Monitoring NSA in de VS en erbuiten, deel 9

quote:

GCHQ backlash? Anonymous website hacked following privacy rights protest

Anonymous UK’s website was recently targeted and taken down in the midst of a four-day privacy rights protest organized by the collective. The demonstration was held outside Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

A spokesman for the hacktivist group believes the targeted attack was carried out by GCHQ officials.

The protest, which began outside Britain’s Cheltenham-based spy base last Friday, was reportedly launched to highlight an ongoing assault on Britons’ privacy rights against a backdrop of increasing mass surveillance. But prior to the main day of protest scheduled for Saturday, Anonymous UK’s website was taken down. The incident occurred late Friday evening.

This is not the first time the group has had such an experience. A spokesperson for the hacktivist collective, who runs Anonymous UK's online radio station, insists they have been unjustly targeted by GCHQ on multiple occasions.

“One of our servers was destroyed and our UK radio station has been shut down,” the spokesperson told RT on Friday, adding that the group's site was also taken down following the launch of a campaign to feed homeless people.

Commenting on the cyber attack, the spokesman said that if a member of the public targeted a government site in this manner, they could "get up to five years in prison the UK." Yet “GHHQ has no one to answer to.”

“This is why we protest,” he stressed.

Although GCHQ allegedly attempted to liaise with Anonymous UK in advance of the demonstration, a spokesperson for the collective said the group declined to respond. The collective believes privacy rights advocates have a democratic right to protest peacefully, and shouldn't have to justify their desire to do so to UK authorities.

Probed as to whether Anonymous UK plans to issue a formal complaint about the targeting of its website, a spokesperson said “we can’t complain to anyone” because “GCHQ would just deny it.”

Central to the group’s privacy rights concerns is an alleged UK intelligence operation called Tempora. Covert documents sent to the Guardian by US whistleblower Edward Snowden state that the program facilitates British intelligence officers’ access to private data. Such information relates specifically to email, social networking, and telephone conversations.

Britain’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal is currently seeking to discern whether Tempora exists, and if it violates Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights – which deals with citizens’ right to privacy. A final judgment on the case is yet to emerge, and the group of high profile UK and international civil liberties groups that launched the proceedings is currently awaiting an outcome.

Anonymous UK told RT on Friday that the collective is doubtful the final judgement will favor the public’s right to privacy.

According to the hacktivist collective, approximately 60 protesters attended the demonstration over the weekend in a bid to raise awareness about the intrusive nature of GCHQ mass surveillance. Others estimate the number of attendees may have been more moderate. Anonymous UK stated all activists demonstrated in a peaceful and lawful manner, and there were no arrests. Nevertheless, its site remains inaccessible visitors.

The UK-based collective is a subset of Anonymous, a nebulous international network of activists and hacktvists known for politically charged, subversive maneuvers worldwide. Recent actions carried out by the broader group include efforts to tackle global inequality, operations to counter government attacks on citizens’ privacy rights, efforts to mitigate child pornography, and a “cyber assault” against Israel to counter IDF operations in Gaza.

quote:

NSA bulk collection of phone data under scrutiny as federal case opens

Justice Department officials face pointed questions on opening day of case that could push NSA privacy to supreme court

Federal judges pointedly questioned a Justice Department lawyer on Tuesday about the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of US phone data, in the opening day of case that represents a major step toward a supreme court ruling on the constitutionality of the program.

A three-judge panel from the second circuit court of appeals aimed skeptical questions at assistant attorney general Stuart Delery about the scope and breadth of the call-records dragnet, reported last year by the Guardian thanks to leaks from Edward Snowden.

Judge Gerard Lynch, a Barack Obama appointee, asked what was “so uniquely valuable about phone records” that compelled the NSA to collect all domestic phone records, in bulk, without individual suspicion of terrorism, espionage or any other wrongdoing.

Getting the data “rapidly has to be what this is about”, said Lynch, a former New York federal prosecutor. “Some of us up here have done this in criminal investigations.”

Delery was put in the position of defending a program that Obama no longer supports in public. The president earlier this year endorsed divesting NSA of its phone records databases, which struck the judges as curious.

The Justice Department official’s more immediate task was to convince the judges that they lacked the authority to consider the legality of the bulk call-records collection. “Congress has not provided jurisdiction to the court to reach statutory claims,” he argued. The judges noted that his contention left the panel in the position of considering constitutionality ahead of legality, an inversion of US legal doctrine.

While none of the three judges were inclined to rule from the bench Tuesday, they peppered Delery with sharp questions for over half an hour. Some were curious about factual aspects of the phone records program and appeared mildly frustrated at their inability to get public answers about what until last year was among the US government’s most closely held secrets.

“You seem to rely on declassified material,” judge Robert D Sack, a Bill Clinton appointee, told Delery. “What else aren’t you telling us?”

The case reached the appeals court after a December ruling from Judge William Pauley declined to grant its petitioner, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an injunction to stop the bulk records collection. That ruling contradicted one barely a week earlier from a Washington DC judge, Richard Leon, that called the collection “almost Orwellian”. Judges wondered aloud about the implications if they ordered a halt to the bulk collection while a DC appeals court, scheduled to hear a government appeal in the case Leon ruled on, reaches the opposite conclusion.

Alexander Abdo, an attorney for the ACLU, said the supreme court would likely have to resolve the dispute, something that legal scholars and observers on both sides of the past year’s surveillance debate have anticipated.

Abdo received a grilling from the judges as well, if not quite as intensely. They pushed Abdo to define a “reasonable” expectation of privacy over metadata, even as they later asked Delery if bulk phone data was “content-divulging.”

Underscoring an element of the case likely to be stated openly should the supreme court rule, Lynch mused to Abdo: “Say we’re wrong and somebody blows up a subway train.”

Since Pauley and Leon’s ruling, Congress, the NSA and the Obama administration have begun to embrace a legislative effort that would end the NSA’s direct bulk collection of domestic phone records, but permit the government to collect thousands of phone records based on a single court order, alarming privacy advocates. While the House passed the bill in May, the Senate still has not, and the legislative calendar is ticking down ahead of November’s congressional elections.

Until then, Abdo said, “the injury is ongoing on a daily basis”, as the NSA, through the secret Fisa court, continues to collect phone data in bulk ahead of legislative action, albeit on a somewhat circumscribed scale.

Judges on the appeals court openly joked about their likely status as a stepping stone for a landmark high-court decision on surveillance and privacy.

“We gave you probably more time than you’ll get in the supreme court,” Lynch told Delery as the assistant attorney general concluded his presentation.

quote:

Judge may hold Microsoft in contempt after refusal to hand over foreign data

Obama administration contends that company with operations in US must comply with warrants for data, even if stored abroad

A federal judge may hold Microsoft in contempt of court this week over its refusal to give the US government data stored overseas.

