Category Archives: NSA

Chris Davies

The NSA may be used to lurking in the shadows and quietly reading our emails, but the ACLU and Wikimedia Foundation aren't willing to let them stay that way, filing a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the government agency's actions. The suit, filed today in the US District Court for the District of Maryland, takes issue with NSA "upstream" surveillance which, it's argued, needlessly and intrusively gathers huge quantities of text-based messages sent and received by innocent people. That, the ACLU insists, is an infringement of both First and Fourth Amendment rights, among other things.

The core of the controversy is the National Security Agency's use of the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act (FAA) to justify its activities. That Act, the agency argues, gives it the legal permission to tap into the "backbone" of the internet in the name of gathering communications with "non-U.S. persons."

By collaborating with infrastructure operators like AT&T and Verizon, to get a direct tap into the bulk messaging feed, the NSA can run thousands of keyword searches to hunt for anything vaguely suspicious.

However, the ACLU points out, no court approves each search, or each target, and "the limitations that do exist are weak and riddled with exceptions." There are also suspicions that the NSA is keeping and indexing communications far longer than they're meant to.

Along with the ACLU and the Wikimedia Foundation, the lawsuit includes The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International USA, PEN American Center, Global Fund for Women, The Nation Magazine, The Rutherford Institute, and The Washington Office on Latin America.

"These plaintiffs sensitive communications have been copied, searched, and likely retained by the NSA," the ACLU said in a statement on the lawsuit. "Upstream surveillance hinders the plaintiffs ability to ensure the basic confidentiality of their communications with crucial contacts abroad among them journalists, colleagues, clients, victims of human rights abuses, and the tens of millions of people who read and edit Wikipedia pages."

It's not the first time the ACLU has attempted to tackle how broadly the NSA interprets the FAA. In fact, the group filed a suit back in 2008 shortly after it was made law, only to be rejected by the Supreme Court in 2013 for not having sufficient proof that spying had, in fact, taken place.

Since then, of course, whistleblower Edward Snowden has revealed huge quantities of information on the upstream surveillance being undertaken by his former employers.

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NSA sued over surveillance by Wikimedia & more

HECHOS PELOTA - NSA EN ASAMBLEA DEPORTIVA

By: Hernan Rodriguez

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HECHOS PELOTA - NSA EN ASAMBLEA DEPORTIVA - Video

Hasse Carlsson om varfr han valt att vara medlem i Talarfreningen NSA Sweden
Hasse berttar varfr han valt att vara medlem i Talarfreningen National Speaker Association of Sweden.

By: Talarfreningen National Speakers Association of Sweden

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Hasse Carlsson om varfr han valt att vara medlem i Talarfreningen NSA Sweden - Video

Why Wikimedia Is Suing To Shield Users From NSA Surveillance
Volunteers produce most Wikipedia entries, and the lawsuit alleges the NSA #39;s potential surveillance will deter those contributors. Follow Jamal Andress: http://www.twitter.com/jamalandress...

By: Newsy

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Why Wikimedia Is Suing To Shield Users From NSA Surveillance - Video

Wikipedia Sues NSA For Spying Program
"Cenk Uygur (http://www.twitter.com/cenkuygur) host of The Young Turks discusses Wikimedia #39;s move to sue the NSA. The National Security Agency is officially being sued by Wikimedia, the parent...

By: The Young Turks

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Wikipedia Sues NSA For Spying Program - Video

Wikipedia vs NSA - PREVENTING THE TRUTH
For a very long time now I have posted videos telling you about Wikipedia. They are now suing NSA for violations of the first and fourth amedments. We now officially know that the NSA and other...

By: sonofmabarker

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Wikipedia vs NSA - PREVENTING THE TRUTH - Video

Wikimedia files lawsuit challenging NSA mass surveillance
The American Civil Liberties Union files a lawsuit on behalf of Wikimedia Foundation and other organizations against the National Security Agency, challenging the government #39;s mass surveillance....

By: Sheal Legaspi

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Wikimedia files lawsuit challenging NSA mass surveillance - Video

NSA Sued For Mass Surveillance Of Internet
Source: https://www.youtube.com/user/videosptv March 11, 2015 - Press TV reports on the latest news headlines from around the world. Live @ http://www.presstv.ir/live.html Twitter @ http://twitte...

By: PigMine2

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NSA Sued For Mass Surveillance Of Internet - Video

Joe Rogan Exclusive: The Police State, Geoengineering, and Why He Became a Comic
Joe Rogan sits down with Alex Jones for a one on one interview that cover the emerging police state, NSA wiretapping, chemtrails, Joe #39;s awakening, and what m. Joe Rogan sits down with Alex...

By: Bimi Suse

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Joe Rogan Exclusive: The Police State, Geoengineering, and Why He Became a Comic - Video

The U.S. National Security Agency may have been planting surveillance software into hard drives and other essential computer equipment sold around the world for more than a decade through a shadowy organization known as the Equation Group, a respected cybersecurity researcher says. The revelation, if true, indicates that operators within the NSA have been collecting far more information on the spy agencys behalf than previously thought.

The Equation Group manipulated hard drives manufactured by Toshiba, Seagate, IBM, Western Digital and others dating back as far as 2001, researchers at the Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab said Wednesday. Equation has also proven able to reprogram a machines firmware, meaning that hackers were able to monitor even the most mundane activity on tens of thousands of individual PCs without their owners knowledge.

Privacy experts say the disclosures highlight the need for international companies to do more to protect customers from evolving threats to their online security.

Existence of the Equation Group, believed to be made up of 60 or so actors, was first revealed at Kasperskys annual security summit in Mexico on Feb. 16. Kaspersky on Wednesday released further information that strongly links the organization to the NSA.

The dense technical language in the Kaspersky report essentially argues that spies were able to install malicious software into computer hard drives that activate again and again each time the computer powers on.

Researchers found source code that makes reference to STRAITACID, STRAITSHOOTER, and BACKSNARF_AB25. Those names bear a remarkable resemblance to BACKSNARF and STRAITBIZARRE, two malware campaigns used by NSAs Tailored Access Operations team and first revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Costin Raiu, Kasperskys lead researcher on the project, told Reuters that while the Equation Group was able to steal files on any of the infected computers, they assumed full control only of computers used by high-value targets. Disk drive firmware, which was infected in this hack, is the second-most valuable space on a computer for hackers (after a microprocessors input/output system), the news outlet reported.

The Equation Group appears to rely on the programs EquationDrug and GrayFish for its espionage operations.

Its important to note that EquationDrug is not just a Trojan, but a full espionage platform, which includes a framework for conducting cyberespionage activities by deploying specific modules of selected victims, stated a version of the report updated Wednesday. The architecture of the whole framework resembles a mini-operating system with kernel-mode and user-mode components carefully interacting with each other via custom message passing interface.

Again, Kaspersky did not officially pin the Equation Group on the NSA, but pointed out links that are hard to dismiss as coincidence.

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NSA Strongly Suspected In 'Equation Group' Hacks On Russian, Iranian Hard Drives