omnibus PRISM/NSA/free Edward Snowden/encryption tutorial thread

The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens, a top-secret document provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals.

Details of the intelligence-sharing agreement are laid out in a memorandum of understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart that shows the US government handed over intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of American citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/nsa-americans-personal-data-israel-documents

whoa

i love how this neverending series of revelations is prompting swift and robust action on the part of legislators

...they're pretty much just going to avoid talking about it and hope it goes away, right? what's sad is that that's probably a pretty good strategy for them, it'll probably work.

The National Security Agency for almost three years searched a massive database of Americans’ phone call records attempting to identify potential terrorists in violation of court-approved privacy rules, and the problem went unfixed because no one at the agency had a full technical understanding of how its system worked, according to new documents and senior government officials.

Moreover, it was Justice Department officials who discovered the problem and reported it to the court that oversees surveillance programs, the documents show, undermining assertions by the NSA that self-reporting is part of its culture.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/declassified-court-documents-highlight-nsa-violations/2013/09/10/60b5822c-1a4b-11e3-a628-7e6dde8f889d_story.html

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/09/fisa-judge-reggie-walton-skeptical-nsa-phone-record

NSA chief may be an insane Trekkie!

"When he was running the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, Alexander brought many of his future allies down to Fort Belvoir for a tour of his base of operations, a facility known as the Information Dominance Center. It had been designed by a Hollywood set designer to mimic the bridge of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek, complete with chrome panels, computer stations, a huge TV monitor on the forward wall, and doors that made a 'whoosh' sound when they slid open and closed. Lawmakers and other important officials took turns sitting in a leather 'captain's chair' in the center of the room and watched as Alexander, a lover of science-fiction movies, showed off his data tools on the big screen.

'Everybody wanted to sit in the chair at least once to pretend he was Jean-Luc Picard,' says a retired officer in charge of VIP visits."

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/09/nsa-director-modeled-war-room-after-star-treks-enterprise.html

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/15/nsa-mind-keith-alexander-star-trek

Wow.

In more mundane news:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/13/the-fisa-court-will-release-more-opinions-because-of-snowden/

How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/09/27/the-other-questions-senator-ron-wyden-wants-answered-on-nsa-surveillance/

Dianne Feinstein had other ideas though

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/nsa-examines-social-networks-of-us-citizens.html?_r=0

By JAMES RISEN and LAURA POITRAS
Published: September 28, 2013 WASHINGTON — Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with officials.

shit -- they know I downloaded the Holy Ghost! album :/

And Drake's latest too

create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections

If this were approved under the ordinary safeguards against unreasonable search and seizure, with warrants obtained specific to a particular criminal investigation for which probable cause has been established linking the American to the crime, then it would be a good tool. Chances of that being true for NSA data collecting on Americans atm seem close to nil.

The policy shift was intended to help the agency “discover and track” connections between intelligence targets overseas and people in the United States…The agency was authorized to conduct “large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness” of every e-mail address, phone number or other identifier.

kind of like the idea of Clusterfuck Summary Corner being a crucial NSA task

don't know where else to put this

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news%2Finvestigators&id=9270668

I got into an argument with a friend about a year ago, him claiming that I was insane to worry about camera footage from a small drone because those small planes simply weren't capable of coherent, steadicam imaging. here's some fascinating footage from a smartcard reclaimed from a drone that crashlanded a few feet from him on the streets of manhattan and nearly took him out.

(reclaimed from a different guy, not the friend who was complaining - sorry for unclear pronouns)

also not implying that's a government drone by putting it on this thread -- footage seems to start with the drone taking off from a nondescript civilian patio. still interesting.

the ol' tiny font trick

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/03/228878659/how-snowdens-email-provider-tried-to-foil-the-fbi-using-tiny-font

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/edward-snowden-receives-the-sam-adams-associates-for-news-photo/183943715

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/2/nsa-chief-figures-foiled-terror-plots-misleading/

lol @ the times

I thought it was interesting how even with right-wing spin, the NSA looked foolish.

Here's Salon's take

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/02/nsa_director_admits_to_misleading

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/leaks-by-edward-snowden-suggest-nsa-collects-millions-of-americans-address-books/2013/10/15/ce043b56-359f-11e3-be86-6aeaa439845b_story.html

According to documents provided by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency is gathering hundreds of millions of address books and contact lists from people around the world, including some Americans. Because the collection occurs in foreign countries, such as when data crosses international borders, the activities are not restricted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, report Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani:

....

The NSA has not been authorized by Congress or the special intelligence court that oversees foreign surveillance to collect contact lists in bulk, and senior intelligence officials said it would be illegal to do so from facilities in the United States. The agency avoids the restrictions in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by intercepting contact lists from access points “all over the world,” one official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the classified program. “None of those are on U.S. territory.”

Because of the method employed, the agency is not legally required or technically able to restrict its intake to contact lists belonging to specified foreign intelligence targets, he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/secret-court-says-it-is-no-rubber-stamp-led-to-changes-in-us-spying-requests/2013/10/15/d52936b0-35a5-11e3-80c6-7e6dd8d22d8f_story.html?hpid=z4

Snowden talks to the NYT

"Mr. Snowden said he finally decided to act when he discovered a copy of a classified 2009 inspector general's report on the N.S.A.'s warrantless wiretapping program during the Bush administration. He said he found the document through a "dirty word search," which he described as an effort by a systems administrator to check a computer system for things that should not be there in order to delete them and sanitize the system.

