Monitoring NSA in de VS en erbuiten, deel 6

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Lawmakers Who Upheld NSA Phone Spying Received Double the Defense Industry Cash | Threat Level | Wired.com

The numbers tell the story — in votes and dollars. On Wednesday, the House voted 217 to 205 not to rein in the NSA’s phone-spying dragnet. It turns out that those 217 “no” voters received twice as much campaign financing from the defense and intelligence industry as the 205 “yes” voters.

That’s the upshot of a new analysis by MapLight, a Berkeley-based non-profit that performed the inquiry at WIRED’s request. The investigation shows that defense cash was a better predictor of a member’s vote on the Amash amendment than party affiliation. House members who voted to continue the massive phone-call-metadata spy program, on average, raked in 122 percent more money from defense contractors than those who voted to dismantle it.

Overall, political action committees and employees from defense and intelligence firms such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, United Technologies, Honeywell International, and others ponied up $12.97 million in donations for a two-year period ending December 31, 2012, according to the analysis, which MapLight performed with financing data from OpenSecrets. Lawmakers who voted to continue the NSA dragnet-surveillance program averaged $41,635 from the pot, whereas House members who voted to repeal authority averaged $18,765.

Of the top 10 money getters, only one House member — Rep. Jim Moran (D-Virginia) — voted to end the program.

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National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has been given one year temporary political asylum in Russia. Snowden has reportedly already left the Moscow airport where he has been holed up for over a month.

WikiLeaks announced that Snowden would make a statement on Thursday about the whistleblower Bradley Manning, who was found guilty of espionage on Wednesday.

bron

As Edward Snowden Wins 1-Year Asylum in Russia, NSA Program Tracking Real-Time Internet Use Exposed

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Ed Snowden, NSA, and fairy tales a child could see through
Jun25 by Jon Rappoport

Ed Snowden, NSA, and fairy tales a child could see through

By Jon Rappoport

June 25, 2013

www.nomorefakenews.com

Sometimes cognitive dissonance, which used to be called contradiction, rings a gong so loud it knocks you off your chair.

But if you’re an android in this marvelous world of synthetic reality, you get up, put a smile back on your face, and trudge on…

Let’s see. NSA is the most awesome spying agency ever devised in this world. If you cross the street in Podunk, Anywhere, USA, to buy an ice cream soda, on a Tuesday afternoon in July, they know.

They know if you sit at the counter and drink that soda or take it and move to the only table in the store. They know if you lick the foam from the top of the glass with your tongue or pick the foam with your straw and then lick it.

They know if you keep the receipt for the soda or leave it on the counter.

They know whether you’re wearing shoes or sneakers. They know the brand of your underwear. They know your shaving cream, and precisely which container it came out of.

But this agency, with all its vast power and its dollars…

Can’t track one of its own, a man who came to work every day, a man who made up a story about needing treatment in Hong Kong for epilepsy and then skipped the country.

Just can’t find him.

Can’t find him in Hong Kong, where he does a sit-down video interview with Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian. Can’t find that “safe house” or that “hotel” where he’s staying.

No. Can’t find him or spy on his communications while he’s in Hong Kong. Can’t figure out he’s booked a flight to Russia. Can’t intercept him at the airport before he leaves for Russia . Too difficult.

And this man, this employee, is walking around with four laptops that contain the keys to all the secret spying knowledge in the known cosmos.

Can’t locate those laptops. Can’t hack into them to see what’s there. Can’t access the laptops or the data. The most brilliant technical minds of this or any other generation can find a computer in Outer Mongolia in the middle of a blizzard, but these walking-around computers in Hong Kong are somehow beyond reach.

And before this man, Snowden, this employee, skipped Hawaii, he was able to access the layout of the entire US intelligence network. Yes. He was able to use a thumb drive.

He walked into work with a thumb drive, plugged in, and stole…everything. He stole enough to “take down the entire US intelligence network in a single afternoon.”

