Google Slams NSA Spying In Transparency Report
Google released its biannual transparency report Thursday, and it contained to jab at the secrecy of the U.S. government #39;s surveillance programs.
By: zenan cansun
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Biden in 2013 schools Obama in 2013 over NSA spying program Expert
Obama in 2013.
By: Hala Amroo
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Biden in 2013 schools Obama in 2013 over NSA spying program Expert - Video
The consequences of eliminating Fourth Amendment protections for all international communication with foreigners
Reuters
The U.S. government concedes that it needs a warrant to eavesdrop on phone calls between Americans, or to read the body of their emails to one another. Everyone agrees that these communications are protected by the Fourth Amendment. But the government also argues that Fourth Amendment protections don't apply when an American calls or writes to a foreigner in another country.
Let's say, for example, that the head of the NAACP writes an email to a veteran of the South African civil-rights struggle asking for advice about an anti-racism campaign; or that Hillary Clinton fields a call from a friend in Australia whose daughter was raped; or that Jeb Bush uses Skype to discuss with David Cameron whether he should seek the 2016 presidential nomination for the Republican Party. Under the Obama administration's logic, these Americans have no reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to these conversations, and it is lawful and legitimate for the NSA to eavesdrop on, record, and store everything that is said.
The arguments Team Obama uses to justify these conclusions are sweeping and worrisome, as the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer capturesin his analysis of the relevant legal briefs:
... the government contends that Americans who make phone calls or send emails to people abroad have a diminished expectation of privacy because the people with whom they are communicatingnon-Americans abroad, that isare not protected by the Constitution. The government also argues that Americans' privacy rights are further diminished in this context because the NSA has a "paramount" interest in examining information that crosses international borders.
... the government even argues that Americans can't reasonably expect that their international communications will be private from the NSA when the intelligence services of so many other countries ... might be monitoring those communications, too. The government's argument is not simply that the NSA has broad authority to monitor Americans' international communications. The US government is arguing that the NSA's authority is unlimited in this respect. If the government is right, nothing in the Constitution bars the NSA from monitoring a phone call between a journalist in New York City and his source in London. For that matter, nothing bars the NSA from monitoring every call and email between Americans in the United States and their non-American friends, relatives, and colleagues overseas.
All I'd add is that the Obama administration's encroachments on the Fourth Amendment disparately affect naturalized citizens of the United States, almost all of whom still have friends or family members living in their countries of origin. When I call my parents, email my sister, or text my best friend, my private communications are theoretically protected by the Bill of Rights. In contrast, immigrants contacting loved ones often do so with the expectation that every word they say or write can be legally recorded and stored forever on a server somewhere.
Xenophobia is one factor driving this double-standard. It does real harm to immigrants whose speech is chilled, as is clear to anyone who has made an effort to speak with them.
Yet there has been little backlash against the Obama administration for affording zero constitutional protections to Americans engaged in speech with foreigners, and little sympathy for the innocent Americans, many of them immigrants, who are hurt by the approach Obama and many in Congress endorse.
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NSA Spying Has a Disproportionate Effect on Immigrants
WASHINGTON The bipartisan bill that aims to put serious curbs on the National Security Agencys mass collection of Americans communications is being hailed by Republicans and Democrats as a big breakthrough.
Its not.
The bottom line: This is largely faux reform and a surveillance salve, said Thomas Drake, a former NSA senior official turned whistle-blower whos critical of the agencys collection programs. To date, neither the House nor Senate attempts go far enough.
Thats not easy to discern, thanks to an outpouring of raves for the legislation. Democrats, Republicans and traditionally skeptical watchdog groups have put their muscle behind the USA Freedom Act.
The House of Representatives is expected to vote on its version of the bill next week, the first time since news about the surveillance broke last year that major legislation supported by top congressional leaders like this has come to the floor. The Senate might take up its own version as early as this summer.
The top Republican and Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee even issued a joint statement praising the bipartisan cooperation, a rarely seen trait around Congress these days.
But peek just past all the good will and theres serious concern that Congress has much more to do. Not only are loopholes easy to find but also the government has other ways of collecting the data.
The House bill would bar the NSA from relying on one part _ Section 215 _ of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to conduct bulk data collection.
Under the bill, the NSA would no longer be allowed to collect records of data such as phone numbers or the duration of all Americans calls. Phone companies would retain that data, but only for the same length of time they usually keep the material.
The Justice Department, though, could get such material in an emergency _ an important political concession, since many lawmakers were concerned that the government wouldnt be able to react quickly if needed.
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Bill to curb NSA spying looks like change, but isn’t really
(Credit: EFF / cc / Flickr)'Bill to curb NSA spying looks like change, but isnt really.'
