BERLIN In a crescendo of anger over American espionage, Germany expelled the CIAs top operative, launched an investigation of the vast U.S. surveillance programs exposed by Edward Snowden and extracted an apology from President Obama for the years that U.S. spies had reportedly spent monitoring German Chancellor Angela Merkels cellphone.

In an address to Parliament last year, Merkel warned that U.S.-German cooperation would be curtailed and declared that trust needs to be rebuilt.

But the cooperation never really stopped. The public backlash over Snowden often obscured a more complicated reality for Germany and other aggrieved U.S. allies. They may be dismayed by the omnivorous nature of the intelligence apparatus the United States has built since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but they are also deeply dependent on it.

Over the past year, Germany has secretly provided detailed information to U.S. spy services on hundreds of German citizens and legal residents suspected of having joined insurgent groups in Syria and Iraq, U.S. and German officials said.

Germany has done so reluctantly to enlist U.S. help in tracking departed fighters, determining whether they have joined al-Qaeda or the Islamic State and, perhaps most importantly, whether they might seek to bring those groups violent agendas back to Germany.

The stream of information includes names, cellphone numbers, e-mail addresses and other sensitive data that German security services ever mindful of the abuses by the Nazi and Stasi secret police have been reluctant even to collect, let alone turn over to a suspect ally.

A senior German intelligence official compared the U.S. relationship to a dysfunctional marriage in which trust has bottomed out but a breakup is not an option. Amid what Germans see as evidence of repeated betrayal, the question remaining is whether the husband is a notorious cheater or can be faithful again, said the official, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. Were just going to have to give it another try. There is no alternative. Divorce is out of the question.

More than 550 German citizens have gone to Syria, officials said, and at least nine have killed themselves in suicide attacks.

The exodus is part of a much broader flow of more than 15,000 foreign fighters who have entered Syria over the past four years from 80 countries. At least 3,000 of them are from Europe the largest contingent of Islamist jihadists with Western passports that counterterrorism agencies have ever faced.

As a result, nearly every country in Europe is turning over significant data on their own departed fighters to the United States. Some of these nations, including Germany, have capable security and intelligence agencies of their own. But even their combined resources probably cannot match the scope and reach of their U.S. counterparts.

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Backlash in Berlin over NSA spying recedes as threat from ...

BERLIN In a crescendo of anger over American espionage, Germany expelled the CIAs top operative, launched an investigation of the vast U.S. surveillance programs exposed by Edward Snowden and extracted an apology from President Obama for the years that U.S. spies had reportedly spent monitoring German Chancellor Angela Merkels cellphone.

In an address to Parliament last year, Merkel warned that U.S.-German cooperation would be curtailed and declared that trust needs to be rebuilt.

But the cooperation never really stopped. The public backlash over Snowden often obscured a more complicated reality for Germany and other aggrieved U.S. allies. They may be dismayed by the omnivorous nature of the intelligence apparatus the United States has built since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but they are also deeply dependent on it.

Over the past year, Germany has secretly provided detailed information to U.S. spy services on hundreds of German citizens and legal residents suspected of having joined insurgent groups in Syria and Iraq, U.S. and German officials said.

Germany has done so reluctantly to enlist U.S. help in tracking departed fighters, determining whether they have joined al-Qaeda or the Islamic State and, perhaps most importantly, whether they might seek to bring those groups violent agendas back to Germany.

The stream of information includes names, cellphone numbers, e-mail addresses and other sensitive data that German security services ever mindful of the abuses by the Nazi and Stasi secret police have been reluctant even to collect, let alone turn over to a suspect ally.

A senior German intelligence official compared the U.S. relationship to a dysfunctional marriage in which trust has bottomed out but a breakup is not an option. Amid what Germans see as evidence of repeated betrayal, the question remaining is whether the husband is a notorious cheater or can be faithful again, said the official, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. Were just going to have to give it another try. There is no alternative. Divorce is out of the question.

More than 550 German citizens have gone to Syria, officials said, and at least nine have killed themselves in suicide attacks.

