Obama Administration NSA Spying on Americans

[American Patriot]

Hey Brian B... Facebook doesn't matter any more. LOL

NSA spied on 'World of Warcraft,' other online games, leaked documents show

Published December 09, 2013FoxNews.com

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  Artwork depicts characters from the hit online game "World of Warcraft." (World of Warcraft)
  
  
  
  

You can never trust a Halfling again.


The National Security Agency (NSA) and UK sister agency GCHQ sought to infiltrate the massive virtual worlds in online video games such as "World of Warcraft" and interactive environments like "Second Life," according to the latest secret documents stolen by Edward Snowden and jointly released by the Guardian, the New York Times and ProPublica.


According to a document titled “Exploiting Terrorist Use of Games & Virtual Environments,” the secretive spy agencies were concerned by potential terrorist use of such games and felt an immediate need to begin analyzing in-game communications as early as 2007.

'So many intelligence agents were conducting operations inside games that a "deconfliction" group was required to ensure they weren't spying on each other.'

- The Guardian



“[Certain] games offer realistic weapons training (what weapon to use against what target, what ranges can be achieved, even aiming and firing), military operations and tactics, photorealistic land navigation and terrain familiarization, and leadership skills,” the document notes. “Some of the 9-11 pilots had never flown a real plane, they had only trained using Microsoft’s Flight Simulator.”


“The Hizballah has even hooked up a PlayStation controller to a laptop in order to guide some of its real missiles,” it notes.


According to the Guardian, real-world agents were deployed into those virtual worlds to extract communications, recruit potential informants and keep tabs on potential terrorists.


“So many different U.S. intelligence agents were conducting operations inside games that a ‘deconfliction’ group was required to ensure they weren't spying on, or interfering with, each other,” wrote the Guardian.


The documents don’t indicate whether the push led to any usable information, nor whether any terrorist plots were detected or foiled in "World of Warcraft" or other virtual environments.


The NSA, Microsoft and Second Life creator Philip Rosedale all declined to comment, the paper noted. But Blizzard Entertainment, the creator of "World of Warcraft," said it was unaware of any attempts to monitor terrorist activity in its game.


"We are unaware of any surveillance taking place," a spokesman said. "If it was, it would have been done without our knowledge or permission."

[American Patriot]

FBI can spy on you through your webcam without triggering the indicator light... and has had the technology for several years

• FBI has had secret webcam spying technology 'for several years'
• Technique activates a webcam without turning on the recording light
• The same malware has been used illegally by 'ratting' hackers
  

By Sara Malm
PUBLISHED: 07:25 EST, 9 December 2013 | UPDATED: 12:55 EST, 9 December 2013


The US government has been able to secretly spy on its citizens through their computer’s webcams for several years, it has been revealed.


The FBI has long been able to activate a computer’s camera without triggering the ‘recording light’ to let the owner know the webcam is on, a former assistant director of its tech division has said.


Their usage of remote administration tools (RATs) comes to light as the world's most powerful technology firms call on Barack Obama to curb government spying on internet users.

Eye spy: The FBI can activate a computer¿s camera without letting the owner know it is recording, a former employee has revealed




The FBI have been able to use the spyware technology for years and have put it in place in terrorism cases or the most serious criminal investigations, Marcus Thomas, former assistant director of the FBI’s Operational Technology Division in Quantico, told the Washington Post.
Although the FBI reportedly uses 'ratting' sparingly, they have been rejected remotely activating video feeds on at least one occasion, in Houston, Texas, in December last year.


The FBI were investigating a suspect in a bank fraud case, but the presiding judge ruled that the risk of accidentally obtaining information of innocent people was too great.

Hacking into webcams using remote administration tools, also known as ‘ratting’, to spy on women and ‘enslave’ them by controlling their computers and secretly filming and taking pictures is not a new phenomenon but has grown in the past year.


Here's looking at you, kid: The malware is activated by emailing a link which tricks the computer user to download a spying software onto their machine




Earlier this year, tech site Arstechnica revealed that one of the 'slave forums' had 23 million total posts, where ‘ratters’ boasted about their ‘slaves’ posting pictures, mainly of women, unaware that they were being watched.


The FBI team use the same technique as ratters, by infecting the computer with a malicious software – ‘malware – through phishing.


By sending an email with a link, which could be to a website, an image or a video, the user is tricked into downloading a small piece of software onto their machine.

Reveal: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, revealed top secret US surveillance programmes to alert the public of what is being done in their name




Once installed, the malware allows the FBI to take control of the computer and the webcam at any time, working similarly to the system large corporations use to update software and fix IT problems.
‘We have transitioned into a world where law enforcement is hacking into people’s computers, and we have never had public debate,’ Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union told the Post.
‘Judges are having to make up these powers as they go along.’
Earlier today, CEO’s of Apple, Facebook, Google, AOL, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo united to call on the US government to cease online spying on its citizens.
The open letter to the President and Congress reads: 'We understand that governments have a duty to protect their citizens. But this summer's revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide.
'The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual - rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. This undermines the freedoms we all cherish. It's time for change.
The rare show of unity by usually fierce competitors is seen as a reflection of the damage in public confidence inflicted by leaks from Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower.
Earlier this year he revealed how U.S. and British spy agencies were able to harvest huge amounts of data - including emails and search history - on millions of people by tapping into internet servers.

[American Patriot]

siliconANGLE » Is the FBI watching you through your web cam?
Is the FBI watching you through your web cam?

Mike Wheatley | December 9th
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We know that the FBI, NSA and other agencies have the ability to scan and read our emails almost at will, but according to a report over the weekend, its surveillance capabilities extend far beyond that. In one of the creepiest revelations we’ve seen so far this year – and we’ve seen lots of creepy stuff – it’s claimed the FBI has now developed software that allows it to covertly activate web cams and spy on unsuspecting computer users.


According to the Washington Post, tech savvy spooks have developed a technique that allows them to remotely switch on web cams and transmit real-time images to investigators, without triggering that tell-tale red light which normally indicates the camera is switched on. In addition, the FBI also has the power to dig into user’s files, and download data from their machines.


The FBI’s frightening new capability was revealed following an investigation into a mysterious terror suspect named “Mo”, who threatened to plant bombs in an airport, a jail, a hotel and three college buildings unless Colorado movie-theater shooting suspect James Holmes was released from custody.


Investigators now believe the threats were a hoax, as no bombs were found at the locations he mentioned.


“Mo” is reported to made several contacts with authorities since July 2012, using either an encrypted phone or an untraceable email account. Indeed, Mo was so confident that he couldn’t be tracked, he even sent the FBI photos of himself, decked out in Iranian military fatigues.


Unable to track Mo down using conventional means, the FBI sent the suspect an email containing new software it had developed, designed to automatically install itself on his computer when he read the message. The Washington Post reports that the software was designed to help investigators track Mo’s location, but failed to work properly and so the suspect was never found.


However, a former FBI employee told the Washington Post that one of the software’s main capabilities was to give agents control over the suspect’s computer – a capability that it’s apparently had “for several years.”


It’s not clear how many times the FBI has actually tried to use the software, but the Washington Post’s source said that it only did so in the “most serious” investigations.

In the case of Mo, authority to do so was granted by a Denver judge – but when agents tried to do so in another case, a Houston judge barred them from doing so, saying that the method was “extremely intrusive”.


Though few people will be surprised that the FBI possesses this kind of capability, it nevertheless remains highly controversial and has been criticized by civil rights advocates.


“We have transitioned into a world where law enforcement is hacking into people’s computers and we have never had public debate,” said Christopher Soghoian of the American Civil Liberties Union, to the paper.

[American Patriot]

Larry Klayman crows on NSA win: ‘We hit the mother lode’

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'It was the biggest decision in the context of the government in my lifetime.' | AP Photo




By JOSH GERSTEIN | 12/17/13 8:58 AM EST Updated: 12/17/13 10:41 AM EST
Larry Klayman’s long journey in the legal wilderness appears to be over.
Klayman, the conservative legal activist well-known in Washington political circles a decade ago for his no-holds-barred court battles against the Clinton administration, was thrust back into the spotlight Monday after he obtained the first major ruling from a federal judge that the National Security Agency’s surveillance program was constitutionally flawed.



“We hit the mother lode,” an elated Klayman said Monday, indulging in some of the hyperbole he became known for during his 1990s crusades. “It was the biggest decision in the context of the government in my lifetime. This is the most outrageous invasion of constitutional rights I’ve seen in my life.”
In recent years, the once-prominent Klayman has been associated with a series of causes at the fringe of the conservative movement, arguing that President Barack Obama is a closet Muslim and likely was born in Kenya. The legal gadfly has also struggled personally, drawing a public reprimand by the Florida Bar and declaring himself flat broke just three years ago.


