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

US will not enter bilateral no-spy deal with Germany, reports media

Despite assurance from Barack Obama, United States has not ruled out bugging political leaders' calls, claims German paper

Philip Oltermann in Berlin

• Tuesday 14 January 2014 08.05 EST

Angela Merkel's phone was reportedly bugged by the NSA. President Obama told her the US is not monitoring her communications. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

America is refusing to enter a bilateral no-spy agreement with Germany and has declined to rule out bugging the calls of German political leaders in the immediate future, according to reports in the German media.

Last October, revelations that the National Security Agency had been bugging Angela Merkel's mobile were met with outrage in Berlin and apologetic soundbites from Washington.

President Barack Obama had reportedly assured the German leader that the US "is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of chancellor Merkel". Barely three months on, the mood seems to have changed.
Initial hopes in Germany that the US would enter into some kind of non-spying pact similar to the one between America and Britain have been dashed, according to information obtained by Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

"We are not getting anything," the newspaper quotes a source from within the German foreign intelligence agency. "The Americans have lied to us," said another source.

As well as refusing to inform German authorities of when the NSA had been bugging the chancellor's mobile phone, the US is not commenting on plans for current or future surveillance activities in relation to German political leaders.

A request for access to what is assumed to be a surveillance centre in the top floor of the US embassy next to Berlin's Brandenburg Gate has also been rejected.

The German government has told the Obama administration it would consider such a "nest of spies" a breach of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

Talks about a surveillance agreement between Germany and the US started months before it emerged that Merkel's mobile phone had been targeted. In August 2013, the German government answered an official query on the subject, saying there had already been a verbal agreement and that a pact had been suggested by the US.

Government spokespeople on both side of the Atlantic have so far refused to comment on the newspaper reports. The official line from within the German chancellory is that the government is still hoping for an agreement with the US in the next few months.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...-germany-media

NSA reportedly using radio waves to snoop on offline computers worldwide

Published January 15, 2014 FoxNews.com
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The National Security Agency has placed software on nearly 100,000 computers around the world that allows the U.S. to conduct surveillance on those machines using radio frequency technology, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
The secret technology allows the agency to gain access to computers that other countries have tried to protect from spying or cyberattacks, even if they aren't connected to the Internet, The Times reported, citing NSA documents, computer experts and U.S. officials.
The software network could also create a digital highway for launching cyberattacks by transmitting malware, including the kind used in attacks by the U.S. against Iran's nuclear facilities, according to the report.
The NSA describes the effort an "active defense" and has used the technology to monitor units of the Chinese Army, the Russian military, drug cartels, trade institutions inside the European Union, and sometime U.S. partners against terrorism like Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan, the Times reported.
Among the most frequent targets of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, the Times reported, has been the Chinese Army. The United States has accused the Chinese Army of launching regular attacks on American industrial and military targets, often to steal secrets or intellectual property. When Chinese attackers have placed similar software on computer systems of American companies or government agencies, American officials have protested, the newspaper reported.
The Times reported that the technology, used by the agency for several years, relies on radio waves that can be transmitted from tiny circuit boards and USB cards inserted covertly into the computers. The NSA said that the technology has not been used in computers in the U.S.
NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines told Fox News in a written statement that any implication that the agency's programs are "arbitrary and unconstrained" are false.
"NSA's activities are focused and specifically deployed against -- and only against -- valid foreign intelligence targets in response to intelligence requirements," she said. "In addition, we do not use foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of -- or give intelligence we collect to -- U.S. companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line."
Parts of the program have been disclosed in documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the former NSA systems analyst, the Times reported. A Dutch newspaper published the map showing where the United States has inserted spy software, sometimes with the help of local authorities. Der Spiegel, a German newsmagazine, published information about the NSA's hardware products that can secretly transmit and receive signals from computers, according to the Times.
A 2008 map leaked by Snowden lists 20 programs to gain access to fiber-optic cables described as "covert, clandestine or cooperative large accesses." The same map indicates that the U.S. had already conducted “more than 50,000 worldwide implants,” the report said.
The Times said that it withheld some of those details, at the request of U.S. intelligence officials, when it reported in summer 2012 on American cyberattacks on Iran.
A senior U.S. official, who compared the effort to submarine warfare, told the Times most of the implants are intended only for surveillance and can warn the U.S. about incoming cyberattacks.
“That is what the submarines do all the time,” the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the newspaper. “They track the adversary submarines.” In cyberspace, he said, the U.S. tries “to silently track the adversaries while they’re trying to silently track you.”
China's ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to faxed queries seeking comment on the article. Chinese officials in the past have stressed that China is a victim of international cyber-espionage and have pushed for international coordination on controlling such espionage.
Zhu Feng, an international security expert at Peking University, said: "Those spying activities show that the U.S. says one thing while doing another thing, and the spying activities are being conducted in an irregular way without rules. Other countries may follow suit, leading to a fierce arms race on the Internet. So, it is time to set up rules and regulations in cyberspace with coordination from the international community."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Click here for more from The New York Times.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014...s-report-says/

