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    Senior Member HAPPY2BME's Avatar
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    'Everyone in US under virtual surveillance' - NSA whistleblower

    (watch the video at source)

    04 December, 2012
    rt.com

    The FBI has the e-mails of nearly all US citizens, including congressional members, according to NSA whistleblower William Binney. Speaking to RT he warned that the government can use information against anyone it wants.
    *One of the best mathematicians and code breakers in NSA history resigned in 2001 because he no longer wanted to be associated with alleged violations of the constitution.

    He asserts, that the FBI has access to this data due to a powerful device Naris.
    This year Binney received the Callaway award. The annual award was established to recognize those, who stand out for constitutional rights and American values at great risk to their personal or professional lives.
    RT: In light of the Petraeus/Allen scandal while the public is so focused on the details of their family drama one may argue that the real scandal in this whole story is the power, the reach of the surveillance state. I mean if we take General Allen – thousands of his personal e-mails have been sifted through private correspondence. It’s not like any of those men was planning an attack on America. Does the scandal prove the notion that there is no such thing as privacy in a surveillance state?
    William Binney: Yes, that’s what I’ve been basically saying for quite some time, is that the FBI has access to the data collected, which is basically the e-mails of virtually everybody in the country. And the FBI has access to it. All the congressional members are on the surveillance too, no one is excluded. They are all included. So, yes, this can happen to anyone. If they become a target for whatever reason – they are targeted by the government, the government can go in, or the FBI, or other agencies of the government, they can go into their database, pull all that data collected on them over the years, and we analyze it all. So, we have to actively analyze everything they’ve done for the last 10 years at least.
    RT: And it’s not just about those, who could be planning, who could be a threat to national security, but also those, who could be just…
    WB: It’s everybody. The Naris device if it takes in the entire line, so it takes in all the data. In fact they advertised they can process the lines at session rates, which means 10 gigabit lines. I forgot the name of the device (it’s not the Naris) – the other one does it at 10 gigabits. That’s why the building Buffdale, because they have to have more storage, because they can’t figure out what’s important, so they are just storing everything there. So, e-mails are going to be stored there for the future, but right now stored in different places around the country. But it is being collected – and the FBI has access to it.

    RT: You mean it’s being collected in bulk without even requesting providers?
    WB:Yes.
    RT: Then what about Google, you know, releasing this biannual transparency report and saying that the government’s demands for personal data is at an all-time high and for all of those requesting the US, Google says they complied with the government’s demands 90% of the time. But they are still saying that they are making the request, it’s not like it’s all being funneled into that storage. What do you say to that?
    WB: I would assume, that it’s just simply another source for the same data they are already collecting. My line is in declarations in a court about the 18-T facility in San Francisco, that documented the NSA room inside that AST&T facility, where they had Naris devices to collect data off the fiber optic lines inside the United States. So, that’s kind of a powerful device, that would collect everything it was being sent. It could collect on the order over one hundred billion one thousand character e-mails a day. One device.

    RT: You say they sift through billions of e-mails. I wonder how do they prioritize? How do they filter it?

    WB: I don’t think they are filtering it. They are just storing it. I think it’s just a matter of selecting when they want it. So, if they want to target you, they would take your attributes, go into that database and pull out all your data.

    RT: Were you on the target list?
    WB: Oh, sure! I believe I’ve been on it for quite a few years. So I keep telling them everything I think of them in my e-mail. So that when they want to read it they’ll understand what I think of them.

    RT: Do you think we all should leave messages for the NSA mail box?
    WB: Sure!

    RT: You blew the whistle on the agency when George W. Bush was the President. With President Obama in office, in your opinion, has anything changed at the agency – in the surveillance program? In what direction is this administration moving?
    WB: The change is it’s getting worse. They are doing more. He is supporting the building of the Buffdale facility, which is over two billion dollars they are spending on storage room for data. That means that they are collecting a lot more now and need more storage for it. That facility by my calculations that I submitted to the court for the electronic frontiers foundation against NSA would hold on the order of 5 zettabytes of data. Just that current storage capacity is being advertised on the web that you can buy. And that’s not talking about what they have in the near future.
    RT: What are they going to do with all of that? Ok, they are storing something. Why should anybody be concerned?
    WB: If you ever get on the enemies list, like Petraeus did or… for whatever reason, than you can be drained into that surveillance.

