Monitoring NSA in de VS en erbuiten, deel 8

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Do NSA's Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorists?

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On June 5, 2013, the Guardian broke the first story in what would become a flood of revelations regarding the extent and nature of the NSA’s surveillance programs. Facing an uproar over the threat such programs posed to privacy, the Obama administration scrambled to defend them as legal and essential to U.S. national security and counterterrorism. Two weeks after the first leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden were published, President Obama defended the NSA surveillance programs during a visit to Berlin, saying: “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.” Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, testified before Congress that: “the information gathered from these programs provided the U.S. government with critical leads to help prevent over 50 potential terrorist events in more than 20 countries around the world.” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said on the House floor in July that “54 times [the NSA programs] stopped and thwarted terrorist attacks both here and in Europe – saving real lives.”

However, our review of the government’s claims about the role that NSA “bulk” surveillance of phone and email communications records has had in keeping the United States safe from terrorism shows that these claims are overblown and even misleading. An in-depth analysis of 225 individuals recruited by al-Qaeda or a like-minded group or inspired by al-Qaeda’s ideology, and charged in the United States with an act of terrorism since 9/11, demonstrates that traditional investigative methods, such as the use of informants, tips from local communities, and targeted intelligence operations, provided the initial impetus for investigations in the majority of cases, while the contribution of NSA’s bulk surveillance programs to these cases was minimal. Indeed, the controversial bulk collection of American telephone metadata, which includes the telephone numbers that originate and receive calls, as well as the time and date of those calls but not their content, under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, appears to have played an identifiable role in initiating, at most, 1.8 percent of these cases. NSA programs involving the surveillance of non-U.S. persons outside of the United States under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act played a role in 4.4 percent of the terrorism cases we examined, and NSA surveillance under an unidentified authority played a role in 1.3 percent of the cases we examined.

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Kamer wil opheldering over apparatuur VS

Het Amerikaanse ministerie van Defensie heeft eigen apparatuur om satelliet-informatie op te vangen in het Friese Burum. Die apparatuur is, op afstand of op locatie, alleen toegankelijk voor Amerikaanse staatsburgers met speciale toegang. Dat blijkt uit onderzoek van Nieuwsuur.

Grote Oor

It Greate Ear noemen omwonenden het terrein met tientallen schotels: Het Grote Oor. Op het satellietstation in Burum is onder andere de Nationale Sigint Organisatie (NSO) gevestigd. De NSO valt onder het ministerie van Defensie en vergaart inlichtingen uit telecommunicatie voor de MIVD en de AIVD. De andere helft van het terrein in Burum is van het internationale bedrijf Inmarsat. Op dit commerciële deel van het satellietgrondstation staat de apparatuur van de Amerikaanse Defensie.


Contracten

Nieuwsuur heeft meerdere contracten gevonden tussen het Amerikaanse ministerie van Defensie en de Amerikaanse bedrijven Viasat en Northrop. Via de contracten wordt opdracht gegeven voor upgrades van software voor de eigen apparatuur in Burum. Een woordvoerder van het Amerikaanse ministerie bevestigt dit.

"Het ministerie van Defensie heeft zijn eigen satellietgrondstation-apparatuur geïnstalleerd op het Nederlandse grondstation om zo aan te kunnen sluiten op een satelliet die landt in Burum. Het Amerikaanse leger betaalt huur, zogeheten telehousing, om onze apparatuur in Burum te kunnen plaatsen en om satellietservice te ontvangen."

Missies

De Amerikanen gebruiken de apparatuur bijvoorbeeld om voor het monitoren van de eigen troepen tijdens missies. Defensiedeskundige Ko Colijn: "Als de Amerikanen in Irak of Afghanistan iets doen, dan willen ze precies weten wie waar zit. En dat is informatie die in de hoofdkwartieren in de VS bekend moet zijn. Dat kan niet rechtstreeks gecommuniceerd, dat gaat weer via die satellieten, dus logistiek is dit vrij belangrijk."

Belangrijke schakel

Burum blijkt inderdaad een belangrijke schakel in het Amerikaanse militaire netwerk te zijn. In een document op de website van de Amerikaanse overheidsdienst GSA staat: "Het United States Government Network van Inmarsat verschilt van commerciële netwerken in ontwerp, gebruik en gebruikers. Het netwerk wordt exclusief beheerd door één Amerikaans bedrijf en enkel bediend door Amerikaanse staatsburgers met een speciale clearance. USGN-grondstations bevinden zich in Hawaï en Nederland."

Geen antwoorden

Via welk bedrijf de satellietdiensten in Burum precies verlopen is onduidelijk. Het Amerikaanse ministerie van Defensie en Inmarsat weigeren daar op in te gaan. "Het is ons beleid niet in te gaan op vragen over specifieke klanten, of dit nu commerciële partijen zijn of overheidsorganisaties. Maar ik kan bevestigen dat we diensten bieden aan vele overheden ter wereld en dat we werken binnen de juridische en regelstellende kaders van ieder land waar we actief zijn", aldus de verklaring van Inmarsat.

Een woordvoerder van het Nederlandse ministerie van Defensie wil niet ingaan op vragen over de Amerikaanse apparatuur in Burum. "Er staat geen Amerikaanse overheidsapparatuur op het Defensie grondstation. Inmarsat is een commercieel bedrijf op het gebied van satellietcommunicatie. Het is niet aan Defensie om vragen te beantwoorden over wat er gebeurt op bedrijventerreinen in Nederland."

Spioneren

PvdA, SP, D66, GroenLinks, de ChristenUnie, de Partij van de Dieren en 50PLUS willen van minister Hennis-Plasschaert van Defensie weten wat de Amerikanen precies doen met de apparatuur in Burum. Van Raak (SP): "We moeten weten wat daar gebeurt. Het lijkt er in eerste instantie op dat het gebruikt wordt voor militaire inlichtingen, maar dat weet je dus niet. We hebben de afgelopen tijd gezien dat de Amerikanen elke mogelijkheid aangrijpen om te spioneren en ik wil wel van de Nederlandse regering, met name van minister Hennis weten wat de Amerikanen uitspoken en wat onze betrokkenheid daarbij is."

