{"id":16097,"date":"2014-04-15T20:08:56","date_gmt":"2014-04-16T00:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.opensource.im\/?p=16097"},"modified":"2017-04-10T09:47:37","modified_gmt":"2017-04-10T13:47:37","slug":"metadata-intrusive-direct-listening-phone-calls-says-snowden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/euvolution.com\/open-source-convergence\/nsa-spying\/metadata-intrusive-direct-listening-phone-calls-says-snowden.php","title":{"rendered":"Metadata Is More Intrusive Than Direct Listening Of Phone Calls Says Snowden"},"content":{"rendered":"
Metadata Is More Intrusive Than Direct Listening Of Phone Calls Says Snowden<\/strong><\/h5>\n

http:\/\/www.countercurrents.org\/cc070414A.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

07 April, 2014
\nCountercurrents.org<\/strong><\/p>\n

Government monitoring of \u201cmetadata\u201d is more intrusive than directly listening to phone calls or reading emails, cautioned Edward Snowden, the US NSA whistleblower, and Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who disclosed leaks by Snowden about mass US government surveillance last year.<\/p>\n

Moreover, on the \u201cCuban Twitter\u201d campaign, the USAID program to topple Cuban government, citing top-secret documents Greenwald writes: \u201cThis sort of operation is frequently discussed at western intelligence agencies, which have plotted ways to covertly use social media for \u2018propaganda\u2019, \u2018deception\u2019, \u2018mass messaging\u2019, and \u2018pushing stories\u2019.\u201d The top-secret documents have now been published by The Intercept.<\/p>\n

A Reuter\u2019s report [1] said:<\/p>\n

\u201cSnowden and Greenwald \u2026appeared together via video link from opposite ends of the earth on [April 5, 2014] for what was believed to be the first time since Snowden sought asylum in Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the video conference, they made the caution.<\/p>\n

\u201cMetadata includes which telephone number calls which other numbers, when the calls were made and how long they lasted. Metadata does not include the content of the calls.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmnesty International is campaigning to end mass surveillance by the US government and calling for Congressional action to further rein in the collection of information about telephone calls and other communications.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSnowden and Greenwald said that such data is in fact more revealing than outright government spying on phone conversations and emails.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Metadata is what allows an actual enumerated understanding, a precise record of all the private activities in all of our lives. It shows our associations, our political affiliations and our actual activities,\u2019 said Snowden, dressed in a jacket with no tie in front of a black background.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018My hope and my belief is that as we do more of that reporting and as people see the scope of the abuse as opposed to just the scope of the surveillance they will start to care more,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Mark my words. Put stars by it and in two months or so come back and tell me if I didn\u2019t make good on my word.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

A Reuters\/Ipsos poll this week showed the majority of Americans were concerned that Internet companies were encroaching on too much of their lives.<\/p>\n

The Chicago datelined report said:<\/p>\n

\u201cA sympathetic crowd of nearly 1,000 packed a downtown Chicago hotel ballroom at Amnesty International USA\u2019s annual human rights meeting and gave Greenwald, who dialed in from Brazil, a raucous welcome before Snowden was patched in 15 minutes later to a standing ovation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The leaks of secret documents made by Snowden, who had been working at a NSA facility revealed a vast US government system for monitoring phone and Internet data. It deeply embarrassed the Obama administration, which in January banned US eavesdropping on the leaders of friendly countries and allies. However, Snowden faces arrest if he steps foot on US soil.<\/p>\n

Greenwald has promised further revelations of government abuses of power at his new media venture the Intercept.<\/p>\n

More on \u201cCuban Twitter\u201d<\/p>\n

The Associated Press has recently exposed a secret program run by the US Agency for International Development to create \u201ca Twitter-like Cuban communications network\u201d run through \u201csecret shell companies\u201d in order to create the false appearance of being a privately owned operation with the aim of toppling the Cuban government through a \u201cCuban Spring\u201d like event.<\/p>\n

