NSA

Powerful Op-Ed: “As a Democrat, I am Disgusted with President Obama”

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What are you thinking, Mr President?

Is this really the legacy you want for yourself: the chief executive who trampled rights, destroyed privacy, heightened secrecy, ruined trust, and worst of all, did not defend but instead detoured around so many of the fundamental principles on which this country is founded?

And I voted for you. I’ll confess you were a second choice. I supported Hillary Clinton first. I said at the time that your rhetoric about change was empty and that I feared you would be another Jimmy Carter: aggressively ineffectual.

Never did I imagine that you would instead become another Richard Nixon: imperial, secretive, vindictive, untrustworthy, inexplicable.

– Jeff Jarvis in the Guardian

Jeff Jarvis is a journalist, a professor and a self-proclaimed Democrat. While my readers know all too well what I think about these fraudulent political mafias, I mean parties, the older generation still has an archaic attachment to them. I suspect this emanates from some long forgotten time when there was actually a meaningful difference between the two.

Personally, I am quite pleased that pretty much nobody I know from my generation or below identifies with such silly notions as being a “Republican” or “Democrat.” However, I recognize that it does still retain meaning to a majority within the older generations, so when one of of them who identifies with a particular party becomes so disgusted that they turn on their tribal affiliation’s leadership, it can present a significant moment. I believe that Jeff Jarvis has created one of those moments and I strongly suggest you read his op-ed. From The Guardian:

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Do Not Fly…Through London: Glenn Greenwald’s Partner Detained For 9 Hours, Electronics Confiscated

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A month ago, I wrote a piece titled: If Flying into the UK, Your Phone Can Be Seized and Data Downloaded Without Suspicion. As you might suspect, the focus of the piece was something called schedule 7 of the UK’s Terrorism Act of 2000, which allows authorities to stop and search  people “without prior authorization or reasonable suspicion.” Not only that, they are not automatically permitted access to legal counsel during the interrogation and they must cooperate. Oh, and your electronic devices can be confiscated.

I chose to write that article at the time to highlight the myriad ways it could be grossly abused. Well now we a very high profile example of such abuse as Glenn Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda was stopped for nine hours (the maximum allowed), his electronics were confiscated, and we have no explanation from the Home Office as to why he was considered a terrorist threat.

Here’s an idea for investigative journalists and activists worldwide. Do not fly through the UK unless you absolutely have to. More from The Guardian:

The partner of the Guardian journalist who has written a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programmes by the US National Security Agency was held for almost nine hours on Sunday by UK authorities as he passed through London’s Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.

David Miranda, who lives with Glenn Greenwald, was returning from a trip to Berlin when he was stopped by officers at 8.05 am and informed that he was to be questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The controversial law, which applies only at airports, ports and border areas, allows officers to stop, search, question and detain individuals.

The 28-year-old was held for nine hours, the maximum the law allows before officers must release or formally arrest the individual. Accordingto official figures, most examinations under schedule 7 – over 97% – last under an hour, and only one in 2,000 people detained are kept for more than six hours.

Miranda was released, but officials confiscated electronics equipment including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles.

“This is a profound attack on press freedoms and the news gathering process,” Greenwald said. “To detain my partner for a full nine hours while denying him a lawyer, and then seize large amounts of his possessions, is clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and GCHQ. The actions of the UK pose a serious threat to journalists everywhere.

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Meet the NSA’s “Fat Finger”

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James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has acknowledged that the court found the NSA in breach of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, but the Obama administration has fought a Freedom of Information lawsuit that seeks the opinion.

Generally, the NSA reveals nothing in public about its errors and infractions. The unclassified versions of the administration’s semiannual reports to Congress feature blacked-out pages under the headline “Statistical Data Relating to Compliance Incidents.”

From the Washington Post’s groundbreaking article from last evening

For those of you not familiar with Wall Street lingo, people in the financial industry refer to an outsized move in the markets resulting from a human error as a “fat finger,” ie someone pressed the wrong key when placing an order. Unfortunately for us all, it appears the NSA has a surveillance fat finger. Who would’ve guessed it!

In this case, I am referring to last night’s Washington Post article in which the paper reveals that the NSA intercepted a “large number” of calls within the Washington D.C. area supposedly because they mistook D.C.’s area code with the country code of Egypt. Um, ok.