Not only that, but anyone who worked at this super-agency as an analyst, as a systems-analyst supervisor, could have done the same thing. Could have stolen the keys to the kingdom.

This is why NSA geniuses with IQs over 180 have decided, now, in the midst of the Snowden affair, that they need to draft “tighter rules and procedures” for their employees. Right.

Now, a few pieces of internal of security they hadn’t realized they needed before will be put in place.

This is, let me remind you, the most secretive spying agency in the world. The richest spying agency. The smartest spying agency.

But somehow, over the years, they’d overlooked this corner of their own security. They’d left a door open, so that any one of their own analysts could steal everything.

Could take it all. Could just snatch it away and copy it and store it on a few laptops.

But now, yes now, having been made aware of this vulnerability, the agency will make corrections.

Sure.

The Matrix Revealed

And reporters for elite US media don’t find any of this hard to swallow.

A smart sixth-grader could see through this tower of fabricated baloney in a minute, but veteran grizzled reporters are clueless.

Last night, on Charley Rose, in an episode that left me breathless, a gaggle of pundits/newspeople warned that Ed Snowden, walking around with those four laptops, could be an easy target for Chinese spies or Russian spies who could get access to the data on those computers. The spies could just hack in.

But the NSA can’t. No. The NSA can’t find out what Snowden has. They can only speculate.

It’s charades within charades.

This whole Snowden affair is an op. It’s the kind of op that works because people are prepared to believe anything.

The tightest and strongest and richest and smartest spying agency in the world can’t find its own employee. It’s in the business of tracking, and it can’t find him.

It’s in the business of security, and it can’t protect its own data from its employees.

If you believe that, I have timeshares to sell in the black hole in the center of the Milky Way.

In previous articles (see Spygate on this blog), I’ve made a case for Snowden being a CIA operative who still works for his former employer. He was handed a bunch of NSA data by the CIA. He didn’t steal anything. The CIA wants to punch a hole in the NSA. It’s called an internal turf war. It’s been going on as long as those agencies have existed side by side.

For example….the money.

Wired Magazine, June 2013 issue. James Bamford, author of three books on the NSA, states:

“In April, as part of its 2014 budget request, the Pentagon [which rules the NSA] asked Congress for $4.7 billion for increased ‘cyberspace operations,’ nearly $1 billion more than the 2013 allocation. At the same time, budgets for the CIA and other intelligence agencies were cut by almost the same amount, $4.4 billion. A portion of the money going to…[NSA] will be used to create 13 cyberattack teams.”

That means spying money. Far more for NSA, far less for CIA.

Turf war.

Exit From the Matrix

But in this article, let’s stay focused on the fairy tales, which are the cover stories floated to the press, the public, the politicians.

We have reporters at the Washington Post and at The Guardian. We have Julian Assange, the head of Wikileaks. They’re all talking to Snowden. The NSA can spy on them. Right? Can listen to their calls and read their emails and hack into their notes. Just like people have been hacking into the work and home computers of Sharyl Attkisson, star CBS investigative reporter.

But the NSA can’t do all this spying and then use it to find Snowden. Just can’t manage it.

So…everybody in the world with a computer has passwords. The NSA can cut through them like a sword through hot butter. But Assange and the Post and Guardian and Snowden must have super-special passwords.

They got these passwords by sending a stamped self-addressed envelope, along with 25 cents, and a top from a cereal box, to The Lone Ranger. These passwords are charged with atomic clouds that obscure men’s minds so they cannot see or spy. They’re immortal and invulnerable.

The NSA can spy on anyone else in the world, but they can’t get their foot in the door, when it comes to the Post, The Guardian, and Assange.

And if Snowden winds up in Ecuador, that too will become an insurmountable mystery.

“Nope, we don’t know where he is. He’s vanished. Ecuador has a Romulan shield surrounding it. The cloaking technology is too advanced.”

Perhaps you recall that, in the early days of this scandal, Snowden claimed he could spy on anyone in the US, including a federal judge or even the president, if he had their email addresses.