Judge Loretta Preska, chief of the US district court in New York, gave the company until Friday to comply with an order which could further dent trust in the cloud.

In a statement on Tuesday Microsoft, citing privacy concerns, told Ars Technica it would continue to defy the court order. “We will not be turning over the email.”

US prosecutors who are investigating narcotic trafficking obtained a search warrant last December to access an email account controlled and maintained by Microsoft servers in Dublin, Ireland.

The Redmond-based technology company resisted, arguing that emails belong to its customers and that the servers are beyond US jurisdiction, a challenge to the Obama administration’s contention that a company with operations in the US must comply with warrants for data, even if stored abroad.

Judge Preska ruled in July that Microsoft must comply because it was a US company and controlled the data. She suspended enforcement of the order pending an appeal by the company.

In a procedural wrangle the judge lifted the suspension last week, saying the ruling was not appealable, but added that Microsoft could in fact obtain an appeal if it refused to comply and was found in contempt. “If Microsoft refuses to comply, the court could find Microsoft in contempt, which would be a final order subject to appellate review,” the judge wrote.

Microsoft said all sides agreed the case should and would go to appeal. “This is simply about finding the appropriate procedure for that to happen.”

The government asked Judge Preska to hold Microsoft in contempt, leading to a “properly appealable final order”.

By handing over the data Microsoft would violate Irish law. A graver concern for the company, and other US technology giants, is another blow to public trust in their ability to protect privacy.

Several companies, including AT&T Inc, Apple Inc, Cisco Systems Inc and Verizon Communications Inc, have filed court briefs supporting Microsoft. They fear losing billions of dollars in revenue to foreign competitors who could be perceived as better guardians of privacy.

The German government has reportedly told Microsoft it will shun data storage from US companies unless the ruling is overturned.

In seeking the emails the US government was looking to sidestep legal protections enshrined in the constitution’s fourth amendment, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “Timeless values should endure, and digital commons sense should prevail.”

Trust in the cloud has been battered by Edward Snowden’s revelations about US surveillance and by the recent hacking of hundreds of celebrities’ photos.

It is unclear which government agency is seeking the emails stored in Dublin because the warrant and all related documents are sealed.

quote:

AIVD schond privacyregels bij onderzoek naar sociale media

quote:

Inlichtingendienst AIVD heeft bij het onderzoek naar sociale media de privacyregels overtreden. Daarnaast heeft de dienst bij het hacken van een aantal grote algemene webfora ten onrechte alle informatie over bezoekers van deze fora verzameld. Dat concludeert de CTIVD, de toezichthouder op de veiligheidsdiensten, in het rapport dat vanmiddag naar de Tweede Kamer is gestuurd.

NRC Handelsblad onthulde eind vorig jaar op basis van documenten van de Amerikaanse inlichtingendienst NSA dat de AIVD webfora hackt en daarmee informatie verzamelt over alle bezoekers van die fora. Indertijd meldde zowel de AIVD als minister Plasterk van Binnenlandse Zaken dat het hacken van deze webfora valt binnen de wettelijke bevoegdheden van de dienst.

Bij vijf hackoperaties van webfora waarbij agenten zijn ingezet schiet de motivering voor de operatie tekort. Daarom beoordeelt de CTIVD de inzet van dit middel als “onrechtmatig”. Het gaat hierbij om hacks die zij uitgevoerd op verzoek van buitenlandse inlichtingendiensten.

quote:

The CIA’s Mop-Up Man: L.A. Times Reporter Cleared Stories With Agency Before Publication

quote:

A prominent national security reporter for the Los Angeles Times routinely submitted drafts and detailed summaries of his stories to CIA press handlers prior to publication, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.

Email exchanges between CIA public affairs officers and Ken Dilanian, now an Associated Press intelligence reporter who previously covered the CIA for the Times, show that Dilanian enjoyed a closely collaborative relationship with the agency, explicitly promising positive news coverage and sometimes sending the press office entire story drafts for review prior to publication. In at least one instance, the CIA’s reaction appears to have led to significant changes in the story that was eventually published in the Times.

“I’m working on a story about congressional oversight of drone strikes that can present a good opportunity for you guys,” Dilanian wrote in one email to a CIA press officer, explaining that what he intended to report would be “reassuring to the public” about CIA drone strikes. In another, after a series of back-and-forth emails about a pending story on CIA operations in Yemen, he sent a full draft of an unpublished report along with the subject line, “does this look better?” In another, he directly asks the flack: “You wouldn’t put out disinformation on this, would you?”

quote:

The U.S. Government’s Secret Plans to Spy for American Corporations

quote:

Throughout the last year, the U.S. government has repeatedly insisted that it does not engage in economic and industrial espionage, in an effort to distinguish its own spying from China’s infiltrations of Google, Nortel, and other corporate targets. So critical is this denial to the U.S. government that last August, an NSA spokesperson emailed The Washington Post to say (emphasis in original): “The department does ***not*** engage in economic espionage in any domain, including cyber.”

After that categorical statement to the Post, the NSA was caught spying on plainly financial targets such as the Brazilian oil giant Petrobras; economic summits; international credit card and banking systems; the EU antitrust commissioner investigating Google, Microsoft, and Intel; and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. In response, the U.S. modified its denial to acknowledge that it does engage in economic spying, but unlike China, the spying is never done to benefit American corporations.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, for instance, responded to the Petrobras revelations by claiming: “It is not a secret that the Intelligence Community collects information about economic and financial matters…. What we do not do, as we have said many times, is use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of—or give intelligence we collect to—U.S. companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line.”

But a secret 2009 report issued by Clapper’s own office explicitly contemplates doing exactly that. The document, the 2009 Quadrennial Intelligence Community Review—provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden—is a fascinating window into the mindset of America’s spies as they identify future threats to the U.S. and lay out the actions the U.S. intelligence community should take in response. It anticipates a series of potential scenarios the U.S. may face in 2025, from a “China/Russia/India/Iran centered bloc [that] challenges U.S. supremacy” to a world in which “identity-based groups supplant nation-states,” and games out how the U.S. intelligence community should operate in those alternative futures—the idea being to assess “the most challenging issues [the U.S.] could face beyond the standard planning cycle.”

One of the principal threats raised in the report is a scenario “in which the United States’ technological and innovative edge slips”— in particular, “that the technological capacity of foreign multinational corporations could outstrip that of U.S. corporations.” Such a development, the report says “could put the United States at a growing—and potentially permanent—disadvantage in crucial areas such as energy, nanotechnology, medicine, and information technology.”

quote:

The Sabu Effect: An Interview with Jay Leiderman

quote:

Leiderman’s been called Anonymous’ lawyer of choice, and has defended or advised Anons from political refugee Commander X through LulzSec, AntiSec, incarcerated Anonymous spokesman Barrett Brown, and more. We asked him why he chose this field rather than something that might buy him a yacht or at least the ability to sleep at night. He replied that it was certainly anything but a calculated careerist move, and less his choice than the inevitable result of recent changes in the way the courts are used by The Powers That be.

quote:

Now that all the news about the NSA and private security contractors is out in public what is the point of locking up Barrett Brown now? Barn door, horse, all that jazz?