Obama to the American People: F@ck Off

Posted on January 15, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog

The American People Were Right: Obama Won’t Rein In the NSA

Americans want NSA spying reined in.
But a poll from November showed that only 11% of Americans trust Obama to actually do anything to rein in spying.
We were right to be skeptical …
Today, Obama announced his fake “reforms” … and he’s not doing anything but putting lipstick on the same ‘old pig.
The New York Times notes that Obama’s “reform”:

Largely codifies existing practices.

The Times points out that the reform is meant to placate NSA critics, without actually challenging national security agencies:

The emerging approach, described by current and former government officials who insisted on anonymity in advance of Mr. Obama’s widely anticipated speech, suggested a president trying to straddle a difficult line in hopes of placating foreign leaders and advocates of civil liberties without a backlash from national security agencies. The result seems to be a speech that leaves in place many current programs, but embraces the spirit of reform and keeps the door open to changes later.

The Times includes a revealing quote:

“Is it cosmetic or is there a real thumb on the scale in a different direction?” asked one former government official who worked on intelligence issues. “That’s the question.”

The answer should be obvious.
This is – once again – Obama saying “trust me” … without changing anything.
Obama has repeatedly promised to change policies started in the Bush administration. But – instead of reforming them – he’s reaffirmed them … and made them worse than ever.
Obama and the NSA have lied over and over again. They have told the American people (and Congress)to f@ck off.
The real message they are sending is:

We hold the power … So we’re going to keep doing what we want, and you can’t do anything to stop us.

And see this.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/...sa-spying.html

NSA to Congress: F@ck Off

Posted on January 15, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog

The NSA Treats Congress Just Like the American People: With Scorn and Disdain

We’ve shown that the NSA has been spying on Congress for some time.
The NSA has never denied that it’s spying on Congress. Instead, the NSA first said:

Members of Congress have the same privacy protections as all US persons.

And Friday, NSA chief Keith Alexander wrote a letter to Senator Bernie Sanders saying that the NSA cannot reveal whether the agency has been targeting members of Congress in its metadata collection because doing so would violate privacy provisions accorded to civilians in the program:

The telephone metadata program incorporates extraordinary controls to protect Americans’ privacy interests. Among those protections is the condition that NSA can query the metadata only based on phone numbers reasonably suspected to be associated with specific foreign terrorist groups. For that reason, NSA cannot lawfully search to determine if any records NSA has received under the program have included metadata of the phone calls of any member of Congress, other American elected officials, or any other American without that predicate.

Sanders <----- Letter at the Page Link:

This is the exact same excuse the NSA and other intelligence agencies have previously given for hiding how many Americans they spy on.

As Wired reported last June:

The surveillance experts at the National Security Agency won’t tell two powerful United States Senators how many Americans have had their communications picked up by the agency as part of its sweeping new counterterrorism powers. The reason: it would violate your privacy to say so.
That claim comes in a short letter sent Monday to civil libertarian Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall. The two members of the Senate’s intelligence oversight committeeasked the NSA a simple question last month: under the broad powers granted in 2008′s expansion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, how many persons inside the United States have been spied upon by the NSA?
The query bounced around the intelligence bureaucracy until it reached I. Charles McCullough, the Inspector General of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the nominal head of the 16 U.S. spy agencies. In a letter acquired by Danger Room, McCullough told the senators that the NSA inspector general “and NSA leadership agreed that an IG review of the sort suggested would itself violate the privacy of U.S. persons,” McCullough wrote.