    RT: Do you think they would… General Petraeus, who was idolized by the same administration? Or General Allen?
    WB: There are certainly some questions, that have to be asked, like why would they target it (to begin with)? What law were they breaking?
    RT:In case of General Petraeus one would argue that there could have been security breaches. Something like that. But with General Allen – I don’t quite understand, because when they were looking into his private e-mails to this woman.
    WB: That’s the whole point. I am not sure what the internal politics is… That’s part of the program. This government doesn’t want things in the public. It’s not a transparent government. Whatever the reason or the motivation was, I don’t really know, but I certainly think, that there was something going on in the background, that made them target those fellows. Otherwise why would they be doing it? There is no crime there.
    RT: It seems that the public is divided between those, who think that the government surveillance program violates their civil liberties, and those, who say: “I’ve nothing to hide. So, why should I care?” What do you say to those, who think that it shouldnt concern them.

    WB: The problem is if they think they are not doing anything that’s wrong, they don’t get to define that. The central government does, the central government defines what is right and wrong and whether or not they target you. So, it’s not up to the individuals. Even if they think they are doing something wrong, if their position on something is against what the administration has, then they could easily become a target.

    RT: Tell me about the most outrageous thing that you came across during your work at the NSA.
    WB: The violations of the constitution and any number of laws that existed at the time. That was the part that I could not be associated with. That’s why I left. They were building social networks on who is communicating and with whom inside this country. So that the entire social network of everybody, of every US citizen was being compiled overtime. So, they are taking from one company alone roughly 320 million records a day. That’s probably accumulated probably close to 20 trillion over the years. The original program that we put together to handle this to be able to identify terrorists anywhere in the world and alert anyone that they were in jeopardy. We would have been able to do that by encrypting everybody’s communications except those, who were targets. So, in essence you would protect their identities and the information about them until you could develop probable cause, and once you showed your probable cause, then you could do a decrypt and target them. And we could do that and isolate those people all alone. It wasn’t a problem at all. There was no difficulty in that.
    RT: It sounds very difficult and very complicated. Easier to take everything in and…
    WB: No. It’s easier to use the graphing techniques, if you will, for the relationships for the world to filter out data, so that you don’t have to handle all that data. And it doesn’t burden you with a lot more information to look at, than you really need to solve the problem.
    RT: Do you think that the agency doesn’t have the filters now?
    WB: No.
    RT: You have received the Callaway award for civic courage. Congratulations! On the website and in the press release it says: “It is awarded to those, who stand out for constitutional rights and American values at great risk to their personal or professional lives.” Under the code of spy ethics (I don’t know if there is such a thing) your former colleagues, they probably look upon you as a traitor. How do you look back at them?
    WB: That’s pretty easy. They are violating the foundation of this entire country. Why this entire government was formed? It’s founded with the constitution and the rights were given to the people in the country under that constitution. They are in violation of that. And under executive order 13526, section 1.7 (governing classification) – you can not classify information to just cover up a crime, which this is- and that was signed by President Obama. Also President Bush signed it earlier executive order, a very similar one. If any of this comes into Supreme court and they rule it unconstitutional, then the entire house of cards of the government falls.

    RT: What are the chances of that? What are the odds?
    WB: The government is doing the best they can to try to keep it out of court. And, of course, we are trying to do the best we can to get into court. So, we decided it deserves a ruling from the Supreme court. Ultimately the court is supposed to protect the constitution. All these people in the government take an oath to defend the constitution. And they are not living up to the oath of office.
    RT: Thank you for this interview.
    WB: You are welcome.