Well isn’t that a great question? All the stuff that Barrett alleged turned out to be true! People made fun of him! “He’s a crackpot, saying these things,” but they actually were happening.

quote:

'Five Eyes' surveillance pact should be published, Strasbourg court told

Appeal lodged at European court of human rights for disclosure of intelligence sharing policies of UK and foreign agencies

The secret "Five Eyes" treaty that authorises intelligence sharing between the UK, US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand should be published, according to an appeal lodged on Tuesday at the European court of human rights.

The application by Privacy International (PI), which campaigns on issues of surveillance, to the Strasbourg court is the latest in a series of legal challenges following the revelations of the US whistleblower Edward Snowden aimed at forcing the government to disclose details of its surveillance policies.

The civil liberties group alleges that the UK is violating the right to access information by "refusing to disclose the documents that have an enormous impact on human rights in the UK and abroad".

PI says that it has exhausted all domestic legal remedies because its freedom of information request for the document, detailing how the UK's security services collaborate with the National Security Agency (NSA) in the US and other foreign intelligence agencies, met with outright refusal.

"The UK government's GCHQ monitoring service invoked a blanket exemption that excuses it from any obligation to be transparent about its activities to the British public," said PI.

Eric King, deputy director of PI, said: "More than a year after Snowden, the British government continues to dodge the question of just how integrated the operations of GCHQ and NSA truly are. Key documents like the Five Eyes arrangement remain secret, despite them being critical to proper scrutiny of the spy agencies.

"The hushing-up of the extent of the alliance is shameful. The public deserve to know about the dirty deals going on between the Five Eyes, who trade and exploit our private information through this illicit pact. For trust to be restored, transparency around these secret agreements is a crucial first step."

Rosa Curling, of the law firm Leigh Day, which represents PI, said: "The UK's Freedom of Information Act precludes government authorities from disclosing to the public information directly or indirectly supplied by GCHQ.

"This absolute exemption is unlawful and contrary to article 10 of the European convention on human rights, which provides for the right to freedom of expression, which includes the right to receive information.

"It cannot be correct that all information, without exception, directly or indirectly supplied by GCHQ is exempt from public disclosure. With the credibility and public confidence in the activities of the UK's secret service at an all-time low, it is crucial that the [Strasbourg] court considers whether the current darkness in which GCHQ operates is allowed to continue."

quote:

Europe gears up to fight back against giant US beasts of the internet

EU regulators are confronting the 'voluntary self-subjugation' of Europe to the dominance of Google, Amazon and Facebook

In Germany, they have a term for silicon valley companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook, the big beasts of the internet that have come to dominate our online lives. They are known as the datenkraken. The word means data octopuses, and it is intended to frighten – in Norse myth, the Kraken was a murderous sea monster.

Today's datenkraken do not drag mariners into the deep, but they have tentacles that reach around the world, gathering the data of private citizens on a scale that, since Snowden's revelations about US surveillance, has created huge unease in Europe.

Last Monday, the European Commission's outgoing competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, decided to reopen his five-year investigation into Google's search rankings. Finishing the job will fall to Almunia's replacement, the former Danish finance minister Margrethe Vestager. Her colleague, Europe's new digital economy commissioner Guenther Oettinger, has already made his feelings known. On Wednesday, he said Google's market power could be limited, adding that he would work to ensure that the search engine's services preserve neutrality and objectivity.

The message from Brussels is clear, according to Ian Maude, new media expert at Enders Analysis: "Google is the new Microsoft. As far as the regulators are concerned, it is the big bad wolf."

Over the course of investigations and legal battles that ran from 1993 to 2013, the commission imposed more than ¤2bn in fines on Microsoft. There were probes into licensing practices, and orders to unbundle its products, so that European Windows users had a choice of web browsers and media players other than those produced by Microsoft.

The relationship between the US group and Brussels was highly confrontational. Microsoft did not send its executives to woo the commissioners, it sent armies of lawyers to fight each proposal. But now, the shoe is on the other foot.

Google has become as dominant on our personal computers – laptops, phones and tablets – as Microsoft was a decade ago. In search, its position seems unassailable. An estimated 90% of user queries pass through Google in Europe, according to StatCounter. As one of the lead plaintiffs against Google in Brussels, Microsoft is now only too willing to use the regulatory powers of the commission against its rival.

Google's strategy has been to send its chairman, Eric Schmidt, on diplomatic missions to Brussels, and work with the commission to find a solution. The controversy is over natural search – as opposed to the paid-for results that appear on the right hand side or at the top of the Google page. Rather than producing a series of blue links in response to queries, Google has begun answering questions itself. Ask for the weather today, and you will be shown a forecast for your region. Look up French food in Nottingham, and you will be shown a map with pins locating each restaurant, plus a list of establishments with addresses and star ratings.

Rivals complain this diverts traffic away from specialist websites offering the same information, like OpenTable or TripAdvisor. Google offered to change the way it presented search results. Its first two solutions were rejected by Almunia, but the third was accepted. It would involve two boxes – one containing Google's own information, and another showing information from rivals, with places auctioned to the highest bidder. Research by Microsoft shows that even with these changes, the Google links box, which is more prominent, will attract 99 times more clicks than the rival links box.

Google insists it does not promote its own products at the expense of others. Schmidt said in a letter to the Financial Times last week: "We aim to show results that answer the user's queries directly (after all we built Google for users, not websites) … To date, no regulator has objected to Google giving people direct answers to their questions for the simple reason that it is better for users."

Google's constructive, conciliatory approach initially convinced Almunia. But in February 2014, when he gave the US group's third proposal a preliminary thumbs up, the result was uproar, not just from competitors but from the French and German governments.

Egged on by European media companies and telecoms firms, whose sectors are most threatened by the digital revolution, politicians rushed to criticise the decision. In France, opposition was led by Arnaud Montebourg, who was economy minister until president François Hollande dissolved his government last month. Along with his German counterpart, Sigmar Gabriel, he wrote to Almunia demanding a rethink.

"We don't want to become a digital colony of global internet giants," Montebourg said in May. "What's at stake is our sovereignty itself."

In parts of Europe, Google is more than the next Microsoft. It is an agent of American colonialism. By gathering the private data of European citizens, Montebourg believes that Facebook and Amazon are creating databases that can be exploited for virtually tax-free commercial gain, or mined by intelligence experts in Washington DC.

In the German press, Gabriel wrote: "Every time we "search" for something on Google, Google searches us and captures information about ourselves which can not only be sold for targeted personalised advertising, but is, essentially, also available to our bank, our health insurance company, our car or life insurance company, or – if the need arises – to the secret service.