(Also on POLITICO: NSA ruling fallout hits White House)


However, in winning the ruling Monday from U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon in Washington, the eccentric Klayman and his often comically shoestring conservative organization Freedom Watch effectively beat to the punch — and the headlines — a slew of better known civil liberties groups who have spent years fighting the NSA’s surveillance efforts.


“You got to keep punching. You never give up,” Klayman said when asked about the string of defeats he suffered before connecting on Monday.
NSA surveillance efforts have been the target of litigation for years, well before details of the operations of the programs became public and long before Klayman jumped into the legal fray over the issue.
(Also on POLITICO: Judge: NSA phone program likely unconstitutional)


A lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union filed on behalf of Amnesty International and others in 2008 made it all the way to the Supreme Court last year, but was thrown out in February in a 5-4 decision that found the plaintiffs lacked adequate proof their communications had been tracked or monitored by the government.


Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden changed that landscape a few months later by leaking a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court document confirming that Verizon was ordered to turn over to the government a huge volume of so-called metadata on calls placed through its network.


That leak, which appeared via the Guardian newspaper of Britain on June 5, sent NSA critics back to court.
(Also on POLITICO: NSA ruling wins cheers on Hill)


On June 11, the ACLU — a Verizon customer — filed a lawsuit in Manhattan on the group’s own behalf.


On July 16, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed suit in San Francisco on behalf of an agglomeration of groups, including anti-drug and gun rights organizations, as well as Greenpeace and Unitarian church groups.


But the indefatigable Klayman had already won the race to the courthouse. On June 6, just a day after the Guardian report, Klayman filed suit in Washington on his own behalf and on behalf of two clients — Charles and Mary Ann Strange, parents of a Navy SEAL killed in a disastrous helicopter crash in Afghanistan in 2011.
(Also on POLITICO: Krauthammer: Snowden not vindicated)


The suit led to a Nov. 18 hearing in front of Leon. Some reporters showed up expecting a perfunctory court session peppered with some outlandish claims by the always-colorful Klayman. Indeed, there were plenty of those.


Klayman said he and Charles Strange were being targeted by the government because of their claims relating to Strange’s son’s death, which include a complaint that a Muslim imam cursed the dead SEAL team members during a ceremony at Dover Air Force Base.


“My colleagues have received text messages I never sent,” Klayman told the judge. “I think they’re messing with me,” he said, referring to the government.
(Also on POLITICO: NSA probe: Snowden can still do damage)


Klayman implored the judge to rule against the NSA program not only on legal grounds but to avert what the conservative gadfly said was a violent revolution on the verge of breaking out due to the federal government’s unbridled use of power.


“We live in an Orwellian state,” Klayman said, warning that citizens angry about surveillance were about to “rise up.”


If litigation fails, “the only alternative is for people to take matters into their own hands,” he told Leon.


At another point, Klayman said he understood Snowden’s reluctance to return to the United States — the former contractor, he said, was likely to be killed if he came back.
Leon didn’t speak about a revolution in his ruling Monday, but he may have echoed Klayman at one juncture by calling the NSA’s technological capabilities “almost-Orwellian.”


While Klayman’s more provocative comments at the hearing prompted eye-rolling among some in the audience — and certainly differed from the way an ACLU lawyer would have presented the case — the conservative attorney did tick through the legal precedents.
Follow @politico

And both the judge and the Justice Department seemed to take the case seriously, though Leon gave few signs he was mulling a major public blow to the surveillance effort. In fact, the judge spent much of the hearing suggesting he had no authority to step into the case.
Klayman emerged in the 1990s as a kind of conservative legal foil to the Clinton administration, filing a series of lawsuits through his group Judicial Watch over what he deemed corruption. The group’s cases focused on issues like the White House’s receipt of FBI background files on the previous administration’s appointees and the role politics played in selecting participants in trade missions.
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Klayman’s legal fusillade often seemed less focused on winning than on making the cases as painful as possible for the administration, usually by seeking broad discovery of administration records and by forcing current and former administration officials to appear in depositions. Clinton aides like Harold Ickes and George Stephanopoulos spent hours in videotaped sessions in front of Klayman, with one involving questions about whether Stephanopoulos used a pen to take notes on set in his subsequent job at ABC News.


Klayman’s techniques were immortalized in the TV drama “The West Wing.” In the show, based on the Clinton White House, a lawyer named Harry Klaypool from a group called Freedom Watch uses a deposition to grill White House officials about drug use.


Klayman signaled Monday that as a result of Leon’s ruling prying inquiries will soon get under way in the NSA case.


“We’re heading to discovery. We’ve got an entree into the NSA,” he said.


In 2003, Klayman split with Judicial Watch. The breakup was acrimonious and, entirely unsurprisingly, wound up in contentious litigation.


After leaving the group, Klayman himself struggled to find traction. In 2004, he ran for the Republican nomination to a U.S. Senate seat in Florida. He came in seventh, with 1 percent of the vote. (Former Housing Secretary Mel Martinez scored the GOP nod with 45 percent of the vote, and ultimately won the seat.)


After the unsuccessful Senate bid, Klayman founded Freedom Watch, adopting the fictional name used by his “West Wing” character.


But he wound up taking run-of-the-mill criminal cases as well as unusual civil ones, like a former Washington Times editorial page editor’s suit against the paper over claims he was coerced to attend Unification Church services.


In 2007, Florida woman Natalia Humm alleged that Klayman took a $25,000 retainer and failed to work on her criminal case. He claimed the complaint was without merit but offered to settle with the woman for $5000. He was slow to pay the money, however, claiming “dire” financial distress caused by the economic downturn.


In 2011, the Florida Bar publicly reprimanded Klayman over the Humm matter, acting via a consent decree that preserved his law license.


Still, through Freedom Watch, Klayman has filed a series of cases against the Obama administration. One suit filed in 2009 charged that the White House had a “de facto” advisory committee of outsiders on health reform which met in secret in violation of federal law. A judge rejected the administration’s initial effort to have the case thrown out but finally nixed the suit in March of this year.


Klayman filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of Freedom Watch, in January challenging the Obama administration’s outreach in connection with the gun-related policy proposals crafted in the wake of the deadly 2012 shooting spree at a Connecticut elementary school. That suit ran into trouble after government lawyers questioned why it was filed in federal court in central Florida.


Klayman told the court that Freedom Watch had moved its “national headquarters” from Washington, D.C. to Ocala, Fla. However, a Justice Department filing in May said the new headquarters “is evidently a P.O. Box in [a] UPS store” in that city. A judge tossed the case in June, citing “improper venue,” and just last month rejected a request to reinstate the case.


Klayman’s foray into NSA litigation almost encountered a similar fate before its success on Monday. In October, Leon scheduled a scheduling conference in the case on two days notice, prompting Klayman — who said vaguely that he had “preexisting obligations in Los Angeles”— to ask to appear by phone. Leon denied the request.


Klayman then asked for a few days delay, which the judge also denied without comment. The conference went forward on Halloween without Klayman or anyone representing the plaintiffs, but — based on Monday’s ruling — his case apparently didn’t suffer for it.


“This is a fantastic decision,” Klayman said. “Our hats go off to Judge Leon, who did a courageous thing…


“This wasn’t on behalf of Larry Klayman. This was on behalf of the American people. I feel we’re in a revolutionary state. If the courts step in and start protecting people, hopefully, we can avoid that.”

[vector7]

Report: German Chancellor Compares NSA to Communist Stasi During Heated Exchange With Obama

Dec. 17, 2013 10:12pm

Jason Howerton

German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly compared the NSA’s spying tactics to those of the Stasi, a ruthless communist secret police force, during an angry conversation with President Barack Obama.


Furious over reports that the U.S. had listened to her personal mobile phone, Merkel reportedly confronted Obama. “This is like the Stasi,” she said, according to the Guardian.


President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrive at the G8 Summit (Photo: AP)

Merkel also told Obama it is clear that the NSA can’t be trusted due to the massive amount of information Edward Snowden was able to leak, the New York Times reports.

Snowden is scheduled to testify on NSA spying to a European parliament inquiry next month. U.S. lawmakers are upset over the decision and are pressuring the EU to cancel the testimony.

Rep. Mike Rodgers (R-Mich.) told the Guardian that inviting Snowden, “who is wanted in the U.S. and has jeopardized the lives of U.S. soldiers,” was irresponsible of the European parliament. When asked about Merkel’s alleged conversation with Obama, Rogers called it a “conversation that may or may not have occurred.”