    'Everyone in US under virtual surveillance' - NSA whistleblower — RT
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    Senior Member HAPPY2BME's Avatar
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    1. The NSA Is Building the Country's Biggest Spy Center (Watch What ...

      www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/
      Mar 15, 2012 – The National Security Agency's immensely secret project in the Utah ... The mammoth Bluffdale center will have another important and far more ...


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    3. Exposed: Inside the NSA's Largest and Most Expansive Secret ...

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    4. "Spy Center" in Bluffdale, Utah, Inside the NSA's Largest an - Care2

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    5. CIA Super Spy Centers Near Completion | American Free Press

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      Apr 8, 2012 – NSA super spy center in the Utah desert ... heavily fortified center, more than five times larger than the U.S. Capitol, near remote Bluffdale, Utah.


    6. Exposed: Massive New Spy Center Built to Track Your Emails and ...

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      Mar 21, 2012 – The Utah spy center will contain near-bottomless databases to store all forms ... “Today Bluffdale is home to one of the nation's largest sects of ...


    7. Even Congress Wants To Know What The NSA Is Doing With This ...

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      Apr 4, 2012 – ... but in Bluffdale, Utah alongside one of the largest polygamist sects in ... Know What The NSA Is Doing With This $2 Billion Utah Spy Center ...

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    This is on drudge now also. Wow!
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    'Everyone in US under virtual surveillance' - NSA whistleblower

    Published: 04 December, 2012, 18:01

    Russian Times




    Screenshot from YouTube user RussiaToday

    (96.8Mb) embed video


    The FBI has the e-mails of nearly all US citizens, including congressional members, according to NSA whistleblower William Binney. Speaking to RT he warned that the government can use information against anyone it wants.


    *One of the best mathematicians and code breakers in NSA history resigned in 2001 because he no longer wanted to be associated with alleged violations of the constitution.


    He asserts, that the FBI has access to this data due to a powerful device Naris.


    This year Binney received the Callaway award. The annual award was established to recognize those, who stand out for constitutional rights and American values at great risk to their personal or professional lives.


    RT:
    In light of the Petraeus/Allen scandal while the public is so focused on the details of their family drama one may argue that the real scandal in this whole story is the power, the reach of the surveillance state. I mean if we take General Allen – thousands of his personal e-mails have been sifted through private correspondence. It’s not like any of those men was planning an attack on America. Does the scandal prove the notion that there is no such thing as privacy in a surveillance state?


    William Binney:
    Yes, that’s what I’ve been basically saying for quite some time, is that the FBI has access to the data collected, which is basically the e-mails of virtually everybody in the country. And the FBI has access to it. All the congressional members are on the surveillance too, no one is excluded. They are all included. So, yes, this can happen to anyone. If they become a target for whatever reason – they are targeted by the government, the government can go in, or the FBI, or other agencies of the government, they can go into their database, pull all that data collected on them over the years, and we analyze it all. So, we have to actively analyze everything they’ve done for the last 10 years at least.


    RT:
    And it’s not just about those, who could be planning, who could be a threat to national security, but also those, who could be just…


    WB:
    It’s everybody. The Naris device if it takes in the entire line, so it takes in all the data. In fact they advertised they can process the lines at session rates, which means 10 gigabit lines. I forgot the name of the device (it’s not the Naris) – the other one does it at 10 gigabits. That’s why the building Buffdale, because they have to have more storage, because they can’t figure out what’s important, so they are just storing everything there. So, e-mails are going to be stored there for the future, but right now stored in different places around the country. But it is being collected – and the FBI has access to it.


    RT:
    You mean it’s being collected in bulk without even requesting providers?


    WB:
    Yes.


    RT:
    Then what about Google, you know, releasing this biannual transparency report and saying that the government’s demands for personal data is at an all-time high and for all of those requesting the US, Google says they complied with the government’s demands 90% of the time. But they are still saying that they are making the request, it’s not like it’s all being funneled into that storage. What do you say to that?


