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In his new book No Place to Hide, Glenn Greenwald revealed a number of additional details onthe craft and tools used by the NSA and its British counterpart, the GCHQ. While many of the capabilities and activities Greenwald details in the book were previously published in reports drawing from Edward Snowdens vast haul of NSA documents, a number of new pieces of information have come to lightincluding the NSAs and GCHQs efforts to use airlines in-flight data service to track and surveil targeted passengers in real time.

The systemscodenamed Homing Pigeon by the NSA and Thieving Magpie by the GCHQallowed the agencies to track which aircraft individuals under surveillance boarded based on their phone data.

We can confirm that targets are on board specific flights in near real time, enabling surveillance or arrest teams to be put in place in advance, a GCHQ analyst wrote in a PowerPoint slide presentation on the program. If they use data, we can also recover email addresss [sic], Facebook IDs, Skype addresses, etc.

The technology allows the NSA and GCHQ to get a geographic fix on surveilled aircraft once every two minutes in transit.

Latest batch of documents leaked shows NSA's power to pwn.

Greenwald asserts in his book that at the same time the US intelligence community and legislators were warning that Chinese networking vendors Huawei and ZTE were untrustworthy because of connections to Chinas Peoples Liberation Army, the NSA was routinely intercept[ing] routers, servers, and other computer network devices being exported from the US before they are delivered to the international customers.

Greenwald cited a June 2010 report from the head of the NSAs Access and Target Development department in which the official wrote, In one recent case, after several months a beacon implanted through supply-chain interdiction called back to the NSA covert infrastructure. This call back provided us access to further exploit the device and the network.

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NSA routinely tapped in-flight Internet, intercepted exported routers

B omar - Ghir nsa (Officiel lyrics)
Aprs un long voyage, il revient et trouve son amour avec une autre personne, et il part avec un cur bris, plein de tristesse !

By: Omar Berrada

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B omar - Ghir nsa (Officiel lyrics) - Video

Former NSA boss: "We kill people based on metadata"
May 11, 2014: Speaking at a debate in April, former intelligence boss and retired Gen. Michael Hayden admitted the NSA uses metadata to "kill people." Video courtesy Johns Hopkins University.

By: Matthew Keys Live

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Former NSA boss: "We kill people based on metadata" - Video

UK newspaper releases new excerpts of interview with ex-NSA analyst 2013 News
Major US corporations allow the National Security Agency NSA direct access to the back ends of all of the systems that you use to communicate according to former NSA systems analyst Edward...

By: Camon Cana

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UK newspaper releases new excerpts of interview with ex-NSA analyst 2013 News - Video

Tokyo reax to reports Japan embassy targeted by NSA surveillance 2013 News
Japan s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Monday that the government will call for an explanation from relevant US authorities regarding reports of alleged US surveillance of a Japanese...

By: Camon Cana

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Tokyo reax to reports Japan embassy targeted by NSA surveillance 2013 News - Video

Obama speaks to US talk show on Syria Iran and NSA before departing for G8 summit 201
US President Barack Obama has said Iran s election of a relative moderate shows the country s people want to change course. Obama said in an interview with American broadcaster PBS which aired...

By: Camon Cana

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Obama speaks to US talk show on Syria Iran and NSA before departing for G8 summit 201 - Video

Narrative und Symbole im Kampf gegen die NSA-Totalberwachung
ichsagmal-Gesprch mit Felix Schwenzel.

By: Gunnar Sohn

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Narrative und Symbole im Kampf gegen die NSA-Totalberwachung - Video

May 12, 2014 12:59pm

The U.S. government kill[s] people based on metadata, but it doesnt do that with the trove of information collected on American communications, according to former head of the National Security Agency Gen. Michael Hayden.

Hayden made the remark after saying he agreed with the idea that metadata the information collected by the NSA about phone calls and other communications that does not include content can tell the government everything about anyone its targeting for surveillance, often making the actual content of the communication unnecessary.

[That] description is absolutely correct. We kill people based on metadata. But thats not what we do with this metadata, said Hayden, apparently referring to domestic metadata collection. Its really important to understand the program in its entirety. Not the potentiality of the program, but how the program is actually conducted.