The exodus is part of a much broader flow of more than 15,000 foreign fighters who have entered Syria over the past four years from 80 countries. At least 3,000 of them are from Europe the largest contingent of Islamist jihadists with Western passports that counterterrorism agencies have ever faced.

As a result, nearly every country in Europe is turning over significant data on their own departed fighters to the United States. Some of these nations, including Germany, have capable security and intelligence agencies of their own. But even their combined resources probably cannot match the scope and reach of their U.S. counterparts.

Excerpt from:
Backlash in Berlin over NSA spying recedes as threat from Islamic State rises

A few hours before Christmas Eve, the National Security Agency released more than a decades worth of damning reports on its website. The reports, which had been submitted by the NSA to the Presidents Intelligence Oversight Board from 2001 to 2013, purport to cover any activity that could be considered unlawful or contrary to government policy. They included incidents in which individual employees abused their security clearances to target a current or former romantic partner as well as dozens of breaches that resulted from overly broad database queries, along with a lack of rigor in determining whether a foreign intelligence target had entered the United States or held US citizenship or permanent resident status. There were also numerous breaches related to poor data security.

In the documents, which were released in response to a FOIA lawsuit brought by the ACLU, NSA analysts are revealed to be all-too-human bumblers, mistakenly searching on their own information, improperly using colleagues credentials, sending highly classified information to the wrong printer, and mistyping email addresses.

There is no evidence in the reports of systematic lawbreakingnot a surprise considering the reports author. Instead, the NSA attributes most of its lapses to unintentional human error or technical mistakes. In a handful of cases, the agency points out, investigations have led to discipline or administrative action. Even so, the reports raise serious questions about the NSAs ability to protect the vast amount of personal data that is vacuumed up by its surveillance apparatus.

Courtesy: Cory Grenier

I became interested in the NSA spying program almost a decade ago when I learned about a large order AT&T had placed for Narus Semantic Traffic Analyzers. The equipment made it possible to inspect Internet traffic in real time, which made it a great tool for spying. A source had told me that the analyzers had been deployed in secret rooms around the country on behalf of the NSA. I looked into the story, but ultimately my editors chose not to pursue it. Even if I could prove it, they werent sure anyone would be interested in the specific details of how telecoms like AT&T were cooperating with the NSA. It was an era of limited newsroom resources, and we had other stories to pursue.

There was also a key question that I wasnt sure I could answer even if I confirmed my tip. Had any Americans been hurt by NSA spying? This is a concern that comes up again and again. Its raised by judges presiding over lawsuits brought by public advocates and civil libertarians. The lack of an affirmative answer is used to justify ongoing surveillance.

Yet, we still dont know if any individual has been hurt or what potential exists for someone to be hurt in the future. A lot depends on what the NSA does with information it collects on those it refers to as US Persons, or USPs, and most of that information is withheld from the public. The NSA claims it takes great pains to comply with the U.S. Constitution, as well as U.S. laws and regulations. The Christmas Eve reports are interesting because they showed where the agency, in its own opinion, has fallen short.

The agencys reports, which emphasize incidents in which US persons were improperly targeted, dont appear at first to correlate with a cache of 160,000 intercepted communications that the Washington Post obtained via Edward Snowden. The Post reporters claimed ordinary Internet users, American and non-American alike, far outnumber legally targeted foreigners in the communications intercepted by theNational Security Agency. The story, published in July, raised new questions about the collateral harm to privacy from NSA surveillance.

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Highlights From Newly Released NSA Oversight Reports Reveal Bumbling Ineptitude But No Evidence Of Systemic Abuse

A few hours before Christmas Eve, the National Security Agency released more than a decades worth of damning reports on its website. The reports, which had been submitted by the NSA to the Presidents Intelligence Oversight Board from 2001 to 2013, purport to cover any activity that could be considered unlawful or contrary to government policy. They included incidents in which individual employees abused their security clearances to target a current or former romantic partner as well as dozens of breaches that resulted from overly broad database queries, along with a lack of rigor in determining whether a foreign intelligence target had entered the United States or held US citizenship or permanent resident status. There were also numerous breaches related to poor data security.