[Ryan Ruck]

Secret Contract Tied NSA And Security Industry Pioneer

December 20, 2013

As a key part of a campaign to embed encryption software that it could crack into widely used computer products, the U.S. National Security Agency arranged a secret $10 million contract with RSA, one of the most influential firms in the computer security industry, Reuters has learned.

Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show that the NSA created and promulgated a flawed formula for generating random numbers to create a "back door" in encryption products, the New York Times reported in September. Reuters later reported that RSA became the most important distributor of that formula by rolling it into a software tool called Bsafe that is used to enhance security in personal computers and many other products.

Undisclosed until now was that RSA received $10 million in a deal that set the NSA formula as the preferred, or default, method for number generation in the BSafe software, according to two sources familiar with the contract. Although that sum might seem paltry, it represented more than a third of the revenue that the relevant division at RSA had taken in during the entire previous year, securities filings show.

The earlier disclosures of RSA's entanglement with the NSA already had shocked some in the close-knit world of computer security experts. The company had a long history of championing privacy and security, and it played a leading role in blocking a 1990s effort by the NSA to require a special chip to enable spying on a wide range of computer and communications products.

RSA, now a subsidiary of computer storage giant EMC Corp, urged customers to stop using the NSA formula after the Snowden disclosures revealed its weakness.

RSA and EMC declined to answer questions for this story, but RSA said in a statement: "RSA always acts in the best interest of its customers and under no circumstances does RSA design or enable any back doors in our products. Decisions about the features and functionality of RSA products are our own."

The NSA declined to comment.

The RSA deal shows one way the NSA carried out what Snowden's documents describe as a key strategy for enhancing surveillance: the systematic erosion of security tools. NSA documents released in recent months called for using "commercial relationships" to advance that goal, but did not name any security companies as collaborators.

The NSA came under attack this week in a landmark report from a White House panel appointed to review U.S. surveillance policy. The panel noted that "encryption is an essential basis for trust on the Internet," and called for a halt to any NSA efforts to undermine it.

Most of the dozen current and former RSA employees interviewed said that the company erred in agreeing to such a contract, and many cited RSA's corporate evolution away from pure cryptography products as one of the reasons it occurred.

But several said that RSA also was misled by government officials, who portrayed the formula as a secure technological advance.

"They did not show their true hand," one person briefed on the deal said of the NSA, asserting that government officials did not let on that they knew how to break the encryption.

STORIED HISTORY

Started by MIT professors in the 1970s and led for years by ex-Marine Jim Bidzos, RSA and its core algorithm were both named for the last initials of the three founders, who revolutionized cryptography. Little known to the public, RSA's encryption tools have been licensed by most large technology companies, which in turn use them to protect computers used by hundreds of millions of people.

At the core of RSA's products was a technology known as public key cryptography. Instead of using the same key for encoding and then decoding a message, there are two keys related to each other mathematically. The first, publicly available key is used to encode a message for someone, who then uses a second, private key to reveal it.

From RSA's earliest days, the U.S. intelligence establishment worried it would not be able to crack well-engineered public key cryptography. Martin Hellman, a former Stanford researcher who led the team that first invented the technique, said NSA experts tried to talk him and others into believing that the keys did not have to be as large as they planned.

The stakes rose when more technology companies adopted RSA's methods and Internet use began to soar. The Clinton administration embraced the Clipper Chip, envisioned as a mandatory component in phones and computers to enable officials to overcome encryption with a warrant.

RSA led a fierce public campaign against the effort, distributing posters with a foundering sailing ship and the words "Sink Clipper!"

A key argument against the chip was that overseas buyers would shun U.S. technology products if they were ready-made for spying. Some companies say that is just what has happened in the wake of the Snowden disclosures.

The White House abandoned the Clipper Chip and instead relied on export controls to prevent the best cryptography from crossing U.S. borders. RSA once again rallied the industry, and it set up an Australian division that could ship what it wanted.

"We became the tip of the spear, so to speak, in this fight against government efforts," Bidzos recalled in an oral history.

RSA EVOLVES

RSA and others claimed victory when export restrictions relaxed.

But the NSA was determined to read what it wanted, and the quest gained urgency after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

RSA, meanwhile, was changing. Bidzos stepped down as CEO in 1999 to concentrate on VeriSign, a security certificate company that had been spun out of RSA. The elite lab Bidzos had founded in Silicon Valley moved east to Massachusetts, and many top engineers left the company, several former employees said.

And the BSafe toolkit was becoming a much smaller part of the company. By 2005, BSafe and other tools for developers brought in just $27.5 million of RSA's revenue, less than 9% of the $310 million total.

"When I joined there were 10 people in the labs, and we were fighting the NSA," said Victor Chan, who rose to lead engineering and the Australian operation before he left in 2005. "It became a very different company later on."

By the first half of 2006, RSA was among the many technology companies seeing the U.S. government as a partner against overseas hackers.

New RSA Chief Executive Art Coviello and his team still wanted to be seen as part of the technological vanguard, former employees say, and the NSA had just the right pitch. Coviello declined an interview request.

An algorithm called Dual Elliptic Curve, developed inside the agency, was on the road to approval by the National Institutes of Standards and Technology as one of four acceptable methods for generating random numbers. NIST's blessing is required for many products sold to the government and often sets a broader de facto standard.

RSA adopted the algorithm even before NIST approved it. The NSA then cited the early use of Dual Elliptic Curve inside the government to argue successfully for NIST approval, according to an official familiar with the proceedings.

RSA's contract made Dual Elliptic Curve the default option for producing random numbers in the RSA toolkit. No alarms were raised, former employees said, because the deal was handled by business leaders rather than pure technologists.

"The labs group had played a very intricate role at BSafe, and they were basically gone," said labs veteran Michael Wenocur, who left in 1999.

Within a year, major questions were raised about Dual Elliptic Curve. Cryptography authority Bruce Schneier wrote that the weaknesses in the formula "can only be described as a back door."

After reports of the back door in September, RSA urged its customers to stop using the Dual Elliptic Curve number generator.

But unlike the Clipper Chip fight two decades ago, the company is saying little in public, and it declined to discuss how the NSA entanglements have affected its relationships with customers.

The White House, meanwhile, says it will consider this week's panel recommendation that any efforts to subvert cryptography be abandoned.

[American Patriot]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh my GOD.

it is time to SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT and start over.

Fucking spying on our own people?????????????????????????????

Assholes.

[Malsua]

Even when they are caught, they can't admit it.

Liars.

Everything coming out of the US is compromised by the NSA.

[American Patriot]

Internet RSA Responds to Claim that it Gave NSA Back Door Access in Exchange for $10M
Tiffany Kaiser - December 23, 2013 11:43 AMRSA responded saying that it had no idea the NSA algorithm was flawed


Former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden has brought many NSA secrets to light this year, the most recent being a "secret" contract between the agency and security industry leader RSA.

According to more documents leaked by Snowden, the NSA entered into a $10 million contract with RSA to place a flawed formula within encryption software (which is widely used in personal computers and other products) to obtain "back door" access to data.

The RSA software that contained the flawed formula was called Bsafe, which was meant to increase security in computers. The formula was an algorithm called Dual Elliptic Curve, and it was created within the NSA. RSA started using it in 2004 even before the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) approved it.

According to the RSA, it had no idea that the algorithm was flawed, or that it gave the NSA back door access to countless computers and devices. The NSA reportedly sold the algorithm as an enhancement to security without letting the RSA in on its real intentions.

In fact, RSA responded to media reports about its contract with the NSA, saying it was never secret at all. It said the fact that RSA worked with NSA was always made public, but that RSA had no idea the government agency was actually sabotaging its encryption product.

"Recent press coverage has asserted that RSA entered into a 'secret contract' with the NSA to incorporate a known flawed random number generator into its BSAFE encryption libraries. We categorically deny this allegation," said RSA in a blog post.

"We have worked with the NSA, both as a vendor and an active member of the security community. We have never kept this relationship a secret and in fact have openly publicized it. Our explicit goal has always been to strengthen commercial and government security."

Many in the security community were surprised at RSA's entanglement with the NSA, but the latest news of a $10 million contract as well has really shocked the industry.

RSA is known as a pioneer in the realm of computer security, and has notoriously fought off the NSA in previous attempts at breaking encryption.

Back in the 1990s, RSA -- which was started by MIT professors in the 1970s and is now a subsidiary of EMC Corp. -- rallied against the Clinton administration's "Clipper Chip," which was supposed to be a required component in computers and phones that would allow government officials to bypass encryption with a warrant.

RSA created a public campaign against the Clipper Chip, and it was eventually tossed out. However, it resorted to export controls to stop enhanced cryptography from crossing U.S. borders, and RSA fought further. RSA then established an Australian division that could ship the products it wanted.