    WB:
    I would assume, that it’s just simply another source for the same data they are already collecting. My line is in declarations in a court about the 18-T facility in San Francisco, that documented the NSA room inside that AST&T facility, where they had Naris devices to collect data off the fiber optic lines inside the United States. So, that’s kind of a powerful device, that would collect everything it was being sent. It could collect on the order over one hundred billion one thousand character e-mails a day. One device.


    RT:
    You say they sift through billions of e-mails. I wonder how do they prioritize? How do they filter it?


    WB:
    I don’t think they are filtering it. They are just storing it. I think it’s just a matter of selecting when they want it. So, if they want to target you, they would take your attributes, go into that database and pull out all your data.


    RT:
    Were you on the target list?


    WB:
    Oh, sure! I believe I’ve been on it for quite a few years. So I keep telling them everything I think of them in my e-mail. So that when they want to read it they’ll understand what I think of them.


    RT:
    Do you think we all should leave messages for the NSA mail box?


    WB:
    Sure!


    RT:
    You blew the whistle on the agency when George W. Bush was the President. With President Obama in office, in your opinion, has anything changed at the agency – in the surveillance program? In what direction is this administration moving?


    WB:
    The change is it’s getting worse. They are doing more. He is supporting the building of the Buffdale facility, which is over two billion dollars they are spending on storage room for data. That means that they are collecting a lot more now and need more storage for it. That facility by my calculations that I submitted to the court for the electronic frontiers foundation against NSA would hold on the order of 5 zettabytes of data. Just that current storage capacity is being advertised on the web that you can buy. And that’s not talking about what they have in the near future.


    RT:
    What are they going to do with all of that? Ok, they are storing something. Why should anybody be concerned?


    WB:
    If you ever get on the enemies list, like Petraeus did or… for whatever reason, than you can be drained into that surveillance.


    RT:
    Do you think they would… General Petraeus, who was idolized by the same administration? Or General Allen?


    WB:
    There are certainly some questions, that have to be asked, like why would they target it (to begin with)? What law were they breaking?


    RT:
    In case of General Petraeus one would argue that there could have been security breaches. Something like that. But with General Allen – I don’t quite understand, because when they were looking into his private e-mails to this woman.


    WB:
    That’s the whole point. I am not sure what the internal politics is… That’s part of the program. This government doesn’t want things in the public. It’s not a transparent government. Whatever the reason or the motivation was, I don’t really know, but I certainly think, that there was something going on in the background, that made them target those fellows. Otherwise why would they be doing it? There is no crime there.


    RT:
    It seems that the public is divided between those, who think that the government surveillance program violates their civil liberties, and those, who say: “I’ve nothing to hide. So, why should I care?” What do you say to those, who think that it shouldnt concern them.


    WB:
    The problem is if they think they are not doing anything that’s wrong, they don’t get to define that. The central government does, the central government defines what is right and wrong and whether or not they target you. So, it’s not up to the individuals. Even if they think they are doing something wrong, if their position on something is against what the administration has, then they could easily become a target.


    RT:
    Tell me about the most outrageous thing that you came across during your work at the NSA.


    WB:
    The violations of the constitution and any number of laws that existed at the time. That was the part that I could not be associated with. That’s why I left. They were building social networks on who is communicating and with whom inside this country. So that the entire social network of everybody, of every US citizen was being compiled overtime. So, they are taking from one company alone roughly 320 million records a day. That’s probably accumulated probably close to 20 trillion over the years. The original program that we put together to handle this to be able to identify terrorists anywhere in the world and alert anyone that they were in jeopardy. We would have been able to do that by encrypting everybody’s communications except those, who were targets. So, in essence you would protect their identities and the information about them until you could develop probable cause, and once you showed your probable cause, then you could do a decrypt and target them. And we could do that and isolate those people all alone. It wasn’t a problem at all. There was no difficulty in that.