Veiligheidsverantwoordelijkheid

Ko Colijn: "Als de overheid werkelijk greep wil hebben op wat andere landen hier doen en in het vitale en hele delicate veiligheidssegment, dan zou de overheid dat precies in kaart moeten brengen. Maar ik denk dat de overheid dat niet meer doet en ik denk dat wij in dat opzicht ook wel allang niet meer soeverein zijn. Wij delen onze veiligheidsverantwoordelijkheid helemaal met andere landen."

Anonymous Presents - The Day We Fight Back

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Obama to ‘Overhaul’ Security Clearances System, Not Surveillance Programs

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When President Barack Obama delivers his speech on alleged surveillance reforms on Friday, he will not be suggesting measures that will truly prevent future abuse of surveillance powers. He will be advocating for reforms that could prevent another whistleblower like NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

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The New York Times described Obamas strategy for responding to disclosures from Snowden as trying to straddle a difficult line that will placate civil liberties advocates without a backlash from national security agencies. In other words, he does not think much of anything needs to be done at all but he wants civil liberties advocates to stop nipping at his heels.

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NSA onderschepte lukraak 194 miljoen sms'jes per dag

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De Amerikaanse afluisterdienst NSA onderschepte in april 2011 gemiddeld 194 miljoen sms'jes per dag, van willekeurige burgers over de hele wereld. Dat hebben The Guardian en Channel 4 News onthuld.

Sms-berichten zijn volgens een document van de NSA 'een goudmijn die kan worden uitgebuit'. In een reactie aan The Guardian houdt de dienst het erop dat de spionage alleen gericht was tegen 'gerechtvaardigde buitenlandse doelwitten'. Uit de informatie waar de krant zich op baseert, valt echter op te maken dat de dienst op zijn minst heeft geïnventariseerd wat de mogelijkheden zijn van dit soort grootschalige onderscheppingen.

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YourAnonNews twitterde op vrijdag 17-01-2014 om 16:57:43 In a few minutes, President Obama is going to piss off basically everybody. Here is why: http://t.co/su4NmyyBKm reageer retweet

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NSA leaks prompted major Canadian eavesdropping review: declassified memo

OTTAWA – The massive intelligence leak by former U.S. spy contractor Edward Snowden prompted Canada’s secret eavesdropping agency to review its policies on sharing information with the Americans and other key partners, a newly declassified memo reveals.

The three-page note from Communications Security Establishment Canada chief John Forster says the unprecedented breach also sparked a CSEC examination of its practices for protecting the privacy of Canadians.

The undated memo to national security adviser Stephen Rigby — obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act — was prepared some time in mid-2013, after Snowden’s leaks began making global headlines.

The memo, originally classified top secret, says CSEC set about assessing the potential damage to Canadian signals intelligence collection capabilities, as well as asking its partners for confirmation on what data Snowden took from the U.S. National Security Agency.

The highly sensitive material showed the NSA had quietly obtained access to a broad spectrum of emails, chat logs and other information from major Internet companies, as well as data about a huge volume of telephone calls.

CSEC, the NSA’s Canadian counterpart, monitors foreign computer, satellite, radio and telephone traffic for information of intelligence interest.

With a staff of more than 2,000 — including skilled mathematicians, linguists and computer specialists — CSEC is a key player in the so-called Five Eyes community comprising Canada, the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

“In collaboration with domestic and international partners, CSEC is undertaking an organization-wide operation to assess the impacts of these unlawful disclosures of classified information,” says the memo, portions of which remain secret.

“Due to the unauthorized disclosures CSEC has developed an ongoing damage assessment, initiated external and internal communications strategies and introduced preventative measures to mitigate the potential of future damage.”

A section on Forster’s initial assessment of the damage is blacked out.

In addition to liaising with its Five Eyes partners, the spy agency briefed a committee of deputy ministers on the fallout and arranged a series of bilateral meetings with the Privy Council Office (where Rigby works), Foreign Affairs, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP.

The Ottawa-based CSEC held two briefings for staff members, along with specialized sessions, and took steps to “remind them of security protocols and provide guidance and support where appropriate,” the memo says.

“CSEC is also reviewing internal policies related to information sharing with the Five Eyes as well as the protection of the privacy of Canadians to ensure that they are appropriate and clear.”

CSEC spokeswoman Lauri Sullivan said Friday the agency “continues to review its policies, processes and procedures to ensure they are effective, and to ensure that CSE is taking the appropriate steps to protect information and the privacy of Canadians.”

The CSEC memo’s release came as U.S. President Barack Obama announced changes Friday to NSA practices with the aim of reassuring Americans their civil liberties will not be trampled.

At the time of the Forster memo, there had been no direct mention of CSEC in any of the stories spawned by Snowden’s cache of documents.

However, material later disclosed by the whistleblower indicated that Canada helped the United States and Britain spy on participants at the London G20 summit in 2009. Other documents suggested CSEC once monitored Brazil’s department of mines and energy.

Articles based on Snowden’s material continue to appear in the media.

Forster told Rigby the electronic spy agency — so low-profile it is still unknown to many Canadians — was exploring ways to better inform the public about what it does, including its efforts to prevent terrorism and cyber-attacks.

CSEC has since posted new information on its website about how the agency functions.

“CSEC will also keep employees informed as its damage assessment and forensic work unfold,” the memo says.

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At Home With Glenn Greenwald

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The UK and US governments hate the journalism that we're doing," he told VICE at his home near Rio de Janeiro, regarding Miranda's 11-hour detention and questioning by authorities at an airport in London in July. He was held under an anti-terror law, which was "a way of saying look at what it is we can do to people who defy us if we choose."

In that injustice, however, Greenwald found a silver lining. "At the time that it happened, I was angry, I felt helpless, I was furious they would target someone peripheral to these events, instead of me or Laura or the other journalists with whom we've been working," he said. "But at the same time I found it incredibly emboldening. They showed their true face to the world, or to me, about how abusive they are when it comes to the exercise of their power. And that made me know just how compelling it was to continue to bring transparency to what it is that they're doing. And it showed how they can't be trusted to exercise power without transparency and accountability."

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Human Rights Watch annual report 2014 criticises NSA mass surveillance

States with poor human rights records may use spying scandal as excuse to clamp down on internet freedom, report warns

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US withholding Fisa court orders on NSA bulk collection of Americans' data

Justice Department refuses to turn over 'certain other' documents in ACLU lawsuit meant to shed light on surveillance practices

The Justice Department is withholding documents related to the bulk collection of Americans’ data from a transparency lawsuit launched by the American Civil Liberties Union.