"There's no such thing as a free lunch – we pay for these services with our personal data – and, unless we are careful, at the end of the day with our personal and social freedom as well. It is the core task of liberalism and social democracy to tame and restrain data capitalism gone wild."

Sigmar's words read like a political manifesto. It is a manifesto that has been adopted by Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission's newly elected president. "Europe's path to growth is paved with tablets and smartphones," the former Luxembourg prime minister states on his personal website. While Europe led the world in mobile technology, it has trailed America in the creation of internet corporations and jobs. Juncker believes bringing Eruope's 500m citizens into a single market for technology – with common laws for things like copyright, co-ordinated mobile phone spectrum auctions, and regional regulators – will create strong businesses and jobs. It is his top priority, above even energy security.

Among Google's most powerful critics is Mathias Döpfner, whose Axel Springer group publishes the tabloid Bild, Germany's most widely read newspaper. When Angela Merkel humiliated David Cameron by switching sides and supporting Juncker for the top job in Europe, fingers were pointed at Döpfner. Convinced that the Luxembourgian politician would back his calls for tougher sanctions on Google, he is said to have used Bild's influence to turn Merkel.

In an open letter to Google's Schmidt, penned in April, Döpfner warned: "Voluntary self-subjugation cannot be the last word from the Old World. On the contrary, the desire of the European digital economy to succeed could finally become something for European policy, which the EU has so sorely missed in the past few decades: an emotional narrative."

It is a narrative that has cast the American datenkraken as the arch enemy. Brussels would like to dismantle their low tax corporate structures, and Almunia made a first move in June, announcing a probe into tax arrangements used by Apple in Ireland and Starbucks in the Netherlands.

Now the Google search inquiry has been re-opened. Another, delving into Google's Android mobile platform, and how phone makers are required to pre-install its Chrome internet browser and other services, is waiting in the wings.

The Berlin wall has fallen, but Europe is erecting new defences: it is building a firewall to protect the Old World from becoming a digital colony of the New World.

quote:

Greenwald, Dotcom, Snowden and Assange take on 'adolescent' John Key

Internet interceptors unfazed by mega-drills or media drilling as they reveal Moment of Truth to New Zealand ahead of election

An international all-star lineup of the White House's most-loathed shared a stage in New Zealand's largest city for a rally billed by the event's host, Kim Dotcom, as the "Moment of Truth".

Bathed in red and white lights and cheered on by a capacity audience of about 1,500 at the Auckland town hall, the internet entrepreneur turned political party founder sat alongside journalist Glenn Greenwald at a table emblazoned, in case there were any doubt, with the words THE MOMENT OF TRUTH.

On the big screen above, Greenwald's famous source, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, was beamed in live from Moscow, while fellow fugitive Julian Assange peered from a screen beside him, also beamed in live but this time from the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

All were given thundering ovations from a crowd who, five days away from New Zealand's general election, were energised by articles published hours earlier by Greenwald and Snowden alleging mass surveillance in New Zealand and duplicity on the part of the prime minister, John Key.

Greenwald, whose arrival in New Zealand on Friday ignited another powder keg in an already explosive election campaign, began by marvelling at the criticisms he has faced from Key, who has labelled him "Dotcom's little henchman" and a "loser".

"It is not all that common to arrive in a country, and within 24 hours, literally, find oneself being publicly maligned and attacked by the nation's head of state, using the most adolescent epithets imaginable," said Greenwald to applause, and peels of laughter from Dotcom.

He went on to dismiss the prime minister's claim of political motives as "reckless accusations". Key has repeatedly rubbished Greenwald's claims of mass surveillance by the New Zealand spy agency, the Government Security Communications Bureau, a member of the NSA-led Five Eyes alliance, saying that while the government had considered a programme for "mass protection", he had rejected the GCSB proposal.

Within hours of Greenwald and Snowden's articles being published on the Intercept website – drawing on NSA documents that detailed a programme called "Speargun" which involved a "cable access" tap, apparently into the undersea cable that connects the New Zealand internet to the world – Key had responded by releasing declassified documents which proved, he said, that the claims were "simply wrong" and "based on incomplete information".

Greenwald hit back with an express-pace address at the town hall. "He's not releasing that classified information for any other reason than protecting his reputation and for political gain," he said, pausing to sip on a can of Diet Coke.

Retracing the evidence in the Intercept report and an accompanying article by Snowden, Greenwald said: "The Key government has radically misled and deceived the New Zealand citizenry. I don't make that accusation lightly … unless I have the evidence to back it up. And in this case I can categorically and with great confidence say that it is."

The biggest roar of the night greeted the arrival on the big screen of Snowden, white earphones dangling from his ears. His contribution, the most compelling of the night, began with a new piece of information: the NSA had a facility somewhere in Auckland, and another further north.

As to the prime minister's denials, Snowden detected a "careful parsing of words". His own experience as an NSA analyst, he said, left him with no doubt that New Zealanders' communications were swept up by the XKeyScore mass surveillance programme.

"Maybe the people of New Zealand think that's appropriate," he said. "Maybe they think that they want to sacrifice a certain measure of their liberty … That's what democracy is about; that's what self-government is about. But that decision doesn't belong to John Key or officials in the GCSB making these decisions behind closed doors."

Next came Assange. The WikiLeaks founder first apologised for the background noise of mysterious "tunnelling" – building works were under way in the flat below the embassy. He went on to lay out the "wider context" for the spying revelations: New Zealand had been "effectively annexed", he said, a tired voice competing with the incessant hammering of a power tool.

Dotcom is sought by the US for extradition from New Zealand in relation to alleged copyright infringements around his now defunct Megaupload site. He lavished praise on his guests.

"You are heroes and I thank you very much for letting humanity know what is going on," he enthused in his distinctive staccato German accent.

There was no "moment of truth" from Dotcom, however. The Internet party's founder and "visionary" – as a non-citizen resident he is prohibited from standing for parliament – had promised to produce evidence to support his belief that Key had colluded with Hollywood executives to reverse a decision to deny him residency in New Zealand in 2010, in preparation for an extradition attempt from the US. Key has consistently said he knew nothing of Dotcom's existence until the eve of the dramatic FBI-backed raid on his north Auckland mansion in January 2012.

The anticipated "big reveal" had been published in the New Zealand Herald several hours before the Town Hall extravaganza. It came in the form of a purported email from 2010, in which the Warner Brothers chairman informs a Motion Picture Association of America executive: "John Key told me in private that they are granting Dotcom residency despite pushback from officials about his criminal past. His AG [attorney general] will do everything in his power to assist us with our case. VIP treatment and then a one-way ticket to Virginia [where charges would be filed]."

The email which, according to the Herald, was "the evidence Dotcom is planning on producing at the Moment of Truth event", was quickly dismissed as a fake by Warner Bros and the MPAA, while Key said no such conversation ever took place.