    RT:
    It sounds very difficult and very complicated. Easier to take everything in and…


    WB:
    No. It’s easier to use the graphing techniques, if you will, for the relationships for the world to filter out data, so that you don’t have to handle all that data. And it doesn’t burden you with a lot more information to look at, than you really need to solve the problem.


    RT:
    Do you think that the agency doesn’t have the filters now?


    WB:
    No.


    RT:
    You have received the Callaway award for civic courage. Congratulations! On the website and in the press release it says: “It is awarded to those, who stand out for constitutional rights and American values at great risk to their personal or professional lives.” Under the code of spy ethics (I don’t know if there is such a thing) your former colleagues, they probably look upon you as a traitor. How do you look back at them?


    WB:
    That’s pretty easy. They are violating the foundation of this entire country. Why this entire government was formed? It’s founded with the constitution and the rights were given to the people in the country under that constitution. They are in violation of that. And under executive order 13526, section 1.7 (governing classification) – you can not classify information to just cover up a crime, which this is- and that was signed by President Obama. Also President Bush signed it earlier executive order, a very similar one. If any of this comes into Supreme court and they rule it unconstitutional, then the entire house of cards of the government falls.


    RT:
    What are the chances of that? What are the odds?


    WB:
    The government is doing the best they can to try to keep it out of court. And, of course, we are trying to do the best we can to get into court. So, we decided it deserves a ruling from the Supreme court. Ultimately the court is supposed to protect the constitution. All these people in the government take an oath to defend the constitution. And they are not living up to the oath of office.


    RT:
    Thank you for this interview.


    WB:
    You are welcome.

    'Everyone in US under virtual surveillance' - NSA whistleblower — RT
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    There will be no freedom or prosperity for Americans living in a total surveillance society like this. The powers that be are creating an electronic omnipresence. A machine god with an all seeing eye.

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    Modern technology gives government access to one's private life that Hitler, Mao, and Stalin could only dream of having.

    This started with the Republicans, and has continued to flourish under Obama.

    -----------------------------------------------------

    Cops to Congress: We need logs of Americans' text messages

    State and local law enforcement groups want wireless providers to store detailed information about your SMS messages for at least two years -- in case they're needed for future criminal investigations.


    AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and other wireless providers would be required to record and store information about Americans' private text messages for at least two years, according to a proposal that police have submitted to the U.S. Congress.
    CNET has learned a constellation of law enforcement groups has asked the U.S. Senate to require that wireless companies retain that information, warning that the lack of a current federal requirement "can hinder law enforcement investigations."
    They want an SMS retention requirement to be "considered" during congressional discussions over updating a 1986 privacy law for the cloud computing era -- a move that could complicate debate over the measure and erode support for it among civil libertarians.
    As the popularity of text messages has exploded in recent years, so has their use in criminal investigations and civil lawsuits. They have been introduced as evidence in armed robbery, cocaine distribution, and wire fraud prosecutions. In one 2009 case in Michigan, wireless provider SkyTel turned over the contents of 626,638 SMS messages, a figure described by a federal judge as "staggering."
    Chuck DeWitt, a spokesman for the Major Cities Chiefs Police Association, which represents the 63 largest U.S. police forces including New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago, said "all such records should be retained for two years." Some providers, like Verizon, retain the contents of SMS messages for a brief period of time, while others like T-Mobile do not store them at all.

    Along with the police association, other law enforcement groups making the request to the Senate include the National District Attorneys' Association, the National Sheriffs' Association, and the Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies, DeWitt said.

    Excerpts from court opinion in Rhode Island murder case

    "Sgt. Gates sent a letter to T-Mobile in advance of obtaining the warrant for the T-Mobile phone records to ask the service provider to preserve the information that he expected to request by the warrant. T-Mobile produced the requested information on October 20, 2009, and the records show that Defendant's use of the T-Mobile cell phone was almost exclusively for text messaging. The results also reveal that T-Mobile does not store, and has no capacity to produce, the content of subscriber text messages.

