Monitoring NSA in de VS en erbuiten, deel 8

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Op vrijdag 7 februari 2014 18:37 schreef JerryWesterby het volgende:
Oftewel, graag in je eigen woorden, met eventueel verwijzing naar het artikel.

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Op vrijdag 7 februari 2014 19:55 schreef Schunckelstar het volgende:

[..]

ik lees liever gewoon het bronartikel, zijn eigen bewoordingen interesseren me niet.
dus goed bezig papierversnipperaar

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Op vrijdag 7 februari 2014 18:36 schreef JerryWesterby het volgende:
Maar leest iemand dit artikel?

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The NSA’s Secret Role in the U.S. Assassination Program

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The National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people.

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US considers drone strike on American al-Qaida suspect abroad

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Appelbaum: 'No belief that president has control'

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Jacob Appelbaum is one of the leading US computer security activists and, along with Laura Poitras, a confidant of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. DW spoke to Appelbaum about the NSA and living in exile.

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I feel like a human being in exile. But I don't wear that on my sleeve as a victim, I'm just tired of it. You know, detained at airports, having my property stolen, stuff like that and I thought, well, maybe I should live in Europe for a while.

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The Next Big Thing You Missed: A Would-Be Dropbox Meant to Thwart the NSA

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About a year ago, Lissounov joined a hackathon sponsored by his employer, BitTorrent Inc., a company that seeks to transform the peer-to-peer protocol into a legitimate means of file-sharing for both consumers and businesses, and in a matter of hours, he slapped together a new BitTorrent tool that let him quickly and easily send encrypted photos of his three children across dodgy Eastern European network lines to the rest of his family. The tool won first prize at the hackathon, and within a few more months, after Lissounov honed the tool alongside various other engineers, the company delivered BitTorrent Sync, a Dropbox-like service that lets you seamlessly synchronize files across computers and mobile devices.

The difference is that, thanks to the BitTorrent protocol, which connects machines without the help of a central server, the service isn’t controlled by Dropbox or any other organization, including BitTorrent itself. This means it could be less vulnerable to surveillance by the NSA and other government organizations, and that seems to have struck a chord with many people across the net. Each month, according to BitTorrent, about 2 million people now use Sync, including not only individuals but businesses looking for simpler, safer, and more secure ways of sharing data across systems. “It immediately proved magical,” says BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker.

Klinker believes his ten-year-old company’s fortunes are closely tied to this new tool. But beyond that, Sync is part of a larger trend towards internet services that are operated not by a central commercial company, but by independent machines spread across the internet. This includes everything from the bitcoin digital currency to open source tools that seek to replace social networking services like Twitter. They all do very different things, but the common denominator is that they put more control in the hands of the people — and less in the hands of corporations and governments.

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Edward Snowden asylum demand dropped by European parliament

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The European parliament is to ditch demands on Wednesday that EU governments give guarantees of asylum and security to Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistleblower.

The parliament's civil liberties committee is to vote on more than 500 amendments to the first ever parliamentary inquiry into the NSA and GCHQ scandal, a 60-page report that is damning about the scale and the impact of mass surveillance.

But there is no consensus on an amendment proposed by the Greens calling on EU governments to assure Snowden of his safety in the event that he emerges from hiding in Russia and comes to Europe.

Amid what key MEPs have described as intense pressure from national governments on parliament – from the Conservatives and their allies, from the mainstream centre-right and from social democrats – the asylum call has no chance of passing.

"The amendment asking for asylum won't go through," said Claude Moraes, the British Labour MEP who is the principal author of the report. "That was a red line for the right. There was never going to be a realistic majority for that."

The proposed change to the report would have read: "[Parliament] calls on EU member states to drop criminal charges, if any, against Edward Snowden and to offer him protection from prosecution, extradition or rendition by third parties, in recognition of his status as whistleblower and international human rights defender."

Instead the report will call for international protection for whistleblowers without mentioning Snowden by name. Another amendment calling on the Americans not to prosecute Snowden is also unlikely to be adopted, parliamentary sources said.

"The only reason for this whole thing is Snowden and now he doesn't get mentioned. It's ridiculous," said Jan-Philip Albrecht, a German Green and co-author of the amendment.

The failure to make Snowden-specific demands comes amid wrangling over whether the whistleblower will and should be able to testify to the committee.

His lawyers told leading MEPs last week that he was prepared to testify via video from Moscow and questions have been sent to him. While the Conservatives opposed allowing him to testify on the NSA furore, parliamentary leaders have backed the idea by a majority.

But they are still arguing over the format of the testimony - whether live or pre-recorded video or in written answers to submitted questions. They are to meet next week to try to settle the issue.

The Americans are strongly opposed to Snowden testifying and MEPs say there has been enormous pressure from EU governments on the parliament to drop or dilute the report, which is to go before the full chamber in March.