RSA told customers to stop using the NSA formula in Bsafe when NIST issued new guidance in September 2013.

[vector7]

Rand Paul Suing Obama



Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is suing the Obama administration over the National Security Agency’s spying practices in an effort to “protect the Fourth Amendment,” he told host Eric Bolling Friday on "Hannity."

“The question here is whether or not, constitutionally, you can have a single warrant apply to millions of people,” Paul said. “So we thought, what better way to illustrate the point than having hundreds of thousands of Americans sign up for a class action suit.”

Paul said he began collecting signatures about six months ago, and says it’s “kind of an unusual class-action suit” because everyone in America who has a cell phone is eligible to join in the legal action, he said.

He added that Ken Cuccinelli, the current attorney general of Virginia who ran for governor last year, is part of the initiative’s legal team.
“We’re hoping, with his help, that we can get a hearing in court, and ultimately get this class-action lawsuit, I think the first of its kind on a constitutional question, all the way to the Supreme Court,” Paul said.

(Transcript: Eric Bolling's exclusive interview with Senator Rand Paul)

ERIC BOLLING, GUEST HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Eric Bolling, in tonight for Sean.

And in just a few short moments, my exclusive with Senator Rand Paul, who will be here to make a bombshell announcement regarding a lawsuit he plans to file against President Barack Obama.

This is something you will only hear right here on "Hannity."

The senator's exclusive announcement comes just 24 hours after two major newspapers called on the administration to pardon Edward Snowden for his role in leaking classified information about the spy agency's activities.

Both "The New York Times" and "The Guardian" newspaper argue that Snowden is a whistleblower who deserves better than a life of permanent exile. An editorial in the so-called paper of record concluded by stating, quote, "President Obama should tell his aides to begin finding a way to end Mr. Snowden's vilification and give him an incentive to return home."

Coming up in our next segment, Glenn Greenwald, who was the very first journalist to break Edward Snowden's story, will join me to respond to that editorial.

But first, as promised, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is here with an exclusive announcement involving a major lawsuit against President Barack Obama.

Senator, others have filed, but your class action lawsuit is the first of its kind, and this takes this to a whole new level. Tell us all about the lawsuit, sir.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: Well, the thing about it is, is the question here is whether or not, constitutionally, you can have a single warrant apply to millions of people. So we thought what better way to illustrate the point than having hundreds of thousands of Americans sign up for the class action suit.

So about six months ago, we began this call. And we now have several hundred thousand people who want to be part of this suit to say to the government and to the NSA, No, you can't have our records without our permission or without a warrant specific to an individual.

So it's kind of an unusual class action suit in the sense that we think everybody in America who has a cell phone would be eligible for this class action suit. And if any of your viewers have a cell phone, they just have to go to my Facebook tonight and they can sign up to be part of the lawsuit.

We want to overwhelm the government, and we want to show publicly that hundreds of thousands of people don't -- we object to the government looking at our records without our permission.

BOLLING: And one of our lead lawyers is Ken Cuccinelli, is that right?

PAUL: Yes, Ken Cuccinelli is the former attorney general for Virginia. He also was the first attorney general to file a lawsuit against "Obama care." And he's joined our legal team. He has constitutional expertise. And we're hoping with his help that we can get a hearing in court and ultimately get this class action lawsuit, I think the first of its kind on a constitutional question, to take it all the way to the Supreme Court.

BOLLING: And so Senator, what exactly do you want the outcome from this lawsuit to be? What do you want the Obama administration to do?

PAUL: We want them to protect the 4th Amendment. We want them to protect the right to privacy. We want them to understand that we're not willing to trade our liberty for security, that we think we can have security, that we can defend against terrorism, but that doesn't mean that every individual American has to give up their privacy.

And we think we can have both, but we are very upset that this president doesn't seem to be too concerned with our right to privacy.

BOLLING: So are you looking for the administration, President Obama specifically, to turn to the NSA and say, Hey, be more diligent when you go to the FISA court to ask for the warrant? Is that what you're looking for?

PAUL: Yes, well, you know, I've actually introduced legislation that would make it more specific. When the president goes to the FISA court and the FISA court issues a warrant for all of the cell phone records in the country, we want the cell phone provider to be able to appeal the FISA court, which is a secret ruling -- we want them to be able to appeal that ruling into a public court, such as the Supreme Court, because we don't think a question of constitutionality should be decided in secret.

BOLLING: Now, this sounds like -- maybe it sounds like a crazy question, but I -- I'm very serious about this, Senator. Are you worried that you're being monitored by the NSA and other -- and other agencies?

PAUL: You know, I don't really think so. But I think that the potential for the abuse exists. Think about it in this context. We now have an administration that has used the IRS to go after people who are of conservative political bent or have certain religious beliefs. So they've already shown that they will use what is supposed to be impartial, the IRS, to do it, leads me to wonder and worry whether or not they would use the NSA that way. I have no proof that they have, but I am concerned that it could be abused.

But I'm also concerned that even if a president isn't going to abuse a power, I am concerned that the president thinks he has the power to collect all our records. And when they came out of the White House with several congressional leaders about a month ago and they said, Oh, we're not spying on Americans, because they defined the collection of this data not to be spying, I am concerned that they're going to whitewash this and that he's going to say, Oh, we have these reforms, we have looked internally and we have some new controls.

Well, no, this has to be decided publicly by the Supreme Court. The president doesn't get to create the law, write the law and decide and adjudicate it. This has to go before the Supreme Court.

BOLLING: All right, Senator, let's play a sound bite from March of 2013, with James Clapper testifying to a Senate -- to -- I believe it was a Senate panel, a Senate or Congressional panel. Listen to the sound bite.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RON WYDEN (D), OREGON: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?

JAMES CLAPPER, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: No, sir.

WYDEN: It does not?

CLAPPER: Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not -- not wittingly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: So given what we know now, that -- that appears to be a false statement given to the Senate panel. That was Senator Wyden. Should he -- should James Clapper be prosecuted?

PAUL: Well, liking to Congress is a felony, and I don't think we can pick and choose the law. You've got all of these people, like James Clapper and others, beating the table and saying that we want to put Edward Snowden in jail for life, and yet they don't want the law applied to themselves? No, the law has to be applied equally. And that's one of the real tenets of American jurisprudence is you apply the lie -- law -- the law equally.

I, frankly, think it would be somewhat enlightening for James Clapper and Edward Snowden to share a prison cell, and then maybe we'd all learn a little bit from that.

BOLLING: Do you distinguish between the data mining of phone records, which would be who I called, how long I spent on the phone and the -- and the phone number of the -- the number I called, versus some of the bodies of these, the actual conversations we've had, and maybe even the same going for e-mails, not only just who I e-mail, but what I'm actually saying in the e-mail?

PAUL: I think this is something we have to figure out and the courts have to decide. I am worried about metadata, people dumbing that down and saying it doesn't mean anything.

For example, my Visa bill -- some would call that metadata. But if you look at my Visa bill, you can tell whether I drink, whether I smoke, what magazines or books I read, whether I go to a doctor, what medicines I take. And they might just say, Oh, that's metadata because it wasn't the content of an e-mail.

I am very concerned that those are private matters and that the government should only look at your Visa bill or your phone bill if they have a warrant that is specific to you and says that they think that you have committed a crime. And then I think it would be appropriate.

But without a warrant specific to an individual, I think it's -- it's illegal and unconstitutional.

BOLLING: All right, before we let you go, we're -- just tell us again where we can learn more about the lawsuit, where -- they can sign up on your Facebook page. Is there anywhere else you can do this?

PAUL: Yes, if you go to my non-governmental Facebook page, you can sign up there. You can go to RandPAC and sign up there, as well. There are several different venues.

But if you have a cell phone in America and you're unhappy about the government looking at your data, your records, or even possibly your content, go to my Facebook page and sign up because we'd love to have you be part of this class action suit.

BOLLING: And Senator, very quickly, you expect to have several hundred thousand Americans sign up, is that right?

PAUL: We already have several hundred thousand. And hopefully, with all your viewership tonight, we'll get a couple of hundred thousand more.

BOLLING: Very good. We're going to leave it right there, Senator. Thank you very much.