    "Unlike T-Mobile, Verizon was able to produce records with text messaging content in them. The content of the LG cell phone matches the photographs taken on October 4, 2009 by Det. Cushman, including a text message which reads, 'Wat if I got 2 take him 2 da hospital wat do I say and dos marks on his neck omg,' which is the message that Sgt. Kite testified to having seen that morning.

    "Sprint/Nextel responded on October 13, 2009. It produced two preserved text messages, both of which were unrelated to this case, and no voice mail messages."

    "This issue is not addressed in the current proposal before the committee and yet it will become even more important in the future," the groups warn.

    That's a reference to the Senate Judiciary committee, which approved sweeping amendments to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act last week. Unlike earlier drafts, the latest one veers in a very privacy-protective direction by requiring police to obtain a warrant to read the contents of e-mail messages; the SMS push by law enforcement appears to be a way to make sure it includes one of their priorities too.

    It wasn't immediately clear whether the law enforcement proposal is to store the contents of SMS messages, or only the metadata such as the sender and receiver phone numbers associated with the messages. Either way, it's a heap of data: Forrester Research reports that more than 2 trillion SMS messages were sent in the U.S. last year, over 6 billion SMS messages a day.

    The current policies of wireless providers have been highlighted in some recent cases. During a criminal prosecution of a man for suspected murder of a 6-year old boy, for example, police in Cranston, R.I., tried to obtain copies of a customer's text messages from T-Mobile and Verizon. Superior Court Judge Judith Savage said that, although she was "not unfamiliar with cell phones and text messaging," she "was stunned" to learn that providers had such different policies.

    While the SMS retention proposal opens a new front in Capitol Hill politicking over surveillance, the principle of mandatory data retention is hardly new. The Justice Department has publicly called for new laws requiring Internet service providers to record data about their customers, and a House of Representatives panel approved such a requirement last summer.

    "We would oppose any mandatory data retention mandate as part of ECPA reform," says Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. That proposal is "a different kettle of fish -- it doesn't belong in this discussion," he says.

    An internal Justice Department document (PDF) that the ACLU obtained through the Freedom of Information Act shows that, as of 2010, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint did not store the contents of text messages. Verizon did for up to five days, a change from its earlier no-logs-at-all position, and Virgin Mobile kept them for 90 days. The carriers generally kept metadata such as the phone numbers associated with the text for 90 days to 18 months; AT&T was an outlier, keeping it for as long as seven years, according to the chart.

    A review of court cases by CNET suggests that Justice Department document is out of date. While Sprint is listed as as not storing text message contents, the judge in Rhode Island noted that the company turned over "preserved text messages." And in an unrelated Connecticut case last year, a state judge noted that Sprint provided law enforcement with "text messages involving the phone numbers."

    An e-mail message from a detective in the Baltimore County Police Department, leaked by Antisec and reproduced in a Wired article last year, says that Verizon keeps "text message content on their servers for 3-5 days." And: "Sprint stores their text message content going back 12 days and Nextel content for 7 days. AT&T/Cingular do not preserve content at all. Us Cellular: 3-5 days Boost Mobile LLC: 7 days"

    Sprint and Verizon referred calls last week to CTIA - The Wireless Association, which declined to comment. So did the Justice Department. T-Mobile and AT&T representatives did not respond to a request for comment.
    Katie Frey, a spokeswoman for U.S. Cellular, said:
    Due to the volume of text messages sent by our customers every day, text messages are stored in our systems for approximately three to five days. The content of text messages can only be disclosed subject to a lawful request. We comply with every lawful request from authorities.
    We have a dedicated team of associates who are available 24 hours a day, every day of the year, to handle requests for information in emergency situations. Law enforcement must be able to show that it's an emergency and complete an Exigent Circumstance Form prior to receiving data. If a situation is not an emergency, law enforcement must submit a lawful request to receive the data.
    Over the past five years, U.S. Cellular has received more than 103,000 requests in the form of subpoenas, court orders, search warrants and letters regarding customers' phone accounts and usage.
    Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said he would be skeptical of the need for a law mandating that text messaging data be retained.

