Congressional Agency Questions Legality of Wiretaps

[Pyperkub]

Oh, and my EFF swag arrived today! Whoopee!

[$iljanus]

Oh, and my EFF swag arrived today! Whoopee!

Yes and your acceptance of said items has been entered onto your permanent record...

[JSHAW]

So what's the latest update on the whereabouts of Waldo Snowden?

Is he still hiding out in the Russian Airport trying to recreate Tom Hanks role in The Terminal?

[Pyperkub]

So what's the latest update on the whereabouts of Waldo Snowden?

Is he still hiding out in the Russian Airport trying to recreate Tom Hanks role in The Terminal?

That seems to be the case.

tapatalkin'

[Rip]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bcL5_VGmgE

[Rip]

For those who would like a little privacy I present

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ ... story.html

[Rip]

These revelations just keep getting better. Hilarious hearing all these leaders fail to get upset at information showing the US is collecting data on whoever until it comes to light they are spying ON THEM!

European officials reacted with fury Sunday to a report that the U.S. National Security Agency spied on EU offices.
The European Union warned that if the report is accurate, it will have tremendous repercussions.
"I am deeply worried and shocked about the allegations," European Parliament President Martin Schulz said in a statement. "If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations. On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the U.S. authorities with regard to these allegations."
German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger "said if the accusations were true it was reminiscent of the Cold War," ministry spokesman Anders Mertzlufft said, adding that the minister "has asked for an immediate explanation from the United States."
Citing information from secret documents obtained by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday that several U.S. spying operations targeted European Union leaders.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/30/world/eur ... ?hpt=hp_t2

First they stied on our enemies and I said nothing, then they spied on nuetrals and I said nothing, then they spied on their people and I said nothing, then they spied on my people and I said nothing, THEN THEY SPIED ON ME!

Michael Hayden, a former director of the NSA and CIA, told "Face the Nation" on CBS on Sunday morning that he didn't know whether the report was true.
"I've been out of government for about five years, so I really don't know, and even if I did, I wouldn't confirm or deny it," he said. "But I think I can confirm a few things for you here this morning. Number one, the United States does conduct espionage. Number two, our Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans' privacy, is not an international treaty. And number three, any European who wants to go out and rend their garments with regard to international espionage should look first and find out what their governments are doing."

In other words of course we did, piss off.

[Kraken]

[malchior]

These revelations just keep getting better. Hilarious hearing all these leaders fail to get upset at information showing the US is collecting data on whoever until it comes to light they are spying ON THEM!

European officials reacted with fury Sunday to a report that the U.S. National Security Agency spied on EU offices.
The European Union warned that if the report is accurate, it will have tremendous repercussions.
"I am deeply worried and shocked about the allegations," European Parliament President Martin Schulz said in a statement. "If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations. On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the U.S. authorities with regard to these allegations."
German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger "said if the accusations were true it was reminiscent of the Cold War," ministry spokesman Anders Mertzlufft said, adding that the minister "has asked for an immediate explanation from the United States."
Citing information from secret documents obtained by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday that several U.S. spying operations targeted European Union leaders.

This is likely all faux outrage anyway as events yesterday played out. Bolivian President Morales' plane stops in Moscow, Snowden is rumored to board the plane and it continues towards Bolivia. It is then denied transit through a decent chunk of Western Europe and is forced to land in Austria. While the plane wasn't "searched" -- the police did walk through it. Yikes. Anyway, it could explain why Snowden didn't board his plane to Havana on Monday -- they reasoned the plane would never get through Europe. I don't know if it is the case but the Morales plane trip could have been a test as well plus it plays well back home politically (US as an oppressor of South American countries).

Edit: Actually I have to assume that the US knows where Snowden is so this could have just been a finger in the eye of Bolivia. Anyway this is one of the most overt displays of realpolitik all around in awhile.

[Rip]

For all the talk of Snowden damaging the US's credibility they seem to be doing a bang up job without any assistance from him. I am surprised that so many European countries are letting themselves appear to be lapdogs.

[Rip]

More good info coming out, although this one is one I pretty much knew was going on.