Uh-huh. But the combined talents of the NSA, now, can’t spy on Snowden. I guess they just can’t find his email address.

Snowden isn’t the only savvy computer kid in the country. There must be a million people, at minimum, who can cook up email addresses that evade the reach of the NSA. Yes?

What we have here are contradictions piled on contradictions piled on lies.

And in the midst of this, a whole lot of people are saying, “Don’t look too closely. Snowden is a hero and he exposed the NSA and that’s a wonderful thing.”

And a whole lot of other people are saying, “Snowden is a traitor and he should be tried for treason or killed overseas. That’s all you need to know.”

The truth? Well, the truth, as they say, is the first casualty in war. But in the spying business, the truth was never there to begin with. That’s one of the requirements of the industry.

Son, if you think you’ve lied before, you haven’t got a clue. We’re going to tell you to do things that’ll make your head spin. That’s the game we’re in. We’re going to make you tell lies in your sleep.”

And these are the people the public believes.

It’s a beautiful thing. It really is. The fairy tales are made of sugar and the public, the press, and the people eat them. And then they ask for more.

Jon Rappoport

The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com

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Google 'Pressure Cookers' and 'Backpacks,' Get a Visit from the Cops



]Michele Catalano was looking for information online about pressure cookers. Her husband, in the same time frame, was Googling backpacks. Wednesday morning, six men from a joint terrorism task force showed up at their house to see if they were terrorists. Which prompts the question: How'd the government know what they were Googling?

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[T]hey were peppering my husband with questions. Where is he from? Where are his parents from? They asked about me, where was I, where do I work, where do my parents live.
Do you have any bombs, they asked. Do you own a pressure cooker? My husband said no, but we have a rice cooker. Can you make a bomb with that? My husband said no, my wife uses it to make quinoa. What the hell is quinoa, they asked. ...

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Op donderdag 1 augustus 2013 19:56 schreef Disorder het volgende:

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http://www.theatlanticwir(...)ogle-searches/67864/

In het kort: Manlief heeft interesse in rugzakken en googled daarover. Vrouwlief heeft interesse in een hogedrukpan en googled daarover. Autoriteiten krijgen informatie over de google-zoekresultaten en laten een inval doen.

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Op donderdag 1 augustus 2013 20:39 schreef Misty_eyes het volgende:

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Dit bericht bewijst dat de FBI en de NSA de burgers in de VS en daarbuiten nauwlettend volgt via het internet. Doodeng.

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Op donderdag 1 augustus 2013 19:52 schreef NickGrouwen het volgende:

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http://jonrappoport.wordp(...)d-could-see-through/

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Op donderdag 1 augustus 2013 20:41 schreef gebrokenglas het volgende:

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Anoniem surfen dus, met TOR. En zoeken met duckduckgo of lxquick

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Op donderdag 1 augustus 2013 20:45 schreef deelnemer het volgende:

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DuckDuckGo is based in Paoli, Pennsylvania, United States in Greater Philadelphia.

Waarom niet een Europees alternatief?

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Op donderdag 1 augustus 2013 22:10 schreef gebrokenglas het volgende:

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heb je er een?

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July 30, 2013- Senators Mark Udall (opend) and Ron Wyden (vanaf 18:15 m) delivered remarks on the Senate floor calling for the Administration to end the bulk phone records collection program and to responsibly declassify Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinions immediately.

Sen. Mark Udall & Sen. Ron Wyden vs NSA

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Op dinsdag 30 juli 2013 18:19 schreef Quasi-intellectueel het volgende:

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Ja, zo een hofstadgroep is ook getapt. Niet geheel onverstandig zo is gebleken. Dat zie ik als noodzaak.

Daarom vraag ik me af hoe die verhoudingen liggen. Als er geen aanleiding is ga je niet voor de lol een beetje tappen.

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The Church Committee

The Church Committee was the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-ID) in 1975. A precursor to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the committee investigated intelligence gathering for illegality by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after certain activities had been revealed by the Watergate affair.

