other than Ed Snowden will be called to testify against the NSA in a German court of law. Germany's ARD reported that Snowden is willing in principal to help shed light on U.S. spying but outlined his complicated legal situation. As we noted earlier, German Greek politician Stroebele proposed possible safe conduct to Berlin, and granting Snowden a residence permit that would prevent extradition. Snowden attorney Anatoly Kutscherena earlier said he wouldn’t comment on alleged NSA spying on Angela Merkel.
Ironically, this follow news that Snowden would take a position with Russian Internet company Vkontakte, a local analogue to Facebook, to develop major website, according to his lawyer.
So if Obama was hoping that all the late summer scandals that have taken his reptuation to an all time low would at least push the NSA spying scandal away from the front page, he may need some additional fabricated and YouTube-validated false flag wars very soon.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-1...may-ask-snowde

"NSA Tapped The Pope", Spied On Vatican To Prevent "Threats To Financial System"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 13:11 -0400

In the latest blow, and a new low, for the US spying agency, earlier today Italian magazine Panorama blasted a preview of an article due for publication tomorrow, with the simple premise: "NSA had tapped the pope." According to a Reuters report, the "spy agency had eavesdropped on Vatican phone calls, possibly including when former Pope Benedict's successor was under discussion, but the Holy See said it had no knowledge of any such activity. Panorama magazine said that among 46 million phone calls followed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) in Italy from December 10, 2012, to January 8, 2013, were conversations in and out of the Vatican." But while it is unclear just what divine information the NSA had hoped to uncover by spying on the Vatican, what is an absolute headbanger, is that according to Panorama one of the reasons for the illegal wiretaps was to be abreast of "threats to the financial system." We can only assume this means keeping on top of Goldman's activities around the globe: after all, when one intercepts god's phone calls, one is mostly interested what the bank that does god's will is doing.

From Reuters:

Asked to comment on the report, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said: "We are not aware of anything on this issue and in any case we have no concerns about it."

Media reports based on revelations from Edward Snowden, the fugitive former U.S. intelligence operative granted asylum in Russia, have said the NSA had spied on French citizens over the same period in December in January.

Panorama said the recorded Vatican phone calls were catalogued by the NSA in four categories - leadership intentions, threats to the financial system, foreign policy objectives and human rights.

Benedict resigned on February 28 this year and his successor, Pope Francis, was elected on March 13.

"It is feared" that calls were listened to up until the start of the conclave that elected Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, Panorama said.

The magazine said there was also a suspicion that the Rome residence where some cardinals lived before the conclave, including the future pope, was monitored.

Cue another US ambassador being summoned by an "ally" country, more questions about just what US taxpayer funds are being spent on, more public indignation, and even more bad will (if that is even possible) toward the great, globalist US superstate that is no longer accountable to anyone but itself and a few select oligarchs.


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-1...nancial-system

Kerry: Some NSA surveillance reached 'too far'

By DEB RIECHMANN

WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State John Kerry's remark that some National Security Agency surveillance "reached too far" was the first time a high-ranking Obama administration official acknowledged that U.S. snooping abroad might be seen as overzealous.

After launching into a vigorous defense of surveillance as an effective counterterror tool, Kerry acknowledged to a video-conference on open government in London that "in some cases, I acknowledge to you, as has the president, that some of these actions have reached too far, and we are going to make sure that does not happen in the future."

"There is no question that the president and I and others in government have actually learned of some things that had been happening, in many ways, on an automatic pilot because the technology is there," Kerry said, responding to a question about transparency in governments.
Kerry was responding to questions from European allies about reports in the past two weeks that the National Security Agency had collected data on tens of millions of Europe-based phone calls and had monitored the cell phones of 35 world leaders, including that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The State Department said Friday his remarks were in sync with what President Barack Obama has already said on the controversial spying practices. But Obama has said the administration was conducting a review of surveillance practices and said that if the practices went too far they would be halted.

Kerry first joked with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, whom he said should also answer the question about surveillance because otherwise, would it mean that Britain did not do its own surveillance abroad? The joke was a subtle jab at the U.S. position that allies spy on each other routinely.

Kerry said in the wake of 9/11, the United States and other countries realized they were dealing with a new brand of extremism where people were willing to blow themselves up, even if it meant civilians would be killed.

"There are countless examples of this," Kerry said, citing the Sept. 21 al-Qaida-affiliated al-Shabab attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, which killed at least 67 people.
"So what if you were able to intercept that and stop it before it happens?" Kerry asked. "We have actually prevented airplanes from going down, buildings from being blown up and people from being assassinated because we've been able to learn ahead of time of the plans."
Asked if Kerry's comments were off-the-cuff or part of a formal administration response to irritated allies, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Kerry was reiterating the same comments administration officials have been conveying all week. However, Obama has said that just because the technology exists to conduct certain kinds of surveillance, it doesn't mean the U.S. should use it.

"I think that we wouldn't be having a review if we didn't think we should look at these programs. That's exactly what we're doing," Psaki said. She said Kerry was conveying "what we all feel, which is that this warrants taking a close look at, evaluating our appropriate posture as it comes to heads of state, how we coordinate with our allies, addressing concerns expressed by our allies, working with them, taking into account their input as well and seeing if we can strengthen our cooperation moving forward."

In an interview on Monday with Fusion, Obama said intelligence capabilities have continued to develop and expand in recent years.

"That's why I'm initiating now a review to make sure that what they're able to do doesn't necessarily mean what they should be doing," Obama said.

"Internationally, there are less constraints on how our intelligence teams operate, but what I've said - and I said actually even before the Snowden leaks - is that it's important for us to make sure that, as technology develops and expands, and the capacity for intelligence-gathering becomes a lot greater that we make sure that we're doing things in the right way and that are reflective of our values," Obama said.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20131101/DA9Q2DU01.html

Inside the “Electronic Omnivore”: NSA Spying on U.N., Climate Summit, Text Messaging Worldwide



from democracynow:

As Edward Snowden seeks clemency from the United States, the New York Times has revealed new details about how the National Security Agency is spying on targets ranging from the United Nations to foreign governments to global text messages. We are joined by New York Times reporter Scott Shane, who reports that the NSA has “as an electronic omnivore of staggering capabilities, eavesdropping and hacking its way around the world to strip governments and other targets of their secrets, all the while enforcing the utmost secrecy about its own operations.”

Click HERE for Part 2


http://sgtreport.com/2013/11/inside-...ing-worldwide/