The slide also shows a crude map of the undersea cable network that carries data from either side of North America and onto the rest of the world. As a story in Sunday’s Post made clear, these undersea cables are essential to worldwide data flows – and to the surveillance capabilities of the U.S. government and its allies.

This slide bears many resemblances to one published by the Guardian on June 8, shortly after the initial disclosures about PRISM. But the Guardian’s slide shows an undersea cable map of most of the world. The one obtained by the Post shows mainly sections of North America. It is not clear why the slides vary in this way.

Both slides have circles attached to arrows suggesting possible collection points, but they cover areas too broad to discern where NSA accesses fiber-optic cable networks. The slides also list code names under the Upstream program.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ ... story.html

Having been involved in many of the trans continental fiber cable installations/burials I have a pretty good idea where at least some of the upstream data is tapped.

It reminds me of a funny story though. When installing some of the newer cables we disconnected/decommisioned some old ones. Part of the process was to sever the cables out in the water away from the beach. The reason was that AT&T had found that some shrewd competitors had previously reconnected old cables and used them. Something that AT&T was none to fond of.

I once thought about what it might take to note the location of where we cut the cables and going back out and repairing them. Not sure how much money it would have cost to do so, but given the amount that was being charged at the time for bandwidth across them I suspect I could have made a good bit if it could have been pulled off. Of course I didn't have the contacts needed to market and sell the use not to mention that I am pretty sure AT&T would have figured it out at some point and stirred up a stink.

Link to one of the cables I spent a lot of time helping to install.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAT-10

Hint: all the TAT cable terminated in New Jersey.........

[LordMortis]

I sometimes wonder in paranoia if they keep tabs on cigarettes and booze I buy by credit card and if they keep track of my car parked in bars and strip clubs and if keeping track of these things will eventually come back and bite me in the ass.

http://news.yahoo.com/license-plate-sca ... 59043.html" target="_blank

Yahoo is suggesting I am not paranoid. I don't need that. On the bright side it's not like they couldn't tell by GPS locating my phone, anyway.

[Rip]

The Obama administration’s credibility on intelligence suffered another blow Wednesday as the chief of the National Security Agency admitted that officials put out numbers that vastly overstated the counterterrorism successes of the government’s warrantless bulk collection of all Americans’ phone records.
Pressed by the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at an oversight hearing, Gen. Keith B. Alexander admitted that the number of terrorist plots foiled by the NSA’s huge database of every phone call made in or to America was only one or perhaps two — far smaller than the 54 originally claimed by the administration.

Mr. Leahy, who has been a chief critic of the NSA, asked Gen. Alexander to admit that only 13 of the 54 cases had any connection at all to the U.S., “Would you agree with that, yes or no?”
“Yes,” Gen. Alexander replied in a departure from normal practice.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... isleading/

You don't say.

If the government is going to tell so many lies they should work on getting better at it.

[Rip]

Mental gymnastics FTW!

The chair of the House Intelligence Committee – Mike Rogers – said yesterday in an NSA spying hearing which he led that there is no right to privacy in America.
Constitutional expert Stephen I. Vladeck – Professor of Law and the Associate Dean for Scholarship at American University Washington College of Law – disagreed.
Here’s the exchange:
Rogers: I would argue the fact that we haven’t had any complaints come forward with any specificity arguing that their privacy has been violated, clearly indicates, in ten years, clearly indicates that something must be doing right. Somebody must be doing something exactly right.
Vladeck: But who would be complaining?
Rogers: Somebody who’s privacy was violated. You can’t have your privacy violated if you don’t know your privacy is violated.
Vladeck: I disagree with that. If a tree falls in the forest, it makes a noise whether you’re there to see it or not.

http://www.infowars.com/mike-rogers-arg ... et-caught/

[Scuzz]

You can’t have your privacy violated if you don’t know your privacy is violated.

Words to live by.

Jon Stewart played that yesterday.

[Isgrimnur]

And since the government can just refuse to tell you that they've violated your privacy, you can't ever prove that it's been done to sue them to tell you how badly they've violated your privacy.