    "These data retention policies serve one purpose: to require companies to keep databases on their customers so law enforcement can fish for evidence," he said. "And this would seem to be done against the wishes of the providers, presumably, since...some of the providers don't keep SMS messages at all."

    Cops to Congress: We need logs of Americans' text messages | Politics and Law - CNET News
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  9. #9
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    WND VIDEO

    NSA agent: Everyone under virtual surveillance

    'They are targeted by the government'

    Published: 1 hour ago


    Did you ever get the feeling you were being watched?

    And watched by the government?

    There’s very good reason to feel that way, says a whistleblower from the National Security Agency who says everyone in the U.S. is under virtual surveillance by federal authorities.

    In an interview with RT, William Binney, a former mathematician and code breaker at the NSA, says the FBI records the emails of nearly all Americans, including members of Congress, and warns that the government can use this information against anyone.

    “The FBI has access to the data collected, which is basically the emails of virtually everybody in the country. And the FBI has access to it,” Binney said.

    “All the congressional members are on the surveillance, too, no one is excluded. They are all included. So, yes, this can happen to anyone. If they become a target for whatever reason – they are targeted by the government, the government can go in, or the FBI, or other agencies of the government, they can go into their database, pull all that data collected on them over the years, and we analyze it all. So, we have to actively analyze everything they’ve done for the last 10 years at least.”

    “Big Brother is watching” in ways Orwell never dreamed. Read our special report: “One Nation Under Surveillance,” for an amazing 99 cents!

    Binney resigned from the agency in 2001, as he no longer wanted to be part of alleged violations of the U.S. Constitution.

    He says information is being collected in bulk without even requesting providers.

    “I don’t think they are filtering it. They are just storing it,” Binney told RT. “I think it’s just a matter of selecting when they want it. So, if they want to target you, they would take your attributes, go into that database and pull out all your data.”

    When asked if he himself was on the target list, Binney responded, “Oh, sure! I believe I’ve been on it for quite a few years. So I keep telling them everything I think of them in my email. So that when they want to read it they’ll understand what I think of them.”

    Binney actually blew the whistle on NSA practices during the term of President George W. Bush, but with President Barack Obama now in office, he says, “it’s getting worse. They are doing more. He is supporting the building of the Bluffdale facility, which is over two billion dollars they are spending on storage room for data. That means that they are collecting a lot more now and need more storage for it. That facility by my calculations that I submitted to the court for the Electronic Frontiers Foundation against NSA would hold on the order of 5 zettabytes of data. Just that current storage capacity is being advertised on the web that you can buy. And that’s not talking about what they have in the near future.”



    NSA Whistleblower: Everyone in US under virtual surveillance, all info stored, no matter the post - YouTube


    Binney is a 2012 recipient of the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, which is awarded to those who stand out for constitutional rights and American values at great risk to their personal or professional lives.

    RT suggested his former colleagues at the NSA might view him as a traitor for exposing their practices.

    When asked how he felt about them, he said: “They are violating the foundation of this entire country. Why this entire government was formed? It’s founded with the Constitution and the rights were given to the people in the country under that Constitution. They are in violation of that. And under executive order 13526, section 1.7 – you cannot classify information to just cover up a crime, which this is, and that was signed by President Obama. Also President Bush signed it earlier as an executive order, a very similar one. If any of this comes into Supreme Court and they rule it unconstitutional, then the entire house of cards of the government falls.”

    He says the government is doing its best to try to keep the issue out of court.

    “And, of course, we are trying to do the best we can to get into court. So, we decided it deserves a ruling from the Supreme Court. Ultimately the court is supposed to protect the Constitution. All these people in the government take an oath to defend the Constitution. And they are not living up to the oath of office.”

    NSA agent: Everyone under virtual surveillance
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