US attorney Preet Bharara of the southern district of New York informed the ACLU in a Friday letter that the government would not turn over “certain other” records from a secret surveillance court, which are being “withheld in full” from a Freedom of Information Act suit the civil liberties group filed to shed light on bulk surveillance activities performed under the Patriot Act.

The decision to keep some of the records secret, in the thick of Edward Snowden’s revelations, has raised suspicions within the ACLU that the government continues to hide bulk surveillance activities from the public, despite US president Barack Obama’s Friday concession that controversial National Security Agency programs have “never been subject to vigorous public debate”.

The ACLU lawsuit, like others filed by civil liberties groups, has resulted in a trove of documents from the so-called Fisa court detailing the scope, authorizations and, in some cases, violations surrounding NSA surveillance ostensibly occurring under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The director of national intelligence now posts the released documents to a Tumblr page, usually without revealing that the disclosures were spurred by lawsuits.

The latest such disclosure happened Friday with the release of 24 documents, mostly detailing Fisa court reauthorizations of the bulk phone records collection first reported by the Guardian thanks to leaks from whistleblower Snowden.

Among the information disclosed in the documents, which date back to 2006 – the first year in which the program received authorization from the Fisa court at all – is the footnoted stipulation that the court “understands that NSA expects it will continue to provide, on average, approximately 3 telephone numbers per day to the FBI”.

If true – the footnote only appears in pre-2009 court reauthorizations – the estimate suggests the NSA has given the FBI approximately 13,203 phone numbers based on the 12-year-old domestic bulk phone data program.

In his letter, written on the day Obama gave a long-awaited speech on surveillance that pledged additional transparency, Bhahara said that Friday’s release will be the last disclosure under the terms of the ACLU’s lawsuit.

“As discussed by telephone this morning, the government in fact has processed all of the remaining FISC Orders responsive to the FOIA request in this case that relate to bulk collection, regardless of whether the order contains any additions and/or adjustments to the implementation procedures, minimization procedures, and/or reporting requirements set out in other FISC orders,” the US attorney wrote.

“The government cannot specify the total number of documents withheld in full from this final set of responsive documents because the number itself is classified."

Alexander Abdo, an ACLU attorney, noted that the government’s bulk surveillance disclosures have yet to include, among other efforts, a reported CIA program to collect international money transfers in bulk, revealed in November by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

“It appears that the government is concealing the existence of other bulk collection programs under the Patriot Act, such as the CIA’s reported collection of our financial records,” Abdo said.

“In other words, on the same day that President Obama recognized the need for a vigorous debate about bulk collection, the government appears to be hiding the ball. We can't have the public debate that President Obama wants without the facts that his agencies are hiding.”

Abdo said that the scope of the ACLU’s disclosure lawsuit only concerned surveillance efforts under Section 215 of the Patriot Act and that surveillance authorizations containing individualized suspicion were already excluded.

The NSA conducts other bulk data collection under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, an update to that law in 2008, and under a three-decade-old executive order known as 12333, all of which are outside the terms of the ACLU’s lawsuit.

Bharara's office routed a request for comment back through the Justice Department, which declined to elaborate on the 17 January letter.

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Independent commission to investigate future of internet after NSA revelations

Two-year inquiry headed by Swedish foreign minister, set up by Chatham House and CIGI thinktanks, is announced at Davos

A major independent commission headed by the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, was launched on Wednesday to investigate the future of the internet in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations.

The two-year inquiry, announced at the World Economic Forum at Davos, will be wide-ranging but focus primarily on state censorship of the internet as well as the issues of privacy and surveillance raised by the Snowden leaks about America's NSA and Britain's GCHQ spy agencies.

The investigation, which will conducted by a 25-member panel of politicians, academics, former intelligence officials and others from around the world, is an acknowledgement of the concerns about freedom raised by the debate.

Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister, said: "The rapid evolution of the net has been made possible by the open and flexible model by which it has evolved and been governed. But increasingly this is coming under attack.

"And this is happening as issues of net freedom, net security and net surveillance are increasingly debated. Net freedom is as fundamental as freedom of information and freedom of speech in our societies."

The Obama administration on Friday announced the initial findings of a White House-organised review of the NSA. There are also inquiries by the US Congress and by the European parliament, but this is the first major independent one.

The inquiry has been set up by Britain's foreign affairs thinktank Chatham House and by the Center for International Governance and Innovation (CIGI), which is partly funded by the Canadian government.

In a joint statement, Chatham House and the CIGI said the current internet regime was under threat. "This threat to a free, open and universal internet comes from two principal sources. First, a number of authoritarian states are waging a campaign to exert greater state control over critical internet resources."

The statement does not name the countries but it is aimed mainly at China and Iran, both of whom are censoring the internet.

The other big issue, according to Chatham House and the CIGI, is the revelations from Snowden.

"Second, revelations about the nature and extent of online surveillance have led to a loss of trust."

Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House, said: "The issue of internet governance is set to become one of the most pressing global policy issues of our time."

The intention of the inquiry is to hold public consultations around the world. About half a dozen meetings are planned, at a cost of about £150,000 each.

Among those on the panel are: Joseph Nye, former dean of the Kennedy school of governance at Harvard; Sir David Omand, former head of GCHQ; Michael Chertoff, former secretary of the US homeland security department and co-author of the Patriot Act that expanded NSA surveillance powers; the MEP Marietje Schaake, who has been a leading advocate of internet freedom; Latha Reddy, former deputy national security adviser of India; and Patricia Lewis, research director in the international security department at Chatham House, who said: "Internet governance is too important to be left just to governments."

Asked about the lack of debate in the UK so far compared with the US and elsewhere in Europe and around the world, Lewis said: "People in Britain are more concerned than we realise. They have clearly agreed at some level to exchange data for goods and services but they did not agree for that data to be given to the government and security services.

"This is a debate we sorely need."

Gordon Smith, who is to be deputy chair of the commission, said: "For many people, internet governance sounds technical and esoteric but the reality is that the issues are 'high politics' and of consequence to all users of the internet, present and future."

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The Global Commission on Internet Governance

The Global Commission on Internet Governance was established in January 2014, to articulate and advance a strategic vision for the future of Internet governance. With work commencing in May 2014, the two-year project will conduct and support independent research on Internet-related dimensions of global public policy, culminating in an official commission report.