In the documents, which were released in response to a FOIA lawsuit brought by the ACLU, NSA analysts are revealed to be all-too-human bumblers, mistakenly searching on their own information, improperly using colleagues credentials, sending highly classified information to the wrong printer, and mistyping email addresses.

There is no evidence in the reports of systematic lawbreakingnot a surprise considering the reports author. Instead, the NSA attributes most of its lapses to unintentional human error or technical mistakes. In a handful of cases, the agency points out, investigations have led to discipline or administrative action. Even so, the reports raise serious questions about the NSAs ability to protect the vast amount of personal data that is vacuumed up by its surveillance apparatus.

Courtesy: Cory Grenier

I became interested in the NSA spying program almost a decade ago when I learned about a large order AT&T had placed for Narus Semantic Traffic Analyzers. The equipment made it possible to inspect Internet traffic in real time, which made it a great tool for spying. A source had told me that the analyzers had been deployed in secret rooms around the country on behalf of the NSA. I looked into the story, but ultimately my editors chose not to pursue it. Even if I could prove it, they werent sure anyone would be interested in the specific details of how telecoms like AT&T were cooperating with the NSA. It was an era of limited newsroom resources, and we had other stories to pursue.

There was also a key question that I wasnt sure I could answer even if I confirmed my tip. Had any Americans been hurt by NSA spying? This is a concern that comes up again and again. Its raised by judges presiding over lawsuits brought by public advocates and civil libertarians. The lack of an affirmative answer is used to justify ongoing surveillance.

Yet, we still dont know if any individual has been hurt or what potential exists for someone to be hurt in the future. A lot depends on what the NSA does with information it collects on those it refers to as US Persons, or USPs, and most of that information is withheld from the public. The NSA claims it takes great pains to comply with the U.S. Constitution, as well as U.S. laws and regulations. The Christmas Eve reports are interesting because they showed where the agency, in its own opinion, has fallen short.

The agencys reports, which emphasize incidents in which US persons were improperly targeted, dont appear at first to correlate with a cache of 160,000 intercepted communications that the Washington Post obtained via Edward Snowden. The Post reporters claimed ordinary Internet users, American and non-American alike, far outnumber legally targeted foreigners in the communications intercepted by theNational Security Agency. The story, published in July, raised new questions about the collateral harm to privacy from NSA surveillance.

Excerpt from:
Highlights From Newly Released NSA Oversight Reports Reveal Bumbling Ineptitude But No Evidence Of Systematic Abuse

In June, German Federal Prosecutor Harald Range opened an official investigation into allegations the NSA spied on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone. So far, though, he hasn't made much progress.

The US signals intelligence agency has ignored all questions submitted by Range's investigative authority. And Germany's own foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), hasn't provided any further assistance.

SPIEGEL first drew the German government's attention to the actions in the autumn of 2013 when it reported on information from an NSA database entry about the tapping of Merkel's phone. "That's why I asked the reporters at SPIEGEL to answer questions about the document or to provide it to us. But the newsmagazine, citing the right of the press to refuse to give evidence, did not comply", the federal prosecutor said during his annual press conference in Karlsruhe on Thursday. He seemed frustrated.

In his statement, Range insinuated that "the document that has been perceived by the public as proof of the actual tapping of the mobile telephone is not actually an authentic NSA order for signals intelligence." He also claimed it didn't come from an NSA database. "A SPIEGEL editor produced it himself, stating it was based on an NSA document which had been seen."

There is a risk that Range's statement could be viewed as some kind of finding in his investigation and create the false impression that SPIEGEL somehow concocted its own documents. At least, this is what some press reports about Range's press conference seemed to suggest.

SPIEGEL has never claimed that it presented an original document to the German government. SPIEGEL has consistently stated that its journalists viewed the contents of an NSA document and reported on the details contained therein. The magazine has made this clear throughout its reporting on the issue.

When SPIEGEL approached Merkel's office about the findings of its research for a response, all the details provided by its reporters originated from information included in that specific entry in the database of NSA documents. SPIEGEL did not add anything to this information. SPIEGEL also explicitly noted to the chancellor's office that what it was submitting was a transcription and not the original document.