The disputed email was mentioned only fleetingly during the Monday night rally by lawyer Robert Amsterdam, who said it had been referred to the parliamentary privileges committee. However it dominated a heated press conference afterwards. Attempts to prevent discussion of the disputed email on the basis it would be the subject of an inquiry were scoffed at by journalists seeking information on its provenance and authenticity.

Greenwald was largely a bystander as Dotcom responded to questions by chiding the media: "You have failed us in the past. You need to wake up and do your jobs."

Dotcom insisted the email was genuine. "I believe it to be 100% real," he said. "Everything I've produced in the past, everything I've said in the past, has been proved true."

He may need to produce proof promptly if he is likely to dent Key's chances of surviving Saturday's election.

quote:

EU court to investigate laws allowing GCHQ to snoop on journalists

Bureau of Investigative Journalism files application with European court of human rights over protection of sources

The European court of human rights (ECHR) is to investigate British laws that allow GCHQ and police to secretly snoop on journalists.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has gone straight to Strasbourg in a bid to get a finding that domestic law is incompatible with provisions in European law which give journalists the right to keep sources confidential from police and others.

Its application was filed on Friday and has been accepted by the ECHR, which has indicated in the past it will expedite cases on surveillance through its legal system.

The move follows concerns arising out of Edward Snowden’s revelations last year that GCHQ had been secretly gathering intelligence from the country’s largest telecoms companies using a secret computer system code-named Tempora without the knowledge of the companies.

Also of concern is a recent revelation, which has alarmed journalists and lawyers, that the police secretly obtained the records of the Sun’s political editor after he refused to reveal the identity of sources in his Plebgate story about an altercation between police and the then Tory whip Andrew Mitchell.

Gavin Millar, QC, who is working on the case with the BIJ, said if the application was successful, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa) should be torn up.

“The whole thing is completely incompatible with European law, we’ve got to go back to the drawing board and find a statutory framework that says only in the most exceptional circumstances would it be okay to collect journalists metadata or content of their phones.”

Both Tempora and the Metropolitan Police actions against the Sun’s political editor were enabled by Ripa.

Part 1, chapter 11 of the Act allows a police officer of superintendent rank or above to seize the phone records of a journalist without the journalist even knowing.

Part 1 Chapter 1 of the Act enables GCHQ to collect metadata on the agreement of the Secretary of State.

The revelation that the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn’s telephone records were requisitioned from Vodafone and those of the paper’s newsdesk, sent alarm bells throughout the industry with fears that this could have a chilling effect on press freedom with fewer whistleblowers willing to take the risk of phoning a journalists.

Millar said he believed the UK authorities were routinely carrying out data collection of journalists and their organisations to build up a picture of their sources and their lines of inquiry.

Christopher Hird, chair of the BIJ’s editorial board, said he understood why the government feels the need to have the power to intercept communications.

But Hird added that he did not believe there were “sufficient safeguards to ensure the protection of journalists’ sources”. This, he said, amounted to a restriction on the free press.

quote:

NSA spying can't be ruled out: PM

Prime Minister John Key cannot rule out that the United States National Security Agency is undertaking mass surveillance of New Zealanders' data but has rejected claims New Zealand spies would have access to such information.

"What I can say is the GCSB [Government Communications Security Bureau] does not have access to any information through XKeyscore or any other database, unless they basically comply with the New Zealand law, and the New Zealand law forbids that unless there is a warrant to do so," he said.

Asked whether that was an admission GCSB spies on occasion used the controversial XKeyscore programme, Key declined to elaborate.

"I don't talk about whatever programmes they have," he said.

"You can talk about whatever ones they might use, and there're lots of them out there."

With the general election just three days away, Key is under pressure to explain documents released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden pointing to wholesale spying of New Zealand citizens using XKeyscore.

At an event hosted by the Internet Party on Monday, Snowden and US journalist Glenn Greenwald claimed that NSA agents had sites of operation in New Zealand.

Greenwald's reporting has led to the Government admitting this week that the GCSB was working on a mass surveillance programme that Key canned because it was deemed too intrusive.

Key said today that he was unaware of any NSA site in New Zealand. If there were, they were operating without his knowledge and illegally.

"I don't run the NSA any more than I run any other foreign intelligence agency or any other country," he said.
Key welcomed today's statement from the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Cheryl Gwyn, who has backed his version of the story.

Gwyn said she reviewed whether the GCSB complied with restrictions on intercepting New Zealanders' communications as part of her role.

While she could only comment on specific GCSB activities through her annual and inquiry reports, Gwyn said she had not identified any indiscriminate interception of New Zealanders' data in her work to date.

The review of GCSB activities was ongoing, and she would continue to monitor the bureau to ensure communications were intercepted only for authorised purposes, she said.

Key said it was "pleasing to have someone that's completely independent of the political process coming out very clearly and very strongly, saying there is no evidence to support there has been mass surveillance by the GCSB on New Zealanders".

"That is absolutely the correct position," he said.

"I can say it. I hope New Zealanders will accept my word on it because we've got the inspector-general saying it, you've got the former head of the GCSB and the current head of the GCSB saying it."

Key said he had provided strong evidence of what the GCSB had and had not carried out, but the other side had failed to do that.

He defended Gwyn against claims by some critics that she was politicising her role, saying she was "completely neutral".

She is conducting an investigation into the SIS over allegations made in Nicky Hager's book, Dirty Politics, that classified information was declassified and handed to a blogger for political gain.

"She went out there and did that in the middle of an election campaign," Key said.

"She is in a position to see under the covers, what's really taking place, and give an objective view to New Zealanders."

But she could not see what activities, if any, the NSA might be carrying out in New Zealand.

"We've always said, in the end, there are other agencies around the world either legally as a result of their own laws or illegally will be out there potentially collecting information on New Zealanders," Key said.

"But the big control check from New Zealand's point of view is we absolutely do not circumnavigate the law and use our departments to do that.

"The United States of America has some interesting issues it's having to deal with, and tangentially there's always a risk that a New Zealander is involved in that, whether as a foreign fighter or whatever it might be.

"But New Zealand is not the primary interest of the United States."

quote:

Former UK ambassador to the United States given data-access role

Sir Nigel Sheinwald will work to ensure British spies and police officers can access data from overseas firms

A former senior diplomat has been appointed by the prime minister to work with the United States and other countries to ensure that British spies and police officers can access data from overseas firms.

Sir Nigel Sheinwald, former ambassador to the United States, has been appointed as special envoy on intelligence and law enforcement data sharing.

He will lead discussions with governments and communications service providers on ways to improve access to and sharing of law enforcement and intelligence data in different jurisdictions.

David Cameron set out the need for the post when he announced emergency legislation on data sharing in July.