Chaired by Carl Bildt, the commission will inform concrete policy recommendations for the future of Internet governance, by providing a framework both for coordination among advanced industrial democracies and for addressing the interests and values of states that are uncertain about the future of multi-stakeholder governance. Key issues to be addressed by the commission include governance legitimacy and regulation, innovation, online rights and systemic risk.

Launched by two independent global think tanks, The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and Chatham House, the Global Commission on Internet Governance will help educate the wider public on the most effective ways to promote Internet access, while simultaneously championing the principles of freedom of expression and the free flow of ideas over the Internet.

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Leaked US independent surveillance watchdog report concludes NSA program is illegal and recommends shut-down

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The forthcoming report of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, the arm's-length body established by the Congress to investigate NSA spying, has leaked, with details appearing in The New York Times and The Washington Post.

From its pages, we learn that the board views the NSA's metadata collection program -- which was revealed by Edward Snowden -- as illegal, without "a viable legal foundation under Section 215, implicates constitutional concerns under the First and Fourth Amendments, raises serious threats to privacy and civil liberties as a policy matter, and has shown only limited value…As a result, the board recommends that the government end the program."

The report goes farther than the President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies (whose recommendations Obama ignored) and even farther than the policies announced by the President himself.

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Guess Which Political Party Just Condemned the NSA’s Mass Surveillance Program

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The Resolution To Renounce The National Security Agencys Surveillance Program, which reportedly passed by an overwhelming majority during the party's annual winter meeting Friday, calls for an investigation into the NSAs dragnet surveillance program and for the creation of a committee to make "specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform to end unconstitutional surveillance."

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RNC condemns NSA spying in huge turnaround

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In a jarring break from the George W. Bush era, the Republican National Committee voted Friday to adopt a resolution demanding an investigation into the National Security Agencys spy programs.

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Did this Tor developer become the first known victim of the NSA's laptop interception program?

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At the end of December 2013, journalists working for the German newspaper Der Spiegel published information about a top-secret arm of the NSA, called the Tailored Access Operations division. TAO does highly targeted surveillance, a world apart from the indiscriminate, mass surveillance that happens under other NSA and FBI programs. One of the more alarming things we learned in the TAO story is that the NSA intercepts computers ordered online and installs malware on them, before sending them on to their final destination.

Could this be what happened to Shepard's computer, ordered on Amazon and delivered to Alexandria, instead of to Seattle? Could Amazon have made a mistake in notifying Shepard about this extra journey, which was likely meant to stay a secret? If this really is an example of the TAO laptop-interception program in action, does this mean that companies like Amazon are made aware of the government's intention to "look after" consumer products ordered by their customers? Or did Shepard receive this weird notice only after some sort of glitch in the NSA's surveillance matrix?

If this indeed is evidence of the NSA intercepting a laptop to install spyware on it, it's yet more proof that, even when the spying is highly targeted and precise, the NSA isn't necessarily using its powers to only go after terrorists or dangerous criminals. Shepard is neither a criminal nor a terrorist. She's a developer, an activist, and a free speech supporter.

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Snowden: NSA bespioneert ook buitenlandse bedrijven

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Voorafgaand aan de uitzending van het interview vanavond deed de zender een verklaring uitgaan waarin Snowden wordt geciteerd en is een fragment uit het interview gepubliceerd. Daarin zegt Snowden dat als een bedrijf als Siemens informatie zou hebben waarbij de Verenigde Staten baat zouden hebben - maar die niks met nationale veiligheid te maken heeft - de NSA die informatie toch zou gebruiken. ARD geeft verder geen details en het is onduidelijk wat de NSA precies met zulke informatie zou doen. Eerder gaf de NSA volgens ARD juist aan geen bedrijven te bespioneren.

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D-notice system to be reviewed in wake of Edward Snowden revelations

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Officials are planning to review the historic D-notice system, which warns the media not to publish intelligence that might damage security, in the wake of the Guardian's stories about mass surveillance by the security services based on leaks from the US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Sources said Jon Thompson, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Defence, was setting up an inquiry into the future of the committee, raising fears that the voluntary censorship system also known as the DA-notice could be made compulsory.

The committee is supposed to be consulted when news organisations are considering publishing material relating to secret intelligence or the military. It is staffed by senior civil servants and media representatives, who give advice on the publication of sensitive stories.

The MoD declined to say why the future of the committee was being considered, but minutes of its latest meeting say: "The events of the last few months had undoubtedly raised questions in some minds about the system's future usefulness."

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NSA and GCHQ target 'leaky' phone apps like Angry Birds to scoop user data

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The National Security Agency and its UK counterpart GCHQ have been developing capabilities to take advantage of "leaky" smartphone apps, such as the wildly popular Angry Birds game, that transmit users' private information across the internet, according to top secret documents.

The data pouring onto communication networks from the new generation of iPhone and Android apps ranges from phone model and screen size to personal details such as age, gender and location. Some apps, the documents state, can share users' most sensitive information such as sexual orientation – and one app recorded in the material even sends specific sexual preferences such as whether or not the user may be a swinger.

Many smartphone owners will be unaware of the full extent this information is being shared across the internet, and even the most sophisticated would be unlikely to realise that all of it is available for the spy agencies to collect.

Dozens of classified documents, provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden and reported in partnership with the New York Times and ProPublica, detail the NSA and GCHQ efforts to piggyback on this commercial data collection for their own purposes.

Scooping up information the apps are sending about their users allows the agencies to collect large quantities of mobile phone data from their existing mass surveillance tools – such as cable taps, or from international mobile networks – rather than solely from hacking into individual mobile handsets.

Exploiting phone information and location is a high-priority effort for the intelligence agencies, as terrorists and other intelligence targets make substantial use of phones in planning and carrying out their activities, for example by using phones as triggering devices in conflict zones. The NSA has cumulatively spent more than $1bn in its phone targeting efforts.

The disclosures also reveal how much the shift towards smartphone browsing could benefit spy agencies' collection efforts.

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GCHQ taught NSA how to monitor Facebook, Twitter in real time – Snowden leak

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British intelligence officials can infiltrate the very cables that transfer information across the internet as well as monitor users in real time on sites like Facebook without the company's consent, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden.