That's the headline on the latest McClatchy reporting focused an a series of legislative efforts now passing through both houses of Congress that are purportedly designed to rein in the National Security Agency and its mass domestic surveillance apparatus.
Among the experts and critics of the NSA programs the newspaper spoke with, former NSA employee Thomas Drake said, "The bottom line: This is largely faux reform and a surveillance salve. To date, neither the House nor Senate attempts go far enough.
That sentiment was shared by experts at both the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation who have been among the most outspoken critics of the NSA itself and the so-far tepid reforms that have received traction thus far in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Though support has been forthcoming for the USA Freedom Act, as many have stated: 'The devil is in the details.'
The ACLU's assessment, offered by Laura Murphy, the group's legislative director in Washington, explains that "while [USA Freedom Act] is lacking some of the key privacy protections included in the original, it is an important step to reining in the surveillance state. At base, the bill attempts to stop the government from sweeping up personal information without having to present a compelling reason to a judge."
And McClatchy reports:
The House of Representatives is expected to vote on its version of the bill next week, the first time since news about the surveillance broke last year that major legislation supported by top congressional leaders like this has come to the floor. The Senate might take up its own version as early as this summer.
The top Republican and Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee even issued a joint statement praising the bipartisan cooperation, a rarely seen trait around Congress these days.
But peek just past all the good will and theres serious concern that Congress has much more to do. Not only are loopholes easy to find but also the government has other ways of collecting the data.
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Skeptics on NSA Reform: Beware the 'Backdoors and Loopholes'
NSA SPYING: Edward Snowden Slept Like Baby Days Before Leak
In today #39;s video, Christopher Greene of AMTV reports on Glenn Greenwald #39;s new book. http://www.amtvmedia.com/re-direct-greenwald-reveals-snowden-slept-like-baby-days-before-leak/ Facebook:...
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Frontline's new documentary about NSA spying is an important reminder of how Bush officials violated the Constitution.
Reuters
The PBS program Frontline has produced an exceptional documentary on NSA spying, beginning with the September 11 attacks and continuing right up to today. The whole thing is worth watching.
The recent history it presents is shocking, even if, like me, you were already aware of it. Frightened by terrorism, George W. Bush,Dick Cheney, David Addington, Michael Hayden, and others conspired to spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant. Doing so was felony behavior.
This refresher on their actions persuades me anew that they deserved, and deserve, to be prosecuted for their actions and imprisoned for an appropriate duration. As well, these men violated their oath to defend and protect the Constitution.
Their illegal spying nearly prompted a mass resignation at the Department of Justice. Numerous government officials warned them that their actions were illegal and unconstitutional. This did not deter them. A number of patriotic bureaucrats objected to the surveillance program within the government, and when it continued, some of the went to the press. For a long time, The New York Times under then-Executive Editor Bill Keller kept this a secret.
The most surreal moment in the documentary comes when then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, another Bush official who facilitated illegal warrantless surveillance, explained that he launched an investigation into the identity of the whistleblowers who leaked it to the press because "they broke the law," and "the job of the Department of Justice is to prosecute those who break the law."
As part of this investigation, former NSA employees who'd objected to the illegal program were suddenly confronted with FBI agents, guns drawn, raiding their houses. As a candidate, Barack Obama labeled the program illegal. After he was elected, Obama and Gonzales's successor Eric Holder presided over the persecution of people who exposed it. While opinions vary on Edward Snowden, its worth reflecting on the fact that this behavior is part of what prompted him to act.
FILE - In this March 15, 2014 file photo, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaks at the California Republican Party 2014 Spring Convention in Burlingame, Calif. (Ben Margot/AP Photo)
SAN FRANCISCO -- Hundreds of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs heard a rousing defense of the National Security Agency from former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who on Wednesday vigorously worked to justify the security complex created during her tenure in the White House and lambasted recent whistle-blowing efforts to expose the agency's spying programs.
Rice, who also served as national security adviser during George W. Bush's first tenure and is now a professor at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, delivered the keynote address during the VentureScape conference in San Francisco. The conference, put on by the National Venture Capital Association, brings together venture firms, investment banks and entrepreneurs from across the country.
Rice spoke very little about venture or entrepreneurship, but did address two issues near and dear to the Silicon Valley tech community: privacy and security, and immigration.
On security, Rice staged a heated defense of the NSA, staking out a position sharply at odds with much of the tech community, whose leaders such as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg have called on President Barack Obama to end programs that have allowed intelligence officers to collect data from Google, Facebook, Yahoo and other tech companies to spy on American citizens.