"There has been a huge amount of pressure in the past few weeks," said Moraes. "From the member states. Most have not been friendly. They regard all this as a national competence and nothing to do with us."

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Utah lawmaker floats bill to cut off NSA data centre's water supply

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The logic of the Utah campaign is straightforward. Running the data center requires a lot of water – some 1.7m gallons daily, the activists estimate – to cool the anticipated 100,000 square feet of powerful computers and support equipment the NSA needs for storing a tremendous amount of data. The Wall Street Journal estimated this to be in the range of exabytes or even zettabytes (an exabyte is a billion gigabytes.)

Making it illegal to supply the water will cripple the data center, already beset with electrical problems, before it opens and complicate the NSA’s plans for expanding its storage capacity. For an agency that hoovers up a wide swath of the data communicated across the internet, not to mention the phone records of Americans that it can store for up to five years, it’s a problem.

But Utah is only the latest of about a dozen states to consider measures designed to restrict the NSA’s activities.

In the NSA’s home state of Maryland, eight lawmakers are backing a bill to stymie the provision of water and electricity to the agency’s Fort Meade headquarters. A similar measure, based off an initiative Maherrey’s organization calls the 4th Amendment Protection Act, has been introduced in California, Arizona, Oklahoma, Indiana, Mississippi, Washington state and Vermont.

“The provision of resources like water and electricity is a no-brainer in a state’s plenary authority,” said Buttar.

Four other states – Kansas, New Hampshire, Alaska and Missouri – are considering a related measure to prevent the sharing of NSA-derived data without a warrant.

The campaign faces unfavorable odds. The 4th Amendment Protection Act in Mississippi was referred to the state senate rules committee on 20 January, where it died on 4 February.

“I know it’s not going to pass in every state,” Maharrey said. But in Utah particularly, “we’re going to push it as hard as we can.”

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Leaked NSA Memo: Fueling the Perception Snowden Did Not Work Alone & Is No Whistleblower

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A number of media organizations have published stories based on a leaked National Security Agency memo that suggests NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden “swiped” the password of a co-worker, a civilian NSA employee, who has been forced to resign for sharing his password. The forced resignation by the civilian NSA employee is being reported as part of disciplining people for allowing breaches of security to happen, not as a part of the NSA’s effort to find people to take the fall for something the agency did not prevent from happening.

The memo, obtained and published by NBC News—and dated February 10, 2014, three days ago—provides an update to members of Congress of the House Judiciary Committee on “steps that the National Security Agency (NSA) has taken to assign accountability related to the unauthorized disclosure of classified information by former contractor Edward Snowden.”

“Three NSA affiliates have been implicated in this matter: an NSA civilian employee, an active duty military member and a contractor. The civilian employee recently resigned from employment at NSA,” the memo reports.

It adds, “On June 18, 2013, the NSA civilian admitted to FBI Special Agents that he allowed Mr. Snowden to use his (the NSA civilian’s) Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) certificate to access classified information on NSANet; access that he knew had been denied to Mr. Snowden. Further, at Mr. Snowden’s request, the civilian entered his PKI password at Mr. Snowden’s computer terminal. Unbeknownst to the civilian, Mr. Snowden was able to capture the password, allowing him even greater access to classified information. The civilian was not aware the Mr. Snowden intended to unlawfully disclose classified information. However, by sharing his PKI certificate, he failed to comply with security obligations.”

Notice what is not included in that description: when this password “swiping” occurred, whether Snowden actually needed to have the PKI to complete a task assigned to him, whether the employee typed the password in himself or actually wrote it down and handed it to him and whether this conduct would have actually been suspicious in the NSA whenever it took place.

NBC News clarifies the content of the memo with the phrase, “while the memo’s account is sketchy.” Yet, despite its “sketchiness,” NBC News published the report and presented it in a way that reinforces the narrative that Snowden did not blow the whistle and had accomplices to commit his dastardly deed.

The memo states the civilian employee was forced to resign on January 10, 2014. An active military member and contractor lost their access to NSA information and spaces in August 2013. However, there is virtually no evidence in this memo that these people being held responsible for the NSA actually had any role in helping Snowden.

Kirk Wiebe, a former NSA employee and whistleblower, suggested, “Such an act would not have been a reason for “firing” an NSA IT [information technology] guy 10 years ago, or even before the Snowden revelations in my opinion.”

“Part of the reason for tolerating such behavior before the Snowden leaks is that NSA does not have enterprise IT support. In other words, standards that make supporting NSA IT infrastructure – including data management – easy.”

The NSA does not really know the extent of what Snowden took and how he really did it. The forced resignation of this civilian employee and the decision to strip three people of their security clearances is reflective of an agency floundering in the aftermath of one of the most massive security breaches in its history.