[Rip]

Now the ire at Snowden makes more sense. They are mad because he violated everyone privacy by telling them that it was being violated. How dare he!!!!!

[Pyperkub]

I find DiFi's flip flop particularly hilarious. She is so clueless when it comes to technology. Actually, she's naive - she just listens and assumes. RIAA is losing "Billions" and maybe more, according to them? Let's drive their SOPA/PIPA bus. NSA says it isn't spying on people without telling her about it, or abusing the privileges? OK, they don't require more oversight. NSA is tapping the internet backbone? I don't know what that may be, but I'll mention it (though it should be massively classified). NSA spying might be causing dramatic damage to the US and US Businesses' interests both here and abroad - doesn't matter - it's necessary.

Aaarrrgggghhhh!

[Rip]

In light of a recent report, Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) fears the National Security Agency may be spying on President Barack Obama. “They could well be spying on the president, for all I know,” Paul says, in an interview with National Review Online. “He has a cell phone, and, in fact, my guess is that they have collected data on the president’s phone.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/36 ... bert-costa

[Zarathud]

They're called Secret Service agents. They don't even need to give him a cell phone.

You don't have any privacy if you're the President. That would create a security risk.

[Rip]

[Rip]

[Isgrimnur]

Hope abounds:

For the first time, a federal judge has struck down the National Security Agency’s once-secret policy of collecting the dialing records of all phone calls in the country, ruling that the mass data collection involving innocent Americans appears to violate the Constitution’s ban on unreasonable searches.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, who was appointed to the federal district court in Washington by President George W. Bush, immediately stayed Monday’s ruling to give the government time to appeal. As a result, his ruling will have no immediate impact in stopping the massive data-collection effort.

Still, the ruling marked the government’s first full-on courtroom defeat in the controversy that erupted after former NSA analyst Edward Snowden revealed the scope of the agency’s program.

The ruling broke new legal ground by deciding that today’s computerized gathering of all dialing records represents a new threat to privacy that was not fully recognized in the past.
...
Today, by contrast, the NSA's computers can gather, store and sift untold millions of calls, and that changes the constitutional balance, Judge Leon wrote.

“The almost Orwellian technology that enables the government to store and analyze the phone meta-data of every telephone user in the United States is unlike anything that could have been conceived in 1979,” he wrote.

He also questioned whether the phone records were useful in fighting terrorism. “The government does not cite a single instance in which analysis of the NSA’s bulk data collection actually stopped an imminent attack,” Leon said.

Because technology has changed so much, and the scope of the government’s surveillance operations is so much greater than what was involved in the 1979 case, that ruling no longer can be considered a binding precedent, the judge said.

[LordMortis]

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/n ... html?hp=l2" target="_blank

A federal judge ruled Monday that the National Security Agency program which collects information on nearly all telephone calls made to, from or within the United States is likely unconstitutional.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon found that the program appears to violate the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. He also said the Justice Department had failed to demonstrate that collecting the information had helped to head off terrorist attacks.

Edit:

In the time it takes to cut and paste and quote...

[Isgrimnur]

BAM!

[Isgrimnur]

In contrast, U.S. District Judge William Pauley out of NY disagrees:

U.S. District Judge William Pauley said in a written opinion that the program "represents the government's counter-punch" to eliminate al-Qaeda's terror network by connecting fragmented and fleeting communications.

In ruling, the judge noted the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and how the phone data-collection system could have helped investigators connect the dots before the attacks occurred.

"The government learned from its mistake and adapted to confront a new enemy: a terror network capable of orchestrating attacks across the world. It launched a number of counter-measures, including a bulk telephony metadata collection program — a wide net that could find and isolate gossamer contacts among suspected terrorists in an ocean of seemingly disconnected data," he said.
...
In arguments before Pauley last month, an ACLU lawyer had argued that the government's interpretation of its authority under the Patriot Act was so broad that it could justify the mass collection of financial, health and even library records of innocent Americans without their knowledge. A government lawyer had countered that counterterrorism investigators wouldn't find most personal information useful.

[RLMullen]

Was that a judicial opinion or marketing copy???