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The Agency That Could Be Big Brother

Originally created to spy on foreign adversaries, the N.S.A. was never supposed to be turned inward. Thirty years ago, Senator Frank Church investigated the agency and came away stunned.

"That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people," he said in 1975, "and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide."

He added that if a dictator ever took over, the N.S.A. "could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back."

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NSA pays £100m in secret funding for GCHQ

The US government has paid at least £100m to the UK spy agency GCHQ over the last three years to secure access to and influence over Britain's intelligence gathering programmes.

The top secret payments are set out in documents which make clear that the Americans expect a return on the investment, and that GCHQ has to work hard to meet their demands. "GCHQ must pull its weight and be seen to pull its weight," a GCHQ strategy briefing said.

The funding underlines the closeness of the relationship between GCHQ and its US equivalent, the National Security Agency. But it will raise fears about the hold Washington has over the UK's biggest and most important intelligence agency, and whether Britain's dependency on the NSA has become too great.

In one revealing document from 2010, GCHQ acknowledged that the US had "raised a number of issues with regards to meeting NSA's minimum expectations". It said GCHQ "still remains short of the full NSA ask".

Ministers have denied that GCHQ does the NSA's "dirty work", but in the documents GCHQ describes Britain's surveillance laws and regulatory regime as a "selling point" for the Americans.

What questions are raised by the latest NSA revelations?

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Op donderdag 1 augustus 2013 23:08 schreef deelnemer het volgende:

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Sen. Mark Udall & Sen. Ron Wyden vs NSA

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Duits hof - telefoondata moet gewist

Op grond van Europese richtlijnen had de Duitse regering in 2008 een wet opgesteld, waardoor telecombedrijven en internetproviders verplicht waren alle informatie over verbindingen uit voorzorg zes maanden te bewaren. Een juridische aanleiding was voor deze opslag niet nodig.

Deze hevig bediscussieerde wet heeft het constitutioneel hof nu ‘nietig’ verklaard. Alle tot nu toe opgeslagen gegevens van burgers moeten direct gewist worden. Volgens het constitutioneel hof gaat het bij de huidige wet om een te zware ingreep in het privéleven van burgers. Alleen bij de verdenking van een zwaarwegende misdaad of een concrete dreiging tegenover andere mensen of de staat, is opslag toegestaan.

De wetgeving leidde twee jaar geleden tot fel debat in Duitsland, en verdeelde de politiek: degenen die de ‘persoonlijke vrijheid’ voorop zeiden te stellen, en zij die de publieke ‘veiligheid’ boven alles vonden gaan. Maar liefst 35 duizend klagers hadden de zaak aangespannen, het grootste aantal in de geschiedenis van het constitutionele hof.

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Wet bewaarplicht telecommunicatiegegevens

Te bewaren gegevens

De aanbieders van openbare telecommunicatienetwerken en telecommunicatiediensten zijn verplicht tot het bewaren van alle verkeers- en locatiegegevens van de gebruikers van deze diensten.

Van een telefoongesprek moeten gedurende twaalf maanden o.a. worden bewaard de begin- en eindtijd, de telefoonnummers, de namen en adressen van de betrokken abonnees of geregistreerde gebruikers (niet van toepassing bij anonieme prepaid-gebruikers), en de locaties waar betrokken mobiele telefoons zich bevinden, maar niet de inhoud van het gesprek.

Bij SMS en MMS analoog.

Van e-mails moeten soortgelijke gegevens twaalf maanden (na de reparatiewet: zes maanden) bewaard worden, zoals datum en tijdstip en e-mailadressen, maar niet de inhoud.
Van een internetsessie moet onder meer twaalf maanden (na de reparatiewet: zes maanden) bewaard worden datum en tijdstip van de log-in en log-off en het IP-adres van de gebruiker, maar niet de bezochte webpagina's.