The contact Snowden had with these employees are data points in the time Snowden worked for the agency. The confirmation bias of NSA leaders has driven them to take those data points and create causal relationships between events that took place. They decided that the civilian employee, wittingly or unwittingly, is a part of a conspiracy by Snowden because being victim of a conspiracy makes them look better than being a victim of an independent whistleblower.

Thomas Drake, a former NSA employee and whistleblower prosecuted by the administration of President Barack Obama for his act of trying to inform the public, recalled, “I had people pressured by NSA into making up stuff (including statements) about me and my character and obtaining information as well as purloining and stealing documents from NSA for the purposes of disclosing them to people”—reporters—”not authorized to receive them.” But, like Snowden, “I acted alone without any ‘help.’”

“NSA is simply choosing to believe that Snowden did not act alone. They are demonstrating something called confirmation bias.” They are looking for and manufacturing evidence to “prove” their allegations.” Or, by the simple act of forcing people out of the agency, they are creating the perception that those people played a role in Snowden’s act.

Even though unidentified FBI agents from the Washington field office, leading the investigation into Snowden, told the New York Times in December they believe Snowden “methodically downloaded the files over several months while working as a government contractor at the Hawaii facility” and “worked alone,” the story that Snowden did not do this by himself has continued to surface in the media without being appropriately questioned. (The Times did note again in January it was still the FBI’s conclusion Snowden acted alone.)

Though NBC News fails to make the connection, this civilian employee may be what House Intelligence Committee chairman was referring to when he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” some of what he had done was “beyond his technical capabilities.” And, “He had some help and he stole things that had nothing to do with privacy.”

“Some help” could be limited to the civilian NSA employee sharing the password that is mentioned in the memo. The phrase “beyond his technical capabilities” may be a way of saying he was not cleared for access in this instance and had to ask for a password to gain access to NSANet. Of course, the innuendo used by Rogers is much more effective in making Americans fear what Snowden did was malicious, especially since Rogers wants people to believe he did this with assistance from Russian foreign intelligence.

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As another whistleblower and former whistleblower William Binney explained to Firedoglake in December, NSA never developed and implemented technology in order to have the capabilities to track activities by employees on the agencys systems. The reason was because of two groups of people: analysts and management.

The analysts realized that what that would be doing is monitoring everything they did and assessing what they were doing. They objected. They didnt want to be monitored and have their privacy violated.

Management resisted because it meant one would be able to assess returns on all the programs around the world. It would be possible to lay out all the programs in the world and map [them] against the spending and the return on investment.

It meant the agency would be exposed to Congress for auditing, Binney added. Management, those leading the NSA, did not want that.

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U.S. intelligence agencies can’t justify why they use so many contractors

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Private contractors play a huge role in the government, particularly in civilian intelligence services like the CIA. Contracting critics say it's an addiction whose overhead costs drive up the federal budget and leads to data breaches like the kind perpetrated by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

In the wake of last year's NSA revelations, many agencies have been reviewing their contracting policies. But few people have a good grasp on just how many contractors the government employs. What's worse, the country's eight civilian intelligence agencies often can't sufficiently explain what they use those contractors for, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

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NSA-Affäre: Regierung plant Einsatz von Spionageabwehr gegen USA

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Spione aus dem Westen sollen es auf deutschem Boden künftig schwerer haben: Die Bundesregierung erwägt, die Tätigkeit westlicher Geheimdienste in Deutschland durch eigene Agenten beobachten zu lassen. Nach SPIEGEL-Informationen gibt es neun Monate nach Beginn der NSA-Affäre im Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz bereits Pläne, die Abteilung Spionageabwehr massiv auszubauen und etwa die Botschaften von Partnerländern wie den USA und Großbritannien einer "Sockelbeobachtung" zu unterziehen.

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‘Why Have You Gone to Russia Three Times in Two Months?’—Heathrow Customs Agent Interrogates Snowden Lawyer

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A lawyer who represents National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden and has spoken on his behalf numerous times was detained while going through customs at Heathrow airport in London.

Jesselyn Radack told Firedoglake she was directed to a specific Heathrow Border Force agent. He “didn’t seem interested” in her passport. She was then subjected to “very hostile questioning.”

As Radack recalled, she was asked why she was here. “To see friends,” she answered. “Who will you be seeing?” She answered, “A group called Sam Adams Associates.”

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Her interrogation by a Border Force agent comes just after The New York Times reported, based off a document from Snowden, that NSA ally, Australia, has used the Australian Signals Directorate to spy on American lawyers.

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What can unite liberals and tea partyers? The NSA

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WASHINGTON (AP) - Hoyt Sparks says he has no use for liberal Democrats and their "socialistic, Marxist, communist" ways.