The internal documents reveal that British analysts gave instruction to members of the National Security Agency in 2012, showing them how to spy on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in real time and collect the computer addresses of billions of the sites’ uploaders.

The leaked documents are from a GCHQ publication titled ‘Psychology: A New Kind of SIGDEV’ (Signals Development). Published by NBC News on Monday, the papers detail a program dubbed ‘Squeaky Dolphin,’ which was developed for analysts working in “broad real-time monitoring of online activity.”

Sources told NBC that the British have proven their ability to both directly monitor the world’s web traffic cable and use a third party to view the data stream and extract information from it.

Representatives from the companies in question said they have not provided any data to the government of the United Kingdom under this program, either voluntarily or involuntarily. One person who wished to remain anonymous said that Google, the company that owns YouTube, was “shocked” to discover the UK may have been “grabbing” data for years.

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NASA and Britain’s GCHQ Mapping “Political Alignments” of Millions of Smartphone Users Worldwide.

New information made public by Edward Snowden reveals that the governments of the United States and United Kingdom are trawling data from cellphone “apps” to accumulate dossiers on the “political alignments” of millions of smartphone users worldwide.

According to a 2012 internal UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) document, the National Security Agency (NSA) and GCHQ have been accumulating and storing hundreds of millions of user “cookies” —the digital footprints left on a cellphone or computer each time a user visits a web site—in order to accumulate detailed personal information about users’ private lives.

This confirms that the main purpose of the programs is not to protect the population from “terrorism,” but to facilitate the state repression of working class opposition to widening social inequality and social counterrevolution. The programs do not primarily target “terrorists,” but workers, intellectuals, and students.

The collection of data regarding the “political alignment” of cellphone users also suggests that the governments of the US and UK are keeping lists of those whose “political alignments” are of concern to the government. Previous revelations have shown how the NSA and GCHQ “flag” certain “suspects” for additional surveillance: the most recent revelation indicates that suspects are “flagged” at least in part based on their “political alignment.”

The legal rationale behind this process points to a growing movement to criminalize political thought in the US and UK.

If, as the revelations indicate, determining a user’s “political alignment” is a primary goal of this program, then it is also likely a factor in determining whether the government has a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” that the user is a “terrorist suspect.” If this is the case, the web sites a user visits may raise the government’s level of suspicion that the user is engaged in criminal activity, and may thereby provide the government with the pseudo-legal pretext required to unlock the content of all his or her phone calls, emails, text messages, etc.

Such a rationale would amount to a flagrant violation of both the First and Fourth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Not only does the Fourth Amendment protect against “unreasonable searches and seizures,” but the First Amendment also proscribes the government from monitoring individuals based on their political beliefs. The elimination of such a fundamental democratic right would be a dangerous step towards the imposition of a police state dictatorship.

The new report also details the depth of the mobile-app spying operation.

A 2009 “brute-force” analysis test performed by the NSA and GCHQ of what the New York Times describes as a “tiny sliver of their cellphone databases” revealed that in one month, the NSA collected cellphone data of 8,615,650 cellphone users. Data from the GCHQ test revealed that in three months, the British had spied on 24,760,289 users. Expanded to a full year, this data shows that in 2009, the NSA collected data from over 103,000,000 users, while GCHQ collected data from over 99,000,000 users: and this coming from only a “tiny sliver” of a month’s data!

“They are gathered in bulk, and are currently our single largest type of events,” one leaked document reads.

The program—referred to in one NSA document as “Golden Nugget!”—also allows the governments to receive a log of users’ Google Maps application use. Such information allows the intelligence apparatus to track the exact whereabouts of surveillance victims worldwide. One chart from an internal NSA slideshow asks: “Where was my target when they did this?” and “Where is my target going?”

An NSA report from 2007 bragged that so much geo-data could be gathered that the intelligence agencies would “be able to clone Google’s database” of all searches for directions made via Google Maps.

“It effectively means that anyone using Google Maps on a smartphone is working in support of a GCHQ system,” a 2008 GCHQ report noted.

Additional presentation material leaked by Snowden shows that in 2010 the NSA explained that its “perfect scenario” was to “target uploading photo to a social media site taken with a mobile device.” The same slide asks, “What can we get?” The answer, according to the same presentation, includes the photographs of the user, buddy lists, emails, phone contacts, and “a host of other social networking data as well as location.”

The agencies also use information provided by mobile apps to paint a clear picture of the victim’s current location, sexual orientation, marital status, income, ethnicity, education level, and number of children.

GCHQ has an internal code-name system for grading their ability to snoop on a particular cellphone user. The codes are based on the television show “The Smurfs.” If the agencies can tap the phone’s microphone to listen to conversations, the codename “Nosey Smurf” is employed. If the agencies can track the precise location of the user as he or she moves, the codename “Tracker Smurf” is used. The ability to track a phone that is powered off is named “Dreamy Smurf,” and the ability to hide the spy software is coded “Paranoid Smurf.”

That the intelligence agencies have cheekily nicknamed codes in an Orwellian surveillance program after animated characters from a children’s show is a telling indication of the contempt with which the ruling class views the democratic rights of the population of the world.

Additionally, the agencies have been tracking and storing data from a series of cellphone game applications, including the popular “Angry Birds” game, which has been downloaded over 1.7 billion times.

The tracking of data from online games like “Angry Birds” further reveals that these programs are not intended to protect the population from “terrorism.” It would be indefensible for the NSA and GCHQ to explain that they suspected to glean information about looming Al Qaeda plots from a mindless cellphone game.

Yet this is precisely how the NSA has attempted to justify these programs.

“The communications of people who are not valid foreign intelligence targets are not of interest to the National Security Agency,” an agency spokeswoman said. “Any implication that NSA’s foreign intelligence collection is focused on the smartphone or social media communications of everyday Americans is not true. Moreover, NSA does not profile everyday Americans as it carries out its foreign intelligence mission.”

In an added indication of its anti-democratic character, the US government is therefore employing the technique of the “Big Lie” by denying what has just been proven true.

In reality, the revelations have further exposed President Barack Obama’s January 17 speech as a celebration of lies.

The president told the nation that the spying programs do “not involve the NSA examining the phone records of ordinary Americans.” He also said that the US “is not abusing authorities to listen to your private phone calls or read your emails,” and that “the United States is not spying on ordinary people who don’t threaten our national security.”