[American Patriot]

Obama ponders limiting NSA access to phone records

• By JULIE PACE - AP White House Correspondent (AP)
• Posted January 9, 2014 at 4:35 a.m.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is expected to rein in spying on foreign leaders and is considering restricting National Security Agency access to Americans' phone records, according to people familiar with a White House review of the government's surveillance programs.
Obama could unveil his highly anticipated decisions as early as next week. On Thursday, the president is expected to discuss his review with congressional lawmakers, while his top lawyer plans to meet with privacy groups. Representatives from tech companies are meeting with White House staff on Friday.
The White House says Obama is still collecting information before making final decisions.
Among the changes Obama is expected to announce is more oversight of the National Intelligence Priorities Framework, a classified document that ranks U.S. intelligence-gathering priorities and is used to make decisions on scrutiny of foreign leaders. A presidential review board has recommended increasing the number of policy officials who help establish those priorities, and that could result in limits on surveillance of allies.
Documents released by former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden revealed that the U.S. was monitoring the communications of several friendly foreign leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The revelations outraged Merkel as well as other leaders, and U.S. officials say the disclosures have damaged Obama's relations around the world.
Obama and Merkel spoke by phone Wednesday, but U.S. officials would not say whether they discussed the NSA issues.
The president also is said to be considering one of the review board's most aggressive recommendations, a proposal to strip the NSA of its ability to store telephone records from millions of Americans and instead have phone companies or a third party hold the records. The NSA would be able to access the records only by obtaining separate court approval for each search, though exceptions could be made in the case of a national security emergency.
It's unclear whether Obama will ultimately back the proposal or how quickly it could be carried out if he does.
Before making his final decisions, the president was supposed to receive a separate report from a semi-independent commission known as the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which was created by Congress. However, that panel's report has been delayed without explanation until at least late January, meaning it won't reach the president until after he makes his decisions public.
Members of that oversight board met with Obama on Wednesday and have briefed other administration officials on some of their preliminary findings. In a statement, the five-member panel said its meeting with the president focused on the NSA phone collection program and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees the data sweeps.
It's unclear why Obama will announce his recommendations before receiving the report from the privacy and civil liberties board. One official familiar with the review process said some White House officials were puzzled by the board's delay. The report would still be available to Congress, where legislators are grappling with several bills aimed at dismantling or preserving the NSA's authority.
That official and those familiar with the White House review insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the process by name.
Obama also met Wednesday with members of the U.S. intelligence community, which largely supports keeping the NSA surveillance programs intact.
Shortly after receiving the review board recommendations last month, Obama signaled that he could be open to significant surveillance changes, including to the bulk collecting of phone records.
"There are ways we can do it, potentially, that gives people greater assurance that there are checks and balances — that there's sufficient oversight and sufficient transparency," Obama said at a Dec. 20 news conference. He added that programs like the bulk collection "could be redesigned in ways that give you the same information when you need it without creating these potentials for abuse."
The president also has backed the idea of adding a public advocate position to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which rules on many of the domestic surveillance decisions. The court typically hears only from the government as it decides cases, and the advocate would represent privacy and civil liberties concerns.
That review followed disclosures from Snowden, who leaked details of several secret government programs. He faces espionage charges in the U.S., but has been granted temporary asylum in Russia.
While Obama has said he welcomes the review, it's unlikely it would have occurred without Snowden's disclosures.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled that the NSA's bulk collection program appeared to violate Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches, but he didn't issue a preliminary injunction against unreasonable searches because of expected appeals. Late Wednesday, Justice Department lawyers asked Leon to halt further proceedings in his court on the NSA case and a second NSA-related lawsuit until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit hears the government's appeal of his December ruling.
Government lawyers said they were asking for the judicial stay from Leon because they were concerned that further court proceedings could jeopardize classified information about the surveillance program.
Larry Klayman, the conservative lawyer who filed the suit, has said he plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.

[American Patriot]

Blackphone Promises To Block Snooping

Geeksphone and Silent Circle promise their new smartphone will lock out spies. But the details, including how it works, aren't clear.



With NSA-fueled angst running amok, two mobile-focused companies, Geeksphone and Silent Circle, have joined forces to create the Blackphone, a smartphone designed to put users in control of their privacy. The Blackphone will be available unlocked and off-contract to users who want to maintain a firmer grip on their personal data.


Details about the Blackphone are sparse. Geeksphone designs consumer-grade smart devices that are perhaps best known for supporting Firefox OS. The Madrid company's Firefox-based smartphones are available online. Silent Circle was formed in Washington, DC, by a former US Navy Seal and provides encrypted communications services.


The Blackphone runs a modified version of Google's Android platform called PrivatOS and is carrier and vendor independent. Backers of the device say it will give consumers and businesses control over their privacy. For example, the Blackphone can make and receive secure phone calls, exchange secure texts, transfer and store files, and video chat without compromising user privacy. Neither Geeksphone nor Silent Circle provided information on how the Blackphone accomplishes these feats.


[Is Firefox more trustworthy because it's open-source? Read Mozilla's Eich: Trust Us, We're Open.]



One of the chief architects of the Blackphone is Phil Zimmermann, creator of PGP. "I have spent my whole career working towards the launch of secure telephony products," he said in a press release. "Blackphone provides users with everything they need to ensure privacy and control of their communications, along with all the other high-end smartphone features they have come to expect." He did not say exactly what those features are.


Without revealing any hardware specs, the Blackphone website claims that the device ranks "among the top performers from any manufacturer" based on industry benchmarks. A mock image of the device on the website shows what appears to be a typical Android smartphone with a slim profile and large screen. "It comes preinstalled with all the tools you need to move throughout the world, conduct business, and stay in touch, while shielding you from prying eyes," the website says. "It's the trustworthy precaution any connected worker should take, whether you're talking to your family or exchanging notes on your latest merger and acquisition."

(Source: fonearena.com)

Also absent are details on pricing and availability. Will the device be sold worldwide or restricted to certain markets? Will those encrypted services require a monthly service fee to Silent Circle, or can owners get all the benefits from any carrier? How will businesses integrate the Blackphone into their security programs?


Blackphone is accepting email addresses from those interested in the device. Its official launch is scheduled for Feb. 24, but more information will be provided ahead of that during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.


What do you think? Do we need a phone like this? Would you buy one, Or is it just a gimmick banking on today's snooping-averse climate?


Eric is a freelance writer for InformationWeek specializing in mobile technologies.

[vector7]

Podesta, Left-Wing Mastermind, to Lead NSA Review



by Joel B. Pollak 17 Jan 2014, 10:40 AM PDT



President Barack Obama announced Friday that John Podesta, his new "counselor" and the political operative responsible for creating the institutional left in Washington, will be the appointed "to lead a comprehensive review of big data and privacy" in the aftermath of revelations about the National Security Agency's electronic spying programs. When he joined the White House last month, Podesta's focus was said to be "climate change."

The president's speech contained little news. It was a classic Obama set-piece, designed to demonstrate that he understands both sides of a complex argument, while delegating responsibility to third parties and taking steps that reinforce the interests and goals of the hard left. In this instance, Obama left final decisions about where to store NSA data to Congress, while making sure that Podesta is in charge of the consultative process as a whole.

To be fair, there are few clear answers, even in the wake of stunning revelations about the NSA, as to where the line between security and privacy ought to be drawn. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who has led the opposition to the NSA's surveillance programs, quipped: “I think what I heard was if you like your privacy you can keep it.” Yet aside from a general sense of mistrust in the president, there is little agreement in his party about a solution.

Democrats are no more united. Their primary concern, like Obama's, is to make the issue go away. Obama has an additional goal: to restore an image of competence. He knows that his speech will not assuage the concerns of privacy advocates, and could lead to confrontation with intelligence agencies. "But I want the American people to know that the work has begun," he said. Under Podesta, of course--a detail Obama left for the end.

It was telling that the president chose to deliver his speech at the Department of Justice, which is something of a political haven for him. Earlier this week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the administration would extend rules against racial profiling to include religious groups, a move sought by Muslim organizations that are upset about the federal government's (limited) surveillance in mosques and Muslim neighborhoods.

It is difficult to see how the U.S. will prevent attacks by religiously-motivated terrorists if it cannot identify them by their religious affiliation. The new policy suggests that early protests by conservatives against hiring former terrorist defense lawyers in the department were justified. In the context of Obama's NSA speech, the ban on religious profiling is a reminder that for this administration, political interests often trump national security.




NSA Official: 'We Are Now a Police State'


December 19, 2013 - 10:54 AM
By Matt Vespa
Subscribe to Matt Vespa RSS



Last year, high-ranking NSA official Bill Binney said, “We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state.” Now, Binney says that the U.S. has already become a full-blown police state.

Binney told Washington’s Blog on Wednesday that:

“The main use of the collection from these [NSA spying] programs [is] for law enforcement. [See the 2 slides below].”





“These slides give the policy of the DOJ/FBI/DEA etc. on how to use the NSA data. In fact, they instruct that none of the NSA data is referred to in courts – cause it has been acquired without a warrant.”