"'It was too highly classified to be where it was,' he said of the report. He opened the document to make certain that it did not belong there, and after seeing what it revealed, 'curiosity prevailed,' he said.

"After reading about the program, which skirted the existing surveillance laws, he concluded that it had been illegal, he said. 'If the highest officials in government can break the law without fearing punishment or even any repercussions at all,' he said, 'secret powers become tremendously dangerous.'"

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/world/snowden-says-he-took-no-secret-files-to-russia.html

Saturday in DC

https://rally.stopwatching.us/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/richard-cohen-edward-snowden-is-no-traitor/2013/10/21/f9d2ae5a-3a74-11e3-a94f-b58017bfee6c_story.html?tid=pm_pop

Well, clown Richard Cohen changes his mind

http://www.nsahaiku.net/

Lawmaker Offers Strong Defense of U.S. Surveillance Efforts in Europe
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the National Security Agency's surveillance program was designed to protect the countries from the threat of terror.

Merkel's phone monitored since 2002 to protect her!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/10/28/snowden_spain_glenn_greenwald_reports_that_the_nsa_monitored_more_than_60.html

Good times GOOD JOB USA

From a NY Times editorial:

The White House spokesman, Jay Carney, kept repeating that Mr. Obama ordered a review of surveillance policy a few months ago, but he would not confirm whether that includes the tapping of the cellphone of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, or the collection of data on tens of millions of calls in France, Spain and elsewhere. It’s unlikely that Mr. Obama would have ordered any review if Edward Snowden’s leaks had not revealed the vacuum-cleaner approach to electronic spying. Mr. Carney left no expectation that the internal reviews will produce any significant public accounting — only that the White House might have “a little more detail” when they are completed.

Dianne Feinstein irked at surveilling foreign leaders, apparently just fine for the unwashed of the US. Thanks DF, you waste.

yep

morbs otm.

"We're really screwed now," one NSA official told The Cable. "You know things are bad when the few friends you've got disappear without a trace in the dead of night and leave no forwarding address."

A former intelligence agency liaison to Congress said Feinstein's sudden outrage over spying on foreign leaders raised questions about how well informed she was about NSA programs and whether she'd been fully briefed by her staff. "The first question I'd ask is, what have you been doing for oversight? Second, if you've been reviewing this all along what has changed your mind?"

The former official said the intelligence committees receive lengthy and detailed descriptions every year about all NSA programs, including surveillance. "They're not small books. They're about the size of those old family photo albums that were several inches thick. They're hundreds of pages long."

A senior congressional aide said, "It's an absolute joke to think she hasn't been reading the signals intelligence intercepts as Chairman of Senate Intelligence for years."

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/10/28/were_really_screwed_now_nsas_best_friend_just_shivved_the_spies

It marks a significant reversal for a lawmaker who not only defended agency surveillance programs -- but is about to introduce a bill expected to protect some of its most controversial activities.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/top-intelligence-officials-called-to-testify-on-nsa-surveillance-programs/2013/10/29/e9e9c250-40b7-11e3-a751-f032898f2dbc_story.html?hpid=z1

Alexander and Clapper say they worked with intelligence agencies of foreign countries

“The agency has been rebuked repeatedly by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for misrepresenting the nature of its spy programs and for violating the court’s confidential orders. In its defense, NSA officials have said the agency didn’t understand its own programs well enough to describe them accurately to the court.”

From the Wall Street Journal

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html?hpid=z1

http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/28/4560792/how-i-delt-arms-on-the-internet-and-learned-to-love-it

When Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, sat down with President Obama at the White House in April to discuss Syrian chemical weapons, Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and climate change, it was a cordial, routine exchange. The National Security Agency nonetheless went to work in advance and intercepted Mr. Ban’s talking points for the meeting, a feat the agency later reported as an “operational highlight” in a weekly internal brag sheet. It is hard to imagine what edge this could have given Mr. Obama in a friendly chat, if he even saw the N.S.A.’s modest scoop. (The White House won’t say.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/world/no-morsel-too-minuscule-for-all-consuming-nsa.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131103&_r=0

Blanket N.S.A. eavesdropping in Afghanistan, described in the documents as covering government offices and the hide-outs of second-tier Taliban militants alike, has failed to produce a clear victory against a low-tech enemy. The agency kept track as Syria amassed its arsenal of chemical weapons — but that knowledge did nothing to prevent the gruesome slaughter outside Damascus in August.

But the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee said if Snowden had been a true whistle-blower, he could have reported his concerns to her committee privately.

"That didn't happen, and now he's done this enormous disservice to our country," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. "I think the answer is no clemency."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NSA_SURVEILLANCE_SNOWDEN_CLEMENCY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

<i>But the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee said if Snowden had been a true whistle-blower, he could have reported his concerns to her committee privately.</i>

facepalm

Oh, Diane Feinstein

Remember that dialogue the President promised, it must have happened and now its done and there will be no changes (unless Congress forces them)

As U.S. Weighs Spying Changes, Officials Say Data Sweeps Must Continue
By DAVID E. SANGER
The Obama administration is considering reining in many N.S.A. practices overseas, but for now, officials have concluded that there is no workable alternative to the collection of huge quantities of "metadata."

NY Times

it amazes me that somehow this sea of headlines about snowden 'requesting clemency' emerged

Emerged and then disappeared