NSA

Meet the Contractors: America’s “Digital Blackwater”

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The acronyms are seemingly endless.  From SAIC and CACI to CSC, there are many companies you’ve probably never heard of making billions of dollars spying on you and your friends and family.  As I mentioned yesterday when I highlighted how Booz Allen Hamilton earns 99% of its revenue from the U.S. government and that a substantial number of its contracts are “secret,” this entire thing is simply a gigantic racket and a very dangerous one at that.  It’d be one thing if these so-called “private” contractors were merely funneling billions of dollars of taxpayer money to themselves like the bankers and their allies at the Federal Reserve do each day, but these contractors are also destroying the Bill of Rights and Constitution at the same time.

Tim Shorrock has written an excellent article on all this for Salon.  Below are some excerpts:

Amid the torrent of stories about the shocking new revelations about the National Security Agency, few have bothered to ask a central question. Who’s actually doing the work of analyzing all the data, metadata and personal information pouring into the agency from Verizon and nine key Internet service providers for its ever-expanding surveillance of American citizens?

The revelation is not that surprising. With about 70 percent of our national intelligence budgets being spent on the private sector  – a discovery I made in 2007 and first reported in Salon – contractors have become essential to the spying and surveillance operations of the NSA.

From Narus, the Israeli-born Boeing subsidiary that makes NSA’s high-speed interception software, to CSC, the “systems integrator” that runs NSA’s internal IT system, defense and intelligence, contractors are making millions of dollars selling technology and services that help the world’s largest surveillance system spy on you. If the 70 percent figure is applied to the NSA’s estimated budget of $8 billion a year (the largest in the intelligence community), NSA contracting could reach as high as $6 billion every year.

But it’s probably much more than that.

With many of these contractors now focused on cyber-security, Hayden has even coined a new term — “Digital Blackwater” – for the industry. “I use that for the concept of the private sector in cyber,” he told a recent conference in Washington, in an odd reference to the notorious mercenary army. “I saw this in government and saw it a lot over the last four years. The private sector has really moved forward in terms of providing security,” he said. Hayden himself has cashed out too: He is now a principal with the Chertoff Group, the intelligence advisory company led by Michael Chertoff, the former secretary of Homeland Security.

So Hayden actually used the term “Digital Blackwater” in a positive sense.  What more do you need to know?

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Sales of George Orwell’s 1984 Have Soared 126%

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I first read this story earlier in the day via the Washington Examiner.  That was a few hours ago and at the time their story stated sales were up a mere 69%.  They subsequently  updated the article to inform readers that sales had risen to up 91%.  Well I just checked for myself and the … Read more

Video of the Day: Ron Paul Warns of Electronic Surveillance back in…1984

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There are three words that come to mind when I think of Ron Paul; principles, credibility and consistency.  Not only is the video below great because we get to see Dr. Paul speak on the Congressional floor thirty years younger, but also because he was adamantly criticizing civil liberties threats in the context of a … Read more

Meet the Whistleblower: Edward Snowden

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In a courageous and brilliant strategic move, the whistleblower everyone is talking about has come forward and revealed his identity as well as current location.  His name is Edward Snowden, he is 29 years old and has fled to Hong Kong.  He was most recently working with the NSA as a contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton.  If you recall, Booz Allen Hamilton is one of the defense contractors that activist and unofficial Anonymous spokesperson Barrett Brown was investigating when he was arrested and turned into a political prisoner. As might be expected, The Guardian has broken Mr. Snowden’s story.  Some choice excerpts are below:

The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,” he said.

In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: “I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions,” but “I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.”

He has had “a very comfortable life” that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. “I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”

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Martin Luther King: “Everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was Legal”

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Even if you have read Martin Luther King’s celebrated “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” I insist you read it again. For those that have never read it, the inspired prose may very well change your life.  The letter’s message is eternal and extraordinarily relevant in the current global struggle of the 99.9% against the criminality, corruption and oppression of a very small, but very powerful 0.01%.  One of the key tactics this tiny minority uses is to claim that their immoral deeds are “legal.”  He spends much of his time in the letter outlining the distinction between “just laws” and an “unjust laws,” and one of the key points he makes that we should all keep close to our hearts and minds in these trying times is:

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers.