"When asked by a journalist during the press conference if the document in question was a fake, the federal prosecutor explicitly denied this," Range's spokesperson clarified this week. While conducting research into the NSA in June 2013, several SPIEGEL reporters came across information indicating that the intelligence agency had conducted surveillance of the German chancellor's mobile phone.

The reporters then conducted further investigation into the suspected activities together with encryption expert and freelance journalist Jacob Appelbaum. An entry in an internal NSA database logging targets includes the chancellor's mobile telephone number as well as her name. SPIEGEL attempted to verify the information and subsequently made the decision to request a statement from Merkel herself.

On Oct. 17, 2013, SPIEGEL Berlin bureau chief Nikolaus Blome and reporter Jrg Schindler met with Steffen Seibert, Merkel's official spokesman. They presented him with a letter detailing the information obtained about spying on Merkel's mobile phone. The two made clear to Seibert that the paper was a copy of the details from an NSA database entry SPIEGEL had viewed. Seibert also understood it to be such.

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NSA Spying Scandal: SPIEGEL Stands Behind Merkel Cell ...

The privacy debate is getting louder in techlandia as it becomes clear that the National Security Agency (NSA)'s digital snooping, along with other government surveillance programmes, could upend the US tech industry's global dominance.

Two recent developments drive this home. The first is a high-profile court case involving the US government and Microsoft. The second is China's decision to rip foreign technology out of its most important institutions - state-owned companies, banks and government agencies - and shift to domestic suppliers.

Before delving into those developments, it's worth noting that both the Microsoft case and the China decision are part of a bigger narrative that started taking shape last summer after Edward Snowden leaked information about the US government's sweeping surveillance programmes.

His documents revealed myriad NSA spy programmes that hoovered up information on foreign suspects as well as US citizens. The agency had also pressured telecom companies like Verizon and internet giants like Google to feed customer data into the government's vast surveillance operation. As the Snowden revelations showed, the US government was also actively exploiting corporate security flaws to take whatever it wanted from those companies.

In the wake of all of that, tech firms immediately tried to distance themselves from the NSA, even as the Snowden revelations tarnished their reputations with corporate clients, consumers and governments worldwide. Companies warned that fallout from the Snowden revelations would hurt their future earnings and, anecdotally, it seemed that global customers started to look for alternatives to US tech suppliers.

Bloomberg reported that China intends to replace hardware and software made by Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Intel and Hewlett-Packard with home-grown operating systems and networking equipment by 2020. For those trying to calculate the impact of all of this, it's good to keep in mind that it's costly and hard to rip out and replace an entire IT stack that you've come to depend on over a long period of time. Simply doing it invites disruption and glitches and all of the things we've come to hate when technological processes go awry. But it's the sort of thing that a semi-state run economy like China's can implement, even if it stymies production.

Nevertheless, the move reflects a harsh reality for US tech companies: they earned leadership positions worldwide by making the best hardware and software, and now global politics could obliterate the advantages created by superior innovation and high-quality products.

Most overseas corporations won't up and abandon US tech companies since they can't afford to rebuild their businesses from the ground up. But as Bloomberg has reported, potential clients with new projects overseas will likely look for alternatives to the US technology suppliers. Tech projects in emerging markets are growing at a faster rate than those in developed markets, where infrastructure is already entrenched. Brazil has already said that it can build a $185-million submarine data cable without US help.

Revelations about parts of the NSA surveillance programme could cause the US cloud computing industry to lose $35 billion of business by 2016 (about 20 per cent of the potential revenues from foreign markets), according to a report from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.

Forrester Research thinks that NSA spying could cost the US tech industry as much as $180 billion by 2016 because surveillance worries will affect non-cloud companies too - and domestic customers will want to bypass vendors perceived to be feeding data to the government.

Go here to see the original:
Katie Benner: Microsoft and Google in a post-Snowden world

A federal judge on Friday questioned the strength of a key lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the governments Internet surveillance program known as upstream data collection.

Judge Jeffrey White heard oral arguments by attorneys from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the suit, and the government, during a hearing in a federal district court in Oakland, California. The EFF says its suit is the first challenge in public court to the governments upstream data program, which copies online data from the main cables connecting Internet networks around the world.