So NSA gets phone records, gets them from the telephone company, been getting them since October of 2001 from one authority or another, puts them in a lockbox and under very strict limitations can access the lockbox, Hayden said and then described a hypothetical situation in which a number connected to a terrorist could be run against the metadata already collected to help investigators find additional leads in the name of national security.

What it cannot do are all those things that allows someone to create your social network, your social interactions, your patterns of behavior. One could make the argument that could be useful, [or] that could be illegal, but its not done, he said. In this debate, its important to distinguish what might be done with what is being done.

Hayden, who served as NSA head from 1999 to 2005 followed by a stint running the CIA from 2006 to 2009, made the remarks early last month while discussing the NSAs mass domestic and foreign surveillance programs at Johns Hopkins Universitys Foreign Affairs Symposium.

David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center who was Haydens foil in the discussion, this weekend wrote in the New York Review of Books that Haydens remarks were evidence that arguments from government officials that there is little threat to privacy from metadata collection is misleading. In the April discussion, Cole noted President Barack Obamas remarks to reporters last June, as media reports based on leaks by from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden were just beginning, in which he said, Nobody is listening to your telephone calls.

They are not looking at peoples names, theyre not looking at content, Obama said then. But by sifting through this so-called metadata, they may identify potential leads with respect to folks who might engage in terrorism.

Six months later, an expert review panel set up by the White House recommended the government cease the mass collection of metadata on Americans.

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Ex-NSA Chief: 'We Kill People Based on Metadata'

CBS

The National Security Agency has been allegedly accessing routers, servers, and other computer network devices to plant backdoors and other spyware before they're shipped overseas, according to the Guardian.

The news about the NSA's alleged interception of hardware comes via journalist Glenn Greenwald's new book about Edward Snowden's NSA leaks titled "No Place to Hide." Greenwald apparently obtained documents from Snowden that detailed the NSA receiving or intercepting various devices in the US before export.

Ironically, this type of activity is exactly what the US government accused Chinese telecom gear maker Huawei of doing in 2012 on behalf of the Chinese government.

In a letter sent to Huawei in June 2012, the US House Intelligence Committee said that the committee was "concerned" the Chinese authorities could be hacking in or attempting to breach US networks using the company's telecom equipment. With the accusations, Huawei adamantly maintained that it was not involved in any sort of cyberspying. Additionally, the US White House reportedly carried out a review of security risks posed by Huawei and was said to have found no evidence that the company spied on the US.

However, the accusations strained Huawei's relations with the US, and eventually the company pulled out of the US market. Last December, the company's CEO Ren Zhengfei said, "If Huawei gets in the middle of US-China relations," and causes problems, "it's not worth it."

What the NSA is allegedly doing is outlined in a leaked report that Greenwald refers to in his new book -- it's dated June 2010 and from the head of the NSA's Access and Target Development department, according to the Guardian. This report details the NSA allegedly intercepting US-made hardware, embedding backdoor surveillance tools, then repackaging the equipment and sending it onto international customers.

With backdoor surveillance systems, the NSA could feasibly gain access to vast networks and users.

"In one recent case, after several months a beacon implanted through supply-chain interdiction called back to the NSA covert infrastructure," the NSA report says, according to the Guardian. "This call back provided us access to further exploit the device and survey the network."

This isn't the first time the NSA has been accused of this type of activity. A report from German newspaper Der Spiegel alleged that the US agency intercepts deliveries of electronic equipment to plant spyware to gain remote access to systems once they are delivered and installed. According to the report, the NSA has planted backdoors to access computers, hard drives, routers, and other devices from companies such as Cisco, Dell, Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, Samsung, and Huawei.

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NSA reportedly installing spyware on US-made hardware

The agency intercepts devices and installs software that gives them access, an upcoming book says

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 Google's own fiber network among its data centers, where the company hadn't encrypted the traffic at all.

"That's how most organizations function," Krishnan said. "So once you're within the company's router, you have access to all that data that's 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.

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Reported NSA backdoors might open up networks to more threats