However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are countless disturbing revelations outlined in this article, one that was based on documents provided by Edward Snowden, the gift that keeps on giving. Another disturbing fact is that the NSA appears to have purposely withheld information from the parties that are supposed to be overseeing it in order to hide its crimes. Oh, and Mr. President of Transparency Obama is fighting to prevent the public from seeing the opinion of the FISA court that states NSA activities are unconstitutional.  More from the Washington Post:

The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

In one instance, the NSA decided that it need not report the unintended surveillance of Americans. A notable example in 2008 was the interception of a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused the U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt, according to a “quality assurance” review that was not distributed to the NSA’s oversight staff.

In another case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has authority over some NSA operations, did not learn about a new collection method until it had been in operation for many months. The court ruled it unconstitutional.

The Obama administration has provided almost no public information about the NSA’s compliance record. In June, after promising to explain the NSA’s record in “as transparent a way as we possibly can,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole described extensive safeguards and oversight that keep the agency in check. “Every now and then, there may be a mistake,” Cole said in congressional testimony.

I suppose in NSA lingo “every now and then” means thousands of times a year.

“We’re a human-run agency operating in a complex environment with a number of different regulatory regimes, so at times we find ourselves on the wrong side of the line,” a senior NSA official said in an interview, speaking with White House permission on the condition of anonymity.

Anonymity for them, transparency for us!

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Meet The Meshnet: A New Wave of Decentralized Internet Access

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Across the US, from Maryland to Seattle, work is underway to construct user-owned wireless networks that will permit secure communication without surveillance or any centralized organization. They are known as meshnets and ultimately, if their designers get their way, they will span the country.

– From the New Scientist article, Let’s Start the Net Again

In the wake of the NSA spy revelations, many people have become disillusioned or despondent regarding the seemingly unstoppable pervasiveness of the surveillance state. I am not one of those people. As James Baldwin famously stated: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

There’s a reason the highest levels of the U.S. military-industrial complex went to such extremes to keep all of this information hidden from the American public and much of Congress. They don’t want us to know that we are merely lab rats in their perverted real life Truman Show. What we don’t know about spying makes the spying all the more effective. I do not for a moment believe that they want us to know all of the details of this program so that we “self-censor.” All the evidence demonstrates that they wanted to keep this stuff deeply buried.

So now at least we all know we have a serious problem, or at least enough of us know. Now it is our duty to dismantle the surveillance state and create something better in its place. Fortunately, many very smart, dedicated people have already been working on this problem, and the information provided by Edward Snowden will merely accelerate our implementation of solutions. One exciting example of this are Meshnets. From the New Scientist:

The internet is neither neutral nor private, in case you were in any doubt. The US National Security Agency can reportedly collect nearly everything a user does on the net, while internet service providers (ISPs) move traffic according to business agreements, rather than what is best for its customers. So some people have decided to take matters into their own hands, and are building their own net from scratch.

Across the US, from Maryland to Seattle, work is underway to construct user-owned wireless networks that will permit secure communication without surveillance or any centralized organization. They are known as meshnets and ultimately, if their designers get their way, they will span the country.

Each node in the mesh, consisting of a radio transceiver and a computer, relays messages from other parts of the network. If the data can’t be passed by one route, the meshnet finds an alternative way through to its destination.

While these projects are just getting off the ground, a mesh network in Catalonia, Spain, is going from strength to strength. Guifi was started in the early 2000s by Ramon Roca, an Oracle employee who wanted broadband at his rural home. The local network now has more than 21,000 wireless nodes, spanning much of Catalonia. As well as allowing users to communicate with each other, Guifi also hosts web servers, videoconferencing services and internet radio broadcasts, all of which would work if the internet went down for the rest of the country.

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Department of Homeland Security Warns Employees: They Face “Legal Action” for Clicking on a Link

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You know a government has lost all credibility and is nothing more than a rotting carcass of corruption and criminality when it starts taking draconian steps to prevent its own employees from knowing the truth about what it is doing. Incredibly, an internal memo from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last Friday to employees … Read more

Privacy Focused Storage Device “Plug” Raises Over $350,000 on Kickstarter in Five Days

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I’m not sure that the NSA would find great interest in analyzing my life and conversations. However I do like the idea of being protected and of having control. And I love the idea that Plug can bring this control back to non-geek people.