The EFF first filed its suit in 2008 after an AT&T technician provided evidence that the company routed copies of its Internet traffic records to the NSA.

The National Security Agency program is unconstitutional because it collects communications, including content such as email, of people without ties to issues of national security, EFF attorney Richard Wiebe told the judge. Thats an overly broad dragnet that violates the Constitutions Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure, he said.

U.S. Justice Department attorney James Gilligan did not deny the government taps the Internets backbone to gather data. But the government uses filtering mechanisms to automatically destroy certain communications records within milliseconds, he said.

Judge White could declare the upstream collection program unconstitutional, a ruling the government would probably appeal. But on Friday, he questioned whether there was enough evidence on either side to say whether the program is constitutional.

The judges ruling might take months, judging from the number and complexity of questions he asked Friday.

What evidence is there that its all international communications [gathered], not just communications with suspected terrorists or hot spots? he asked EFF attorney Wiebe.

Wiebe cited a top-secret 2009 report by the NSA inspector general detailing the governments email and Internet data collection, published by The Guardian. Other documents, including AT&Ts first surveillance transparency report, published earlier this year, provide evidence of the programs reach, he said.

But the government has never confirmed nor denied the 2009 secret report, Gilligan said, and AT&Ts report only pertains to legal court orders received under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

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Judge questions evidence on whether NSA spying is too broad

Update, January 2014: Polls continue to confirm the trend. In a poll conducted in December 2013 by the Washington Post, 66% of Americans were concerned "about the collection and use of [their] personal information by the National Security Agency." Americans aren't only concerned about the collection. A recent Pew poll foundyet againthat a majority of Americans oppose the government's collection of phone and Internet data as a part of anti-terrorism efforts.

Since Americans are both concerned with, and opposed to, the spying, it's no surprise that they also want reform. In a November 2013 poll by Anzalone Liszt Grove Research, 59% of respondents noted that they wanted surveillance reform and 63% said they wanted more oversight of the spying programs. While these polls focused on the larger population of Americans, a Harvard University Insitute of Politics poll focusing on younger Americans (aged 18-29 years old) reaffirmed younger Americans are both wary of the NSA's activities and that a majority do not want the government to collect personal information about them.

Shortly after the June leaks, numerous polls asked the American people if they approved or disapproved of the NSA spying, which includes collecting telephone records using Section 215 of the Patriot Act and collecting phone calls and emails using Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The answer then was a resounding no, and new polls released in August and September clearly show Americans' increasing concern about privacy has continued.

Since July, many of the polls not only confirm the American people think the NSA's actions violates their privacy, but think the surveillance should be stopped. For instance in an AP poll, nearly 60 percent of Americans said they oppose the NSA collecting data about their telephone and Internet usage. In another national poll by the Washington Post and ABC News, 74 percent of respondents said the NSA's spying intrudes on their privacy rights. This majority should come as no surprise, as we've seen a sea change in opinion polls on privacy since the Edward Snowden revelations started in June.

What's also important is that it crosses political party lines. The Washington Post/ABC News poll found 70 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of Republicans believe the NSAs spying programs intrude on their privacy rights. This change is significant, showing that privacy is a bipartisan issue. In 2006, a similar question found only 50 percent of Republicans thought the government intruded on their privacy rights.

Americans also continue their skepticism of the federal government and its inability to conduct proper oversight. In a recent poll, Rasmussonthough sometimes known for push pollingrevealed that there's been a 30 percent increase in people who believe it is now more likely that the government will monitor their phone calls. Maybe even more significant is that this skepticism carries over into whether or not Americans believe the government's claim that it "robustly oversees" the NSA's programs. In a Huffpost/You Gov poll, 53 percent of respondents said they think "the federal courts and rules put in place by Congress" do not provide "adequate oversight." Only 18 percent of people agreed with the statement.

Americans seem to be waking up from its surveillance state slumber as the leaks around the illegal and unconstitutional NSA spying continue. The anger Americansespecially younger Americanshave around the NSA spying is starting to show. President Obama has seen a 14-point swing in his approval and disapproval rating among voters aged 18-29 after the NSA spying.