[GreenGoo]

In contrast, U.S. District Judge William Pauley out of NY disagrees:

"The government learned from its mistake

Eh? Did he just call the constitution of the United States a mistake that has since been corrected? Because that's how I read it.

[Pyperkub]

Yeah,I see nothing in that quote about the legality or constitutionality of the program (nor the effectiveness). What a tool!

[pr0ner]

I'd like to note for the record that Leon is a Bush appointee and Pauley is a Clinton appointee.

[Isgrimnur]

Remember the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board? Me neither.

A once-neglected and overlooked executive branch oversight board declared today that the NSA’s bulk telephone metadata snooping is illegal, does little to combat terrorism, and should be ended.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board’s 3-2 conclusion that the program “implicates constitutional concerns” is not binding on the government and comes a week after President Barack Obama announced major changes to the snooping program based on recommendations from a different review board.

The panel’s investigation, proposed last year by Sen. Tom Udall (D-New Mexico), examined one of the largest known privacy breaches in the nation’s history disclosed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in June. Despite contrary assertions from intelligence officials, the panel found that the spying did little, if anything, to combat terrorism.
...
The three members were David Medine, a former associate director of the Federal Trade Commission, Patricia Wald, a former federal judge and James Dempsey, a privacy attorney with the Center for Democracy & Technology.
...
Dissenting board members were former Justice Department lawyers Rachel Brand and Elisabeth Collins Cook. Brand said they were “concerned about the detrimental effect this superfluous second-guessing can have on our national security agencies and their staff.”

The five-member board, created in 2004 on the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, first met in 2006. One member resigned a year later after the President George W. Bush administration made more than 200 revisions to its first report.

The board was subsequently transformed into an independent agency, with the power of subpoena and to review classified material. But the panel was virtually idle from 2008 until 2012, when four board members were confirmed by the Senate, with the fifth one last year.

[hepcat]

In spite of their previous full support at a gathering during the winter of 2006 (after the New York Times revealed that the NSA during Bush's administration had performed wiretaps of American citizens without warrants), the RNC now wants you to know it's wrong.

Ah well, it'll be okay for them again if a repub becomes POTUS. Of course, then the Dems will speak out...

[LordMortis]

“Do Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean really think that when the NSA is listening in on terrorists planning attacks on America, they need to hang up when those terrorists dial their sleeper cells inside the United States?” Ken Mehlman, then RNC chair, told the RNC gathering in his keynote speech at the time.

Well obviously they don't and now they're proving it.

[Rip]

A woman who was detained without cause at Indianapolis International Airport has filed suit saying federal officials violated her constitutional rights.

The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on behalf of Christine Von Der Haar, a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Indiana University. In June of 2012, Von Der Haar accompanied a friend to the airport’s office of Customs and Border Protection to pick up computer equipment he had shipped separately when he flew to Indianapolis a few days earlier. The customs agent, after asking the couple if they were planning to marry, questioned them separately about email communications and the nature of their relationship, and confined Dr. Von Der Haar in a guarded room for more than 20 minutes.

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

"This case raises troubling issues about the power of the government to detain and question citizens," said ACLU of Indiana Legal Director Kenneth Falk, who represents Von Der Haar.

https://www.aclu.org/national-security/ ... files-suit

[Rip]

Touche' Mr. Snowden.

The whistleblower Edward Snowden accused the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee of double standards on Tuesday, pointing out that her outrage at evidence her staff were spied on by the CIA was not matched by concern about widespread surveillance of ordinary citizens.

Snowden, the former contractor whose disclosures to journalists revealed widespread surveillance by the National Security Agency, was responding to an explosive statement by Senator Dianne Feinstein about the CIA’s attempts to undermine a congressional investigation into interrogation and detention.

In a surprisingly combative statement on the Senate floor on Tuesday, Feinstein, who has been widely criticised by privacy experts for failing to hold the NSA to account, accused the CIA of conducting potentially unconstitutional and criminal searches on computers used by her staff.

The remarks put the Democratic senator on a collision course with the CIA’s director, John Brennan, who strongly denied “hacking” the committee’s computers. Feinstein described the controversy as “a defining moment for the oversight of our intelligence community”.