– Severin Marcombes, CEO of Cloud Guys, maker of “Plug”

One of the most exciting trends to have emerged in 2013, is the explosion of extremely smart, privacy focused entrepreneurs creating products that will ultimately free us from the oppressive, centralized state humanity has been forced to live under for so long. Whether we are talking about the efforts of Kim Dotcom, DuckDuckGo, Xmission, or Cloud Guys, this trend is hear to stay and makes me extremely optimistic about the future.

Every single macro trend I see on the planet at the moment seems to be pushing us toward decentralization, such as Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies, 3D-printing, alternative media and crowd funding sources such as Kickstarter. The future looks very bright once we forever shed the shackles of centralized power and brute force. From the Huffington Post:

Support for a data-storage device that could potentially combat the government’s data-collection surveillance program known as PRISM has skyrocketed online. In just two days, the developers have received more than $200,000 in donations via Kickstarter.

As I mentioned, this number is now up to $365,000. The initial goal was $69,000, which was achieved in 12 hours.

Plug is a small USB adapter that can store and transfer all content without the need for the Cloud or third-party services. The device, which has been in development for two years, was created by the brains at Cloud Guys Corporation, a start-up company based in Colorado.

Go Colorado!

With Plug, all storage is private, and files are not uploaded to the Cloud, the group explains. No external company is involved, and nothing is sent to a server. Communication between devices is encrypted for added security, and website developers can use Plug for storage.

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German Artist Faces Criminal Charges for Projecting Kim Dotcom Image on U.S. Embassy

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In case you missed it, last Sunday German artist Oliver Bienkowski projected a giant image of Kim Dotcom on the U.S. embassy in Berlin coupled with the phrase “United Stasi of America.” The entire thing lasted about 30 seconds and was extremely good natured and humorous. However, it seems German “authorities” don’t appreciate being out-Stasied by the … Read more

Meet Xmission: The ISP Focused on Privacy

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Earlier this week, I highlighted alternative search engine DuckDuckGo, which focuses on privacy and claims that: “if the NSA demanded data there would be none to hand over.” Today’s article focuses on a little known internet service provider (ISP) called Xmission, which is based in Utah and has 30,000 subscribers. Ironically, it is situated close to the NSA’s new multi-billion dollar spy center and it has received rave reviews from the always excellent Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF). It’s founder, Pete Ashdown is a brave man who, unlike his larger tech peers, has consistently stood up to the government and intelligence services to protect his customers’ Constitutional rights. From The Guardian:

Silicon Valley’s role in US government surveillance has triggered public anxiety about the internet, but it turns out there is at least one tech company you can trust with your data. The only problem: it’s a relative minnow in the field, operating from offices in Utah.

Xmission, Utah’s first independent and oldest internet service provider, has spent the past 15 years resolutely shielding customers’ privacy from government snoops in a way that larger rivals appear to have not.

The company, a comparative midget with just 30,000 subscribers, cited the Fourth Amendment in rebuffing warrantless requests from local, state and federal authorities, showing it was possible to resist official pressure.

“I would tell them I didn’t need to respond if they didn’t have a warrant, that (to do so) wouldn’t be constitutional,” the founder and chief executive, Pete Ashdown, said in an interview at his Salt Lake City headquarters.

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The 3 Key Takeaways from the Ridiculous “Insider Threat Program”

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McClatchy’s recent report covering the government’s expansive employee snitch policy, aka the Insider Threat Program, has gotten a great deal of attention in the alternative media, and rightfully so. I finally took the time to read it and quickly realized that I need to offer my own take since it encapsulates so much of the severe mental illness, delusion and sociopathy rampant within the so-called American “elite” class.

The first line of the report pretty much summarizes what the Insider Threat Program intends to do:

“In an initiative aimed at rooting out future leakers and other security violators, President Barack Obama has ordered federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues.”

There are three main takeaways from this revelation I think are crucial to be aware of.  I will cover each of them briefly.

1) This creates a horrible and counterproductive work environment where everyone distrusts everyone else.