“So, they have to do a ‘Parallel Construction’ and not tell the courts or prosecution or defense the original data used to arrest people. This I call: a ‘planned programed perjury policy’ directed by US law enforcement.”

“And, as the last line on one slide says, this also applies to ‘Foreign Counterparts.’”

“This is a total corruption of the justice system not only in our country but around the world. The source of the info is at the bottom of each slide. This is a totalitarian process – means we are now in a police state.”

Binney, a 32-year veteran of the agency, was instrumental in the creation of the NSA’s surveillance program for digital information. He also served as the NSA’s senior technical director.

As a result, he’s been sought after by a multitude of media outlets, like CBS, ABC, CNN, New York Times, USA Today, Fox News, and PBS.
Concerning the collection of data by federal agencies mentioned by Binney, Washington’s Blog added that:

“By way of background, the government is spying on virtually everything we do.”

“All of the information gained by the NSA through spying is then shared with federal, state and local agencies, and they are using that information to prosecute petty crimes such as drugs and taxes. The agencies are instructed to intentionally “launder” the information gained through spying, i.e. to pretend that they got the information in a more legitimate way … and to hide that from defense attorneys and judges.”

[American Patriot]

The FEDS DO spy on us.
We ARE a police state.
The Left is culpable.
America isn't America any more.
It's time to take it back from the maggots.

[American Patriot]

Verizon Wireless Details 322,000 Government Requests

By KEVIN SHALVEY, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 01/22/2014 02:22 PM ET




Verizon Wireless (VZ), in its first such disclosure, says U.S. officials requested data about subscribers some 322,000 times in 2013, along with another 1,000 to 1,999 requests in the form of "National Security Letters."


"Our report reflects the fact that telecom providers receive more government demands than companies in perhaps any other industry," Verizon General Counsel and Executive Vice President Randal Milch wrote in a Wednesday blog post.


The company says the 321,696 total requests it received from government and law enforcement officials were up from 2012, but it didn't say how many requests it received in 2012.


View Enlarged Image

In releasing information about how often officials sought information, Verizon joins some Internet heavyweights that produce so-called transparency reports, with details about government requests for user data. Companies that provide such reports include Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), Twitter (TWTR) and Facebook (FB).


U.S. government security and spying efforts have generated controversy is the wake of the Edward Snowden disclosures about the level and types of data gathered by the National Security Agency.


Verizon had said in December that it would publish such a report. AT&T (T) said in December that it also plans to detail 2013 requests.


Verizon says it received 164,184 subpoenas from law enforcement officials; 36,696 warrants; 70,665 orders; and about 50,000 "emergency requests" from law enforcement officials in 2013.


U.S. requests to Verizon seemed to outweigh similar requests to individual tech companies. Yahoo, for example, logged 12,444 total government data requests during the first six months of 2013.


The company also received a "small number" of requests from non-U.S. governments. It detailed those 5,392 requests in a separate report on Wednesday.


Verizon stock was down a fraction in afternoon trading in the stock market today.

[American Patriot]

Feds Look at Ways to Prevent Spying on it’s Spying…
nsa-espionagem


(AP) – The U.S. government is looking at ways to prevent anyone from spying on its own surveillance of Americans’ phone records.

As the Obama administration considers shifting the collection of those records from the National Security Agency to requiring that they be stored at phone companies or elsewhere, it’s quietly funding research to prevent phone company employees or eavesdroppers from seeing whom the U.S. is spying on, The Associated Press has learned.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has paid at least five research teams across the country to develop a system for high-volume, encrypted searches of electronic records kept outside the government’s possession. The project is among several ideas that would allow the government to discontinue storing Americans’ phone records, but still search them as needed.

Under the research, U.S. data mining would be shielded by secret coding that could conceal identifying details from outsiders and even the owners of the targeted databases, according to public documents obtained by The Associated Press and AP interviews with researchers, corporate executives and government officials.

In other developments Monday:

_The Justice Department and leading Internet companies agreed to a compromise with the government that would allow the firms to reveal how often they are ordered to turn over information about their customers in national security investigations. The deal with Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc., Facebook Inc. (FB) and LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD) would provide public information in general terms. Other technology companies were also expected to participate.

_Published reports said new documents leaked by former NSA contactor Edward Snowden suggest that popular mapping, gaming and social networking apps on smartphones can feed the NSA and Britain’s GCHQ eavesdropping agency with personal data, including location information and details such as political affiliation or sexual orientation. The reports, published by The New York Times, the Guardian and ProPublica, said the intelligence agencies get routine access to data generated by apps such as the Angry Birds game franchise or the Google Maps navigation service.

_When the New York Times published a censored U.S. document on the smartphone surveillance program, computer experts said they were able to extract what appeared to be the name of an NSA employee, a Middle Eastern terror group the program was targeting and details about the types of computer files the NSA found useful. Since Snowden began leaking documents in June, his supporters have maintained they have been careful not to disclose any agent’s identity or operational details that would compromise ongoing surveillance. The employee did not return phone or email messages from the AP. A DNI spokesman said they asked the Times to redact, or black out, the material. A Times spokeswoman blamed a “production error” and said the section was redacted.

_NBC News reported that British cyber spies demonstrated a pilot program to their U.S. partners in 2012 in which they were able to monitor YouTube in real time and collect addresses from the billions of videos watched daily, as well as some user information, for analysis. At the time the documents were printed, they were also able to spy on Facebook and Twitter. The network said the monitoring program was called “Squeaky Dolphin.”

Under pressure, the administration has provided only vague descriptions about changes it is considering to the NSA’s daily collection and storage of Americans’ phone records, which are presently kept in NSA databanks. To resolve legal, privacy and civil liberties concerns, President Barack Obama this month ordered the attorney general and senior intelligence officials to recommend changes by March 28 that would allow the U.S. to identify suspected terrorists’ phone calls without the government holding the phone records itself.

One federal review panel urged Obama to order phone companies or an unspecified third party to store the records; another panel said collecting the phone records was illegal and ineffective and urged Obama to abandon the program entirely.

Internal documents describing the Security and Privacy Assurance Research project do not cite the NSA or its phone surveillance program. But if the project were to prove successful, its encrypted search technology could pave the way for the government to shift storage of the records from NSA computers to either phone companies or a third-party organization.

A DNI spokesman, Michael Birmingham, confirmed that the research was relevant to the NSA’s phone records program. He cited “interest throughout the intelligence community” but cautioned that it may be some time before the technology is used.

The intelligence director’s office is by law exempt from disclosing detailed budget figures, so it’s unclear how much money the government has spent on the SPAR project, which is overseen by the DNI’s Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity office. Birmingham said the research is aimed for use in a “situation where a large sensitive data set is held by one party which another seeks to query, preserving privacy and enforcing access policies.”

A Columbia University computer sciences expert who heads one of the DNI-funded teams, Steven M. Bellovin, estimates the government could start conducting encrypted searches within the next year or two.

“If the NSA wanted to deploy something like this it would take one to two years to get the hardware and software in place to start collecting data this way either from phone companies or whatever other entity they decide on,” said Bellovin, who is also a former chief technologist for the Federal Trade Commission.

The NSA’s surveillance program collects millions of Americans’ daily calling records into a central agency database. When the agency wants to review telephone traffic associated with a suspected terrorist – the agency made 300 such queries in 2012 – it then searches that data bank and retrieves matching calling records and stores them separately for further analysis.

Using a “three-hop” method that allows the NSA to pull in records from three widening tiers of phone contacts, the agency could collect the phone records of up to 2.5 million Americans during each single query. Obama this month imposed a limit of “two hops,” or scrutinizing phone calls that are two steps removed from a number associated with a terrorist organization, instead of the current three.

An encrypted search system would permit the NSA to shift storage of phone records to either phone providers or a third party, and conduct secure searches remotely through their databases. The coding could shield both the extracted metadata and identities of those conducting the searches, Bellovin said. The government could use encrypted searches to ensure its analysts were not leaking information or abusing anyone’s privacy during their data searches. And the technique could also be used by the NSA to securely search out and retrieve Internet metadata, such as emails and other electronic records.

Some computer science experts are less sanguine about the prospects for encrypted search techniques. Searches could bog down because of the encryption computations needed, said Daniel Weitzner, principal research scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and former deputy U.S. chief technology officer for the Obama administration.

“There’s no silver bullet that guarantees the intelligence community will only have access to the records they’re supposed to have access to,” Weitzner said. “We also need oversight of the actual use of the data.”

Intelligence officials worry that phone records stored outside the government could take longer to search and could be vulnerable to hackers or other security threats. The former NSA deputy director, John Inglis, told Congress last year that privacy – both for the agency and for Americans’ whose records were collected – is a prime consideration in the agency’s preference to store the phone data itself.