He added in reference to the “folks” at the NSA that “nothing I have learned [about the programs] indicated that our intelligence community has sought to violate the law or is cavalier about the civil liberties of their fellow citizens.”

But the evidence is mounting that the governments of the US and UK are compiling information regarding the “political alignments” of hundreds of millions across the globe. All those responsible for carrying out such a facially anti-democratic campaign—including President Obama, David Cameron, their aides, and the leaders of the security apparatus—must face criminal charges and immediate removal from office.

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FBI Appears To Have Collected Tormail's Entire Email Database... And It's Using It

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We've mentioned in the past that, for all the focus on the NSA lately, the FBI may be equally, if not more, worrisome for its willingness to collect tons of data on everyone and use it. Back in August, it became pretty clear that the FBI had compromised the Tor Browser Bundle, and had effectively taken over Freedom Hosting -- a popular hosting provider for dark web tor sites -- in order to push out malware that identified Tor users. A month later, it was confirmed that it was the FBI behind the effort, which led to the closing of Freedom Hosting.

Now there are new reports, suggesting that along with Freedom Hosting, the FBI was able to get the full database of emails on TorMail, a popular tor-based email service that used Freedom Hosting and was shut down at the same time Freedom Hosting went down. The reports point to a new lawsuit, in which the FBI was able to get a search warrant to search TorMail using its own copy of the database -- which it clearly had obtained at an earlier date. This basically means that the FBI has a pretty easy time searching all those emails if it needs to:

. The tactic suggests the FBI is adapting to the age of big-data with an NSA-style collect-everything approach, gathering information into a virtual lock box, and leaving it there until it can obtain specific authority to tap it later. There’s no indication that the FBI searched the trove for incriminating evidence before getting a warrant. But now that it has a copy of TorMail’s servers, the bureau can execute endless search warrants on a mail service that once boasted of being immune to spying.

This again highlights one of the problems of the "collect it all" approach. Rather than merely targeting a specific individual or group, the FBI now has all of those emails sitting in a database. Even if it's getting a warrant to search, it's now searching its own database, rather than having to go out to get the information from others who might challenge the requests.

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Huge swath of GCHQ mass surveillance is illegal, says top lawyer

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GCHQ's mass surveillance spying programmes are probably illegal and have been signed off by ministers in breach of human rights and surveillance laws, according to a hard-hitting legal opinion that has been provided to MPs.

The advice warns that Britain's principal surveillance law is too vague and is almost certainly being interpreted to allow the agency to conduct surveillance that flouts privacy safeguards set out in the European convention on human rights (ECHR).

The inadequacies, it says, have created a situation where GCHQ staff are potentially able to rely "on the gaps in the current statutory framework to commit serious crime with impunity".

At its most extreme, the advice raises issues about the possible vulnerability of staff at GCHQ if it could be proved that intelligence used for US drone strikes against "non-combatants" had been passed on or supplied by the British before being used in a missile attack.

"An individual involved in passing that information is likely to be an accessory to murder. It is well arguable, on a variety of different bases, that the government is obliged to take reasonable steps to investigate that possibility," the advice says.

The opinion suggests the UK should consider publishing a Memorandum of Understanding with any country with which it intends to share intelligence.

This would clarify what the intelligence can be used for under British law, and how the data will be stored and destroyed.

The legal advice has been sent to the 46 members of the all-party parliamentary group on drones, which is chaired by the Labour MP, Tom Watson.

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"We consider the mass interception of external contents and communications data is unlawful. The indiscriminate interception of data, solely by reference to the request of the executive, is a disproportionate interference with the private life of the individuals concerned."

Last June, Snowden leaked thousands of files about the surveillance activities of GCHQ and its US counterpart the NSA.

One of the key revelations focussed on Operation Tempora, a GCHQ programme that harvests vast amounts of information by tapping into the undersea cables that carry internet and phone traffic passing in and out of the UK. GCHQ and Hague, have repeatedly insisted the agency acts in accordance with the law.

Last year Hague told MPs: "It has been suggested GCHQ uses our partnership with the US to get around UK law, obtaining information that they cannot legally obtain in the UK. I wish to be absolutely clear that this accusation is baseless."

However, the legal advice poses awkward new questions about the framework GCHQ operates within, the role of ministers and the legality of transferring bulk data to other spy agencies.

The advice makes clear Ripa does not allow GCHQ to conduct mass surveillance on communications between people in the UK, even if the data has briefly left British shores because the call or email has travelled to an internet server overseas.

twitter:

ECA_Legion twitterde op dinsdag 28-01-2014 om 23:11:43 It's not just you nsa.gov appears to be Down via #Anonymous reageer retweet

twitter:

r3v3r3nd_m4yh3m twitterde op dinsdag 28-01-2014 om 23:30:15 STEAL THIS TWEET nsa.gov #TANGODOWN #Anonymous #ProtectSnowden #FreeAnons #OpBlitzkrieg We Are Legion #AntiSec #LulzSec reageer retweet

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Edward Snowden nominated for Nobel peace prize

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Philips werkte jarenlang intensief samen met NSA-spionnen

Elektronicaconcern Philips heeft jarenlang intensief samengewerkt met de Amerikaanse inlichtingendienst NSA. Philips verkocht beveiligde telefoons aan de Nederlandse overheid, waarvan de versleuteling afkomstig was van de Amerikaanse spionnen en hun Britse collega's (de GCHQ, Government Communications Headquarters).

De telefoons zijn tot een paar jaar geleden door het Nederlandse leger en op ambassades gebruikt. De NSA bevond zich in het hart van het Nederlandse militaire en diplomatieke verkeer. Philips liep in zekere zin aan de leiband van de NSA, zo beschrijft onderzoeksjournalist en Philips-biograaf Marcel Metze in een artikel dat vandaag in De Groene Amsterdammer verschijnt.

Uit archiefonderzoek en gesprekken met voormalige medewerkers van Philips-dochter Ultra Sonore Fabricage Afdeling (USFA), de cryptografische afdeling van het concern, blijkt dat het bedrijf wel met de Amerikanen moest samenwerken. Zonder de NSA-input maakten de Nederlanders geen kans op opdrachten van NAVO-landen.