In a statement to NBC News, Snowden said: “It’s clear the CIA was trying to play ‘keep away’ with documents relevant to an investigation by their overseers in Congress, and that’s a serious constitutional concern.”

Snowden, who is in Russia on temporary asylum, added: “But it’s equally if not more concerning that we’re seeing another ‘Merkel effect,’ where an elected official does not care at all that the rights of millions of ordinary citizens are violated by our spies, but suddenly it’s a scandal when a politician finds out the same thing happens to them.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/m ... sy-nsa-cia

[Pyperkub]

Yeah - Feinstein is being really hypocritical about this issue - she tends to be a hawk (esp for a Democrat), but she's IMHO pretty clueless when it comes to technology - taking the word of lobbyists and others at face value (e.g. she doesn't understand why so many actual Californians were cheesed off at her SOPA/PIPA bill - the entertainment industry loved it!).

[Rip]

As part of its efforts to install malware on “millions” of computers worldwide, the National Security Agency impersonated Facebook to trick targets into downloading malicious code.

“In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social media site as a launching pad to infect a target’s computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive,” reports The Intercept in its latest expose based on top-secret documents obtained by Edward Snowden.

“[The NSA] has sent out spam emails laced with the malware, which can be tailored to covertly record audio from a computer’s microphone and take snapshots with its webcam. The hacking systems have also enabled the NSA to launch cyberattacks by corrupting and disrupting file downloads or denying access to websites.”

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/03/12/ ... latestnews

As if Chinese and Russian hackers weren't bad enough, it seems the NSA likes wasting our tax dollars on bullshit as well.

[Pyperkub]

As part of its efforts to install malware on “millions” of computers worldwide, the National Security Agency impersonated Facebook to trick targets into downloading malicious code.

“In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social media site as a launching pad to infect a target’s computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive,” reports The Intercept in its latest expose based on top-secret documents obtained by Edward Snowden.

“[The NSA] has sent out spam emails laced with the malware, which can be tailored to covertly record audio from a computer’s microphone and take snapshots with its webcam. The hacking systems have also enabled the NSA to launch cyberattacks by corrupting and disrupting file downloads or denying access to websites.”

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/03/12/ ... latestnews

As if Chinese and Russian hackers weren't bad enough, it seems the NSA likes wasting our tax dollars on bullshit as well.

If Facebook is used as a communication tool amongst those who would target us, this could be invaluable. Terrorists don't read terms and conditions either...

[Pyperkub]

Think warrantless metadata collection is ok? Just remember this - according to the former Director of the CIA and NSA - We kill people based on metadata:

As NSA General Counsel Stewart Baker has said, “metadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody’s life. If you have enough metadata, you don’t really need content.” When I quoted Baker at a recent debate at Johns Hopkins University, my opponent, General Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA and the CIA, called Baker’s comment “absolutely correct,” and raised him one, asserting, “We kill people based on metadata.”

Edit - in other words, enough gossip and you don't need actual facts to kill someone.

[malchior]

Think warrantless metadata collection is ok? Just remember this - according to the former Director of the CIA and NSA - We kill people based on metadata:

As NSA General Counsel Stewart Baker has said, “metadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody’s life. If you have enough metadata, you don’t really need content.” When I quoted Baker at a recent debate at Johns Hopkins University, my opponent, General Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA and the CIA, called Baker’s comment “absolutely correct,” and raised him one, asserting, “We kill people based on metadata.”

Edit - in other words, enough gossip and you don't need actual facts to kill someone.

I don't think it is *that* out there. I can think of an example where only metadata would likely be sufficient evidence. You could have someone making a pattern of communications to people you do have facts on. For instance, you have a guy who talks to a known operations leaders, a known bombmaker, etc. and raise your certainty that the person is involved in a terrorist activity. In addition, they are making purchases of airline tickets or materials or other pieces of data. At some point there will be a very high confidence level that the person is a threat. Do we really have to sneak someone in to their house to get bulletproof evidence they are involved? That seems sort of silly and dangerous for our personnel.