He said: "A number of overseas companies have asserted that their ability to work with the UK government is being severely constrained by international conflicts of jurisdiction.

"For example, where they think they have a British law saying that they should share data, and an American law saying that they shouldn't."

He said the envoy would work to ensure that "lawful and justified transfer of information across borders takes place to protect our people's safety and security".

Home affairs select committee chairman Keith Vaz said: "The prime minister has made an excellent choice in selecting Sir Nigel Sheinwald for this post.

"It is vital that we work in partnership with other countries on this serious matter, particularly given the security implications of data sharing. I firmly believe that Sir Nigel has the necessary expertise and experience to carry out this role effectively.

"The committee is looking forward to working with Sir Nigel in the near future."

quote:

Joseph Gordon Levitt to play Edward Snowden in Oliver Stone's NSA whistleblower movie

quote:

quote:

Op dinsdag 23 september 2014 08:18 schreef Jibberism_ het volgende:
Puik werk dit topic keep it up

quote:

Snowden: New Zealand’s Prime Minister Isn’t Telling the Truth About Mass Surveillance

Like many nations around the world, New Zealand over the last year has engaged in a serious and intense debate about government surveillance. The nation’s prime minister, John Key of the National Party, has denied that New Zealand’s spy agency GCSB engages in mass surveillance, mostly as a means of convincing the country to enact a new law vesting the agency with greater powers. This week, as a national election approaches, Key repeated those denials in anticipation of a report in The Intercept today exposing the Key government’s actions in implementing a system to record citizens’ metadata.

Let me be clear: any statement that mass surveillance is not performed in New Zealand, or that the internet communications are not comprehensively intercepted and monitored, or that this is not intentionally and actively abetted by the GCSB, is categorically false. If you live in New Zealand, you are being watched. At the NSA I routinely came across the communications of New Zealanders in my work with a mass surveillance tool we share with GCSB, called “XKEYSCORE.” It allows total, granular access to the database of communications collected in the course of mass surveillance. It is not limited to or even used largely for the purposes of cybersecurity, as has been claimed, but is instead used primarily for reading individuals’ private email, text messages, and internet traffic. I know this because it was my full-time job in Hawaii, where I worked every day in an NSA facility with a top secret clearance.

The prime minister’s claim to the public, that “there is no and there never has been any mass surveillance” is false. The GCSB, whose operations he is responsible for, is directly involved in the untargeted, bulk interception and algorithmic analysis of private communications sent via internet, satellite, radio, and phone networks.

If you have doubts, which would be quite reasonable, given what the last year showed us about the dangers of taking government officials at their word, I invite you to confirm this for yourself. Actual pictures and classified documentation of XKEYSCORE are available online now, and their authenticity is not contested by any government. Within them you’ll find that the XKEYSCORE system offers, but does not require for use, something called a “Five Eyes Defeat,” the Five Eyes being the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and yes, New Zealand.

This might seem like a small detail, but it’s very important. The Five Eyes Defeat is an optional filter, a single checkbox. It allows me, the analyst, to prevent search results from being returned on those countries from a particular search. Ask yourself: why do analysts have a checkbox on a top secret system that hides the results of mass surveillance in New Zealand if there is no mass surveillance in New Zealand?

The answer, one that the government of New Zealand has not been honest about, is that despite claims to the contrary, mass surveillance is real and happening as we speak. The GCSB provides mass surveillance data into XKEYSCORE. They also provide access to the communications of millions of New Zealanders to the NSA at facilities such as the GCSB station at Waihopai, and the Prime Minister is personally aware of this fact. Importantly, they do not merely use XKEYSCORE, but also actively and directly develop mass surveillance algorithms for it. GCSB’s involvement with XKEYSCORE is not a theory, and it is not a future plan. The claim that it never went ahead, and that New Zealand merely “looked at” but never participated in the Five Eyes’ system of mass surveillance is false, and the GCSB’s past and continuing involvement with XKEYSCORE is irrefutable.

But what does it mean?

It means they have the ability see every website you visit, every text message you send, every call you make, every ticket you purchase, every donation you make, and every book you order online. From “I’m headed to church” to “I hate my boss” to “She’s in the hospital,” the GCSB is there. Your words are intercepted, stored, and analyzed by algorithms long before they’re ever read by your intended recipient.

Faced with reasonable doubts, ask yourself just what it is that stands between these most deeply personal communications and the governments of not just in New Zealand, but also the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia?

The answer is that solitary checkbox, the Five Eyes Defeat. One checkbox is what separates our most sacred rights from the graveyard of lost liberty. When an officer of the government wants to know everything about everyone in their society, they don’t even have to make a technical change. They simply uncheck the box. The question before us is no longer “why was this done without the consent and debate of the people of this country,” but “what are we going to do about it?”

This government may have total control over the checkbox today, but come Sept. 20, New Zealanders have a checkbox of their own. If you live in New Zealand, whatever party you choose to vote for, bear in mind the opportunity to send a message that this government won’t need to spy on us to hear: The liberties of free people cannot be changed behind closed doors. It’s time to stand up. It’s time to restore our democracies. It’s time to take back our rights. And it starts with you.

National security has become the National Party’s security. What we’re seeing today is that in New Zealand, the balance between the public’s right to know and the propriety of a secret is determined by a single factor: the political advantage it offers to a specific party and or a specific politician. This misuse of New Zealand’s spying apparatus for the benefit of a single individual is a historic concern, because even if you believe today’s prime minister is beyond reproach, he will not remain in power forever. What happens tomorrow, when a different leader assumes the same power to conceal and reveal things from the citizenry based not on what is required by free societies, but rather on what needs to be said to keep them in power?

quote:

Edward Snowden and Alan Rusbridger receive Right Livelihood award

Award for whistleblower and Guardian editor recognises their work in exposing mass surveillance by the NSA and others

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger have been jointly given the 2014 Right Livelihood honorary award.

The award, from Swedish charity the Right Livelihood Award Foundation, recognised Snowden’s “courage and skill in revealing the unprecedented extent of state surveillance violating basic democratic processes and constitutional rights”.

Rusbridger’s citation recognised his role in “building a global media organisation dedicated to responsible journalism in the public interest, undaunted by the challenges of exposing corporate and government malpractices”.

The foundation said it would fund legal support for Snowden.

The Right Livelihood award was established in 1980 to honour and support those “offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today”, with 153 laureates from 64 countries.

It is presented annually at a ceremony at the Swedish parliament and there are normally four winners.

Three other 2014 laureates will share the cash award of SEK1.5million equally: Pakistani human rights lawyer and activist Asma Jahangir; Basil Fernando of the Asian Human Rights Commission; and American environmentalist, author and journalist Bill McKibben.