Toni Lewis suspects tea party Republicans are "a bunch of people who probably need some mental health treatment."

Politically speaking, the tea-party supporter in rural North Carolina and the Massachusetts liberal live a world apart.

Who or what could get them thinking the same?

Edward Snowden and the National Security Agency.

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Why does the NSA unite the right and left ends of the political spectrum?

"More extreme political views lead to more distrust of government," said George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin, who's studied the tea party's focus on the Constitution. People at the far ends of the political spectrum are less likely than middle-of-the-road voters to feel government is responsive to them.

On the flip side, Somin said, moderates generally don't follow politics as closely as people at the extremes, so they may be less aware of the scope of the NSA's activities.

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Snowden Documents Reveal Covert Surveillance and Pressure Tactics Aimed at WikiLeaks and Its Supporters

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Top-secret documents from the National Security Agency and its British counterpart reveal for the first time how the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom targeted WikiLeaks and other activist groups with tactics ranging from covert surveillance to prosecution.

The efforts – detailed in documents provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden – included a broad campaign of international pressure aimed not only at WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, but at what the U.S. government calls “the human network that supports WikiLeaks.” The documents also contain internal discussions about targeting the file-sharing site Pirate Bay and hacktivist collectives such as Anonymous.

One classified document from Government Communications Headquarters, Britain’s top spy agency, shows that GCHQ used its surveillance system to secretly monitor visitors to a WikiLeaks site. By exploiting its ability to tap into the fiber-optic cables that make up the backbone of the Internet, the agency confided to allies in 2012, it was able to collect the IP addresses of visitors in real time, as well as the search terms that visitors used to reach the site from search engines like Google.

Another classified document from the U.S. intelligence community, dated August 2010, recounts how the Obama administration urged foreign allies to file criminal charges against Assange over the group’s publication of the Afghanistan war logs.

A third document, from July 2011, contains a summary of an internal discussion in which officials from two NSA offices – including the agency’s general counsel and an arm of its Threat Operations Center – considered designating WikiLeaks as “a ‘malicious foreign actor’ for the purpose of targeting.” Such a designation would have allowed the group to be targeted with extensive electronic surveillance – without the need to exclude U.S. persons from the surveillance searches.

In 2008, not long after WikiLeaks was formed, the U.S. Army prepared a report that identified the organization as an enemy, and plotted how it could be destroyed. The new documents provide a window into how the U.S. and British governments appear to have shared the view that WikiLeaks represented a serious threat, and reveal the controversial measures they were willing to take to combat it.

In a statement to The Intercept, Assange condemned what he called “the reckless and unlawful behavior of the National Security Agency” and GCHQ’s “extensive hostile monitoring of a popular publisher’s website and its readers.”

“News that the NSA planned these operations at the level of its Office of the General Counsel is especially troubling,” Assange said. “Today, we call on the White House to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the extent of the NSA’s criminal activity against the media, including WikiLeaks, its staff, its associates and its supporters.”

Illustrating how far afield the NSA deviates from its self-proclaimed focus on terrorism and national security, the documents reveal that the agency considered using its sweeping surveillance system against Pirate Bay, which has been accused of facilitating copyright violations. The agency also approved surveillance of the foreign “branches” of hacktivist groups, mentioning Anonymous by name.

The documents call into question the Obama administration’s repeated insistence that U.S. citizens are not being caught up in the sweeping surveillance dragnet being cast by the NSA. Under the broad rationale considered by the agency, for example, any communication with a group designated as a “malicious foreign actor,” such as WikiLeaks and Anonymous, would be considered fair game for surveillance.

Julian Sanchez, a research fellow at the Cato Institute who specializes in surveillance issues, says the revelations shed a disturbing light on the NSA’s willingness to sweep up American citizens in its surveillance net.

“All the reassurances Americans heard that the broad authorities of the FISA Amendments Act could only be used to ‘target’ foreigners seem a bit more hollow,” Sanchez says, “when you realize that the ‘foreign target’ can be an entire Web site or online forum used by thousands if not millions of Americans.”

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'Commissie Stiekem in december geïnformeerd over metadata'

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Oppositiebronnen benadrukken tegenover NRC dat het politieke belang van de informatie in hun ogen op 12 december niet duidelijk was.

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Clapper said that the controversy would not have occurred had the security apparatus been more open before. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I will. Had we been transparent about this from the outset right after 9/11 – which is the genesis of the 215 program – and said both to the American people and to their elected representatives, we need to cover this gap, we need to make sure this never happens to us again, so here is what we are going to set up, here is how it’s going to work, and why we have to do it, and here are the safeguards … We wouldn’t have had the problem we had.”

His admission contradicts months of warnings, from his office and from elsewhere in the administration, that disclosure of the bulk data collection jeopardized US national security.