These recent round of polls confirm that Americans are not only concerned with the fact that the spying infringes their privacy, but also that they want the spying to stop. And this is even more so for younger Americans. Now is the time for Congress to act: join the StopWatching.Us coalition.

Excerpt from:
Update: Polls Continue to Show Majority of Americans ...

Google is already beginning to lay the groundwork for another push next year to rein in government spying ahead of a crucial summer deadline to some of the National Security Agency's surveillance authority.

The search behemoth this week updated its "Take Action" site with a new page that promises that 2015 "will be our moment" to reform sweeping surveillance programs, exposed last year by fugitive leaker Edward Snowden.

"In June of 2015, we have a huge chance to protect Americans from mass surveillance when a key part of the USA Patriot Act is set to expire," reads the brief petition, which invites users to submit their contact information. "That means we need to be ready to take action this coming year."

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding how many people had signed the petition.

Core provisions of the post-9/11 Patriot Act are due to sunset on June 1, including the contentious Section 215, which grants the intelligence community much of its authority to sweep up bulk U.S. phone records. But despite the looming deadline, it remains unclear how much momentum surveillance reform will have in a Republican-controlled Congress next year.

The GOP killed a reform package in the Senate last month, as the USA Freedom Act fell two shorts votes of the 60-vote threshold needed to advance. The measure, which would have effectively ended the government's bulk phone metadata collection, was unable to overcome late-stage opposition from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and others who warned that reining in the NSA could help terrorists kill Americans.

Complicating efforts is a possible splinter that may soon emerge among the diverse array of NSA reform backers. Many privacy advocates argue that the best chance to curb the NSA will be to push to let those Patriot Act provisions expire altogether. Other reformers, however, are reticent to outright jeopardize a counterterrorism measure, especially given continued geopolitical uncertainty in regions such as the Middle East.

The tech lobby has been a vocal and important voice in the ongoing effort to curtail NSA authority. Several Silicon Valley giantsincluding Google, Facebook, and Yahooformed the Reform Government Surveillance coalition in the wake of the Snowden disclosures to advocate for limits on the NSA's broad spying authority and press for more transparency with customers about government data requests.

This article appears in the December 18, 2014 edition of NJ Daily.

Originally posted here:
Google: 2015 Will be the 'Moment' to Reform NSA Spying ...

The NSA is now spying on 90% of worldwide mobile networks according to a new report from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. According to the NSA leaker, the mobile networks are being spied on through an internal program called Auroragold. The program, through various hacks, allows NSA officials to listen in on phone calls and read text messages.

Last year, journalists Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald met Snowden in Hong Kong. At that time he provided the pair with various pieces of classified information about NSA spying techniques. Through their on-line publication, The Intercept, the journalists occasionally leak information they obtained from their meeting with Snowden.

According to the latest report from The Intercept, NSAs Auroragold program has been spying on more than 1.200 e-mail accounts and communications made through dozens of mobile phone networks all over the world. Those high priority accounts are among the millions that the agency has access to throughout the various networks they have hacked.

The Snowden report claims that the NSA is most interested in targeting the GSM Association (GSMA), which is headquartered in the United Kingdom. GSM technology is used by the likes of AT&T, Vodafone, Microsoft, Apple, and Samsung, among others.

According toThe Intercept,the NSA is most interested in GSMAs documentation for roaming technology. That tech allows mobile phone users to travel all over the world, while still using their GSM-enabled smartphones and tablets on non-home networks.

Documents already leaked by Snowden in 2013 revealed thatthe NSA can capture GSM traffic thats encrypted with the A5/1 algorithm.

NSA spokesperson Vanee Vines recently said in an e-mail that the NSA operates within the law. They add:

Terrorists, weapons proliferators, and other foreign targets often rely on the same means of communication as ordinary people. In order to anticipate and understand evolving threats to our citizens and our allies, NSA works to identify and report on the communications of valid foreign targets,

The new report claims that the NSA is spying on 70% of networks located mostly in the Middle East, China, and Northern Africa. It is also claimed that US mobile-based networks are not among the NSAs top priorities, although they have been accused of spying on US citizens.

Link:
Bertelur - NSA Spying On 90% Of World’s Mobile Networks