Ole von Uexkull, executive director of the Right Livelihood Award Foundation, said: “This year’s Right Livelihood laureates are stemming the tide of the most dangerous global trends. With this year’s awards, we want to send a message of urgent warning that these trends – illegal mass surveillance of ordinary citizens, the violation of human and civil rights, violent manifestations of religious fundamentalism, and the decline of the planet’s life-supporting systems – are very much upon us already.

“If they are allowed to continue, and reinforce each other, they have the power to undermine the basis of civilised societies.”

The Right Livelihood Foundation promotes scientific research, education and public understanding of issues related to global ecological balance, eliminating material and spiritual poverty and contributing to lasting world peace and justice.

quote:

Spies given new phone tapping powers and anyone who identifies a secret agent will be jailed for 10 years under the toughest anti-terror laws the country has ever seen

quote:

Australian spies will soon get unprecedented powers to help fight terrorism, including giving ASIO operatives the ability to monitor phones, iPads, laptops and any other devices at and address with just one search warrant.

And anyone who outs a member of the security services faces ten years behind bars - a tenfold increase in the penalty.

The government's first tranche of tougher anti-terrorism laws, which beef up the domestic spy agency's powers, passed the Senate on Thursday with bipartisan support.

Attorney-General George Brandis said in a 'newly dangerous age' it was vital that those protecting Australia were equipped with the powers and capabilities they needed.

The bill will now be sent to the House of Representatives, where passage is all but guaranteed.

The legislation addresses a number of recommendations of a bipartisan joint parliamentary inquiry into Australia's national security laws.

It allows ASIO to access third party computers and apply one warrant to multiple devices.

After concerns were raised by Labor and Liberal Democratic Senator David Leyonhjelm, the government agreed to amend the legislation to specifically rule out ASIO using torture.

'ASIO cannot, does not and has never engaged in torture,' Senator Brandis said.

The Palmer United Party was successful in amending the law so anyone who exposes an undercover ASIO operative could face up to 10 years behind bars instead of one.

This included 'reckless' journalists, whistleblowers and bloggers who disclose sensitive information, Fairfax Media report.

quote:

'The internet poses one of the greatest threats to our existence', says Australian senator Glenn Lazarus - video

quote:

The internet is a serious threat because it can be used to orchestrate and undertake criminal behaviour across the world, Australia's Palmer United party senator Glenn Lazarus said during a debate on national security laws giving sweeping new powers to Australian intelligence services

quote:

Signaling Post-Snowden Era, New iPhone Locks Out N.S.A.

WASHINGTON — Devoted customers of Apple products these days worry about whether the new iPhone 6 will bend in their jean pockets. The National Security Agency and the nation’s law enforcement agencies have a different concern: that the smartphone is the first of a post-Snowden generation of equipment that will disrupt their investigative abilities.

The phone encrypts emails, photos and contacts based on a complex mathematical algorithm that uses a code created by, and unique to, the phone’s user — and that Apple says it will not possess.

The result, the company is essentially saying, is that if Apple is sent a court order demanding that the contents of an iPhone 6 be provided to intelligence agencies or law enforcement, it will turn over gibberish, along with a note saying that to decode the phone’s emails, contacts and photos, investigators will have to break the code or get the code from the phone’s owner.

Breaking the code, according to an Apple technical guide, could take “more than 5 1/2 years to try all combinations of a six-character alphanumeric passcode with lowercase letters and numbers.” (Computer security experts question that figure, because Apple does not fully realize how quickly the N.S.A. supercomputers can crack codes.)

Already the new phone has led to an eruption from the director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey. At a news conference on Thursday devoted largely to combating terror threats from the Islamic State, Mr. Comey said, “What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to hold themselves beyond the law.”

He cited kidnapping cases, in which exploiting the contents of a seized phone could lead to finding a victim, and predicted there would be moments when parents would come to him “with tears in their eyes, look at me and say, ‘What do you mean you can’t’ ” decode the contents of a phone.

“The notion that someone would market a closet that could never be opened — even if it involves a case involving a child kidnapper and a court order — to me does not make any sense.”

Apple declined to comment. But officials inside the intelligence agencies, while letting the F.B.I. make the public protests, say they fear the company’s move is the first of several new technologies that are clearly designed to defeat not only the N.S.A., but also any court orders to turn over information to intelligence agencies. They liken Apple’s move to the early days of Swiss banking, when secret accounts were set up precisely to allow national laws to be evaded.

“Terrorists will figure this out,” along with savvy criminals and paranoid dictators, one senior official predicted, and keep their data just on the iPhone 6. Another said, “It’s like taking out an ad that says, ‘Here’s how to avoid surveillance — even legal surveillance.’ ”

The move raises a critical issue, the intelligence officials say: Who decides what kind of data the government can access? Until now, those decisions have largely been a matter for Congress, which passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act in 1994, requiring telecommunications companies to build into their systems an ability to carry out a wiretap order if presented with one. But despite intense debate about whether the law should be expanded to cover email and other content, it has not been updated, and it does not cover content contained in a smartphone.

At Apple and Google, company executives say the United States government brought these changes on itself. The revelations by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden not only killed recent efforts to expand the law, but also made nations around the world suspicious that every piece of American hardware and software — from phones to servers made by Cisco Systems — have “back doors” for American intelligence and law enforcement.

Surviving in the global marketplace — especially in places like China, Brazil and Germany — depends on convincing consumers that their data is secure.

Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has emphasized that Apple’s core business is to sell devices to people. That distinguishes Apple from companies that make a profit from collecting and selling users’ personal data to advertisers, he has said.

This month, just before releasing the iPhone 6 and iOS 8, Apple took steps to underscore its commitment to customer privacy, publishing a revised privacy policy on its website.

The policy described the encryption method used in iOS 8 as so deep that Apple could no longer comply with government warrants asking for customer information to be extracted from devices. “Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode, and therefore cannot access this data,” the company said.

Under the new encryption method, only entering the passcode can decrypt the device. (Hypothetically, Apple could create a tool to hack into the device, but legally the company is not required to do that.)

Jonathan Zdziarski, a security researcher who has taught forensics courses to law enforcement agencies on collecting data from iPhones, said to think of the encryption system as a series of lockers. In the older version of iOS, there was always at least one locker that was unlocked, which Apple could enter to grab certain files like photos, call history and notes, in response to a legal warrant.

“Now what they’re saying is, ‘We stopped using that locker,’ ” Mr. Zdziarski said. “We’re using a locker that actually has a combination on it, and if you don’t know the combination, then you can’t get inside. Unless you take a sledgehammer to the locker, there’s no way we get to the files.”

The new security in iOS 8 protects information stored on the device itself, but not data stored on iCloud, Apple’s cloud service. So Apple will still be able to obtain some customer information stored on iCloud in response to government requests.

Google has also started giving its users more control over their privacy. Phones using Google’s Android operating system have had encryption for three years. It is not the default setting, however, so to encrypt their phones, users have to go into their settings, turn it on, and wait an hour or more for the data to be scrambled.