So imagine working for the government and being fully aware that because you are going through a divorce or having some financial difficulties that you are now deemed “suspicious” to your superiors.  What about voicing a political view in a conversation at the water cooler? The mere fact that this program exists turns the work environment into a virtual prison where all normal human behavior is suspect and you are encouraged to become a government robot.  But it’s even worse than that.  This program guarantees that the nastiest and most immoral types will rise to the top. Someone with sociopathic tendencies will quickly realize that the “upside” is to always snitch on everyone. Is there someone right above you who’s position you covet?  Simply make consistent accusations against them and play the political game until you ruin that person. This works particularly well if your target is a decent person.

2) Solidifies the fact the government is not interested in solving problems, but rather is focused on continuing the cronyism and criminality and merely covering it up.

The above point basically summarizes everything that is wrong with all of our major institutions today, and why we have total political and economic disfunction. This is a topic I have covered for many, many years with regard to the financial system. The reason the economy has not really recovered and why it will not enter into a healthy recovery is that our “leaders” merely covered up all of the bubbles and crimes pre-2008.  Not only did no one go to jail, but those most responsible for the crisis were rewarded with high political positions (Larry Summers and Tim Geithner) and also monetarily through bailouts. The same thing is now happening with the NSA scandal. Rather than addressing this gross violation of the 4th Amendment as well as Clapper lying in front of Congress, the power structure is focused on making sure its crimes aren’t revealed going forward. Whistleblowers are prosecuted and jailed, while those in power destroying the Constitution are promoted. This guarantees future societal breakdown.

3) Exposes how completely hopeless and terminal the status quo is.

This is the silver lining to the entire thing. I have covered previously how the status quo has no philosophy the masses can believe in. Its position of power depends on its crimes being hidden in the shadows and enormous payoffs (or threats) for those at the top directly involved in the pillaging. Once the scam is exposed, the public will ultimately turn against the system. This is why Snowden’s leaks are so important and why the status quo is panicking. One of the things McClatchy notes is that one trend the government is looking out for is: “an increasingly disgruntled, post-Great Recession workforce and the entry of younger, ‘Gen Y’ employees who were ‘raised on the Internet.'”  Sorry, but a power structure this frightened of the younger generation cannot and will not survive. It is simply a matter of time.

Now here are some key excerpts from the McClatchy report:

WASHINGTON — In an initiative aimed at rooting out future leakers and other security violators, President Barack Obama has ordered federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues based on behavioral profiling techniques that are not scientifically proven to work, according to experts and government documents.

The techniques are a key pillar of the Insider Threat Program, an unprecedented government-wide crackdown under which millions of federal bureaucrats and contractors must watch out for “high-risk persons or behaviors” among co-workers. Those who fail to report them could face penalties, including criminal charges.

The order covers virtually every federal department and agency, including the Peace Corps, the Department of Education and others not directly involved in national security.

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How Much is Your Private Data Worth?

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Interesting article from the Star Tribune that shines a small degree of light on the fees telecommunication companies and others charge the U.S. government for your personal data.  Interestingly, while AT&T charges a $325 million activation fee per wiretap and $10 a day for maintenance, “Facebook doesn’t charge the government for access.”  That’s mighty generous of you Mr. Zuckerberg.

Also of interest, is the revelation that AT&T devotes roughly 100 employees to review each request and hand over data, while Verizon has a team of 70 employees that work around the clock on spying.  More below:

In the era of intense government surveillance and secret court orders, a murky multimillion-dollar market has emerged. Paid for by U.S. tax dollars, but with little public scrutiny, surveillance fees charged in secret by technology and phone companies can vary wildly.

AT&T, for example, imposes a $325 “activation fee” for each wiretap and $10 a day to maintain it. Smaller carriers Cricket and U.S. Cellular charge only about $250 per wiretap. But snoop on a Verizon customer? That costs the government $775 for the first month and $500 each month after that, according to industry disclosures made last year to Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.

Meanwhile, email records like those amassed by the National Security Agency through a program revealed by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden probably were collected for free or very cheaply. Facebook says it doesn’t charge the government for access.  And while Microsoft, Yahoo and Google won’t say how much they charge, the American Civil Liberties Union found that email records can be turned over for as little as $25. 

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