Encryptiemachines
Dus nam Philips de NSA aan boord, toen het begin jaren tachtig encryptiemachines ging bouwen voor de NAVO en meedong naar een grote order (200 miljoen gulden) voor een nieuw communicatienetwerk voor het Nederlandse leger. Philips leverde in de jaren daarna onder de codenaam Zodiac mobiele verbindingen, telefooncentrales en duizenden digitaal beveiligde telefoons aan het leger. De telefoons waren zeer vernieuwend: ze verhaspelden de woorden meteen tijdens het spreken. Ook het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken nam de telefoons af.

De NSA leverde een met de GCHQ ontwikkeld versleutelingsprogramma voor de telefoons, Saville, dat ingebakken in drie chips in de apparaten werd ingebouwd. Er waren slechts enkele medewerkers bij Philips die het algoritme kenden.

Overigens zat de NSA-code in alle apparatuur van de NAVO-landen. 'De NSA had die order gewonnen, zij waren gewoon de beste', zegt hoogleraar computerbeveiliging Bart Jacobs van de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen.
Of de Amerikanen hun kennis misbruikt hebben is niet duidelijk. Betrokken Philips-medewerkers zeggen daarvan niet op de hoogte te zijn. Als de Amerikanen opzettelijk een zwakke plek (een 'achterdeur') in de software zouden hebben ingebouwd, zou dat henzelf ook kwetsbaar hebben gemaakt zegt Jacobs. 'Want zij gebruikten de apparaten zelf ook binnen de NAVO.'

Achterdeurtjes
Uit documenten van Snowden is vorig jaar gebleken dat de NSA graag dergelijke achterdeurtjes inbouwt in commerciële encryptiesoftware. Zo bleek vorig jaar dat de NSA ook een zwakke plek had laten maken in een algoritme van het bedrijf RSA. De commissie die president Obama adviseerde over de NSA pleitte er in december voor dat de dienst zich niet meer bemoeit met encryptiesoftware bij bedrijven. Of de NSA nog steeds apparatuur levert aan NAVO-landen is niet bekend. Jacobs: 'Ik kan me niet voorstellen van niet.'

Philips wil hierop niet inhoudelijk reageren, omdat het archief van de betrokken dochter USFA in 1989 via de verkoop van Holland Signaal is beland bij het Franse Thomson. Ook noemt een woordvoerder delen van het verhaal speculatief. 'Wij zien op grond hiervan geen aanleiding om eigen onderzoek te beginnen.'

Een woordvoerder van het ministerie van Defensie zegt dat het 'niet meer dan logisch is' dat bondgenoten met elkaar kunnen praten. 'Dan is het ook niet raar dat diensten voor encryptie van communicatieapparatuur met bedrijven samenwerken.'

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James Clapper Suggests Journalists Could Be Edward Snowden's 'Accomplices'

NEW YORK -– Director of National Intelligence James Clapper urged former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and his “accomplices” to return leaked documents during a hearing on Wednesday.

"Snowden claims that he’s won and that his mission is accomplished," Clapper said, according to a transcript from the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, posted by the Washington Post. "If that is so, I call on him and his accomplices to facilitate the return of the remaining stolen documents that have not yet been exposed, to prevent even more damage to U.S. security."

So who, exactly, are Snowden’s “accomplices?”

Guardian national security editor Spencer Ackerman, among others, questioned on Twitter whether Clapper was referring to journalists.

HuffPost put the question to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which didn't rule out that journalists could be considered "accomplices."

The office's public affairs director Shawn Turner said in an email that “director Clapper was referring to anyone who is assisting Snowden to further threaten our national security through the unauthorized disclosure of stolen documents related to lawful foreign intelligence collection programs.”

The suggestion that Snowden is conspiring with journalists, rather than acting as their source, has come up ever since the National Security Agency surveillance story broke last spring.

In June, "Meet the Press" host David Gregory asked journalist Glenn Greenwald about having "aided and abetted" Snowden, language that suggests the reporter was a participant in a crime. Earlier this month, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) described Greenwald as Snowden's "accomplice."

Members of Congress and government officials have long claimed, both anonymously and in TV interviews, that China and Russia likely obtained the leaked NSA documents and that Snowden may be a spy. Snowden was the eighth person charged under the Espionage Act for leaking information during the Obama administration.

Despite generating headlines, Snowden's critics haven't provided direct evidence to back up such claims. Last week, Snowden told The New Yorker that allegations he's a Russian spy are "absurd."

But Snowden did provide documents last year to Greenwald, and journalists Laura Poitras and Barton Gellman. The ongoing NSA coverage has detailed the extent of U.S. surveillance and sparked a worldwide debate.

The Guardian, where Greenwald previously worked, provided a subset of the documents to The New York Times and ProPublica. Meanwhile, Poitras and Greenwald, who are believed to have the full set, have continued reporting on specific documents with news organizations around the world. On Monday, for instance, Greenwald co-wrote an NBC News story about how the British government could spy on Facebook and YouTube users.

It doesn’t seem possible that all the documents could be returned by Snowden. Snowden has said he gave what he had to journalists in Hong Kong, so he no longer was carrying the documents when he arrived in Russia, where he remains under temporary asylum.

Still, the idea that Snowden might be capable of securing the leaked information has been floated before by a top government official.

Last month, NSA task force head Rick Ledgett told “60 Minutes” that any conversation with Snowden about amnesty could only take place if there were “assurances that the remainder of the data could be secured.”

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NSA spied on Copenhagen UN climate summit – Snowden leak

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The document was published on an internal NSA site on the first day of the Denmark conference, December 7, 2009, and stated that “analysts here at NSA, as well as our Second Party partners, will continue to provide policymakers with unique, timely, and valuable insights into key countries’ preparations and goals for the conference, as well as the deliberation within countries on climate change policies and negotiation strategies.”

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French Surveillance Programs Eerily Echo The NSA's, Right Down To Codifying Unconstitutional Collections

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As the NSA leaks have expanded to detail spying activities in other countries, those governments affected have had a variety of reactions. In some cases, legitimately questionable tactics were exposed (potential economic espionage in Brazil, tapping German chancellor Angela Merkel's phone) and the responses were genuinely outraged. In other cases, the outrage was temporary and somewhat muted, suggesting these countries were allowing the NSA to take the heat for their own questionable surveillance programs aimed at their citizens.

When news broke of the NSA acquiring millions of metadata records from French phone companies, the response from the French government seemed like little more than an attempt to shift the focus off its own PRISM-esque collection programs. In response, the ODNI delivered a statement that rebutted the word salad created by an algorithmic translation of the original French article. Plausible deniability via translation tech. The NSA couldn't have asked for a better setup.