In other words, the NSA is sending the same message to both the American people and their representatives in Congress: f@ck off.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/...gress-fck.html

Only a FOOL Still Believes the NSA

Posted on January 14, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog

Why Does Anyone Still Believe the NSA?

The NSA and other intelligence officials have been repeatedly caught lying about their spying programs.

Officials in the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government all say that the mass surveillance on Americans is unnecessary:

• 3 Senators with top secret clearance “have reviewed this surveillance extensively and have seen no evidence that the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records has provided any intelligence of valuethat could not have been gathered through less intrusive means”

• Another Senator with top secret clearance agrees, and so does the congress member who wrote the Patriot Act, and more than 100 congress members from both parties

• As does the official panel created by President Obama to review NSA spying, made up of top former White House officials and other government insiders, including the head of counter-terrorism under Clinton and Bush and former deputy CIA director Michael J. Morrell

• NBC News reports:

A member of the White House review panel on NSA surveillance said he was “absolutely” surprised when he discovered the agency’s lack of evidence that the bulk collection of telephone call records had thwarted any terrorist attacks.“It was, ‘Huh, hello? What are we doing here?’” said Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor….
“That was stunning. That was the ballgame,” said one congressional intelligence official, who asked not to be publicly identified. “It flies in the face of everything that they have tossed at us.”
The conclusions of the panel’s reports were at direct odds with public statements by President Barack Obama and U.S. intelligence officials.

• A non-profit, bipartisan policy group says that NSA mass surveillance has no impact on terrorism

• CNN terrrorism expert Peter Bergen says that mass surveillance is not needed to stop another 9/11

• Former president Clinton (and apparently Carter, as well), agree that mass surveillance is unnecessary

• As do the chairs of the 9/11 Commission which was created by Congress and the White House

• As does the counter-terrorism czar under the Clinton and Bush administrations, Richard Clarke. Andsee this

• As does a federal judge (and see this)

Top terrorism and security experts also agree, saying that:

• Mass spying by the NSA has never stopped a single terrorist attack

• Mass surveillance doesn’t protect us from terrorism

• Mass spying actually interferes with our ability to stop terrorism

Indeed, the NSA itself no longer claims that its mass spying program has stopped terror attacks or saved lives. Instead, intelligence spokesmen themselves now claim that mass spying is just an “insurance policy” to give “peace of mind”.
But given that mass surveillance by governments on their own people have always been used – for at least 500 years – to crush dissent, that the NSA has a long history of spying on Congress for political purposes, and that high-level NSA whistleblowers say that the NSA is using spying to blackmail politicians and social critics and to prosecute people the government dislikes, the question is whose peace of mind the programs preserve
And while the NSA claims that disclosure of its spying programs hurts America’s security, that’s what authoritarians always say. For example:

• When leakers disclosed that the FBI was conducting mass spying on – and smearing – anti-war Americans, attorney general John Mitchell said that the leaks would “endanger” the lives of government agents

• Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams did exactly what Edward Snowden did … and were likewise labeled as traitors by the British government

So how can anyone believe the NSA at this point?
Unfortunately, fear of terror makes people unable to think straight … and when the government undertakes a large, idiotic project – like launching the Iraq war – many people will go to great lengths to grasp at straws to try to rationalize the government’s ill-conceived campaign.
The minority of Americans who believe the NSA have – sadly – fallen for the same trick …