Just before Rice took the stage, Aneel Bhusri, co-CEO of Pleasanton-based cloud software company Workday, said it was a priority to "get the NSA out of technology."
Rice also pulled no punches for whistle blower Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked information showing how the agency used spyware to collect data on U.S. citizens by monitoring their Internet activity and is currently living in Russia, where he has temporary asylum.
"Edward Snowden didn't go to work for Disney. What did he think the NSA did?" Rice said. "His shock to discover that the NSA was spying is a bit suspicious. It's also a bit suspicious that he ended up in Vladimir Putin's Russia."
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Condoleezza Rice defends NSA spying at tech conference
By Charlie Savage
In May 2010, when the UN Security Council was weighing sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, several members were undecided about how they would vote. The American ambassador to the UN, Susan E Rice, asked the National Security Agency for help "so that she could develop a strategy," a leaked agency document shows.
The NSA swiftly went to work, developing the paperwork to obtain legal approval for spying on diplomats from four Security Council members Bosnia, Gabon, Nigeria and Uganda whose embassies and missions were not already under surveillance. The following month, 12 members of the 15-seat Security Council voted to approve new sanctions, with Lebanon abstaining and only Brazil and Turkey voting against.
Later that summer, Rice thanked the agency, saying its intelligence had helped her to know when diplomats from the other permanent representatives China, England, France and Russia "were telling the truth ... revealed their real position on sanctions... gave us an upper hand in negotiations... and provided information on various countries 'red lines.' "
The two documents laying out that episode, both leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward J Snowden, are reproduced in a new book by Glenn Greenwald, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US Surveillance State. The book is being published Tuesday.
Elements of the NSA's role in helping aid American diplomatic negotiations leading up to the Iran sanctions vote had been previously reported, including in an October 2013 article in the French newspaper Le Monde that focused on the agency's spying on French diplomats.
Greenwald's book also reproduces a document listing embassies and missions that had been penetrated by the NSA, including those of India, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, the European Union, France, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Venezuela and Vietnam. Aspects of that document were reported in June by The Guardian.
Revelations about NSA spying abroad, including on officials of American allies, has fuelled anger at the United States. But Caitlin Hayden, an NSA spokeswoman, noted that President Barack Obama sought to address those issues in January when he promised greater limits on spying aimed at allies and partners.
"While our intelligence agencies will continue to gather information about the intentions of governments as opposed to ordinary citizens around the world, in the same way that the intelligence services of every other nation do, we will not apologise because our services may be more effective," she said.
Rice's request for help in May 2010 was recounted in an internal report by the security agency's Special Source Operations division, which works with telecommunications companies on the American network.
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Glenn Greenwald’s book reveals a wider net of US spying on envoys
Allegations that the NSA installed surveillance tools in U.S.-made network equipment, if true, could mean enterprises have more to worry about than just government spying.
While the U.S. government warned router buyers that the Chinese government might spy on them through networking gear made in China, the U.S. National Security Agency was doing that very thing, according to a report in the Guardian newspaper Monday.
The NSA physically intercepted routers, servers and other network equipment and installed surveillance tools before slapping on a factory seal and sending the products on to their destinations, according to the report, which is extracted from an upcoming book by Glenn Greenwald, a journalist who last year helped expose sensitive documents uncovered by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
With the tools it installs, the NSA can gain access to entire internal networks, the story said. For example, in a report on its use of the technology, the NSA said an embedded beacon was able to call back to the agency and provided us access to further exploit the device and survey the network, Greenwald wrote.
The new charge vastly expands the scope of alleged NSA spying beyond the interception of traffic across the Internet, said Ranga Krishnan, a technology fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. As an example, he pointed to reports from the Snowden documents that the NSA had tapped into Googles own fiber network among its data centers, where the company hadnt encrypted the traffic at all.
Thats how most organizations function, Krishnan said. So once youre within the companys router, you have access to all that data thats unencrypted.
In addition, any security hole that a government installs could open up the network to attacks by others, he added.
If you have made something vulnerable ... somebody else could discover that and very well use it, Krishnan said.
The House Intelligence Committee and other arms of the U.S. government have warned for years that networking equipment from vendors in China, namely Huawei Technologies and ZTE, poses a threat to U.S. service providers because of possible links between those companies and the Chinese government.
Specifically, critics have raised alarms that the government could install backdoor surveillance tools in the gear they sell, giving Chinese spies access to communications in the U.S. Those warnings reportedly have held back Huawei and ZTEs sales in the U.S. The companies have said their equipment is safe.
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Reported NSA backdoors might open up networks to more threats