But the story swiftly faded into the background. The minimal outrage failed to sustain itself and was soon swept away by the exposure of more NSA documents. One French telco, Orange, has declared its intentions to sue the NSA for tapping its undersea cables, but further reaction from the government has remained almost nonexistent.

That the heat failed to stay on the NSA may prove to be a problem as more details have surfaced suggesting the French government respects its citizens no more than the US government does. Making things a bit messier is the fact that the French intelligence agencies' actions aren't subject to judicial control but rather answer solely to the executive branch (as it were) directly. While our judicial oversight may be more "rubber stamp" than "check and balance," it at least helps prevent agencies from operating completely under the cover of executive decisions.

But the limits, or lack thereof, are nearly identical to those of the NSA. According to its 2006 anti-terrorist law, agencies do not need warrants to access data or perform investigations that fall under the scope of the anti-terrorism legislation. Needless to say, the law has since expanded to cover even more data and content.

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CSEC used airport Wi-Fi to track Canadian travellers: Edward Snowden documents

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A top secret document retrieved by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden and obtained by CBC News shows that Canada's electronic spy agency used information from the free internet service at a major Canadian airport to track the wireless devices of thousands of ordinary airline passengers for days after they left the terminal.

After reviewing the document, one of Canada's foremost authorities on cyber-security says the clandestine operation by the Communications Security Establishment Canada ( CSEC) was almost certainly illegal.

Ronald Deibert told CBC News: "I can't see any circumstance in which this would not be unlawful, under current Canadian law, under our Charter, under CSEC's mandates."

The spy agency is supposed to be collecting primarily foreign intelligence by intercepting overseas phone and internet traffic, and is prohibited by law from targeting Canadians or anyone in Canada without a judicial warrant.

As CSEC chief John Forster recently stated: "I can tell you that we do not target Canadians at home or abroad in our foreign intelligence activities, nor do we target anyone in Canada.

"In fact, it's prohibited by law. Protecting the privacy of Canadians is our most important principle."

But security experts who have been apprised of the document point out the airline passengers in a Canadian airport were clearly in Canada.

CSEC said in a written statement to CBC News that it is "mandated to collect foreign signals intelligence to protect Canada and Canadians. And in order to fulfill that key foreign intelligence role for the country, CSEC is legally authorized to collect and analyze metadata."

Metadata reveals a trove of information including, for example, the location and telephone numbers of all calls a person makes and receives — but not the content of the call, which would legally be considered a private communication and cannot be intercepted without a warrant.

"No Canadian communications were (or are) targeted, collected or used," the agency says.

In the case of the airport tracking operation, the metadata apparently identified travelers' wireless devices, but not the content of calls made or emails sent from them.

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Footage released of Guardian editors destroying Snowden hard drives

GCHQ technicians watched as journalists took angle grinders and drills to computers after weeks of tense negotiations

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The bizarre episode in the basement of the Guardian's London HQ was the climax of Downing Street's fraught interactions with the Guardian in the wake of Snowden's leak the biggest in the history of western intelligence. The details are revealed in a new book published next week The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man by the Guardian correspondent Luke Harding. The book describes how the Guardian took the decision to destroy its own Macbooks after the government explicitly threatened the paper with an injunction.

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"It was purely a symbolic act. We knew that. GCHQ knew that. And the government knew that," Johnson said. He added: "It was the most surreal event I have witnessed in British journalism."

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How Edward Snowden went from loyal NSA contractor to whistleblower

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Once Obama became president, Snowden came to dislike him intensely. He criticised the White House's attempts to ban assault weapons. He was unimpressed by affirmative action. Another topic made him even angrier. The Snowden of 2009 inveighed against government officials who leaked classified information to newspapers – the worst crime conceivable, in Snowden's apoplectic view. In January of that year, the New York Times published a report on a secret Israeli plan to attack Iran. The Times said its story was based on 15 months' worth of interviews with current and former US officials, European and Israeli officials, other experts and international nuclear inspectors.

TheTrueHOOHA's response, published by Ars Technica, is revealing. In a long conversation with another user, he wrote the following messages:

"WTF NYTIMES. Are they TRYING to start a war?"

"They're reporting classified shit"

"moreover, who the fuck are the anonymous sources telling them this? those people should be shot in the balls"

"that shit is classified for a reason"

"it's not because 'oh we hope our citizens don't find out' its because 'this shit won't work if iran knows what we're doing'"

Snowden's anti-leaking invective seems stunningly at odds with his own later behaviour, but he would trace the beginning of his own disillusionment with government spying to this time. "Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world. I realised that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good," he later said.

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NY Times' Jill Abramson: Obama Crackdown Has Created 'Freeze' On Reporting

New York Times editor Jill Abramson once again condemned the Obama administration's crackdown on leaks, saying that the government's treatment of Edward Snowden has scared potential sources and created a "real freeze" on reporting.

Abramson said at a Columbia University School of Journalism panel Thursday that Snowden has brought into question matters of source protection, media shield laws and had a “profound effect on journalism,” the Wrap reported Friday.

One of the effects, Abramson said, is that The New York Times is forced to “hit the breaks a bit" now that larger issues of national security are involved.

The issue of U.S. government spying and whistleblowers came to a head last June when Edward Snowden first leaked the NSA documents revealing massive government surveillance programs and collection of phone and Internet records. Snowden sought asylum in Russia to escape espionage charges against him in the U.S. and claims he is still facing "significant threats" for his actions.

Snowden's story, and government crackdown on leakers as a whole, is what Abramson says now has other whistleblowers hesitant to come forward, significantly changing the relationship between sources and journalists.

"A real freeze is setting in on what had been to this point, I think, a healthy discourse between sources and journalists," she said. "Journalists are saying, ‘I will go to jail to protect your identity.... These words are now being uttered.”

Also with Abramson at the conference was Janine Gibson, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, the website Snowden leaked documents to that exposed the NSA surveillance. Abramson pointed out that the Obama administration has administered seven leak investigations to date, which is twice that of any other previous administration, according to the Wrap.

"The original, the ordinary way of chilling journalism won’t work," she said. "We’re not any more going to be worried about naming names. It’s going to be about proving that you’re not a co-conspirator."