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/...ieves-nsa.html

German lawmaker says relations with US at new low

AP News | Jan 16, 2014



BERLIN (AP) — Relations between Germany and the U.S. are at their lowest point in more than a decade because of revelations about American spy programs that reportedly included Chancellor Angela Merkel among their targets, a senior German lawmaker said Thursday.
Philipp Missfelder, the foreign policy spokesman for Merkel's center-right party, said allegations that the U.S. National Security Agency spied on Germany have prompted a similar loss of trust between the two countries as in 2003, when Berlin refused to support the U.S.-led Iraq war.
"The loss of trust is no less than it was then," said Missfelder, adding that despite the friction Germany still considers the U.S. a friend, not just an ally.
"We want to restore this lost trust, but that will only work if America's word counts for something again," he said.
The 34-year-old, a rising figure in Merkel's party, has been tipped to become the German government's coordinator for trans-Atlantic relations. The role will see him involved in future talks with Washington over a "no-spy" pact that Berlin has sought following the spying revelations sparked by documents former NSA analyst Edward Snowden leaked to the media.
Missfelder said that, unless talks on such a pact proceed, a separate existing agreement that gives Washington access to data on financial transactions inside the European Union should be suspended.
German and U.S. officials are expected to discuss the NSA issue when Secretary of State John Kerry visits Germany later this month.
Missfelder categorically rejected the suggestion that Germany might seek membership in the exclusive "Five Eyes" intelligence-sharing network, comprising the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
A government spokeswoman said Wednesday that no conditions had been set by Merkel when she accepted President Barack Obama's offer to visit Washington in the coming months.

http://townhall.com/news/politics-el...w-low-n1779855

Only a FOOL Still Believes the NSA

Unfortunately there are those who insist on remaining clueless....thank goodness many seem to be waking up.

http://www.alipac.us/f9/nsa-slayer-o...9/#post1390284

ProPublica Examines Four Questionable Claims Obama Has Made on NSA Surveillance

January 17, 2014 by ProPublica
by Kara Brandeisky ProPublica, Jan. 17, 2014, 7 a.m.

Today President Obama plans to announce some reportedly limited reforms to National Security Agency surveillance programs.
Since the first disclosures based on documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Obama has offered his own defenses of the programs. But not all of the president’s claims have stood up to scrutiny. Here are some of the misleading assertions he has made.
1. There have been no abuses.

And I think it’s important to note that in all the reviews of this program [Section 215] that have been done, in fact, there have not been actual instances where it’s been alleged that the NSA in some ways acted inappropriately in the use of this data … There had not been evidence and there continues not to be evidence that the particular program had been abused in how it was used. — Dec. 20, 2013

At press conferences in June, August and December, Obama made assurances that two types of bulk surveillance had not been misused. In fact, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has reprimanded the NSA for abuses both in warrantless surveillance targeting people abroad, and in bulk domestic phone records collection.
In 2011, the FISA Court found that for three years, the NSA had been collecting tens of thousands of domestic emails and other communications in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The court ordered the NSA to do more to filter out those communications. In a footnote, Judge John D. Bates also chastised the NSA for repeatedly misleading the court about the extent of its surveillance. In 2009 – weeks after Obama took office – the court concluded the procedures designed to protect the privacy of American phone records had been “so frequently and systemically violated that it can fairly be said that this critical element of the overall … regime has never functioned effectively.”
The NSA told the court those violations were unintentional and a result of technological limitations. But the NSA’s own inspector general has also documented some “willful” abuses: About a dozen NSA employees have used government surveillance to spy on their lovers and exes, a practice reportedly called “LOVEINT.”
2. At least 50 terrorist threats have been averted.

We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information not just in the United States, but, in some cases, threats here in Germany. So lives have been saved. — June 19, 2013

The record is far less clear. Obama’s own review group concluded that the sweeping phone records collection program has not prevented any terrorist attacks. At this point, the only suspect the NSA says it identified using the phone records collection program is a San Diego cab driver later convicted of sending $8,500 to a terrorist group in his homeland of Somalia.
The NSA’s targeting of people abroad appears to have been more effective around counter-terrorism, as even surveillance skeptics in Congress acknowledge. But it’s impossible to assess the role the NSA played in each case because the list of thwarted attacks is classified. And what we do know about the few cases that have become public raises even more questions:

• Contrary to what Obama suggested on the “Charlie Rose Show” in June, the AP has reported that the FBI did not need either program to identify Najibullah Zazi, later convicted of plotting to attack the New York subway system.
• ProPublica has reported that one case began with a tip from British intelligence, not NSA surveillance.
• In another case, no one has been charged related to the alleged plot.