The encrypted search techniques could make it more difficult for hackers to access the phone records and could prevent phone companies from knowing which records the government was searching.

“It would remove one of the big objections to having the phone companies hold the data,” Bellovin said.

Similar research is underway by researchers at University of California at Irvine; a group from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Texas at Austin; another group from MIT, Yale and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; and a fourth from Stealth Software Technologies, a Los Angeles-based technology company.

http://apnews.myway.com//article/201...DABJG0G80.html
- See more at: http://www.teaparty.org/feds-look-wa....sR4w89vf.dpuf

[American Patriot]

Angry Birds website hacked after spying charges

January 30, 2014 by American Patriot

India Today Online New Delhi, January 30, 2014 | UPDATED 13:50 IST



The image that was uploaded to the Angry Birds site after it was hacked on Wednesday.



Video game developer Rovio confirmed on Wednesday that hackers had defaced its Angry Birds site with an image that read “Spying Birds” and which sported an NSA logo.


The attack is reportedly a fall out of the publication of certain leaks that indicated that the US spy agency and its British counterpart GCHQ had used and obtained data released by one of the Finnish firm’s games.


Rovio, however, said it had not “collaborated or colluded” with any government spy agency.


Rovio said it had quickly fixed its site.


“The defacement was caught in minutes and corrected immediately,” marketing manager Saara Bergstrom was quoted as saying.


“The end user data was in no risk at any point. Due to how the internet name resolution works, for most areas it was not visible at all, but some areas take time for the correct information to be updated,” she said.


On Twitter, the Syrian Electronic Army tweeted, “A friend hacked and defaced @Angrybirds website after reports confirms its spying on people. The attack was by “Anti-NSA” Hacker, He sent an email to our official email with the link of the hacked website.”


In various reports on Monday, the New York Times, ProPublica and the Guardian had posted copies of documents obtained from whistle-blower Edward Snowden that suggested that the NSA and the GCHQ had worked together since 2007 to develop ways to gain access to information from phone and tablet applications.


The reports said that the information could include details of the owner’s age, sex, location and even if they were currently listening to music or making a call. It added that the range of information depended in part on which online advertising network Rovio sent the details to.


Following the news, Rovio posted a blog saying it would now reconsider how it shared data with its partners.

[American Patriot]

Catalog Of The Snowden Revelations

January 30, 2014 · by Fortuna's Corner · in CIA, Cyber War, espionage, spying, foreign policy, Intelligence Community, Internet, national security, US Military · 1 Comment
It will be worth following this page.
Catalog of the Snowden Revelations
http://www.lawfareblog.com/ catalog-of-the-snowden- revelations/#.Uup-DmRDuhN
This page catalogs various revelations by Edward Snowden, regarding the United States’ surveillance activities.
Each disclosure is assigned to one of the following categories: tools and methods, overseas USG locations from which operations are undertaken, foreign officials and systems that NSA has targeted, encryption that NSA has broken, ISPs or platforms that NSA has penetrated or attempted to penetrate, and identities of cooperating companies and governments.
The page will be updated from time to time and is intended as a resource regarding Snowden and the debate over U.S. surveillance. Comments and suggestions thus are welcomed, and should be sent to staff.lawfare@gmail.com.
1. Tools and methods

• NSA uses implants in USB cables and small circuit boards, combined with a nearby relay station with a radio transmitter, to download data from and upload data to target computers even if they are not connected to the internet.
• NSA intercepts data from Microsoft Windows’ crash reporting tool to identify vulnerabilities in target computers.
• NSA sends spam email with links to infected websites to plant malware on target computers.
• NSA purchases software vulnerabilities from malware vendors.
• NSA and GCHQ use fake LinkedIn pages to place malware on target computers.
• NSA diverts packages containing target systems and installs malware on the systems before delivery.
• NSA has developed modified monitor cables to record information displayed on target computers.
• NSA uses its own GSM base stations to mimic cell phone towers, enabling it to monitor communications and locate phones.
• NSA prefers to install malware in BIOS, rather than on hard drives.
• NSA uses a combination of hardware implants placed inside a target room and a radio transmitter aimed at the room from the outside to collect information about the position of objects, sound, and information displayed on monitors inside the room.
• NSA has developed tools to insert malware packets for Microsoft Windows systems into wireless LAN networks from the outside.
• NSA has developed a system to map wireless LAN networks from a UAV.
• NSA has developed a tool to send an alert as soon as a particular cell phone enters its range.
• NSA has developed a keystroke logger that functions even when the target computer is not connected to the internet.
• NSA has developed a program to correlate American operations officers’ cell phone signals with other cell phone signals in the area, enabling NSA to identify foreign officers who might be tailing the American officers.
• NSA intercepts cell phone app advertising data to locate phones.
• NSA and GCHQ use cookies, including PREF cookies, to identify targets for cyber exploitation.
• US intelligence agencies conduct human intelligence operations within World of Warcraft and Second Life.
• NSA intercepts communications from the SEA-ME-WE-3 and SEA-ME-WE-4 undersea cable systems.
• NSA and GCHQ have used fake internet cafes to collect information about users.

2. Overseas USG locations from which operations are undertaken

• NSA has established two data centers in China to insert malware into target computers.
• A Tailored Access Operations liaison office is located at a US military base near Frankfurt.
• Special Collection Service offices are located at the US embassy in Rome and the US consulate in Milan.
• A Special Collection Service office was located at the US embassy in Berlin. This office closed after the media reported on it in October 2013.
• Special Collection Service offices are located at the US embassies in Paris, Madrid, and Prague, and the US mission in Geneva.
• Special Collection Service offices are located at the US embassies in Mexico City and BrasÃ*lia.

3. Foreign officials and systems that NSA has targeted

• NSA penetrated the network of Mexico’s Secretariat of Public Security to collect information about drug and human trafficking along the US-Mexico border. This collection stopped after the media reported on it in October 2013.
• NSA and GCHQ have monitored the communications of a variety of charities and intergovernmental organizations, including the UN Development Programme, UNICEF, Médecins du Monde, the Economic Community of West African States, and the European Commission.
• NSA and GCHQ have monitored the communications of several Israeli officials, including the Prime Minister and Defense Minister.
• NSA and GCHQ have monitored the communications of the Thales Group, a defense contractor that is partially owned by the French government.
• NSA has monitored the communications of the Italian embassy in Washington.
• NSA has monitored the communications of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
• NSA tracks Israeli drones and Black Sparrow missiles.
• NSA has collected draft email messages written by leaders of the Islamic State of Iraq.
• NSA has monitored the communications of the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and UN officials in Afghanistan.
• NSA has monitored the communications of Venezuela’s Ministry of Planning and Finance.
• NSA and GCHQ have penetrated OPEC‘s network to collect economic data.
• NSA has monitored the communications of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
• NSA has monitored the communications of the Italian leadership and Ministry of Defense.
• NSA has monitored the communications of the French embassy in Washington and the French mission in New York.
• NSA has monitored the communications of several Mexican and Brazilian officials, including the presidents of both countries.
• NSA has monitored the communications of Petrobas, an oil company that is partially owned by the Brazilian government.
• NSA has penetrated the network of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• NSA has monitored the communications of Al Jazeera.
• NSA has penetrated Aeroflot‘s reservation system.
• NSA has monitored the unencrypted communications of the Syrian military.
• NSA and GCHQ monitored the communications of several delegations to the 2009 G20 summit in London, including the South African, Turkish, and Russian delegations.

4. Encryption that NSA has broken

• NSA has broken the A5/1 encryption used by many GSM cell phones.

5. Identity of ISPs and platforms that NSA has penetrated or attempted to penetrate

• NSA has developed hardware and software implants for Juniper, Cisco, and Huaweil firewalls.
• NSA has developed software to target the firmware of Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and Samsung hard drives.
• NSA has developed hardware and software implants for Dell and HP servers.
• NSA has developed software to target users of Juniper and Huaweil routers.
• NSA has developed an implant for first-generation iPhones that enables downloading and uploading data, activating the phone’s microphone and camera, and locating the phone.
• NSA has developed modified Eastcom and Samsung cell phones, which can be swapped with a target’s own phone of the same model and then used to collect information.
• NSA and GCHQ have penetrated the Xbox Live gaming system to collect information about foreign targets.
• NSA and GCHQ have intercepted communications at communication links outside the United States that connect Google and Yahoo data centers.
• NSA has harvested email and instant messaging contact lists from Yahoo, Hotmail, Facebook, and Gmail.
• NSA and GCHQ have attempted to develop techniques to identify Tor users but have been largely unsuccessful.
• NSA has collected financial transaction information from Visa and SWIFT.
• NSA and GCHQ have developed capabilities to access user data from iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android devices.