I also think it’s important to recognize that many of his contemporaries referred to his tactics as “extremist,” very similar to how the term “terrorist” is used currently to demonize public dissent in America.  Below are some of the excepts I found most powerful:

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

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Flashback to 2007: Obama’s Speech on Warrantless Wiretapping

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At this point we all understand that there is absolutely zero in common with Presidential-candidate Barack Obama and President Barack Obama.  He has so consistently lied while in office I have become convinced that he ranks deception as one of his most cherished hobbies.  Right up there with rounds of golf and posing for pictures … Read more

So Who is James Comey, Obama’s Nominee to Head the FBI?

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In light of the latest revelations that the NSA is spying on the communications of millions of Verizon customers courtesy of information provided by the FBI, it probably makes sense to know a little more about Obama’s nominee to head that Bureau.  That man is James Comey, and he was a top Department of Justice attorney under John Ashcroft during the George W. Bush Administration (since then he has worked at Lockheed Martin and at the enormous Connecticut hedge fund Bridgewater Associates).  This guy defines the revolving door cancer ruining these United States.

Comey’s defenders point out that he stood up to some of the more egregious spy programs that Bush officials wanted to pursue, and that he also expressed reservations about the torture program.  Nevertheless, he signed off on, and provided the legal justification for both.  This is the man being recycled back through the revolving door by Obama.  I have read many articles on Mr. Comey ever since it surfaced he would be nominated and, as usual, Glenn Greenwald did the best work.  From the Guardian:

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The IRS Claims it Can Read Your Email…Without a Warrant

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Truly remarkable how the establishment views the citizenry.  They quite clearly and openly view themselves as having full ownership of our lives, our work and our privacy.  Actually, they do not think we deserve to have privacy at all.  This is the exact mindset of all tyrannical regimes throughout human history, which is precisely why the founders made sure to include the 4th Amendment in the Constitution of these United States.  For those of you that need a reminder.

The 4th Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

So with that in mind, this is what the IRS thinks.  From the Huffington Post:

NEW YORK — IRS documents released Wednesday suggest that the tax collection agency believes it can read American citizens’ emails without a warrant.

The files were released to the American Civil Liberties Union under a Freedom of Information Act request. The organization is working to determine just how broadly federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI or the IRS’ Criminal Tax Division interpret their authority to snoop through inboxes.

The idea of IRS agents poking through your email account might sound at the very least creepy, and maybe unconstitutional. But the IRS does have a legal leg to stand on: the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 allows government agencies to in many cases obtain emails older than 180 days without a warrant.

In 1986 they decided this?  Who used email in 1986?

That’s why an internal 2009 IRS document claimed that “the government may obtain the contents of electronic communication that has been in storage for more than 180 days” without a warrant.

Another 2009 file, the IRS Criminal Tax Division’s “Search Warrant Handbook,” showed that the division’s general counsel believed “the Fourth Amendment does not protect communications held in electronic storage, such as email messages stored on a server, because internet users do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

What kind of crazy logic is that.  Says who?

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Interview #3 with Blacklisted News: A Deep Dive Debate on Bitcoin

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I really had a ton of fun recording this interview a few days ago with the always excellent Blacklisted News.  We engage in a lively debate about Bitcoin, which should prove particularly interesting to those that are on the fence about the crypto-currency.  Doug is a skeptic and plays devil’s advocate on many occasions. That … Read more

Bitcoin and Kim Dotcom: Why it’s Time to “Encrypt Everything”

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Encryption may end up being the biggest trend in 2013, as the concept, usage and term itself move from the realm of computer geeks and hackers into mainstream consciousness.  The reason why such a moment must occur relates to the fact that governments and intelligence agencies the world over are rapidly moving in the direction … Read more