That is set to change with the next version of Android, set for release in October. It will have encryption as the default, “so you won’t even have to think about turning it on,” Google said in a statement.

A Google spokesman declined to comment on Mr. Comey’s suggestions that stronger encryption could hinder law enforcement investigations.

Mr. Zdziarski said that concerns about Apple’s new encryption to hinder law enforcement seemed overblown. He said there were still plenty of ways for the police to get customer data for investigations. In the example of a kidnapping victim, the police can still request information on call records and geolocation information from phone carriers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

“Eliminating the iPhone as one source I don’t think is going to wreck a lot of cases,” he said. “There is such a mountain of other evidence from call logs, email logs, iCloud, Gmail logs. They’re tapping the whole Internet.”

quote:

The journalist Erich Möchel leaked photos reported alleged NSA monitoring stations in Vienna which are used by the Intelligence to spy on UN.

quote:

Photos published by the journalist Erich Möchel in a blog post seems to confirm the presence of an NSA surveillance infrastructure, mentioned in the Snowden’s leaked documents “Vienna Annex”, in the attics of IZD Towers next to the UNO-City.

quote:

New Documents Shed Light on One of the NSA's Most Powerful Tools

quote:

Today, we're releasing several key documents about Executive Order 12333 that we obtained from the government in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that the ACLU filed (along with the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School) just before the first revelations of Edward Snowden. The documents are from the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and others agencies. They confirm that the order, although not the focus of the public debate, actually governs most of the NSA's spying.

In some ways, this is not surprising. After all, it has been reported that some of the NSA's biggest spying programs rely on the executive order, such as the NSA's interception of internet traffic between Google's and Yahoo!'s data centers abroad, the collection of millions of email and instant-message address books, the recording of the contents of every phone call made in at least two countries, and the mass cellphone location-tracking program. In other ways, however, it is surprising. Congress's reform efforts have not addressed the executive order, and the bulk of the government's disclosures in response to the Snowden revelations have conspicuously ignored the NSA's extensive mandate under EO 12333.

The order, issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, imposes the sole constraints on U.S. surveillance on foreign soil that targets foreigners. There's been some speculation, too, that the government relies directly on the order — as opposed to its statutory authority — to conduct surveillance inside the United States.

There's a key difference between EO 12333 and the two main legal authorities that have been the focus of the public debate — Section 215 of the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act, which the government relies on to justify the bulk collection of Americans' phone records and the PRISM program. Because the executive branch issued and now implements the executive order all on its own, the programs operating under the order are subject to essentially no oversight from Congress or the courts. That's why uncovering the government's secret interpretations of the order is so important. We've already seen that the NSA has taken a "collect it all" mentality even with the authorities that are overseen by Congress and the courts. If that history is any lesson, we should expect — and, indeed, we have seen glimpses of — even more out-of-control spying under EO 12333.

quote:

The Guardian wins an Emmy for coverage of NSA revelations

Interactive NSA Decoded explained implications of the Edward Snowden leaks on mass surveillance by intelligence agencies

* NSA Decoded: the award-winning interactive

quote:

The Guardian US has won an Emmy for its groundbreaking coverage of Edward Snowden’s disclosures about mass surveillance by US intelligence agencies.

The Guardian’s multimedia interactive feature NSA Decoded was announced as the winner in the new approaches: current news category at the news and documentary Emmy awards in New York on Tuesday night.

The comprehensive interactive walks the audience through the facts and implications of the NSA’s mass surveillance program, revealed by the Guardian last year in coverage based on leaks by Snowden.

The interactive includes interviews and discussions with key players including the journalist Glenn Greenwald, former NSA employees, senators and members of US congress.

The project was led by interactives editor and reporter Gabriel Dance, reporter Ewen MacAskill and producers Feilding Cage and Greg Chen.

The Guardian’s former US editor-in-chief Janine Gibson accepted the award.

quote:

The NSA and Me

quote:

It was July 8, 1981, a broiling Wednesday in Harvard Square, and I was in a quiet corner of the Algiers Coffee House on Brattle Street. A cool, souk-like basement room, with the piney aroma of frankincense, it made for a perfect hideout to sort through documents, jot down notes, and pore over stacks of newspapers while sipping bottomless cups of Arabic coffee and espresso the color of dark chocolate.

For several years I had been working on my first book, The Puzzle Palace, which provided the first in-depth look at the National Security Agency. The deeper I dug, the more troubled I became. Not only did the classified file from the Justice Department accuse the NSA of systematically breaking the law by eavesdropping on American citizens, it concluded that it was impossible to prosecute those running the agency because of the enormous secrecy that enveloped it. Worse, the file made clear that the NSA itself was effectively beyond the law—allowed to bypass statutes passed by Congress and follow its own super-classified charter, what the agency called a “top-secret birth certificate” drawn up by the White House decades earlier.

Knowing the potential for such an unregulated agency to go rogue, I went on to write two more books about the NSA, Body of Secrets, in 2001, and The Shadow Factory, in 2008. My goal was to draw attention to the dangers the agency posed if it is not closely watched and controlled—dangers that would be laid bare in stark detail by Edward Snowden years later.

quote:

But the NSA knew nothing about one of my biggest finds, which took place on the campus of the Virginia Military Institute. Nicknamed “the West Point of the South,” VMI housed the papers of William F. Friedman, a founder of both the NSA and of American cryptology. The NSA’s own auditorium is named after him. Yet Friedman had soured on the agency by the time he retired, and deliberately left his papers to a research library at VMI to get them as far away from the NSA as possible.

After Friedman’s death, and without his permission, agency officials traveled to the library, pulled out hundreds of his personal letters, and ordered them locked away in a secure vault. When I discovered what the NSA had done, I persuaded the library’s archivist to give me access to the letters, all of which were unclassified. Many were embarrassingly critical of the agency, describing its enormous paranoia and obsession with secrecy. Others contained clues to a secret trips that Friedman had made to Switzerland, where he helped the agency gain backdoor access into encryption systems that a Swiss company was selling to foreign countries.

I also discovered that a former NSA director, Lt. Gen. Marshall Carter, had left his papers – including reams of unclassified documents from his NSA office – to the same research library at VMI. They included personal, handwritten correspondence from Carter’s British counterpart about listening posts, cooperative agreements, and other sensitive topics. Later, Carter gave me a long and detailed interview about the NSA. The agency knew nothing about either the documents or the interview.

Following the publication of my book, the NSA raided the research library, stamped many of the Friedman documents secret, and ordered them put back into the vault. “Just because information has been published,” NSA director Lincoln Faurer explained to The New York Times, “doesn’t mean it should no longer be classified.” Faurer also flew to Colorado, where Gen. Carter was living in retirement, met with him at the NSA listening post at Buckley Air Force Base, and threatened him with prosecution if he ever gave another interview or allowed anyone else access to his papers.