6. Identities of cooperating companies and governments

• NSA entered into a contract with RSA to use an NSA formula as the default option for number generation in the Bsafe security software, enabling NSA to penetrate the software more easily. RSA asked consumers to stop using the formula after the Snowden leaks revealed its weaknesses.
• The Norwegian Intelligence Service cooperates with NSA to collect information about Russia, particularly Russian military activities in the Kola Peninsula and Russian energy policy.
• The Communications Security Establishment Canada has established listening posts in approximately twenty countries at NSA’s request.
• The Swedish Defence Radio Establishment cooperates with NSA to collect information about Russia.
• The Australian Signals Directorate has been more willing than other allies to share unminimized bulk metadata with NSA.
• The Communications Security Establishment Canada cooperated with NSA to collect information about the 2010 G20 summit in Toronto.
• The Australian Signals Directorate cooperated with NSA in an attempt to monitor the communications of senior Indonesian officials, including the President, the Vice President, and several ministers.
• As of 2009, NSA was considering establishing an intelligence-sharing relationship with Vietnam.
• NSA has an intelligence-sharing relationship with the Israeli SIGINT National Unit.
• The Communications Security Establishment Canada cooperated with NSA to monitor the communications of Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy.
• NSA has collected international communications from Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL, and Apple as part of its PRISM program.

http://fortunascorner.com/2014/01/30...n-revelations/

[American Patriot]

Justice Department: NSA phone record collection may have resulted in one criminal case


By End the Lie
Deputy Attorney General James Cole (Image credit: Lonnie Tague for the Department of Justice)

A Department of Justice official told Congress on Tuesday that there “may be one” instance of a criminal case filed by federal investigators using information from the NSA’s phone record collection program.
Read our latest: “January was the first month without a drone strike in Pakistan since Dec. 2011” and “NSA, GCHQ allegedly created fake LinkedIn page to hack Belgian professor”

The statement from Deputy Attorney General James Cole came in response to a question asked by Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas).

“One criminal case?” Poe said. “[The NSA program] is an invasion of personal privacy, and it’s justified on the idea that we’re going to capture these terrorists. The evidence that you’ve told is all this collection has resulted in one bad guy having criminal charges filed on him.”

However, Cole stood behind the program, saying that it was aimed at large investigations.

“The point of the statute is not to do criminal investigations,” Cole said, according to PC World. “The point of the statute is to do foreign intelligence investigations.”

Cole also said that the NSA probably collects records pertaining to congressional office phone numbers.

“Mr. Cole, do you collect 202-225 and four digits afterwards?” asked Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), RT reports.

“We probably do, Mr. Congressman,” Cole said. “But we’re not allowed to look at any of those, however, unless we have reasonable, articulable suspicion that those numbers are related to a known terrorist threat.”

Others in Congress said they had been misled by the Obama administration’s descriptions of NSA programs.

“We feel that we have been blatantly deceived on what some of these programs have done,” said Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.).

Former Justice Department official Steven Bradbury defended the collection of phone records against attempts to pass NSA reform legislation.

Some reform legislation “would expose the nation to vulnerability by substantially weakening or even destroying outright the effectiveness” of the bulk phone records collection program, according to Bradbury.

Bradbury also said that a proposal to add a civil liberties lawyer in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would slow down the approval of collections and “would, I fear, prove dangerously unworkable in the event of the next catastrophic attack on the United States,” according to PC World.

David Cole, a Georgetown University Law School professor of constitutional law, said that Congress should pass the NSA reform bill called the “USA Freedom Act,” which has been sponsored by members of the Judiciary Committee.

The bill would only allow the Justice Department and NSA to collect U.S. phone records when they are connected to a suspected terrorist. The NSA recently indiscriminately collected all U.S. phone records held by Verizon.

Cole said the legislation is just reinforcing the way that Congress was sold the Patriot Act by the Bush administration.

“I don’t think a single member of Congress thought, ‘what we mean by that is there are no limits on the business records that you can get,’” he said.

Dean Garfield, the president and CEO of the Information Technology Industry Council, slammed NSA surveillance as detrimental to U.S. businesses.

“Made in the USA is no longer a badge of honor, but a basis for questioning the integrity and the independence of U.S.-made technology,” he said. “Many countries are using the NSA’s disclosures as a basis for accelerating their policies around forced localization and protectionism.”

Just how much the U.S. tech industry could be hurt by the disclosures of the NSA programs remains to be seen.

What is quite clear, though, is that many in Congress are getting fed up with the Obama administration’s approach to the issue.

We would love to hear your opinion, take a look at your story tips and even your original writing if you would like to get it published. Please email us at contact@EndtheLie.com.





Read more at http://endthelie.com/2014/02/04/just...faP5WLsfqaS.99

[American Patriot]

As Sent By A Reader

Posted on February 10, 2014 | 23 Comments

February 6, 2014 — (TRN) — Edward Snowden, the former contractor at the National Security Agency took with him multiple “Doomsday” packages of information when he departed the country and began revealing how intensely the US Government is spying on its own citizens. He has the personal home info for all Elected Officials, Law Enforcement, Judges, Bankers, Corporate Boards of Directors and more!
At a classified briefing for members of Congress which took place on Wednesday, members found out that Snowden took with him:
* A complete roster of absolutely every employee and official of the entire US Government.
* The names, home addresses, unlisted personal home telephone and personal cellular phone numbers, dates of birth and social security numbers of every person involved in any way, with any department of the US Government.
* The files include elected officials, Cabinet appointees, Judges, and **ALL** law enforcement agency employees including sworn officers.
* Similar files with the personal information of EVERY government contractor and all employees of that contractor!
* Similar files with all the personal information of EVERY Bank Corporation, their operating officers and their Boards of Directors, including all current and former members of the Federal Reserve
* Similar files with all the personal information about anyone holding any type of license from the Government such as Doctors, Lawyers, Stock Brokers, Commodities Traders . . . . and many more.
* Similar files with all the personal information of EVERY non-bank Corporation in the U.S., including their operating officers and Boards of Directors.
Snowden has made it clear that if he is arrested, if he vanishes, or if he “dies” from any cause whatsoever, ALL of the information in his possession will be published publicly.
TRN has confirmed that, working through Julian Assange and his “WikiLeaks” organization, copies of the encrypted data have already been distributed to more than one-thousand, two hundred (1200) web sites around the world. Those sites have agreed to conceal the information until such time as contact with Snowden is “lost.” Once contact is lost, the sites have been told they will receive the Decryption keys via CD ROM, E-mail and P2P / Bit-Torrent file transfer. Once the decryption keys are sent, the sites have been instructed to wait a specific amount of time to confirm Snowden’s disappearance, arrest or death and upon expiration of that time period, to publish the decrypted materials.
Making the situation all the more dire for the government is that Snowden has made clear he will release some of the information under certain “other” circumstances. For instance, if Martial Law is declared in the US or if any elections are canceled for any reason, all the government employee info goes out. If an economic collapse takes place, all the Banker/Stock Broker/Commodities Trader information goes out. If Corporations start hyper-inflating prices, all the information about them, their officers and Board of Directors will go out.
Snowden literally has the most powerful people in the United States in an inescapable stranglehold. If any of the things articulated above take place, everyone throughout the country will know exactly who to blame and exactly where they live. One can only speculate that under the right conditions, it might not be long until those responsible for the problems of our country, faced consequences for their actions; consequences delivered one at a time, in the dark of night, when there is no help . . . . and no escape.
Leading members of the House Armed Services Committee emerged from the classified briefing “shocked” at the amount of information he reportedly took with him beyond the NSA surveillance programs.
Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), chairman of the Armed Service panel’s Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee and also a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the briefing on the defense consequences of Snowden’s leaks was “very highly classified,” and therefore details couldn’t be discussed.
Thornberry did say that lawmakers “left the briefing disturbed and angered” after hearing that the leaks by the former Booz Allen Hamilton employee “went well beyond programs associated with the NSA and data collection.”
He characterized the leaks as so severe that they “compromise military capability and defense of the country” and “could cost lives” — while they “will certainly cost billions to repair.”
“His actions were espionage, plain and simple,” Thornberry said.
Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) read his statement rather than making comments on the fly “because of the seriousness of this issue and the sensitivity” of the information they’d just heard.
“Ed Snowden isn’t a whistleblower; he’s a traitor,” McKeon said.
No matter what opinion people hold of the data collection programs, he added, people should be “shocked and outraged to find that a substantial amount of the information has nothing to do with the NSA.”
SOURCE:
Partial sourcing from: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/02/05...eveals-extent-