On this campaign for toppling the Cuban government Glenn Greenwald writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cUnbeknownst to the service\u2019s Cuban users was the fact that \u2018American contractors were gathering their private data in the hope that it might be used for political purposes\u2019\u2013specifically, to manipulate those users in order to foment dissent in Cuba and subvert its government. According to top-secret documents published today [April 4, 2014] by The Intercept [3], this sort of operation is frequently discussed at western intelligence agencies, which have plotted ways to covertly use social media for \u2018propaganda\u2019, \u2018deception\u2019, \u2018mass messaging\u2019, and \u2018pushing stories\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese ideas \u2013 discussions of how to exploit the internet, specifically social media, to surreptitiously disseminate viewpoints friendly to western interests and spread false or damaging information about targets \u2013 appear repeatedly throughout the archive of materials provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Documents prepared by NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ \u2013 and previously published by The Intercept as well as some by NBC News \u2013 detailed several of those programs, including a unit devoted in part to \u201cdiscrediting\u201d the agency\u2019s enemies with false information spread online.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe documents in the archive show that the British are particularly aggressive and eager in this regard, and formally shared their methods with their US counterparts. One previously undisclosed top-secret document \u2013 prepared by GCHQ for the 2010 annual \u2018SIGDEV\u2019 gathering of the \u2018Five Eyes\u2019 surveillance alliance comprising the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the US \u2013 explicitly discusses ways to exploit Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social media as secret platforms for propaganda.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe document was presented by GCHQ\u2019s Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG). The unit\u2019s self-described purpose is \u2018using online techniques to make something happen in the real or cyber world\u2019, including \u2018information ops (influence or disruption).\u2019 The British agency describes its JTRIG and Computer Network Exploitation operations as a \u2018major part of business\u2019 at GCHQ, conducting \u20185% of Operations.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThe annual SIGDEV conference, according to one NSA document published today [April 4, 2014] by The Intercept, \u2018enables unprecedented visibility of SIGINT Development activities from across the Extended Enterprise, Second Party and US Intelligence communities.\u2019 The 2009 Conference, held at Fort Meade, included \u2018eighty-six representatives from the wider US Intelligence Community, covering agencies as diverse as CIA (a record 50 participants), the Air Force Research Laboratory and the National Air and Space Intelligence Center.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cDefenders of surveillance agencies have often insinuated that such proposals are nothing more than pipe dreams and wishful thinking on the part of intelligence agents. But these documents are not merely proposals or hypothetical scenarios. As described by the NSA document published today, the purpose of SIGDEV presentations is \u2018to synchronize discovery efforts, share breakthroughs, and swap knowledge on the art of analysis.\u2019
\nFor instance: One of the programs described by the newly released GCHQ document is dubbed \u2018Royal Concierge\u2019, under which the British agency intercepts email confirmations of hotel reservations to enable it to subject hotel guests to electronic monitoring. It also contemplates how to \u2018influence the hotel choice\u2019 of travelers and to determine whether they stay at \u2018SIGINT friendly\u2019 hotels. The document asks: \u2018Can we influence the hotel choice? Can we cancel their visit?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cPreviously, der Spiegel and NBC News both independently confirmed that the \u2018Royal Concierge\u2019 program has been implemented and extensively used. The German magazine reported that \u2018for more than three years, GCHQ has had a system to automatically monitor hotel bookings of at least 350 upscale hotels around the world in order to target, search, and analyze reservations to detect diplomats and government officials.\u2019 NBC reported that \u2018the intelligence agency uses the information to spy on human targets through \u201cclose access technical operations\u201d, which can include listening in on telephone calls and tapping hotel computers as well as sending intelligence officers to observe the targets in person at the hotels.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Greenwald writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe GCHQ document we are publishing today expressly contemplates exploiting social media venues such as Twitter, as well as other communications venues including email, to seed state propaganda\u2013GHCQ\u2019s word, not mine\u2013across the internet:<\/p>\n