3. The NSA does not do any domestic spying.

We put in some additional safeguards to make sure that there is federal court oversight as well as Congressional oversight that there is no spying on Americans. We don’t have a domestic spying program. What we do have are some mechanisms where we can track a phone number or an e-mail address that we know is connected to some sort of terrorist threat, and that information is useful. — Aug. 7, 2013

In fact, plenty of Americans’ communications get swept up. The government, of course, has the phone records of most Americans. And, as the FISA Court learned in 2011, the NSA was gathering tens of thousands of domestic emails and other communications.
Additionally, the NSA’s minimization procedures, which are supposed to protect American privacy, allow the agency to keep and use purely domestic communications in some circumstances. If the NSA “inadvertently” vacuums up American communications that are encrypted, contain evidence of a crime, or relate to cybersecurity, the NSA can retain those communications.
The privacy standards suggest there is a “backdoor loophole” that allows the NSA to search for American communications. NSA critic Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has said, “Once Americans’ communications are collected, a gap in the law that I call the ‘back-door searches loophole’ allows the government to potentially go through these communications and conduct warrantless searches for the phone calls or emails of law-abiding Americans.”It’s not clear whether the NSA has actually used this “backdoor.”
And while the NSA acknowledges that it intercepts communications between Americans and surveillance targets abroad, the agency also intercepts some domestic communications that mention information about foreigners who have been targeted. As a result, the NSA has sometimes searched communications from Americans who have not been suspected of wrongdoing – though an NSA official says the agency uses “very precise” searches to avoid those intercepts as much as possible.
4. Snowden failed to take advantage of whistleblower protections.

I signed an executive order well before Mr. Snowden leaked this information that provided whistleblower protection to the intelligence community – for the first time. So there were other avenues available for somebody whose conscience was stirred and thought that they needed to question government actions. — Aug. 9, 2013

Obama’s presidential policy directive forbids agencies from retaliating against intelligence personnel who report waste, fraud and abuse. But the measure mentions only “employees,” not contractors. Whistleblower advocates say that means the order does not cover intelligence contractors.
“I often have contractors coming to me with whistleblower-type concerns and they are the least protected of them all,” attorney Mark Zaid told the Washington Post.
What’s more, the directive was not yet in effect at the time Snowden came forward.Since the leaks, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has said “the Executive Branch is evaluating the scope” of the protections.
Former NSA employee Thomas Drake argues that even if Snowden were a government employee who went through the proper legal channels, he still wouldn’t have been safe from retaliation. Drake says while he reported his concerns about a 2001 surveillance program to his NSA superiors, Congress, and the Department of Defense, he was told the program was legal. Drake was later indicted for providing information to the Baltimore Sun. After years of legal wrangling, Drake pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and got no prison time.

Filed Under: Liberty News, Staff Reports

http://personalliberty.com/2014/01/1...-surveillance/

Barack Obama Defends NSA Agents: Your Neighbors and Friends (Video)

Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, January 17, 2014, 12:07 PM

Barack Obama announced on Friday that he will require intelligence agencies to obtain permission from a secret court before tapping into a vast storehouse of telephone data, and will ultimately move that data out of the hands of the government.

The president also defended NSA operatives saying the agents were “our neighbors and friends.”
National Journal reported:

In a bid to calm growing privacy concerns about the government’s spying powers, President Obama outlined a series of steps Friday aimed at ushering in “concrete and substantial” reforms to the National Security Agency.
“Americans recognized that we had to adapt to a world in which a bomb could be built in a basement and our electric grid could be shut down by operators an ocean away,” the president said during a major policy speech at the Department of Justice.
“And yet,” he added, “in our rush to respond to very real and novel threats, the risks of government overreach—the possibility that we lose some of our core liberties in pursuit of security—became more pronounced.”
“The reforms I’m proposing today,” Obama said toward the end of the speech, “should give the American people greater confidence that their rights are being protected, even as our intelligence and law enforcement agencies maintain the tools they need to keep us safe.”…
…The White House also released a policy directive Friday morning, which recognizes that “signals intelligence activities and the possibility that such activities may be improperly disclosed to the public pose multiple risks,” including harming international relationships. The directive also orders that “privacy and civil liberties shall be integral considerations in the planning of U.S. signals intelligence activities.”
While the president recognized the surveillance program has grown in recent years, he also strongly defended those who work in the intelligence community, saying they do not abuse power. “After all,” he said, “the folks at NSA and other intelligence agencies are our neighbors and our friends.”
“Those who defend these programs are not dismissive of civil liberties,” Obama said.