Afgezien van deze gegevens van de internetsessie valt webmail van niet-Europese providers, bijvoorbeeld Hotmail en Gmail buiten de bewaarplicht. Dit geldt ook voor communicatie waarbij de "verzender" een concept-e-mailbericht opslaat en de "ontvanger" met behulp van gedeelde inloggegevens dit leest alsmede communicatie via sociale netwerksites.

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Sophie in 't Veld

Het spionageschandaal stelt Europa op de proef. Nu moet de EU bewijzen dat ze bereid is om de rechten van al haar inwoners te beschermen. Ik heb alvast wat aanbevelingen op een rij gezet:

1. D66 pleitte er weken geleden al voor: de VS moet om opheldering gevraagd worden. Alhoewel het zeer onwaarschijnlijk is dat alle feiten op tafel komen te liggen, moet de Amerikaanse regering wel tekst en uitleg geven aan de Europese autoriteiten. Niet in besloten bijeenkomsten, maar op het hoogste politieke niveau. Het Europees Parlement moet de Amerikaanse president uitnodigen om tijdens de plenaire vergadering te spreken over deze kwestie. Niets nieuws, vice-president Joe Biden ging hem al voor over de berichten over SWIFT.

2. Het Europees Parlement moet een parlementaire onderzoekscommissie opzetten. Dit gebeurde eerder al in 2001 naar het vergelijkbare spionageprogramma Echelon. De conclusies moeten een basis vormen voor een eigen Europese veiligheidsstrategie.

3. De Europese Commissie moet stappen ondernemen om de extraterritoriale toepassing van Amerikaanse wetgeving op het grondgebied van de EU te beëindigen.

4. De nieuwe Europese cybersecurity eenheid binnen Europol moet deze spionage door een ander land onderzoeken.

5. Het bestaan van de Europese geheime dienst Intcen moet eindelijk worden erkend en ingebed in een degelijk institutioneel kader. De dienst moet worden onderworpen aan alle normale rechtsregels.

6. De Europese raad en de Commissie moeten een grondige evaluatie van het antiterrorismebeleid uitvoeren. In 2011 is dit verzocht door het Parlement na een rapport van mijn hand.

7. De “anti-FISA”-paragraaf moet opnieuw worden ingebracht in de richtlijn voor gegevensbescherming. Deze paragraaf gaat over de doorgifte van persoonsgegevens ten behoeve van opsporing in derde landen. Op instigatie van de VS is deze geschrapt uit de oorspronkelijke voorstellen van de Europese Commissie.

8. De overeenkomsten tussen de EU en de VS over doorgifte van passagiersgegevens (PNR) en bankgegevens (TFTP/Swift) moeten worden opgeschort of beëindigd. Safe Harbour moet worden afgeschaft.

9. De onderhandelingen over een transatlantische overeenkomst inzake gegevensbescherming moeten worden opgeschort totdat er duidelijkheid is verschaft over het spionageschandaal.

10. De gesprekken over een Transatlantisch handels- en investeringsverdrag tussen de EU en de VS moeten niet afgebroken worden, maar de overeenkomst mag pas worden ondertekend als de spionagekwestie is opgelost. De overdracht van gegevens moet nadrukkelijk buiten de overeenkomst blijven. De Europese Commissie moet opperste openbaarheid betrachten over het handelsakkoord.

11. Het veto dat de VS feitelijk heeft over de toegang tot documenten moet eindigen. Eurowob aanvragen geweigerd op verzoek van de VS moeten ogenblikkelijk toegekend worden, zoals bijvoorbeeld de aanvraag tot toegang tot de evaluatie van het SWIFT-akkoord. Weigering om toegang tot documenten te verlenen met beroep op de uitzonderingsgrond ‘schadelijk voor transatlantische betrekkingen’ is nu bewezen ongeloofwaardig en onaanvaardbaar.

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Op donderdag 1 augustus 2013 23:28 schreef Quasi-intellectueel het volgende:
Aangezien Jason W. een afscheidsbrief had gemaakt en er een handgranaat werd gegooid naar politie-eenheden, lijkt me dat er het een en ander in de planning was ja.