\u201c(The GCHQ document also describes a practice called \u2018credential harvesting\u2019, which NBC described as an effort to \u2018select journalists who could be used to spread information\u2019 that the government wants distributed. According to the NBC report, GCHQ agents would employ \u2018electronic snooping to identify non-British journalists who would then be manipulated to feed information to the target of a covert campaign\u2019. Then, \u2018the journalist\u2019s job would provide access to the targeted individual, perhaps for an interview\u2019. Anonymous sources that NBC didn\u2019t characterize claimed at the time that GCHQ had not employed the technique.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether governments should be in the business of publicly disseminating political propaganda at all is itself a controversial question. Such activities are restricted by law in many countries, including the US. In 2008, The New York Times\u2019 David Barstow won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing a domestic effort coordinated by the Pentagon whereby retired US generals posed as \u2018independent analysts\u2019 employed by American television networks and cable news outlets as they secretly coordinated their messaging with the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause American law bars the government from employing political propaganda domestically, that program was likely illegal, though no legal accountability was ever brought to bear (despite all sorts of calls for formal investigations). Barack Obama, a presidential candidate at the time, pronounced himself in a campaign press release \u2018deeply disturbed\u2019 by the Pentagon program, which he said \u2018sought to manipulate the public\u2019s trust.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cPropagandizing foreign populations has generally been more legally acceptable. But it is difficult to see how government propaganda can be segregated from domestic consumption in the digital age. If American intelligence agencies are adopting the GCHQ\u2019s tactics of \u2018crafting messaging campaigns to go \u201cviral\u201d,\u2019 the legal issue is clear: A \u2018viral\u2019 online propaganda campaign, by definition, is almost certain to influence its own citizens as well as those of other countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor its part, GCHQ refused to answer any specific questions on the record, instead providing its standard boilerplate script which it provides no matter the topic of the reporting: \u2018all of GCHQ\u2019s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight.\u2019 The NSA refused to comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut these documents, along with the AP\u2019s exposure of the sham \u2018Cuban Twitter\u2019 program, underscore how aggressively western governments are seeking to exploit the internet as a means to manipulate political activity and shape political discourse.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the conclusion, he writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cThose programs, carried out in secrecy and with little accountability (it seems nobody in Congress knew of the \u2018Cuban Twitter\u2019 program in any detail) threaten the integrity of the internet itself, as state-disseminated propaganda masquerades as free online speech and organizing. There is thus little or no ability for an internet user to know when they are being covertly propagandized by their government, which is precisely what makes it so appealing to intelligence agencies, so powerful, and so dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source:<\/p>\n

[1] April 6, 2014, \u201cSnowden, Greenwald urge caution of wider government monitoring at Amnesty event\u201d<\/p>\n

[2] April 4, 2014, \u201cThe \u2018Cuban Twitter\u2019 Scam Is a Drop in the Internet Propaganda Bucket\u201d, \u00a9 First Look Productions<\/p>\n

[3] The documents are: 1. \u201cFull-Spectrum Cyber Effects\u201d, and 2. \u201c2009 SigDev Conference\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Metadata Is More Intrusive Than Direct Listening Of Phone Calls Says Snowden http:\/\/www.countercurrents.org\/cc070414A.htm<\/a> 07 April, 2014 Countercurrents.org Government monitoring of \u201cmetadata\u201d is more intrusive than directly listening to phone calls or reading emails, cautioned Edward Snowden, the US NSA whistleblower, and Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who disclosed leaks by Snowden about mass US government surveillance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,46,14099,14100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-snowden","category-nsa-spying","category-privacy-2","category-security-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euvolution.com\/open-source-convergence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16097"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euvolution.com\/open-source-convergence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euvolution.com\/open-source-convergence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euvolution.com\/open-source-convergence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euvolution.com\/open-source-convergence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/euvolution.com\/open-source-convergence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euvolution.com\/open-source-convergence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euvolution.com\/open-source-convergence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euvolution.com\/open-source-convergence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}